A 27-year-old resident of New York was apprehended over the weekend concerning the horrific torture and murder of his girlfriend, whose severely injured body was discovered in the stairwell of a Bronx apartment building last month.
After a week-long search, Robert Strother was located and faces charges of murder, manslaughter, hindering prosecution, concealment of a human body, and tampering with physical evidence. These are the same charges levied against his 54-year-old mother when authorities arrested her following the discovery of 21-year-old Princesa Encarnacion-Soto’s body, as reported by WPIX.
Court filings detail that Encarnacion-Soto’s body, found on July 22, exhibited multiple stab injuries, head trauma, a missing piece of one knuckle, along with cuts on the soles of her feet.
“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.
In the apartment shared by Strother and his mother, Naida Jorge, investigators uncovered bloody bedsheets, garments, and a bloody bungee cord. Authorities suspect Encarnacion-Soto was tied to a bed and tortured before her body was abandoned in the third-floor stairwell.
“There were incision marks on her thighs and her upper arms and shoulders. The wounds on her legs seemed recent, while those on her upper body appeared to be in the process of healing,” stated Kenny.
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 or the staircase where she was found, and she was wearing newly changed clothes without any bloodstains. It is possible that someone cleaned her body, changed her clothing, and then discarded her down the stairs,” Kenny explained.
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.
