Urooj Khan, whose death by cyanide poisoning on the Far North Side after winning the lottery has set off a media frenzy, started his life in Chicago at a minimum-wage job and turned himself into a successful businessman.
Urooj Khan is laid to rest in the middle of a spacious cemetery near a lagoon and surrounded by lush evergreen trees.
On a recent unseasonably warm, overcast day that left the ground soft, yellow and white flowers rested above his headstone, which read: “Alhaj Urooj Ahmed Khan. Forever in our Hearts.”
But outside the quiet and calm of Rosehill Cemetery, a turbulent story was unfolding as an investigation into Khan’s homicide by poisoning deepened, a media frenzy intensified and details emerged of a complex life that the native of India led in Chicago.
Khan was a kind and generous man, according to close family members and acquaintances.
Since the Tribune first broke the story of his mysterious death, a rift has become evident within Khan’s family. And court documents obtained by the newspaper reveal a sometimes-troubled picture of Khan’s life here.
On Friday a Cook County judge approved exhuming Khan’s body after toxicological tests showed that the million-dollar lottery winner had died of a lethal dose of cyanide July 20 at the home he shared with his wife, father-in-law and teenage daughter.
The shocking discovery of the toxic poison came after a family member of Khan’s came forward with concerns because the medical examiner’s office initially ruled his death was from natural causes. The findings of cyanide have launched Chicago police on a seemingly made-for-TV probe into the killing of Khan, who moved here from India in 1989 and worked his way up from an $7-an-hour job as a gas station attendant to become a well-to-do owner of three laundry businesses and several condos.
“He was a very, very good man, very giving,” Khan’s sister, Meraj, said Friday as she fought back tears. “He was very lovely, very friendly. The best brother in the world.”
Khan was raised in a large family in Hyderabad, the youngest of seven children. He was captain of his high school cricket team — a sport he continued to play in Chicago — and went on to earn a commerce degree at a two-year college, according to his family and court documents.
His father was a successful businessman who managed an office building in Hyderabad, his family said. He died in 1983 when Khan was just 17. Six years later, Khan followed his mother and five of his siblings to Chicago.
During his first years here, Khan worked for a laundry service and then earned $7 an hour at a gas station before working for Chicago Hilton and Towers, according to court documents.
Khan met his first wife, Maria Rabadan, at the laundry service. In an unusual move for their humble status at the time, Khan and Rabadan signed a prenuptial agreement before their marriage in 1992. The document included a stipulation that any children be raised Muslim and that Khan would gain custody if they divorced or separated. The couple had one child, Jasmeen, now 17, who was living with her father at the time of his death.
In fact, the marriage came to a stormy end in 1998 after Khan’s wife, now known as Maria Jones, obtained multiple orders of protection as part of their divorce, according to Cook County court records made public last week.
Jones alleged that Khan repeatedly had threatened to kill her and their daughter, then 3 1/2, if she filed for divorce. She also alleged he repeatedly physical abused her son from a previous marriage and contended she had to remove the boy from the home.
In the divorce settlement, Jones gave Khan custody of their daughter, according to court documents. In an interview last week, Jones’ husband said that his wife believed that Khan had taken the child to India and has not had contact with her daughter in 13 years.
Khan’s family denied he was ever violent or abusive.
Also in 1998, Khan was arrested and charged with felony theft and credit card tampering stemming from his job at a gas station in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood.
Khan admitted taking cash from customers for gas purchases, pocketing the money and then ringing up the charge on a phony or stolen credit card. He pleaded guilty in March 1999 and was sentenced to 30 months of probation and ordered to pay $3,200 in restitution, records show.
He successfully completed the probation by September 2001.
Some five years later, life appeared to have turned around dramatically for Khan. He had been married to Shabana Ansari, his current wife, for about six years by then and owned several condos on the Far North Side and three laundry and dry-cleaning businesses.
The businesses were all within a couple of miles of each other and Khan’s home on West Pratt Avenue. The 7-Eleven convenience store where Khan, a regular, bought his winning lottery ticket is also nearby.
“I can picture him with a smile,” store owner Jimmy Goreel remembered last week. “He was humble.”
Family members said Khan worked very hard but always made time for family, from hosting parties to stopping by unannounced to share coffee with his sister.
He was also well-known in Chicago’s Indian and Pakistani enclave on Devon Avenue, where he was a regular at the Hyderabad House Restaurant. Khan held business meetings or joined other customers for tea and chitchat and would tip $5 for a $1 cup of tea, said restaurant manager Naseer Khan, who is not related.
“I cannot believe it,” he said of Khan’s sudden death at 46. “He was very nice to everybody.”
But family members said there had been tension in Khan’s life since his father-in-law, Fareedun Ansari, moved into his daughter’s home in the last couple of years. Khan’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Zaman, said Khan confided this to his siblings, and court documents filed in Cook County revealed that a lien was taken out against Khan’s house because of more than $124,000 his father owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
In the wake of Khan’s death, Zaman and his wife won custody of Khan’s 17-year-old daughter after arguing in Cook County probate court that they wanted to protect her inheritance.
Shabana Ansari, who has been interviewed by police, and her father have repeatedly expressed deep grief over Khan’s death and said they can’t imagine who would want to kill him. Both have denied any involvement.
Shabana Ansari has said detectives interviewed her about a curry meal she prepared for her husband about an hour after he got home that evening. Khan later woke up screaming after going to bed, according to police reports.
Since cyanide kills so quickly, exhuming Khan’s body — and examining the contents of his stomach — could provide a critical clue about how he ingested the poison.
Khan’s sister, Meraj, said she typically visits his grave on weekends, sometimes with Khan’s daughter. But on the day a judge approved the exhumation, she said she thought she would not go because “there is so much sadness.”
“I wanted my brother to rest in peace,” Meraj Khan said. “But then we have to have justice served. So if that’s what it takes to bring justice for him and Jasmeen, then that’s what needs to be done.”
