Rupinder Goraya, 34, Missing from Fort Myers, FL Since 10-2-07

[Grande]

Missing woman has police, relatives baffled and concerned
Posted on Sat, Dec. 01, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM print email
By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Kultar Goraya is admittedly nervous - and for good reason.

His wife, Rupinder, disappeared two months ago - and police say he is a "person of interest."

They say they can't get a single straight story out of him and soon after she vanished, he abandoned his job and took their handicapped 3-year-old son Sam back to their native India.

But when relatives demanded to know what happened to Rupinder, he and the boy abruptly returned to Florida.

On a recent afternoon, Kultar is sitting on the couch in his sparsely furnished apartment, his arms crossed, his hands tightly tucked under his armpits. He rocks back and forth.

He occasionally chews his cuticles and alternates his stare from ceiling to floor. He guzzles water. He proclaims his innocence.

"I love too much my wife," Kultar, 33, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. "Many things I am thinking ... I don't know why she is doing this. She has not called me."

He said Rupinder was having affairs with two men. Maybe she ran off with a lover, he speculated. Maybe she is with friends.

Fort Myers police have found no evidence of another man. Friends and relatives say that was not Rupinder's character, and she wouldn't have run off. Personal items were found in her apartment that she wouldn't have left behind nor would she have left her son, they say.

Detectives say Kultar's stories have changed too much during their two interviews with him to be believable but they don't have enough to arrest him, either.

"There's no one piece of physical evidence that we have right now that she has met with foul play," Detective Jeff Nibarger said. "However, all things considered, it certainly looks suspicious."

Kultar, his wife and Sam moved to Florida last year from India's Punjab state. Rupinder, 34, was participating in a nursing exchange program, but had been on leave from Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center to recover from a hysterectomy performed after a cancer diagnosis. Kultar worked as a convenience store clerk.

Their five-year marriage was arranged, and the couple never seemed happy, said Parneet Othee, Rupinder's aunt, who now lives in Virginia. In May, Kultar was arrested for allegedly choking his wife in a drunken rage. He threatened to kill her, according to police, but the couple later reconciled.

Kultar admits his relationship with his wife was shaky. He wanted to settle in California. He said she wanted to move to New York.

He said he last saw his wife on Oct. 2. He was napping. She came in and "kissed my forehead" and said she was going to Orlando to catch a plane for New York to visit a hospital where she hoped to work. Her cell phone calls and credit card activity all go cold after that day. She missed a doctor's appointment.

Kultar never reported his wife missing, authorities said, but her hospital colleagues did on Oct. 19, more than two weeks after he says she left. Her relatives don't buy the New York story - they say she liked her job in Florida and had no desire to leave.

Adding to suspicions, soon after she vanished, Kultar bought tickets for what police say was a hastily planned trip and flew back to India with his son. He found himself unwelcome by family there, who were angry that he hadn't been forthcoming with authorities and couldn't explain what happened to his wife, Othee said.

He returned to Florida and has told police various accounts.

"He's her husband. He's the father of her child. You would think that he knows where she is," Nibarger said. "If your wife was missing, would you leave the country?"

As he speculates about what happened to his wife, Kultar rambles, sometimes incoherently, and switches thoughts mid-sentence.

"My wife is scared," he told the AP. But he couldn't explain what may have frightened her.

Asked about his domestic abuse arrest, Kultar first said, "I slapped my wife only one time."

Prodded, he backtracked and said he never hit his wife.

"Verbal only," he said, then changed the topic.

"She is playing with me," he snapped, rubbing his forehead. "When she comes back, I want a divorce ... Everybody is saying to me, 'Where is Rupinder? Where is Rupinder?'

"I don't know," he said.

Nicole Cox, 21, who lives in an apartment below the Gorayas, said something never seemed right with the couple. Rupinder was outgoing and friendly, "a sweet lady," while Kultar seemed distant and unpredictable.

"He just seemed to be one of those people who could change his personality in a split second," Cox said.

She said Rupinder would never have left without her son.

"She's not the kind of person who would just up and leave Sam," Cox said. "She was so kind and so sweet and so caring with Sam. If she wanted to leave, she would have taken him."

Rupinder's aunt also said she would not have just vanished.

"That's not her character. She is a very responsible person," Othee said. "Because of the previous circumstance when he choked her, that makes me fear now."

Frustrated detectives also fear the worst, but hope they are wrong.

"If she's out there, and she can contact us, that's ultimately what we want. We want a safe return," Sgt. Jennifer Soto said. "The circumstances surrounding her disappearance just aren't normal. It's just that in this instance, things are leading us to believe she may not be OK."

http://www.miamiherald.com/775/story/327940.html

[Pauli]

Latest News - Updated @ 1:10 A.m.
Fort Myers police seek missing nurse
Husband left town with their son

By Ed Johnson
ejohnson@news-press.com
Originally posted on October 27, 2007

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h169/avataralley/missing/rupinder.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:NewWindow%28450,450,%27/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/misc/zoom.pbs&Site=A4&Date=20071027&Category=NEWS0110&ArtNo=710270466&Ref=AR&Profile=1075%27%29;)

Rupinder Goraya, a nurse at Southwest Regional Medical Center, has been missing for almost a month, a sudden disappearance that has worried friends and relatives and posed an investigative challenge for Fort Myers police.

Police consider her disappearance suspicious and have listed her as an endangered adult, a classification that immediately placed her in the nationwide police computer network, said department spokeswoman Shelly Flynn.

The police also have had to glean information from relatives half a world away as they sort out why the 33-year-old mother of a little boy would suddenly vanish. Heightening concern is her daily need for prescription medication, detectives said.

Equally puzzling is the delay in reporting her disappearance, the police said.

Rupinder Goraya was last seen at the beginning of the month. A friend reported her missing on Oct. 19, Flynn said. The circumstances of her disappearance have the police concerned, said Detective Michelle Rand.

She had never been out of touch with her relatives before and now had suddenly missed doctor's appointments for treatment after a surgical procedure, Rand said.

"It's all just out of character," Rand said. "It raises our suspicions."
Authorities are also uncertain of the wherabouts of her husband, Kultar S. Goraya, 33.

"He left with their 3-year-old son shortly before she was reported missing," Rand said. "We believe he returned to India." The couple had no relatives in this area, police said. They also had a recent history of domestic violence, court records show.

Kultar Goraya was arrested by Fort Myers police on May 17 for domestic battery, sheriff's booking reports show.
The Fort Myers police report of Kultar Goraya's arrest said his wife accused him of choking her and threatening to stab her if she called police.

The reporting officers wrote they noted and photographed abrasions to Rupinder Goraya's neck, Flynn said.

He was ordered to have no contact with his wife in a July 10 court appearance. But that order was amended to "no violent contact" on Aug. 7, the records of the Lee County Clerk of the Courts show. Shortly after that order was modified the couple started living together again in the Montego Bay Apartments on Colonial Boulevard, Rand said. They were living together at the time she disappeared, Rand said.

The police believe Kultar Goraya is in India's Punjab province, near the Pakistan border, said Detective Jeff Nibarger, which has made investigating the case harder.
Investigators are trying to coordinate interviews with acquaintances of the missing woman in India, encountering cultural and language difficulties in the process, Nibarger said.

"Trying to find someone who could speak the dialect and translate for us has been difficult," he said. "It slows the process."

Meanwhile, police are anxious to speak with anyone in Fort Myers who believes they might have seen Rupinder Goraya.
Investigators are trying to establish a timeline of when and where she was last seen, Rand said.

"We're looking for anyone who might have any information," Rand said. "Her dropping from sight like this is highly unusual. She's a person who is very diligent about keeping her appointments.

Rupinder Goraya, a nurse at Southwest Regional Medical Center, has been missing for almost a month, a sudden disappearance that has worried friends and relatives and posed an investigative challenge for Fort Myers police.

Police consider her disappearance suspicious and have listed her as an endangered adult, a classification that immediately placed her in the nationwide police computer network, said department spokeswoman Shelly Flynn.

The police also have had to glean information from relatives half a world away as they sort out why the 33-year-old mother of a little boy would suddenly vanish. Heightening concern is her daily need for prescription medication, detectives said.

Equally puzzling is the delay in reporting her disappearance, the police said.

Rupinder Goraya was last seen at the beginning of the month. A friend reported her missing on Oct. 19, Flynn said.
The circumstances of her disappearance have the police concerned, said Detective Michelle Rand.

She had never been out of touch with her relatives before and now had suddenly missed doctor's appointments for treatment after a surgical procedure, Rand said.

"It's all just out of character," Rand said. "It raises our suspicions."
Authorities are also uncertain of the wherabouts of her husband, Kultar S. Goraya, 33.

"He left with their 3-year-old son shortly before she was reported missing," Rand said. "We believe he returned to India."

The couple had no relatives in this area, police said. They also had a recent history of domestic violence, court records show.

Kultar Goraya was arrested by Fort Myers police on May 17 for domestic battery, sheriff's booking reports show.

The Fort Myers police report of Kultar Goraya's arrest said his wife accused him of choking her and threatening to stab her if she called police.

The reporting officers wrote they noted and photographed abrasions to Rupinder Goraya's neck, Flynn said.

He was ordered to have no contact with his wife in a July 10 court appearance. But that order was amended to "no violent contact" on Aug. 7, the records of the Lee County Clerk of the Courts show.

Shortly after that order was modified the couple started living together again in the Montego Bay Apartments on Colonial Boulevard, Rand said. They were living together at the time she disappeared, Rand said.

The police believe Kultar Goraya is in India's Punjab province, near the Pakistan border, said Detective Jeff Nibarger, which has made investigating the case harder.

Investigators are trying to coordinate interviews with acquaintances of the missing woman in India, encountering cultural and language difficulties in the process, Nibarger said.

"Trying to find someone who could speak the dialect and translate for us has been difficult," he said. "It slows the process."

Meanwhile, police are anxious to speak with anyone in Fort Myers who believes they might have seen Rupinder Goraya.
Investigators are trying to establish a timeline of when and where she was last seen, Rand said.

"We're looking for anyone who might have any information," Rand said. "Her dropping from sight like this is highly unusual. She's a person who is very diligent about keeping her appointments.

[omsk99]

Husband suspect in wife's disappearance

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 2, 12:59 PM ET

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Kultar Goraya is admittedly nervous — and for good reason.
ADVERTISEMENT

His wife, Rupinder, disappeared two months ago. Police say he is the only "person of interest" and they can't get a single straight story out of him.

Soon after Rupinder vanished, he abandoned his job and took their handicapped 3-year-old son Sam back to their native India, then abruptly returned to Florida with the boy when relatives demanded to know what happened to his wife.

During a recent interview in his sparsely furnished apartment, he sat on the couch with his arms crossed, hands tightly tucked under his armpits, rocking back and forth. He occasionally chewed his cuticles and alternated his stare from ceiling to floor. He guzzled water. He proclaimed his innocence.

"I love too much my wife," said Kultar, 33. "Many things I am thinking ... I don't know why she is doing this. She has not called me."

He said Rupinder was having affairs with two men. Maybe she ran off with a lover, he speculated. Maybe she is with friends. However, he couldn't provide credible names for people he said she knew well. He supplied a telephone number for one woman, but she said she didn't know Rupinder.

Fort Myers police cite similar changes in Kultar's stories. They said they have found no evidence of another man. Friends and relatives say that was not Rupinder's character, and she wouldn't have run off. Personal items were found in her apartment that she wouldn't have left behind and or would she have left her son, they say.

Detectives say that while Kultar's stories changed too much during their two interviews with him to be believable, they don't have enough grounds to arrest him.

"There's no one piece of physical evidence that we have right now that she has met with foul play," Detective Jeff Nibarger said. "However, all things considered, it certainly looks suspicious."

Kultar, Rupinder and Sam moved to Florida last year from India's Punjab state. Rupinder, 34, was participating in a nursing exchange program, but had been on leave from Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center to recover from a hysterectomy performed after a cancer diagnosis. Kultar worked as a convenience store clerk.

Their five-year marriage was arranged and they never seemed happy, said Rupinder's aunt, Parneet Othee, who lives in Virginia.

In May, Kultar was arrested for allegedly choking his wife in a drunken rage. Police said he threatened to kill her, but the couple later reconciled. He admits his relationship with his wife was shaky.

Kultar said he last saw her on Oct. 2. He had been napping when she came in and "kissed my forehead" and said she was going to Orlando to catch a flight to New York to visit a hospital where she hoped to work.

Her relatives don't buy the New York story, saying she had no desire to leave a job she liked in Florida.

Her cell phone calls and credit card activity all go cold after that day, detectives said. She missed a doctor's appointment.

Kultar never reported his wife missing, authorities said, but her hospital colleagues did on Oct. 19, more than two weeks after he says she left.

Adding to suspicions, four days before her colleagues filed that report, Kultar made what police say was a hastily planned trip back to India with his son.

"If your wife was missing, would you leave the country?" Nibarger asked.

He soon returned. Othee said he wasn't welcomed by his relatives in India, who were angry that he couldn't explain what happened to his wife.

In the interview, Kultar rambles, sometimes incoherently, and switches thoughts mid-sentence.

"My wife is scared," he told the AP. But he couldn't explain what may have frightened her.

Asked about his domestic abuse arrest, Kultar first said: "I slapped my wife only one time."

Prodded, he backtracked and said he never hit her.

"Verbal only," he said, then changed the topic.

"She is playing with me," he snapped. "When she comes back, I want a divorce ... Everybody is saying to me 'Where is Rupinder? Where is Rupinder?'

"I don't know," he said.

Nicole Cox, 21, who lives in an apartment below the Gorayas, said something never seemed right with the couple. Rupinder was outgoing and friendly, "a sweet lady," while Kultar seemed distant and unpredictable.

"He just seemed to be one of those people who could change his personality in a split second," Cox said.

She said Rupinder would never have left without her son. "She was so kind and so sweet and so caring with Sam. If she wanted to leave, she would have taken him," Cox said.

Rupinder's aunt is worried. "Because of the previous circumstance when he choked her, that makes me fear now," Othee said.

Detectives also fear the worst.

"The circumstances surrounding her disappearance just aren't normal. It's just that in this instance, things are leading us to believe she may not be OK," Sgt. Jennifer Soto said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071202/ap_on_re_us/missing_woman

[Pauli]

Husband Now POI
http://www.wftx4.com/Global/story.asp?S=7462940 (http://www.wftx4.com/Global/story.asp?S=7462940)

Posted: Dec 6, 2007 06:25 PM CST

Updated: Dec 6, 2007 06:25 PM CST


If your spouse disappeared, the first thing you might do is call the police. But Police say that's not what happened when 34-year-old Rupinder Goraya of Fort Myers went missing.

Police are calling her husband, 33-year-old Kultar Goraya, a person of interest in the case. They say soon after Rupinder's co-workers reported her missing on October 19th, Kultar left Florida and returned to their native country of India with their son.

Sergant Jennifer Soto with FMPD says Kultar Goraya has been inconsistent about the details surrounding his wife's disappearance. Soto says, "In a spousal relationship or in any family relationship there's genuine concern for a spouse or their whereabouts and that's just simply something that's lacking in this case." Back in May, the Lee County Sheriff's Office picked up Kultar Goraya for domestic abuse. Police add that according to family and friends, Rupinder Goraya was afraid of her husband.

On Thursday Fox 4 tracked down Kultar Goraya at his Fort Myers home to hear his side of the story and find out if he knows where Rupinder is. Goraya did not know. He was reluctant to talk on camera and closed the door. He did not have a message for his wife.

According to FMPD, the Goraya's son is in the custody of the Department of Children and Families.

If you anything about Rupinder Goraya's disappearance, you can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS.

[StickyBeak]

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080403/NEWS0110/80403023/1075&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL


Tonight the CBS television show “Without a Trace” will feature a missing Fort Myers woman, according to the Fort Myers Police Department.

[sarahhod]

Missing: Rupinder Kaur Goraya

http://crime.about.com/b/2008/03/19/missing-rupinder-kaur-goraya.htm


Wednesday March 19, 2008
The FBI has added the case of Rupinder Kaur Goraya to its list of missing or kidnapped persons that the agency is actively investigating. Goraya, a registered nurse from Fort Myers, Florida, left home in October 2007 to seek a job in New York and has not been seen or heard from since.

[sarahhod]

Police want national help to find missing Indian woman

http://www.winknews.com/news/local/11159386.html


By Justin Herndon, WINK News

Story Created: Nov 9, 2007 at 6:42 PM EST

Story Updated: Nov 9, 2007 at 6:50 PM EST
Fort Myers, Fla. - Fort Myers police are putting out an appeal to Indian communities across the nation in hopes of finding a missing woman.

That's their next step since an underwater search came up empty.

Lee Sheriff's office divers took the search for a missing woman underwater.

Divers used a line search - as you can see the divers follow a rope and search until they reach each other.

It took a little more than an hour to search this apartment complex pond.

Nothing found so the search moves on... and fort myers police detectives get anxious.

Detective Michelle Rand said, "hopefully, get the word out - maybe somebody has seen her somewhere. Obviously, we're concerned about her safety and well-being. so we just want to locate her."

Rupinder Goraya disappeared in early October - her husband and child went back to their native India and haven't been in touch with authorities.

Kultar Goraya was previously arrested in a domestic violence case for allegedly choking his wife and throwing a vase at her.

Police aren't saying he's the reason she's missing now but they do want to talk with anyone who can help and part of their plea is going national.

Detective Michelle Rand said, "the Indian community is very large so we're hoping by giving it the national exposure. If, indeed, she did decide she wanted to leave - hopefully, somewhere else in another state - somebody else might be able to tell us that they've seen her."

Rupinder Goraya was on a leave of absence from her hospital duties after having surgery.

Police say if the husband does turn up as a suspect, India does have an extradition treaty with the United States so he could be brought back to answer questions.

Contact Fort Myers police with any information at (239) 344-4155 or by email to: tipline@fmpolice.com



So sad. Where are you Rupinder? :1222423::1222423:

[grammybears]

How sad. I hope there will be answers for this poor womans family.

[annalyzer]

Can't find any updates

[annalyzer]

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/goraya_rupinder.html