FREDERICK, Md. — A woman missing for more than a year after the bodies of her husband and four children were found in their home was killed by her husband and dumped in a shallow grave, investigators said yesterday.
Skeletal remains found Feb. 29 near Emmitsburg were those of Deysi M. Benitez, Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said at a news conference. The Office of the State Medical Examiner notified investigators Wednesday that DNA testing confirmed the identity.
The cause of death was probable asphyxia, Sheriff Jenkins said.
“At this point, all indications are that this was domestic homicide,” he said. Investigators said there was nothing to indicate that anyone other than Pedro Rodriguez was involved in his wife’s death.
The remains were found in a patch of secluded, wooded land along U.S. 15. The grave was about 20 miles north of Frederick, where Mrs. Benitez, 25, lived with Mr. Rodriguez, 28, and their children, Elsa, 9, Vanessa, 4, Angel, 3, and Carena, 1.
Mrs. Benitez was last seen alive by neighbors March 18, 2007, eight days before police found the children dead in their beds and Mr. Rodriguez hanging from a stairwell at the family’s town house.
Police concluded he had smothered the girls, killed the boy with a blow to the head and then killed himself.
Authorities have not determined when and where Mrs. Benitez was killed. Investigators planned to re-examine the family’s two minivans and compact car for evidence of whether Mrs. Benitez’s body was driven to the grave site.
Eleven days before the bodies were found, Mr. Rodriguez had learned that he would lose his job at a door-manufacturing plant, increasing the financial stress on a family that had been taking in boarders to help make its $1,034 monthly mortgage payments.
Sgt. Bruce DeGrange, a Frederick city detective, said investigators know that shortly before the deaths of Mr. Rodriguez, Mrs. Benitez and their children, “They weren’t getting along real well.”
Investigators said Mr. Rodriguez did not leave a note to explain the killings. “We’re not sure we will ever know what was going on in Pedro’s head,” Sgt. DeGrange said.
Mr. Rodriguez’s aunt, Elba Rodriguez of San Francisco, was puzzled by investigators’ conclusion that he killed Mrs. Benitez because police said they didn’t know exactly how or when she died.
She said the case has strained relations between the couple’s families, but that she feels sorry for Mrs. Benitez’s loved ones.
“I know they are going to feel this pain like we felt before,” she said.
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