Joseph Pabon, an elevator operator who is charged with brutally killing a cleaning woman whose bound body was found stuffed in an air-conditioning duct, has at least one person pulling for him: His girlfriend.
"He's a great man," Lisa Marie Blumberg, 28, told the New York Post. "He has a heart and a soul. Breaks my heart for him."
Pabon, 25, was charged Saturday with killing Eridania Rodriguez, whose body was found with a gold crucifix taped to her mouth in the Manhattan skyscraper where she worked.
She had gone missing on July 7 during her shift, and her body was discovered on July 11. Rodriguez, 46, was the mother of two daughters and a son.
An autopsy showed that she died of asphyxiation after having her mouth covered with tape, and DNA from Pabon, who worked in the building and had scratches and bruises on his arms the next day, was found underneath Rodriguez's fingernails, cops said.
Pabon was ordered held without bail pending trial.
