Decades After His Wife Vanished, US Man Sentenced To 40 Years In Her Murder

Circuit Court Judge in Stafford County, Va., imposed the maximum sentence on Rodriguez-Cruz, 55, after he pleaded guilty in November to second-degree murder

Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, who admitted strangling his girlfriend in the District of Columbia and disposing of her still-missing body in 2009, was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday for murdering his estranged wife in Virginia in 1989 and also hiding her remains. Ending a tortuous case that bedeviled investigators in several jurisdictions for years, Circuit Court Judge Michael Levy in Stafford County, Va., imposed the maximum sentence on Rodriguez-Cruz, 55, after he pleaded guilty in November to second-degree murder. He already is serving a 12-year term in the D.C. killing. His estranged wife, Marta Rodriguez, 26, was last seen alive in May 1989. Her remains, concealed on a highway median strip in Stafford, were found in 1991 but not identified until 2018, after Rodriguez-Cruz had been charged with murder in Washington. Thursday's sentencing followed two related investigations involving multiple police departments and a suspect described by authorities as having an explosive temper toward women who spurned him.