A 27-year-old New York man was arrested over the weekend in the torture murder of his girlfriend, whose brutalized body was found a stairwell of a Bronx apartment building last month.
A week-long manhunt finally dredged up Robert Strother, who is charged with murder, manslaughter, hindering prosecution, concealment of a human corpse, and tampering with physical evidence, the same charges his 54-year-old mother faced when she was arrested after police discovered the body of 21-year-old Princesa Encarnacion-Soto, WPIX reported.
Encarnacion-Soto’s body was found on July 22 with multiple stab wounds, head trauma, a piece of one of her knuckles missing, and slits in the skin on the bottom of her feet, court documents say.
“The wounds themselves were inflicted for pain, not to kill,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a briefing after the body was found.
Investigators also found bloody sheets, bloody clothing, and a bloody bungee cord in the apartment Strother shared with his mother, Naida Jorge. Investigators said they believe Encarnacion-Soto was tied to a bed and tortured before her body was dumped in the third floor stairwell.
“There are slice marks on her thighs, slice marks on her upper arms and shoulders. The ones on her legs were fresh. The ones on her upper torso seemed like they were in the process of healing,” Kenny said.
Court documents say Jorge tried to clean the scene of the vicious murder and may have tried to clean the victim’s body.
“There was no blood on [the victim]. There was no blood on her as she lay on the staircase, and she was in fresh clothing that had no blood on it. So, it’s a possibility that someone cleaned the body, put fresh clothes on her, and threw her down a flight of stairs,” Kenny said.
Police said Encarnacion-Soto had been living in Rhode Island and moved to the Bronx apartment on July 11. Strother had 22 prior domestic violence arrests, although none involved the woman he is accused of killing.
Police said they had responded to the apartment for domestic abuse calls 22 times in the past and that two of those calls were made by Jorge against her son, WABC reported. Police believe Encarnacion-Soto was tied down and tortured for a week before she was killed.
Strother was arrested Saturday and arraigned on Sunday, when he entered a not guilty plea, WPIX said.
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[Featured image: Princesa Encarnacion-Soto/Facebook]
