Man Executes Couple, Throws Baby in Lake After Wife Refused to Leave Husband for Him: Police

Initially, Jose Luis Rodriguez, 61, had been charged in the murder of Junior Cabrera-Colon, 31. Speaking in a press conference covered by WFMZ on Monday, Berks County District Attorney John Adams announced that Rodriguez was facing two additional first-degree murder charges for the deaths of Cabrera-Colon's wife and son.

The outlet reports that the bodies of Geraldina Peguero-Mancebo, 31, and her one-year-old son Jeyden Junior Peguero were found two weeks ago in a remote area of Ontelaunee Tonwship in Berks County. Rodriguez was already behind bars in relation to the death of Cabrera-Colon, whose body was found on Saturday, September 13.

On Friday, September 19, the same day Rodriguez was formally charged with the murder of Cabrera-Colon, an unidentified woman's body was found in a grassy field. When police began investigating her death, they noted that she appeared to be Peguero-Mancebo, who was previously listed as missing, along with her son.

The following day, Jeyden's body was found in a marshy area just 150 years away from where police recovered his mother's body, per WFMZ. Both deaths were ruled homicides after separate autopsies, with police quickly looking toward Rodriguez as a likely suspect.

According to a criminal complaint reviewed by Law & Crime, Peguero-Mancebo was seen getting into the back seat of a white Nissan Quest registered to Rodriguez at approximately 8:30 p.m. on the previous Friday, September 12. She was carrying her son in her arms. Using cellphone data, from both Peguero-Mancebo and Rodriguez, police pinged both of them at a specific location.

In interviews with Rodriguez, he reportedly admitted that this was where he'd planned to kill Peguero-Mancebo, per the complaint. As detailed in the report, Rodriguez claimed that they were in an "intimate relationship" -- though Adams asserted the exact nature of their relationship was unclear, per CBS News -- and that he had been paying for aspects of her life, including rent money for her apartment.

It was when she told him that "she did not want to leave her husband" that Rodriguez said he became "infuriated," per the report, as "she was constantly taking his money." Adams added that the pair had previously worked together at a warehouse, per ABC affiliate WPVI.

Rodriguez allegedly shot Peguero-Mancebo in the back of the head, according to investigators, before driving to a separate location where he dumped her body. He then allegedly drove "down the street" and threw the baby Jayden into the marshy area of a lake.

He told police that the baby "was alive when he threw him face-down in the muddy water," which was confirmed in the autopsy by the evidence of "mud ... present in the lungs, indicating that Jayden was alive at the time of submersion." His cause of death was listed as freshwater drowning.

Police reported that Rodriguez explained his decision to throw the baby into the lake rather than bring him to a hospital or leave him someplace alive as simple "fear of getting caught."

"I can't imagine anything more horrifying than throwing that 1-year-old child into that pond of water and that child is left there to die," Adams said at the Monday press conference, per Fox affiliate WTXF, adding that this case is a "different level" and "makes you want to cry."

As it turns out, Rodriguez also allegedly gave a timeline of the murders and revealed that despite being the first body found, Cabrera-Colon was actually the third person he killed after he was told that Peguero-Mancebo would not leave her husband for him.

Rodriguez allegedly admitted that he met with Cabrera-Colon in Reading the day after killing his wife and child. Like Peguero-Mancebo, Cabrera-Colon was shot in the back of the head; Rodriguez initially told police the shooting was in self-defense, per WFMZ.

He claimed that they were fighting about his relationship with Peguero-Mancebo, per CBS News, and that the verbal argument became physical. Rodriguez then claimed that Cabrera-Colon dropped a gun, which he subsequently picked up and shot him with. He then admitted putting the body into Cabrera-Colon's body and driving him to a park, where he left him.

The body was found on the morning of September 13, with Rodriguez quickly identified as the suspect in the shooting death. He ultimately confessed to the murder, per police, on September 18, just one day before they would find Peguero-Mancebo's body.

After he'd been charged with all three murders, CBS News reports that Rodriguez showed Berks County investigators where he'd stashed Peguero-Mancebo's purse, as well as the murder weapon used to kill her.

"We're still in the initial parts of the investigation. I would suggest most likely that his version is only partially accurate," Adams said. "The loss of life of these adults that were killed was unnecessary. The loss of life of that one-year-old was cruel. It was horrible."

A GoFundMe purportedly established in hopes of getting their bodies returned to the couple's native Dominican Republic "for a dignified burial" asserts that the couple had three additional children, aged 13, 10, and 8, still living there.

Rodriguez is being held in Berks County Jail without bail on three first-degree murder charges, three third-degree murder charges, two counts of abuse of a corpse, two counts of possession of an instrument of crime, tampering with evidence, and carrying a firearm without a license.

Adams said that his office is considering seeking the death penalty, but no final decision has been made yet. Rodriguez's next court date is scheduled for October 3.