Bronx man sought in girlfriend's murder, which police say his mother tried to cover up
FORDHAM, Bronx (WABC) -- A Bronx mother is under arrest and her son is being sought by detectives after police say she helped him cover up the brutal torture and murder of his girlfriend earlier this week.
The son, Robert Strother, 27, is being sought as a person of interest in the fatal stabbing of the girlfriend, who detectives believe he tortured in his mother's Bronx apartment for more than a week.
The girlfriend, 21-year-old Princesa Encarnacion-Soto, was stabbed multiple times, attacked with a hammer and then left for dead in a stairwell on Tuesday afternoon.
The suspect's mother, Naida Jorge, 54, was charged with murder and manslaughter on Thursday for allegedly cleaning up the crime scene and hindering efforts to find him.
Jorge was remanded Friday morning at Bronx criminal court.
She was initially treated as a witness, but police soon suspected she could have been involved after noticing a trail of blood into her apartment, where they recovered a garbage bag of bloody clothes.
Detectives believe Strother killed Encarnacion-Soto after holding her in his mother's apartment, tying her to a bed while stabbing, beating and hitting her with a hammer.
Friday afternoon, an autopsy on Encarnacion-Soto revealed a piece of a knuckle on her finger was missing, and slits in her skin underneath her feet.
Detectives believe Jorge tried to clean up the crime scene and said there was no blood on the victim, who was dressed in fresh clothing free of blood. They said there was a smell of fresh bleach in the area.
The victim and her boyfriend were together for three years before breaking up.
The victim's devastated mother, who lives in Rhode Island, poured out her heart to a news outlet from the Dominican Republic.
Police say there have been 22 calls for domestic abuse at the apartment in question -- and two of them were filed by Jorge against her son.
The other complaints were filed by other women, but none of the incidents involved Soto.
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