Missing woman filed police report against boyfriend days before disappearing in Miami
Monday, 12 February 2024
From drug taking to partying on Epstein’s Island, Alysha Hanin was living the fast life before she vanished into the night in Miami in 2002. Now, her son is on a mission to find out what happened to her. Katie Ham investigates.
A Kiwi woman who went missing in Miami more than two decades ago filed a police report against her lawyer boyfriend less than a week before her mysterious disappearance, Stuff can reveal.
Immersed in the darker side of life, Alysha Hanin was just 24-years-old when she went missing, leaving behind her then 3-year-old son.
On January 6, 2002, Hanin - known to family in New Zealand as Krsangi - was seen leaving the luxury hotel Shore Club in south Miami Beach at about 4am.
She never returned to the hotel, and was officially reported missing to police on January 27.
According to the Miami Beach Police Department, “foul play is suspected” to have played a role in Hanin’s disappearance and local police have since declared her “presumed dead”.
In the years leading up to her disappearance, Hanin was in an on-again, off-again relationship with a Florida lawyer, who Stuff has chosen not to name.
Stuff can now reveal Hanin filed a police report against him just five days before she went missing.
Police were called to his home early on January 1, 2002, after an argument he’d had with Hanin.
According to the arrest affidavit provided to media by the Miami Beach Police Department, Hanin told responding officers that her boyfriend pushed her and knocked her to the floor.
Once on the floor, he allegedly punched Hanin in the mouth, causing bleeding from the gums and causing her bottom teeth to loosen, the police report says.
Records show that the man was arrested and charged with battery over the incident, but was bailed on $1500.
On January 10, four days after Hanin was last seen, she was summoned to appear as a witness in court over the incident.
She was summoned again on January 24, but was officially reported missing three days later.
Her boyfriend was discharged without conviction and the files surrounding the court case have since been destroyed.
An earlier arrest affidavit provided by the Miami Beach Police Department shows that in July 2001 Hanin’s boyfriend was charged with two counts of battery against her.
According to the corresponding police report, he was accused of dragging and pushing Hanin and her son - who was then 2-years-old - out of their shared apartment.
However, the case was dropped and the files were again destroyed. It’s not clear why.
On Hanin’s official missing person’s report, provided to Stuff by her family, the man is described by police as a suspect, marked “S01”.
Weeks before her mysterious disappearance, Hanin returned to Aotearoa from Miami Beach to drop her young son with her mother while she went back to Florida to “tie up some loose ends”.
According to her mother, Cilla Senk, Hanin said she wanted to leave the life she was leading in Miami behind, and raise her son here.
“She’d recently broken up with her partner, and said she was going back to get her stuff before coming back to start a new life here,” Senk said.
With the help of family in New Zealand, Senk engaged a private investigator and the pair travelled to Florida in the weeks following Hanin’s disappearance in a desperate bid to find out what had happened to her.
Top of Senk’s to-do list was to speak to Hanin’s boyfriend, who she says spoke briefly with the private investigator before leaving the state.
Hanin’s family have been unable to contact her boyfriend again.
Although he was working as a lawyer at the time she disappeared, Hanin’s former boyfriend has since been disbarred from practising law - the US equivalent of being struck off - having been convicted of two counts of grand theft.
He later filed for bankruptcy, but his application was rejected because he failed to supply the correct documentation.
Stuff made various attempts to contact Hanin’s former boyfriend, including calling all numbers associated with him.
Stuff also messaged him on social media, asking him about the 2001 and 2002 police reports, as well as when he last saw Hanin, but were subsequently blocked.
The Miami Beach Police Department has been approached for comment.
Hanin is described by the Miami Beach Police Department as a Caucasian female, between 5’6 and 5’7, and approximately 120 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
She has ear piercings and a piercing on her left nostril, as well as a scar on the pad of her right index finger.
Hanin is known to have gone by the first names Alysha, Krsangi and Yami, and the surnames Hanin, Senk and Devi.
This is Part 3 of Katie Ham’s investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Alysha Hanin. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.