Southern California man convicted of murdering estranged wife

(KTLA) — A Southern California man was convicted of murdering his estranged wife after she was stabbed to death in her apartment in 2022.

Zarbab Ali, 28, of Hawthorne, was arrested in November 2022 after the body of his wife, Rachel Castillo, 25, was discovered by authorities, according to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office.

Castillo was reported missing by her family members on Nov. 10, 2022, after her sister returned home to the Simi Valley apartment they shared and discovered a bloody scene. Castillo’s wallet, keys and car had been left at home.

Days later on Nov. 13, the woman’s body was found by Simi Valley police in a remote area near Littlerock. Ali was eventually arrested and charged with her death.

On the day of Castillo’s murder, Ali had picked up their two young sons, who were 5 and 2 years old at the time, from her Simi Valley apartment and took them to his parents’ home in Victorville, The Ventura County Star reported.

He drove back to Castillo’s apartment and reportedly sat in his car for 10 minutes before reentering the apartment. 

Once inside, he turned off the lights and waited for Castillo to come out of her bedroom before pushing her to the ground and stabbing her multiple times in the chest.

Ali told detectives that he wrapped her body in a blanket and tried to clean up the blood before placing her in his car trunk and driving to a remote desert in the Antelope Valley. He then dug a shallow grave and buried her before driving back to his parents’ home.

In a taped interview with detectives, he said he returned to the grave around 2 a.m. the next day to dig up the woman’s body.

“Just to confirm that I am a monster, I raped her…” he’s heard saying in the video. “If I didn’t commit to being a monster, then she would have died for no reason.”

During a trial hearing, Ali’s defense attorney, Erik Aucoin, said he killed Castillo not for financial gain as the prosecution claimed, but because of her alleged infidelity and the jealousy he felt.

“This is the only way I could escape,” Ali said of the murder. “I wanted her dead. … I was angry that she just wouldn’t let me move on.”

The VC Star reported that Ali testified that Castillo had wanted a divorce because she was in love with a childhood friend, the defense attorney said.

The DA’s office said Castillo was in the process of divorcing Castillo and the divorce was nearly complete when she was murdered. 

Prosecutors also said a neighbor had seen Ali outside her apartment the night she was murdered. Detectives said his phone location data placed him at the crime scene and burial site, and surveillance footage showed him purchasing the shovel he used to bury her body. Castillo’s blood was found in his car trunk and his DNA was found inside her body, the VC Star reported.

The trial hearing began on Nov. 6, 2025, and on Nov. 21, he was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder. Before the trial, he pleaded guilty to the unlawful mutilation, disinterment or act of sexual contact with human remains

Special allegations the jury also found true were that the murder was committed by means of lying in wait and that he had used a knife. 

“We are very happy that justice will be served in this case in this life and the next,” Chris Castillo, Rachel’s father, told the VC Star after the verdict was read.

“Our thoughts are with Rachel’s family, who have endured unimaginable pain since the day she was taken from them,” said David Russell, a Ventura County District Attorney who prosecuted the case. “I am thankful for the outstanding efforts of law enforcement, whose investigation made this verdict possible. 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.”

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12, 2026, at the Ventura County Superior Court.