Police worked long into the night to pull up floor boards in the Hialeah home of a man who has been missing since last weekend after neighbors reported a foul stench coming from the house.
Jose Ramon Alegre Rodriguez has been missing since Saturday, and last night friends and family were fearing the worst. They were right.
Police identified the body as Rodriguez's on Thursday.
"It's serious, it looks serious," said friend Tahimy Alfonso. "I didn't know of any enemies or anything that he had going on. I've been hearing rumors there was a confrontation with a neighbor, I don't know."
CBS 4 is reporting that police are looking for Rodriguez's landlord, although police are not calling Nestor Garcia a suspect. Neighbors said they last saw Garcia arguing with Rodriguez over the landlord's wife. The couple lived across the street from Rodriguez, but have gone missing.
Police said Rodriguez was tied up and stuffed in a plastic bag and buried in a shallow grave.
"This person went to great lengths to put the body under the house," said Hialeah Police Detective Carl Zogby, "and then put the body in a shallow grave and cover it."
Alfonso, who knows Rodriguez through her boyfriend, said the 33-year-old is a kind and quiet guy who mostly kept to himself.
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"Very shocked ...he was a very, very nice guy. So I hope nothing went wrong," Alfonso said.
