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Neighbor recalls terror suspect's controlling behavior
DERRY , N.H. — Homegrown terrorism suspect Daniel Maldonado was a controlling husband who forbade his wife to venture beyond their Derry apartment's doorstep clothed in anything but traditional Islamic garb, according to a former neighbor in whom the young wife confided.
Tamekia Maldonado sometimes snuck down to the basement wearing jeans to do laundry, said Karen Purnell, who lived across the hall from the couple in a brick apartment building on Laraway Court.
Daniel Maldonado once caught his wife shopping at a local supermarket in non-Islamic garb, and a loud, public altercation ensued, Purnell said.
Maldonado, 28, is a Muslim convert who grew up in Pelham and later lived in Methuen, Mass., where he attended a mosque until he was asked to leave because of his zealotry.
He is accused of undergoing al-Qaida training on bomb making in Somalia. He was captured while trying to flee that country Jan. 21 and is being held without bail at a Houston, Texas, detention center, pending a federal grand jury indictment and trial.
Tamekia Maldonado, who had three children with her husband, died of malaria in Africa prior to her husband's arrest. The couple's three young children are now living in Londonderry in the custody of Daniel Maldonado's parents, Jose and Rena Maldonado.
Daniel Maldonado and his wife, born Tamekia Cunningham, moved frequently after marrying in 1999 and landed at Laraway Court around 2000, Purnell said.
Purnell said Thursday she had not heard of Tamekia Maldonado's death or of her husband's arrest for alleged terrorist connections.
She said when the couple lived next door to her, they had only one child, 1<1/2>-year-old Mohammed.
Purnell had met Tamekia Maldonado before she married Daniel Maldonado and the couple became her neighbors. Purnell's son, John MacCorkle, was friendly with Tamekia when both attended Pinkerton Academy in the mid-1990s.
When Purnell told her son that Tamekia was living at the Derry apartment complex and that her husband made her dress in traditional Islamic garb, he was surprised because he remembered her as a typical American teen.
"She's never going to make it," Purnell remembers her son saying when told of Maldonado's rigid rules.
MacCorkle graduated in 1995, but the two traveled in the same circle of friends for a few years after he graduated, Purnell said. Daniel Maldonado was a Pelham High School dropout.
MacCorkle, 29, who hasn't seen Tamekia Maldonado in about 10 years, said in a phone interview Thursday that she liked rap music and didn't get angry unless someone instigated something. He did think her marriage to Daniel Maldonado was strange, he said.
Purnell, who has lived at the brick complex for 16 years, remembers when she first saw Tamekia Maldonado after she moved into the apartment building with her husband.
"I didn't recognize her with all that whoop-de-do on," said Purnell, recalling the long robe and head covering Tamekia Maldonado wore.
"She recognized me," Purnell said.
It wasn't just her clothes that were different, Purnell said. Her body language and manner had changed, too.
Occasionally, Purnell said, Tamekia Maldonado would quietly ask about Purnell's son.
"We could be outside and she would whisper 'How is (John) doing?'" Purnell said. "I think she was afraid her husband would hear it."
She also recalls the couple's son, Mohammed, ambling across the hall and knocking on her door. He was "a busybody, a ham," she said of the boy.
It was Tamekia Maldonado who told Purnell about the time her husband caught her wearing American-style clothes while shopping at Shaw's at Hood Plaza and he chased her through the store.
"He found out she went out in her jeans and a blouse, and he had a fit," Purnell said.
She said Tamekia told her that Daniel would "kill her if she left the room not dressed the way he wanted her to dress."
Both Purnell and her friend, Rob Mele, who also knew the couple, described Daniel Maldonado as a person who kept to himself.
"He was so shut-uppish," said Mele, a former maintenance man at the apartment complex.
Both Purnell and Mele said Daniel Maldonado wasn't one to return greetings and would walk right by someone who said "Hello." Purnell said the couple rarely had visitors.
Purnell said Tamekia Maldonado told her about five or six years ago that her husband wanted to move far away.
"He was making her move," Purnell said.
Prosecutors say Maldonado, also known as Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, trained in Somalia in the use of firearms and explosives to help a radical Islamic group bring down the Somali government and install an Islamic state.
Maldonado is being prosecuted in federal court in Houston because the Texas city was his last address in the United States. He lived there from August 2005 to November 2005, working for a Web designer.
At the end of 2005, Maldonado and his family then moved to Cairo, Egypt, where Maldonado continued to work for the Web designer, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Maldonado, however, grew disenchanted with life in Egypt and moved his family to Somalia, according to handwritten statements he gave to FBI agents who were questioning him.
In one of the statements he wrote, "I Daniel J. Maldonado moved my family to Somalia because I wished to live as Muslim without a problem with the way I or my family practice our religion (beard, veil, going to mosk much, wearing Islamic garb and so on)."
After Sept. 11, 2001, "the US was a hard place to live as a Muslim and felt that I should not have to change my looks or way I practice cause some Muslims did wrong," Maldonado wrote.
Maldonado's court-appointed lawyer said at the hearing in February that his client had renounced his violent beliefs before his arrest.
Prosecutors and FBI agents said Maldonado, who is being held without bail, is a dangerous man who might put to use the training he received at the al-Qaida camp if he is released.
They said Maldonado doesn't think the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were evil and wouldn't have a problem killing other Americans.
Terry Date writes for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass.
