Woman's body lay undiscovered in unmarked grave for six months, court hears
The body of a woman who was allegedly murdered by her husband lay undiscovered in an unmarked grave for over six months, Worcester Crown Court has heard.
Police failed to dig deep enough to find the body of Zobaidah Salangy, who police believe was killed in March 2020. She was 28.
Pizza shop owner Nezam Salangy is on trial charged with murder, and is accused of burying his wife in woodland under cover of darkness.
Salangy’s younger brothers are on trial accused of assisting their older brother in concealing the crime.
Salangy, 44, reported his wife missing to police, telling them “she had gone out for a run and never come back”, after leaving him for a “new boyfriend”, jurors heard.
Opening the prosecution’s case on Tuesday, Simon Denison QC said it was an “unfortunate fact” of the case Mrs Salangy’s body was initially missed, when a first dig at the site near the village of Lower Bentley took place in April 2020.
As a result of the “six-and-a-half months between her death and her body being discovered”, it had been impossible to determine the 28-year-old’s exact cause of death, he said.
However, police – “convinced she must be there” – returned to the spot in October 2020.
Mrs Salangy was bound in curtain wire and wrapped in black bin bags and a duvet cover.
That duvet matched pillow cases found at the couple’s three-bed terrace address in Talbot Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, not far from Salangy’s Prego Pizza shop, in nearby Austin Road.
Her phone was also found hidden behind other items, in bubble wrap, on a high shelf in the pizza parlour, together with a second phone which prosecutors claim Salangy used to make arrangements with his two brothers to conceal the killing.
Salangy’s fingerprints were found on the box containing both phones, it is alleged.
Also with her phone, the victim’s black purse containing her driving licence and cash was discovered.
Mr Denison told jurors how on March 27, the day before Mrs Salangy’s disappearance, the couple had “argued bitterly”, with part of the row video recorded by Salangy on his phone.
In the footage, Mrs Salangy “was saying ‘keep filming for the eight years he is destroying my life’.”
In the recording, both said “that their relationship was over”, added Mr Denison.
The prosecuting barrister said that the next day “Zobaidah Salangy vanished off the face of the earth”.
Salangy, of Talbot Road, Bromsgrove, and 33-year-old Yasin and Ramin Salangy, 31, both of Adamscroft Place, Cardiff, deny any wrongdoing.
The trial continues.