{"id":306990,"date":"2026-10-15T05:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306990\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T05:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:40:13","slug":"homicide-investigation-begins-after-coroner-ids-human-remains-found-in-reading-home-reading-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306990\/","title":{"rendered":"Homicide investigation begins after coroner IDs human remains found in Reading home | Reading Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>READING, Pa.- Investigators say they&#8217;ve identified the human remains found in an abandoned house in the 500 block of S. 6th Street in Reading as 47-year-old Jose Rodriguez-Figueroa Jr.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody knew. Everybody was talking about him missing&#8230; where&#8217;s Hov, where&#8217;s Hov,&#8221; says Charles, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say his body was found in a recycling can inside the house on October 2nd.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Clearly after he was murdered, or at some point, the body was put in the recycling can and frankly was not discovered until recently,&#8221; says Berks County District Attorney John Adams.<\/p>\n<p>An autopsy indicated Rodriguez-Figueroa Jr. did not die of natural causes. Authorities say information from the public paired with the investigation of forensic experts helped officials quickly confirm his identity.<\/p>\n<p>Now authorities are looking into when and why he was killed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re looking for help,&#8221; says Adams.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re certain that someone out there knew who he may have had problems with, knew that he was not seen all of a sudden, and we&#8217;re certain that someone knew something, heard something, or saw something,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>According to Adams, the house had been vacant for quite some time.<\/p>\n<p>One neighbor 69 News spoke with says he used to speak with the victim regularly but hadn&#8217;t seen him for about a year and a half. The neighbor says he was not shocked at the discovery.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It almost seems normal,&#8221; says Charles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I grew up around here, and people get shot every day. People get killed every day,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators say if you have any information that could potentially help them find some answers, please contact Reading Police at (610) 655-6116.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa.- Investigators say they&#8217;ve identified the human remains found in an abandoned house in the 500 block&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,17147,457,6552,736,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-306990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-coroner","tag-homicide","tag-human-remains","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}