Tri-Cities newlyweds were likely dead for weeks while an adult son lied to family, friends
Hifza Khan’s daughters knew something was wrong when their mother stopped texting and calling them.
Their 63-year-old mom used to contact Sana and Nida Khan constantly even before she remarried and moved to the Tri-Cities from California last January.
So when the women, who live thousands of miles away, suddenly stopped hearing from her on Sept. 21, they worried.
They grew more frightened as days stretched into weeks without hearing a word from her or her new husband Nabil Mohamed, 65.
The only person they managed to reach was Mohamed’s son, Zuhaib, 26, who lived with the Kennewick newlyweds.
For nearly a month, Zuhaib lied to Khan’s daughters, his neighbors and his sister about where the couple was, according to a search warrant application recently released to the Tri-City Herald as a public record.
By the time Kennewick police felt they had enough evidence for a warrant to search the home, they found three bodies.
But questions linger about what happened to drive a young Kennewick man who had started his own business and was studying economics in college to kill his father and new wife — likely weeks earlier — and then to turn the gun on himself.
Two months later, frustration over the disappearance of their mother for weeks before authorities could act still weighs heavily.
“I cannot sleep at night,” Sana Khan, from Toronto, Canada, recently told the Herald. “We could not even see her. She was delivered in a body bag.”
A happy couple
By all accounts, Nabil Mohamed and Hifza Khan were a happy couple. Nabil had retired after a career in agricultural engineering in Idaho, Oregon and Richland.
He and his first wife, Nabil Munazza, bought the Dawes Street home in 2012, moving to the city from Oregon with their son, Zuhaib, and daughter, Anam Jabeen.
About six years later in 2018, Mohamed lost his first wife to brain cancer, according to her obituary.
When he met Hifza Khan online four years later, they hit it off. She was a retired aesthetician from Riverside, Calif., whose first husband died 10 years earlier from pancreatic cancer.
According to both of her daughters, they were happy and made plans to marry. Initially, her daughters hoped she would wait a while since one of them was expecting a baby soon.
But Mohamed pushed to get married quickly because he was lonely and wanted company, Hifza’s daughters told the Herald. They married in January 2023.
The daughters said their mother didn’t know that Mohamed’s adult son lived with him or the fact that Zuhaib spent most of his time secluded in his room in the four-bedroom, nearly 4,000-square-foot home at 2809 S. Dawes St.
But she made the best of the situation, her daughters said. Hifza left food for Zuhaib on the kitchen table, and he ate when no one was around.
“My mom was a very loving, funny positive person,” Sana Khan said. “If we had any problem, she would say it would work out. .... My mom was a very good woman.”
While Zuhaib’s behavior was strange, Hifza never complained to her daughters about him in the eight months she lived there.
Delta High grad
Zuhaib was born in Boise, Idaho, and his family moved to the Tri-Cities when he was about a year old.
He applied and was chosen to attend Delta High School in Pasco starting in 2011. The small public school takes a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) approach in all of its teachings.
He posted on his Facebook page in 2014 and 2015 about his work with the school’s Key Club, a service group connected with the Kiwanis Club. Pictures shared by friends showed a smiling teen.
He had an internship at Total Care Clinics starting in 2014 and then worked as a part-time nutrition specialist. Zuhaib also helped start an online business that purchased “luxury products” to be resold. GentLux.com has since closed down.
He also worked part time at Richland-based HiLine Engineering and Fabrication until November 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.
After graduating high school, he started taking classes at Washington State University Tri-Cities. He attended for about two years with a declared major in economics.
But based on his social media accounts Zuhaib’s life seemed to change in 2018 — the same year his mother died of cancer. His LinkedIn profile shows he stopped working at his part-time jobs clearing tables at Anthony’s restaurant and working at Bush Car Wash in May that year.
Hifza’s daughters were told Zuhaib was working online from home at night, but they didn’t know what he did. Later, based on the number of alcohol bottles found in his bedroom, they believe he suffered from alcohol addiction.
Couple goes missing
Sana and Nida Khan, who lives in Riverside, Calif., told the Herald they knew something was wrong when they couldn’t reach their mother. Neither woman lived close.
Sana Khan and her husband discovered that her mother’s phone was shut off on Sept. 24, and on Sept. 27 they found that Nabil Mohamed’s phone also wasn’t working.
And they later learned that Nabil and Hifza also weren’t showing up to meetings with friends or at church.
A long-time hunting partner later told police that Nabil was supposed to have lunch with the couple on Sept. 23.
Nabil confirmed the plans just five days earlier and his friend said Nabil would have let him know if something had changed.
Hifza’s daughter now believes the couple was likely already dead by then. Their bodies were found Oct. 17. Both had been shot in their bedroom.
Police have not confirmed that Zuhaib was responsible for the shooting, but it appeared the couple had been dead for weeks before police entered the house, the daughters were told.
Police reports show the couple also missed a dinner with members of the Islamic Center of Tri-Cities on Sept. 25. Sadik Reka with the center told police that was very out of the ordinary for them.
Frantic with worry, Sana Khan searched for information about Zuhaib, whom they’d never met. She found his email address and sent him a message on Sept. 27.
He answered that her mom and his dad “brought up a trip” and he hadn’t seen them for a couple of days.
“Nabil (my dad) does this a lot, so I’m not surprised I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days,” Zuhaib wrote in his email reply.
Nabil Mohamed was an active hunter and outdoorsman who liked to scout for new locations. But, according to family members, he was normally gone for only a week.
“In the beginning I believed (Zuhaib),” Sana Khan told the Herald. “He knew I was in panic mode.”
They switched to texting him, and a message Zuhaib Mohamed sent on Sept. 30 made Sana and Nida Khan realize something was wrong.
“Caught my dad as I headed to work today. Hifza was in the bathroom, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her,” Zuhaib texted.
The women knew that if their mother was back home, she would have turned her phone on and messaged one of them.
It was during that text exchange that Zuhaib started using the lie that would stall police, friends and family for weeks.
“Nabil said they’re going scouting and hunting till the end of elk season (halfway through Nov.) unless they get something first,” according to Zuhaib’s text messages included in a search warrant application.
“Why is their phone off?” Sana Khan replied. “That’s so unusual of my mom.”
Zuhaib responded: “Completely forgot to ask that. It was normal for my dad so I forgot to bring it up. I’ll probably run into ... them another time soon.”
After that, Sana Khan started calling Kennewick police, asking for a welfare check on her mom. But every time officers went to the house, no one answered the door and there was no reason to believe anyone was in immediate danger.
Sana Khan sent Zuhaib another text Oct. 4 asking for any update. That time his response was short.
“I told the police the same as what I told you, so I will let you know if I run into them in the coming weeks. I also let the officer know I will keep you updated,” he wrote.
She reached out to him again the week before he was found dead Oct. 17.
“Let me get back to you soon and let you know where they said they went,” Zuhaib replied. “I left a note on their bedroom door and I checked for the car. ... Don’t worry I’m staying vigilant.”
The conversation continued with Sana Khan explaining that her mother is their only parent left, and that they aren’t used to going that long without hearing from her.
“I’m just a bit taken aback by all this and a bit startled by the police and community involvement but this is obviously a serious issue for you,” Zuhaib responded.
At the end of the conversation, Sana Khan promised she wouldn’t contact him again once she heard from her mom. She told him she felt bad sending all text messages.
“No need to worry about me, your mother is giving you enough stress,” he responded. “I’m also the only person living in that house that is texting you back. I’ll talk to you soon.”
He also told her to stop messaging his sister, Anam Jabeen, who lives in Richland.
“She doesn’t live with us for a long time, and you are affecting her seriously. Please keep contact through me so wires stop getting crossed,” he texted.
Their last exchange happened a week before police went inside. In it Zuhaib said he was in the process of giving information to the police.
Kennewick police investigation
Sana Khan called Kennewick police with her concerns several times. A report on Oct. 9 was the first one included in the search warrant application written by Kennewick Detective Elizabeth Grant, which included reports from other officers who helped investigate the couple’s disappearance.
That day, an officer went to the Dawes Street home but no one answered the door.
The next day detectives learned that the couple also missed a dinner with members of the Islamic center in West Richland.
On Oct. 12, another officer tried knocking on the couple’s door but there was no response. He also called Zuhaib’s sister.
She said the last time she spoke with her father was on Sept. 6. And after talking with officers on Oct. 12, she filed a missing person’s report.
Officers returned to the Dawes Street home on Oct. 13 but there still was no answer. And there was no answer when they called Zuhaib’s cellphone.
“The grass was long and appeared to not have been cut in several weeks,” the officer wrote. “This seemed out of place because the rest of the lawns in the neighborhood were well-managed.”
And neighbors confirmed the couple normally took care of their yard, flowers and vegetable garden.
Police also learned that Zuhaib had gone door to door in recent days, telling neighbors his parents had gone hunting in case they wondered where they were. For some of the neighbors, it was the first time they’d ever seen Zuhaib.
Police also decided to search traffic camera footage to look for Nabil’s car. It was last spotted on area cameras on Sept. 18, said the report.
Two days before search
On Oct. 15, Kennewick police met with Nabil’s daughter, Jabeen, outside the Dawes Street home in what became one of the last times anyone spoke with Zuhaib.
She told officers she had gotten permission from her brother to go inside.
“I believe Zuhaib is adamant law enforcement do not enter his residence do to Zuhaib currently having a warrant for his arrest out of the Richland Police Department,” Officer Alex Holden said in a report.
Kennewick Police Commander Aaron Clem later told the Herald that misdemeanor warrant for first-degree negligent driving wasn’t enough cause for officers to go inside to arrest Zuhaib.
Jabeen went into the house, and she put the call on speakerphone so that Officer Holden could ask Zuhaib to let police come inside to investigate his father’s and stepmother’s disappearance.
Zuhaib refused, saying he didn’t trust police.
“Initially, law enforcement personnel set-up containment around 2809 S Dawes St. with the intention of obtaining a search warrant for the residence to enter and arrest Zuhaib,” Holden wrote at the time.
But in the end, police said there were several reasons they didn’t immediately force their way in, including that Zuhaib had access to several rifles and had been uncooperative with police.
Also, his sister told police she didn’t notice anything suspicious inside, and she saw that her father’s Honda Pilot was missing from the garage.
Jabeen told investigators her brother is “acting very paranoid” and she thought it strange that he said that her dad had left instructions not to contact park rangers if he was overdue returning from hunting until the end of the season, according to the search warrant application.
Grisly discovery
Investigators believed they had enough reasonable cause to ask a judge to allow them to search the house.
During that time, police confirmed that both Nabil Mohamed and Hifza Khan’s phones were off and that the phones hadn’t left the house from Sept. 20 to Sept. 25.
In addition, Kennewick police found Nabil’s Honda parked on Harrison Street, several blocks away from the house.
Two days after Jabeen had gone into the house, officers and the Tri-City Regional SWAT team arrived with the warrant on Oct. 17.
Zuhaib didn’t respond to calls or open the door. It’s not clear if he was alive at that point.
But after several hours, Kennewick police forced their way inside and found all three dead.
Hifza was still in the bedroom where she’d been shot in the head. Nabil also was shot in the head and his body had been dragged into the living room, Hifza’s daughters were told.
It’s unclear where Zuhaib was found.
The Benton County Coroner’s Office confirmed to the Herald that the deaths have been ruled a double homicide and suicide.
Hifza’s daughters said all they can do now is speculate that Zuhaib didn’t like that his father had gotten remarried.
Two months later, they remain haunted by their mother’s death and frustrated by how long it took to find her.
“I keep my lights on all the time,” Nida Khan said. “She was so innocent.”
