Who was Mary Jane Mustafa and what happened to her?
MARY JANE MUSTAFA was one of the tragic victims of depraved killer Zahid Younis.
The mother went missing in 2018 and, in 2019, her body was found in a freezer at Younis’ property in Canning Town, East London.
Who was Mary Jane Mustafa?
Mary Jane Mustafa was also known by her family and friends as Mihrican Mustafa and Jan.
She was a mother of three and was 38 years old when she went missing.
Mustafa was a former teacher who knew sex offender Zahid Younis through a friend and lived near her killer.
She left her mum’s house one day in May 2018 to go to the shops with only her phone and £3 on her, and never returned.
At the time of her disappearance, she had been living what has been described by family as a somewhat “chaotic life.”
After her death, family described her in a statement as “artistic, creative, beautiful and optimistic”.
What happened to Mary Jane Mustafa and where was she found?
Mustafa died after she was strangled by Younis, who then kept her body in a freezer unit at his house.
Her body was discovered in the freezer surrounded by air fresheners and fused on top of the body of another woman, Henriett Szucs, who Younis had murdered in 2016.
Both women had suffered multiple injuries prior to their deaths, the post-mortem examinations showed.
Younis had strangled Szucs then stamped on her head – leaving her with a cracked skull – before stuffing her fully clothed in the freezer.
Mustafa was also strangled by Younis two years later and placed in the same freezer.
Police visited Younis’ home when a concern for his welfare was raised, and it was only then that they discovered the two women’s bodies and what Younis had done.
Chilling bodycam footage from the time showed police walking through Younis’ flat where they found the locked freezer with the horrifying discovery inside.
What has Mary Jane Mustafa’s family said about her death?
Jan’s daughter revealed she cried her eyes out when her mother did not turn up for her 11th birthday party.
She wrote a letter to her mum saying: “To mummy – Please come back I really miss you.
“You missed my 11th birthday party (it was the worst party ever) I sat in the corner crying my eyes out looking at your pictures and reading your poems while in my head screaming, ‘where are you! Please mum, come back home’. “
The family paid tribute to the “gentle being” and “precious jewel” who “had her whole life ahead of her”.
In a statement they said: “Jan was a fantastic mother. She adored her children. She loved to dance. She was artistic. She was creative. She was beautiful.
“She was friends with everybody and very funny. She celebrated life. She was optimistic. She never said anything bad about anybody. She would give her last penny to someone in need.
“She was an angel. She is an angel.”
In 2023, Mustafa’s cousin Ayse Hussein told The Sun Online of her disappointment over how the Met Police handled the investigation of Mustafa’s disappearance.
She revealed that police visited Younis’ home five weeks after Mustafa disappeared when his name came up on her phone records, but they just put a leaflet through his door, despite Younis having a history of abusing women.
Hussein, who calls her cousin Jan, believes Mustafa could still be alive if officers had taken her disappearance seriously from the beginning.
She said: “If the Met had done their jobs properly and looked in Zahid and his previous history Jan might still be alive.
“They could have searched his home and found Jan five weeks after she disappeared. Police knew this man was dangerous but didn’t do their jobs properly and carry out the proper checks.
“He was probably laughing at them knowing he had two women in his freezer every time they went into his home to monitor him because he was a sex offender.
“Zahid was clearly a psychopath who would have killed more if he wasn’t caught.
“He never should have been out of prison.”
Hussein added that, after Mustafa’s family reported her missing, they had to do a lot of the work to try and find her themselves.
She said: “When you see on TV that someone has vanished, you think the family don’t need to do anything as the police will do it all but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“She added: “We had this year of trauma as a family not knowing what had happened and having to do our own investigation.
“We even had to make our own posters as the police wouldn’t give us official ones and couldn’t do a proper press appeal.
“It was clear the police didn’t take Jan seriously because she was vulnerable at the time and because of her lifestyle.
“Maybe her race came into it as well. It’s upsetting to think that might be the case but maybe she and our family were part of the ‘other’ people who don’t get as much attention.
“They are just gambling with people’s lives.”
In 2020 Younis was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years.
At his trial, the Southwark Crown Court heard that he had a history of violence against women, with previous partners among those giving evidence in his trial.
Hussein told the Newham Recorder that it was “hard” to hear Younis’ other victims speak about what he’d done to them, adding that the family still did not know exactly what had happened to their beloved Mustafa.
She said: “We’ll just never know what he did. How did she meet him?
“We’ve got justice but we still don’t know the truth.”