The True Story Behind 'How My Father Killed My Mother'
Here's the real story that inspired the fictional one
My last short story focused on a man who grew up hearing rumors that his father killed his mother long ago. That story was inspired by a real-life situation in Buffalo that began on Good Friday - Friday the 13th - in 1979 when a man named Michael Rodriguez took his estranged wife, Patricia Rodriguez (née Scinta), to a cemetery in Lackawanna, New York, a suburb of Buffalo, and stabbed her 108 times.
A graveyard caretaker found her body the next morning, lying on top of someone else’s grave. Scinta was 21 years old and left behind two children - ages 3 and 4 - she had with the man who killed her.
Full disclosure: I have relatives who were either close friends with both Scinta and Rodriguez, or knew them socially, and they were questioned after the case was reopened in 2009. As far as I know, they weren’t instrumental in the eventual conviction. But when Rodriguez was arrested in 2013, it was a topic of conversation and I got a little background on the story. But most of what I say here about the case specifics from local news reports.
Rodriguez was questioned after the murder, but never arrested. That surprised a lot of people people in the South Buffalo/Lackawanna area who knew the couple, and knew that Rodriguez physically abused Scinta, and was known to have been violent with other women.
After Rodriguez’s and Scinta’s legal separation, the court ordered Rodriguez to pay child support. That money probably wasn’t easy to come by for an odd job journeyman with a long, petty rap sheet in South Buffalo during the recession-heavy 70s.
And yet another problem for Rodriguez was that he had a serious theft case looming over him - and there were other rumors that Scinta was talking to police about it.
But did he do it? There was no shortage of motive. There was, however, shortage of evidence hard enough to convict him of murder. Yes, they were seen dancing together at a bar and leaving together the night of the murder. Yes, Rodriguez had several reasons to do it. And yes, he was known to be a violent guy. But that’s it. Can’t convict a guy for murder on that. So Rodriguez got away.
But you don’t need evidence to spread rumors, and there were always a few whispers he did it - especially since he had a whole lotta motive.
The Darkest of Clouds
For nearly 35 years after Rodriguez killed Scinta, he lived openly in the Buffalo area, around people who knew and were related to her. He got married again, had more children, divorced and remarried, got invited to parties and weddings, worked, paid taxes, bought a home in the suburbs with a lawn was friendly with his neighbors. He lived a normal Buffalonian life.
But people talked. And one of the people who talked was Scinta’s mother, and grandmother of his first two children, and she never had any doubts that Rodriguez killed her daughter - and wasn’t afraid to say so.
And that’s the part that really grabbed me. Two kids lost their mother on Good Friday in 1979 in the most brutal fashion and grew up with a father who many people, including their own grandmother, who strongly suspected Rodriguez doing it (she once witnessed him beat on her daughter and had to pull him off herself).
They lost their mother at such a young age (3 and 4) that faded photos, that faded photos, other people’s memories, would be all they’d really have to compose an image of her. But the brutal murder, because of its infamy and widely-known grisly details might have been the most detailed image they had.
That would be enough to twist one’s brain and heart. But to grow up with the suspicion that your father did it is something no psychologist has answers to. There’s no way to deal with it other than ignoring it as much as possible. But you can’t ignore anything forever. And if it’s painful, it will fester.
After Rodriguez was convicted in 2014, I was working as a reporter in Miami for a local paper, but I occasionally did freelance pieces for Vice (RIP), and I thought a story about growing up with this suspicion would make for a gripping read. I reached out to Rodriguez’s daughter and we came close to doing an interview. I was clear about not wanting the article to be salacious, but about these questions I had about growing up with this looming over one’s childhood and the shock about finding out the long-suspected truth. But she ultimately decided against it. I can’t say I blame her. I’d probably have done the same. Why re-open a wound like that for all to see? I’m sure it didn’t help that I would have wrote it for a news site best-known for sex and drugs, either.
But they did talk to reporters back in 2004, on the 25th anniversary of the murder and before the case was officially reopened. In that article, you can get an idea of the weight this murder had on their hearts. When you can’t get justice from the people who are supposed to give it to you, you seek other methods. The son had been reaching out to the various cold case TV shows to see if they can solve his mother’s murder. The daughter visited a psychic, who told her that she’d be safest if she let it all go and move on. They were trying any way they could to find out who did it.
"It bothers me a lot, and I'm not going to rest until it is solved," the son said.
And in that article, the person who did it was also interviewed.
"It's a loss. It's something always in your heart. They took my children's mother away," Rodriguez said.
I don’t know how much the children believed about what they heard. Maybe they knew it was possible, maybe they didn’t want to believe it was possible. But I doubt (and I’m purely speculating) that they adamantly believed their father was innocent. All evidence pointed to him and their grandmother was outspoken about who she thought did it. No doubt they heard other people make similar accusations.
My fiction story wasn’t trying to imagine what their particular situation was like, but what growing up with that suspicion might have been like. And the fact that it was such a brutal murder would make the suspicion even more disturbing. It’s one thing to suspect somebody close to you of killing somebody - but it’s another to think they were once so full of rage that they could stab a human being 108 times. Personally, I think it’s impossible to trust anybody who had ever been capable of that at any point in their lives - I don’t care how reformed one might claim to be. But to be forced into “trusting” that person because he’s your father? Incredible to think about.
How the Killer Got Caught
I’ve told you what interested and inspired me about this case already. But you’re probably wondering what actually happened to Rodriguez. Well, he got caught.
The case was reopened in 2009 after one of Rodriguez’s ex-girlfriend’s found Jesus and decided to tell police what he told her years ago: He killed Patricia Scinta.
That was enough to get the cold case sent to a crack investigator, Christopher Weber, who apparently talked to just about everybody still alive who knew the couple. After 30 years, people were probably a little more loose-lipped, and Weber was able to cobble together enough witness testimony to get the state to order a DNA test.
DNA technology improved since 1979, and forensic experts opened the evidence box that Lackawanna police closed 30 years prior to test the jacket Rodriguez wore the night of the murder. With better tech, they found DNA evidence of Scinta’s blood in the coat lining.
Thirty-four years after Scinta was brutally murdered in a graveyard, Rodriguez was arrested and charged with her murder.
During the trial, more people came forward. According to witness testimony, Rodriguez told several people he did it, including a cellmate after he was initially arrested. This, combined with the DNA, put him in a losing position. And though his defense argued that the DNA test shouldn’t count because the jacket had been in storage with the victim’s clothes, the jury didn’t buy it. It only took them three hours to come to a guilty verdict.
Rodriguez was sentenced to 25 years to life in a New York State prison. But he would only serve about 12 months. Almost exactly one year after his conviction, at the age of 61, he hung himself in his prison cell.
“He took the coward’s way out,” Scinta’s mother told the Buffalo News.
I met Michael Rodriguez when I was 17 and I had a daughter with him. He had two sides to him, a loving good side and a crazy side. We spent almost 3 years together and at the end I couldn't wait to get away from him. He never physically hurt me but he did threaten to kill me if I took his daughter away from him. After I left him, I spent many many years looking over my shoulder. I no longer have to do that since he hung himself. After the first year with him, someone brought up that he killed his x wife but it was still unsolved. Not long after that, I was supposed to meet him back in a park in the evening, when I arrived he was sitting at the side of a wading pool that was no longer in use, he was sobbing. I sat down, put my arm around him and said what's wrong. He held out his hand and he said, "I hate what this hand did" It sent chills down my spine and I thought it must be pretty bad if you can't say "I hate what I did, instead he blamed his hand." I didn't ask, I just knew inside what he was referring to. I am glad they solved the crime and I hope he is where he belongs where it is VERY HOT, getting what he deserves for taking Patty's life.
Truth really is stranger than fiction sometimes. I really feel for the whole family, including (strangely enough) the father, who had to live with his own guilt. Not a serial offender I take it? And then he did stick around and raise the kids. I can't even.