From Colorado Suburbia to Sharjah Death Row: the Bizarre Rise of Shahid King Bolsen

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By 2006, Bolsen had settled in the UAE, operating a boutique consulting and commercial publishing venture in Dubai. On June 13, 2006, his business persona shattered. Police in neighboring Sharjah discovered the suffocated body of Martin Herbert Naylor, a 47-year-old German mechanical engineer. Naylor’s body had been wrapped in bedsheets, packed inside a suitcase, and left inside a rental car parked on a quiet street.

UAE investigators tracked the vehicle to Bolsen, who had already fled the country toward Oman before being detained and returned to Emirati authorities. During police interrogations, Bolsen maintained that Naylor’s death was an accidental overdose resulting from a struggle. He claimed he acted in self-defense against unwanted sexual advances during a private meeting at his apartment, administering a sedative that unintentionally proved fatal. Prosecutors rejected the self-defense argument outright, presenting evidence that Bolsen had obtained chloroform and sedatives in advance, stripped the victim of his mobile phone and credit cards, and systematically attempted to conceal the crime.

In October 2007, the Sharjah Sharia Court of First Instance handed down a murder conviction UAE authorities treated with utmost gravity: Bolsen was sentenced to die by firing squad. He was transferred directly to Sharjah Central Jail, where he sat alongside dozens of condemned men awaiting the formal approval of their executions.