Murder mystery solved: Ankle monitor helps solve missing person case, suspect arrested
In addition to murder, the suspect was booked with cutting off a dead man’s electronic monitoring device.
Eddie Rodrigue’s electronic ankle monitor set off a tamper alert on Dec. 14, indicating an escape. But the electronic trail from Rodrigue’s device quickly led to evidence that revealed his disappearance was not an attempt to evade the law, but something far more sinister.
Murder Suspect Arrested
“And it was because of him wearing an ankle monitor that they were quickly able to identify the suspect and then basically solve a murder,” said Matt Dennis, owner of the monitoring company Assured Supervision Accountability Program, or ASAP.
After months in hiding, Joseph McKinnis, 25, is now in custody after being booked with second-degree murder in Rodrigue’s fatal shooting.
The arrest warrant affidavit for McKinnis shows how the electronic trail was instrumental in solving the case, weeks before Rodrigue's body was found New Year's Day under a mattress next to a nearby vacant apartment.
Rodrigue, 27, is listed as the city’s first official homicide of 2024.
Ankle monitor Alert
It was on the morning of Dec. 14 that ASAP received a signal that Rodrigue’s ankle bracelet was being tampered with. Dennis’ team quickly tracked the defendant’s last known location and geared up to locate a defendant on the run.
Across town, Rodrigue's fiancée independently sensed foul play when he didn’t answer his cell phone. Her next call was to ASAP and that’s when she learned he was being considered an escapee.
Both the fiancée and ASAP quickly came to the conclusion that this was not an escape.
“I knew something happened to him. That was my biggest fear, that I wouldn't hear from him again,” Rodrigue’s fiancée said at the time. “There's no way he cut his ankle monitor off himself.”
Acting on the information from Rodrigue's loved ones and ASAP’s electronic trail, New Orleans police pieced together enough evidence to quickly classify the case as a murder, even though Rodrigue remained missing.
McKinnis Arrest Warrant
And detectives quickly zeroed in on Joseph “Greedy” McKinnis, 25, as the suspect.
According to the arrest warrant, the electronic pings from Rodrigue’s bracelet led to a house where McKinnis lived on Salem Drive. In the driveway of that house, NOPD detectives found a bloody footprint matching McKinnis’ boots.
“Without the teamwork that we've established with New Orleans police, this never gets solved. This bloody footprint washes away in the next rain,” Dennis said.
The affidavit details additional evidence found by detectives at McKinnis’ house: a pair of bloody scissors, a bolt cutter and surveillance camera footage that recorded a single gunshot.
“Two weeks before we find this gentleman's body we knew this gentleman met a bad end,” Dennis said.
Once detectives obtained access to Rodrigue's cell phone, they say discovered another key piece of evidence: a text from Rodrigue that he had pulled up to McKinnis’ house.
An unrelated crime led to the discovery of Rodrigue’s body.
On the morning of New Year’s Day, a stolen car crashed through a fence on Burke Drive, around the corner from McKinnis’ home. As officers were investigating, the person who reported the wreck “observed what she believed to be a foot extending over a discarded mattress.”
“The officers moved the box spring and mattress and discovered the naked decomposing body of a black male,” the detectives wrote.
Ankle Bracelet Found Murder Solved
Rodrigue's ankle bracelet was found discarded along with some of his belongings in a trash dumpster several blocks away.
The removal of the ankle bracelet led to another charge lodged against McKinnis: tampering with electronic monitoring equipment.
Originally written to deter defendants from tampering with their own ankle bracelets, this case appears to be the first time the law has been used against another person.
“This wouldn't be something you say, ‘Hey I want to pass a law in the event somebody kills somebody and cuts his monitor off.’ But it's a fitting use of the law,” Dennis said.
Motive remains a mystery because by accounts from family and friends, Rodrigue and McKinnis were longtime friends. But the arrest paperwork provides one fuzzy clue: shortly before the final fatal gunshot, Rodrigue and an unknown passenger drove to an ATM and withdrew cash. That money has never been accounted for.
McKinnis, 25, is being held on bail $1 million on the murder charge, $250,000 for obstruction of justice, and an additional $50-thousand dollars on the electronic tampering charge.
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