PITTSTON — City police are searching for Edward James Rodriguez, 40, on charges he stalked a 16-year-old girl and sent the teen disturbing messages on social media.
An arrest warrant was issued Friday for Rodriguez, with a last known address at 520 N. Main St., Archbald, in Lackawanna County.
According to a criminal complaint:
The girl’s mother told police an older man, who identified himself as Edward, appeared at her house in Pittston shortly after the Pittston Tomato Festival in August. She claimed the man had flowers and a card.
The man told the mother the flowers and card were for her daughter. He backed away when the mother began asking questions, and drove away in a beat-up pickup truck.
Police said the girl never saw the man before.
Then on Sept. 2, the girl received a message from “Bee Savage” on Facebook, stating he wanted to give her flowers and a card in a trade for a pair of her underwear and he has been following her for more than one year. He also wrote in the message he spotted her participating in the tomato fight at the festival.
One message police said the girl received stated: “How silly has it been between this festival and the year prior, and all the times of them both that I have run into you walking, and all the looks that have been exchanged between us in the process, which was a lot, that we never even uttered a word to each other? P.S. that tomato throw of your (sic) was the biggest fluke of a hit I ever saw. So much in fact that I dare you to do that again while wearing NOTHING but roller skates.”
Police said pictures to the Bee Savage account on Facebook was the same man who appeared on the girl’s porch with flowers and a card.
Search warrants were obtained to trace the messages that revealed they were sent from several free public WiFi locations in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.
Police released pictures from the Savage account to social media. Several tips in response to the picture identified Rodriguez.
Police said they have been unable to contact Rodriguez, who is facing two counts of stalking and a single count of harassment.
Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call Pittston police at 570-654-2425 or 911.
