She was the strongest of her five sisters, a “rock of knowledge” and the "family glue," who transcended her hardscrabble upbringing.
“She was the rationalization of our dismal existence,” Rose Chapman, the younger sister of murder victim Keisha Alexander, said Thursday at sentencing for her sister’s killer.
Jorge Rodriguez, 22, was a “soulless, rhythmless child” who could have made his life better but instead gave into his own abuse-filled past.
Jorge Rodriguez
His defense attorney, Kathleen Redpath-Perez, said he was sexually abused as a child and spent most of his life in the care of child welfare officials. He was reunited with his mother at 16 and graduated from Nottingham High School in Hamilton but later found himself in trouble.
They came from tough backgrounds but led very different lives. Alexander was a 49-year-old phlebotomist. Rodriguez was a serial burglar who owned eight convictions as a juvenile.
They confronted each other for the first time on the morning of June 21, 2014, when Rodriguez, looking to steal belongings from Alexander’s Edgewood Avenue home, reached through a rear window and unlocked the door.
Alexander fought and scrapped for her life but Rodriguez, armed with a knife, overpowered her. He claims he was high on drugs and alcohol when he stabbed her more than 40 times.
“He could have walked out the door he came in,” Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Petrucci said. “It’s insufficient to call this a senseless murder.”
Police found Alexander partially clothed, on the toilet. She was slumped against the wall of a locked bathroom, covered in blood and with puncture wounds all over her body.
Rodriguez became a suspect after he showed up at Capital Health Regional Medical Center with a laceration on his arm and blood on his pants and shirt.
Rodriguez confessed to stabbing Alexander, a complete stranger, and stealing from her home. Police found a bloody broken knife blade, which DNA tests showed had both Rodriguez and Alexander’s blood.
Some of Rodriguez’s belongings were also found inside the victim’s home, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez was indicted on a dozen criminal counts, including felony murder and sexual assault. He pleaded guilty in April to felony murder under terms of a negotiated plea deal.
He and Alexander confronted each other again Thursday, when Rodriguez was sent to prison for 30 years by Judge Darlene Pereksta.
Alexander’s family brought her ashes to court, along with a picture of her in a yellow sun dress, as a symbolic gesture that she lives on in their hearts and minds.
Kenya Jenkins, Alexander’s daughter, described her mother as the “sweetest person ever.”
“I miss my mother so much,” she said. “I have visions of her. I can’t sleep sometimes.”
The judge called Alexander a “beautiful woman with a lot left to give.”
Keisha Alexander
She described Rodriguez’s actions as “heinous” and said his past was no excuse for the situation he found himself facing.
“She didn't have the easiest time in life, either,” Pereksta said. “Not everyone is given an easy path. Nothing I can do can bring true justice to her family. Thirty [years] with a 30, it can be argued that's not justice.”
The plea deal, the judge said, spared Alexander’s family from reliving the trauma of a trial.
The family wanted "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Chapman said, but respected the outcome, even though it didn't agree with it.
Acting Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said in a statement the plea agreement “guaranteed that [Rodriguez] would be sentenced to a state prison term of 30 years, every day of which he will serve.”
Rodriguez will be 50 when he gets out of prison and can still salvage his life, while his victim cannot.
Turning to the back of the court to face Alexander’s family, he apologized for the pain he has caused.
“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “I believe God will forgive me. I hope you all will forgive me one day. I made a big mistake.”
He said he plans to use his time in prison to transform himself and thanked Pereksta for “giving me a chance to come home one day to my family with a better name.”
Rodriguez’s mother and brother followed suit, each offering condolence the family and saying nothing explained Rodriguez’s crime.
“I'm so sorry for this, said Keith Belmont, Rodriguez’s older brother. “He wasn't born like this.”
Keisha is in my heart every day of the week,” said Maria Belmont, Rodriguez’s mother. She then turned to her son, telling him she loved him “but you have to search your heart forgone yourself. You need to grow.”
Chapman said she has already forgiven Rodriguez.
“Forgiveness of yourself will take you a lifetime to find,” she said. "We search for a plug, a Band-Aid, the glue. She meant so much to us."