A car owned by Haroon Khan and a skidloader believed to have been used to bury his body are impounded Saturday.
WATERTOWN — The Dodge County Sheriff's office Saturday unearthed from a shallow grave the body of what appears to be a 31-year-old UW-Milwaukee student missing since Wednesday and confirmed the suicide Friday night of a 20-year-old Watertown man implicated in the man's death.
Though Sheriff Todd Nehls said the body found at 2 p.m. Saturday in a brushy area on a 20-acre parcel north of Watertown has not yet been identified, the family of Haroon Khan issued a statement Saturday night saying he had been killed.
Authorities also recovered a silver vehicle believed to belong to Khan in a storage unit near the grave after a tip Friday. Authorities also drained two ponds on the rural property Saturday, looking for evidence in the slaying, and impounded a skid-loader believed to have been used to bury the victim.
The 20-year-old Watertown man shot and killed himself late Friday as authorities approached his home after executing a series of search warrants in Watertown and in the Dodge County town of Emmet, where the buried body was found, Nehls said.
Two other suspects, a 20-year-old woman from Delafield, and a 20-year-old man from Watertown, were in custody and cooperating, Nehls said. The man who shot himself was the son of the couple who own the 20 acres, the storage unit, the skid-loader and other buildings on the property, which is on Highway M and Boulder Road, authorities said.
Police did not release his name, but the property is registered to Todd and Tammy Zoellick of Watertown, who have a son Travis. Neighbors who did not wish to be identified said the family, who live in Watertown, were building a duplex on another corner of the property for themselves. The skid-loader was impounded from that construction site.
Khan's brother-in-law Syed Zaidi of Mequon said Khan was one of the "nicest and loveliest persons you can think of." Khan was born and raised in Milwaukee; his parents are from Pakistan. The 31-year-old was attending school full time at UW-Milwaukee but owned a gas station in Wauwatosa, Zaidi said. He would have turned 32 on Oct. 13.
He said that on the day Khan disappeared, his parents were celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at their Mequon home when Khan told family members around 6 p.m. that he had to return to his apartment on Oakland Avenue in Milwaukee to meet someone who wanted to buy his car, a 2006 Mitsubishi.
Zaidi said Khan had been speaking with the potential buyer about the car, and that Khan told the family he would be back in Mequon that evening. When Khan had not returned two or three hours later, Zaidi said a cousin went to his apartment and found the door open and Khan's wallet still there.
"I knew right away that there was something really wrong," Zaidi said. "I knew that he did not leave on his own will." He said police later said they did not find any signs of a struggle at the apartment.
Zaidi said he did not think Khan knew the people suspected in his death or the person who reportedly wanted to buy his car. Nehls said police began investigating Friday after two teens approached Watertown police and said their 20-year-old friend told them he killed someone.
nvestigators executed several search warrants and identified three suspects, Nehl said.
"We do have two suspects in custody who are cooperating with us," Nehls said. "We will be working with Dodge County District Attorney William Bedker for charges against the two in custody, hopefully early next week." Nehls said a member of the Khan family had been with police all day Saturday.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with them," he said.
A $25,000 reward had been offered.
Contact Patricia Simms at 608-252-6492 or psimms@madison.com; contact Chris Rickert at 608-252-6198 or crickert@madison.com