Ex-Cop Confesses To Girlfriend Murder, Missing Wife Now “Hot” Case

The Dateline episode “The Golden Child” investigates the disappearance and murder of Pamela Butler. The 47-year-old computer analyst working for the EPA was last seen at her home in Washington, D.C., and according to the surveillance cameras she had installed, she never left the house.

More than eight years later, in 2017, Butler’s boyfriend, former military police officer Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, confessed to killing Butler. After strangling her to death, he dropped her body from a window out of the security camera’s view and put the body in his car. Rodriguez-Cruz was a military police officer who, according to the Daily Beast, was discharged after threatening to harm his female superior twice.

Butler’s plea agreement included telling authorities where he hid Butler’s body. When the authorities looked for Butler’s remains along Interstate 95 in Virginia, they didn’t find Butler’s remains but did find the remains of Rodriguez-Cruz’s ex-wife Marta Haydee Rodriguez, who went missing in 1989. She was 28.

Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, who is currently serving his 12-year sentence for Butler’s second-degree murder, is now facing a first-degree murder charge for his ex-wife’s death.

In October 2019, Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric L. Olsen said the identification of Rodriguez’s remains has turned the 1989 missing-person case investigation into “a hot” homicide probe, resulting in the new indictment.

Dateline’s Dennis Murphy travels to Washington, D.C. to interview Detective Mike Fulton, and Pamela’s Brother Derrick Butler, among others. [Stream any NBC show watch LIVE on any device with NBC UNIVERSAL app available here. Download is FREE.]