Family demands police continue searching landfill for son’s body

The parents of homicide victim Ahmed Hasheem Ebrahim are demanding the Fairfax County Police Department continue searching for their son’s body in a landfill.

Ebrahim, age 20, was reported missing on Jan. 17 and was murdered on Jan. 16. Police charged Joel Antonio Sarabia, 20, of Fairfax, with first-degree murder. A 17-year-old accomplice was charged with robbery resulting in death and concealment of a dead body.

According to police, Sarabia and the juvenile knew Ebrahim (known as Kareem) and plotted to rob him. Sarabia shot Ebrahim as he sat in his car in the 6200 block of Lachine Lane in Lincolnia. The pair then drove Ebrahim’s car left the body in a dumpster in the 3700 block of N. Rosser Street in Bailey’s Crossroads.

The body is buried under a mountain of trash at a landfill in King George, Va. The FCPD spent six weeks attempting to recover the body but stopped the search on April 8.

At a press conference May 12 hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Hasheem Ebrahim, the victim’s father, urged the police to resume the search.

“The family has been through a lot. They lost their son. All they’re asking for right now is some closure and to give their son a proper burial,” said Mohamed Seifeldein, the family’s attorney.

On the last day of the search, the FCPD told Hasheem Ebrahim there were 1,400 tons of material covering the area where the remains are expected to be located. On the last day of the search, the police were only able to go through five tons.

When he asked why the search he stopped, he was told “they have issues with resources and manpower.” According to Hasheem, Police Chief Kevin Davis was initially helpful, then stopped responding to calls and texts.

The FCPD spent over $350,000 on the search. “This was an enormous undertaking,” Davis said in a video statement. The search warrant expired on April 8 and the FCPD did not renew it because the search effort had been exhausted. “We left no space unexamined in the area where we had the slim possibility of locating Kareem.”

“After removing 28,000 tons of overburden refuse material from the identified site, 50 FCPD employees worked an average of 8 hours per day processing 6,400 tons of refuse by hand. Over 4,000 work hours were dedicated during this labor-intensive manual inspection phase to search for Kareem,” Davis wrote in a letter to CAIR May 5.

“Despite an industry standard of just a 3 percent recovery rate, our efforts on behalf of the family and community were unwavering,” the letter states. “At the conclusion of our search, we were sadly unable to recover Kareem and return him home for a proper burial.”

“If resources or money is an issue, the family will, with the support of the community, be able to continue the search,” Seifeldein said. But the police department has not responded to that request.

The waste management company that operates the landfill agreed to temporarily halt dumping in the area where the body is presumed to be. They agreed to cooperate with the police only, but not with the family.

Seifeldein suggested if the police do not resume the search, the family could file a civil claim to enjoin the waste management from adding more trash to the site or let the family bring in a private company to conduct a search. But that would be time-consuming and costly.

“The most feasible and viable way forward is for the police to come back and continue the search,” he said.

“The suffering of this family has gone on for far too long,” said family friend and community advocate Omer Reshid. “This has been a never-ending grief with no closure in sight for this family.”