When an Ohio attorney received a call from police in mid-April that his sister had fallen 140 feet to her death during a mountain hike in Arizona with her rocket-scientist husband, he immediately suspected she was murdered.
Hassanayn Joseph, 38, told The Post he’s convinced his sister, Zaynab Joseph, was shoved off a steep cliff by her husband, and said he has taken his suspicions to the investigating detectives.
“I knew my sister was beginning the process of separating from her husband after years of abuse,” explained Joseph, who has paused his Toledo legal practice to investigate Zaynab’s final moments.
“So, to me, it was clear there was some foul play involved.”
Zaynab, 40, a California teacher and mother-of-three, was pronounced dead on April 15, after her widower, Syed Danish Zaidi, convinced her to go hiking up Bear Mountain in Coconino National Forest, a park near Flagstaff famed for its red rock formations.
The Huntington Beach couple, along with their 10-month-old child, took what the mountain’s website characterized as one of the more “strenuous” trails.
The husband and wife were on a vacation to Sedona with their children and Zaidi’s mother.
A group of hikers who’d heard her screams of agony found Zaynab still alive, splayed out on a rocky embankment, where she died moments later.
The grieving brother said Zaidi, a stress engineer for Virgin Galactic‘s rockets, told Zaynab’s relatives she lost her life trying to save his phone.
“He gave us this B.S. story about him trying to take her photo, and dropping his phone,” Joseph said.
“He said it bounced, and she went after it and then went over the edge. But my sister wouldn’t have risked her life for a phone. His story made absolutely no sense.”
Joseph recently spent 10 days in Sedona, where he visited Bear Mountain, and met with local police and the hikers who watched his sister die.
“The hikers were there within a minute, and said they saw no tears from him,” said Joseph of his brother-in-law.
“Where this happened is a very flat area, so if he had dropped his phone, it wouldn’t have rolled away at all,” he said.
“The hikers said that for the phone to have gone over, they figured you’d have to be standing within two feet of that cliff’s edge, and I can’t imagine my sister ever doing that.”
Joseph said after uncovering some of Zaidi’s since-deleted pre-vacation Reddit posts seeking information about Bear Mountain’s Fay Canyon trail, and property claims amid a divorce, he’s certain Zaidi learned Zaynab was about to leave, and “he threw her off the cliff” as planned.
“He didn’t go to the cemetery and he didn’t bring their kids to the funeral,” Joseph said.
“He’s just a cruel man.”
Both Zaidi and his mother initially refused to be interviewed by investigators; Zaidi only recently sat down with detectives to be interviewed, police said.
The investigation into the fatal fall continues, authorities confirmed.
Detectives refused to comment on whether Zaidi’s phone has been seized as evidence.
Police would not say if they had recovered Zaidi’s phone as evidence.
Zaidi did not return multiple phone messages seeking comment.
He has not been charged with any crime.
“This was very methodical, very calculated,” Joseph said.
“Justice is on its way. I just hope it arrives before he tries fleeing to Pakistan. He almost planned the perfect murder.”
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