Posted on 08/01/2002 5:21:22 AM PDT by Washington at Morristown
A Jersey City man was charged yesterday with the stabbing deaths of his pregnant wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law after he was arrested on a Greyhound bus while trying to cross the border into Canada, authorities said.
Alim Hassan, 31, surrendered peacefully to Canadian Customs officers who boarded the bus at the border at about 10 p.m. Tuesday. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had received an anonymous phone call alerting them that the suspect would try to flee to Toronto from the United States.
The arrest came less than 24 hours after Bernadette Seajatan, 49, and her daughters, Sharon Yassim, 30, and Marlyn Hassan, 29, who was married to Alim Hassan, were found dead in the two-story Fox Place home they shared with their husbands and the Yassims' two sons.
The boys, ages 5 and 2, discovered the bodies at about 8 a.m., hours after the three husbands had left for work.
Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said yesterday that his office is investigating several possible motives, including an alleged dispute between Hassan and his wife over his desire for her to convert to Islam. Hassan is Muslim and the three women were of Hindu Guyanese descent.
Relatives said the Hassans began arguing several months ago about religion. Marlyn Hassan, who was six months pregnant with twins, was converting to Islam, but not quickly enough for her husband, they said.
"We're looking into a number of different aspects concerning the motive and religious conflict is not being discounted. But there were a number of issues going on within the family," DeFazio said.
Hassan, who was handed over to U.S. immigration officials and then to police in Buffalo, N.Y., waived extradition during a hearing in Buffalo and faces charges for all three killings when he is arraigned in Superior Court in Hudson County on Monday, DeFazio said. He was in the custody of Buffalo police last night.
"We're confident that Mr. Hassan was the sole actor in this case," DeFazio said yesterday.
On Tuesday, the husbands of the other two women were questioned, but ultimately ruled out as suspects.
Autopsies completed yesterday on the dead women showed all three had been stabbed an "extraordinary" number of times, DeFazio said.
"It's a horrific crime where three members of an immediate family were killed almost simultaneously in a brutal fashion," he said.
Hudson County authorities suspected from the start that domestic violence played a role in the killings and spent much of Tuesday interviewing Hassan's relatives in a Philadelphia suburb.
The relatives told detectives that Hassan had "made admissions regarding his stabbing his wife," that same day, DeFazio said, adding that detectives also found the vehicle Hassan had driven from Jersey City to Philadelphia.
Hassan apparently then made his way back to Manhattan, where he boarded a Toronto-bound bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, DeFazio said.
Interviews with Hassan's sister and others also led authorities to the Canadian border, where Hassan, suitcase in tow, was nabbed shortly before the bus crossed into Ontario.
"When he was brought into our custody, he did not struggle, and he did have identification on him," said Jean D'Amelio Swyer, a spokeswoman for Canada Customs.
Hassan, who immigrated to the United States from Guyana, is a permanent U.S. resident who family members said grew increasingly argumentative over the past few months over religious differences with his wife.
Baldeo Seajatan, who is Bernadette's husband and the father of the other two women, said the Hassans would fight often over how to raise the twins his daughter was expecting.
"He wanted her to convert to Islam, to pray five times a day, but she was tired with carrying the twins," Seajatan said. "It was between the two of them."
Hassan, a mechanic at the Bob Ciasulli Lexus dealership in Little Falls, Passaic County, spent a lot of time worshipping at the Al-Tawheed Islamic Center around the corner from the Fox Avenue house, relatives said. They said he moved out for a short time in July because of arguments.
Funerals for the slain women are scheduled for Saturday morning.
So, this son of a b*tch some get the needle or the chair...preferably the chair.
So he told his family in Philadelphia what he'd done, eh? I'm telling you, I don't get this. If any son or brother of mine told me he'd just murdered three women, I'd have had the police there to arrest him just as soon as I'd managed to knock him unconscious. You don't HELP a murderer even if it's your own kin.
If the scumbag's family also has "permanent residence" status it should be revoked, right after they finish serving their "accessory after the fact" sentences.
No doubt, though, that he was also trying to get into Canada because he'd be with friends.
Big time. I always wonder about that when I see such things in the news. How do people sleep at night?!?
Naw, in the Muslim worldview "it's all good". Three dead infidel women? No crime there. Happens all the time in Islamic countries and the only thing those global women's interest groups care about is unrestricted access to abortion. It's a sick, sick world.
I hear ya on this one...but the left's cry of "diversity is our strength" is keeping them here. I'm all for diversity, but I will never acknowledge Islam as a legitimate religion.
The girl who used to live up the street married some crazed Egyptian Musli, and she is not the same as she used to be. She's like a programmed robot, brainwashed beyond belief by this jerk.
After reading Steven Emerson's book, they all should be watched. Deportation has my support.
Ahem, when was it used last?
Of course.
A human, rational, civilized and acceptable definition of "religion".
Sad that the word seems to have lost all its meaning.
If the Supreme COurt gets any more liberal, watch this case be dismissed on the grounds that this loser was executing his right to practice his religion and the State doesn't have the right to dictate culture. THe constitution supercedes murder restrictions. WHat a bunch of rubbish.
(to the tune of on "Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys)
God Save America (Please)
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