The estranged wife of the man robbed twice and sexually violated after he died on a Manhattan subway train told the Daily News Tuesday she couldn’t believe what cops were telling her when she learned the horrifying details.
After Jorge Gonzalez, 37, died on an R train on April 9 a stranger had sex with his corpse and robbed him in the subway car, with a woman then robbing him again minutes later, police say.
His wife, who gave her name only as Teresa, 38, was left astounded by how a man who showed so much promise when she met and married him could meet such a shocking fate.
The estranged couple’s 13-year-old son overheard her conversation with cops about Gonzalez’s death and what happened afterwards..
“When the police told me about the assault he heard on speakerphone,” she said from her home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “I didn’t realize that’s what they were going to tell me — until it was too late.”
An initial autopsy could not determine Gonzalez’s cause of death, with further studies pending, the city Medical Examiner’s office said Tuesday. But Teresa was told investigators believe Gonzalez died of cirrhosis of the liver after years of alcoholism.
Teresa, who was born in the United States, met her Mexican-born husband when she was just 15 while celebrating her quinceañera in the same small town in Mexico where he lived and she had family. They finally married when she was 24, after Gonzalez emigrated to start a new life in the U.S.
Gonzalez was a hard worker who took jobs in construction, restaurants and whatever else he could find to support his relatives in Mexico, Teresa said.
He had an adventurous and cosmopolitan spirit despite his humble origins.
“Even though he was from the countryside he adapted to any situation,” she said. “We could go eat a steak or a sushi at a nice place — or, at the same time, we could go to the corner and get tacos and stuff. I really couldn’t do that with other friends.”
Their son was born around the time they were married and the couple enjoyed a brief spell of happiness before Gonzalez descended into an addiction that went on to cause him to lose jobs and, five years ago, to abandon his wife and son, Teresa said.
“We were happy. Yes, we were. But the thing is all the pressures of life, new marriage, new child, I was working a lot, he was working a lot and slowly he just became an alcoholic,” she said. “He was putting the alcohol over everything else.”
“He just took off and just rode into the sunset,” she said of their split. “We were having issues. He just decided to leave the house and that was pretty much it. Once or twice he would call.”
Gonzalez did multiple stints in rehab, Teresa said, but wasn’t able to stay sober for long.
“That’s the biggest reason why he ended up in the situation where he was,” she said of his fall into hard times. “There was just no way for him to stop.”
“I didn’t even talk to him for five years, had no idea where he was,” she added. “He just disappeared.”
Then she got the phone call from cops.
“Now I really don’t have a dad,” the couple’s son responded after overhearing the grim details, Teresa said.
“I was shocked. Just shocked and more than anything scared for (Gonzalez’s) mom,” she said. “She has advanced diabetes so anything really shocking can set her off. I was scared more than anything for her.”
An MTA train conductor found Gonzalez facedown on the floor of the idling train at the Whitehall St. subway stop in lower Manhattan about 12:30 a.m., transit sources said. The station is the end of the line for R trains from Brooklyn on overnights.
The depraved crimes came to light when cops investigating the case reviewed subway car surveillance footage.
About 11 p.m., a man, believed to be in his 50s, stepped onto the train car, realized Gonzalez was dead and went through his pockets, taking his belongings, police sources said. He then has oral and anal sex with the corpse before finally leaving the train more than an hour later at 12:10 a.m.
About 20 minutes later, the MTA conductor found the body — but not before a woman came upon the corpse and also rifled through the dead man’s pockets, stealing more of his belongings.
Investigators determined Gonzalez got on the train about 8 p.m., sources said. He lit up a cigarette given to him by another rider, filling the train car with smoke, surveillance footage recovered by authorities shows. The few people on the train moved to another car. Gonzalez went on to die quietly.
There were no apparent signs of trauma and no drugs or drug paraphernalia was found on the train car, cops said.
The suspect wanted for sexual misconduct is described as about 5-foot-9 and 195 pounds with black hair, brown eyes, and a goatee. He was wearing an L.A. Dodgers cap. Cops released surveillance footage of him on the train and are asking the public’s help identifying him and tracking him down.
Surveillance photos of the woman wanted for robbery were later released by cops as well.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.