Police try to unravel mysterious death of California woman on Arizona hiking trail

Forty-year-old Zaynab Joseph had little experience hiking.

But the Huntington Beach mother of three tried to tackle one of the most difficult, rugged trails in Arizona with her husband and a 9-month-old baby.

Joseph didn’t survive her trek up Bear Mountain in Coconino National Forest near Sedona, a trip her family says was foisted on her by husband Syed Danish Zaidi. Now Yavapai County sheriff’s investigators are trying to figure out how Joseph fell to her death April 15 from a 140-foot cliff.

Her husband isn’t talking. And the baby can’t.

“When we went to speak to (Zaidi), he decided he wanted a lawyer,” said Kristin Greene, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department.

Zaidi did not respond to multiple messages left on his phone and with his family.

Police have interviewed more than 30 people, including Joseph’s relatives and some hikers who came to her aid. Yet questions remain: What was a neophyte doing on a trail described by the U.S. Forest Service as mostly unshaded, difficult and steep in places; and how did she go over the edge?

The 2.3-mile trail ascends more than 1,800 feet in elevation, over tilted rock, and takes 4 1/2 hours to cover round trip.

“It’s an extremely, extremely difficult hiking trail. Only experts do it, but (the couple) probably didn’t realize that,” Greene said.

Or maybe that is exactly what Zaidi was looking for, says Zaynab’s brother, Hassanayn Joseph.

A general law attorney in Toledo, Ohio, Joseph is suspicious about his sister’s death because she told him she planned to divorce Zaidi.

Joseph, 38, said Zaidi works as a stress engineer for a Southern California aerospace company and owns property in Huntington Beach and Palmdale.

The Yavapai County medical examiner has concluded Zaynab Joseph died from multiple blunt force injuries, but did not determine the manner of death — that is, whether it was an accident, homicide or suicide.

When questioned by Zaynab’s family, Zaidi purportedly said the couple stopped on the trail to take her picture. Holding the baby with his left arm, Zaidi was using his right hand to take the photo, but he dropped the phone and Zaynab tried to grab it. She and the phone went over the edge, he told them. Investigators have retrieved the phone and are processing the contents, Greene said.

Hassanayn Joseph has problems with Zaidi’s story.

The couple was vacationing with Zaidi’s mother at a Sedona rental home when the husband decided to take Zaynab on a hike, according to Joseph. A hiker who climbed down the cliff to try to rescue Zaynab said the couple seemed out of place.

“They didn’t look to me like hikers. Being there with a baby made no sense to me or anyone around me,” said the 60-year-old hiker from North Carolina, who has been interviewed by authorities and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

The anonymous hiker and his wife were about one-fourth of the way up the trail when they heard a woman screaming behind them. Seconds later, they heard a man wailing, saying what sounded like “help her.”

The hiker and his wife doubled back and found Zaidi and the baby behind a bush. The hiker said he tried, to no avail, to get information from Zaidi, who continued to wail incoherently but shed no tears. The wife of another witness took care of the baby.

“We asked, ‘Did somebody fall?’ and he wasn’t very helpful giving us information,” said the hiker.

He peered over the ledge and finally caught sight of Zaynab, on a crumbling rock, her clothes snagged on a bush.

“After I realized there was a person down there, I needed to go down and help,” the hiker said.

Zaynab was not breathing when the hiker reached her. He added that Zaidi didn’t climb down with him, but, according to other hikers, laid on the dirt and fell asleep. It took about 45 minutes for emergency crews to arrive, he said.

“If I were in his shoes, I would have gone down as soon as the baby was safe,” the hiker said.

Hassanayn Joseph said he wasn’t surprised by Zaidi’s response.

Zaynab, a former science teacher at an Islamic high school in Garden Grove, had a troubled marriage, Joseph alleged.

Heavily redacted Huntington Beach Police Department records indicate officers were called to the couple’s home on Harvard Circle three times from Jan. 18 to Feb. 5, for a family disturbance, a “phone call” and to keep the peace. The disturbance call was near midnight.

“He constantly told her she was a bad mother, (he was) very controlling in every way, shape and form,” Joseph said.

“She was obedient to a fault. … She believed whatever God wanted was going to happen.”

But Zaynab recently reached her limit.

Although she stayed in the same home with her husband, Zaynab wrote in a journal that she had separated from Zaidi on March 1, according to an entry reviewed by the Southern California News Group. She also complained in the journal that Zaidi had disconnected her phone multiple times.

Hassanayn Joseph said his sister was in the process of retaining divorce attorney Brett Thorsteinson when she died. Reached by phone, Thorsteinson declined to comment.