‘A very loving father’ Kin sticks by dad in hot-car death: ‘It’s a terrible, tragic accident’
Tranquility is hard to find in the morning for parents with young kids, but Juan and Marissa Rodriguez managed to find a moment one day last week before they got out of bed in their Rockland County home and started their day.
Five minutes is all it was, but it was just enough time for little Luna and Phoenix, the 1-year old twins, to crawl all over their daddy and give him a few playful head butts.
“I love our babies,” Rodriguez said to his wife. “I love my life.”
Then the rush of the day was underway. Breakfast for all the little ones, then off to pre-K with the 4-year-old before dropping the twins at day care.
Or so he thought. Rodriguez never made it to day care last Friday. Instead, he went on to his job in the Bronx and accidentally left the boy and girl to die in their rear-facing car seats in his Honda Accord, where their body temperatures soared to 108 degrees.
After his eight-hour shift at a Veterans Affairs hospital, Rodriguez even called his wife to remind her to pick up the kids. A short time later, he made the horrible discovery.
Rodriguez, 39, was charged the next day with two counts of manslaughter and two counts of criminally negligent homicide. Every day since has been a blur, filled with tears and heartache, but almost no finger-pointing.
“He’s a very loving father,” said Christa Shecter, 45, his wife’s sister. “He’s a good provider, a good husband and he loves all of his children. It’s such a terrible, tragic accident. There’s no way he ever intentionally hurt his children. We’re all devastated, especially him. I don’t know how he’ll ever forgive himself.”
Rodriguez was working three jobs. Along with the hospital position, Rodriguez went on social-work calls with the NYPD and was on active duty in the National Guard.
“I can understand how he could have been on autopilot with so much going on, with working three jobs,” Shecter said. “And from what I understand, the exit he normally would have taken in the Bronx was closed due to construction, so he may have been just on autopilot.”
In addition to the twins and 4-year-old Tristan, Rodriguez is the father of two children, 16 and 12, from a previous relationship.
Last month, they had a first birthday party for the twins. The theme was a circus, an inside family joke.
“There was a popcorn machine, a bubble machine, even outdoor air conditioners,” Shecter recalled. “They ran games and invited everybody. It was a huge event, really a big party, catered, all the bells and whistles. It was circus-themed. It was an ongoing joke — ‘This is my circus and these are my monkeys,’ Juan and my sister always said. But they wouldn’t have had it any other way, having a big family, all the closeness.”
Shecter met with her sister Tuesday to help her select outfits for the funeral. Phoenix and Luna will be laid to rest after a service Thursday at the Sinatra Funeral Home in Yonkers.