Soheyla Nosrati, 40, female, Iranian, died in Portland, Maine, on April 10, 1998. Her life in the city had been rooted for years by the time of her death: local coverage in the mid-1990s noted that she and her husband had immigrated from Iran to Portland in 1988, where they opened small businesses and tried to bring relatives for visits, a portrait of a couple building new routines and responsibilities in a new place.
On the night of April 10, police determined that Soheyla was shot and killed by her husband, Karim Nosrati, who then fatally shot himself. State authorities classified the event as a domestic-violence murder-suicide, identifying Karim as the sole perpetrator. Because the suspect died at the scene, there were no arrests and no prosecution followed.
Public records memorialize the date and place of her death and her age, and community memorial pages have since marked the loss without adding contradictions to the official account. Available burial records indicate she was laid to rest in Portland's Evergreen Cemetery, a quiet coda to a life interrupted and an investigation concluded by the determination of murder-suicide rather than an open homicide case.
