TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN9) — Looking into the background of Murad Dervish, we are finding a lot of accounts of rage and anger, but not a lot of explanation for it.
Dervish is accused in the killing of University of Arizona Professor Dr. Thomas Meixner Wednesday.
Morty Bustos just found out the man who directed a raging outburst at him, is accused of murdering a professor at the University of Arizona.
“I just felt a really cold flush come over my body. I was a little worried about it. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's crazy.”
He says he was working on a commercial building next to the little house Murad Dervish rented near UA.
“This guy came out screaming, and screaming, like, erratically just crazy out of control, screaming, I just, it's like, it's like, Dude, you got it. You got to shut up. And we started kind of going back and forth a little bit. And me and my friend took off for lunch. And when I came back, the cops were there. He had called the police and the police asked me what was going on I told him exactly what happened. The cops are just like…..(He shrugs).”
Monday asked us to use only her first name. She lives in an adjoining house with the same landlord as the place Dervish rented.
“And we had to call the police more than once going as far as like, going to a neighbor's houses and asking them if they can like keep an eye out for him like lurking around our house and we share a laundry room with him and half of her windows are pointed into his house and he's like, catch him looking at us all the time.”
Court documents show as of early last month Dervish landlords started working to evict him for not paying his rent. A judge ordered the eviction on Sept. 27.
We also found another UA professor asked a judge to protect him and his family from Murad Dervish. On August 5th Professor Christopher Castro won a court order requiring Dervish to stay away from him and his family at work and at home. The order did not mention any concern that Dervish might have a gun.
Dervish history shows ties to several universities. Penn State says he got a bachelor's degree there in 2005. San Diego State University says Dervish was a graduate student in physics in 2018, and worked as a teaching assistant. SDSU says Dervish was last enrolled in the spring 2020 and did not graduate. We found some of Dervish UArizona academic work posted as of late last year.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
