(CNN) -- A woman who was beheaded near Buffalo, New York -- allegedly by her husband -- may have been on the phone with her sister when she was killed.

Muzzammil Hassan has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan.

Asma Firfirey of suburban Cape Town, South Africa, told the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger that she was on the phone with her sister, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, last week when she heard Hassan tell her husband to calm down. She said she heard Hassan say the two could talk about their impending divorce the following day.

Then she heard something that sounded like her sister struggling to breathe, she said.

"I can only imagine how scared and emotional she must have been before she died," Firfirey said in the interview, reported in English by South Africa's News 24.

Police have charged Hassan's husband, Muzzammil Hassan, with second-degree, or intentional, murder in the death of his wife, according to the Erie County District Attorney's Office.

Her decapitated body was found at the offices of Bridges TV, the television network where Muzzammil Hassan was chief executive officer and Aasiya Hassan was general manager.

Hassan told Orchard Park police his wife was dead, led officers to her body and was arrested Thursday, said Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III. He is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.

Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz on Tuesday contradicted a CNN report that quoted him as saying Hassan confessed to the crime.

A Buffalo attorney told CNN on Tuesday that he expects to represent Hassan but declined further comment, saying details had not yet been worked out.

Hassan came to America from Pakistan 25 years ago and became a successful banker, but he and his wife were troubled by the negative perception of Muslims, Voice of America reported in 2004.

Speaking in December 2004, Hassan said his wife, then pregnant, was worried about that perception and "felt there should be an American Muslim media where her kids could grow up feeling really strong about their identity as an American Muslim."

"So she came up with the idea and turned to me and said, 'Why don't you do it?' " he said. "And I was like, I have no clue about television. I'm a banker. ... And her comment was, 'You have an MBA. Why don't you write a business plan?' "

Bridges TV began as a television network for Muslim-Americans, aimed at overcoming the negative stereotypes associated with the religion.

"There should be a Muslim media," Muzzammil Hassan told VOA, "so that Muslim children growing up in America grow up with the self-confidence and high self-esteem about their identity both as Americans and as Muslims."

In the past few years, according to a former employee who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, Bridges TV transformed itself into more of a cross-cultural network seeking to bridge the gap between all cultures. Most of their employees were not Muslim, the former employee said, and Muzzammil Hassan himself was not devout.

Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce February 6, police said, and Muzzammil Hassan was served with divorce papers at the station. That night, he showed up at the couple's home, she notified authorities and he was served with a restraining order.

Police are not commenting on details of the crime, except to say the woman's body did not appear to have been moved. They also would not divulge what Muzzammil Hassan told police or the suspected motive. The law firm representing Aasiya Hassan refused to comment, only confirming that she had filed for divorce.

Benz told CNN on Tuesday that police had responded to several domestic violence calls at the couple's address, but no one was arrested.

Firfirey, as well as a Pakistani woman identifying herself as another of Aasiya Hassan's sisters, characterized her as living in fear.

Firfirey said the last time she saw her sister was in May 2008, when she visited South Africa.
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