December 29, 2017
An Iranian-American high school senior has been found dead in a park just outside Washington.
It is still not entirely clear if he was murdered or died accidentally after drinking too much alcohol. Autopsy results are pending. Police said they do not suspect foul play.
The body of 17-year-old Navid Sepehri was found by his father, Frank Sepehri, who had been searching for the boy all night when he failed to return from a party about a mile from the family home. The park was in between the family home and the site of the party in Bethesda, Maryland, just across the Washington, DC, border.
Montgomery County police are still trying to piece together what happened to the high school senior.
Police officers were called for a report of a possible teen-drinking party in a home in Bethesda. When they arrived, they saw kids running away. They also found a group of teenagers in the street, including Navid, as shown in videos from body cameras.
The officers spoke with the teens in the street, who said they were not driving and were waiting for their parents to pick them up.
Navid appeared to have been drinking but was upright and responding to officers, police officials said.
Navid’s father was later told by police that investigators who searched Navid’s clothing found a bottle of vodka in his pocket.
Navid grew up in Bethesda, enjoyed soccer and karate as a youngster, and planned to study computer science at the University of Maryland at College Park, according to his father.
Sepehri said his son didn’t want to drive to the party in the new Mazda his parents had bought for him, according to his father.
His father would later learn from bank records that Navid withdrew $20 the night of his death from an ATM.
The elder Sepehri said his son may have used the money to buy vodka and, if so, wants to find out whether a store sold it to him, which would be illegal since the youth was under 21.