Winston-Salem, NC: Husband charged in wife's death

By Paul Garber


A Winston-Salem man was charged with first-degree murder Monday, the day after his wife’s decapitated body was found in the woods near Minorcas Creek in northern Winston-Salem.

Authorities positively identified the body found Sunday as Maria Rodriguez, 31, who has been missing since Nov. 18.

Police Capt. David Clayton said Maria Rodriguez was identified by comparing fingerprints from the body with ones of hers that had been stored in a non-criminal database.

Her husband, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, 35, was arrested in Eden on Nov. 21 and charged with assault and kidnapping in connection with her disappearance.

He is now charged with first-degree murder.

Forsyth County Public Defender Pete Clary said his office is representing Juan Carlos Rodriguez. He declined to comment further.

The identification of the body ends a search that stretched from the couple’s home on Trellis Lane to Eden and as far north as Danville, Va.

Her body was found at the end of Williamsburg Road in the Minorcas Creek area off of Bethabara Park Road.

Ron Hartwig said he was walking his two dogs when he found the body, which was nude, in some brush by the side of the rock-and-gravel road leading down toward a group of ponds.

“I was just looking through the timbers and I saw something strange,” he said.

At first it appeared to be a log, but looking closer he saw toes and thought it was a mannequin. People often drop trash in the area, he said.

When he looked again, he said, he noticed the victim’s toes were curled and realized it was a human body.

He said he then went home and called police.

“What can you say?” he said. “It was unreal.”

Investigators using a dive team and bloodhounds searched the ponds and the area around them, but have not been able to find the woman’s head, Clayton said.

The autopsy has not been completed, Clayton said. He said evidence from the couple’s car indicates she was bleeding at the time she went missing.

Clayton would not discuss details of the evidence.

pgarber@wsjournal.com

727-7327