The police detectives came calling at her Barrhaven home just before 1 p.m. Thursday, confirming the worst to Nicole Nayel, who since June 17 had waited by the phone day and night for any word of her son, Fouad.
He went missing on Father’s Day, and on Thursday, police told his family he’d been killed, his body left in the forest near Calabogie, about 100 kilometres west of Ottawa.
Nicole Nayel slept little in those five months. She had prayed around the clock that her son would be found alive, no matter the “slim chance”.
The Nayel clan had hit every motel and store from Ottawa to Petawawa, looking for any trace of the 28-year-old Fouad. None was found. It was as if he had simply vanished.
They put up posters and followed up leads every day, sometimes every hour. Still, nothing.
The remains of Fouad Nayel were found a world away from the NFL Sundays he spent with his caring father, Amine Nayel, 56.
Ontario Provincial Police and Ottawa police detectives are now working the homicide case together and, as of Thursday night, were tracking every possible lead. They believe Nayel was killed on June 17, the day he went missing.
On the eve of Father’s Day, Fouad shared a pizza with his dad. In the morning, “he told me he was going to Petawawa and would be back in a couple of hours and we’d have Chinese food for Father’s Day,” the dead man’s father recalled. “He said, ‘I’ll see you then.’
“When he didn’t come home, my wife wondered where he could be. I said he’s probably out with a girl or a friend.”
The next day, the family reported him missing.
They always figured he’d met with foul play. Nicole Nayel, a thoughtful woman who had displayed a remarkable ability to talk about her missing son, couldn’t find any words on Thursday after the detectives left. It fell upon her husband, the strong-willed family man who’d waited for the Father’s Day Chinese food that never came.
Amine Nayel had sharp words for whoever killed his son: “I hope the police will catch the bastards who did this, and I hope they get the full consequences of the justice system. If they don’t, then God will. And if God isn’t up to it, I’m up to it.”
In his father’s eyes, Fouad Nayel was an honest guy who was “family oriented”, the same words Nicole Nayel used earlier this week after police announced that a body had been found near Calabogie on Sunday afternoon. The autopsy was not performed for three days after the discovery. It took another day to confirm the identity.
He recalled good times with his son. “He had a good, clean heart. We are a tight family.
“Did we have problems? We had the same problems every family goes through. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is that you stick up for family.”
Amine Nayel, who knows NFL inside out, said he will always cherish the Sundays he spent with his son, who lived at home. His son didn’t have a favourite team but always enjoyed watching the play on television, and he would pick his father’s brain about the teams and the odds before placing small, nothing-off wagers with Pro*Line, the Ontario government gambling agency.
The Nayels said they will not rest until their son’s killer or killers are brought to justice.
OPP are the lead investigators, working with Ottawa police, who dispatched a dive team to search a lake in Calabogie in July but turned up nothing.
Nayel spent the last days of his life working hard, clocking 12 hours a day on a construction site.
For his mother, her life stopped five months ago. She can no longer focus on anything. “I don’t think I’ll be able to have a life.”
