SAN BERNARDINO, California (AP) – In the final few years of Tashfeen Malik’s life, the people around the young woman saw her dress ever more conservatively and urge people ever more ardently to live a devout life.
For an aunt in Malik’s old hometown of Pakistan, Malik’s growing religious focus was one of the last things the aunt heard about her 29-year-old niece – before last week, when the relative learned that her niece and her niece’s husband had donned face masks, hoisted assault rifles and killed 14 people in a rampage in Southern California.
“I recently heard it from relatives that she has become a religious person, and she often tells people to live according to the teachings of Islam,” recalled aunt Hifza Batool.
Batool spoke in the town of Karor Lal Esan, the home of Malik’s family, 280 miles (450 kilometers) southwest of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Malik’s path from Pakistan to the bloody events of this past week – when she and her husband slaughtered people gathered for a holiday work party – remains a mystery.