WASHINGTON — A grieving Bethesda father who found his teenage son’s body is sharing the details of the boy’s last night.
As the sun was going down Sunday, Frank Sepehri said he frantically searched the woods where his son’s iPhone sent its last ping before the battery ran out. Navid Sepheri was lying face-up in a ravine at the end of a stream.
“As you can imagine, I went crazy. I pulled him out of the water. I stayed there with him, thinking, ya know, ‘He’s alive’ and all that,” Sepehri recalled to WTOP.
Sepherhi said he was screaming and began doing CPR on his only son.
“When I pushed his stomach, there was blood coming out and alcohol. Just imagine. I could smell the alcohol. You’re talking about major drinking,” he said.
He has no idea why his son was navigating the steep and rocky terrain near the Bannockburn Swim Club. There, houses back up onto a wooded area that Sepehri said has a small 6-foot by 6-foot pond where Navid died.
“About 10 minutes later, because I was shouting so much, a neighbor … she came and she said, ‘Are you OK? What happened? Are you OK?’ And I couldn’t talk,” he recalled.
He said there were no visible signs of trauma to Navid’s head or body.
“I was the one who pulled him out, and there was no broken head, broken skull or something. He was in perfect condition,” Sepehri said.
Sepehri maintains he was alone when he found his son using the Find my iPhone app he regularly used to check in on his son’s whereabouts. Montgomery County police say officers searching nearby heard Sepehri shoult and knew in that moment he likely found his son. Police later found a small bottle of vodka in Navid’s coat, his father said.
Sepehri knew Navid was going to a friend’s house Saturday night. Looking back and noting that Navid did not take his new car, his father understands his son likely expected to drink, since he knew he could not drink and drive. But Sepehri said he and his wife, Nasrin, discouraged him from drinking alcohol.
However, an ATM transaction record shows that Navid pulled out $20 before 8 p.m., which Sepehri said he believes he used to buy the bottle of vodka at a store on River Road. Then, he said the group of Walt Whitman High School seniors made their way to a house party being hosted by the younger brother of one of Navid’s friends.
“In that house, both parents were home,” Sepehri said of the house party his son attended. He said he has talked with many of Navid’s friends who were at the party hosted by other Walt Whitman High School students.
A source confirmed to WTOP that parents of a Walt Whitman sophomore hosting the party were home and among the children. The same source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, reported it appeared Navid had been drinking before arriving at the party with a group of Whitman seniors.
Around 10:30 p.m., the Montgomery County police say officers responded to a call about the possibility of underage drinking. Sepehri has seen body-worn camera video of an officer interacting with Navid outside the home.
“He was talking to my son … and my son was drunk. He was kind of like, shaking around. He asked [Navid’s] friends, ‘Get this kid out of here before I get him in trouble,'” Sepehri said, describing the video.
When the officer found six teens in front of the house, they were not violating any criminal or civil law, said Montgomery County police spokesman Captain Paul Starks. He said the officer had a conversation with the teens and asked Navid’s friends to get him home.
But Sepehri said he’s heard from Navid’s friends that they didn’t go home. They went to a 7-Eleven convenience store at MacArthur Boulevard and Goldsboro Road and spent time in the parking lot before Navid’s friends ordered an Uber to drive them home.
Navid’s friends tell his father Navid turned down the ride-share and assumed he was walking home, which from there would take at least 30 minutes on the snowy Saturday night.
The police believe the death was accidental, but they’re waiting for the results of an autopsy.
