New details emerge in slaying of Iranian student

About 45 minutes after an Iranian student was gunned down in the driveway of her parents' Galleria townhome, state troopers stopped a newer-model silver Toyota resembling the description of a car which witnesses said they saw fleeing the complex that night in January 2012.

Ali Irsan, 56, was driving the car and was accompanied by his wife, an investigator testified in a separate federal fraud case Thursday. Irsan, his wife, 37-year-old Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, and his daughter, 30-year-old Nadia Irsan, are accused of stealing money from the U.S. government through filing bogus benefit claims for nearly two decades.

But in an indictment unsealed last week Ali Irsan is also accused of killing Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a 30-year-old outspoken Christian convert who was friends with Irsan's daughters.

Bagherzadeh's slaying captured national attention and fueled widespread rumors that the Iranian government had been involved or that it was an honor killing.

It's taken two years for investigators to hold anyone in Bagherzadeh's death. But less than an hour after she was killed, Irsan and Alrawabdeh were stopped going north on Interstate 45.

"They were both together within 45 minutes after the murder of Gelareh, both going from Houston, where the murder took place, to Conroe, where they lived," said Gary Dickens, an investigator with the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Troopers did not search their car, Dickens said, and it was not immediately clear why the couple was stopped.

Federal prosecutors allege that the father, his wife, and his daughter stole money, including Social Security and food stamps, while hiding cash in various bank accounts in Texas, in Irsan's native Jordan, and in his Conroe attic.

On Thursday U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Johnson ordered Irsan remain in custody without bond. A hearing for Alrawabdeh and Nadia Irsan is scheduled for Monday.

In his testimony, Dickens revealed that Nadia Irsan had romantic feelings for Bagherzadeh's boyfriend, Cory Beavers. Beavers was the identical twin of Coty Beavers, who was married to Nadia Irsan's sister, Nesreen.

Relatives have said Bagherzadeh and the two Irsan sisters attended class together at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. But when Nesreen Irsan eloped with Coty Beavers, and Bagherzadeh began dating his twin brother, Nadia Irsan stopped attending school and speaking to her sister or Bagherzadeh.

Around the same time federal prosecutors say Nesreen Irsan filed a protective order against her father, but he violated it multiple times by canvassing the Spring neighborhood where she lived with Beavers. He posted fliers emblazoned with Beavers' photograph and offered a $100 reward for information on the couple's whereabouts.

Relatives have said the strict Muslim father who home-schooled his children was angry that his daughter married a Christian man of whom he did not approve. He blamed Beavers and Bagherzadeh, they said.

Eleven months after Bagherzadeh was killed, Coty Beavers was found dead, shot multiple times in the Northwest Harris County apartment he shared with Irsan's daughter. He told relatives and friends that if he was ever found dead, Irsan was to blame.

In court and in a lengthy complaint detailing the fraud allegations, federal prosecutors say Irsan is also a suspect in his son-in-law's death. But he has not been charged in the slaying.

The father killed another son-in-law in 1999, though the Montgomery County District Attorney's office ruled it was self-defense and did not press charges.

In that incident, Irsan shot dead 29-year-old Amjad Alidam with a 12-gauge shotgun. He said his son-in-law was abusing his daughter and had threatened him and his family. After the slaying, that daughter fled to Jordan, relatives have said.

On Thursday Assistant U.S. Attorney James McAlister said Irsan is a flight risk as he holds multiple credit cards in various names and has family in Jordan, which he visits frequently. He poses a danger if allowed free on bond, the prosecutor said.

"Investigators believe (Irsan) tracked down Coty Beavers, and killed him, and he tracked down Gelareh Bagherzadeh," McAlister said. "If he perceived them as a threat then he would be more than willing to cause injury to or intimidate other witnesses in this case."

Houston Chronicle