In the winter of 2015, a 30-year-old nurse named Mahfuza Rahman, a native of Bangladesh, disappeared from her home in the Bronx, New York. She was a dedicated mother to her 9-year-old daughter and was furthering her education to obtain a bachelor's degree in nursing from Hunter College while working at Bellevue Hospital. The last confirmed sighting of Mahfuza was on December 8, 2015, after she left her job at the hospital. Surveillance footage captured her leaving the subway station near her residence on East 198th Street, but she was never seen or heard from again. Her absence was first noted when she failed to report for her shift at the hospital on December 10th.
Concerned for her well-being, Mahfuza's colleagues at Bellevue Hospital contacted her husband, Mohammad Chowdhury, who offered a troubling explanation for her absence. He claimed that Mahfuza had to rush back to her native Bangladesh because her parents had been in a serious car accident.
Chowdhury's story, however, was inconsistent. He later told hospital police who visited their home on December 14th that she had just left that morning and would return in March. A few days after Mahfuza was last seen, her husband and their young daughter also traveled to Bangladesh. When March arrived and Mahfuza did not return to work as her husband had promised, the hospital officially reported her as a missing person to the New York City Police Department, nearly three months after she was last seen. The subsequent investigation uncovered a series of suspicious circumstances that pointed towards a more sinister reason for her disappearance.
The investigation into Mahfuza Rahman's disappearance quickly revealed that her husband's account of her sudden trip to Bangladesh was false. Authorities confirmed that there was no record of Mahfuza leaving the United States, and her passport, wallet, and credit cards were all discovered inside her home. Furthermore, her parents in Bangladesh were unharmed and had not been in any accident; they had not heard from their daughter since the day before she went missing. The police investigation of the family's home revealed a flooded basement from a broken pipe, freshly painted walls, and a newly poured concrete patio, all of which raised suspicion. Despite digging up the patio, no evidence was found. Financial records showed that on the morning of December 10, just hours after Mahfuza was last seen, her husband purchased a 16-inch camping ax and packing tape. The culmination of these findings led authorities to believe that Mahfuza had met with foul play, and her husband, Mohammad Chowdhury, became the primary suspect in her disappearance. However, with Chowdhury remaining in Bangladesh, a country with no extradition treaty with the United States, the case has remained in a state of limbo, leaving Mahfuza's loved ones without answers and her fate unknown.Last Seen: Dec 8, 2015
