L-R: Ruby Angela Saleh and Late Fahim Saleh and his

Fahim Saleh: Sister Of Gokada CEO Who Was Gruesomely Murdered Mourns Brother In Emotional Tribute (photos)

By Edna Wande Last updated Aug 14, 2020

Late Fahim Saleh and his sister, Ruby Angela Saleh — L-R: Ruby Angela Saleh and Late Fahim Saleh and his

Ruby Angela Saleh, the elder sister of Gokada CEO Fahim Saleh, who was gruesomely murdered in July, has written an emotional tribute that details life before and after her brother’s death.

It would be recalled that Fahim Saleh, the founder of motorcycle-hailing company Gokada and co-founder of ride-sharing venture Pathao was brutally murdered in his New York apartment.

The dismembered body of the tech entrepreneur who bought the New York apartment in 2019 for $2.25 million was found on Tuesday July 14.

Paying tribute to her brother, Ruby Saleh in an article posted on Medium platform recalled getting a phone call on July 14 from her aunty who informed her of his death and how she struggled to believe it.

She wrote;

I was in bed next to my husband and had just begun dozing off, but I answered because it was my aunt, calling from New York. “I have some very bad news,” she said. She sounded spooked and was reluctant to divulge more, so I knew something really bad had happened to someone in my immediate family.

My shoulders stiffened while the rest of my body went limp. Maybe one of my parents had Covid?

“What happened?“ I kept asking. “What happened?” I was having trouble drawing a breath. I put the phone on speaker so my husband could listen. “It’s very bad,” she said. “Just tell me, Aunty. What happened?”. She said “Fahim isn’t with us anymore”.

Ruby said;

I flew across the Atlantic to New York the next day. Internet headlines about my brother’s murder proliferated. “CEO Found Dismembered In Manhattan Apartment,” one read. “NYC Cops Find Headless, Limbless Man Next To Electric Saw” another explained. This was MY baby brother they were talking about. MY Fahim, whom, when I was eight years old, my parents brought home from the hospital to me in an orange fleece blanket.

Ruby wrote that her brother’s energetic spirit caused him to throw himself into his projects from a young age.

She spoke about what it was like growing up with Fahim, how he started his first business at the age of 10 to support their father, built his first website at age 12 and monetised it which got him his first paycheck from Google at age 13, a huge sum that surprised their father.

His entrepreneurial spirit blossomed in his teens when he started developing a network of social media apps from his parent’s home.

In 2006, Fahim’s first company, Wizteen, Inc., made more than $400,000, according to old tax filings he shared on Instagram. He was only a high school senior at the time.

Ruby added;

From the time he discovered the Internet until the time I last saw him, my brother could get so lost in his work that the sun could come up before he realized he had skipped both lunch and dinner.

According to Fahim’s sister, his commitment worried their father as he was often reminded to eat.

Speaking about his death, Ruby wrote;

While we were growing up, I felt more like a mother to Fahim than a sister.

Thirty years later, I was learning that Fahim’s head and limbs had been discarded in a trash bag. Someone had cut my brother’s body into pieces and tossed the pieces into a garbage bag, as if his life, his body, his existence had had no meaning or value.

Ruby speaking about the day of his funeral, she wrote;

On Sunday, July 19th, 2020, my family and I had to bury my sweet brother in the Hudson Valley. I had to arrange my beautiful boy’s funeral.

Three days prior, the funeral home called to report that it would not be possible to sew his limbs and head back onto his torso before burial. Upon receiving that news, I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest like a Pharaoh, squeezing my phone against my body. My hands formed fists that I pushed into my heart with all my strength to contain my pain.

Then I pleaded with the man to make sure all of my sweet brother’s body parts were in their proper places in the casket. The day before the funeral, the man called me again. “It wasn’t easy, but we were able to put him back together”.

Tyrese Devon Haspil, a 21-year-old former personal assistant to Fahim has been arrested as the prime suspect in the murder of his former boss.

Detectives believe the motive for Hapsil allegedly killing Fahim stemmed from when he discovered that his assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from him.

Fahim however did not report the man to the police instead he brokered a repayment plan with Hapsil.

On July 17, Haspil was formally charged with second-degree murder in criminal court in Manhattan.