Body of missing Guyanese woman washes up on NY beach

The body of a 24-year-old Guyanese woman, who went missing since December 19 last year, was found on Saturday on Breezy Point beach in New York and her live-in boyfriend is implicated.

According to the New York Daily News the body of Marisha Cheong was discovered two months after her live-in boyfriend was supposed to pick her up at a Forest Hills subway station on December 19. He had said that she never showed up.

There was no sign of the young women until her remains washed up just across from 121 Bayside Avenue last weekend.
It’s unclear how she died, but there were no obvious signs of trauma, according to reports, the report said.

Marisha Cheong
Marisha Cheong

Cheong’s mother Bibi Khan told CBS New York that she used to speak her daughter every day, before she went missing, and was devastated that she had been found dead.

“I’m heartbroken. I don’t want to believe it’s true,” Khan told CBS 2′s Tony Aiello by phone yesterday morning.

Earlier CBS New York had reported that surveillance video and text messages were among the clues police had as they searched for Cheong.
It said that she lived in Jamaica with a longtime boyfriend, L.J. Balkaran, a delivery driver who freelances in the film industry.

He was asked if he had anything to do with Cheong’s disappearance and he said, “Oh no. No. Just now, finding her, that’s all we care about.”

Balkaran told police he was supposed to pick Cheong up at the Forest Hills subway stop on December 19, but she never showed up.
Cheong’s mother said her daughter called every day, but on the 20th she got a brief text message from her phone instead.