NEW YORK - A MANHATTAN skyscraper in one of the most security-conscious parts of the city has become the scene of an unlikely missing persons mystery.
SECURITY in the building is typical for the financial district.
Employees need identification cards to enter. Security cameras cover every entrance and many public areas. Every visitor is photographed before they are allowed up from the lobby.
Police are trying to figure out what happened to a cleaning woman who vanished midway through her shift on Tuesday evening at an office tower near the World Trade Center reconstruction site.
Eridania Rodriguez, 46, punched in for work at 2 Rector Street around 5pm local time (5am Singapore time). She donned her blue uniform, chatted with other after-hours employees and was last seen on security cameras around 7pm (7am Singapore time) , according to police and her family.
Then, she disappeared.
The building's cameras never recorded her leaving the skyscraper.
She didn't meet up with co-workers for her regular subway ride home to Manhattan's Washington Heights section. Her purse and street clothes remained in her locker. Her cleaning cart was found abandoned on the eighth floor, a space recently vacated by the city's transportation department.
The woman's family is distraught and fears the worst, said a lawyer for the family, Daniel Ferreira.
'She had been complaining about a guy at the building who made her kind of nervous,' he said. 'And she worked on floors that had been empty.' He said Ms Rodriguez is married with several children. One of her brothers is Victor Martinez, a top-ranked professional bodybuilder.
Police quietly sealed off the building on Wednesday morning to hunt for clues. They found no trace of the missing woman. Workers were finally allowed back in shortly before noon, but the search continued on Thursday.
Investigators combed the 26-story tower, including a sub-basement flooded with two feet of water. They also questioned a Department of Transportation employee, but said he was not a suspect.
'It's a mind blower. How do you go missing here?' said Rob Ross, an executive assistant in the studio of noted architect Daniel Libeskind, who moved to the tower after getting the commission to redesign ground zero. -- AP
