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Because there were no outward signs of foul play, authorities won’t know for sure what happened to Melissa A. Pereira, 25 and her boyfriend, 24-year-old Jorge E. Rodriguez of Garfield, until blood reports come back — a process that ordinarily takes no fewer than two weeks.
An unconfirmed report said that the gas tank was empty and the battery of the car was dead, raising the distinct possibility that they pulled in for warmth and safety.
In another unconfirmed report, a woman said she saw them pull into the garage on Dec. 27 — the same night the couple told loved ones they were “going for a short ride.”
Loved ones reported them missing three days later.
Their frozen bodies were found in Rodriguez’s 1998 white Honda Prelude around 10:30 a.m. Sunday in a storage garage at the development of two-story brick garden apartments just off Hamburg Turnpike where Pereira and her mother lived, authorities said .
No notes were found, sources told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
The frozen state of the bodies makes determining when they died somewhat problematic.
Authorities have not yet said whether or not the garage was previously checked at any point.
Police learned that the couple had New Years’ Eve reservations at the Cherry Valley Manor, a bed-and-breakfast in the Poconos, but never showed up. Pereira didn’t take her wallet and Rodriguez didn’t call out of work, they added.
The New Jersey State Police last week issued a separate alert, saying that was a “significant threat to life or property” and that “responsive action SHOULD be taken immediately” if they were spotted.
Perriera, who grew up in Paterson, worked as a production assistant for FOX News and, before that, as a technology director for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in Paterson.
Rodriguez recently had been managing the photo portrait studio at the Target store in Hackensack.
Both were heavily involved in church and community work.
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