Man known to frequent Sugar Daddy websites has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of Nepali student, 21

September 09, 2024

Muna Pandey, a 21-year-old Nepali nursing student attending a community college in Houston, was discovered dead in her apartment on August 26, 2024.

She was discovered lying face down on her bed with multiple gunshot wounds after an anonymous caller tipped off the Reserve at 63 Sixty Three apartment complex on West Airport Boulevard. The caller told the building manager that there was a body in Muna’s unit, before promptly hanging up the call.

Police and paramedics arrived at around 5:35pm. Muna was pronounced dead at the scene.

There was what has been described in documents as an “execution style” bullet wound to the back of the head.

A neighbour told investigators that he had heard loud thumping from Muna’s unit on the evening of August 24. There was no sign of forced entry to the victim’s apartment, which indicated she likely knew her killer.

Investigators believe she had been dead for around four days before her body was discovered. Muna’s mother, Anita, who resides in Kathmandu, admitted that she had not been able to contact her daughter for a few days, but didn’t panic, as she knew they talked less when Muna went on a trip.

Nobody had heard anything from Muna since August 24.

Antia hadn’t seen Muna since she relocated to the U.S to pursue her studies in 2021, although she planned to visit home after finishing. Muna was her only child, and she leaned on her daughter for support following a divorce from her husband. The two were very close.

Muna, who was from Bhojpur, came to the U.S in 2021. At first she lived with a roommate who was also from Nepal, but at the time of her murder she was living alone, as her friend had moved away for a job.

As far as her mother knew, she had been dating an American man. Friends say that Muna had been a victim of stalking, something she may not have told her mother. It was for this reason that the victim installed the motion sensor activated security camera’s that captured the image of her killer. According to media outlets she had been stalked around a year prior.

CCTV footage on Saturday, August 24, 2024, showed a man entering Muna’s apartment. The man was balding with a white-grey beard, blue t-shirt, and beige trousers. This was the same day Muna’s phone was powered off, and presumably the day she was murdered. Her cell phone stopped sharing location with her friends, and was also missing from her apartment, indicating her killer had turned it off and taken it to conceal evidence.

According to a complaint, the footage, displaying the time 8:41pm shows Muna holding shopping bags in her hands, including a shoe box and a black purse, and a man in his fifties, allegedly holding her at gun point and pushing her into her apartment.

ABC11 reported that Muna could be heard on the footage asking the man "What are you going to do?"

Around an hour later, at 9:48 p.m., the man is seen leaving the unit with one of Muna's bags in his hand.

A still image of the man was released to the public on August 28, 2024, and a woman soon called in a tip saying she recognized the alleged assailant as a user on a Sugar Daddy website she used in 2012. She said men could purchase gifts for the women on the website, which is where she met him, and that the man went by the name: Bobby Shar.

The owner of a local restaurant on Hillcroft Street contacted police to inform them that a friend of his had recognized the man in the picture. Muna was a regular at the restaurant, and the owner’s friend identified the alleged killer as a regular there too, identifying him as Bobby Shar. The owners acquaintance reportedly had some business dealings with the suspect, which required the suspect to give a copy of an I.D, in this case, his driver’s lisense.

51-year-old Bobby Singh Shah was arrested on August 29, 2024, during a traffic stop on the northwest side of Houston. He has been charged with capital murder in the 262nd State District Court.

Bobby Singh Shah is currently being held at 701 N. San Jacinto Houston, without bond while he awaits trial.

A GoFundMe page for Muna’s mother has, at the time of writing, raised over $38,000. The funds will be used to fly the victim’s mother over from Nepal to the U.S, as well as covering funeral costs.

According to SAKHI for Southeast Asian Survivors, Muna's murder "is not only compounded by the rising epidemic of gender-based gun violence in our communities, but also compels us to confront the systemic failures that allow such harm to persist. In 2022, half of the South Asians lost to gender-based violence in the U.S. were victims of gun violence or homicide."