3 Girls Suffocated; Brother Died From Blunt Force Trauma

Three young girls found dead last week in a townhouse in Frederick were suffocated, and their toddler brother died of blunt force trauma, authorities said yesterday.

As the search for the children's mother entered its second week, police released what they said were preliminary determinations from the state office of the chief medical examiner. The children's father, Pedro Rodriguez, 28, who was also found dead in the home March 26, committed suicide by hanging himself, they said.

Frederick Police Lt. Thomas Chase said the trauma to the 3-year-old boy, Angel Rodriguez, was severe enough that his skull was fractured. Chase declined to comment on how the trauma was inflicted or to say whether investigators had recovered a weapon.

Angel and his sisters, Elsa, 9, Vanessa, 4, and Carena, 1, were found dead in their beds, their bodies covered by bedclothes.

The medical examiner's preliminary determinations shed little light on the essential mysteries of the case: why and by whom the children were killed, and where their mother, Deysi Benitez, 25, is.

The determination that Pedro Rodriguez, who was found hanging from a rope tied to a banister, took his life appears to rule out any notion that he might have been killed and the scene might have been staged to make it appear otherwise.

Relatives of Rodriguez and Benitez have said their marriage was troubled. Benitez told her sister that Rodriguez once beat her savagely, the sister has said. Rodriguez told his brother that Benitez was unfaithful, the brother has said.

The family also faced financial problems. Rodriguez was told March 15 that the factory where he had worked since 2003 would be shuttered in July.

No one in the family is known to have been seen alive since March 18.