Stafford offers $50K reward for slaying info

Samih Sowan

Stafford detectives who are trying to solve a murder that occurred more than a year ago are hoping that $50,000 will jar someone’s memory.

The Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday that an anonymous donor had put up a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the March 1, 2011 slaying of 49-year-old Samih Mustafa Sowan.

Sowan was killed that night in the basement area he rented in a home at 35 Fife St. in Austin Ridge subdivision. He was shot at least twice, once in the head and once in the kneecap.

Sheriff’s spokesman Bill Kennedy said police have been investigating the slaying ever since, but have been unable to come up with enough evidence to make an arrest.

The man Sowan was renting from told police that he went downstairs shortly before 8 p.m. after hearing gunshots. He found Sowan dead on the floor.

Witnesses at the time reported seeing two black males running from the basement area and getting into a four-door, light colored smalll or mid-sized sedan. The vehicle was last seen leaving the area via Courthouse Road.

It was not clear whether the slaying was connected to a May 27, 2010, incident at the same address in which Sowan was beaten with a pipe. After deputies found him bleeding from a head wound that required stitches, Sowan told them he was the victim of an unprovoked attack from a man he’d never seen before.

Police were told that the attacker had knocked on the door and asked for jumper cables. When Sowan told him to go to the front of the house and ask the landlord, the man attacked him with a metal pipe. That case was also never solved.

At the time of his death, Sowan operated a Subway in the area of Augustine subdivision and Rodney Thompson Middle School. He was a native of Jordan and became a United States citizen on Jan. 25, 2010. Two months later, court records show, he legally changed his name from Samih Mustafa Ibrahim.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 658-4410 or Crime Solvers at 659-2020.

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2012/08/14/stafford-offers-50k-reward-for-slaying-info/