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.  

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According to the Riverside Police Department, 50-year-old Luis Contreras was arrested by Mexican authorities in Mexicali on July 8, and has since been extradited back to Riverside County to face charges.

Contreras, who was 32 at the time, is the primary suspect in the June 14, 2005, killing of 38-year-old Alfonso Vera. Vera was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds inside a home on the 4700 block of Doane Avenue in Riverside.

Witnesses heard the shots and saw people running and two vehicles leaving the scene, police said. Those witnesses were able to provide a license plate number of one of the vehicles.

Investigators later determined that a man was involved in an argument with his girlfriend and became physically violent with her. Vera came to the woman’s aid and intervened and was shot multiple times by another person.

Three suspects were believed involved in the case, two of which were apprehended weeks after Vera’s killing. But the gunman, who police said was Contreras, was never located, and it was believed that he fled to Mexico to avoid arrest.

In June 2024, nearly two decades since the deadly shooting, detectives reopened the cold case and renewed the search for Contreras.

Within weeks, he was located and arrested by Mexican authorities in coordination with the U.S. Marshals Service. He’s since been brought back to the U.S. and was booked into the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center near Murrieta.

Now 50 years old, Contreras is awaiting trial on second-degree murder charges and is currently being held on $1 million bail, according to jail records.

He’s expected to appear in court on Aug. 2.

Of the two other men believed to be involved in the killing of Alfonso Vera, one served a three-year prison sentence for being an accessory to murder and the other was not charged due to a lack of evidence, police said.

Anyone with information about this investigation is urged to contact the Riverside Police Department’s Homicide Cold Case Unit by email or by calling 951-320-8000.

Earlier this month, a man suspected in an Orange County homicide that happened 18 years ago was arrested in Mexico and extradited back to the U.S. to face charges.

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