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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Maria Rodriguez · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:02
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 2: In the summer of 1980, 16-year-old Maria Rodriguez was living
1:35
Speaker 2: with her boyfriend, Milton Colbert Jr., in Long Branch, New Jersey.
1:40
Speaker 2: Long Branch is on the Jersey Shore. It's about 50
1:42
Speaker 2: miles south of New York City. These days, when people
1:46
Speaker 2: think about the Jersey Shore, in my mind, they're mainly
1:49
Speaker 2: picturing the highly developed places along the waterfront, like Atlantic
1:53
Speaker 2: City and Seaside Heights, where the TV show Jersey Shore
1:56
Speaker 2: was filmed. But, especially back in 1980, Long Branch was
2:02
Speaker 2: a much more remote area. On July 22nd, Maria and
2:06
Speaker 2: her mother, Ana Rodriguez, and two of her sisters, went
2:10
Speaker 2: to play bingo at a local synagogue. According to an
2:13
Speaker 2: article from August 10th, 1980 in the Asbury Park Press,
2:17
Speaker 2: everyone was in a good mood that night because they
2:19
Speaker 2: had won at bingo. Now, Maria was living with Milton,
2:24
Speaker 2: her boyfriend. He was much older than her. He was
2:28
Speaker 2: 27 years old at the time. And again, she was
2:31
Speaker 2: only 16. We're going to go more in-depth into their
2:35
Speaker 2: relationship a little bit later, but for now, I'll just
2:38
Speaker 2: say that even with the controversies around that age difference,
2:42
Speaker 2: Maria's family seemed in general to approve of Milton. They
2:47
Speaker 2: told law enforcement that Maria loved Milton and was happy
2:50
Speaker 2: with him, and vice versa. There seemed to be zero
2:53
Speaker 2: drama that night. Maria's mom was driving. She pulled up
2:58
Speaker 2: to the home on Union Avenue to drop Maria off.
3:01
Speaker 2: When she went inside the house, Milton later told police
3:05
Speaker 2: he was already in bed. He remembered mumbling goodnight to
3:08
Speaker 2: Maria and then falling asleep again. At 3 a.m. in
3:12
Speaker 2: the morning, Milton left the apartment to start his shift.
3:16
Speaker 2: He worked as a garbage man. He told police that
3:19
Speaker 2: he kissed Maria's cheek and walked out the door. At
3:23
Speaker 2: about 4.30 p.m., he came home from his shift. He
3:26
Speaker 2: looked around for Maria for a few minutes. Then, when
3:29
Speaker 2: he went back to his bedroom and opened the closet door,
3:33
Speaker 2: he found Maria's dead body. She had been strangled with
3:37
Speaker 2: a belt. I'm Katherine Townsend. Over the past eight years
3:43
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned
3:46
Speaker 2: that there is no such thing as a small town
3:49
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
3:52
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
3:55
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
4:00
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
4:02
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
4:04
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.
4:06
Speaker 2: Or you can send us a message on Instagram at
4:08
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police
5:07
Speaker 2: were taking a close look at Maria's relationships. Even though
5:11
Speaker 2: she was 16 years old, It turned out she had
5:14
Speaker 2: been living independently of her parents for years. One of
5:18
Speaker 2: Maria's sisters, who the paper didn't identify by name, told
5:22
Speaker 2: the Asbury Park Press that Maria discovered boys at an
5:25
Speaker 2: early age. In eighth grade, Maria stopped going to school.
5:30
Speaker 2: At the time of her death, she had not been
5:32
Speaker 2: enrolled in school for two years. She seemed to spend
5:35
Speaker 2: most of her days kind of hanging around her boyfriend's apartment.
5:39
Speaker 2: there had been some drama around Maria's decision to stop
5:43
Speaker 2: attending school. When she was about 14 years old, she
5:47
Speaker 2: ran away to Rhode Island and lived with a relative
5:49
Speaker 2: for several months. Police eventually found her and brought her home.
5:53
Speaker 2: But according to the Asbury Park Press, when they went
5:56
Speaker 2: to pick her up, they found her living in North Jersey.
6:00
Speaker 2: The paper reported that when Maria's family went to pick
6:03
Speaker 2: her up, that they found her living with another man,
6:07
Speaker 2: meaning not Milton. Her sister told the Asbury Park Press
6:11
Speaker 2: that Maria had had boyfriends before Milton, but that she
6:14
Speaker 2: loved him and was faithful to him. Milton met Maria
6:18
Speaker 2: three years before her death. He was actually living next
6:22
Speaker 2: door to the Rodriguez family at the time, and at
6:25
Speaker 2: the time, he was married and had three children with
6:28
Speaker 2: his ex-wife. That would mean that Maria was around 13
6:31
Speaker 2: years old when they first met, and he would have
6:34
Speaker 2: been around 24. By the way, it was reported by
6:38
Speaker 2: several media outlets that police did speak to Milton and
6:41
Speaker 2: that they never considered him a suspect in Maria's death. Eventually,
6:45
Speaker 2: according to media reports, Milton and his wife went their
6:48
Speaker 2: separate ways. She and the children moved to Florida, and
6:51
Speaker 2: Maria and Milton moved in together in New Jersey. Maria
6:56
Speaker 2: and Milton didn't seem to socialize much, and they didn't
7:00
Speaker 2: really have people over to the house. Most days, she
7:03
Speaker 2: would hang out at his house and watch TV. though
7:06
Speaker 2: sometimes she would venture out to the store to buy
7:08
Speaker 2: picket lottery tickets. Apparently, Milton played the lottery a lot,
7:12
Speaker 2: and she would pick his favorite numbers. So there's actually
7:15
Speaker 2: an interesting contradiction in this Asbury Park Press article, which is,
7:19
Speaker 2: by the way, one of the only articles I could
7:21
Speaker 2: find about this case. The reporter interviewed Milton. He said
7:25
Speaker 2: even though he and Maria were different ages and races,
7:28
Speaker 2: he was 27 and black, she was 16 and Hispanic,
7:31
Speaker 2: that he wasn't aware of anyone having a grudge against
7:33
Speaker 2: them or her. racial or otherwise. He also said he
7:37
Speaker 2: and Maria didn't go out much or have a lot
7:39
Speaker 2: of visitors. But then the reporter talked to neighbors on
7:43
Speaker 2: Union Avenue, who said there was a lot of traffic
7:46
Speaker 2: going into and out of Milton and Maria's house. It
7:50
Speaker 2: turned out that Milton had a sister, Sue Elliott, who
7:52
Speaker 2: lived upstairs. And Milton told the police that the visitors
7:56
Speaker 2: were actually at the house for his sister, not him
7:58
Speaker 2: or Maria. Milton said that Maria was good to him,
8:02
Speaker 2: He said she cleaned his apartment and took care of him.
8:06
Speaker 2: Milton told police that when he came home after his
8:08
Speaker 2: shift that day, he did think it was kind of
8:11
Speaker 2: weird that Maria wasn't at home because normally she seemed
8:14
Speaker 2: to kind of wait around the apartment for him to
8:16
Speaker 2: get back. But at first, he said he thought maybe
8:19
Speaker 2: she went out to buy some lottery tickets. He noticed
8:22
Speaker 2: that the front door was unlocked, but he said that
8:25
Speaker 2: wasn't unusual because Maria would sometimes forget to lock the door.
8:30
Speaker 2: Milton said he turned on the TV and hung out
8:33
Speaker 2: for a while. Then, after a few minutes, his sister
8:35
Speaker 2: Sue came downstairs and said she hadn't seen Maria that day.
8:39
Speaker 2: After that, Milton said he went outside to talk to
8:42
Speaker 2: some people, and when he got back inside the house,
8:45
Speaker 2: he noticed that Maria's keys were there. Now, this alarmed
8:49
Speaker 2: him because he said even though Maria would sometimes forget
8:53
Speaker 2: to lock up, she always took her keys with her
8:55
Speaker 2: when she left the house. So that's when he started
8:57
Speaker 2: looking around again for Maria inside the house. Milton eventually
9:02
Speaker 2: opened the bedroom closet and saw the horrific sight of
9:05
Speaker 2: Maria's naked body in there. One of Milton's belts, described
9:10
Speaker 2: in Maria's autopsy report as a green braided belt, approximately
9:14
Speaker 2: 73 centimeters long and 3 centimeters wide, had been wrapped
9:18
Speaker 2: twice around Maria's neck. The belt had a square metal
9:22
Speaker 2: buckle marked Peter, with what the medical examiner described as
9:26
Speaker 2: an animal figure resembling a horse. there is not a
9:32
Speaker 2: lot of reporting out there about Maria Rodriguez's life. This
9:36
Speaker 2: Asbury Park Press article is one of the only ones
9:38
Speaker 2: I can find that talks about her and her life,
9:41
Speaker 2: her family. And this article says police confirmed they were
9:46
Speaker 2: able to figure out that Maria had had sexual intercourse
9:49
Speaker 2: before her murder. And there's also another sentence there that
9:52
Speaker 2: says they had ruled out rape. So I wonder, who
9:56
Speaker 2: did she have sex with? And I wonder how exactly
9:59
Speaker 2: they determined that. And how were they able to figure
10:03
Speaker 2: out that it was not rape? Was the person that
10:05
Speaker 2: she supposedly had intercourse with her boyfriend or someone else?
10:10
Speaker 2: It was reported at the time that police were looking
10:12
Speaker 2: for a suspect described as being around five foot five
10:16
Speaker 2: inches tall. That was someone who police supposedly wanted to
10:19
Speaker 2: talk to. but then that never seemed to go anywhere.
10:22
Speaker 2: To my knowledge, there was never a composite sketch put out,
10:26
Speaker 2: and it seems as though that was one of those
10:27
Speaker 2: kind of dead-end leads that seemed to go nowhere. Now,
10:30
Speaker 2: police have not said a lot about this case, but
10:33
Speaker 2: one thing they did say is that they believe that
10:36
Speaker 2: Maria knew her killer and that she let her killer
10:39
Speaker 2: into the house. So, a logical question to ask is,
10:43
Speaker 2: was the someone who Maria was having some kind of
10:46
Speaker 2: consensual sexual relationship with? Because her family continued to insist
10:50
Speaker 2: that Maria loved Milton and that she was not having
10:53
Speaker 2: any type of relationship with anyone else. Milton told the
10:56
Speaker 2: Asbury Park Press that he believed that as well. He
10:59
Speaker 2: believed Maria was faithful to him. police began talking to
11:05
Speaker 2: someone else, a 37-year-old man named Damaso Vega. Damaso wasn't
11:10
Speaker 2: a stranger. This was someone who knew Maria's family. According
11:13
Speaker 2: to accounts of the case, Maria was the daughter of
11:16
Speaker 2: one of Damaso's closest friends. Damaso had come to the
11:21
Speaker 2: family's aid after Maria was murdered. He had actually helped
11:25
Speaker 2: comfort Anna, Maria's mother, after hearing about the murder. He
11:28
Speaker 2: was even a pallbearer at Maria's funeral. He even collected
11:31
Speaker 2: money from people in the community to help Maria's family.
11:34
Speaker 2: But investigators would eventually come to believe there was more
11:37
Speaker 2: to Damaso Vega's relationship with Maria than just the friendship
11:40
Speaker 2: with her family. they believed that DeMasso and Maria were
11:45
Speaker 2: romantically involved. But suspicion isn't evidence, and at this stage,
11:48
Speaker 2: police still needed more connecting DeMasso Vega to Maria's murder.
11:53
Speaker 2: So they started to interview people, and eventually, they would
11:56
Speaker 2: announce they found three witnesses. The first one was Maria's sister,
12:00
Speaker 2: Wilda Rodriguez Soto. Wilda told police that before Maria's death,
12:05
Speaker 2: she had seen Maria and DeMasso hugging and kissing. This
12:09
Speaker 2: was a big deal because it potentially established the relationship
12:12
Speaker 2: that police believed existed between them. If this was true,
12:16
Speaker 2: this was a shocking revelation that could point to a
12:19
Speaker 2: potential motive for murder. Then there was a second witness.
12:23
Speaker 2: This person put DeMaso Vega somewhere much more important because
12:27
Speaker 2: according to the testimony that was ultimately presented at trial,
12:31
Speaker 2: this second witness had seen DeMaso Vega on the porch
12:35
Speaker 2: of Maria's house the night before her body was discovered.
12:39
Speaker 2: Then a third person, a friend of DeMasso's named Jose Pizarro,
12:44
Speaker 2: told detectives that DeMasso Vega had talked about killing Maria
12:47
Speaker 2: before the murder. And he said after Maria's murder, DeMasso
12:52
Speaker 2: told Jose that he did it. So now police weren't
12:55
Speaker 2: dealing with an anonymous tip or some vague rumor. They
12:58
Speaker 2: appeared to have three people independently pointing toward the same man.
13:04
Speaker 2: police began to build a case against DeMaso Vega, and
13:07
Speaker 2: the lead investigator, Detective Pat Lipka, believed that DeMaso Vega
13:12
Speaker 2: was their man. On February 4th, 1982, approximately 18 months
13:17
Speaker 2: after Maria's death, a grand jury in Monmouth County indicted
13:21
Speaker 2: DeMaso Vega for murder. His trial began on June 2nd,
13:25
Speaker 2: and obviously the prosecution's case depended heavily on those three people.
13:30
Speaker 2: Maria's sister described the relationship she said that she'd observed.
13:34
Speaker 2: The second witness put DeMasso at Maria's house on the
13:37
Speaker 2: night she was killed. And finally, Jose Pizarro gave jurors
13:41
Speaker 2: perhaps the most incriminating evidence of all. According to him,
13:45
Speaker 2: DeMasso Vega had essentially talked about the killing before it
13:49
Speaker 2: happened and then confessed to it afterwards. DeMasso Vega maintained
13:53
Speaker 2: that he was innocent. There was testimony stating that around
13:57
Speaker 2: 5 a.m., after Maria's boyfriend left for work, that DeMasso
14:01
Speaker 2: would go to Maria's house so that they could hook up.
14:03
Speaker 2: but DeMasso totally denied that and reportedly said that he
14:06
Speaker 2: had an alibi. By the way, he always claimed that
14:10
Speaker 2: even the idea of any kind of hookup with Maria
14:12
Speaker 2: was totally false. He said he never had any kind
14:15
Speaker 2: of romantic relationship with her and described their existing relationship
14:19
Speaker 2: as more like father-daughter. But in the end, the jury
14:22
Speaker 2: believed the prosecution. On June 8th, 1982, DeMasso Vega was
14:27
Speaker 2: convicted of murdering Maria Rodriguez. He was sentenced to life
14:30
Speaker 2: in prison. with the possibility of parole in 25 years.
14:35
Speaker 2: For Maria's family, the criminal justice system appeared to have
14:38
Speaker 2: produced an answer. They seemed to be getting justice and
14:40
Speaker 2: the killer was going to prison. Case closed. Except that
14:45
Speaker 2: less than two months later, something happened involving the prosecution's
14:50
Speaker 2: star witness. On July 30th, 1982, the Daily Register published
15:07
Speaker 2: a small story out of freehold. The headline read, Charges
15:11
Speaker 2: Dismissed for Murder Trial Star Witness. It turned out that
15:16
Speaker 2: Jose Pizarro, DeMasso's friend who said he confessed, was defending
15:20
Speaker 2: some criminal charges of his own. Jose had been indicted
15:23
Speaker 2: over an incident that occurred on July 11th, 1980, so
15:26
Speaker 2: shortly before Maria's murder. Jose was accused of beating another
15:31
Speaker 2: man with a tire iron. The charges included aggravated assault
15:35
Speaker 2: and two weapons offenses. But after DeMaso Vega's trial, those
15:39
Speaker 2: charges were dismissed. And according to this contemporaneous newspaper report,
15:44
Speaker 2: the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office acknowledged that Jose Pizarro's cooperation
15:49
Speaker 2: in the DeMaso Vega murder prosecution was one of the
15:52
Speaker 2: reasons for that dismissal. Now, that doesn't automatically mean that
15:56
Speaker 2: Jose Pizarro lied. Prosecutors make agreements with witnesses all the time.
16:00
Speaker 2: Cooperating witnesses can receive consideration in their own cases. That's
16:05
Speaker 2: not uncommon. Their testimony isn't necessarily false because they get
16:09
Speaker 2: some benefit from giving it. But the important question, however,
16:13
Speaker 2: is whether the defense and the jury know about this
16:15
Speaker 2: potential incentive and precisely what the witness was told or
16:19
Speaker 2: understood before taking the stand. At sentencing, according to a
16:23
Speaker 2: later Los Angeles Times article, DeMasso made an extraordinary declaration
16:28
Speaker 2: of innocence. He said that he would eat stone, dust,
16:31
Speaker 2: or anything to prove that he wasn't the man responsible
16:34
Speaker 2: for Maria's murder. So DeMasso Vega went to prison, and
16:38
Speaker 2: that's where he stayed for the next seven years. Over
16:42
Speaker 2: the years, he filed several appeals, all of which he lost.
16:45
Speaker 2: And that might have been where this story ended, except
16:48
Speaker 2: that there was another strange twist in the case. Eventually,
16:52
Speaker 2: DeMosso Vega's case reached a man named Jim McCloskey. Now,
16:56
Speaker 2: Jim is a fascinating character. He served in the Navy
17:00
Speaker 2: before working in the corporate world. He worked for a
17:03
Speaker 2: management consultant company specializing in Japanese business affairs. So he
17:07
Speaker 2: actually lived in Tokyo for a while, but he came
17:09
Speaker 2: back to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. In 1979,
17:13
Speaker 2: he left the corporate world and went back to school
17:16
Speaker 2: to become a minister. And after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary...
17:20
Speaker 2: He founded Centurion Ministries in 1983. The organization's mission is
17:25
Speaker 2: to investigate cases in which prisoners claim to have been
17:28
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted. Jim's story actually inspired the John Grisham book,
17:32
Speaker 2: The Guardians. Jim heard about DeMasso's case and he went
17:37
Speaker 2: to interview him in 1984. Jim later said that after
17:40
Speaker 2: he spoke to DeMasso, he became convinced that DeMasso was
17:44
Speaker 2: telling the truth, that he was innocent. So Jim went
17:47
Speaker 2: back to all the witnesses and talked to them again.
17:49
Speaker 2: And what he found made the case against DeMosso collapse. First,
17:56
Speaker 2: Jim spoke to Jose Pizarro, who admitted that he had
17:59
Speaker 2: been promised a deal in exchange for his cooperation. Jim
18:03
Speaker 2: also figured out that back in July of 1982, immediately
18:06
Speaker 2: after the trial, the prosecutor's office had publicly acknowledged that
18:10
Speaker 2: this cooperation in the murder case was part of the
18:12
Speaker 2: reason that happened. But Jim went further. He was about
18:17
Speaker 2: to find a problem with another witness, one that had
18:20
Speaker 2: the potential to blow the entire case wide open and
18:24
Speaker 2: make people question everything that they thought they knew about
18:27
Speaker 2: Maria's murder. The other witness, the one who said that
18:30
Speaker 2: he saw DeMosso Vega at Maria's home on the night
18:33
Speaker 2: in question, also recanted his story. And his new account
18:37
Speaker 2: was even more disturbing because according to the National Registry
18:41
Speaker 2: of Exonerations, this second witness said he had seen a
18:44
Speaker 2: man near Maria's home, so that part was true. but
18:48
Speaker 2: this witness said the person he saw did not fit
18:52
Speaker 2: DeMasso Vega's description. And the witness said he told the
18:56
Speaker 2: lead detective, Pat Lipka, that the description didn't match from
18:59
Speaker 2: the very beginning. This person said Detective Lipka pressured him
19:04
Speaker 2: to identify DeMasso anyway. And remember, DeMasso had said that
19:08
Speaker 2: he supposedly had an alibi. Well, it turned out that
19:11
Speaker 2: the time when this witness originally remembered seeing the unidentified
19:15
Speaker 2: man was created a problem for the prosecutor's theory because
19:19
Speaker 2: DeMosso had an alibi during that period of time. That
19:23
Speaker 2: would have conflicted with the case being built against DeMosso.
19:27
Speaker 2: The witness said Detective Lipka pressured him to change the
19:30
Speaker 2: time when he said he saw the man outside Maria's home.
19:34
Speaker 2: This was shocking enough, but what about Maria's sister, the
19:38
Speaker 2: third witness? Maria's sister changed her story too. When Jim
19:43
Speaker 2: talked to her, She said she admitted she had helped
19:46
Speaker 2: Detective Lipka fabricate the case because she said Detective Lipka
19:50
Speaker 2: had convinced the family that DeMasso Vega was Maria's killer.
19:55
Speaker 2: She later was quoted by the Asbury Park Press as
19:57
Speaker 2: saying she felt guilty because even though she mainly blamed
20:01
Speaker 2: Detective Lipka, she felt bad about helping fabricate the case
20:06
Speaker 2: against DeMasso. She clearly really regretted her role in that.
20:11
Speaker 2: So after Jim interviewed these three principal witnesses and all
20:15
Speaker 2: of them took back their testimony, which meant that all
20:18
Speaker 2: three crucial parts of the case, the confession, the sighting
20:21
Speaker 2: of DeMasso and the kiss, were all bogus. Then things
20:25
Speaker 2: got even weirder because investigators started looking into DeMasso's conviction.
20:30
Speaker 2: They found that some of Detective Lipka's reports had been altered.
20:35
Speaker 2: All three witnesses were brought back into court in 1989
20:38
Speaker 2: when Superior Court Judge Robert Figueredo heard the post-conviction case
20:42
Speaker 2: and evaluated the testimony for himself. The witness who had
20:46
Speaker 2: placed DeMasso near Maria's home now said DeMasso was not
20:49
Speaker 2: the man he had seen. Jose Pizarro now said that
20:53
Speaker 2: his original testimony about DeMasso confessing was not true. And
20:57
Speaker 2: the testimony that had supposedly established a romantic relationship between
21:01
Speaker 2: Maria and DeMasso had also fallen apart. Judge Figuereda said
21:06
Speaker 2: he believed the witness's new testimony, and that alone was
21:09
Speaker 2: devastating to the state's case. But then the hearing exposed
21:13
Speaker 2: something else, that some of Detective Lipka's reports had never
21:16
Speaker 2: been turned over, either to the prosecution or the defense.
21:21
Speaker 2: So police reports aren't static. Really, they're a moment in time,
21:26
Speaker 2: but together they kind of tell the story of the
21:28
Speaker 2: evolution of an investigation. So if a witness initially gives
21:31
Speaker 2: one description and then later gives another description, the original
21:35
Speaker 2: report allows lawyers and eventually jurors to see that change.
21:39
Speaker 2: And if a story or details change, a judge and
21:42
Speaker 2: a jury can normally see those changes and factor them
21:45
Speaker 2: into their decisions. But according to the court proceedings in
21:49
Speaker 2: DeMaso Vega's case, some of Detective Lipka's reports had been
21:52
Speaker 2: doctored to remove information that the judge later described as
21:56
Speaker 2: vital to both the investigation and to the cross-examination. The
22:01
Speaker 2: 1989 hearing took place in Middlesex County. Due to the
22:04
Speaker 2: fact that so many of the people who had been
22:06
Speaker 2: involved in the original hearing by this time were now
22:09
Speaker 2: judges in Monmouth County. Judge Figuereda addressed the physical evidence.
22:14
Speaker 2: and said the semen samples had been taken in Maria's case.
22:17
Speaker 2: DiMasso's original lawyer had considered having those samples independently tested,
22:22
Speaker 2: but that testing apparently was never done. On November 15th, 1989,
22:26
Speaker 2: the judge vacated DiMasso's conviction and ordered a new trial.
22:32
Speaker 2: The judge concluded that the problems surrounding Detective Lipka's investigation
22:36
Speaker 2: were so profound that they called into question the whole
22:39
Speaker 2: process underlying the original prosecution. The judge even went so
22:43
Speaker 2: far as to apologize to DeMasso Vega for his false imprisonment.
22:48
Speaker 2: And he praised the investigative work done by Jim McCloskey
22:51
Speaker 2: that had exposed what happened. So DeMasso had spent seven
22:56
Speaker 2: years in prison for murdering Maria Rodriguez. Now he was
23:00
Speaker 2: going free. But technically, the murder case wasn't over yet.
23:04
Speaker 2: The conviction had been vacated, which meant that the state
23:06
Speaker 2: could try DeMasso again. But would they want to try
23:10
Speaker 2: him again? The Monmouth County prosecutor, John Kay, said that
23:14
Speaker 2: in his opinion, there was never any doubt about anyone
23:17
Speaker 2: who worked on the case that DeMosso was guilty. But
23:19
Speaker 2: now prosecutors were dealing with three witnesses who all completely
23:23
Speaker 2: changed their stories. And they had no new witnesses or
23:26
Speaker 2: no new physical evidence. And the lead investigator's credibility was
23:30
Speaker 2: completely destroyed. So on December 14th, 1989, Monmouth County prosecutor
23:36
Speaker 2: John Kay dismissed the murder charge. Now, DeMosso Vega was
23:40
Speaker 2: not just free, he had been completely exonerated. He later
23:44
Speaker 2: filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Monmouth County. It
23:47
Speaker 2: was settled for an undisclosed amount. DeMosso moved on with
23:52
Speaker 2: his life. He eventually settled in Philadelphia with his wife
23:56
Speaker 2: and family. DeMosso died in 2004. But it's not the
24:01
Speaker 2: end of Maria Rodriguez's story, because after DeMosso was set
24:05
Speaker 2: free and exonerated, her killer has never been found. Once
24:09
Speaker 2: we accept that the evidence used to convict DeMaso Vega
24:12
Speaker 2: couldn't be trusted, we have to go back, all the
24:15
Speaker 2: way back to 1980, to that home and that closet
24:19
Speaker 2: on Union Avenue, where a 16-year-old teen was found strangled
24:22
Speaker 2: with a belt. And back to the question, who killed
24:26
Speaker 2: Maria Rodriguez? It turned out that Jim McCloskey had some
24:31
Speaker 2: leads on that as well, because according to a 1990
24:35
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Times profile of Jim, He had found not
24:38
Speaker 2: only evidence that witnesses had lied under pressure, but evidence
24:41
Speaker 2: that detectives had hidden that he said pointed toward another
24:45
Speaker 2: person entirely. That person was identified in a 1987 article
24:59
Speaker 2: by the Asbury Park Press, who claimed that a man
25:02
Speaker 2: named Luis Rosa who shot his ex-girlfriend and her co-worker
25:06
Speaker 2: at a furniture store on March 19, 1987, before fatally
25:10
Speaker 2: shooting himself, had a relationship with Maria before her death.
25:15
Speaker 2: On that day, March 19, 1987, Luis was in a
25:18
Speaker 2: standoff in the furniture store because he mistakenly believed that
25:22
Speaker 2: his girlfriend was having an affair with a male co-worker,
25:25
Speaker 2: who he shot. Police rushed to the scene, and following
25:29
Speaker 2: a brief standoff, Luis hijacked a police car and managed
25:32
Speaker 2: to grab one of the officer's guns. After a standoff
25:36
Speaker 2: with police, Luis fatally shot himself in the head. It
25:40
Speaker 2: turned out there was a connection between Maria and Luis.
25:43
Speaker 2: Maria had worked for a brief period of time at
25:45
Speaker 2: a die casting business called Donmar Manufacturing a few weeks
25:48
Speaker 2: before her death. And a manager there told the Asbury
25:51
Speaker 2: Park Press that Luis would speak to Maria in Spanish
25:55
Speaker 2: and that the things that Luis said would make Maria
25:58
Speaker 2: visibly upset. Maria's supervisor at that job testified in court
26:03
Speaker 2: that Maria had lied and told everyone she was 18
26:06
Speaker 2: so she would be allowed to work, and he said
26:08
Speaker 2: no one suspected otherwise. This is interesting to me because
26:12
Speaker 2: we've been hearing since the beginning about how Maria was
26:14
Speaker 2: at home by herself, how she didn't have many friends,
26:17
Speaker 2: but it turns out she was exposed to a lot
26:20
Speaker 2: of different people. She had a large family, she drove
26:23
Speaker 2: around to places, and she interacted with a lot of people.
26:26
Speaker 2: at events like Bingo, and now we know she also
26:28
Speaker 2: had a job, one that she quit shortly before her murder.
26:32
Speaker 2: This was a job where she interacted with a coworker
26:34
Speaker 2: who allegedly made sexual remarks to her that upset her,
26:38
Speaker 2: which makes me wonder if detectives have identified everyone who
26:41
Speaker 2: was integral in Maria's world. Did they really know her schedule?
26:45
Speaker 2: The Monmouth County prosecutor reopened the case after someone called
26:49
Speaker 2: them and told them that shortly before he took his
26:51
Speaker 2: own life, that Louise had bragged about killing a woman
26:54
Speaker 2: in Monmouth County. and had said that the wrong person
26:57
Speaker 2: got convicted for the murder. However, the prosecutor also said
27:00
Speaker 2: at the time that a lot of the information that
27:02
Speaker 2: police were fielding was second- or third-hand information. In the end,
27:07
Speaker 2: no one was arrested or charged based on these tips.
27:12
Speaker 2: Brick Township police indicated back then that they were interested
27:15
Speaker 2: in speaking to Luis's ex-girlfriend, the one that he shot
27:19
Speaker 2: at the furniture store. but that she had understandably been
27:23
Speaker 2: traumatized by the hostage situation and shooting and was reluctant
27:26
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Which brings up even more questions
27:30
Speaker 2: because if evidence actually pointed towards someone else, what was
27:34
Speaker 2: that evidence? Who was that person? Was that lead thoroughly
27:37
Speaker 2: investigated in 1980? And could that lead be investigated today?
27:43
Speaker 2: In September of 2025, a member of the public filed
27:46
Speaker 2: an Open Public Records Act request with the Monmouth County
27:49
Speaker 2: Prosecutor's Office They were looking for information about Maria's homicide.
27:54
Speaker 2: This person asked for the medical examiner and autopsy records,
27:57
Speaker 2: investigative material, witness statements, evidence information, and records concerning DeMasso's arrest, prosecution, conviction,
28:04
Speaker 2: and exoneration. The prosecutor's office, as they sometimes do, required
28:09
Speaker 2: the request to be narrowed, but eventually, in October of 2025,
28:11
Speaker 2: the office released a limited set of responsive records. Maria's
28:16
Speaker 2: autopsy report, the DeMaso Vega indictment, the judgment of conviction,
28:21
Speaker 2: and the agency's response letter. And some of those documents
28:24
Speaker 2: have been posted online, even though the complete investigative case
28:27
Speaker 2: file and witness statements were not part of that release.
28:31
Speaker 2: I'm going to be posting those documents on our Instagram
28:33
Speaker 2: and on Patreon at Katherine Townsend Investigates. In a strange way,
28:38
Speaker 2: that limited release kind of illustrates the problem that I'm
28:42
Speaker 2: having with trying to understand Maria's murder today. There's a
28:46
Speaker 2: lot of information in there about DeMasso, his indictment, his conviction, etc.
28:50
Speaker 2: But there's not a lot about what detectives did otherwise
28:53
Speaker 2: and the actual contents of their investigation. There are some
28:57
Speaker 2: clues in Maria's autopsy report. The medical examiner determined that
29:01
Speaker 2: Maria died from asphyxia caused by ligature strangulations. Maria had
29:06
Speaker 2: small hemorrhages on her face and eyelids and larger hemorrhages
29:10
Speaker 2: in both eyes, findings that were associated with asphyxia. Internally,
29:15
Speaker 2: the medical examiner documented congestion and edema in her lungs
29:18
Speaker 2: and brain. There were also contusions on Maria's face and
29:22
Speaker 2: on her left thigh, and one of her fingernails was broken.
29:28
Speaker 2: That raises the possibility that there was some kind of struggle.
29:32
Speaker 2: although the autopsy itself does not tell us for sure
29:35
Speaker 2: how that fingernail was broken. But there's another part of
29:38
Speaker 2: the autopsy that I think may be even more important.
29:41
Speaker 2: There's been, since the beginning of this investigation, a question
29:44
Speaker 2: in my mind about how police determined that Maria had
29:48
Speaker 2: sexual activity before her death and if there was any
29:50
Speaker 2: testing done on her body. We learned from her autopsy
29:54
Speaker 2: that the medical examiner did collect swabs for Maria's mouth, vagina,
29:58
Speaker 2: and rectum. The report also specifically documents a vaginal swab
30:02
Speaker 2: and saline washings for acid phosphate testing. In 1980, acid
30:07
Speaker 2: phosphate testing was commonly used as a presumptive test when
30:11
Speaker 2: investigators were looking for seminal fluid. But the autopsy report
30:15
Speaker 2: that's available online does not contain the results of those tests.
30:19
Speaker 2: It doesn't tell us whether sperm was identified or give
30:22
Speaker 2: a blood type or any other clues. And it doesn't
30:25
Speaker 2: tell us how investigators later reached the conclusion that was
30:28
Speaker 2: reported in the newspapers, that Maria had had sexual intercourse
30:32
Speaker 2: shortly before she was killed. So that information had to
30:36
Speaker 2: have come from somewhere else, possibly a separate laboratory or
30:39
Speaker 2: serology report. And we still don't have that report. In 1988,
30:47
Speaker 2: the Asbury Park Press quoted DeMasso Vegas attorney Paul Casaliero
30:57
Speaker 2: as saying that semen samples taken from Maria's body could
31:01
Speaker 2: potentially have helped identify her killer. But he said those
31:05
Speaker 2: samples had been lost by investigators. If that is true,
31:09
Speaker 2: that is absolutely heartbreaking for Maria's family. That is only
31:14
Speaker 2: an allegation from DeMasso's attorney. I have not found the
31:17
Speaker 2: original evidence property documentation showing exactly what happened to those samples.
31:22
Speaker 2: I would love to know if any semen samples survived
31:25
Speaker 2: and what happened to them because, if anything did survive,
31:28
Speaker 2: testing that was impossible in 1980 might be possible now.
31:33
Speaker 2: And there's another unresolved question buried in the old reporting.
31:37
Speaker 2: According to what Milton, Maria's boyfriend, told police... he and
31:40
Speaker 2: Maria last had sex several days before she was killed.
31:45
Speaker 2: But the contemporary reporting said investigators had evidence that Maria
31:48
Speaker 2: had had sex only hours before her death. And if
31:52
Speaker 2: investigators really did establish that, that Maria had had sex
31:56
Speaker 2: a few hours before she was murdered, if their timeline
31:59
Speaker 2: is correct, then one question becomes incredibly important. Who did
32:04
Speaker 2: she have sex with? And could that person have killed her?
32:09
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
32:14
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
32:16
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcast. It's written and narrated by me, Katherine Townsend,
32:20
Speaker 2: and produced by Edelise Perez. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
32:24
Speaker 2: for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
32:27
Speaker 2: Noah Kammer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
32:30
Speaker 2: is by Ben Salih. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
32:34
Speaker 2: and L.C.
32:35
Speaker 1: Crowley.
32:36
Speaker 2: Listen to Hell and Gone ad-free by subscribing to the
32:38
Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
32:41
Speaker 2: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
32:44
Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at hellandgonepod or
32:48
Speaker 2: my Patreon at Katherine Townsend Investigates. If you have a
32:52
Speaker 2: case you'd like me and my team to look into,
32:54
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Hell and
32:55
Speaker 2: Gone murder line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.
33:07
Speaker 1: School of Humans.