Growing suspicion…

"ONCE we had that physical evidence, we had concerns about the response from the family, such as [them] withholding information about the accident in Montreal," recalled lead investigator Chris Scott. "What's a typical response when you have four family members taken from you?" Clearly, not what police were hearing and seeing. There were also growing concerns for the surviving three children.

"We still had the [other] children in that family," said Scott. "You don't know the dynamics in the household."

Although police thought the Shafias' reactions were atypical, denial is not an uncommon response to the shock of losing a loved one to homicide. Nor are anger and rage. Although the anger is usually directed at the perpetrator of the murder, survivors can also be angry with the victim, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for having a lifestyle that put them in danger. Feelings of guilt and intense anguish can sometimes last for years.

According to Eric Schlosser, in his book A Grief Like No Other (1997): "In the days and weeks right after a murder the victim's family is often in a state of shock, feeling numb, sometimes unable to cry. The murder of a loved one seems almost impossible to comprehend. Life seems unreal, like a dream. Survivors may need to go over the details of the crime again and again, discussing them endlessly, as though trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle, struggling to make sense of it all."

Men may have difficulty grieving because they have been socialized to believe that real men should keep their feelings to themselves — expressing them is seen as a weakness. This would be even more likely in someone coming from a patriarchal culture like Afghanistan.

It's no wonder the police were confused by and even suspicious of the Shafias' responses. Nevertheless, the evidence, plus their gut reactions, were telling them something was not right.

Scott credits detectives Dempster and Koopman with conducting those early videotaped interviews with the Shafias.

"I thought it was brilliant in those first 24 hours — Detective Dempster's interviews with Hamed when he asked, 'Were you there?' The physical response was telling. It wasn't like a shock. If you're being interviewed the day four family members were found and you were asked were you there, you'd be incensed," said Scott.

Koopman's interview with Mohammad Shafia on July 1 was all about obtaining consent so investigators could get to the Shafia home in Montreal quickly and without a warrant to examine the Lexus. Over and over again, he got Mohammad to say that it was fine for police to go to his home on rue Bonnivet. "I conducted the full video so the judge or jury could see he was fully aware of it," said Koopman.

Meanwhile, Kingston Police grappled with the puzzling actions and statements of the Shafias.

Koopman had already begun to gather and analyse the cellphone data that would piece together the Shafia family's movements between June 23 and 30, from Montreal to Niagara Falls and back to Kingston.

The examination of those records revealed an aberration: on June 27, while the family was in the middle of their stay at Niagara Falls, Hamed's phone registered on the cellphone tower at Westbrook, just west of Kingston. Police and the Crown concluded that Hamed and Mohammad must have travelled to Kingston Mills to more precisely plan the murders. At the ensuing trial, Mohammad Shafia claimed he was alone in the Lexus and heading to Montreal on business when his family called to say they were bored in Niagara and wanted him to return. Hamed's phone, he testified, just happened to be in the vehicle.

"They tried to make [out] that Shafia could have been in the vehicle with the phone. What's interesting is we had Hamed on video saying he always had his phone [with him]," said Scott."He didn't even want to give it to his dad to go to Montreal on July 1," added Koopman. "It's weird a son is so attached to his phone he wouldn't give it to his dad in case of an emergency."

In his July 1 interview, Detective Steve Koopman asked Mohammad Shafia if there was any information he could release to the news media. Shafia asked for more time to notify family members, particularly Rona's people overseas.

"I was thinking about that," he told the officer. "I want to contact Rona's brother in France." As for his own family, Shafia said he had contacted some of them, but only to say in a general way that an accident had occurred. "I have to advise them slowly that one person has passed away, two people have passed away, but if all of a sudden I say four people have passed away, anyone would go crazy."

Many family members, however, did not wait to be contacted by Shafia about the deaths. Kingston Police had begun receiving disturbing information from friends and family of the Shafias living in Montreal and Europe. Their e-mail and phone calls insisted that there was much more to the case than originally thought.

Calls to police came in from Hussain Hyderi, the Montreal man engaged to Zainab. Fahima Vorgetts, a distant relative of Rona living in the U.S. — and one of her closest telephone confidantes over the previous year — knew Rona had been threatened by Mohammad and Tooba. Fazil Javid, Tooba's brother living in Sweden, and Latif Hyderi, Tooba's uncle in Montreal — Hussain's father — reported telephone conversations with Mohammad in which he expressed anger and outrage at his daughter Zainab's "shameful" behaviour.

"We are convinced this was a crime of honour, organized under the guidance of Mr. Shafia, his wife Tooba, and their oldest son, Hamed," wrote Rona's sister Diba Masoomi in a desperate e-mail from France.

The day of the homicide upgrade (July 3), Inspector Brian Begbie delegated assignments to his investigative team. He put Scott in charge.

As Kingston Police continued gathering evidence from the children's school and child-protection authorities, it would, indeed, point to this chilling motive — that the four murders were committed to regain family honour considered "lost" when the older girls developed relationships with young men.

"The investigation doesn't stop," recalled Scott. "Now we had the events from the time the Nissan is purchased to the girls' deaths. We had that cold. Now we're getting a picture of the family prior to this and that helps [us] understand motive and mindset."