State police: Evidence refutes homicide suspect's claims about how missing Summit man died

Shortly after Marisa J. Rodriguez was picked up in Chautauqua County for driving a missing Summit Township man's Cadillac on April 13, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper investigating 66-year-old Michael Maisner's disappearance said he asked her what might have happened to Maisner.

According to Trooper Eric Conroe, Rodriguez said that she had seen Maisner in his Crestview Drive house two weeks earlier. She then made statements that Maisner must be dead as she mentioned Percocet, Christmas and someone named Flower, and said Maisner fell down the stairs, Conroe said.

Questioned further about how Maisner died, Rodriguez said he was pushed down and raped by a girl, and that drugs were involved, according to the trooper. He said when he asked Rodriguez what happened to the body, she said it was thrown somewhere at Shades Beach in Harborcreek Township.

But additional evidence unearthed in the investigation, including suspected human remains found at Maisner's home and videos, photographs and various topic searches found online, would lead state police to charge Rodriguez, who had lived with Maisner for a time, with killing him and disposing of his body in parts unknown.

Conroe outlined the events in the case against Rodriguez during her preliminary hearing before Summit Township District Judge Brian McGowan Thursday afternoon on first-degree murder and other charges in Maisner's disappearance and death.

Police: Photos, videos link woman to killing of missing Summit Twp. man found in fire pit

McGowan held Rodriguez for court on all charges, including felony aggravated assault and access device fraud and misdemeanor counts of abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, following the hearing, which lasted less than an hour. She remains in the Erie County Prison without bond.

Rodriguez, clad in an orange prison uniform, interrupted testimony at times as Conroe spoke under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Emily Downing as the only witness presented by prosecutors on Thursday. She asked out loud at one point if she would ever get to speak, then said, "Well, I'm guilty."

At another point, Rodriguez said, "Then I cut him up," before she was stopped briefly from talking.

"Then you guys came in and grabbed all the guns," Rodriguez then added before remaining quiet for the remainder of the hearing.

More: Missing person probe leads to discovery of suspected human remains in burn pit in Summit

A missing man and a murder investigation

Still unknown in the case against Rodriguez is what led her to kill Maisner, as state police allege, and what happened to his body after he died.

The only suspected remains that have been recovered so far were some small parts of body tissue located in a floor register of the front room of Maisner's house and some burnt bone fragments found in a makeshift fire pit that state police said was located behind Maisner's garage.

State police sent the tissue out for DNA testing and collected a DNA sample from Maisner's brother. The tissue DNA was consistent with the DNA of a male relative of the brother, according to testimony at the hearing.

The Erie County Coroner's Office has not ruled on Maisner's death and has not received information on whether testing on the collected remains have confirmed that they are Maisner, Coroner Lyell Cook said Thursday.

Some of the main evidence that state police used in accusing Rodriguez of killing Maisner were photos and videos state police found in reviewing an iCloud account associated with her. They included images of a revolver and of Maisner with bullet holes to the back of his head and to the center of his torso, Conroe testified.

State police suspect Maisner was killed in late March, based on time stamps on the photos, according to Conroe's testimony. State police launched a missing persons investigation into Maisner's whereabouts on April 13, after Conroe said members of Maisner's family reported that they had not heard from him for some time.

As part of the investigation, state police also served a search warrant on a Google account associated with Rodriguez. The search history included searches in late March on what happens to a body 24 hours after it dies, if a person shot in the head dies instantly and how many times does someone have to be shot with bullets for the person to die; and searches in early April about cutting open a dead body, cutting a dead body with a chainsaw and how to burn a body with gasoline, according to Conroe's testimony.

Conroe additionally testified that, in a check of Maisner's financial records, state police learned that Rodriguez had used nearly $600 of Maisner's money to purchase items including cleaning supplies, gasoline, a fuel container and an electric chainsaw.

Police had just launched their investigation into Maisner's disappearance when, on the evening of April 13, the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office stopped Rodriguez while she was driving Maisner's missing Cadillac in the county. The car was impounded and Rodriguez was detained before she was eventually brought back to Erie County.

Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Woman held for court in disappearance, killing of Summit Township man