Obituary: Pedro Colon-Rodriguez, Died in the Charles River on Sunday

Little is known about what lead to Cambridge resident Pedro Colon-Rodriguez's death on Sunday night. His family knows he was taken to Cambridge Hospital on Sunday night for an injury related to a fall. Police know from fingerprint records that he was pulled from the Charles on Monday morning.

But much is known about the life of Colon-Rodriguez, called "Pito" by his family and close friends. 

"My family is so upset because he was such a popular person," said his daughter, Raquel Colon. "He didn't deserve to go where he did."

An employee of the City of Cambridge for 25 years, Colon-Rodriguez worked in the city's public works department. He immigrated to Boston from Puerto Rico when he was 19. A father of five children, Colon-Rodriguez had ten grandchildren, all of whom he loved very much, said his family.

"He and my mother, they were very family oriented people," Colon said. "He didn’t dance, but he made sure everyone else did and that everyone's plates were always full. He just made sure that everybody had what they needed and that’s what made him happy."

Colon-Rodriguez retired in 2009, to spend more time with his wife, his daughter said. However, she passed away in late 2009, leaving Colon-Rodriguez and his family in grief. Colon said that although he wasn't clinically depressed her father was never the same after her mother died. That's about when he started using alcohol heavily, she said. 

"His drinking was out of control, but he always knew how to get home," she said. "We have no idea what he was doing at the Charles River and how he got there, because it was so different from his usual routine," she said.  

Colon said the news of her father's unexpected death has been awful to deal with, but so has the media firestorm reporting on the other person who died in the Charles this week. 

"Not everybody knows the person that came out of the water," she said. "He had a life,he had recognition, he had love and he’s going to be so missed."

But Colon added that she feels deeply for Jonathan Dailey's family as well, since they're both struggling to cope with a family member's sudden disappearance and death. Dailey's body was found in the same section of the Charles River as Colon, one day later.

"We're never going to meet each other, but we're definitely thinking of them," she said.