NEW YORK, NY- An elderly man who married a woman some 40 years his junior stands accused of a brutal murder and is behind bars, New York prosecutors say.
Rupchand Simboo, 74, was arraigned this week in connection with the murder of his wife, 33-year-old Salisha Ali, whose remains were found scattered throughout the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge and JFK International Airport, according to The New York Post.
Neighbors of the couple said Ali was lured to marry Simboo to obtain a green card.
Last week, police recovered the victim’s severed head, legs, and arm inside the wildlife refuge months after her torso was found near JFK. Police followed cellphone app data that showed Simboo was in the swampy area last summer, a day after Ali was last seen alive.
Authorities are looking into jealousy over a love triangle that led to the murder. That motive seems to align with rumors in the couple’s neighborhood that Ali was engaged in an extramarital affair.
Simboo’s arrest didn’t come as a shock to his neighbors in South Ozone Park, where they described him as ill-tempered.
“He was a nasty man. Just nasty. Nasty and very vindictive, like, mean. Like he’s not a nice person,” neighbor Sureshwarie Ackree said.
“I wasn’t surprised when this happened because he in my business. He was a very wicked man.”
Simboo was held without bail during his late Wednesday arraignment, where he was charged with murder and concealment of a human corpse.
Sources said the couple’s relationship traces back to Trinidad, where Ali lived. She started a long-distance relationship with Simboo and moved to Queens in 2024, where she eventually married Simboo, sources told The Post.
According to The Trinidad Express, the relationship stemmed from Ali’s immigration status.
“She did it for the papers, probably,” Acrkee said of the relationship with a 40-year gap.
Neighbors said Simboo lived with an older woman before Ali, however their relationship ended after a violent blowup between the two that was witnessed by several neighbors.
“They had a big argument, they was cussing one another out in the street,” one neighbor said. “She moved out, he went to Trinidad, came back with this woman [Ali].”
According to Ackree, Ali had a strained marriage with Simboo that also included another man. Sources confirmed to The Post that police are investigating the alleged love triangle as a motive that ultimately led to Ali’s murder.
Ali kept close ties with her family in Trinidad after moving to Queens, sources said. She spoke with her family on a FaceTime call sometime on July 13; however, she didn’t show up to her job as a home health aide the following day, according to court records.
Simboo reported Ali missing on July 19 after being urged to do so by her mother, prosecutors said.
Simboo, however, gave mixed signals to neighbors, with some noting he didn’t seem to be distraught over her disappearance even as time dragged on.
“He was living his life, cool, calm, and collected,” a neighbor noted.
Ackree also noticed that Simboo stopped drinking and barbecuing outside.
“I said, where was the lady? He said, ‘Oh, I don’t know anything. I don’t know where she is,” Ackree said. “He looked like fish out of water, like something happened. He didn’t look normal.”
On Sept. 22, however, things took a disturbing turn when two sanitation workers saw a blue moving blanket wrapped in yellow rope near Indlewood Park, a marshy area located near JFK, police and prosecutors said. Investigators used DNA testing and determined the decomposing torso belonged to Ali.
That discovery led investigators to turn their attention to Simboo, and on October 17, 2025, a search warrant was executed at Simboo’s home, where plastic wrap and yellow rope consistent with the cord used to bind Ali’s torso were found, according to court documents.
Police then served a second search warrant at Simboo’s work garage and discovered a moving blanket that was identical to the one wrapped around Ali’s torso, court papers revealed.
Detectives were then able to track Simboo’s GPS coordinates through the Life 360 app on his phone, and found he was in the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge on July 14, prosecutors said.
He had also been near Brookville Blvd. and 149th Avenue, where the victim’s torso was found.
A search of the backwoods on March 5 and 6 found a head, legs, and an arm, officials said. A forensic analysis determined the body parts belonged to the victim, prosecutors said.
Simboo is scheduled to appear in court on March 16.
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