Gathering evidence…

AS soon as Kingston Police learned about Hamed's accident in Montreal — on the same day he and his parents reported Rona, Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti missing — they knew they had to get to Montreal to see the Lexus. Detective Steve Koopman drove on July 1 to the Holiday Inn Express, where the Shafias were now staying courtesy of Kingston Police.

Koopman brought Mohammad Shafia back to police headquarters where they sat down at 11:09 am for another video-recorded interview. The interpreter who had helped with the previous interviews was also there. Koopman wanted Shafia's permission to go to Montreal to inspect the damage to the Lexus. But first, the officer had a few other matters to clear up, in particular, why Hamed had made the late-night trip to Montreal and returned in the minivan.

Through the interpreter, Shafia told him: "He went in order to go to work the next day. Meaning, if this incident hadn't happened, he would not have come [back]. Do you understand, miss? If this incident hadn't happened, I wouldn't have asked Hamed to come here. I would've called him a few days later and asked him to pick us up then."

When questioned later by Dempster, Hamed would say he went to Montreal because he forgot his laptop, and returned to Kingston in the minivan because the Lexus "takes more gas and fuel and stuff like that."

Koopman asked Shafia if he and Hamed had spoken the previous night about the Lexus and the minivan. Shafia said he didn't even think about the vehicles because of his family's grief. "They didn't eat so we went to eat at McDonald's. My wife was crying and [I tried to] comfort her, [saying]: 'Now it's happened. God's brought it. What are you doing? [If you] are crying, the other kids will start to cry, and we might lose them, too.' We talked about this and nothing else."

Koopman asked about any damage that he may have seen on the Lexus before Hamed took it to Montreal. "No, I didn't see anything because the car was in good shape when it left and came back," Shafia responded.

Then he recalled something. "Although in Niagara," Shafia said, "Zainab, with this black car [the Nissan]… I was outside [the car]… it hit [the Lexus] a little bit but it didn't get scratched… it didn't get scratched. Zainab was coming back, reverse coming." This was another reference to what would be a recurring theme about Zainab's always wanting to drive and sneaking the car keys to do so.

Koopman tried to determine exactly where the Lexus may have been hit by Zainab while driving the Nissan in Niagara Falls. Shafia's story shifted ever so slightly. "She was reversing. I wasn't inside the car. I was watching from upstairs," he said.

Later in the interview Shafia claimed that Zainab even asked her mother if she could drive the Nissan on the highway, an astonishing notion, considering that she had no driver's licence and had never taken a driving course.

Shafia's recollections continued to jump around. "Even until the hotel, the car was perfect," he told Koopman, referring to the Kingston East Motel where they would later take rooms. "When we got to the hotel… and settle, my wife parked the Nissan."

Why would he suddenly introduce this specific information about Tooba parking the Nissan? As police would allege in building their case, Tooba never drove the Nissan to the Kingston East Motel. In fact, the Nissan never got there at all. Nor did the four women who died that night.

Koopman still had to get Shafia's permission to view the Lexus without resorting to a search warrant. Shafia claimed that this was the first he'd heard of the Lexus's being damaged.

"So why this is important for us," Koopman explained, "is that it's coincidental that he has damage to the Lexus when there's obviously some damage to the Nissan, and we just need to make sure that they're not connected."

Koopman eventually obtained permission to go that day to see the Lexus, suggesting Shafia could first seek a lawyer's advice if he wanted to. Shafia said he had no need of an attorney. "What I want is to know if my family member has been killed, has gone in the water, has been strangled, has been drugged. What has happened? That's what I'd like to know. If [s]he has taken drugs, if [s]he has gone mad. This is not human [i.e., normal] behaviour," he told Koopman.

Shafia said he, too, would go to Montreal so he could get clothes for his family. "Check the house, check the car, check street, check anywhere and … I will go with them [the police] or won't go. I just want to find out who killed my family. Did [s]he kill [her]self? Did individuals kill [them]? What happened? I don't know," said Shafia.

Later that day, police found the Lexus parked inside the lower-level garage of the residence. What they discovered would turn out to be extremely valuable to their case: 10 pieces of plastic inside and around the vehicle.