Law&Crime Sidebar - Kidnapped Boy Rescued After 7 Years on the Run

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Abdul Aziz Khan's case, featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix, may finally have a happy ending. The boy was kidnapped when he was 7-years-old. But after years on the run, deputies in Colorado found him during a routine call. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber spoke with Douglas County, Colorado Sheriff Darren Weekly about the incredible conclusion, as well Kyle Crone, the man whose call to 911 got the ball rolling.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code sidebar at checkout. Download the Saily app or go to https://saily.com/sidebar HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A 14-year-old boy has been safely recovered after being missing for seven long years. A boy ripped away from the rest of his family by allegedly his own mother and featured on Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries is finally found thanks to the incredible work of deputies out in Colorado. We are going to be speaking with the sheriff as well as the man who alerted police to the fact that something might be wrong and all about the manhunt and what happens to the boy's mother and stepfather who have been on the run for years. Welcome to Sidebar,

presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. You know, it is not often that the stories we tell you here on Sidebar, have a happy ending. It's unfortunately just the nature of the beast when you talk about true crime, but occasionally you do get some good news. And here, what could have been a cold case forever suddenly turned fire hot once again because that is what happened in Douglas County, Colorado. More than seven years ago, just after Thanksgiving in 2017, Rabea Khalid didn't show up for a custody hearing in Atlanta, Georgia. This was according to the New York Post. She and her husband Abdul had separated a few years earlier had shared custody of their son,

Abdul Aziz, or Aziz, in Louisiana. But the U.S. Marshals say Rabia moved with her son from New Orleans to Atlanta for a new job. And Abdul told the National Center for missing and exploited children that Rabia made it more and more difficult for him to spend time with his son, and a bitter custody battle got underway. And Abdul told the National Center that when it became clear that he was going to get full custody of his son, Rabia and her new husband, Elliot Burwa, took the seven-year-old and fled. And a warrant was put out for Rabia for felony kidnapping and multiple agencies got involved in a manhunt, but they disappeared.

Rabia had accused her ex-husband of sex crimes, although I'll tell you right now, investigators found those allegations were completely unfounded. This is according to WSB in Atlanta. And Aziz's story was actually featured in season three of the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries back in 2022. But Aziz, he was still missing. Rabia, Elliott, they were in hiding. But that is all until sheriff's deputies in Highlands Ranch, Colorado got a call about people possibly trespassing at a vacant home two weeks ago. Now, Kyle Crone, the homeowner, apparently saw on his security camera a man and a woman,

illegally entering the home so he gets in touch with dispatchers. And I'll tell you what, I actually had a chance to catch up with Kyle, get more details about his role in getting the ball rolling on this child rescue. Take a listen. Kyle, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate you taking the time. You play a very big role in what happened. I mean, what alerted you to something was up at your property. So that's a that's a great question and thank you for having me. I was at a going away party for my son who was leaving for the Navy. And there was a ton of people. There's probably 50 people there. And I had showings going on the whole day throughout throughout the day. And I'd never looked at my phone, not one time. And for whatever reason, I'm standing there and maybe by the

grace of God, I looked down at this time that I got alerted and it was live happening right then. It was unusual because first the plates were out of state, which isn't completely unusual, but it didn't seem like there was a realtor with this couple, you know, this man and woman that came up to the door. So right there, that was a little weird, kind of dressed weird, although she was holding in her hand a tape measure and this little miniature level as well. So I'm like, okay, maybe they're here to measure stuff, seems sort of legit, but then they didn't touch the lockbox one time. They didn't even try it or look at it. And so I figured, oh, maybe they forgot it or they're waiting on a realtor or something. And then the guy starts leaving and he goes around

the side of the house. And right there, it's like, well, yeah, this isn't normal. And so that's when I called, you know, Douglas County Sheriff's Department. And then I watched as he kind of walked into my backyard and then goes up to my back door, kind of looks through it like, hey, anybody home, then goes into the house and then lets her in the front door. But at this point, I'm already on the phone with dispatch. And I could see that someone was still in the car in the driveway, but I couldn't see who. All I could see was an arm that would reach to the stereo, like change something. I couldn't tell though it was an adult or a kid. And then the deputies got there within two minutes, probably. One of them was like just down the street, I think. And then you can

kind of see from the video them coming out and seeing the officers there. So yeah, that's kind of how that transpired to that point. What a wild, wild story, right? Look, it's an important one to cover, nonetheless. And thankfully, we got some good news in the end. But for this, I have to call out and thank our sponsor, Saly, because their support helps make episodes like this happen. Now, Saly is an incredible E-SIM service app. So I recently went on vacation to Italy, and Saly is something that I could download on my phone because I used so much data while I was away. While everybody else is dealing with roaming fees and having issues with their cell data,

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So right now, go to sally.com slash sidebar or click the link in the description or pinned in the comments to get an exclusive 15% discount on Sali data plans. And be sure to use our promo code sidebar at checkout that's sally.com slash sidebar promo code sidebar. A couple of things there. Let me first start off your son enlisting. Congratulations. Big hero, please send them our thank you and our gratitude. Number two, I can't believe you have a son that old. I mean, you look like you're a kid myself. I was shocked.

I had to just mention that. You look like, anyway, put it at aside. And number three, did you hear them say anything? Did the cameras pick up any audio of what they might be saying to each other? They did. All my cameras have audio. And they didn't talk really at all when they were going up to the door. It kind of looked as if the female was kind of concealing how she looked.

She had this big old sun hat on. It wasn't hot, really sunny at all, and kind of was standing behind him a little bit. So she wasn't kind of on camera. Whether that was intentional or not, I have no idea. But you could hear them, especially once they came outside and saw the police. And she was sitting on, they sat them on the curb right in front of my house, not the curb, but the entryway. I mean, she just was rocking just back and forth over and over again. was starting to look very nervous. And obviously, we know why now. But what was interesting

about it is I could overhear the first officer that was there talking to him, kind of grilling them initially about like, why did you lie to me when I first got here? Because they had said that a realtor sent them down there, the house. And so at the time, I thought it was just a mistake, you know, like, hey, maybe someone was really supposed to be there. So I called my realtor and said, hey, are there any showings going on at this time? You know, maybe I missed it. I just want to make sure I'm not, you know, crazy here. And I could overhear his name that he was using, which was this name called Frank Hamilton. And she said that that was the same name he called her with. So they actually called my realtor to try and see the home. And she had told me that some of her

other realtor friends, this same Frank Hamilton was calling, trying to get in for showing. And what's interesting is she had asked him for a pre-qualification letter or proof of funds or asking if he had a realtor he was working with. And he didn't have any of that. And so she wasn't going to show him the house. And then later, we could overhear them talking about that the VIN numbers matched this deceased person, this Frank Hamilton. The license plates were stolen and that this deceased person was the same identity that he was using. And then six hours later, you know, more police and other people have shown up. I distinctly remember getting the phone call initially from the first phone call from one of the deputies asking if I wanted to press charges.

And I was like, well, what are the charges? And it was trespassing. And for a split second, I almost did it for a split second. And I was like, you know what? Something is not right. I do want to press charges. And then from there, I think it really started to escalate. Do you have an understanding of what they were trying to do at your property?

I don't know. I just speculation, right, at this point. I think they were legitimately looking for a place to try and buy under a false identity. I don't think they were trying to burglarize the house. There wasn't even anywhere to put it in the vehicle, unless they're going after jewelry or something upstairs. and there wasn't going to be a ton of stuff to burglarize, you know? And then with the kids in the car, I don't know. And seeing as they were talking to other realtors in the area, that's what I think.

But again, it's speculation. I have no idea. They weren't in there long enough. Let me ask you this. How did you find out what was really going on? How did you find out your role in this huge mystery? And what was that like? Because again, this is what started out as, you know, suspicious activity turned into solving a cold case for about seven years.

How did you find out your role in this? What was going on with these two individuals? You know, initially I tried to ask the deputies that that day, but they were, they were great. They said, you know, there's a lot more going on here. We can't, we can't release any information about this. And so because my cameras picked up everything. over the whole night. I had heard a lot as well, and there was still a lot of speculation. But I honestly did not find out until whenever the press release came out from Douglas County,

that was the first I heard of it. And then I went and watched the Netflix. Documentary right away. I'm sure. What was your reaction to finding this out? What did you think? I was very, I was overwhelmed with joy, especially after watching the Netflix thing, and seeing the emotion on him. And I couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to get that phone call. Like we found your son and he's alive and he's okay. I have three boys.

So like that got to me a lot at the same time. I think there's a long, you know, hard road for those kids because there was a little girl as well. I could see on the video like the boy was really, really protective and close of the little girl and her crying. The deputies were great. They were really kind, really nice, and trying to play with them and, you know, keep them happy. They were great.

But just having to go through all of that, I think it's going to be a difficult road. If you had a message to Aziz or Aziz's family, what would that be? Just, just God bless and just so thankful for them. I'm just happy for him. I hope they can find healing and peace, you know, whatever that is. And I'm just grateful and thankful for him. And I'm sure his family is grateful and thankful for you too for what you did. So really great work.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time. And you are instrumental in what happened here. Oh, thank you. All right. Have a good one. Thank you.

Now, when deputies responded, the adults apparently come out of the house claiming they were associated with a realtor, this is according to the sheriff's office, and two children were sitting in the car in the driveway. But when deputies started trying to identify the family, they could tell immediately something wasn't right. In fact, on body cam video, you can hear the deputies talking about the IDs the couple gave them, which definitely don't match. And he has probably that person's ID, but we don't know because there's a second driver's license. The number comes back to a lady born in 1921. The name.

Yeah. It's a lady. Yeah. Born in 1921. Oh, interesting. It's a 19 warrant updated in 23. So the problem, so is this a rental or they buy it? So it's to an alias that they've given us.

The dead guy. The dead guy that he says he is is the one that's got it registered. And when I pull up the registration, it's that guy's name plus a trust listed. Okay. It's okay. I've already asked us up before. Now that comes back to deceased. Now that comes back to deceit.

Okay. Here's your Kinner PD, Louisiana, it has a phone number right in there. You'll have it all. You'll have her name, date of birth, the war. And the Kinner PD. Yeah, what we need to do is figure out what kid is missing. Oh, well, we haven't run the kids yet. No, we haven't. No, just a listing.

No, there it is. Yep, that's her. And the deputies realized not only were these two people essentially or apparently lying about who they were and what they were doing, but at least one of them was apparently part of a kidnapping plot. Rabia still had that active warrant for kidnapping out on her. And according to W.S.B., a police report indicated that Elliot had an ID card that belonged to a man who died in 2009.

And deputies also found a Georgia ID card in Elliot's wallet as well as a credit card that had a third name on it. And in that car, as I mentioned, there were two children. One of them was a ziz, now 14 years old. And there was also reportedly a second child in the car. They were both taken into protective custody. The sheriff indicated they both appear to be healthy. But Rabia, Elliot, they were arrested.

They were booked into the Douglas County Jail on multiple charges, including second-degree kidnapping, forgery, identity theft, providing false information to authorities and trespassing. They're each being held on a $1 million bond. A representative from the U.S. Marshal Service spoke at a news conference about the huge scope of this investigation. We went to 11 different states looking for this young lady and the child. And it had really gone cold. We'd entered it in Nick Mick.

We'd entered it and everything we could to try to keep shaking the tree and rattling the bushes to see if we could get it to fall out. And just great police work on behalf of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. and I just can't, I sincerely thank you on behalf of the United States Marshal Service and Eastern Louisiana Marshal and Brian Flair was over the moon when he got the call. So thank you so much. And Aziz's family in Louisiana released a statement saying, we're overwhelmed with joy that Aziz has finally been found.

We want to thank everyone for their support over the last seven years. We specifically want to recognize the Douglas County Sheriff's Office for their exceptional work in solving this case. Now, as we navigate the next steps, we ask for privacy so that we can move forward as a family and heal together. District Attorney George Brockler talked about the process of charging Rabia and Elliott. Of the 14 on the mail, number of 12 of them are felonies and two are not. And for her, it's seven are felonies and two or not. What you will note about those charges that have been filed is that he is charged with kidnapping. She is not.

She is charged with conspiracy to kidnap. That's because one of the nuances of the law is that you cannot kidnap your own child. And so we've filed those charges. That preliminary hearing is scheduled for the 27th. Whether it goes then or not could be a function of a whole bunch of different things. Now it is possible that people out there may have more information about what has happened and where Aziz has been since 2017. So police are hoping that more people will come forward with any details to fill in the pieces

of this puzzle. If you have any information about where these individuals have been over the past seven years, we ask you to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers, and their number is 720913 stop. That's 720913-8867. We would love to hear from anyone who might have information that could help in this case. And also, we'd like to thank our media partners for being here and helping us to share this story and to get the word out. And now we're joined by a special guest. We are joined by Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this absolutely incredible rescue. I first want to start. How did you learn about this massive break in a very long cold case? Actually, I just got what's called a special report. Whenever we have

something big in my jurisdiction or in my agency, the supervisor has to let the other supervisors know what's going on. And I found out actually early the next morning what had happened. The diligence, the determination of your deputies was remarkable. It was so impressive. They worked for what, more than four hours to try to identify these two suspects? Yeah, it was actually about five hours. They just did an exceptional job. They sensed that something wasn't right. They were following their gut. And then they just started putting the pieces together and they were able to identify these people and figure out there was worn out for their arrest for kidnapping. What was their explanation. How did they explain outdated and inaccurate identification? They couldn't. So the male,

Mr. Bougois, who's one of the suspects in this case, he had the identification of a dead person. The female, Rabia Khalid, she claimed not to have any identification, which of course, any law enforcement officer, that's a red flag that something's up. And so through their investigative work and then the use of what we call a morph scanner, which is a digital device we use to read people's fingerprints in the field, we're able to identify her and find out that she did, in fact, have a warrant for her arrest for kidnapping. Any idea what they were doing at that property? Our detectives are still looking into that. We've actually executed a search warrant in the city of Aurora, which is nearby. They had an apartment there that they were both, that this family

was living in. And so we're still looking into that. And our detectives are still putting all these pieces together. But these people have been on the run for over seven years. Any idea of what the last seven years would look like, or is that still being investigated as well? It's still being looked into. The U.S. Marshal Service was looking into them as well after the federal warrant went out. They were tracking them in like 11 different states, but they were really never able to zero in on exactly where they were at. But they were all over the country. It's unbelievable.

Now, I want to talk about Aziz. So my understanding, you said this during a news conference, that when deputies spoke with him, it was interesting the things that he would, was saying that he might have seemed coached. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? Yeah. When our deputies rolled up on scene, the two kids were actually in a vehicle parked in the driveway at that home. And so our deputies made contact with the two kids first. And Aziz had a cell phone with him and called inside to his mom who was inside. But Aziz seemed to already be coached on if you come back in contact with law enforcement. These are the things that you say. So just amazing work by the deputies to uncover exactly what was going on. But this

family had been able to fly below the radar for seven years. And you have to wonder how many times did they come in contact with law enforcement over the last seven years, whether it be a traffic stop or some other type of contact. And I'm just very proud of my deputies for sensing something was wrong and to be able to uncover this. In other words, what he was saying seemed like something he had repeated before in the past. Exactly. Exactly. And what about the other child that was there? We are not identifying that child as of yet. These kids are obviously in the Department of Human Services at this point and their care and custody. The reunification process with Aziz and his dad is going to take some time because this is the only life Aziz has known. And so dad is in Colorado right now and that process is underway. I wanted to ask you about that. So you, I understand you met with Aziz's family. I haven't seen him in seven years. How are they feeling about all this? they're just ecstatic. Dad explained to me it's actually been nine years since he's had contact with disease because for the first couple years, law enforcement was like, well, who's going to take the report? Who's going to investigate? Is this in fact a kidnapping? So that process took almost two years. So Abdul, the father, had not had contact in that time. And so they are just beyond grateful. The dad did not expect to ever see his son again. And so the fact that our deputies were able to find him, they're just,

they're just beyond grateful. When he came to my office, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. He's just ecstatic. He had started to give up hope. It's remarkable because I've covered a number of cases where it doesn't end like this. Talk to us, you mentioned the reunification process, how that can be difficult. What is that reunification process look like? Just baby steps. We're not actually, the sheriff's office obviously is not actually in the middle of that process. this Department of Human Services, but we don't even know what Aziz has been told over the last, you know, nine years total about his father. I know there's allegations made by the mother.

Those were not substantiated, which is why the mother absconded with a child when she was going to lose primary custody. That is when she left. So it's a slow process for this reunification for Aziz and his dad and for Aziz to know his dad again. do you think being featured on unsolved mysteries help this in the end this case was not on our radar i'm sure it helped to get other people aware of this situation to maybe spot aziz or um you know the mother or or her her husband but the fact is in colorado this was not on our radar at all and it took good police work to solve it there's great police work and um the homeowner who realized something was going on. I wanted to ask you this. Just talk to us about what we can expect

from the criminal charges that this pair are now facing. What is the, what, what are his likelihood that the charges they are going to face? What could they be amplified? What's the potential prison time they could be facing? If you could talk to us about that. Our district attorney attends to prosecute them out of our judicial district here in Colorado for the charges that they face. So that is still underway. They're both being held on a million dollar bond in my jail for kidnapping, providing false information to authorities, fraud, a litany of charges. And so our DA's office will prosecute. They're due in court on March 27th. Gotcha. Listen, Sheriff, this is just remarkable work from you and your team. I want to applaud you guys again for doing this because

it is, you know, to talk about unsolved mystery. It's an unsolved case for so long. And now the family can begin to heal, begin to get some closure. Again, such a successful resolution. So Douglas County Sheriff, Darren Weekly, we want to congratulate you and the team on this. Thank you so much for taking the time as well. Thank you for having me. All right, everybody. What a case.

That is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.