It is an all-American scene, a game of basketball in a quiet Californian street. This is where the Al Hamidis live - a family with anything but a typical American life. 18-year-old Fatima is preparing lunch for her brothers.
REPORTER: Did you learn how to cook?
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I'm learning...
REPORTER: Bit by bit.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I know how to make eggs! That’s the best thing.
She had to grow up fast, when in March this year, the unimaginable happened.
NEWS REPORTER: This mother of five is found in a pool of blood by her 17-year-old daughter.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: You took my mother away from me, you took my best friend away from me. Why?!
Shaima Alawadi was violently beaten in the house they were living in at the time. She died in hospital three days later.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: Why? Why did you do that? She is a housewife. She's innocent. She hasn't hurt anybody.
The killer has not been found. Fatima and her father, Kassim, are taking me to the scene of the murder.
KASSIM AL HAMIDI (Translation): This one, look, it’s the only one without a fence. They’re fenced.
It was here that Shaima Alawadi was attacked at 11:15am, on March 21.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: This is where the glass is broken. You see, there is still glass over here. This was all broken.
REPORTER: It was all broken?
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: From top to bottom. She was hit inside there, right over there, where that thing is.
The family believes someone broke in through this door. The house has since been sold and gutted for renovation. There is no trace of the terrible crime. The morning of the attack, Fatima was upstairs.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I hear the glass breaking. But in my mind, I was thinking that it was some kind of plate or something because at that time, she would be cooking. So, all I hear, when I go downstairs, she's, like, moaning in a low voice, like, in pain. When I found her, she was on the floor on her face. She was kind of drowned in her blood. When I found her, I didn't think someone hit her. I thought she had some kind of seizure or heart attack or - it doesn't come to someone's mind that someone has been killed. So when I found her, I'm asking her, "What is wrong?" But she doesn't reply.
Shaima had been repeatedly struck on the head, fracturing her skull in at least four places. She never regained consciousness. The only suggestion of a motive was a note found by police near Shaima.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: So I asked, "What did it say?" He just said, "Terrorist." And he shook his head, and he said ignore it, it just says you guys are terrorists. That is when it hit me - it is a hate crime. Obviously, just because we are from Iraq, or whatever, whatever they hate about us.
As the family struggles to come to terms with what happened, the Iraqi community rallied around them.
CROWD: We want justice! We want justice! We want justice!
Fatima addressed the crowd with a message for the killer.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: We are not going to cry if that is what you wanted. We are not going to do that, we are not going to take off the scarf, if that is what you wanted. We will not give you what you want.
Kassim shows me where he has stored his wife's belongings.
REPORTER (Translation): Your bedroom?
KASSIM AL HAMIDI (Translation): Yes, it is. I don’t really like to see it, I don’t want to assemble it, leave it like that as a memory.
Then I learn that the family received an earlier note calling them terrorists.
GIRL: He said, "This is my country, goes back to yours. You are terrorists."
REPORTER: Oh, you see... Were you scared?
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I was furious about it. I was mad and I told my mum - I told her, "I'm going to call the cops." She didn't think it was a big deal and I was going to call 911, and she told me, "Don't call the cops."
The family says they have no enemies. But Kassim says he is a brother-in-law found a man in their yard.
KASSIM AL HAMIDI (Translation): My brother-in-law saw him, so he went and grabbed him and beat him up, severe beating, he bloodied him. The guy fled, he said he was lost and found himself there. My brother-in-law beat him up and he left. He was beaten up and bloodied and he must have people behind him, so I don’t know if this caused enemies.
The city of El Cajon has the second largest community of Iraqi migrants in America after Michigan. It is a small piece of Iraq but in the heart of California. Dozens settled here after the first Gulf War.
WILL CARLESS, REPORTER: There's tension there. Definitely. There's been tension for a long time. And I don't...
Will Carless, a reporter with the 'New York Times'. He was one of the first journalists to report on Shaima Alawadi's murder.
WILL CARLESS: It is a difficult place to settle several thousand refugees from a very different culture and a very different country. I mean, the kids grow up American, right, they grow up speaking American, watching television, watching the same shows, playing the same video games, and, you know... They feel American. Now, the older populations, they think that there is a fair bit of - not a lot of integration there.
Anger of Shaima's murder spread, quickly, reaching Iraq.
NEWS REPORTER (Translation): We demand that the Iraqi government follow up this crime through legal and judicial avenues. Her body arrived at dawn on Saturday at Najaf Airport to be interred at Wadi al-Salam Cemetery.
An offer was made President Nouri Al Maliki to fly Shaima's body back to the country she had fled in 1991.
I go to Samawa in Iraq to meet Shaima's sister Mariam, who is staying with her father, a cleric.
MARIAM: This is our house, it was not always like this. It was a mess.
Like Shaima, she has lived in America since she was a girl but returns to Iraq for her sister's funeral.
REPORTER: Do you feel safe now in Iraq more than America?
MARIAM: Iraq? Yeah I do. They say America is a free country, but that’s not what we saw. They say America lets you wear… and be the person who you are. But that is not what we saw. My sister, she was in the airport and there was this man, with his hand – he passed by and hit her so hard on the head and… to the point that she got dizzy and she was like “Some guy just hit me. When he hit me, he grabbed my scarf and he kept trying to pull it.” And apparently he let her hear a word or two. “Go back, this isn’t your country.” She was telling me that she wanted to come back to Iraq and we were making plans that we would come back to Najaf.
Back in the US, I meet Iraqi community leader Abou Feras.
ABOU FERAS: Where is your heart? This way? This way? Are you sure? Wow! Music! Huh?!
He has strong control of El Cajon's Iraqi population including the Al Hamidi family and now there is a new aspect to this case which has divided the community.
WILL CARLESS: It has kind of become a bit of an intriguing murder-mystery at this point.
As part of their investigation, the police obtained a search warrant for the family home.
WILL CARLESS: It was clearly a lot of internal conflict within the family, certainly, with the daughter and the complaints to the police and stuff like that. I mean, clearly, it is a family which has been undergoing some stress.
I wanted to ask the family about this stress but community leader Abou Feras doesn't want that to happen.
ABOU FERAS (Translation): There is no need to hang out our washing and talk about things that are far removed from us, that are foreign to us. We don’t want that.
REPORTER (Translation): Do you see yourselves as an Iraqi or an American community?
ABOU FERAS (Translation): We are an Iraqi community and will remain Iraqis to our last breath.
I am forced to meet Fatima in secret.
REPORTER: What was your relationship with your mother?
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: Well, my mum, she had me when she was 15, so basically she's young. And we're basically close age. I mean, normal mother-daughter relationship, but more like two friends.
The affidavit suggests a more complex relationship. It says four months before her mother was murdered, Fatima was involved with the police.
POLICE REPORT: Fatima Al Hamidi was contacted reference a call of two people possibly having sex in a car. Police contacted Fatima Al Hamidi and a 21 year old male, Rawnaq Yacub, in a parked car.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: It is not true.
REPORTER: It is not true?
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: No. And the cop that found us, we were sitting in the car, and in that time, I was having family problems. We were sitting in the back seat, both of us. We were talking, I was crying. We were - I mean, he was just comforting me, you know. So when the cop found us, it said that there was some kind of thing going on. You know, obviously, the clothes were on.
He was sitting on the left, I was sitting on the right. I mean, it wasn't - if it was, he would be arrested, right. He is over 18, I'm a minor. But, no, we were just sitting down. We were talking having a conversation and those who accused, should use their mind, not just talk without thinking. I mean, you know? My mum came. She was mad. Not because of anything, but she told me, "Next time you want to go out, be honest with me."
According to the affidavit, later, as they drove:
POLICE REPORT: Fatima Al Hamidi said “I love you mom”, opened the vehicle door and jumped out while the vehicle was doing approximately 35 miles per hour. Police responded and Fatima was transported to the hospital with multiple injuries.
The document claims Fatima told police that she jumped from the car because she was being forced to marry her cousin.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: Life is too short. People are wasting their time worrying about other people's lives when - it is not true.
Fatima tells me that since the affidavit was publicly released, she's been accused of her mother's death by community members and even family. She says she's afraid and doesn't want to leave the house.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: People are looking at me like I'm some kind of killer or some kind of murder or whatever. I know I didn't do anything wrong. Just messed up. People could have been there for me, instead of accusing me like that.
KASSIM AL HAMIDI (Translation): My daughter became mentally exhausted from all the rumours and she is innocent.
Kassim, Shaima's husband, is also mentioned in the affidavit.
POLICE REPORT: A relative of the victim had said that the victim was planning on divorcing her husband and moving to the state of Texas.
A set of blank divorce papers were allegedly found in her car.
KASSIM AL HAMIDI (Translation): She went and got a paper from the court, a threat, personal and for the home, this happens in all homes – separation happens.
The El Cajon police have declined Dateline's repeated request for an interview. In a response, they say they have no new information. They also say they are exploring all possibilities, and have no suspects in the case.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I'm innocent. I'm innocent. I miss mum so much but I'm sure she is in a better place now.
While the family are desperately hoping the police will catch the killer in Iraq, Shaima’s sister Mariam thinks about what might have been.
MARIAM: This land was for Shaima, she bought it. Her dream was to build a house and to live next to us. Inshalah God would make us strong enough to leave the seduction of America and come back to this land.
The family plans a future in their homeland but Fatima wants to stay in the US.
FATIMA AL HAMIDI: I can't imagine me growing up, you know, getting married or having kids and she's not there.
Reporter/Camera
FOUAD HADY
Producer
VICTORIA STROBL
Field Producer
AARON THOMAS
Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
DAVID POTTS
Original Music Composed by VICKI HANSEN