Photo by Andy Boyd

The Parkwood Apartments, where the hijackers lived, have since been converted into condominiums.

H.G. Reza worked at the Los Angeles Times for 25 years, covering law enforcement and terrorism.

Excerpts from stories Reza wrote for the Reader:

• The unsolved case of La Mesa's Jamie Peters

• Nearly 31 years ago, Jamie Peters walked into his mother’s home in La Mesa and dropped off his house keys. It was a brief nighttime visit. He paused long enough to look around the familiar.. (June 19, 2019)

• Mission Hills visitor to Vietnam sucked into MIA search

• Antonio Palma felt something or someone was driving him to visit Vietnam, a place to which he had no ties. Not knowing what awaited him and traveling to the other side of the world without.... (October 3, 2018)

Back of medal

• Alleged sexual assault at Lincoln High School leads to teacher's suicide

• At the end of his life, Nathan Page dismissed the loyalty of friends who cared deeply about him. In a fit of pique, he unfriended many of them on Facebook and attacked them in angry texts and emails before he killed himself. (March 28, 2018)

“I didn’t want him to return to Lincoln [High School],’ says Julie Page of her late son Nathan, “because Lincoln destroyed my son.”

• Treacherous Santiago Canyon Road

• Leonard Duguay’s 85th birthday came and went on July 5, 2016, without celebration. The Modjeska Canyon resident had disappeared and the search for him took a mysterious turn weeks later when his car was found ... (April 26, 2017)

Authorities expressed surprise that the compact cars made it as far as they did down this road.

H.G. Reza

• Army platoon interpreter in Afghanistan ends up in El Cajon

• Sher Mohammad Haidari heard the radio crackle with Taliban chatter as the Army platoon he was with trudged through a valley in eastern Afghanistan looking for a U.S. soldier who had abandoned his post. (December 14, 2016)

Assimilation has not been easy for the Haidari family.

• 9/11 could have been stopped in San Diego

• The 9/11 attacks could have been derailed in San Diego, had the CIA not spiked a memo alerting the FBI about an Al Qaeda terrorist who was coming to the United States and ended up ... (September 7, 2016)

Pentagon after American Airlines flight 77 crashed into it. Hazmi and Mihdhar were two of the five hijackers of this flight on September 11, 2001.

• What was Omar al-Bayoumi doing in San Diego?

• Bayoumi met the hijackers at a Los Angeles restaurant, found a Clairemont apartment for them, helped them open a checking account at Bank of America, and hosted parties for them in San Diego and El Cajon. (July 27, 2016)
Sponsored
Sponsored