By Rich Bockmann
The body of a Queens woman who had been missing since December was discovered on the beach in Breezy Point Saturday and police were looking for clues as to what happened to her.
Marisha Cheong, 24, was last seen Dec. 19 at the Jamaica home where she lived with her boyfriend, Latchman Balkaran, police said.
Cheong, a business-management student at Long Island University in Brooklyn, had been with Balkaran for about five years, and the boyfriend said the two were thinking about getting married.
“We were planning to get married. We were going to start a life together,” he said Monday after police discovered Cheong’s body washed up on the shore in Breezy Point early Saturday morning.
Balkaran, 26, said he last saw Cheong on Dec. 19. She had the day off from school, he said, and was lying in bed when he left for work. When he came home, she was gone.
Balkaran said he has been cooperating with the police ever since Cheong went missing, and denied having anything to do with her disappearance and death.
“Everyone looks at the boyfriend and the husband. That’s understandable,” he said.
The authorities were working to determine Cheong’s cause of death and the investigation was ongoing.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
