Elisabeth-Jane Ross of Edinburgh, Scotland has died. She was 38.
Elisabeth-Jane Ross
Ross was a member of the City on a Hill church in Edinburgh. Her father is a lawyer in the capital city of Scotland.
As a charity worker, Ross volunteered for One Heart, a charity that provides medical help for refugees from Afghanistan and Iran and had previously worked in the United States. She regularly traveled to Greece.
On June 26, 2026, Ross traveled from Edinburgh to Athens, Greece. On July 2, 2026, she moved to Rethymnou Street in Athens city centre and worked with a Christian nongovernment organization working with refugees.
Ross later stayed with friends in a house in Keratsini until July 15, 2026. At 9:41 p.m., she called a close friend, the last confirmed sign of life from her.
Sharif Ahmadzai
Hailing from Afghanistan, Sharif Ahmadzai, 26, is a professional boxer in the lightweight division. In 2016, he arrived in Lesbos, Greece on a small boat as a refugee and entered Mória Reception and Identification Centre, a refugee camp in Moria, a village near Mytilene on the island of Lesbos.
Also in 2016, Ahmadzai met Alaina Hall, a U.S. citizen volunteering at the refugee camp. He converted to Christianity in 2017 and moved to Athens in 2019, the same year Ross started regularly visiting Greece.
In 2021, Ahmadzai and Hall started dating. In 2022, they got engaged.
After getting married on April 29, 2023, Ahmadzai and Hall founded Love Every Nation Athens, a ministry that help refugees in Athens. They met Ross through their work.
After recently leaving Keratsini, Ross rented a ground-floor apartment owned by Love Every Nation Athens in the district of Exarchia in downtown Athens. On the evening of July 15, 2026, Hall woke up to find Ahmadzai missing.
When Hall checked Ahmadzai’s shared location, it show him at the apartment.
On July 16, 2026, a surveillance video captured Ahmadzai moving a large suitcase from the apartment to an abandoned building in Kypseli and leaving the area carrying only a backpack.
On July 18, 2026, a homeless man discovered the suitcase with Ross’s body in the abandoned building. After Interpol examined fingerprint data and matched it to records in the U.S., she was identified on July 27, 2026.
Greek detectives analyzed video footage and identified Ahmadzai after he used credit cards that belonged to Ross. He was found in possession of the keys to the apartment she rented in Exarchia.
On July 30, 2026, the homicide division of Greece brought in Ahmadzai for questioning. He told investigators that he had found Ross dead in the bathroom of the apartment before placing her remains in a suitcase and disposing of it.
Ahmadzai also admitted using Ross’ mobile phone to send messages to her family and friends while withdrawing €10,000 from automated teller machines using credit cards that belonged to her. He later gave Hall €2,550 and a new iPhone 17 Pro/
Ross’s mobile phone had been used until the time when the body was publicly identified. On August 1, 2026, investigators searched Ahmadzai’s residence in the downtown area of Kypseli and found a replica Glock-style pistol and a military-style knife.
How Ross died is still unknown. While no evident signs of injury or struggle were found on her body, they were proved inconclusive due to advanced decomposition.
On August 5, 2026, Ahmadzai will appear before an investigating magistrate in Athens to be formally charged. Despite confessing to hiding Ross in a suitcase, he continues to deny any role in killing her.
CONAN Daily 