Left: Zarbab Ali (Ventura County District Attorney's Office). Right: Rachel Castillo (Simi Valley police).
A California man will spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury convicted him of murdering his estranged wife while he hid in her apartment and waited for her to come out of her bedroom before he pounced and stabbed her to death.
Zarbab Ali, 28, was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in the death of 25-year-old Rachel Castillo, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. Ali will receive a mandatory life prison sentence during a hearing scheduled for Jan. 12.
Castillo's family reported her missing on Nov. 10, 2022, after her sister came home to their Simi Valley apartment and found a large amount of blood.
"As soon as I saw the blood, that's when I realized something wasn't right," her sister told local ABC affiliate KABC at the time. "So I called my mom to let her know to come over and then I immediately called 911. I was running around the house trying to see if I could find her somewhere. I checked her bathroom, under her bed, her closet, my closet, the laundry room, my bathroom and my bedroom but she wasn't anywhere in there."
Rachel Castillo's phone, keys and vehicle were also left behind.
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Cops rushed to the scene to find "a significant amount of blood" and determined "a struggle occurred inside" that likely resulted in a murder. Their suspicions were proven correct three days later on Nov. 13, 2022, when local cops along with the FBI discovered the victim's body in a remote desert area in the Antelope Valley.
Ali was arrested the following day. According to a courtroom report from the Ventura County Star, jurors heard Ali's confession to detectives. He explained how he and Castillo had been separated for about nine months and had been thinking about killing her. On the day of the murder, he picked up their two kids from her apartment and drove them to his parents' home before returning to his wife's home and discovered the door was unlocked.
"I really didn't want to do it," he reportedly told cops. "Everything in my body was telling me not to do it."
At first he was spooked when neighbors saw him outside the apartment, but then he saw an opportunity. He went inside and turned the lights off. He lied in wait for Castillo to come out of her bedroom. Once she did, he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her three times. He wrapped her body in a blanket and tried to clean up the scene before he stuffed her remains in his trunk and drove to the remote desert where he buried her in a shallow grave.
Ali returned to the area the next day, when he dug her up and had sex with her body.
"Just to confirm that I am a monster, I raped her," he reportedly told detectives. "If I didn't commit to being a monster, then she would have died for no reason."
According to the Star, Ali took the stand in his own defense in a futile attempt to explain away his actions to the jury. He said he became extremely jealous when Castillo wanted a divorce because she had fallen in love with another man.
"She was my entire world at this point, and it all just crashed around me," he reportedly testified.
He also said his initial claim to detectives how her death was quick and painless was not exactly true.
"In reality, she put up a fight," he testified, per the Star. "I was a brute. I pushed her down, and it was gory beyond belief."
Castillo's family was pleased with the verdict.
"We are very happy that justice will be served in this case in this life and the next," her father Chris Castillo told the Star.
Senior Deputy District Attorney David Russell who prosecuted the case said in a statement that law enforcement's "outstanding efforts" made the verdict possible.
"Our thoughts are with Rachel's family, who have endured unimaginable pain since the day she was taken from them," Russell said. "While nothing can restore what her loved ones have lost, this conviction ensures the defendant will spend the rest of his life in prison and that the community will be protected from him forever."
