Shaima Alawadi was planning to divorce husband

Court documents released on Thursday showed that Shaima Alawadi, the Iraqi-born mother of five who was found beaten to death in California, was going through a family crisis, raising doubts about whether the case was a hate crime, said The New York Times.

The documents revealed that Alawadi was talking about divorcing her husband and her daughter, Fatima, was resisting an arranged marriage. They also showed that investigators had Alawadi's family under scrutiny as well, with search warrants issued for the Alawadi house and two cars.

More on GlobalPost: Shaima Alawadi, Iraqi mother beaten savagely in San Diego, dies

The Associated Press said investigators found blank divorce forms in Alawadi's Ford Explorer, and she had plans to leave her husband and move to Texas.

The possibility of Alawadi's death being a hate crime arose when Fatima, Alawadi's daughter, who called 911, told reporters that she found a note near her mother which read, "Go back to your country, you terrorist." However, the note that detectives found at the scene was shown to be a copy after analysis, said the search warrant. The note's contents were not mentioned, but police wanted to search the house for similar paper stock, said the AP.

More on GlobalPost: Shaima Alawadi, murdered Iraqi-American mother, buried in Iraq

According to court documents, Fatima also received a text message while she was being interviewed by investigators, which said, "The detective will find out tell them cnt (can't) talk," said ABC News.

ABC News said Alawadi was called by police in November when they found 17-year-old Fatima having sex with a 21-year-old man in a parked car. Alawadi picked up her daughter, who then jumped out of her mother's car which was moving at 35 mph, said the documents. Fatima was reportedly upset about her pending arranged marriage to a cousin.

A neighbor reported seeing a dark-skinned 20-something man running away from the house around the time of death, leading police to search the home of the man Fatima was found having sex with months earlier, according to ABC News.

MSNBC identified the man as Rawnaq Yacub.

Fatima and Alawadi's husband, Kassim, are reportedly in Iraq, where they traveled for Alawadi's funeral and burial, said MSNBC.

The authorities have insisted that a hate crime was just one of the possibilities in this investigation.

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