Mother of accused serial killer says son 'had a good heart'
Every Sunday, Dolores Rodriguez knew she'd see her son. The now 46-year-old she adopted when he was 2 years old made it a point to visit her every week so they could catch up at their home in Cypress, Texas. When they last spoke about two weeks ago, nothing in the conversation hinted to the horrific crimes he'd be accused of committing days later.
Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, now a suspected serial killer, is facing at least two capital murder charges in connection with a Houston-area crime spree starting July 9 that left three dead and at least one bus driver wounded. An elderly couple had also been robbed in the violent crime spree.
Dolores Rodriguez adopted Jose after his father died around 1974. Jose's late father is her husband's nephew. She said he was a good son and a good student, but he started getting into trouble when he was around 16 years old.
"[He and his friends] took a car and they would run away to different places." she said. "... He was never violent." He had a good heart, she added.
Jose Rodriguez spent almost his entire adult life in prison on charges ranging from auto theft, attempted sexual abuse, and burglary, records show. He was released in September 2017 and lived briefly in the Dallas area before returning to Harris County the following December, when he moved into a halfway house in the Fifth Ward.
That's when the Sunday night visits began.
Dolores Rodriguez and her husband would pick their son up every Sunday from a bus stop in the Willowbrook area. They would spend the day together in their Cypress-area home until they dropped him back off at the bus around 7 p.m.
"I think that part of [his alleged crimes] could have been he was taking drugs, because he wasn't like that about two or three weeks ago," Delores Rodriguez said.
Dolores, who spoke from her doorway on Wednesday morning, didn't want to elaborate further on her son. She said she didn't want extensive publicity for herself or her husband.
However, she expressed remorse for the victims of her son's alleged crimes.
"We feel very bad for what he did," she said. "He shouldn't have done that to those people. They didn't deserve that."