A Queens woman whose much older husband is accused of dismembering her and scattering her body parts in two remote parks had separated from him — but was talked into paying him a visit the day she was murdered, her heartbroken mother says.
Salisha Ali, 34, first met her 75-year-old husband, Rupchand Simboo, at a Christmas party in their native Trinidad a few years ago, her family says. On Wednesday, Simboo was arrested for her murder.
“I was completely against their relationship,” the victim’s mom Paula Seque, 55, said by phone from Trinidad Sunday. “He wanted to control her and she’s such a strong person that she’s not going to let anybody control her. I know that.”
Simboo was already established in Queens, where Ali, who worked as a security officer for a local airline in Trinidad, hoped to relocate to for more opportunity. The marriage was never romantic, her mother said.
“She met this guy and he said he could get her her visa,” Seque said of Simboo. “He said he would help her to get work.”
Ali immigrated to Queens in 2024, moving into Samboo’s home in South Ozone Park and marrying him. She planned to later send for her three daughters, ages 10, 14 and 15.
Courtesy of family
Salisha Ali, 34. (Courtesy of family)
“She came to work and establish herself,” Seque said. “She’s a very loving, caring person. She loves her three daughters. She loves the outdoors. She loves to travel. She’s very hardworking.”
Her mom opposed the move.
“I told her, she have everything here. She have her own house here, she have her car,” Seque said. “I said, ‘You have a good job here, everything here. You don’t need to go there.’”
“When she went up there everything changed. It was his way or no way,” she added. “I strongly believe that he wanted more out of the relationship and she didn’t want to give in because that wasn’t part of the relationship.”
Simboo was controlling, according to the victim’s mom.
“He said he don’t want her to be working and he want her to stay home and cook and clean,” Seque said. “She said, ‘Mommy, I didn’t come up here to be a housewife.’”
“Sometimes if he call her on the phone and she don’t answer, he would threaten to put her out,” Seque added. “He always threatened to put her out.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Rupchand Simboo, the suspect in the murder and dismemberment of his wife, Salisha Ali, in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 116th Precinct stationhouse in Queens on Wednesday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Two months before her disappearance, Ali, tired of the turmoil, moved out to live with a friend in Brooklyn, her mother says.
But she was lured back to her husband for a visit on July 13, the day authorties believe Simboo killed her.
“He called her and he told her that he’s lonely and he want her to come and cook and clean out the place,” Seque said. “She went that afternoon.”
Ali FaceTimed with her family that day, authorities say — the last time anyone saw her alive.
Seque tried calling her daughter multiple times the next day but nobody picked up. Growing worried, she called Simboo, who she says told her that her daughter had just packed her clothes and left in an Uber.
“I kept calling him every day,” she said. “I said, ‘You need to make a (missing persons) report.’ He said, ‘She will show up … She will come home soon. She might walk in any time.’”
“He said, for sure she will be here Friday,’” she added. “When Friday came, I said, ‘Where’s my daughter?’”
Her worries only grew as the mystery deepened.
“Days and nights I can’t sleep, wondering where my daughter is,” she said. “She’s family oriented. She would speak to her kids every day.’”
She eventually called her daughter’s local NYPD precinct stationhouse. The officer she spoke to wasn’t sure he could take a missing person report called in by somebody overseas.
“I started to cry and I said, “Pease take it because my daughter is missing,’” she said. “He took the report for me.”
Simboo also reported Ali missing, authorities say.
On Sept. 22, a decomposing torso was found in a garbage bag by sanitation workers picking up trash at Idlewild Park in Rosedale near JFK Airport. They were throwing the bag into their truck’s hopper when they were overcome by the smell and made the discovery, cops said.
The body’s head and limbs were missing but the torso had some distinctive tattoos, including three names and a flower.
Frank Koester for New York Daily News
The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens. (Frank Koester for New York Daily News)
“The detective called me and she said, ‘Paula, can you identify some tattoos,’” Seque said. “When I saw the tattoos, I knew it was her.”
Seque went on to speak to Simboo, who also helped authorities identify the body.
“He described her like: ‘It has no hands and no head and no legs,’” she recalled. “I didnt speak to him after that — the way he described my daughter like she was nothing.”
Cops were still months away from making an arrest or finding the rest of Ali’s remains.
Investigators went on to obtain a warrant for Simboo’s phone and found he used an app called Life360 that allows users to track the location of loved ones or even pets. The app showed that Samboo visited Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge the day after his wife went missing in July and Idlewild Park the day after that.
Based on the app data, cops went searching in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on March 5 and found Ali’s head, legs and one arm over the course of two days.
A blue moving blanket and yellow rope matching the ones found wrapped around the torso were located inside Simboo’s apartment and garage by cops executing a search warrant, prosecutors say.
Courtesy of family
Salisha Ali, 34. (Courtesy of family)
On Wednesday, authorities arrested Simboo for murder, concealment of a human corpse and tampering with evidence.
“I just was so grateful for the detective because she worked really hard. She told me she would get justice for my daughter and she really did,” Seque said. “She never give up.”
And yet the arrest has done nothing to lessen Seque’s grief.
“I have no joy. I have nothing,” Seque said. “My daughter was my life. my heart aches for her. I’m so broken.”
Simboo’s motive involved “jealousy,” a law enforcement source said. He is being held without bail as he awaits trial in Queens Criminal Court.
“The defendant went to extraordinary lengths to evade responsibility for the brutal killing of his wife, discarding her remains in remote locations and concealing critical evidence,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
Ali’s exact cause of death has not been determined, with the city Medical Examiner ruling she died of “homicidal violence.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Rupchand Simboo, the suspect in the murder and dismemberment of his wife, Salisha Ali, in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 116th Precinct stationhouse in Queens on Wednesday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Ali was working as a home health aide in New York but finalizing getting a security job at JKF Airport around the time she was killed, her mother says. But the victim had by that time given up on her American dream.
“She said, ‘I’m not thinking about any green card anymore,’” Sequa said. “Three more years on my work permit and then I will come home.”