Prison Sentence For Montco Man Who Pleaded Guilty To Killing Ex-Girlfriend

NORRISTOWN, PA — A Montgomery County judge sentenced a Norristown man to decades behind bars Wednesday after the defendant admitted that he shot and killed his ex-girlfriend earlier this year in the bathroom of her Norristown apartment as her children sat in a nearby room.

Elvyn Almodovar Rodriguez, 33, was given a prison sentence of between 32-and-a-half to 65 years after he pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of third-degree murder, burglary and possessing an instrument of crime.

The guilty plea came during a hearing before Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge William R. Carpenter, according to court records in the case.

In January, Montgomery County authorities announced the arrest of Rodriguez, who had also initially been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and related charges.

Prosecutors stated that Norristown police officers were called to an apartment belonging to the victim, Keishla Arroyo-Rodriguez, 28, back on Jan. 10 at around 4 in the afternoon for a report of an unresponsive woman.

Police had been called to the apartment after the victim's 7-year-old daughter looked under the locked bathroom door and saw her mother lying deceased on the floor, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.

Investigators ultimately determined that Elvyn Rodriguez had moved out of the apartment just before Christmas after the victim broke off the relationship.

The 7-year-old girl told detectives that she had witnessed Elvyn Rodriguez walk into the apartment, enter the bathroom where her mother was showering at the time, and shoot the woman to death, according to the DA's Office.

Prosecutors said that the child didn't actually witness the killing but heard the gunshots.

The Montgomery County Coroner's Office determined that the victim died as a result of a single gunshot wound to the head.

At the time of the arrest, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele called the killing a "horrific ending to a domestic violence situation."

Court records show that the first-and-second-degree murder charges were dropped in exchange for Elvyn Rodriguez agreeing to plead guilty to third-degree murder.

Elvyn Rodriguez's defense attorney, Thomas Egan, III, was quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer as saying that his client agreed to plead guilty to spare the victim's family the pain of having to sit through a trial.