Family members will go to the ends of the Earth to help one another out, even in death. Two tech-savvy brothers helped crack their college-age brother’s murder in Texas. In 2019, 22-year-old Zuhyr Hamza Kaleem and his car went missing. His brothers, Umayr and Uzair Kaleem, jumped into action.
The brothers were able to use information from Zuhyr’s laptop and social media accounts to get to the bottom of what happened. They turned the information over to the police. Four men were charged as a result of their hard work.
Umayr, who works as a software engineer, said he did not "have the option to just turn the other way and quit" when he heard the news of his brother’s disappearance. "We're brothers. We've always been hardworking, ambitious — that's how our parents raised us," he said.
Umayr and Uzair got to work. They discovered from a close friend that Zuhyr had planned to buy weed on the day of his disappearance. They decided to check out his Snapchat account for more information. It turns out the last person he talked to on the app was Jose Varela. Varela for some reason had removed Zuhyr as a contact on the app, which made the brothers suspicious.
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They found Varela’s phone number on Zuhyr’s phone by accessing it through his laptop. "From there, we started asking around, looking on Facebook, Googling him," Uzair recalled. "We found a Facebook profile and it was clear that this was the last person Z talked to — we gave that information to police." It was pretty obvious to the brothers that whoever killed their brother was trying to wipe information off of his phone but they were not going to let that happen.
Zuhyr’s car was spotted crossing into Mexico the day after he disappeared. Varela was seen crossing back into the United States on foot just 10 hours later. Varela asked Austin Walker to bring him clean clothes.
With the help of Umayr and Uzair, authorities were able to piece together what happened to Zuhyr. On April 27, 2019, Zuhyr agreed to meet up with Varela to buy weed. He went over to his former high school classmate’s home to do so but was instead tied up by Varela and shot by Eric Aguilar. His car and body were taken to Mexico by the men. His body was burned and buried by Gannon Gotlieb.
Varela received a sentence of 45 years in prison for his part in the murder but will be eligible for parole in 2033. Aguilar received a life sentence for capital murder. Walker also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Gotlieb was charged with tampering but the status of his case is unknown at this time.
The district attorney’s office was grateful to the brothers for their role in this case. "This was a premeditated murder that left a family questioning what happened to their loved one for more than a year," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg stated. "With help from the victim’s family and great police work, we were able to get justice in this horrible case."
"These defendants thought they had gotten away with murder and had moved on with their lives, but they had not counted on the victim’s brothers and law enforcement relentlessly pursuing Kaleem’s whereabouts," Assistant District Attorney Tiffany Dupree agreed. "This family went an entire year, pining away, praying for their loved one to come home only to find that his remains had been burned because of some marijuana and a couple of hundred bucks."
The brothers were saddened by Varela’s light sentence. They say it is hard to be happy when they are still grieving their brother’s senseless death.
"The worst prison in the world is a home full of pain — that's all there is, just pain," Umayr shared. "We go to birthdays, we try to celebrate things as a family, but it's always awkward. It's been years but that awkwardness, that pain is still there."
