The girlfriend of a Jersey City man found dead on a city street last week said today that she has not yet been told the cause of his death but said the morning he was found, her bell rang and no one there.
JERSEY CITY -- The girlfriend of a city man found dead on a city street last week said that the morning he was found, her doorbell rang, but no one there when she opened the door.
Sandra Rios is sure it was the spirit of Juan A. Calo, her boyfriend of 10 years, coming home.
"I swear to you my doorbell rang and no one was in the hallway," Rios said of the 50-year-old Calo.
"He's here, I know he's here," said Rios, who noted that authorities have not told her yet how Calo died. "He is not laid to rest yet. He is here. I know he is here."
Calo was found around 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 18 on Fulton Avenue just east of Kennedy Boulevard, not far from the Terhune Avenue apartment the couple shared since 2006.
Police and EMTs arrived quickly and confirmed that he was dead. Calo's body remains at the state Regional Medical Examiner's Office, and authorities have not told her how Calo died, she said. Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said today that police are waiting on the medical examiner's autopsy report.
Rios said the Paterson native worked at National Retail Wholesale warehouse in North Bergen for eight years, but was laid off a year ago. She said he collected unemployment until around March.
She described him as religious, funny, very intelligent and and like a father to her 17-year-old son. She has no idea what could have happened to him.
Rios, who works for the Jersey City Parking Authority and at Tommy's restaurant in the Heights, said Calo was a sports fanatic and loved the Minnesota Vikings football team, the New York Yankees baseball team and the New York Knicks basketball team.
He played baseball in high school in Paterson.
She said the evening before he was found, he ate dinner at home after 8 p.m. She said he loved to take long walks, often with their pit bull Skyla, and the pair would trek as far as the Heights on occasion. That night she asked where he had gone and a family member told her "He said he will be right back."
Rios said she believes Calo was walking home when he died. She cried as she shuffled through a stack of photos of Calo with family members.
"My family is here every single day and they know how much I loved him," she said. "I don't know what happened to him. I don't know why he left me. I don't know why.
"He was a really good guy," Rios said. "He had billions of friends and he never bothered anyone. He would walk Skyla and everyone would know him and the white dog with the eye like Petey from The Little Rascals. My kids called him Gordo (Spanish for "fat") because when he was a child, he was a little fat. I called him babe."
Looking around her living room, she said "He walked here every day."
When found, Calo did not have any identification on him and there were no signs of trauma, police said. Calo still had $60, a cell phone and three keys on him when police found him.
Homicide detectives from the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office did not respond because Calo's death is not considered suspicious.
Rios said funeral arrangements for Calo have not been made, but she expects a funeral home in Paterson to handle the wake and funeral.