Abdul AzizKhan‘s family had faith that he was out there, somewhere.
But for seven years, they didn’t know where.
“None of us know if he is safe or if he is happy,” his father Abdul Khan said in a 2021 video posted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We’ve been looking for him nonstop.”
Aziz was 7 when he disappeared. As detailed by his father in a 2022 episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Abdul had been awarded primary custody of Aziz after a years-long legal battle with his ex-wife Rabia Khalid, and she was supposed to bring Aziz to an Atlanta courthouse on Nov. 28, 2017, to transfer her son into his father’s care in front of a judge.
Instead, Abdul said in the episode titled “Abducted by a Parent,” Rabia never showed up.
Abdul said in the show he called Aziz’s school and was told they hadn’t seen him since the Friday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 17, and he wasn’t getting any response from Rabia’s family, either.
“Finally we realized that she kidnapped him,” Abdul alleged on Unsolved Mysteries. “That’s what was happening. She kidnapped him and ran.”
Days, weeks and months turned into years. An arrest warrant alleging felony kidnapping was eventually issued for Rabia, but, as Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair acknowledged on Unsolved Mysteries, when his agency joined the investigation in 2020, they were three years behind in the search for Aziz.
However, as Abdul’s sister Rubina Khan said in the episode, if anyone thought they were going to give up looking for Aziz, they were “sorely mistaken.”
And last month, Aziz was found and his mother is in custody. Here’s how it happened:
What happened to Aziz Khan?
Aziz’s parents, Abdul Khan and Rabia Khalid, met attending college in Alabama and then moved to New Orleans, according to what Abdul shared in Unsolved Mysteries. He was a pulmonologist in the intensive care unit at an area hospital and, for a time, Rabia—an epidemiologist with a master’s degree in public health—worked there too.
They separated in April 2014, according to Abdul, who said he “really agreed with her initially” when Rabia wanted to move to Atlanta to be closer to her family. “She made it seem like, ‘Hey, we’re still working on this marriage, ‘let’s try to make this work,'” Abdul said, and he would see Aziz every other weekend.
But after several months, according to Abdul’s sister Rubina, Rabia served him with divorce papers.
Then, Abdul said, Rabia “would put up hindrances and road blocks” to keep him from seeing Aziz, scheduling activities for weekends he was supposed to spend with his son and otherwise tried to “prevent him from seeing me.”
Their divorce was finalized in 2015, according to Abdul, but their custody battle continued as he fought to see Aziz.
Abdul said he arranged for a custody evaluation and, after a year, the evaluators recommended that he get primary custody. Then, according to Abdul and Rabina, Rabia went to court and made criminal abuse allegations against Abdul.
Abdul said he wasn’t allowed to see Aziz as the investigation into Rabia’s allegations played out. The last time he saw his son, he said, was in March of 2016. When they said goodbye, Abdul recalled on Unsolved Mysteries, he thought he’d be seeing Aziz five days later.
The “criminal allegations” against Abdul were dismissed, Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said during a March 5 news conference. “When it appeared that the father was going to get full custody,” the sheriff said, “that is when the mother left with the child.”
Rabia and Elliot both sold their vehicles in the Atlanta area around Thanksgiving 2017 and disappeared, according to a 2022 U.S. Marshals news release, after which Aziz was listed as missing with the Atlanta Police Department.
“They did not show up at work one day, just out of the blue,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Fair told the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2021. “They fell off the map.”
How did Aziz Khan’s family try to look for him?
Abdul said on Unsolved Mysteries that they hired private investigators in Atlanta, New Orleans and various other locations, and that they all ultimately told him he needed to get national law enforcement on the case.
He said some disagreement among local authorities over who had jurisdiction in the matter held up the issuing of a warrant for Rabia’s arrest, but one was finally issued in December 2019 by the Kenner Police Department in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish, according to the 2022 U.S. Marshals release.
Still, the trail had seemingly run cold. In 2021, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shared a software-enhanced photo of what an 11-year-old Aziz might look like, and the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in November 2022.
Abdul told the NCMEC there was “no indication of where they went or how they went there. They deleted their accounts, they shut down their phones and they disappeared.”
Which meant they could be anywhere, Fair noting on Unsolved Mysteries that, if the couple had taken on new identities, they could have new jobs and lines of credit. Or, he speculated, maybe they had help disappearing and were living off of cash.
“When Aziz disappeared, time stopped,” Abdul said on the episode, which premiered almost five years after he was supposed to have been reunited with his son in court. “So to me, he left yesterday.”
Where did authorities find Aziz Khan?
At 3:37 p.m. on Feb. 23, Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of trespassing at a vacant home in Highland Ranch, Colo., according to a March 5 news release from the sheriff’s office. The homeowners had been monitoring the property via security cameras and contacted authorities.
Deputies found two children in a car parked in the driveway of the residence, per the release. The house was listed as for sale and, when a man and woman exited the home, they said they were associated with the realtor. But, the release continued, “their story began to unravel.” Four hours later, authorities had positively identified the pair as Rabia, 40, and Elliot, 42, and determined the older of the two children was now 14-year-old Aziz.
The kids were taken into protective custody, per the release.
Rabia and Elliot were arrested and booked into Douglas County Jail on charges of second-degree kidnapping, forgery, identity theft, providing false information to authorities, and trespassing, according to the sheriff’s office. Each was being held on a $1 million bond.
A preliminary hearing for both is scheduled for March 27, according to prosecutor George Brauchler, attorney for Colorado’s 23rd Judicial District. He said at a March 5 press conference that Rabia faced nine charges and Elliot faced 14. He was being charged with kidnapping while Rabia wasn’t, the district attorney noted, “because one of the nuances of the law is that you cannot kidnap your own child.”
E! News has reached out to the public defender’s office representing Rabia, per NBC News, but has not yet heard back. Attorney information for Elliot wasn’t immediately available. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation is ongoing.
“Our deputies responded to what initially seemed like a routine trespass call, but through sharp attention to detail and tenacity, they uncovered the truth,” Douglas County Sheriff Weekly in a statement. “Their ability to recognize the discrepancies in the suspects’ story and to follow the leads, even when the situation seemed unclear, ultimately led to the safe recovery of a child who had been missing for seven long years.”
The sheriff told reporters March 5 that, when deputies approached the teen, he seemed to have been coached on what to say to members of law enforcement.
U.S. Marshal for Colorado Kirk Taylor said they had looked for Rabia and Elliot in 11 different states and the case “really had gone cold.”
Where is Aziz Khan now?
The sheriff’s office news release said that, after being taken into protective custody, “decisions about where the children will be placed are made by the Court.” (The younger child’s identity is not being released at this time.)
Sheriff Weekly told reporters that the reunification of Aziz with his family was a “transition” for the teen and the process was ongoing.
“I had the privilege of meeting with the family in my office yesterday,” the sheriff said, noting that the boys’ father was in Colorado, “and what I will tell you is there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”
Meanwhile, the Khan family issued a statement saying they were “overwhelmed with joy” that Aziz had been found. They thanked the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and everyone who supported them over the past seven years.
“Now, as we navigate the next steps,” they said, “we ask for privacy so that we can move forward as a family and heal together.”
