Feds search home in connection with slaying of Iranian student

Law enforcement officers investigate the scene in rural Montgomery County where the FBI arrested the alleged killer of Gelareh Bagherzadeh Thursday, May 22, 2014, in Conroe. Bagherzadeh was shot to death outside her Galleria area town home in January of 2012. less Law enforcement officers investigate the scene in rural Montgomery County where the FBI arrested the alleged killer of Gelareh Bagherzadeh Thursday, May 22, 2014, in Conroe. Bagherzadeh was shot to death ... more Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Feds search home in connection with slaying of Iranian student 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

A 56-year-old Conroe man has been indicted in the mysterious shooting death of Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an outspoken Iranian activist who was killed two years ago outside her parents' affluent Galleria townhouse complex.

A grand jury indicted Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan two weeks ago in the 30-year-old's murder, according to Harris County charging documents released Thursday. A Harris County sheriff's deputy spokesman said he was not in the agency's custody, though he could be with another law enforcement agency.

Bagherzadeh's death shocked Houston's close-knit Iranian community and fueled widespread speculation about whether foreign governments were to blame or if it was an honor killing.

The molecular genetics student had spoken out publicly against the Iranian government and converted to Christianity. In Iran, Christian converts can be executed. Crime Stoppers even offered its biggest award yet - $200,000 - for tips in her slaying.

On Thursday, federal authorities searched a home on Irwin Keel Lane, a dead-end street near Conroe, in connection with Bagherzadeh's slaying. Montgomery County sheriff's spokesman Brady Fitzgerald said his agency is assisting federal investigators in the search.

Several blocks away from the home that was searched, crime scene tape surrounded a house on White Oak Road where one neighbor says a man was taken into custody Thursday morning.

William Orr, a 42-year-old electrician who lived next door, said the man was pulling up to check on the property Thursday morning when agents in special operations garb "swooped in like a SWAT raid with flash grenades and assault rifles."

Orr said he had observed the man acting strangely on the property in recent months, showing up at "all hours of the day and night to walk the perimeter, check the fence line, weird stuff." Orr said he also witnessed the man's son on the property in the middle of the night, doing what looked like "paramilitary training."

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District said FBI agents were in Montgomery County investigating an ongoing federal fraud case. She said in a statement that three people were taken into custody and are expected to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge on Friday.

Bagherzadeh, who had moved to Houston from Tehran to join her parents in 2007, was studying at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

On Jan. 15, 2012, she was driving home from her boyfriend's house when she was fatally shot as she turned into her parents' town home complex in the 800 block of Augusta near Sugar Hill. She was chatting with a friend on the phone, who told police he heard her scream, then her car crash into a garage.

Police say the assailant fired fewer than five bullets at close range through the glass of her passenger window. Her iPhone and a wallet stuffed with credit cards were left untouched.

The car belonged to her father, a renowned chemist embroiled in an ugly patent lawsuit over $20 million.

The mystery deepened 11 months later, in November 2012, when the twin brother of Bagherzadeh's boyfriend was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds inside his northwest Harris County apartment.

Harris County sheriff's deputies would not confirm at the time whether there was a connection between the killings of Bagherzadeh and 28-year-old Coty Beavers. Record show Beavers and Nesreen Ali Irsan applied for a marriage license in 2011.

It was not immediately clear if she was related to Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan.

On Thursday, a Harris County sheriff's deputy spokesman referred all questions in Beavers' killing to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Meanwhile neighbors in the quiet Conroe subdivision which federal officials were searching Thursday said they have complained about hearing what they described as "deep booms" and assault weapons fired from the Irwin Keel Lane property.

They said a double wide trailer and an RV camper could be seen on the 10-acre property, whose residents they said are from Jordan.

Vickie Davis, whose husband is a minister, said she saw two of the residents running along the street near her home around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. She said she believed agents were searching three different locations on the property.

Over the past two years, she said FBI agents have been spotted in the area and that she had seen people in hazmat suits on the property in recent months.