Account
Jan 02, 2010
Jul 17, 2019
Tangena
Hussain
18
2
38 inches
34 lbs
White / Caucasian
Female
In a case that continues to raise more questions than answers, two-year-old Tangena Hussain vanished on the evening of October 2, 2008, in Detroit, Michigan. At the time of her disappearance, she was in the care of her mother's live-in boyfriend. The little girl, described as being of Bangladeshi descent with black hair, brown eyes, and a noticeable burn scar on her upper lip and chin area, was last seen wearing a brown long-sleeved shirt with a cartoon character on the front, white nylon cargo pants, and gold-colored sandals. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance from a locked car at a gas station have been met with skepticism and have left her family and investigators searching for the truth. The account of what happened to Tangena that night comes solely from her mother's boyfriend, Jamrul Hussain, who is not related to Tangena despite sharing the same last name. He told police that he stopped at a Marathon gas station on Greenfield Road to purchase gum and juice at approximately 9:02 p.m. He claimed to have left Tangena asleep in his locked, red, four-door 1997 Geo Prism while he went inside the store. Surveillance footage confirms he was inside the store for about four minutes, but there were no cameras focused on the area where he had parked. When he returned to his vehicle at 9:06 p.m., he said Tangena was gone. Instead of immediately contacting the authorities, he drove to the nearby Northland Mall to pick up Tangena's mother, Nilufa Begum, from her job. It was only after returning to the gas station with her that a missing child report was filed at 9:30 p.m. The investigation into Tangena's disappearance was hampered by what police described as cultural and language barriers. An exhaustive search of the area surrounding the gas station and the neighborhoods where Tangena lived yielded no clues. Jamrul Hussain's behavior following the disappearance drew suspicion. He reportedly became overly emotional during two separate lie detector tests, preventing them from being completed. In a separate and disturbing development, a 15-year-old girl came forward after seeing Jamrul on a news report and accused him of kidnapping and raping her. While the kidnapping charge was dropped, he was convicted of criminal sexual misconduct and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. Despite being a person of interest, he was never formally named a suspect in Tangena's disappearance. In the years since she vanished, Tangena's mother has returned to Bangladesh. The case remains unresolved, with a $20,000 reward offered by the FBI for information leading to her location. The question of what happened to the little girl in the four minutes her caregiver was inside the gas station continues to haunt investigators and all who knew her.
Oct 02, 2008
Detroit
Michigan
Wayne County
26199
Detroit Police Department
Detroit
Michigan
Wayne County
48226
Shannon Jones
Sergeant
1301 3rd St, Michigan
3135961800
Local
Law Enforcement
WDM784
2008-10-02
Detroit Police Department
Black
Brown
Brown
06/10/2026
