John Jefferson
Background: Surveillance footage allegedly of Bobby Singh Shah (Houston Police). Inset top: Muna Pandey (GoFundMe). Inset bottom: Bobby Singh Shah (Houston Police).
A 51-year-old man is behind bars for the alleged murder of a 21-year-old nursing student in Texas.
Muna Pandey was found shot to death in her Houston apartment on Monday, and Houston Police had asked for the public’s help in identifying the man seen on surveillance footage apparently forcing Pandey at gunpoint into her home.
The call for help may have hastened the arrest. According to local NBC affiliate KPRC. On Wednesday, a restaurant owner where Pandey used to work told police that someone else had said they recognized Shah as a “consistent patron” of the restaurant, KPRC reported. That man had reportedly been in talks with Shah about starting a business, and provided the suspect’s driver’s license and cellphone number to authorities.
Another tipster had called police to tell them she had met Shah on a so-called “Sugar Daddy” website in 2012 and knew him as “Bobby Shah,” the KPRC story said. She added that she recognized him on the surveillance footage “instantly.”
Shah was arrested two after the surveillance image was released.
“Shah was located and arrested on Wednesday evening during a traffic stop in northwest Houston in a coordinated effort by HPD SWAT officers, the HPD Crime Reduction Unit and the Texas Department of Public Safety,” police said in a statement.
Pandey was apparently discovered at around 5:45 p.m. on Aug. 26 by a friend. According to KPRC, citing police records, the nursing student was found lying in her bed with multiple gunshot wounds to her body, as well as a single gunshot wound to her head.
Authorities believe she may have been killed days earlier.
Police say that Pandey’s security footage from near her apartment showed Pandey and Shah approaching her apartment door at around 8:40 p.m. on Saturday, KPRC reported. Pandey was seen holding a shoe box, a shopping bag, and a black jacket and purse, while Shah was seen holding a black pistol.
He reportedly ordered her to open the door multiple times.
“What are you going to do?” Pandey can be heard asking on the video, according to the KPRC report. Shah apparently responded by racking the gun and telling her again to open the door. Shah is then allegedly seen pushing Pandey and locking the door behind them.
Police say that Shah is seen on the footage leaving the apartment about an hour later. A neighbor reported hearing “loud thumping” between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., KPRC reported.
The apartment building’s leasing office reportedly had received an anonymous phone call from a “clear” male voice saying that there was a “dead body.”
There were no signs of forced entry, and authorities believe the accused and the victim might have known each other, Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reported.
Pandey is originally from Nepal and was attending Houston Community College. Friends told KHOU they were shocked to hear of her violent death.
“She came to this country for a better opportunity and she was thriving and she had a whole future ahead of her,” Pandey’s friend Tonantzin Rodriguez said. “We don’t know what caused him to do this action — but we want justice for her memory and for all the women who die violently.”
Drona Gautam, of the Nepalese Association of Houston, told KHOU that the victim’s mother had desperately been trying to reach Pandey, her only child.
“What mom said is her phone was always online. After Saturday night, phone was offline,” Gautam said.
An order denying bond said that, based on surveillance video obtained from Pandey’s apartment, Shah “accosted [her] with a gun[,] forced her into her apartment[,] killed her and took her phone.”
A GoFundMe has been set up to help with costs of the funeral and to bring Pandey’s only family, her mother Anita Adhikari, to Texas to bury her daughter.
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