Dead End

“They made a love connection in cyberspace, two lonely strangers in their 40s, each long divorced and yearning for new romance. By all accounts, Jose Rodriguez-Cruz and Pam Butler were a happy couple for most of their five months together.” They met through the online dating service eHarmony and all seemed harmonious. But on the eve of Valentine’s Day, she disappeared. “‘I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘there’s no way I would ever hurt her.’ And no one can prove he did.” Butler, 47, a computer specialist for the Environmental Protection Agency, vanished in what D.C. police think was a homicide. Detectives focused on Rodriguez-Cruz as a suspect, searching his Alexandria apartment with a warrant, taking his car and other belongings, digging into his past and questioning him aggressively.” But he denies all knowledge of Butler’s whereabouts and the investigation has reached a dead end.