It’s been nearly a decade since 22-year-old Nadia Malik’s lifeless body was found covered by a duffel bag in the passenger seat of a parked, snow-covered car. Her family still hasn’t lost hope that the mystery of her death will be unraveled.
“Every beginning of the new year, I say, ‘This is the year we are going to find out what happened to her,'” her older sister Mona Malik says. “When a person is taken away so tragically, you just want that answer.”
Nadia Malik was found dead February 20, 2014, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 10 days after being reported missing from her suburban home. The last person known to see her alive was Bhupinder “Gagan” Singh, her live-in boyfriend and father of her children.
Singh told police he’d last seen Nadia after the two argued about their relationship and he left town to go to his parents’ home in Ohio. When police tracked him down, he tried to escape through the back door, and had her cell phone and her driver’s license, according to police documents.
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Ten years later, the cause of Nadia’s death is still unknown. No charges have ever been filed against Singh, or anyone else. Barring new evidence, the case remains dormant.
Reported Missing
The second youngest of six siblings, Nadia was beautiful and shy, her sister tells A&E True Crime. “She was a straight-A student, very book smart,” she says. “She wanted to be a doctor.”
Nadia and Singh met when she was a 16-year-old high school student and he was a restaurant waiter, her sister says. They moved in together when she was 19, despite her family’s pleas that she stay away from him. They lived in Marple Township, Pennsylvania, and had two young children, plus a baby who died in 2012.
Nadia had been working as a pharmacy technician at a drugstore, but shortly before her death was let go due to excessive absences. After taking community college classes, she applied to Temple University for the term, but never enrolled. Nadia and Singh had a volatile relationship, Mona Malik says. “He wasn’t nice to her, and I think she stayed with him because every time she looked to get out, he had gotten to her,” she says.
Police said Nadia was last seen alive with Singh on February 9, 2014, the same day a surveillance camera in Philadelphia took a photo of her driving the car she was later found in.
Mona Malik says a brother spoke with Nadia that same day, when she called him to say that Singh “wasn’t letting her go.” Afterward, “I called her multiple times,” she says. “The one time she answered, but [I] couldn’t really make out what she was saying.” The brother then called Singh’s probation officer to report that Singh was holding Nadia against her will, according to prosecution documents.
On February 10, 2014, a friend of Nadia’s filed a missing person report, police said, and the car in which Nadia was eventually found was ticketed while parked on 23rd Street in Philadelphia. Then, a massive snowstorm hit the East Coast, dumping 11 inches on the city. On February 14, the car was towed for snow removal a few blocks away near the city’s main train station, 30th Street Station. Meanwhile, the Malik family continued calling hospitals to try to locate Nadia.
Nadia’s body was found February 20, 2014, after the Marple Township Police Department asked the public to be on the lookout for the car, which was registered to Singh’s father and which the couple had been using. By then, the car had racked up multiple parking tickets.
“A guy sitting in a bar near the Philly Amtrak station recognized the car parked a block away from the bar,” reporter Vinny Vella, who covered the case for the Philadelphia Daily News tells A&E True Crime. “He called police, they opened it up and sure enough, that’s where Nadia was.”
Cause of Death a Mystery
A Philadelphia police officer who responded to the scene told the Delaware County Daily Times that he couldn’t see Nadia’s body until he opened the door of the car, whose windows were tinted.
Her body lay on its side, its lower portion in the well of the passenger seat and its upper portion on the seat. It was under a large bag extended from the dash to the back of the passenger seat, “almost like a blanket,” the officer said. The contents of the bag, including books, appeared to have been emptied in the back seat. Six prescription bottles under Singh’s name were found in the car. The body had no visible signs of injury, police said.
Seven months later, autopsy tests came back inconclusive, and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office ruled the cause of death “undetermined,” Vella reported for the Philadelphia Daily News. The ME’s office said it “couldn’t find any toxicological or anatomical cause” for her death.
Mona Malik says the autopsy report showed that Nadia’s ribs hadn’t healed yet, and that she had a puncture wound on her right hand. “They couldn’t figure out where that came from.”
Her family had always been puzzled by the death of Nadia and Singh’s three-month-old daughter, Mona Malik says. They baby was found unresponsive, with her mother beside her, in a car in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. In July 2014, the Delaware County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the baby’s cause of death as cachexia, a type of muscular atrophy known as “wasting syndrome,” and the manner of death as “undetermined,” Vella reported.
After her sister was found dead, also in a car, it was all but impossible to wonder if the two tragedies were linked, Mona Malik says.
Prime Suspect
Bhupinder Singh couldn’t be reached for comment by A&E True Crime. His attorney in the parole violation case didn’t return a request for comment in December 2023.
The 25-year-old was “a prime suspect” in the case, former Marple Township police detective Barry Williams tells A&E True Crime. His department oversaw the missing person’s case; when Nadia’s body was found, the Philadelphia Police Department became the lead investigative agency, he says.
Investigators tracked Singh to suburban Cleveland, Ohio, using Nadia’s cell phone. Police documents stated he’d taken the phone with him, along with her driver’s license, Vella reported for the Philadelphia Daily News.
Singh told police in Ohio that he’d left Pennsylvania after getting into an argument with Nadia “concerning their relationship,” and that she’d given him a black eye and scratches on his face. He was arrested for violating his probation for a 2010 DUI case by leaving the state and was extradited to Pennsylvania.
Singh admitted to police that he’d sent text messages to his girlfriend’s friends and family while they searched for her. In one message, Singh said he’d let them talk to her in exchange for $100. In another message, he said, “Okay think whatever bye I promise u this now u wont hear her ill …make sure bye u lost the chance.” The texts were obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Philadelphia police declined an interview with A&E True Crime.
Once Singh was brought back to Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where he was held in jail for the DUI probation violation, he refused to answer investigators’ questions, Williams says.
“I spoke to him once,” says Williams, who retired in 2018 and now serves as director of school safety for the Marple Newtown School District. “There was some idle chatter. As soon as I started bringing up Nadia and the family and his feelings, he asked for [legal] counsel.”
Singh was sentenced to four to 23 months in jail in April 2014 for the probation violation, and was released in May 2014 after time served, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.
Philadelphia and Marple Township police investigators worked the case diligently, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone, Williams says. “Until the day I retired, I was still working the case, and the Philly detectives were trying everything,” he says. “We worked the hell out of this case. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. You think about it all the time.”
The “sticking point” was the medical examiner’s inability to determine a cause of death, Williams says. “The medical examiner ran dozens and dozens and dozens of tests and spent a ton of money to figure out what caused her death. They couldn’t figure it out,” he says.
The case was complex from the beginning, with multiple law enforcement agencies involved, Vella says.
“I don’t think that anybody made an error or screwed up this investigation. It’s a very difficult case. There’s a lot of factors that were in play, and a primary witness who is refusing to cooperate,” Vella says.
A Civil Verdict
The Malik family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Singh in 2016, alleging he was responsible for her death because he “intentionally harmed [her] and left her dead or near-dead” in the car, abandoning her without identification, cell phone or keys for the vehicle.
The Maliks won a $10 million civil default judgment in 2018, after Singh failed to show up in court on numerous occasions. The judge rescinded Singh’s parental rights but did not rule on the merits of the claim that Singh was responsible for Nadia’s death, Vella reported for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Kevin Ryan, a private investigator who’s been working pro bono for the Malik family for about four years, says his goal is to have the case reopened.
“There are two aspects to this case: civil and criminal. The family won the civil case,” Ryan says. “On the criminal side, it’s a matter of getting the right medical examiner and the right set of investigators to say, ‘This was not right from the beginning.'”
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health does not comment on cause and manner of death rulings, spokesperson James Garrow tells A&E True Crime. “This case is currently closed, as no new information or evidence that would necessitate a reopening has been presented.”
At one point, the Malik family hired a forensic expert who opined Nadia’s death was “extremely suspicious,” possibly a homicide. Another expert in California contacted the family offering to review the case file, but the cost was prohibitive, Mona Malik says.
Ryan praised the Maliks for their perseverance despite their staggering loss. “This is a family that is relentless. They just continue to pound the pavement for her.”
Reporter Vella agrees, saying he wishes the family could get answers. “The only person who can really explain what happened is Bhupinder Singh, because he was with her in her final hours, and he’s refusing to do that,” he says.
Keeping the case in the media spotlight might prompt someone who’s seen or heard something relevant to contact authorities, former investigator Williams says. “Nobody has come forward with that missing piece that we need.”
The Malik family is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in Nadia’s death. For more information, you can visit “Justice for Nadia Malik” on Facebook.
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