Investigators say a missing-person report filed in July 2025 now fits into a homicide timeline that stretched to March.
QUEENS, N.Y. — Police in New York say a case that started with a husband reporting his wife missing last summer ended this week with that husband in custody after investigators linked him to remains found in Springfield Gardens and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.
The arrest of Rupchand Simboo, 75, in the death of Salisha Ali, 34, brings structure to a case that unfolded in fragments over nearly eight months. Authorities say Ali was last seen alive on July 13, 2025. Since then, investigators have worked through a missing-person report, two separate recovery scenes, a homicide ruling by the medical examiner and an expanding forensic inquiry.
Police now say the first critical date in the case was July 13, when Ali appeared in a FaceTime call with a relative. That same day, according to officials and local reports, Simboo filed a report saying she was missing. For weeks, Ali’s relatives in Trinidad were left trying to understand why her daily contact had stopped. The case shifted sharply on Sept. 22, 2025, when sanitation workers found human remains in a garbage bag near 149th Avenue and Brookville Boulevard. The remains were later identified as Ali’s. Months later, on Jan. 31, the death was formally ruled a homicide. The final major break came late on March 5, when workers doing roadside cleanup near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge noticed a foul odor and found additional remains, prompting another intensive police response.
By March 11, detectives said they had enough to arrest Simboo at his South Ozone Park residence. He was charged with murder, obstructing governmental administration and two counts of tampering with physical evidence. People, citing an NYPD spokesperson, reported the arrest took place at about 10:25 a.m. Public reporting has filled in part of the investigative picture: police sources have said the remains recovered in September bore identifiable tattoos, helping investigators identify Ali, and Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said evidence suggested a knife or other straight-edge instrument was used on soft tissue and a saw on bone. Still, several central facts have not been publicly answered, including Ali’s exact cause of death, the motive investigators believe drove the killing and whether all of her remains will be recovered. Authorities have also not said whether Simboo has legal representation.
Ali’s story has also drawn attention because of who she was before the case became headline news. Reports said she was from Trinidad and met Simboo in 2023 while living there. She moved to Queens in 2024 and married him that year. ABC7 reported that police sources said Simboo was her immigration sponsor. Documented previously reported that Ali was working in a Queens restaurant and training to become a home health aide, while remaining in close contact with her mother and three daughters in Trinidad. That background has made the case resonate beyond the immediate crime scene. It has become, for relatives and members of the Indo-Caribbean community, a story about a woman who crossed borders to build a life in New York and then vanished from view before authorities pieced together what happened.
The case is now entering a new stage, but not a finished one. Police have said the investigation remains active and that evidence processing continues. The arrest resolves the question of whether the case would remain an unidentified-remains investigation, but it opens the next set of legal and procedural steps. Those are expected to include arraignment, the presentation of formal charging documents and continued forensic review tied to the two recovery sites and the couple’s home. Prosecutors may try to use the July missing-person report as part of a broader account of concealment, while defense attorneys, if appointed or retained, will have their own opportunity to challenge the timeline and evidence. No public court schedule was detailed in the reports available Wednesday night.
On the block where Simboo lived, the arrest produced a mix of fear, sympathy and disbelief. Neighbors told local reporters the couple had sometimes appeared to be sitting outside together in ordinary summer scenes, drinking beer and listening to music. One neighbor told ABC7 that they had seemed normal. Another, Hasiena Dwarika, said that once bits of information surfaced, residents began to see the situation differently and felt unsettled that life on the street had appeared to continue as usual while the investigation dragged on. CBS quoted Dwarika calling the situation eerie for families living nearby. Simboo’s relatives also appeared outside the house after the arrest, according to ABC7, but did not offer a detailed public response.
As of Wednesday, the case had moved from missing-person mystery to homicide prosecution, with investigators still working to answer the remaining questions left by months of silence and scattered evidence.
Author note: Last updated March 12, 2026.