Police Retrace Victim’s Steps
Last updated: March 29, 2009

HOUSTON: To many on the outside, the disappearance of 25- year-old Mohammed U. Marfani seemed like another crime mystery. The University of Houston student was reported missing after leaving a nightclub near downtown earlier this month. Nearly two weeks later, he was found a few blocks away, dead in a sport utility vehicle that was partially burned inside. But on Thursday, the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death was accidental and caused by smoke inhalation.

Police ruled out foul play in his disappearance. Why he was in the SUV, which did not belong to him, and how the fire started are questions his family can’t answer. “Anything’s possible at this point,” said Marfani’s brother, Rizwan Marfani. Marfani’s family said he was last heard from March 6. The thirdyear nutrition student called his mother about 8:30 p.m., told her he was leaving school and would be back at their Sugar Land home in about 30 minutes. He never arrived.

His family reported him missing to Houston and Sugar Land police. He had gone that night to a bar in the 2400 block of San Jacinto. Transactions on a credit card he was using had been made at the club that night, and friends said they were with him there. Also, a surveillance camera at the club “showed he appeared to be intoxicated,” said John Cannon, a Houston police spokesman.

Sugar Land police investigators, who also reviewed the tape, said it showed him sitting alone on the curb outside the club, and then he stood and walked away. Nothing in the tape, police said, suggests foul play. A few days after Marfani was reported missing, volunteers with Texas EquuSearch began looking for him. The effort was suspended the next day, however, because they had no clues to his whereabouts. Also, police discovered that Marfani was wanted in Fort Bend County on warrants issued after he missed a court appearance March 9.

He was arrested for burglary last year, police said. Marfani’s body was found Tuesday in the driver’s seat of a dark green Ford Explorer parked at the curb in the 2200 block of Austin, a few blocks from the nightclub, police said. The SUV’s owner and her friend discovered the body when they opened the door to retrieve something inside, police said.

The driver’s seat was largely undamaged, but the passenger seat was burned to the springs, and plastic parts around the door frame were melted. The charred remnants of a booklet or manual were on the passenger seat. The body apparently went unnoticed for some time because the SUV’s windows were blackened by smoke. The owner had parked the SUV on the street several weeks ago in front of an auto repair shop where she wanted to have it repaired. Police initially said they did not suspect foul play and believed Marfani had voluntarily disappeared. Yet, his family said he had been making his scheduled court appearances for a year and was not concerned about the March 9 hearing.

He had not seemed depressed in the days before his disappearance, Rizwan Marfani said. “I’ve always said it was a coincidence that he left when he had a court date and that something wasn’t right,” his brother said. “It definitely needs to be investigated further.”