Colorado deputies believe cold case killing has Monterey County ties

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office is asking for your help with a local cold case so that they can bring a man’s family justice. Sheriff’s deputies say that man’s sister may be a resident of Monterey County.

Investigators say a man, under 30-years-old, was stabbed and killed back in 1992. When they found his remains near River Road and the Walker Wildlife Area, he didn’t have a skull.

He was found wearing a white or tan long sleeve shirt and distinct swim trunks (see the photo attached to the article). In those trunks they found a partial phone number, which led them to the Marshing, Idaho area. That’s about as far as they got in the case, until now.

Peter Burg, an investigator with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office did a missing persons database search earlier this year. There was a new result, one that was put into the system just months before.

“An absolute coincidence,” he says.

That led them to believe the man who had been killed could be Jose Alejandro Rodriguez from Nampa, Idaho.

The Sheriff’s Office is now asking for your help locating possible family members of Rodriguez, so that they can match the family’s DNA to determine whether it is indeed him.

“We’re hoping that this information will get out to possible family members or friends that knew about him going missing years and years ago,” Sergeant of Investigations, Jeff Byrne, said.

They have a couple leads on that too. They say Rodriguez’s sister, Bertha Rodriguez, reported him missing back in 2005. It’s unclear why she reported him missing years after investigators believe he was killed.

She lived in Monterey, California for a while but investigators have been unable to find her. She could also be in Mexico.

Bertha is or was possibly married to a Jose Francisco Morales. Both of them were born in 1977.

“Just recently new things have come up that really make it solvable if we can get the new information,” Burg said.

There are no photos of Rodriguez as of now to share with you. Investigators tell us finding one has proven difficult because of old databases and archives.

If you have any information on the case or can help lead investigators to family members of Rodriguez, you’re asked to call investigator Burg at (970)244-3263