Man Charged with Murder of His Estranged Wife, Whose Body Was Found at the Bottom of a Cliff By Charlotte Phillipp

A California man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of his estranged wife, more than two months after her body was found at the bottom of a steep cliff.

On Sunday, Jan. 25, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department announced that Gordon Abas Goodarzi, 66, was arrested and charged with murder on Friday, Jan. 23, following an investigation into the death of 58-year-old Aryan Papoli.

Deputies first received a report of a deceased person near Highway 138 and Crestline Road in Crestline, Calif. — a mountainous town located about 75 miles outside of Los Angeles — on Nov. 18, 2025.

The body was discovered about 75 feet down a steep embankment. Fire officials were called to the scene to retrieve her body from the side of the steep mountainside.

Investigators couldn’t immediately identify Papoli, and the sheriff’s department released a sketch of her face, seeking the public’s help in finding her name. An autopsy determined that she had injuries consistent with a fall, and the coroner eventually ruled her death a homicide.

By Dec. 1, the body was identified as Papoli, who had been reported missing in Newport Beach.

Newport Beach Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Steve Oberon confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that a missing person’s report was filed with the department on Nov. 22, four days after the discovery in Crestline.

Papoli’s son, Navid Goodarzi, told ABC7 in a December interview that he received notice from the sheriff’s department that the decedent was his mother just two days after Thanksgiving.

“When she was missing, we were sort of going from this frantic pass, all engines flaring, like how can we find her?” Navid said at the time. “When we got the news, it sort of feels like the wind gets knocked out of you. The first day, it’s a lot of shock.”

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After an “extensive and persistent investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death,” the sheriff’s department arrested Gordon, Papoli’s estranged husband, at his home in Rolling Hills, Calif.

Navid, a graduate student at Harvard University, also spoke to the Los Angeles Times shortly after his mother was identified.

The 25-year-old described his mother as “a ray of light” and “sunshine manifested.” Papoli immigrated to the U.S. with her mother and sister at the age of 18 from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

She eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she met Gordon. The pair founded a clean energy company together and raised their two sons in Southern California.

Navid said his mother had moved to Newport Beach just six months before her death, as she sought a “serene place where she could thrive creatively in her retirement from the corporate world.”

Navid has since created a website dedicated to his mother’s memory, full of photos of her and her artwork.

“She loved people; she loved animals; she loved art,” he told ABC7 of Papoli. “She never grew up with an opportunity to express herself with art; she grew up in Tehran, Iran, and lived through revolution and war. She came to the United States and built a career, a life, a family.”

Following his arrest, Gordon was taken to the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, where he is being held without bail. He will make his first court appearance on Monday, Jan. 26, at 8:30 a.m. local time, per jail records.