Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray announced today that an Essex County jury late today convicted a Bloomfield man of fatally stabbing his estranged wife in her Montclair home.
Following a three-week trial before the Honorable Martin G. Cronin, Judge of the Superior Court, the jury found Khalid Khan, 44, guilty of murdering Shazmina Khan, 31. He was also found guilty of two weapons offenses and endangering the welfare of a child.
He faces 30 years to life in New Jersey State Prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 16 before Judge Cronin.
Bail, which had been set at $750,000, was immediately revoked by Judge Cronin.
On July 3, 2011 Khan repeatedly stabbed his estranged wife. She was discovered in the bathtub of her Wheeler Street apartment in Montclair, where she moved after the couple split up in January 2011.
On the day of the murder, the father spent most of the day with the couple’s eight-year-old daughter. He brought her home and put her to bed at the new apartment. The child woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom but it was locked.
The little girl could not find her mother. She called her mother’s friend who lived down the street. That neighbor left her family to come to the aid of the little girl. She used a knife to jimmy the bathroom door open and discovered Shazmina Khan in the bathtub stabbed to death.
The friend called 911 but Shazmina Khan was pronounced dead at the scene.
“We believe justice was served with this verdict. This is just a tragic case in which an 8-year-old girl lost her mother at the hands of her father,’’ said Assistant Prosecutor Gina Iosim, who tried the case with Assistant Prosecutor Rachel Gran.
Prosecutor Murray commended Detective Anthony Iemmello, a member of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force on loan from the Newark Police department, and Det. Robert Prachar of the Essex County Prosecutors Office along with Montclair Sgt. Wihelm Young and Det. Charles Cunningham for their extraordinary work on this case.
