A 19-year-old man discovered his mother and her boyfriend dead on Sunday when he visited her at the room she rented in St. Louis Hall, an SRO building on West 94th Street. The New York Post reports that “Edwin Rodriguez, 58, was found on a bed with a belt wrapped around his neck, and his girlfriend, Florenciana Martinez, 44, was found nearby on the floor with trauma to her face, law-enforcement sources said.” Police haven’t identified the cause of the violence between Martinez and Rodriguez, who was married to someone else but spent time at the apartment. It’s a sensitive place for such a tragedy: St. Louis Hall has been the scene of some controversy in the neighborhood as the for-profit Lantern Management Group works to convert the building into a facility to house recently homeless people with histories of mental illness. This might make for some interesting community board meetings.
