New details have emerged since the arrest of a former Southern California tech CEO in connection with the alleged murder of his estranged wife late last year.
Ayan Papoli, 58, was found dead at the bottom of a 75-foot embankment in Crestline, a San Bernardino Mountains community, on Nov. 18, 2025.
Initially, investigators were unable to identify Papoli and believed her death was the result of an accident. They released a composite sketch of her in hopes someone would come forward and identify her.
Four days after her body was discovered, she was reported missing from her Newport Beach home and was officially identified by the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office on Dec 1.
“Initially, they determined her injuries to be consistent with a fall,” Jenny Smith, a spokesperson with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, told KTLA’s Shelby Nelson. “But after our coroner’s office reviewed her circumstances further, they decided that it was a homicide.”
Gordon Abas Goodarzi, 66, Papoli’s husband, was arrested in connection with her death on Jan. 23 at his home in the affluent L.A. County city of Rolling Hills. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office charged with him murder two days later.
So far, investigators have not said what led them to the 66-year-old, but in an amended criminal complaint, the DA added special circumstances of “lying in wait” and “murder for financial gain.”
Iranian born, Papoli emigrated to the states with her family when she was 18 and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Los Angeles Times reported. She later met Goodarzi and the couple founded a clean-energy company called U.S. Hybrid.
The couple’s two adult sons created a website in their mother’s memory, writing that they are devastated by her death. They described her as a woman with a passion for creative expression who “spread light, love and joy wherever she went.”
The site makes no mention of their father’s arrest in the case and KTLA’s attempts to reach them for this story were unsuccessful.
As for Goodarzi, he’s being held without bail at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino County.
In a statement to KTLA, his attorney, Scott Simmons, said, “My client looks forward to his day in court where the facts and evidence will clearly establish his innocence.”
This is the second high-profile murder case against an affluent husband in a matter of months.
Southern California farming magnate Michael Abatti, 63, was arrested in connection with his wife’s alleged murder on Dec. 23.
The estranged couple were reportedly entangled in a bitter divorce when Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, was found with a gunshot wound to the head in the couple’s Arizona vacation home on Nov. 20.
She succumbed to her injuries while being rushed to the hospital.
