A Queens man was under arrest on Friday for murder after police said he asphyxiated his estranged wife with an “unknown chemical substance” inside her Long Island home.
Asif Qureshi, 53, is accused of killing 46-year-old Aleena Asif with a cyanide-like compound — about a week after she served him divorce papers.
Nassau County police detectives responded to a residence on Larch Drive in the hamlet of Herricks on the afternoon of Oct. 17 and found a woman “unconscious, not breathing and with apparent facial burns.”
The victim, later identified as Asif, was pronounced dead at the scene. The county medical examiner subsequently ruled her death a “criminal homicide due to asphyxiation by an unknown chemical substance,” according to police.
Asif lived in the home with her three children, ages 18, 14 and 7, News 12 Long Island reported. It’s unclear if they are also Qureshi’s children.
Authorities said Qureshi and Asif constantly fought over money, and late last year, they agreed to separate. Earlier this year, Asif requested a divorce and served him papers on Oct. 9, Nassau County Police Detective Captain Stephen Fitzpatrick told reporters.
Qureshi refused to accept the papers and began stalking her soon after, officials said.
On Oct. 17, he allegedly entered Asif’s home, waited for her to drop off the kids at school and then killed her when she returned.
The gruesome scene was discovered just before 4 p.m. that day after Asif’s 18-year-old daughter called police worried that her mother hadn’t picked up her 7-year-old sister from school. She was found with severe burns in and around her face and mouth.
Qureshi was arrested Thursday in Bellerose, Queens, where he’d been renting a room on 248th St. near Hillsdale Ave.
He was arraigned in Nassau County District Court on a second-degree murder charge Friday morning, and is being held without bail, officials said. Prosecutors are planning to ask a grand jury to indict him on first-degree murder.
Qureshi had one prior domestic violence arrest involving his wife and five other incidents reported over the past two years — four involving his wife and one involving his daughter.
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