Kazem Selahyarzi, a 39-year-old male of other racial background, lived in Denver, Colorado, when his life was cut short in the summer of 1987. On July 31 of that year, in a quiet residential stretch of the city, he was inside his home in the 1900 block of West 33rd Avenue, a place that should have been familiar and safe. What unfolded there that day turned his house into a crime scene and marked the beginning of a mystery that has endured for decades.
Police would later document that Kazem was found shot to death inside that residence. The official case synopsis notes him simply as the victim, emphasizing the stark fact that he died from gunshot wounds in his own home. The address appears again and again in summaries of the case, a reminder that the violence came not on a distant street corner or in a public place, but behind the walls where he should have been most secure. With few publicly available personal details beyond his age, gender, and residence, the record leaves an image of a man whose final moments are known only through the bare language of a homicide report.
From the beginning, investigators treated the death as a homicide and opened a case under Denver Police Department number 87-236434. Detectives searched for whoever had entered or approached the home and pulled the trigger, but the publicly available accounts of the investigation provide no indication of a named suspect, description, or clear motive. Over time, as leads failed to solidify, the file moved into the realm of cold cases. The Denver Police Department’s Cold Case Unit continues to highlight Kazem’s homicide, explicitly asking for information that could lead to the arrest and prosecution of the person or persons responsible, a clear indication that no arrest has ever been made and that the killer has not been brought to justice.
Decades later, Kazem’s name still appears on lists of unsolved Denver homicides and cold case compilations, where brief summaries repeat the same few crucial facts: his age, the date of July 31, 1987, the Denver location, and the fact that he was shot to death inside his home with no one yet held accountable. Memorial pages dedicated to victims of gun violence mark that day as the one on which he was lost, preserving his name so that he is remembered as more than just a case number in an old police file. The story that remains is one of a man whose life ended abruptly in his own house, and a community still waiting, after all these years, for answers about who killed him and why.
