A massage parlour boss was horrified when he went to check on one of his staff and found the hanged bodies of the man and his two young children.
The owner of the parlour in Khalilabad, Iran, where the single dad of two worked as a masseur, said he became worried on 8th January after Mohammad Musavi had failed to show up to work or answer his phone the previous day.
After the separation, he had been given custody of their son while the daughter stayed with the mother.
When he remained depressed, they had agreed to give him the custody of his daughter too, as he always had a special relationship with her, and they thought it would cheer him up.
Her family had reportedly tried to help him by getting him training as a masseur and providing him with a place to live.
When he did not turn up for work, his employer contacted Mohammad’s estranged wife’s father, who owns the home the family lived in, but the ex father-in-law was unable to add any explanation as to why they had not been heard from, so had agreed to head together to the property.
The boss said: “We contacted his family and entered his house together and came across their bodies.”
The police were then called and began investigating the crime scene.
The police believe that the victims had been dead for approximately 24 hours when they were found.
Mohammed, according to his boss, had been working as a masseur at his parlour for about three months.
The 38-year-old had been a motorcycle courier in Mashhad but had moved from his home city to Khalilabad in search of work after separating from his wife.
He had moved into his estranged wife’s father’s house and had taken the former couple’s kids, whom he had custody of, with him.
His boss told local media: “Sometimes he would be depressed and lost in himself. But overall, he was a calm and composed person.”
The police believe that Mohammad poisoned and hanged his children – daughter Tahura, aged four, and 11-year-old son Amir Ali – before hanging himself.
The police are reportedly still investigating in order to confirm this version of events. It is not clear why the investigation is taking so long.
The boss said: “I don’t feel good mentally because we were together every morning for several months and then I saw his and his children’s bodies in that condition.”
