Imran Shahbaz, 44, was working a night shift as a taxi driver in Milwaukee on October 2, 2021, when he was reported missing while on a run that began with a pickup at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station shortly before 10 p.m. He was on the phone with a friend and said he was taking a passenger to North 18th Street; the call disconnected and Shahbaz’s body was later found in an alley in the 1800 block of West Walnut Street. He had been shot to death.

His Yellow Cab was discovered hours later burning in a church parking lot near 60th and Silver Spring, about five miles from where his body was found. Shahbaz was a husband and father of three children in Pakistan and had driven taxis in Milwaukee for more than a decade; friends said he was humble, kind, and hardworking and had been a professional hockey player in Pakistan before coming to the U.S.

Police released surveillance images of the last passenger and identified that person as the primary suspect. Investigators linked the case to 28-year-old Joshua M. Sanders, who was already in custody in Georgia awaiting trial on other killings; Milwaukee charged Sanders with first-degree intentional homicide in Shahbaz’s death, alleging he shot Shahbaz twice in the head during a robbery. Did anyone who knew Shahbaz or who was in the North 18th Street area that night see the cab or the passenger?