New information on a cold case. Nazmi Hassanieh, Noura Jackson’s father, was murdered in his East Memphis gas station 13 years ago. Recently filed court documents show he may have been killed because he was helping police take down a Mexican drug cartel.
Hassanieh was the father of Noura Jackson, the teen who served time for murdering her mother. Jennifer Jackson was stabbed more than 50 times, in the East Memphis home she shared with her daughter.
Noura Jackson has maintained her innocence. Court records show Noura believes her parent’s murders could be connected. One year before Jennifer Jackson was stabbed to death, her ex-husband, Noura Jackson’s father, was also murdered.
Those who’ve followed the case wonder if it’s more than just a coincidence that both of Noura’s parents ended up dead. Hassanieh ran a limo company out of his Mt. Moriah gas station, across the street from the now shut down Platinum Plus strip club.
According to recently filed court paperwork, members of the Los Zetas drug cartel conducted drug deals in Hassanieh’s limos, and that he likely videotaped those deals.
It goes on to say, Noura’s father may have had other video tapes of illegal activity; tapes connected to the owner of Platinum Plus strip club, and those tapes were in the possession of Noura Jackson’s mother.
Memphis homicide detectives remain tight lipped.
“There is all kinds of speculation that comes out of this especially as you look back. He was killed in 04. She was killed in 05. It seems a lot of coincidence I know and fuels a lot of speculation,” said Lt. Tony Mullins, Memphis Police Department.
Mullins said, here is what they do know: the surveillance tape from inside Hassanieh’s convenience store is poor quality, but it shows around 10 pm on January 26, 2004, the killer came into the quick shop. He waved customers off as they pulled up and took cash from the register. Then he went into the office and took the surveillance tape.
“You can see on the video that he takes what he believes is the surveillance tape, but there’s actually surveillance tape, on the surveillance tape.”
Lieutenant Mullins says robbery has been officially listed as the motive for the murder, since the killer is seen taking money was taken from the register, ” said Mullins. “We did look at the different problems he was having with the limo service, different reports filed. Problems with an employee. But never could link anything except for what we could see in the video.”
While the court records try to make a connection between the deaths of Noura’s mother and father, Lieutenant Mullins says, “to my knowledge there is no link between the two except Noura being the child of the two of them.”
“It’s a terribly tragic situation. Losing a parent is bad enough, losing both parents is terrible. But losing both parents violently, that’s more than most people could bear.”
Police are asking anyone with information about Nazmi Hassanieh’s murder to come forward.
