Do you know who murdered Bandar Alfisol in 1986? Bandar Alfisal was found lying unconscious on the floor of his hotel room in Arlington, Virginia, on November 2, 1986. He was a male, and when investigators pieced together the first fragments of the morning, one detail stood out as especially haunting: occupants in the neighboring room later reported hearing what sounded like a struggle at around 5:00 a.m.
An autopsy later determined that he died by strangulation, turning what might have seemed at first like a medical emergency into a homicide. The scene offered little comfort and even less clarity—only the stark fact that someone had been close enough, long enough, to silence him and leave him behind in a place meant for passing through.
Publicly available case summaries do not identify any suspect or describe any arrest, and the killing remains listed among Arlington County’s unsolved cases decades later. In at least one contemporary wire-service account, the victim was described as a Saudi Arabian prince, underscoring how quickly the death drew attention and speculation even as the essential questions—who entered that room, why the struggle happened, and where the killer went afterward—stayed unanswered.
Over the years, the case has endured in the county’s cold-case roster with the same core facts: the early-morning disturbance, the discovery on the floor, and the medical finding of strangulation. Arlington police continue to present the homicide as solvable and ask anyone with information to contact the Arlington County Police Department tip line at 703-228-4242.
