A Virginia man who stabbed his landlord to death in 2019 walked out of a state mental health facility on a 48-hour pass, flew out of Dulles International Airport, and fled the country to Tajikistan. He has not been seen since. The case has ignited outrage over how a violent killer was allowed to disappear under the watch of Virginia authorities.
Abdulay Tashpulizoda was accused of murdering Mohammed Hemetian in 2019. A jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was committed to a Northern Virginia mental health facility in 2022 instead of being convicted and sent to prison. Fairfax County prosecutors fought his release at every turn. In June of this year, a judge explicitly ordered that Tashpulizoda remain confined without further court approval.
But Virginia law allows mental health facilities to issue unsupervised day passes or 48-hour weekend passes without involving the court. On July 6, facility staff granted Tashpulizoda one of those passes. He did not return. Instead, he went straight to Dulles, boarded a flight to Istanbul, and continued on to Tajikistan. By the time authorities realized he was gone, it was too late.
🚨 THIS IS INSANE.
A man who STABBED his landlord to death was declared “not guilty by reason of insanity”… then Virginia authorities gave him a 48-hour free pass from a mental hospital.
A JUDGE said no.
Steve Descano and Virginia officials said YES anyway.
They even helped him… pic.twitter.com/XRiQS7uPXn— Q The Storm Rider (@Q_TheStormRider) September 9, 2026
The Commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax County released a statement explaining that clinicians had determined Tashpulizoda was insane at the time of the killing, which prevented a criminal conviction. Prosecutors said they opposed his release at annual hearings and that the judge had ordered continued confinement. None of it mattered. The facility issued the pass anyway.
A warrant has been issued for his arrest, and officials say he will be taken into custody if he returns to U.S. soil. But there is no extradition treaty with Tajikistan, and no indication he plans to come back. For now, a man who stabbed someone to death is living free in Central Asia, and the people who let it happen are still employed.
The episode raises serious questions about Virginia’s system for managing violent offenders committed after insanity verdicts. Annual hearings and judicial orders can be overridden by facility staff making day-to-day decisions about temporary releases. The result is a patchwork of authority where no single entity has final say, and public safety falls through the cracks.
It also exposes a coordination failure. Tashpulizoda walked through Dulles Airport, checked in for an international flight, and passed through security without anyone stopping him. There was no alert at the gate, no intervention by federal authorities, no mechanism to flag a person under court-ordered confinement trying to leave the country. He simply walked out.
Fairfax County has a history of unusual outcomes in high-profile cases, but this one is particularly stark. A judge said no. Prosecutors said no. The law said a pass could be issued anyway, and it was. The man who benefited from that decision is now beyond reach.
The victim’s family is left with no justice and no answers. Mohammed Hemetian was killed in his own home by a tenant he had rented to. His killer was never convicted, never sentenced, and is now free in a foreign country. The insanity verdict was supposed to result in treatment and confinement. Instead, it resulted in a plane ticket.
Virginia lawmakers will face pressure to close the loophole that made this escape possible. But the damage is done. A violent offender is gone, and the system that was supposed to protect the public failed at every level. The question now is whether anyone will be held accountable, or whether this will be written off as a bureaucratic mix-up that just happened to involve a man who stabbed someone to death.
The case is a stark reminder that legal technicalities and clinical assessments can collide with common sense in dangerous ways. Insanity verdicts are meant to balance mental health treatment with public safety. This case shows what happens when that balance tips too far in one direction. A man who killed his landlord is free, and the people who made that possible are still making decisions about other violent offenders.
Fairfax County, Virginia authorities, and the state mental health system all had a hand in this outcome. None of them can credibly claim they did not see it coming. The judge saw it coming and issued an order to prevent it. The order was ignored. The result is a fugitive killer and a public safety disaster that never should have happened.