In the early morning hours of September 10, 2011, a passerby discovered an unconscious person in the 2600 block of 11th Street, NW, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The individual, a male of Indian descent, was later identified as Gaurav Gopalan, a 35-year-old aerospace engineer. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Initially, it took authorities three days to identify Gopalan because he was found without identification and was wearing women's clothing and makeup.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later ruled Gaurav Gopalan's death a homicide, determining the cause to be a subarachnoid hemorrhage resulting from blunt-impact head trauma. Investigators found that while over $130 in cash was on his person, his credit card and driver's license were missing. His car, a gold-silver 2007 BMW 328i, was also missing but was recovered by police shortly after his body was found. Authorities sought information from the public regarding anyone who might have seen the vehicle being operated during the weekend of his death. Police also obtained surveillance footage of someone who appeared to be Gopalan walking along U Street on the night of the incident.
Gopalan was a Ph.D. graduate from the University of Maryland, where he also worked as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He was also an active member of the Washington Shakespeare Company as a director and stage manager. Despite the ongoing investigation and the passage of time, there have been no arrests made in connection with Gaurav Gopalan's murder, and no suspects have been publicly identified. His case remains an unsolved homicide.
