Overview
- Police say a state trooper who received an anonymous tip was led to a concrete-lined vehicle repair pit beneath a carport where a decomposing body was found.
- Investigators identified the victim as Salvador Ortiz Rivera Jr. and arrested his son, Michael (Micheal) Lee Rodriguez, after interviews in which he allegedly admitted to a fight and to moving the body.
- Court records show Rodriguez was booked on second-degree murder, abandonment or concealment of a dead body and a probation violation, and a judge set a $2 million cash-only bond.
- Prosecutors say the suspect told officers fingerprints should be found around the victim’s neck and that he discarded the shoes he was wearing and a metal bar suspected to be the weapon, and detectives are searching for that evidence.
- Coroners are working to determine cause and timing of death, investigators are verifying physical evidence, and authorities say the body may have been at the site since the prior weekend.