Last man to see 2-year-old alive remains in jail on unrelated charge By Tammy Stables Battaglia • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • December 12, 2008 The last man to see 2-year-old Tangena alive will stay in jail on an unrelated charge he had sex with a minor after a Detroit judge ordered his bond to stay at $125,000. Jamrul Hussain, 24, of Hamtramck is being held in the Wayne County Jail on a charge he had sex with a 15-year-old Hamtramck girl in February. At today’s hearing in 36th District Court, Hussain’s lawyer, Sean Patrick Smith, asked Judge David J. Allen in Third Circuit Court to change Hussain's bond to $10,000 and allow him to post 10% so he could be released. But the judge refused, setting the case for trial in April. Smith claims the high bond is because Tangena, the daughter of Hussain’s current girlfriend, is still missing. “This kid is just being raked over the coals,” Smith said today after the hearing. “They’ve got nothing on him on the Tangena case. No evidence suggests he did anything wrong: no statements, no confessions, no jailhouse (confession), nothing, and they’re holding him on a $125,000 bond on a (sex with a minor) case with no prior record.” The 15-year-old had first accused him of kidnapping her, raping her and keeping her in his friends’ basement for six days in February. But a Hamtramck judge dismissed charges against his friends and switched the rape and kidnapping charges to the single criminal sexual conduct charge when others claimed the girl had a relationship with Hussain. Hussain’s lawyer, Sean Patrick Smith, said the girl made the allegations trying to regain her virtue after seeing Hussain on television shortly after Tangena disappeared Oct. 2. Hussain told police Tangena disappeared from his locked, parked car as he shopped at a Detroit gas station convenience store. The little girl still has not been found. http://www.freep.com/article/20081212/NEWS01/81212115/-1/rss07

HEART BEAT: What Child is This? Tue Dec 23, 2008 - 04:40 PM By FELICIA MITCHELL Well, there’s Damaris Natalie Herrera-Lopez. She’s ten. She likes pink earrings. Then there’s Giovanni Colon-Gonzalez. He’s fond of Spiderman. Tangena Hussain wears gold sandals. Let’s not forget Jesus, Jesus Arel Vargas. He’s missing too. They all are. Fortunately, they’re all presumed alive right now, which is why they’re counted among the almost countless number of missing and endangered children. I know because I looked them up after the discovery of Caylee Marie Anthony’s remains this past week. I wanted to know how many children had gone missing or been killed by parents this past year. I know that’s not the most festive way to indulge a sense of curiosity, but there you have it. It’s not as if I were following the story about little Caylee. Unnerved, I’d change the channel when it came on. I didn’t seek out stories in the print or online media. Still, it was hard to avoid the entire issue because it became such a media sensation. I am truly naïve. With all the spirit of Christmas has come to signify, I wonder why people can hurt others, especially small children. I am reminded of a two-year-old Jesus, whose parents spirited him away to Egypt to avoid harm at the hands of Herod. As cynical as I am naïve, not unlike a child or a person who has lived a long time, I have to wonder why so much attention is being given to one little missing girl and not to all of them. What was it about this one child among all of those gone? You have to notice how more attention seems to be given to missing or murdered white children, to missing children of privilege, to murdered children of privilege who themselves would never want to compete with all the other little angels out there in the world. You have to wonder how statistics would change if more children and unsolved crimes got the same sort of media coverage. Did you see the toys? I saw a photograph of all the toys that people were leaving at a memorial for a deceased child outside the home of her grandparents in Orlando. It was enough to break your heart. I mean, it’s the Christmas season. All over our country, children and their parents are in need. And here was an abundance of riches left by a curb. Balloons and toys and stuffed animals galore—they were nestled alongside fresh flowers and yellow ribbons. I poked around a little and found that the family had decided to donate all of these little toys to the Orlando Union Rescue Mission, which serves hundreds of homeless families in the area. My cynicism about the memorial gifts crept away, tail between its legs. Once upon a time, William Dix wrote a Christmas poem. “What child is this who, laid to rest,” it asks, “on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” The mythical story of this child’s birth reminds us that we can be shepherds keeping watch here on earth. http://www.swvatoday.com/comments/heart_beat_what_child_is_this/living/4251/

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Missing Hamtramck toddler's case remains open Toddler disappeared from Detroit gas station Oct. 2 George Hunter / The Detroit News Hamtramck -- Tangena Hussain's birthday came and went last month, but there was no celebration at her family's Hamtramck flat -- only a gnawing emptiness and long-unanswered questions. Tangena, who turned 3 on April 10, has been missing since Oct. 2, and after six months, the original Amber Alert remains in effect because police have no clues to her whereabouts. "I talked to Tangena's mom recently; she's not doing too good," said her attorney, Shawn Patrick Smith. "She's feeling more hopeless than she ever has, but as long as there's no bad news, there's always the possibility of good news. That's the only thing that's keeping her going." Police say there have been no breaks in the case. "The investigation is still open, but we haven't gotten any new leads," Detroit Police spokeswoman Eren Stephens Bell said. The FBI has offered a $20,000 reward for information about the girl's whereabouts. But so far, no clues have emerged. The case has taken several odd twists since Tangena disappeared. Jamrul Hussain, the boyfriend of Tangena's mother, Nilufa Begum, was the last person seen with the toddler. Hussain, who is not related to the girl, although they share the same surname, told police she disappeared when he stopped at a Detroit gas station to buy a pack of gum while on his way to pick up Begum from her job at a Northland Mall clothing store. Hussain was arrested after a 15-year-old girl called police when she saw him on a television news report about Tangena's disappearance. The girl told investigators that Hussain had kidnapped her eight months earlier and took her to the Hamtramck home of Mamunur Rahman Khan and his wife, Hena Begum (no relation to Tangena's mother), where the teen said she was imprisoned in the basement for a week and repeatedly raped by Hussain. Detectives say the girl told police in February that she'd ran away with Hussain, after her father reported her missing. But the teen later admitted she lied because Hussain had threatened to kill her family, police said. http://www.detnews.com/article/20090505/METRO/905050354/1409/METRO

Psychic Lends Hand in Finding Tangena Toddler has been missing for nearly seven months. Updated: Thursday, 21 May 2009, 2:41 PM EDT Published : Thursday, 21 May 2009, 6:20 AM EDT Taryn Asher DETROIT - She vanished from a Detroit gas station nearly seven months ago. The last person to see the toddler -- her mother's boyfriend. But now, one man who claims to have special psychic skills says he knows where Tangena Hussain is and police are listening. FOX 2's Taryn Asher brings you this video update at link below. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/Psychic_Lends_Hand_in_Finding

$20G Reward Offered for Missing Detroit Girl, 2, From Bangladesh Friday, October 02, 2009 DETROIT — Investigators are expected to release a bilingual poster seeking information into the 2008 disappearance of a 2-year-old Bangladeshi girl from the Detroit area. The poster and details of a $20,000 reward come Friday, a year after Tangena Hussain was reported missing by her mother's live-in boyfriend at a Detroit gas station. The poster will be distributed in Hamtramck, a Detroit enclave with a large Bangladeshi population. Jamrul Hussain is not Tangena's biological father. He told police he left the girl in his car when he went to buy chewing gum and juice. He says Tangena was not in the car when he returned. An extensive search of the area and Tangena's neighborhood turned up nothing. No one has been charged in the case. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559242,00.html

Bilingual Poster of Missing Tangena Released Updated: Friday, 02 Oct 2009, 7:18 PM EDT Published : Friday, 02 Oct 2009, 11:14 AM EDT By The Associated Press Investigators have released a bilingual poster seeking information into the 2008 disappearance of a 2-year-old Bangladeshi girl from the Detroit area. The poster and details of a $20,000 reward come Friday, a year after Tangena Hussain was reported missing by her mother's live-in boyfriend at a Detroit gas station. More than 60,000 posters will be distributed by mail to homes in Detroit and Hamtramck, an enclave with a large Bangladeshi population. Jamrul Hussain is not Tangena's biological father. He told police he left the girl in his car when he went to buy chewing gum and juice. He says Tangena was not in the car when he returned. An extensive search of the area and Tangena's neighborhood turned up nothing. No one has been charged in the case. FOX 2's Roop Raj has more on this story in his video report. Also, the gas station where Tangena was last spotted is once again a crime scene. Overnight, a group of teenagers is accused of ripping off the Marathon station at Eight Mile and Greenfield. Watch the second video report for more on this latest case. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/Missing_Tangena_One_Year_Later