US violence: Suspected stalker kills couple before committing suicide in Redmond

REDMOND (Washington, US), March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A suspected stalker killed a couple before committing suicide in Redmond of the US state of Washington early Friday morning, police said.

Officers found a man with a gunshot wound in the house. He died at the scene. A woman was also killed inside the house, and the suspect was located with a “self-inflicted gunshot wound” in the main bedroom, said Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe.

Investigators say the suspect gained access to the couple’s home by breaking in through a bedroom window in the 16700 block of Northeast 89th Street.

The murder victims are 33-year-old Zohre Sadeghi and her husband, 35-year-old Mohammed Milad Naseri. Sadeghi’s mother, who lives at the home, encountered the suspect and somehow managed to escape without injury and called the police, according to Lowe.

The suspect, identified by the Redmond Police Department as Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, 38, had been the subject of a misdemeanor stalking investigation after Sadeghi filed a no-contact order against him.

Redmond investigators said Khodakaramrezaei became obsessed with Sadeghi who had a podcast-style social media account. It led to a stalking case that ended in the “worst possible outcome,” said Police Chief Darrell Lowe.

Sadeghi was a software engineer, according to several social media platforms. She also ran a live podcast-style chat account on the platform Clubhouse.

“The suspect and victim met via a podcast type of chat app that was specifically for Farsi speaking individuals seeking employment in the tech industry,” Lowe said.

When the situation escalated from conversation to stalking and harassment, the couple got a protection order. That document was filed last week on March 3.

In the petition for the protection order, the victim shared her fears, saying:

“Messages to me have been the cause of anxiety and insomnia for me. They include him crying and begging for me to pick up, him threatening to burn himself and the tree in front of my house.”

She later writes, “Mr. Khodakaramrezaei has bursts of anger and is completely delusional. These delusions make me fear for my life and the lives of my loved ones… he has always said the only way he would stop contacting me is if he died… that he won’t let me go.”

The murders happened just one week after the petition order was filed.

Khodakaramrezaei was a truck driver. He listened to the woman’s podcasts. They had met on the app Clubhouse, which allows users to talk over audio chat rooms, according to a report by The Seattle Times.

Sadeghi originally contacted Redmond police in December 2022 and again in January after the suspect’s actions intensified. A temporary order of protection was signed on March 3, and a hearing was set to occur on March 17, the report said. — NNN-AGENCIES