Background: News footage of the area in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., where Obaidulla Shareef was found dead on Feb. 4 (WITI). Inset: Akrystal Woods (Milwaukee County Sheriff”s Office).
In a chilling turn of events, a man in Illinois was discovered dead, with initial signs pointing to a meeting arranged through the dating app Tinder. The tragic incident unfolded in Oakbrook Terrace, a suburb of Chicago, where 28-year-old Obaidulla Shareef was found on February 4th, seated lifeless in his car with a gunshot wound to the head.
Key details emerged from a receipt located inside Shareef’s vehicle, linking back to a hotel nearby. This receipt bore the name of a woman from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, leading investigators to delve deeper into the circumstances surrounding his death.
Hotel witnesses recounted seeing Shareef on February 3rd, visibly anxious about an impending rendezvous with two women he had met via Tinder. One witness relayed that Shareef appeared particularly nervous as he awaited these acquaintances.
Among those women was 19-year-old Akrystal Woods, who, according to police reports, became embroiled in a heated argument with Shareef over a missing $200. The confrontation escalated to the point where hotel staff intervened, prompting the trio—Shareef, Woods, and the other unidentified woman—to vacate the premises.
Through diligent use of surveillance footage and license plate tracking, authorities traced the vehicles driven by Shareef and the two women to a parking garage roughly 1.5 miles from the hotel. It was shortly after this that Shareef’s car was spotted careening out of the garage, jumping a curb, and colliding with several parked vehicles before coming to a standstill.
The tragic death of Obaidulla Shareef highlights the potential dangers of online dating and has left the community in shock as they await further developments in the investigation.
Police tracked the second car to Woods and the other woman, who are both from Milwaukee. Woods was arrested during a traffic stop in Milwaukee on Feb. 5. An unidentified man who was with her was also taken into custody.
Woods was charged in Illinois’ DuPage County with first-degree murder. She is still in custody at the Milwaukee County Jail, where she is awaiting extradition. She was scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
