Attorney General Dave Sunday said Kabary Salem, 57, was sentenced after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in October of the 2019 murder of Ola Salem.
LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. — A New York man was sentenced to life in prison for killing his daughter in Lebanon County and disposing of her body in a Staten Island park in 2019, Attorney General Dave Sunday announced.
The sentencing comes after a Lebanon County jury found Kabary Salem, 57, guilty of the murder of 26-year-old Ola Salem following a week-long trial in October.
The New York City Police Department investigated the case after Ola Salem’s body was discovered. The cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma.
A few days after his initial interview with police, Kabary Salem fled to the Middle East until he was arrested there in December 2020, authorities said.
In his initial interview with New York police in October 2019, Kabary Salem admitted that he and his daughter traveled together to Palmyra to paint a restaurant he co-owned. He claimed that after arguing with his daughter earlier in the day, she began to behave erratically. He claimed he saw her get into an unknown black sedan sometime after 9 p.m. and did not see her again.
At his trial, prosecutors presented surveillance footage and GPS data from the vehicle Kabary Salem rented that showed the vehicle was at Salem’s restaurant and at a nearby hotel on the night of October 23, 2019.
Video surveillance from the hotel showed there were two people in the vehicle when it arrived that evening, according to prosecutors.
Using GPS data, investigators tracked Kabary Salem’s vehicle from the hotel to a Lowe’s store, where surveillance footage showed him, now alone, purchasing a shovel, according to testimony.
At 10:45 p.m., GPS tracking data indicated Kabary Salem’s vehicle returned to the hotel. Surveillance footage from the hotel at that time showed he was still in the vehicle alone, prosecutors said.
When Ola Salem’s body was discovered, police also recovered a blue shovel — similar to one Kabary Salem was seen on video purchasing at Lowe’s — at the scene, according to testimony. His DNA was also found under his daughter’s fingernails, prosecutors said.
“A father is supposed to love and protect his child, but this defendant committed one of the cruelest acts imaginable — he murdered his daughter in cold blood,” Sunday said. “There is but one acceptable punishment for such a heinous crime. This life sentence will not bring Ola back, but it offers a measure of justice and accountability against the defendant.”