YERMO — Hadie Mohd last saw his father as he headed out to the family's vacated home to paint over anti-Arab and white supremacist graffiti scrawled across the walls inside.
"He said he would be back before sundown," Mohd said. "And he always kept his word."
But when sundown came, Ali Abdelhadi Mohd had not returned. About 9:45 p.m. on June 27, neighbors in this scruffy high-desert town heard an explosion they said sounded like a sonic boom. Flames engulfed the single-story home. When firefighters arrived, they found a horribly burned Mohd dead among the ruins.
"We can only hope he died quickly," Hadie Mohd said as he picked his way through the gray ashes and blackened appliances at the house Thursday. "It gives us peace to think that."
The fire, along with the graffiti and the earlier torching of a mosque on the property, has led the FBI to launch an investigation into whether the incident was a hate crime.
"Assuming he was the victim of a crime, we are looking into the possibility that the perpetrator was motivated by religious bias or hate," said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman. "Based on complaints and information from the family, they have been targeted in the past. There are suspicions that their civil rights may have been violated."
Investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's arson and bomb unit have combed through the wreckage trying to determine what caused the blast and how Mohd died.
"We do know he was alive when the fire was burning because the autopsy showed soot and burning in his esophagus," said Arden Wiltshire, spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department. "We still don't know if it was a tragic accident or if it was intentional. Hopefully, the arson investigators will help us complete the picture."
She said Mohd took pictures of the graffiti but never notified deputies.
"If he had called we would have documented it and made an investigation," she said.
The family, which includes seven children, lived on a large lot along Yermo Road for the last four years. Life hasn't always been peaceful. They reported being insulted based on their Arab heritage, having their religion mocked and being threatened.
Ahmad Mohd, 14, said a group of children at his school routinely challenged him to fights, used racial epithets and told him, "Go home, Arab." His father complained to school officials, who suspended some of the students, but the harassment continued, Ahmad said.
