A Wisconsin man who has been on the run since his pregnant girlfriend was found dead and stuffed into a suitcase in 2020 was captured this week in Missouri.
Jose E. Dominguez-Garcia, 26, was arrested on November 23 in Gladstone, Missouri, after tag readers alerted officers to a vehicle with a stolen tag, Gladstone Police said. Police said he had several identification cards on him and gave officers multiple names before they determined who he was and that there was a warrant for his arrest for the murder of 25-year-old Rosaly Cindy Chavarria Rodriguez in Wisconsin.
Chavarria Rodriguez’s body was found on October 14, 2020, at an abandoned farmhouse in Reedsburg, about 150 miles from where she was last seen on July 4 that year, as CrimeOnline reported. The body was formally identified in September 2021, and murder charges were filed in December against Dominguez-Garcia for her death, that of her unborn child, and hiding a corpse, the Leader-Telegram reported.
At the time, prosecutors said they weren’t sure if Dominguez-Garcia was still in the United States.
Dominguez-Garcia and Chevarria Rodriguez worked at the same restaurant in Lake Delton and were dating. He picked up her last paycheck on July 23, 2020.
When police interviewed him, he admitted they had been dating but said they broke up on July 4 when he learned she was cheating on him. He said that she told him she was pregnant and he wasn’t the father.
Police said they had located his car, a red 2003 Volkswagen Jetta, in the Wisconsin Dells in August 2020. They found a “red gelatin substance” and dead flies and maggots in the car. A detective said it appeared that “a decaying body … had been in the trunk of the vehicle.”
Gladstone Police said Dominguez-Garcia is being held at the Clay County Detention Center while awaiting extradition to Wisconsin.
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[Featured image: Rosaly Cindy Chevarria-Rodriguez/Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office and Jose E. Dominguez-Garcia/Gladstone Police Department]
