A connection emerges in mystery of Rockwood neighborhood homicides

A Wichita police officer told a neighborhood board that investigators are theorizing that the November killings of a pizza delivery driver and a mother and son are related.

The community police officer told the board Monday night that police are leaning toward the conclusion that the unsolved killings are related but don’t have evidence to prove it, said Larry Duntz, president of the Rockwood Homeowners Association.

The officer indicated that police don’t have the weapon, Duntz said Tuesday.

Police Department spokesman Officer Charley Davidson wouldn’t comment Tuesday on the possibility of the killings being related. “They are still open and active investigations,” he said in an email. “We cannot provide further information due to policy and law.”

Duntz said he had already been thinking that the killings were connected: He has lived in Rockwood for 43 years and couldn’t remember another homicide. Then – within 13 hours and only three blocks apart – police responded to the killings of Huong Pham, 62, and her son, Cody Ha, 23, and pizza delivery driver Hasan Rahman, 26.

All three had been shot.

Late Saturday night Nov. 25, a relative found the bodies of Pham and Ha in their home on the 7500 block of East Huntington. That’s just north of the Towne East shopping mall. Ha worked at his mother’s dry-cleaning business, friends said. Police indicated that the killing of the two wasn’t random.

The next day, a resident found Rahman in the trunk of his car, parked haphazardly in front of a house in the 7800 block of East Pagent. That’s also in the Rockwood neighborhood, just a few streets from the home where Pham and Ha were shot to death.

Police said Rahman disappeared that Saturday night after making deliveries in the 1100 and 1300 blocks of North Williamsburg, a townhome development on 13th east of Oliver. It’s 3 miles from where his body was discovered. The killer attacked Rahman on Williamsburg before he and his car were moved to East Pagent, police said. The pizza deliveries didn’t appear to be related to Rahman’s death.

Investigators have told Rahman’s family that the crime didn’t seem to be a robbery. He still had cash in his pocket.

Pizza Hut is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in Rahman’s death.

Anonymous tips can be made to Crime Stoppers, at 316-267-2111. Crime Stoppers offers rewards of up to $2,500. Information also can be provided to Wichita police detectives, 316-268-4407.

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 5:19 PM with the headline "A connection emerges in mystery of Rockwood neighborhood homicides."