Social worker dad charged over the deaths of his twins is released from custody into the arms of his

[mystery-ak]

Social worker dad charged over the deaths of his twins is released from custody into the arms of his wife after breaking down in court as he heard how the babies' body temperatures reached 108 degrees while they were left in boiling hot car for 8 hours

    Juan Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide over the deaths of his one-year-old twins Luna and Phoenix 
    The social worker, 39, accidentally left the babies in the back seat of his car on Friday while he worked an eight hour shift at a veterans hospital in The Bronx
    He returned to discover the children dead and 'foaming at the mouth'
    Rodriguez wailed in agony during his first court appearance on Saturday, as prosecutors described how the twins' body temperatures reached 108F
    He posted a $100,000 bond and was released from custody on Saturday evening

By Andrew Court For Dailymail.com

Published: 21:12 EDT, 27 July 2019 | Updated: 07:43 EDT, 28 July 2019

The New York City father whose one-year-old twins died after he accidentally left them inside his hot car has collapsed into the arms of his wife following his release from prison on bail.

Juan Rodriguez, 39, was seen weeping as he hugged his spouse Marissa outside Bronx Criminal Court on Saturday after posting a $100,000 bond.

The social worker and Iraq War veteran has been charged with two counts of manslaughter and two counts of criminally negligent homicide over the deaths of his daughter Luna and son Phoenix.

He has entered not guilty pleas on all counts.

Rodriguez reportedly forgot to drop the twins off at daycare on Friday morning, leaving them to swelter in the back of his Honda Accord for eight hours while he was working at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in The Bronx.

He found the babies dead and 'foaming at the mouth' shortly after he finished his shift and returned to his vehicle at 4pm.



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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7293717/Social-worker-dad-charged-deaths-twins-released-custody.html

[mystery-ak]

'A tragedy of horrific proportions': Iraq War vet charged with manslaughter after leaving twins in hot car
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/a-tragedy-of-horrific-proportions-iraq-war-vet-charged-with-manslaughter-after-leaving-twins-in-hot-car

[Right_in_Virginia]

By all reports he was a doting dad.  Adding insult to tragedy there are other targets to point fingers at:  Mom, did mom check on the kids once during the day?  Did the daycare people inquire why the children weren't there as expected or if they were still coming? 

This may be a set of extraordinary, tragic mistakes by everyone touching that day.  May God help this father.  Regardless of what our judiciary system doles out, I don't see how he copes with this.

By all accounts, he was a doting dad to his year-old, twin son and daughter, setting up a bouncy castle in the yard for their recent first birthday party and dressing them in their latest cute outfits while his wife made breakfast in their Rockland County split-level.

Then, on Saturday, Juan Rodriguez, 39, was hauled handcuffed before a judge, charged with the babies’ hot-car deaths.

He forgot to drop them off at their day care Friday morning, Rodriguez has told cops — and didn’t realize they were still in the back seat when he parked at the Bronx hospital where he’s a social worker, court papers reveal.

Eight hours later, the twins, Luna and Phoenix, registered an internal temperature of 108 degrees when coroners examined their bodies in their car seats.

“I assumed I dropped them off at day care before I went to work,” Rodriguez told cops at the scene, according to the criminal complaint against him.

“I blanked out!” he cried.

“My babies are dead! I killed my babies!”

Rodriguez was still sobbing at his arraignment Saturday night before Bronx Criminal Court Justice Patsy Goldborne.

A disabled Iraq war veteran, he still wore the same turquoise blue polo shirt he’d worn Friday as he cared for homeless and ailing vets at his job at a VA hospital in Kingsbridge — oblivious that his twins were in the back seat of his Honda Accord in the parking lot.

“He carried on with his day,” Assistant District Attorney Jaime Breslin told the judge.

“He forgot his children in the seats.”

“This is a tragedy of horrific proportions,” his lawyer, Joey Jackson, told the judge, who set bail at $100,000.

Two hours later, Rodriguez made bail and was released to his cheering, weeping family members.

Rodriguez exchanged a tight embrace with his crying wife, Marissa — the twins’ mother — when he was released.

The mother had come to court wearing all black, and with the couple’s surviving child, a 4-year-old boy, in tow.

The dad had dropped the boy off at a different day care before forgetting the twin babies, officials said.

The mom held the boy on her lap as she waited in a second-floor holding area for the arraignment to begin. With her were some two dozen family members and friends.

At one point, the mom broke into loud, hysterical sobs as she embraced a female relative.

At another point, Rodriguez’s mother, Cathelina Valerio, cried out, “Mis nietos! Mis nietos!” — my grandchildren — as she hugged a male family member.

“Do you know what I’m scared of?” she told The Post. “When he gets out, he can’t handle it. He’s going to need help.”

https://nypost.com/2019/07/27/dad-who-left-twins-in-hot-car-is-a-social-worker-described-as-an-amazing-father/ 

[austingirl]

So very sad. Poor babies.

[Applewood]

How does a father forget to drop off his children at daycare and even if he did, how did he not notice they were in the back seat once he arrived at work?   Was he drunk, hungover, high?  I just don't see anyone being that fatigued or absent-minded or unobservant as to accidentally leave children in a hot car like that.    Maybe parents on this site can answer that for me.

[XenaLee]

I honestly will never understand how a parent could "forget" the kids in the back seat....whether it's a hot day or not.  If you have kids, they are your first waking thought in the morning and your last waking thought before you sleep.  I just don't get it.   If you are that "fatigued" and distracted, perhaps you should consider another line of work or a different lifestyle choice.  At the least, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of any vehicle.  ?

[Applewood]

@XenaLee

 

You said it better than I dd. 

Locally, there have been stories of parents deliberately leaving kids in the car.   For example, when the casino first opened in Pittsburgh, a woman left her kids in her car in the casino parking garage while she went inside to play the slots.  Luckily, someone in the garage saw the kids, found casino security and/or called police.  The children were saved and the mother arrested and charged with child endangerment. 

It's sad that no one at the father's employer noticed these little ones in the back seat before it was too late.    But I don't suppose too many people look into other people's cars in a parking lot.

[PeteS in CA]

"accidentally"? Try grossly negligently!

[XenaLee]

@XenaLee

 

You said it better than I dd. 

Locally, there have been stories of parents deliberately leaving kids in the car.   For example, when the casino first opened in Pittsburgh, a woman left her kids in her car in the casino parking garage while she went inside to play the slots.  Luckily, someone in the garage saw the kids, found casino security and/or called police.  The children were saved and the mother arrested and charged with child endangerment. 

It's sad that no one at the father's employer noticed these little ones in the back seat before it was too late.    But I don't suppose too many people look into other people's cars in a parking lot.

For companies that do hire security guards, perhaps they will instruct the guards to check the back seats going forward.  Can't hurt.

[Night Hides Not]

How does a father forget to drop off his children at daycare and even if he did, how did he not notice they were in the back seat once he arrived at work?   Was he drunk, hungover, high?  I just don't see anyone being that fatigued or absent-minded or unobservant as to accidentally leave children in a hot car like that.    Maybe parents on this site can answer that for me.

As a father of 3, and grandfather of 1, I cannot answer the question, particularly when it involves twins.

I've searched my memory and can't recall one instance of ever leaving my kids in the car...and my childrens' ages range from 17-32.

A lesson I've tried to teach all of my kids is to "be aware of your surroundings", especially when driving.

[mystery-ak]

Both mom and dad had to get the babies up, feed and dress them put them in their car seats and buckle them in...and somewhere between home and work he forgot they were in the car?..I just don't get it.

My how those babies suffered...

[Right_in_Virginia]

There will be an investigation of the father and the family ... a thorough one. 

I suspect most people, understandably, have their fingers crossed that something, anything nefarious is discovered.... Maybe he didn't really want more children, maybe he researched how long it took babies to die in a hot car, maybe he was a cocaine addict or a drunk or off his medication, or he fought with his wife in the morning, or was chronically unreliable . . . something must separate these people from me.   




Without *something* to explain these deaths and the destruction of the lives the survivors will endure not only will the human heart have to wrap itself around a horrific and random act of cruelty  ----  but the most awful and difficult truth of all may well be:   "There but for the grace of God go I".

[LottieDah]

I find it hard to believe that his man was a social worker (presumably educated).  How do you "forget" to drop children off at day care?  How do you "forget" they are in the back seat of your care.  I am sorry but I am not buying it.

[sneakypete]

Social worker dad charged over the deaths of his twins is released from custody into the arms of his wife after breaking down in court as he heard how the babies' body temperatures reached 108 degrees while they were left in boiling hot car for 8 hours

    Juan Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide over the deaths of his one-year-old twins 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7293717/Social-worker-dad-charged-deaths-twins-released-custody.html

@mystery-ak

While I do feel sympathy for him,if it is not criminally negligent homicide,the only other thing it COULD be is murder,

There just ain't no way in hell he is going to walk away from this one.

[sneakypete]

 

Did the daycare people inquire why the children weren't there as expected or if they were still coming? 

@Right_in_Virginia

I can see no reason why the mother would feel the need to call and check to see if they were there. There was no where else they were expected to be,and she had a reasonable expectation that she would be notified if something had gone wrong.

Good point about the day care. I know/suspect I know that they aren't REQUIRED to call and check on the children if they don't show up,but maybe it might be a good thing to make this a requirement? It could even help if the children were kidnapped because the sooner the police start investigating a kidnapping the better chance they have of solving the case and saving the child.

This may be a set of extraordinary, tragic mistakes by everyone touching that day.  May God help this father.  Regardless of what our judiciary system doles out, I don't see how he copes with this.

I couldn't.

 

[sneakypete]

@Right_in_Virginia

Two hours later, Rodriguez made bail and was released to his cheering, weeping family members.

CHEERING??? WTF do  they have to cheer about? Somebody needs to slap the piss out of every one of them. Is he some sort of hero to them because he forgot he had his children locked up in his hot car? This really pisses me off.

[sneakypete]

How does a father forget to drop off his children at daycare and even if he did, how did he not notice they were in the back seat once he arrived at work?

@Applwood

I am a little surprised that no one that parked next to them or that walked past the van noticed the kids in the back seat.


 

Was he drunk, hungover, high?

 

I don't know,but I am just GUESSING that he was a little tired from caring for twin infants,plus another young child,along with the normal workday stuff. I have never experienced it,but have been told that people with twin infants don't get much sleep.

I just don't see anyone being that fatigued or absent-minded or unobservant as to accidentally leave children in a hot car like that.

I don't like it,but it can happen if you are sleep-deprived. No matter what happens to me today,I am grateful I am not him.

 
 

[sneakypete]

My how those babies suffered...

@mystery-ak

The only good news here is they probably didn't. They probably never even woke up from their naps.

Unlike the father,who will probably never again get a good nights sleep. If you are not a sociopath,there just ain't no getting over something like this. Not ever. If he is a normal man,there is nothing the state can do to him that can begin to compare to what he will put himself though.

The "other shoe" will drop when his wife files for divorce within a year,and asks for sole custody and no visiting rights,and gets it.

[sneakypete]

There will be an investigation of the father and the family ... a thorough one. 

I suspect most people, understandably, have their fingers crossed that something, anything nefarious is discovered.... Maybe he didn't really want more children, maybe he researched how long it took babies to die in a hot car, maybe he was a cocaine addict or a drunk or off his medication, or he fought with his wife in the morning, or was chronically unreliable . . . something must separate these people from me.   




Without *something* to explain these deaths and the destruction of the lives the survivors will endure not only will the human heart have to wrap itself around a horrific and random act of cruelty  ----  but the most awful and difficult truth of all may well be:   "There but for the grace of God go I".

@Right_in_Virginia

Well stated,brother,well stated!

[Applewood]

Something else I thought of -- and I don't drive, so please bear with me -- while a person is driving, doesn't he look at the rear mirror from time to time?  Seems to me, even if this father forgot to drop them off at daycare, he would have, at some point before arriving at work, noticed the little ones in the car seat when he looked at the rear view mirror.  He should have had at least a partial view of the children, no?   

I guess I should be more sympathetic, but there is something about this story that doesn't sound right to me.  Old age has made me less trusting, less willing to believe every sad story.

[Absalom]

The paramount responsibility of the creators of life is to nurture and protect it;
until it is capable of protecting itself.
Suggestion: Sadness is sanctimonious malarkey; rage is appropriate that this
buffoon, moron and schmuck remains in solitary awaiting sentencing.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. HE KILLED HIS INFANT CHILDREN!!!!!

[Right_in_Virginia]

The paramount responsibility of the creators of life is to nurture and protect it;
until it is capable of protecting itself.
Suggestion: Sadness is sanctimonious malarkey; rage is appropriate that this
buffoon, moron and schmuck is not in solitary awaiting sentencing.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. HE KILLED HIS INFANT CHILDREN!!!!!

Don't you just hate it when one loses control of moralizing and it runs amok?

[Fishrrman]

I concur with Applewood in post 19 above.

Something just isn't right here.

We're not being told everything...

[Bill Cipher]

And sometimes, God simply allows random acts of tragedy to take place. 

Seems to me this father deserves pity and sadness until and unless it’s proven otherwise. 

[Applewood]

And sometimes, God simply allows random acts of tragedy to take place. 

Seems to me this father deserves pity and sadness until and unless it’s proven otherwise.

I just don't know how I feel.  Yes, it's a terrible tragedy and the instinct is to feel sympathy for the father, mother and other loved ones of these precious babies.  But as I said earlier something seems wrong with this man's story.  I guess maybe I should just wait to see how all this shakes out.