The case almost went cold for good.

On Jan. 15, 2012, Gelareh Bagherzadeh was sitting in the driver's seat of her silver Nissan Altima when she was shot twice in the head, point blank, from the passenger side of her car. She had been talking to a friend, who heard her scream, then silence, and called 911. Gelareh's cell phone was found at her feet. The car had smashed into the garage of a townhouse, one in a row behind The Galleria, an upscale mall in Houston, and the acrid smell of burnt tire rubber was thick in the air.