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A Bellerose man has been indicted on murder and burglary charges after allegedly sneaking into his estranged wife’s home and killing her with cyanide, Nassau County authorities said on Thursday.
Asif Qureshi, 53, pleaded guilty in Nassau County Court in Mineola on a grand jury indictment charging him with second-degree murder and two counts of first-degree burglary. Remanded without bail, he faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted. He is due back in court Feb. 18.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said the Oct. 17 attack unfolded at 46-year-old Aleena Asif’s home on Larch Drive in Herricks.
“Aleena Asif brought her children to school that morning, unaware of the danger inside her own home,” the prosecutor said. “Asif Qureshi allegedly snuck into the house during school drop off, lying in wait, until his wife returned home. When he had her alone, he allegedly held cyanide over her mouth, killed her, and left her body for their children to gruesomely discover.
“A home should be a place of sanctuary, but this defendant turned it into a house of horrors,” Donnelly added.
Donnelly explained that, according to the indictment, Asif’s 18-year-old daughter left the home about 7 a.m. to attend college classes. Less than an hour later, the 46-year-old victim left her home with her 14-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter to bring them to school.
The indictment says that Qureshi then entered the home, dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask and gloves.
Aleena Asif, who was an accountant, returned to the home at about 8 a.m. accompanied by her young daughter, while the defendant was allegedly hidden inside of the house, and left with the child again around 8:50 a.m. to walk her to school, Donnelly said.
At 9 a.m., the mother returned to the home and entered.
Around 10:50 a.m., Qureshi, dressed in the same clothing left the home and walked to the intersection of Marcus Avenue and Denton Avenue, where he got onto an electric scooter locked to a telephone pole and drove away on Hillside Avenue toward Bellerose, Donnelly said.
That same afternoon, Aleena Asif’s older daughter received a call from her younger sister’s school informing her that her mother had not come to pick the child up when school ended.
The teen called police, who arrived at the Larch Drive home, where the door were locked.
When officers entered, they found Aleena Asif deceased in her bedroom, lying face up on her bed with red facial burns around her mouth.
Video surveillance later showed Qureshi, who was arrested Oct. 23, near the home and at nearby stores in Queens before and after the murder, Donnelly said.
The Nassau County Medical Examiner determined the cause of death was asphyxiation due to inhaled cyanide.
Authorities have previously described the couple’s volatile marriage, noting that Asif tried to leave Qureshi and had tried to serve him with divorce papers. Police said Asif had called law enforcement four times with safety concerns.
Top: Aleena Asif (standing) and Asif Qureshi (lounging) with their three children. Greater Long Island blurred the faces of the children in the image to protect their identities (Facebook).
