Web of Lies

What is better than a video closet montage?

When I first met Nadia, I felt like

I had a lot to learn from her.

She had another taste for life.

She was amazing and incredible

and young and beautiful.

When someone strives for perfection,

sometimes that aspiration can work against them.

Nadia believed she had made

a contact with a soulmate.

I am.

The internet can be an awful place.

It exposes a lot of people's worst and perverse thoughts.

She was a very determined person, so if she set her mind

to something, she was gonna do it for sure.

This is Commander Neil Nelson from St. Paul.

I'm hoping you can help us with some information.

It's just unfathomable that somebody would

prey on somebody at their weakest moment.

And then they disappeared.

You don't know what happened to them.

My name is Pascale Yensen.

In 2007, 2008, I was studying contemporary dance

at the School of Dance in Ottawa.

It's not a huge city, but great for students.

I first got introduced to Nadia through

my friend Shia, sent me a message saying, "Hey,

there's a girl that I think you should meet."

She had long brown hair, beautiful eyes,

a really nice smile.

I remember thinking she was very pretty.

We met at a cafe.

It was one of my first dates ever with a girl,

and I think hers, as well, so we were both very nervous.

We still didn't know how to approach it.

But once we started talking, the conversation just started

flowing and flowing and flowing, and before we knew it,

it was six or seven hours later, and we actually got

kicked out, because they were closing.

She was someone that I wanted to spend more time with.

I liked being around her a lot.

Nadia was my younger sister of about 11 years.

I was a bit older and was able to be

silly or go to the mall or go play laser tag.

She had lots of friends in the neighborhood,

had a paper route at a young age.

She was very inquisitive,

very smart for her age.

When Nadia decided to go to university,

she picked one that was 500 kilometers away,

close enough to drive but not close enough for a surprise

visit from the parents I think was probably her theory.

She wanted to be a lawyer.

You could tell the way that she would engage

in conversations

that she was a bit of a smart mouth at times.

Her parents, my dad and her mom,

would have preferred for her to be a little closer.

But after 17 years of a very close-knit family,

you want to spread your wings and explore

and find yourself and meet new friends.

Nadia and I began seeing each other,

and we were both very excited.

We were also still coming out.

It was very thoughtful.

She would think to get me a guest pass so that I could

go to the cafeteria in the morning with her

and her roommates.

We hung out in her dorm room.

She gave me a tarot card reading.

We'd listen to music.

She did read some of her poetry to me.

It was beautiful and intricate.

It was about life and the way she saw it.

She had a sticker on her bulletin board

that said, "Don't forget to love your life."

She definitely had a good couple months

of figuring out what university life

is like without your parents around.

I would see on Facebook, you know, some pictures of her.

She definitely was enjoying a bit of the party life.

She had a video diary under

an alias that she had uploaded to YouTube.

One day she's doing little fashion show type,

showing off wardrobe stuff.

If you work a lot and you play a lot,

sometimes that aspiration can work against you.

It was an endless pursuit of perfection.

Need to be the best.

Have to get the best grades.

She took on a lot.

Workloads were heavy.

If you have aspirations to be a lawyer, there's,

I think, minimal room for error.

One night, I was supposed to go meet her after my rehearsals.

We had a date planned,

but she wasn't answering her phone.

And she wasn't answering the door.

She didn't show up or didn't message me or tell me.

I heard from her about two or three days later

apologizing, saying that

she just wasn't feeling well and that she was

gonna go home for Christmas break,

sort of take a break from everything, because she was

feeling overwhelmed, and if she was feeling better back in

January, then we could reconnect again.

That was the first sign that I got that things weren't all...

all right, that life was

not all bright and shiny.

When Nadia returned for Christmas, she wasn't the same

bubbly, outgoing,

fun, wanting to be around -- around people.

There was a significant difference in her mood.

She was very closed off,

hours and hours and hours on end in her room,

not wanting to really socialize, with, you know, even her mom

or dad the way that she used to.

In the new year, we did talk a little bit via Messenger.

She didn't seem to want to meet up.

It was just now she's back and she's back at school

and she's busy,

and I was very busy, as well, with dance school.

So our relationship slowly fizzled out.

Late February, my friend,

Shia, the same one that introduced us,

told me about a party that was happening at a frat house,

that Nadia was coming, and I was going to see her.

It was the typical university party, we were drinking out of

red plastic cups, like in the movies, you know?

And I remember we had a great time.

It was the Nadia that I knew before.

She seemed happy.

We had a connection once again, and it was exciting.

We were sitting next to each other talking,

and at one point, she got up.

And I thought she was going to the washroom.

And she left.

We couldn't find her, and we couldn't get ahold of her.

I didn't know why she didn't tell being or she didn't say,

"I'm leaving."

I was worried more than anything.

I remember getting

a text message from my dad late at night.

I remember reading it and being like, "Hold on, what?"

And then I, like, hold on and brush my eyes

and clean -- turn on the light, like, "Hold on.

What's this -- what's this say?"

It said, "Nadia's been missing for three days,"

and my initial reaction is like what the...

What do you mean she hasn't been seen in three days?

Where is she? Like...

One of her roommates said

between 11:20 and 11:30,

she heard, uh, heard her door close.

She found it odd,

the next morning, it's locked, and there's music playing.

They then had a security guard open

the door, because it's locked from the inside.

Wallet there with money left in, cellphone there.

Everything else

looks as if they're coming back in five minutes.

That night, she also updated her Facebook status

to Nadia will someday be loved.

I drove to Ottawa -- going the speed limit,

about four, four or five hours.

Pretty sure I did it in about 3 and 1/2.

I figured, driving out there.

if a cop pulls me over,

I think I probably have a really good excuse to

be speeding.

Your mind just races as to

the worst-case scenarios of what could have happened.

Did she run away?

Well how could she run away?

Her wallet was in her room.

No money. She has no credit card.

Well, was she kidnapped?

If she's kidnapped, maybe she's still alive.

Okay, let's hope that she's been kidnapped.

There's a million other scenarios,

but none of them are positive.

But I remember walking into her room.

Literally, everything was there except her ice skates,

her jacket, and her ID.

You're going skating by yourself? Okay,

that doesn't make sense.

It's 50 centimeters snowing.

You leave your room locked, the music blaring.

Everything is there in your wallet except your ID.

I first heard that Nadia was missing while I was sleeping in

my bed at home,

and my father woke me up and said that the police are on

the phone, and they wanna talk to you,

and I talked to the officer, and he asked me

if I knew where Nadia Kajouji was.

They said that she had been missing,

and no one had heard from her.

And I asked if they had spoken to her parents,

and they said her parents are in the room with me right now.

And that's when I knew something was wrong.