Boyfriend Pleads Guilty To Murder Of Woman Who Disappeared From D.C. In 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Arlington, Va. man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of his girlfriend Friday, who disappeared from her Northwest Washington home over eight years ago. The guilty plea calls for an agreed-upon 12-year prison sentence of Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, 52, and requires him to provide police with the location of Pamela Butler's body, which was never found.

If Rodriguez-Cruz refuses to assist police, misleads police or "does not make his best efforts to provide the location" of Butler's body, the plea agreement will be declared null and void, and he will face the original charge in the case of first-degree premeditated murder, prosecutors said.

Rodriguez-Cruz and Butler, 47, were involved in a romantic relationship when Butler was murdered, prosectors said. On the evening of Feb. 13, 2009, Rodriguez-Cruz entered Butler's home in the 5800 block of Fourth St. NW and turned off her home security alarm system.

The couple got in a fight in Butler's basement about Rodriguez-Cruz's job and financial status, which Butler believed "he was not doing enough to improve or elevate," prosecutors said.

According to a proffer of facts submitted at the plea hearing, Rodriguez-Cruz, a former military police officer, said he punched Butler in the face and she fell to the floor. Rodriguez-Cruz then "straddled Ms. Butler’s body and strangled her with his hands around her neck, until she died from asphyxia," according to the proffer.

Later that night and into the early morning, Rodriguez-Cruz carried Butler's body to the first floor area of the home and lowered her body out of a window. He said he then carried her to his car, which was parked on nearby Oglethorpe Street NW, prosecutors said.

“We just want to give her a proper burial so we can put some closure to this,” Butler’s 85-year-old mother, Thelma, told The Washington Post.

Rodriguez-Cruz went to Butler's home multiple times over the next two days and continued to take items out of her house. On Feb. 16, 2009, he disposed of Butler's cellphone in an effort to avoid detection for the crime, prosecutors said.

The Washington Post reports that Rodriguez-Cruz's former wife, Marta Rodriguez, went missing from Arlington in 1989 and has never been found. Butler's murder was left unsolved for over eight years until D.C. police homicide detective Michael Fulton revisited the case in February 2017, around the anniversary of Butler's disappearance.

Fulton found a witness who told police that he once saw Rodriguez-Cruz place a gun to the head of a Marta Rodriguez, the woman he was married to. No one has been charged in Rodriguez's disappearance at this time.

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