Couple's Relatives Describe a Troubled Marriage

Deaths of Father, 4 Children Still a Mystery as Mother Remains Missing

Scarlet Orellana of Frederick kneels by a makeshift memorial outside the home where Pedro Rodriguez and his four children where found dead. (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)

The mystery surrounding the deaths in Frederick of four children and their father, and the disappearance of their mother, deepened yesterday as relatives of the couple offered differing accounts of what they said was a troubled marriage.

Pedro Rodriguez, 28, told his siblings that his wife had been unfaithful, his oldest brother said by phone from Los Angeles. Recalling their last conversation March 16, Angel Rodriguez said, "We talked for a while, and he said that he had lots of problems with his relationship and that she didn't let him call us."

The wife, Deysi Benitez, meanwhile, told her oldest sister that Rodriguez once beat her savagely, the sister said. Speaking from El Salvador, Angela Benitez said her sister told her that Rodriguez struck her and grabbed her by the throat sometime last year. Benitez said her sister told her later she was in pain and added, "It's by a miracle that I'm alive."

The accounts, though from starkly different perspectives, offer the first insight into the relationship at the center of a tragedy that neighbors and casual acquaintances of the family have said they find unfathomable. To them, the family's problems -- money and minor run-ins with the police -- seemed difficult but, on balance, not out of the ordinary.

Police were called to the townhouse, in the city's Hillcrest Heights section, Monday after a knock on the door went unanswered. Inside they found the four children dead in their beds, covered head to toe in sheets and blankets, and Rodriguez hanging from a rope tied to a banister.

Although they have ruled out shooting and stabbing, investigators still had not determined yesterday what killed the children: Elsa, 9, Vanessa, 4, Angel, 3, and Carena, 1. Medical examiners were awaiting the results of toxicology tests before concluding autopsies on the children and their father.

Border alerts have been distributed as part of the search for Benitez, 25, according to James Dinkins, acting head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore. The family was in the country legally, he said.

Dinkins said Rodriguez, Benitez and the eldest child had been granted temporary protective status, which many Salvadoran immigrants received in the wake of a 2001 earthquake that devastated their country. The younger children were born in the United States and were U.S. citizens, he said.

Benitez is not known to have been seen since she failed to show up for a scheduled shift at an Outback Steakhouse nearly two weeks ago, police have said. Records show no activity on Benitez's cell phone since a call went unanswered March 18, Frederick Police Lt. Thomas Chase said. Benitez does not appear to have any credit cards in her name, and subpoenas are being prepared for bank and other business records, he said.

Ana Margarita Chavez, El Salvador's consul general in Washington, said she went on two Spanish-language television stations to appeal to Benitez to come forward. "My message to her is that if she's able to hear me, she should come to us for help," Chavez said. "That we're here to help her."

Siblings on both sides of the family said Rodriguez and Benitez grew up outside Sensuntepeque, not far from the Honduran border.

Rodriguez lived in Los Angeles after coming to the United States in 1998, his oldest brother said. He traveled to El Salvador in March 2001, returning with Benitez, the brother said. They moved to Maryland because Benitez had family in the area.