dennis murphy (voiceover): a string of detectives had spent more than eight years investigating pamela butler's 2009 disappearance, all of them with the victim's brother, derrick, on their case. i'm calling them, telling them, you know, asking them, what's happening? what are you doing? wouldn't tell me. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick himself, meanwhile, was still in the frame. but as 2017 rolled on, the investigation was zeroing in on pam's boyfriend, jose. his first wife, marta, had left him, and detective rosa ortiz, digging through old police reports, came up with an amazing story of what happened next. a now retired police officer sees a woman struggling. dennis murphy (voiceover): she tracked down the officer mentioned in the police reports, former detective mike sutton. in 1989, 20 years before pam butler went missing, he was on patrol in arlington when he came upon an alarming scene. so i immediately sped up, pulled over, jumped out.

mike, you're on foot, and it doesn't look good, what you're seeing. - no. what is it? i see a domestic violence situation where a man is dragging a woman up the sidewalk. dennis murphy (voiceover): dragging the woman by her hair, he says. he showed me what happened next. he had his arm around here, and he was basically pulling her like this. but her feet were out from underneath of her, and he was dragging her in this direction. so this is all going down very quickly, it's going down very quickly. and he's running. he let go of her, and i just focused on him. and right about here, i just basically tackled him to the ground and held him down. and then he was fighting with me. i told him, you know, stop. dennis murphy (voiceover): the 6 foot 7 detective overpowered the man and cuffed him. yes, sir. had you witnessed a crime? yes. there was a physical assault occurring. dennis murphy (voiceover): he would learn the assailant's name was jose, and the woman he'd been dragging was his estranged wife, marta. and then i paid attention to marta, who was there crying.

and she was like, oh, thank you, thank you. you know, help me. and then she started telling me what was going on. and it just blew my mind. dennis murphy (voiceover): he says jose was apparently in a jealous rage because he found out marta had a new boyfriend. he had abducted her from her home and, according to her, kept her in a hotel and was raping her and physically abusing her for two days. dennis murphy (voiceover): down at the police station, marta told the detective jose had used duct tape and rope to assault her. she escaped, and that's when jose grabbed her on the street. her story checked out when the detective went back to the scene and spotted jose's car. found the car, looked in the back window, saw the duct tape, saw the rope. this is a case that solved itself before you even get to the arraignment. exactly. dennis murphy (voiceover): in a police interview, jose seemed to dig himself an even deeper hole with a chilling statement to the detective. and he basically said, look, you don't understand. this is my wife.

if i can't have her, then nobody's going to have her. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose was charged with misdemeanor, assault and battery, and felony abduction. i didn't see him actually take her as she described. i saw him dragging her up the street. so i want to get him for the abduction. dennis murphy (voiceover): but for the abduction charge to stick, marta had to testify in court. on the fear scale, mike, here and here, how scared was she? this woman was off the scale. she told me, this man is going to kill me. i'm afraid he's going to kill me. dennis murphy (voiceover): and she warned the detective. she said, you have to be very careful because my husband is going to kill you, he said. you? yeah, me. dennis murphy (voiceover): on the day marta was due to testify in court against jose, she didn't show up. and because of the fact that she wasn't there, they had to nolle pros the case. it means it wasn't going to go forward. right. they can't go forward because they don't have the complaining person there. dennis murphy (voiceover): a week after she didn't show up for the court hearing,

marta called her sister, neda, in puerto rico. one of neda's children picked up and later told her that marta had been in tears. interpreter: and i said, well, if she was crying, she wanted to tell me something. she'll probably call again, and i'll pick up. dennis murphy (voiceover): but marta didn't call again, and neda didn't call her back that day either, something she'd regret for the rest of her life. interpreter: i feel so guilty not knowing what she wanted to say. dennis murphy (voiceover): that same day, may 25, 1989, detective ortiz learned from marta's roommates that she'd left her apartment for a shift at the hospital, but she'd planned to quit her job. later that day, marta vanished. a missing persons report was filed soon after. her roommates see her going to work. she made it to work. she had day shift. and those roommates become the source of the missing persons file, huh? correct, because she didn't come home. and the question is why? why were they worried about their roommate?

and it's because they knew what she'd been through with jose. dennis murphy (voiceover): marta's roommates feared the young mother was in danger. they remember marta being very afraid of jose to the point that even a phone call would get her rattled up and crying. they recall the stories of abuse that she endured. she told them the stories. they also knew that she wouldn't go missing on her own free will. she loved her child. she was looking forward to go getting him. so they knew that she was going to bring the child to live with them. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose was questioned by police back then, but denied any knowledge of marta's disappearance and whereabouts. in a recorded police interview, he told the detectives he'd even called her roommates looking for her.

dennis murphy (voiceover): he might not have known. but the mystery of marta's disappearance and reappearance was about to unfold. coming up, years after her disappearance, police locate marta's son. he grew up thinking his mom abandoned him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but maybe marta had never been missing. she says, yeah, this is my id. this is who i am. she's alive and well. dennis murphy (voiceover): was there another answer? that's a holy cow moment, huh? it is a holy cow moment. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. ♪ rinse it out ♪ ♪ every now and then ♪ ♪ i get a little bit tired of the stinks ♪ ♪ that just will never come out ♪ ♪ pour downy in the rinse, jade ♪ ♪ every now and then i rinse it out! ♪ fights odor in just one wash.

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are people born wicked? or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? oh! -ah! [ laughter ] no need to respond. that was rhetorical. hm, hmm. dennis murphy (voiceover): marta rodriguez's sudden disappearance from arlington, virginia, in 1989 was a stark revelation for detectives investigating the suspected homicide of pam butler in washington, dc. she'd gone missing in 2009. detective rosa ortiz learned that, as in pam's case, police searching for marta hadn't been sure where to look. they knew she was missing from arlington. they just didn't know where she had been. dennis murphy (voiceover): it wasn't as though the cops didn't try. detective ray spivey worked the case at the time. he circulated flyers about marta, hoping to trigger sightings of her near st. elizabeth's hospital, where she worked. did you call out dogs and any special equipment

or teams? dc had a specialty dog, and we arranged through dc to search an area of the grounds. did they hit on anything? no. dennis murphy (voiceover): marta's sister neda came to search, too, but found no sign of marta. so the case, what, just sort of died? it was, more or less, a closed case after a year. they ran out of ways to gather evidence. they just came up empty-handed. dennis murphy (voiceover): but in 2017, as detectives tried to find out what happened to marta back then, they tracked down her son, hadsell, now in his 30s. i introduced myself, hey, i'm detective fulton. and i just said, hey, you know, i'm following up on some old missing person cases. by any chance, did you have a mother named marta who went missing? and he was like, yes. oh, my god, yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): hadsell told the detectives he didn't know exactly what had happened, but right after his mom, marta, went missing, his father, jose, told him why she was gone. jose's story was she had always ran off,

that she had met some dudes, some drug guys, and she had just ran off and was never to be seen before. that was his story. dennis murphy (voiceover): so hadsell grew up under a dark cloud. he grew up thinking his mom abandoned him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but there was one big problem with hadsell's story. the detectives searching for his mom, marta, turned up evidence that would totally contradict it. documents showed that in the year 2000, more than 10 years after marta had disappeared from arlington, a routine check of missing persons by virginia police turned up, guess what, marta rodriguez was alive and living in florida. maybe she'd been so terrified of jose that she'd gone into hiding far away from him. not missing at all. not missing at all. dennis murphy (voiceover): at the time, the arlington missing persons unit even dispatched an officer in miami to check if it was really her. and a woman answered the door. she says yeah, this is my id. this is who i am. she's alive and well. there's marta. yeah. they called back to virginia and said, hey, she's here.

she's living in florida. and the case, you know, just got filed away. dennis murphy (voiceover): tragically, marta's family says they remained in the dark. interpreter: they simply closed the case. and we weren't told anything, nothing. so many years went by, and no one knew anything. marta's mother died thinking that marta forgot all about her, that she didn't want to communicate with her. so they thought she'd walked away from family and child. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): but in 2017, the detectives learning more about marta thought it was unlikely she would have walked away from her family. so they did some double checking. they already had a photo of marta, so they decided to compare that photo to a state id photo they accessed of the woman in florida named marta. and would you believe it? it wasn't marta. no question? no question whatsoever. dennis murphy: that's a holy cow moment, huh? it is a holy cow moment. it is a holy cow moment, yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): it meant that marta rodriguez was, after nearly 30 years,

still missing. did you ever say, i'm going to find out what happened to you? i did. i said, i'm going to give it all i got. and, you know, until somebody tells me to stop or i retire, i'm not going to give up. dennis murphy (voiceover): the first question the detective wanted answered was, who was the woman living in florida posing as marta? so is this a whole other investigation off to the side now of, how did this woman get the documentation that allowed her to pose as marta? i personally found her. the woman claiming to be marta? yes. living in florida. she's living in florida very seldom, you get a confession over the phone. it's not as easy as people think it is. but she confessed. dennis murphy (voiceover): as the detective untangled the complex story of marta rodriguez, she was stunned when she learned the woman's true identity. coming up. is this the big light bulb moment, the big insight in the case? i think so. dennis murphy (voiceover): a trail of deceit leading to death. she confessed that it was her who used somebody else's

information to get an id. jose said, hey, take marta's information. here's her date of birth. here's her social security number. she's not gonna need them anymore. - she's not gonna need it. - did he actually say that? exactly, she's not gonna need them. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ remove contact lenses before using miebo. wait at least 30 minutes before putting them back in. eye redness and blurred vision may occur. ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ ask your eye doctor about prescrip[♪♪] miebo.

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[suspenseful music] dennis murphy (voiceover): early in 2017, detectives trying to crack the pam butler case

got a break as they investigated pam's boyfriend, jose. they knew jose's first wife, marta, had disappeared from arlington in 1989. and now they discovered a woman had been living as marta in florida for nearly two decades. detective ortiz was about to find out who she was after ferreting out a phone number and calling her. she cried on the phone call, but she confessed. she confessed that it was her who used somebody else's information to get an id. dennis murphy (voiceover): but get this-- the woman who said she didn't know about marta's disappearance turned out to be jose's sister-in-law. so jose said, hey, take marta's information. here's her date of birth. here's her social security number. you know-- she's not gonna need them anymore, huh? - she's not gonna need them. - did he actually say that? exactly, she's not gonna need them. dennis murphy (voiceover): after all that confusion and deception, it turned out marta rodriguez, like pam butler, was still apparently missing. the detective was sure jose was, in some way, responsible. so i remember going down to my boss's office

and plopping down in his chair, and i'm like, dude, he was married before, and his wife is missing. and it was like, what if he killed his first wife? is this the big light bulb moment, the big insight in the case? i think so. dennis murphy (voiceover): a pattern was emerging story after story, like that of joe's second wife, guadalupe. the detectives were never able to locate her. well, the reason why they were never able to locate her was because she went into hiding. dennis murphy (voiceover): guadalupe, a third woman in jose's life who had gone missing. she did a whole underground sort of railroad system. and over the years, had relocated two or three different times because jose was able to locate her so she would go someplace else. so she was totally off the grid. so that's the reason why detectives had a hard time finding her. dennis murphy (voiceover): but eventually, by cross-referencing her name in databases, detectives were able to track down guadalupe. we were able to interview her. and then the story she tells, we're like, well, wait a second. so what did her main story turned out to be? that he was abusive, that i was afraid

he was going to kill me. dennis murphy (voiceover): guadalupe's dramatic story was backed up by hadsell, who moved in with his father and guadalupe after his mother disappeared. rosa ortiz: hadsell had firsthand knowledge of the abuse that guadalupe went through. he saw it as a child. hadsell had described an incident where she was downstairs begging for her life, and she could hear jose yelling at her, screaming at her, i'm going to kill you. he saw his father put a gun to her head? yes, he witnessed jose put a gun to guadalupe's head. he says, i come downstairs, and i see my father is just in a rage. and i'm thinking, oh, my god, he's going to kill her, and he's going to kill me. and he's like 10 or 11 at the time. detective, is this, like, article number 1 in let me tell you what kind of a guy jose is? exactly. dennis murphy (voiceover): but the detectives were more alarmed when they discovered yet another violent relationship. jose had been running a flea market stall with a woman who had a young child. he apparently wanted more than a business relationship. he called her to meet him. he took that opportunity to abduct her at gunpoint.

mike fulton: jose became very aggressive and very abusive and ended up forcing her to have sex, ended up raping her, ends up tying her up, threatening to kill her, threatened to kill the kid. if you don't do what i say, i'm going to kill the kid. rosa ortiz: he had them both against their will in the basement of this house. when she finally sees the opportunity to leave, she arms herself with a knife. he's got a gun in his hand, grabs her. there's a struggle. she stabs him. there's a neighbor upstairs who comes running down. she's screaming, help me, help me. he's kidnapped me. you know, call the police. dennis murphy (voiceover): but when the police arrived, the tables turned. he's bloody and she's got a knife in her hand, right? exactly. and he's saying, look, she's-- this is a domestic. she got mad. she stabbed me. and she's trying to explain, but her english isn't good. all the police could see was that she stabbed him, but they didn't know that she stabbed him in an effort to get away from him with her child. so she ultimately ends up getting locked up. dennis murphy (voiceover): however, the police

did check out her story. and they go back to the house, and they're able to find duct tape in the trash can. so the case ends up getting dismissed against her. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose didn't get charged, but the detectives were sure they had his number. he's a violent man. he has a problem with women. he has a problem controlling his anger. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective fulton concluded jose's anger and alleged violence had led to murder, so he decided to arrest him for killing pam butler. but until then, he couldn't tell derrick, who was still living under a cloud of suspicion. he walked around for eight years thinking that people were looking at him like he killed his sister. i mean, that's a hard thing to swallow. and you can't tell him the walls are closing in on jose. right. i can't tell him everything i have. i can't tell them, dude, don't worry about it. i know you didn't do it. dennis murphy (voiceover): in april 2017, two experienced dc prosecutors took the pam butler case. former military prosecutor glenn kirschner,

now an nbc news and msnbc legal analyst, and debra signs. she is a character, to say the least. but i don't think you want to face either one of them in court. no, they are what we call heavy-hitters. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutors were just learning about jose's alleged history of violence. we have been visiting violence, bad violence against both wives. we have wife number one missing, and wife number two had a gun to her head begging for her life. we now have pam butler missing. but when we realized jose is now hooked up with another young lady who has a young daughter herself, we decided we had to seek an arrest warrant for jose. there's urgency to get him on ice, right. no, for sure. for sure. dennis murphy (voiceover): coming up, is derrick still a suspect? i said, oh, lord. i'm thinking that they're coming to lock me up at 3 o'clock in the morning. - knock, knock. come along. yeah, he said, this is detective fulton. i said, yeah, what's going on?

dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

hi, i am richard lui with a weather update. northern minnesota into upstate new york by the great lakes region is experiencing a lake effect snow event that is expected through the weekend. down south millions are under a freeze watch. we are getting a first look at the restored notre dame cathedral, five years after the inferno french president and emmanuel macron toward the restored cathedral, which will soon open to the public. for now, back to dateline. dat. detectives were preparing to arrest jose rodriguez-cruz for the murder of pam butler. pam butler's brother, derrick, knew nothing of what was going on.

he himself was still living in fear of being arrested for his sister's murder, when early one morning, 3:00 am, he got a call from detective fulton. i said, oh, lord. i'm thinking that they're coming to lock me up at 3 o'clock in the morning. - knock, knock. come along. - yeah. he said, this is detective fulton. i said, yeah, what's going on? and he said, i locked his ass up. and it was the best feeling that i'd ever gotten in my life. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose had been arrested, and that meant derrick was in the clear. dennis murphy: did you think he did it ever? hell no! no, derrick was clean. derrick was clean. clean as a whistle. dennis murphy (voiceover): a few hours later, pam butler's friend, rita, heard the news of jose's arrest. i just cried. i sat in my office and cried that this had finally happened. dennis murphy (voiceover): but jose continued to say he was innocent. he's under arrest, very calm, very relaxed, and he's just hey, i didn't kill pam. but you knew he was your guy. we knew it was he was our guy.

we have him being the last person seen with pam. we have his first wife, marta, who's disappeared off the face of the earth. we have his second wife, who tells us that she was beaten, threatened. we have jose giving his second wife's sister marta's information and said, ha, she's not going to need it. so you take all these things and you put it together, and it's jose killed pam. no if and buts about it. he killed them. dennis murphy (voiceover): even though pamela butler's body had not been found in the eight years after she'd vanished from her washington, dc, home, jose rodriguez-cruz was charged with her first degree murder and potentially faced life in prison. that's when jose realized he really didn't have much hope of beating this. but he did have one card to play, and that was where he disposed of pam's remains. dennis murphy (voiceover): that leverage became the basis of a plea deal, a lesser second degree murder charge for jose carrying a 12-year sentence

if he gave up where pam's body was and told how it got there. he is supposed to tell me how he killed pam. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutor stared down jose as he stalled. i'm asking the questions, and jose won't look at me. and i'm getting annoyed and i finally go, look at me! and he starts shaking. his eyes bulge out, and he starts sweating profusely. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose started spilling his guts about pam and what happened in her basement the day before valentine's day 2009. he says that she got angry with him and says, why am i working? you're over here watching tv. i'm working. why haven't you gotten a better job? you're not a man. you'll never be a man. and he looked at me, and he said, she called me and he said, a bad name. you can say it.

we'll bleep it. a [bleep]! so i punched her. and i must have blacked out because when i came to, she was gone. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutor was having none of jose's blackout story. he apologizes, and then he tells me he didn't black out at all. and he says he strangled her to death. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutors had at last gotten a confession. and then finally, jose revealed the biggest mystery of the case-- how he got pam's body out of the house. remember that window shade pam's family had noticed was raised from the bottom, something pam never did? jose put pam's limp body in a black plastic trash bag, raised the shade from the bottom, and under the cover of darkness, dropped her out of the dining room window, a window he knew wasn't covered by pam's security cameras. dennis murphy: he told you the story. sure did. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose then described driving pam's body away in the back seat of his car.

dennis murphy: it's difficult to think of his hands on her. yes. the thing that haunts me is that terrifying minute or two minutes that it took for him to choke her. dennis murphy (voiceover): all pam's family wanted was to restore some dignity. they said, you know, we don't really care how much time jose rodriguez-cruze gets in jail. what we want is for him to tell us where pam's remains are because we want to give her a proper burial. dennis murphy (voiceover): using a map, jose marked the place where he said he buried pam's body in the densely wooded median of i-95 in virginia. that's where this bright, beloved woman had ended up in a shallow grave between the north and southbound lanes of one of the busiest stretches of interstate in the country. so, detective, here we are in the median of i-95. these people are going to washington. these people are going to richmond, virginia have no idea what's happened here. absolutely. and that's the reason why he got away with it for so long. nobody would have thought to stop here. reporter: he buried pamela butler-- dennis murphy (voiceover): but recovering her remains

was another sad chapter altogether. the median where jose said he buried pam had since been paved over to create hov lanes. so pam's body under tons of concrete never was recovered. dennis murphy: what did this man do to your family? [sighs] he took a lot of life away from us. took everything out of me. dennis murphy (voiceover): as for jose, he was sent to prison, but with good behavior, he would likely end up serving a good deal less than his 12-year sentence for murdering pam. and that gnawed at derrick butler. he felt jose had cheated. i think he knew that there was no chance of us ever finding a body. so what are you thinking? we've got to extend the sentence? exactly. dennis murphy (voiceover): as it happened, derrick would get his chance because when jose told investigators the location of pam butler's remains in the median of interstate 95, that jogged a distant memory over in virginia. when they were on the scene searching for pamela's

remains, someone at the scene remembered that six miles south from there, they had found some other remains. dennis murphy (voiceover): a state trooper recalled that in 1991, nearly 20 years before pam butler was murdered, civil war relic hunters turned up another body six miles south in the median of i-95. dennis murphy: so instead of a shell casing or a button from a jacket, they found a murdered woman. they found the remains. so they immediately called the police. dennis murphy (voiceover): back in 1991, there was no good way to identify the woman's sparse remains. so she was listed as a jane doe. but the detectives had a hunch. could she be marta? the first thing that came to mind-- have you guys submitted dna for testing. the detectives obtained a dna sample from hadsell, jose, and marta son. they sent it off for comparison with a sample extracted from the remains of the jane doe. and at that point, your phone rings? we have a match. and your dna turns out to be marta rodriguez.

rosa ortiz: i couldn't believe it. and this is where they found marta's body. this is where they found marta's body. dennis murphy (voiceover): but that was just a starting point. we knew who killed her. but you had to prove it in court. but we had to prove it in court. dennis murphy (voiceover): coming up. i had no doubt in my mind that he would have done it again. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick makes it his personal mission to bring jose to justice for marta's murder. i thought it was going to be easy when i first started. dennis murphy (voiceover): it wasn't. i told him, some puzzles take longer than others. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. resolve! your pet knows if a mess is really gone; if not, they may re-mark the spot. resolve gets rid of pet messes better than the leading competitor. destroying stains, neutralizing odors, and preventing re-marking. love the love, resolve the mess. (♪♪) when life spells heartburn... how do you spell relief? r-o-l-a-i-d-s rolaids' dual-active formula

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[tense music]

dennis murphy (voiceover): at his home in washington, dc, derrick butler was fuming, regretting he'd signed on to the plea deal that meant jose rodriguez-cruz could likely serve less than 12 years in prison for murdering his sister, pam. i had no doubt in my mind that he would have done it again. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick was sure jose had also murdered his first wife, marta, in virginia, decades before, and he was going to try to get jose put away for life. dennis murphy: now you're fired up again, and you're going to take this fight across the river. correct? you knew it was going to be as tough or tougher? actually, i thought it was going to be easy when i first started. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick figured the dc prosecutors had presented a gift-wrapped, watertight case against jose to the prosecutor in virginia. but as 2017 rolled into 2018, it seemed to derrick marta's case was stuck. a year goes by, nothing happens. year and a half go by. we're pretty close to two years, and they didn't do a daggone thing with it. i told him, you need to trust us.

we're doing this. we're doing it the right way. it's a big puzzle, is how i describe these cases. you have to put all the pieces together. some puzzles take longer than others. and derrick wanted to go quickly. he did. dennis murphy (voiceover): and in 2019, derrick's frustration turned into action. i started making phone calls to them, and the district attorney would not even talk to me. dennis murphy (voiceover): when derrick did eventually get through, he says he got the brush off. told me he didn't have to talk to me. he wasn't going to talk to me. he didn't have to talk to you? yeah, wasn't my case. i had nothing to do with it. yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): so derrick upped the ante. he rounded up reporters and camera teams and headed to virginia to confront the commonwealth attorney in person. he's going to be on the 6 o'clock news unless he gets with the program here. exactly. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick marched his entourage into the commonwealth attorney's office. dennis murphy: do they get into the building with you, or do they try and keep them out?

his secretary came to the door, and she said, mr. butler can come in, but nobody else can come. and you have to cut the audio and video equipment off. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick spoke with the da commonwealth attorney eric olson. cordial? it was cordial, yeah. he seemed like a nice guy, and i have no doubt that he is a nice guy. derrick butler was not satisfied. and so he made it his mission to see that jose rodriguez-cruz was brought to justice. dennis murphy (voiceover): commonwealth attorney olson was caught off guard by derrick's approach. dennis murphy: he came to you guys, saying, basically, grow a spine. come on, you guys got to take this thing on. well, he certainly did come to our office, and he talked to me personally-- with all the cameras in the world. --about trying to encourage us. so what do you do with this angry family victim? when i spoke to mr. butler, i explained there's a difference between knowing what happened and proving what happened. this was a 30-year-old case. dennis murphy (voiceover): but he told derrick he'd see what he could do. eric olson: my message to derrick butler was this--

we will do everything we can to try to put a case together. you just have to be patient. if there's any way we can do it, we're going to try. dennis murphy: and if you hadn't brought the media pack with you, do you think you would have gotten any breakthrough in it? i wouldn't have gotten past the front door. huh. i'm not crazy. i know that a 30-year-old case is hard to prove. dennis murphy (voiceover): but olson pushed the case forward. this is the ultimate act of domestic violence. that's the allegation in this case. dennis murphy: he's singing a completely different tune to you now, right? right. now, you're brothers in arms, and you're going to go get this guy. exactly. i'm here to get justice for her. she deserves it. it was fairly obvious to the authorities that there was need to pursue it as a homicide investigation. dennis murphy (voiceover): in october 2019, commonwealth attorney olson charged jose rodriguez-cruz with the first degree murder of his first wife, marta, and assigned sandra park and ryan fitzgerald to prosecute the case. dennis murphy: who does jose rodriguez-cruz turn out to be? who did you learn this person was?

he was a psychopath. to me, he was just an evil person that inflicted a lot of violence on women who certainly did not deserve any of it. of course, the challenge for us, as prosecutors, is what we could use as evidence and how, how legally were we going to get those items into evidence to paint the picture. dennis murphy (voiceover): their evidence was circumstantial, even thin. they had no murder scene, no blood evidence, no eyewitnesses. and they were relying on a few bones found by civil war relic hunters some 30 years before. remember, the bones were recovered in 1991. and i imagine the remains were sparse. yes dennis murphy (voiceover): but while the prosecutors could prove they were marta's remains, could they convince a jury she'd been murdered sandra park: the initial pathology report determined that the cause of death was undetermined. so you don't know how she died. right. dennis murphy (voiceover): and of course, jose denied any knowledge. he was in prison for murdering pam butler when detective ortiz and a colleague showed up to question him about killing marta.

and he says, i don't know what to tell you. i think she ran off with some drug dealers. and that's the same story that he been telling all the other innocent people in our story. dennis murphy (voiceover): with so little evidence to work with, the two prosecutors weren't sure they could win the case. and what's more, jose had a lulu of a story still to tell. coming up. is there anything where you just felt the hair on your neck stand up? yes, all of it. just no compassion or empathy or human emotion whatsoever. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose spills the grim details of how he killed pam, even as he insists he's innocent of marta's death.

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even though he'd pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend, pam butler. but now, as the prosecutors sought to put him away for maybe the rest of his life for killing his first wife, marta, could they even prove the core truth about marta's deat? dennis murphy: do you know whether she was a murder victim or not? the most basic information you need. yes. people don't just end up on the median unexplained. people don't just end up on i-95 unexplained. and there was no one else that would have put her there but jose. and the manner in which he disposed of her became so important because he'd done it to someone else another time. dennis murphy (voiceover): even though he'd already told prosecutors in the pam butler case what he'd done, here, he was on tape speaking casually, chillingly, about pam to detective ortiz and a fellow detective. dennis murphy (voiceover): and he told the detectives

he drove down interstate 95. dennis murphy (voiceover): and he confirmed how he disposed of pam's body. dennis murphy: the way he tells it, some of the details. there anything where you just felt the hair on your neck stand up. yes, all of it. just no compassion or empathy or human emotion whatsoever. you're not seeing any remorse. no remorse. dennis murphy (voiceover): little did he know, by telling law enforcement how he murdered and disposed of pam butler, jose was handing the prosecutors critical details they could use against him for killing marta. it becomes signature evidence. it's idiosyncratic. it's so unique that the evidence of pam butler's murder becomes relevant to the murder of marta rodriguez. the defendant has acknowledged this is the area in which he placed pam butler's body. that's a signature. marta was dumped very close along this tree line here.

dennis murphy (voiceover): detective ortiz told us how she believes jose disposed of marta's body. dennis murphy: so how do you think it happened? how do you see it going down? i really see it at the middle of the night, dark. jose just pulls over on the shoulder of the highway, and it's a very quick, unplanned maneuver. and he just dumps the body right there. dennis murphy (voiceover): as the marta rodriguez murder case headed for trial, the evidence against jose that once seemed thin was piling up. i think that's when anyone would begin to realize, ok, they've built the case, and they have my story now. what do i do now? dennis murphy (voiceover): jose did as he'd done in the pam butler case. he made a deal with the prosecutors and agreed to plead guilty to second degree murder. in april 2021, at a sentencing hearing, he would make his case for the minimum, five years in prison, while the prosecutors would argue for the max, 40 years.

dennis murphy: this is sort of an unusual event for a lot of people. there's no jury. you're arguing your case to the judge. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): as the court convened, there was marta and jose's only son, hadsell. hadsell. hadsell rodriguez. he is the mutual son of them both. and he is really the thrust of this case in seeking justice. as prosecutors, he's a driving force for us. and so you can imagine for us, going through the case, learning about their relationship, learning about all the abuse, he suffered so much because of it, and we needed to bring this to fruition for him. dennis murphy (voiceover): derrick butler was there, too, staring daggers at jose. dennis murphy: here you are in this courtroom, standing as an advocate for a murdered woman that you'd never met? oh, yeah, hadsell. didn't deserve to go through what he had went through. dennis murphy (voiceover): when the hearing got underway, ryan fitzgerald made a blistering presentation of the evidence. dennis murphy: fair to say you took this personally?

no, it's not that you take things personally, but it's impossible not to tap into what that feels like when you've got his son sitting behind you. dennis murphy (voiceover): hadsell took the stand against his father with a searing impact statement. you could feel his hurt. you felt it when he said. i started to notice other families that had a mom, and i didn't have a mom. and then he told the court a childhood secret he'd revealed to detectives during their investigation, that when he was 11, he suddenly discovered that story about his mom running off with drug dealers wasn't true. the incident happened when jose was in a rage and hadsell ran to hide. mike fulton: he says, my dad has this library, and he has this desk area. and i'm running by. and i just happened to look, and there's this piece of paper laying there. and the sheet of paper, said, i, jose rodriguez, am responsible for marta's disappearance. and he's like oh, my god, he's going to kill himself. and this is sort of his confession of what he did to his mom. and he said he went and hid. he said he just viewed his life through a lens

of conflict and survival. and you felt it when he said that it defined him. being a boy whose father killed his mother. right. dennis murphy (voiceover): the exclamation point came from marta's sister, neda, appearing in court via live video stream. interpreter: so tragic. marta suffered so much. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutors closed, believing they'd made their strongest case for a long sentence. dennis murphy: the question is, judge, what are you going to do, now that we've told you these things? that's correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): and they hadn't counted on jose's next move. at a sentencing proceeding, the defendant has the right to offer the court his version of the events. dennis murphy (voiceover): so jose rose to tell his story of what happened to marta. in may 1989, after he and marta were separated, jose said marta got in touch with him. he says that she wanted to meet with him to talk about hadsell. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose said they met at a hotel, but marta felt unwell. sandra park: he says that she was suffering a migraine. he told her that she could take some of his painkillers

that happened to be laying out in a bag. and he directed her to the bag to take the pain pills. dennis murphy (voiceover): meanwhile, jose said he took this car to go get some food for marta. but as luck would have it, he said he ran out of gas. and so by the time he got back to the hotel, he claimed he was confronted by a scene of horror. rosa ortiz: so when he leaves to go get gas, he comes back late, and then marta is dead. dennis murphy (voiceover): marta had overdosed on pain pills, jose explained in court, and he panicked. dennis murphy: and then he says he calls a friend to help him, huh? well, he said he calls not a friend. he calls his drug dealer-- aha. --to help him dispose of the body. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose claimed his dealer friend told him to keep a lookout while he took care of marta's body. and then it's the drug dealer who dumps the body. dennis murphy (voiceover): and that was jose's story about marta. think about that, right? in the year before she died, jose abducted her, abused her,

tied her up, attempting to rape her. and he wanted the court to believe that she died of a drug overdose, during which he wasn't even in the room, and he happened to be out getting gas. the judge was not buying this defense at all. that was our take on it. dennis murphy (voiceover): after a short recess, the judge returned to hand down his sentence. boom. he imposed the maximum punishment allowable under the law. and i clapped in the courtroom. you're not supposed to do that, derrick. yeah. [chuckling] i was hoping that he would get the maximum amount. but i wasn't expecting it. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose, aged 55, got 40 years on top of the 12 years he was already serving for murdering pam butler. that is what that maximum penalty is reserved for. it's for people-- monsters like jose. i thought nobody was so broken that they couldn't be fixed. but i would tell him that you are a person that

should have never been born. he's an evil guy. we don't know all the things that he's done. justice was finally served. dennis murphy (voiceover): jose will likely die in prison while his many victims try to pick up the pieces of their lives. marta's sister neda is still filled with regret for not coming to the phone the day marta called for help. interpreter: i'm never going to have closure. that's why i feel so guilty, as if i had killed her with my own hands. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective ortiz took it upon herself to bring marta's ashes to puerto rico, and neda laid her sister to rest in a place where marta had some of her happiest moments. rosa ortiz: and she would have still been around her family. dennis murphy: she didn't get that. rosa ortiz: she didn't get that chance. she didn't get a chance to raise her child or have the ability to raise her grandkids. dennis murphy (voiceover): as for derrick, he continues to help other people of color searching

for missing loved ones through the nonprofit, black and missing foundation. but his personal journey is over. you just kept on a comin' and a comin' and a comin' for years. yeah, scared as hell sometimes that they were going to come and lock me up. how do you think about yourself, derrick? are you a hero? no, just somebody that cares about his family. i have no doubt in my mind that had this happened to me, that pam would have did the same for me. [soft music] [theme music] i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline."