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Self-Described 'Startup Guy' Who Asked For Help Finding His Wife Now Suspected Of Killing Her, Police Say
Sonam Saxena has been arrested on suspicion of murder after his wife Smriti Saxena vanished while the couple was on a Hawaii vacation.
A Google Cloud project manager who utilized his online presence in an apparent attempt to find his wife who vanished during a trip to Hawaii has now been accused of her murder.
Smriti Saxena, a business program manager for Microsoft, was reported missing on Tuesday night, according to the Hawaii Police Department. The 41-year-old from Bellevue, Washington was last seen at the Waikoloa Beach Resort, according to West Hawaii Today.
A body was found Wednesday in the same area where she vanished, and while police have not yet positively identified it, they have arrested her husband Sonam Saxena, 43, on suspicion of second-degree murder.
A public information officer told Oxygen.com on Thursday that he was being held but hasn't yet been charged.
Before his arrest, Sonam told West Hawaii Today that he last saw his wife on the shoreline near their resort.
“She got an asthma attack right there on the beach and she was feeling weak and she didn’t want to walk all the way back because it’s almost a 20-minute walk back from that beach to our room,” he said. “So, I said, ‘Hey, you know what? You stay here, you have your phone with you and I’ll just go to the room grab your inhaler and pump and come back.’"
Sonam told the outlet that when he returned, she was “missing.”
On Wednesday, he asked for colleagues and friends on LinkedIn for help, pleading with them to retweet a frantic message in which he tweeted at the governor of Hawaii and local media in an attempt to get their attention, Fox News reports.
“@GovHawaii my wife has been missing since last night and @Hawaii_Police is busy giving interviews to media about body recovered, but is unwilling to pick up my phone cc: @bigislandnews @BIPressClub @BITVHawaii,” the tweet states.
Smriti had a PhD in marketing and worked at Microsoft as a project manager from 2013 to 2014 before leaving, then returning to Microsoft two years later as a business analyst. Most recently, she worked as a business program manager for the company, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In addition to being a project manager, Sonam’s LinkedIn describes himself as a “mountain climber” and a “startup guy.”
The couple had been together for 17 years and have two children, ages 13 and 8. The vacation was part of their annual celebration of their eldest child’s birthday, according to West Hawaii News. It's not clear if the children were on the trip as well.
An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the exact cause of death for the body that was found.
