Left (clockwise from top left): Geraldina Peguero-Mancebo, Junior Cabrera-Colon, and their son Jeyden (GoFundMe). Right: Jose Luis Rodriguez (Reading Police Department).
A Pennsylvania man has admitted to hurling a 1-year-old boy into a pond, killing him, after executing the child”s mother because she “did not want to leave her husband” for him. The man murdered the husband a day later and then allegedly contacted the mother’s family and pretended to be a worried friend.
“Everyone thought he was helping us until we found out a few days later that it was him,” Heinel Medrano, cousin of the slain mother, Geraldina Peguero-Mancebo — who was murdered in September 2025 along with her husband, Junior Cabrera-Colon, and son Jeyden — told local TV station WFMZ after their killer, Jose Luis Rodriguez, was sentenced Tuesday.
“The baby got the worst of it,” Medrano said.
Rodriguez, 61, entered a guilty plea for first-degree murder and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“We’re grateful because it’s not a relief, but the closing of a chapter,” Medrano told WFMZ. “Breathing the same air as him was so difficult.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, prosecutors and police accused Rodriguez of shooting Peguero-Mancebo in the head first “because she did not want to leave her husband.” The mother and her son were picked up by Rodriguez, who was in a relationship with Peguero-Mancebo and also cosigned her apartment lease, before the slaying occurred inside his car.
Rodriguez dumped Peguero-Mancebo’s body and then drove Jeyden to an area in Ontelaunee Township, where he threw the boy into the pond. An autopsy showed that mud was present in the boy’s lungs, indicating that he was “alive at the time of submersion,” according to police.
“I don’t think we can express in words the tragedy and the horrific circumstances of that child’s death,” said Berks County District Attorney John Adams at Rodriguez’s sentencing, according to WFMZ. “That child was thrown into an algae laden pond and left there to die,” Adams said.
Rodriguez told investigators he decided against dropping Jeyden off at a hospital or police station “for fear of getting caught.” After throwing the boy into the pond, Rodriguez got into an altercation with Cabrera-Colon a day later in Reading and shot him to death. His body was found in a wooded area near some basketball courts in Baer Park.
Police arrested and charged Rodriguez with three counts of murder on Sept. 19, 2025. He directed investigators to the 9 mm handgun he used in the killings, which he had stashed at someone else’s home under their porch.
A GoFundMe page, which was launched last year to raise money to have Peguero-Mancebo and Cabrera-Colon’s bodies returned to their native Dominican Republic, said the couple also shared three other children, ages 8, 10, and 13 years old.
“There’s no punishment that could ever equalize the pain he has caused,” Adams told the court Tuesday about Rodriguez. “He will never see the light of day and hopefully, this will bring some closure to the family and to anyone who knew any of the victims.”
Jamie Frevele contributed to this report.
