Search for missing Delco mom goes door-to-door

Collingdale Borough Police are leaving no stone unturned in their search for a mother missing since April.

"We are going to knock on every door," said Police Chief Robert Adams.

On Wednesday, about a dozen police and detectives fanned out across the area in vicinity of Melissa Ortiz-Rodriguez's house to speak with neighbors and to check out nearby houses and local cemeteries.

The 30-year-old woman had planned to travel to Newark, N.J., on April 19 for a weekend visit with friends. She never showed and was reported missing four days later by her estranged husband, Jose Rodriguez, after she failed to pick up her two daughters from school.

While family members have called nearly every day, Jose Rodriguez has not checked with police to see how the investigation is going, Adams said.

"Never once," said Adams.

According to court documents, two months before she went missing Ortiz-Rodriguez told family and friends she wanted a divorce, but couldn't afford one.

On Feb. 19, Ortiz-Rodriguez went so far as to start the process for a protection-from-abuse order against Rodriguez, officials said. In her petition, she stated that when she tried to leave the home with their two daughters, ages 7 and 11, Rodriguez tore open her suitcase, threw the contents onto the front lawn, broke her cellphone, and pushed her.

But at a March 7 hearing, she asked that the petition be withdrawn, and in a recent phone conversation with a friend, Ortiz-Rodriguez said Rodriguez "was being nice to her." She allowed him back into the home.

Then she disappeared.

She was to have taken public transportation to Newark, her husband said. The friends confirmed that she was expected but that they never received a call to pick her up, according to police.

Rodriguez's attorney, Michael Diamondstein, said recently that his client denied engaging in controlling or abusive behavior. Rodriguez, he said, is "doing the best he can to be there for his children and hoping that she turns up well."