What we know about Abdul Aziz Khan, child from “unresolved secrets”, who was missing after 7 years

Over seven years ago, 7-year-old Abdul Aziz Khan disappeared together with his mother without trace from Atlanta, Georgia, how she and his father were in the middle of a controversial custody battle.

His fatherly family qualified when he was looking for the child known as Aziz when the authorities started a spacious search in 11 states.

This painful search came to an end last month when Aziz was about 1,400 miles away in Douglas County, Colorado.

His mother Rabia Khalid and her husband Elliot Blake Bourgeois were arrested for crimes, including kidnapping.

We know the following about his disappearance and recovery:

When is Aziz missing?

Abdul Aziz Khan was 7 years old when he was kidnapped by his mother Rabia Khalid by his mother in Atlanta on November 27, 2017.

His father Abdul Khan and his mother Khalid separated in 2014 and divided custody for the child.

After the separation, Khalid and her son from New Orleans, Louisiana, moved to Atlanta to get a new job. Abdul regularly traveled to Atlanta to see his son and brought him back to New Orleans, according to the National Center for Most Period and exploited.

Khalid and Khan were in the middle of a controversial custody battle in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, disappearing around Aziz’s time. According to the US marshals, Khalid allegedly refused to work with guidelines from the court.

In the custody case, Khalid had raised some “criminal allegations” against Aziz’s father, said Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly in a press conference on Wednesday. He said these allegations were released.

“When it seemed as if the father got full custody, the mother went with the child,” said Weekly.

Khalid and her new husband Elliot Blake Bourgeois sold their vehicles in the Atlanta area and disappeared around Thanksgiving 2017.

In December 2019, Kenner, Louisiana, the police authority for Khalid, issued an arrest warrant because he had kidnapped her son after the efforts around Aziz had proven to be unsuccessful. The US marshals have taken the case 2020.

Aziz ‘story was the topic of a Netflix episode “Unresolved Mysteries” in 2022.

How was Aziz found?

Aziz was found on February 23 in Douglas County, Colorado.

The MPs were sent to a house in the Highlands Ranch to examine an ongoing break -in. The owner of a house that was offered free and for sale reported that a woman and a man illegally enter property, which was recorded by monitoring surveillance cameras.

The MPs arrived and found two children in a parked vehicle in the entrance. Shortly afterwards, the man and the woman left the house, which claimed to be associated with a broker.

However, the deputies found “inconsistencies” with the history of the duo. The authorities described the couple as “very nervous”, said they had given false identities and “stories that did not add up”.

After about five hours, their stories dissolved.

Angeline Hartmann from the national center for missing and exploited children informed NBC News that the sheriff’s office had brought a portable fingerprint scanner to the scene in order to ultimately identify Khalid.

The MPs then found that Khalid had an active arrest warrant against kidnapping and identified the older child on site as Aziz.

Khalid and Elliot Blake Bourgeois (42) were arrested and booked into the prison of Douglas County because of the kidnapping second degree, fake, identity theft, the provision of false information for the authorities and rethinking the district prison second degree. The bond was set at 1 million US dollars.

It is not clear why they landed in Colorado and how long they had been in the state.

The police have not disclosed the relationship with the other child.

Weekly said when the investigators spoke to the couple, the children went to the house of a neighbor, where they got food and television.

The reunification process

Sheriff Weekly said that on Tuesday he met for about an hour with Aziz ‘fatherly family, where they explained the story of how the boy was missing.

“Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting the family in my office and I will tell you that it wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” said Weekly.

He noticed that Aziz’s father is in Colorado but has not yet met his son. The father told the sheriff that he hadn’t seen his son for nine years.

Hartmann, Anyone who was in contact with the family said Aziz ‘Mother had not let the child see the child in the middle of the custody battle for about a year and a half.

“This is the only life that Aziz knew. It will take some time. They are baby steps to get up to this point, and there is only a lot of work for this reunification, ”said Weekly. “We hope that in the days, weeks, months and even years before you will find healing and hope.”

The family published an explanation about the Sheriff’s office: “We are overwhelmed by joy that Aziz has finally found.”

“We would like to thank everyone for their support in the past seven years. We would like to expressly recognize the Sheriff office of Douglas County for her extraordinary work when solving this case. Now, while we navigate the next steps, we ask for privacy so that we can go forward as a family and heal together. “

Hartmann The family was grateful that Aziz was found and they did not expect it to take seven years to find it.

“You are still stunned. They still process a lot of things – what happened where they were, they still try to find out what Aziz went through, ”she said. She added that reunification is a process that takes time, especially when Aziz was missing for about half of his life.

Where the examination is now

The Douglas County’s sheriff office said it was unclear what the couple did in this house that was for sale.

Weekly said that the MPs had carried out a search command in Aurora, Colorado, where the couple lived.

When asked whether Aziz knew that he was kidnapped, Weekly said: “When the MPs contacted the child in an entrance, the child immediately called the two people. So we believe that the child was actually trained on what he should say if the law enforcement authorities came into contact.”

It is unclear whether Aziz lived in Colorado and attended school under his real name.

He said that several identifications were discovered in the vehicle in which the children were found and were examined.

The sheriff found that both children in the car “seemed to be healthy” and both were taken into protective custody.

Khalid and Bourgeois have defined preliminary hearings for March 27th in front of Douglas in front of the County Court.

District Prosecutor George Brauchler informed the reporters on Wednesday that Bourgeois is 14 charges and Khalid Nine is exposed to. He noticed that Bourgeois is charged with kidnapping and that Khalid does not “because one of the nuances of the law is that they cannot kidnap their own child.”

The authorities ask everyone to contact Metro Denver Crime Stopper at 720-913 stop (7867) with knowledge of the case and Aziz’s whereabouts in the past seven years.