When Pamela Butler Missed a Valentine’s Day Dinner, Police Uncovered Her Boyfriend's Murders

When a devoted daughter missed a dinner date with her mother on Valentine’s Day in 2009, her boyfriend claimed he didn’t know her whereabouts. But it turned out, she wasn’t his first significant other to have mysteriously vanished.

Pamela Butler was living her best life in Washington, D.C., according to her family. The 47-year-old had a successful career, her own house and a boyfriend with impeccable manners. She was very careful in protecting her life and property with sophisticated home security. 

“At the time there was an arsonist that was going through the city, setting people’s houses on fire. I think that’s what really pushed her to get the surveillance system,” Butler’s brother, Derrick, tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

Butler made plans to have dinner with her mother, Thelma, and her boyfriend, Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, on Valentine’s Day in 2009. When Butler and Rodriguez-Cruz didn’t show, Thelma became worried. Several days passed, and there was still no sign of Butler. Thelma called her workplace and learned she never showed. She stopped by her daughter’s house. A window blind was partially opened, which was uncharacteristic of security-conscious Butler. 

“She had some files that were on the floor. If you know Pam, she wouldn’t leave stuff like that,” Derrick says. “Pam was extremely neat, a neat freak.” 

Also, her alarm was not activated. The family called the police. Derrick phoned Rodriguez-Cruz. 

“I told him Pam was missing. He said, ‘We broke up on Friday, and I haven’t heard from her since,’” Derrick claims. 

Derrick asked for Rodriguez-Cruz's address. Once he arrived at Rodriguez-Cruz's house, Derrick told him to take his clothes off. 

“I figured if they had gotten into a fight, I would see some scratches or some bruises,” he says. 

However, Rodriguez-Cruz had none.

Several detectives worked Pamela’s case over the years. In 2016, Metropolitan Police detective Mitch Credle was handed the case. He had spent more than two decades working homicides, and at that time, Credle had just moved to the Sexual Assault Unit. Instead of handling two or three murder cases, he was juggling 25 to 30 assault cases a month. 

Credle says that he warned his supervisors, “It’s going to be impossible for me to give my full attention to the Pam Butler case. We were being unfair to the family because someone should be handling the case full time.” 

But then, also in 2016, a judge declared Pamela deceased. That classification meant the Cold Case Unit, which could devote more time to investigate, would take over. The case went to homicide detective Mike Fulton. 

“I nicknamed him 'Columbo' because some of the questions that he was asking me just didn’t make any sense,” Derrick recalls. “That’s the way he works, I found out later on.”

Fulton learned that Rodriguez-Cruz’s first wife, Marta Rodriguez, was reported missing in Arlington County, Va., in 1989. While still legally married to Marta, Rodriguez-Cruz bigamously wed another woman named Maria Guadalupe Franco in Panama. Police were eventually led to believe that Marta was alive in Florida and no longer considered her missing.

Fulton coordinated with Arlington Police detective Rosa Ortiz to cross-check Marta’s identity. “During a conversation with Guadalupe, she mentioned her sister had lived with them for a few months and provided her name," Ortiz says. "When I spoke with the sister, she admitted to using Marta’s identity, claiming Rodriguez-Cruz gave her the information and told her Marta wouldn't need it anymore.”

Fulton gathered enough circumstantial evidence to secure a warrant for the arrest of Rodriguez-Cruz on April 8, 2017. Police subsequently charged him with Marta’s murder in October 2019.

Authorities were able to piece together Butler’s tragic last encounter with Rodriguez-Cruz. On February 13, 2009, the couple got into an argument in the basement of Butler’s home. Rodriguez-Cruz punched Pamela in the face, and she fell. He then straddled her body on the floor and strangled her to death. 

He made a plea deal in which he divulged where Pamela’s body was buried. He led authorities to the site, but the area had since been paved over, and her body was not found. Marta’s remains had been discovered about a mile away in 1991, but were not identified until 2018.

Rodriguez-Cruz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Butler’s case and was sentenced in November 2020 to 12 years in prison. He also pleaded guilty to Marta's murder and was sentenced in April 2021 to 40 years behind bars. 

“I was convinced that Fulton wasn’t the one that was going to solve the case then,” Derrick says. “He was definitely the right man for the job.” 

Derrick received guidance and support from Black & Missing, an organization devoted to helping families find missing persons of color. He has since joined the foundation’s board of directors and advocates for other families.

Some might reason that Rodriguez-Cruz’s actions were crimes of passion. However, Stacie Merken, associate professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University South Bend, tells A&E Crime + Investigation that his behavior was premeditated and he could fit the definition of a serial killer. 

“If he was not caught or arrested for Pamela Butler’s murder and not convicted, I think he’d still be out there committing these violent acts,” Merken says.

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“It’s almost like a mask that they wear,” she adds. “They portray this vision of who they want these individuals to think that they are.”

Eventually, the mask comes off. There are red flags partners can look for, Merken says. They’ll compliment and insult victims at the same time, become controlling, insist that bank accounts remain only under their names or isolate loved ones from family and friends. 

In Rodriguez-Cruz and Butler’s case, Merken says, “It seemed that they hit it off very quickly. Sometimes when individuals put their guard down and the relationship is moving quickly, we start to think, ‘Oh, this is wonderful. Everything is going so great.’ You might not even see those signs.”