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Two other young people are jailed in the killing of 31-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student and businessman Haroon Khan, who was reported missing last Wednesday night.
More details of the case emerged when one of them was charged Monday with aiding a felon.
The body found in a shallow grave Saturday has been identified as that of Khan, Dodge County Sheriff Todd Nehls said.
Travis Zoellick, 20, of Watertown, kidnapped and killed Khan after arranging a meeting to buy his 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, the sheriff said.
“He valued property over life,” the sheriff said. “The intent was never to buy it.”
Khan was last seen by his family when he left his parents’ Mequon home to go his Milwaukee residence near the university to show his car to potential buyers late Wednesday afternoon, relatives said.
He had been expected back at his parents’ house by 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. Wednesday to celebrate the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, but he never showed up.
When family members and friends couldn’t reach him by phone, they went to his residence and found the lights on, door open and his wallet still inside, but the car was gone. They reported him missing.
“It looked like he took (the buyers) for a test drive,” Khan’s brother-in-law, Syed Zaidi, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. “The way things were found, it looked like there (were) no signs of trouble.”
On Friday, two teens tipped authorities that Zoellick had told them of killing a man and burying the body at his father’s property. Officers in the Watertown area then found Khan’s car in a storage unit in southern Dodge County.
Authorities were trying to serve an arrest warrant on Zoellick late Friday night when Zoellick fatally shot himself in the head with a pistol in his bedroom, Nehls said.
Khan’s body was removed from a shallow grave near the storage area Saturday afternoon.
On Monday, 19-year-old Zachary Zaborek of Watertown, who described himself as Zoellick’s best friend, was charged with harboring and aiding a felon.
A 21-year-old Delafield woman is expected to be charged today, the sheriff said.
Zaborek is accused of failing to tell police Zoellick confided to him on Thursday that he had stabbed a man, and with helping Zoellick evade police after that.
“He even told Zachary that the victim had a first name of Haroon, that the victim had asked Zoellick not do this — Haroon had a family. Zachary continued to do nothing,” District Attorney William Bedker said.
The criminal complaint quoted Zaborek as saying Zoellick told him he and the woman pulled a gun on Khan, tied his hands and drove him to a wooded area outside Watertown where Zoellick stabbed him in the stomach, heart, throat and head.
Bedker recommended $100,000 cash bond for Zaborek.
But defense lawyer Michael Witt asked for a signature bond.
“What we have here is a very young man who was confronted unexpectedly with what anyone would characterize as supremely mind-boggling revelations by someone who, he stated himself, he characterizes as his best friend,” Witt said.
The bond for Zaborek was set at $25,000 cash.
Khan’s parents are from Pakistan. He was born and raised in Milwaukee.
He was attending UW-Milwaukee as a full-time student but owned a gas station in Wauwatosa, relatives said.
“He was an extremely loving, hardworking guy,” Khan’s sister, Aisha Zaidi, told the Journal Sentinel. “We all are devastated. The entire Muslim community is devastated. ... He was the kind of person who would never hurt a fly. He was trusting, he was fun, he enjoyed life and he really didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
