Wife of Lawrenceville man found dead in truck wants answers

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – The wife of a man found dead after disappearing for days is desperately searching for answers and asking anyone who knows what happened to him to come forward.

RELATED: 40-year-old man found dead in truck after wife reported him missing earlier this week, murder investigation underway: police

Guadalupe Garcia Rodriguez’s truck was found on the Paden Cove Trail early Wednesday morning around 12:30 a.m. Gwinnett police said his body was inside.

11Alive was able to speak to his wife, Rosa Quintanilla, by phone. In Spanish, she said she and her family were still trying to figure out what happened and just didn’t want his case to fade into the background.

Speaking to MG News, she told a man she had asked for help when her husband went missing that she did not know why anyone would want to take her husband’s life.

Quintanilla said the last time she spoke to her husband was Monday morning, before the 40-year-old left for work at a tree-cutting company at 6:30 a.m. She said she said “bye” to him, and he said “bye” back. After he didn’t answer her texts or calls all day, she called his manager, who said he never showed up for work. Rosa then called the police.

“Officers initially began working a missing person case, and after following up on some leads in that case, we were able to locate his truck,” said Sergeant Collin Flynn of the Gwinnett County Police Department.

Neighbors said they spotted the truck in the neighborhood and in the exact spot where it was found days ago.

“I drove by here with my wife for two days. We talked about it, but then we thought it was just left on the side of the road, and when we woke up this morning we heard all this and just thought, wow,” said a man who lives nearby.

Investigators are now treating the case as a murder case. Although they did not disclose how he was killed, Quintanilla said investigators told her he was shot. She said he was a family man, a good father to her 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. She doesn’t know why someone would kill him, but she wants police to find out why.

Although it is unclear what happened to Rodriguez, police are investigating the motive behind the incident.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to contact the department at 770-513-5300.

Anyone wishing to remain anonymous can do so by contacting Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477 or checking online here. Crime Stoppers informants could be eligible for a cash reward for information leading to an arrest and indictment in the case, police added.