Family Asks Sheriff For Answers After Denver Student Found Burned To Death
DENVER (CBS4) - An Arapahoe County family publicly sent a message to the sheriff's office Tuesday asking that they put more resources into the investigation of a family member's death.
Makhmud Chariev died in August. He was found burned to death near his car in Bennett east of Aurora.
So far it's not clear if Chariev killed himself, died by an accident or was a victim of a homicide. Sheriff's officials have said Makhmud Chariev's death was odd, but not suspicious. They say their investigation is open and they are awaiting a coroner's report.
Chariev was a student on Denver's Auraria Campus. He initially attended Metropolitan State University of Denver but then transferred to the University Of Colorado Denver.
His family came to the United States from Kyrgyzstan and are Uighurs, a minority ethnic group. They say Chariev had been bullied in the past and they wonder if that played a role in his death.
"Do you feel someone killed him?" CBS4's Rick Sallinger asked Chariev's aunt Anisa Canaka.
"It's a possibility, and to us it's a big possibility, yes," she said.
"Could he have taken his own life?"
"Let's prove it, otherwise. ... If it has really happened we want to know it happened for sure."
Officials from the Arapahoe County Sheriff's office said part of the reason the investigation is taking a while is they are working to obtain surveillance videotapes from places Chariev may have visited the day he died.