Mother of Three Murdered In Own Bed

On December 30, 2005 in Hendersonville, N.C., 16-year-old Rosa Recendiz woke up and couldn't find her mother, Kay Gordon.

Kay wasn't home, and had told Rosa the night before that she planned a trip to the bank in the morning. 

After talking with her grandmother on the phone, Rosa began to fold the blankets on her mother's bed.

When she pulled them back she made a horrific discovery: her mother wasn't at the bank. She was dead.

"I called my grandmother back," Rosa told AMW. "I told her that I thought my mother was dead. I was so scared."

When police arrived, they found the 34-year-old mother of three dead of a knife wound to her neck.

Police questioned Kay's family and friends, and were able to charge Jaime Aroche, 38, with Kay's murder, but Aroche was nowhere to be found.

According to Kay's family, she first met Aroche in September 2005. He was a migrant worker who lived down the street, and h would walk by her house on his way to work. One day, Kay stopped him and introduced herself.

Rosa says Aroche was nice, but that he didn't like her mother talking about her estranged husband, Miguel,  who had returned to Mexico in July of that year.

"She kept pictures of [Miguel] in a drawer," Rosa says. "She was saving them for me and my little brothers." 

Rosa says that while Miguel wasn't their biological father, they all considered him their dad and loved him.

On December 30, 2005, when Rosa and her mother returned from the store, they found Kay's youngest son crying in the middle of the room.

"He was really upset," Rosa told AMW. "He said that Aroche had burned the photos of his dad."

Rosa says her mother was very upset and confronted Aroche, and he denied it.

Rosa says they continued to argue all night. Her two brothers spent the night at a friend's house, so Rosa was alone with Aroche and her mother.

What Went Wrong?

According to Rosa, when she fell asleep sometime around midnight, her mother and Arcohe had seemed to work things out.

Police believe that after Rosa and Kay had fallen asleep, Aroche strangled Kay and slit her throat before quietly fleeing the house.
 
When Rosa found her mother the next morning, police speculate that Aroche had at least a few hours to skip town before they started searching for him.
 
Hendersonville police captain David Adams told AMW that they searched the house where Arcohe was staying, and checked out local business to see if anyone had seen him. 
 
It wasn't until roughly two days later that Adams received a call from a local rescue shelter, claiming that Aroche had been there. 
 
After police interviewed some of the shelter's workers and circulated a photo of their suspect, they were able to confirm that Aroche had visited the shelter within days of Kay's murder. 
 
Police say the shelter is vigilant about checking clients' identification before they are allowed to stay there, but when Arcohe checked in, he used a different name. 
 
Police say when Aroche left the shelter, he told some people that he was headed to Naples, Fla. Police cannot confirm that information, but they say it does make sense.
 
Aroche is a migrant worker who has experience in farming, and police say Immokalee, Fla. is a well known agricultural town where Aroche would fit right in.

Police are hoping that anyone who has crossed his path or has worked with him will alert authorities.

A Sister's Fight For Justice

In the meantime, Kay's sister, Tammy Melgard, has been doing everything she can to make sure her sister's killer is brought to justice.

Tammy has reached out to community members, local newspapers, television stations and even some of Aroche's friends in hopes of finding him.

She has been successful in tracking down some of Arcohe's past employers and co-workers, but nothing they have told her has led police to Aroche.

Tammy is now turning to America's Most Wanted for help in tracking down the man who killed her sister and orphaned three children. If you know anything about Aroche's current whereabouts, call our hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV.