AP News, April 12th, 2007
Weeping relatives Thursday laid to rest the tiny coffins of four children killed last month in the United States, along with their father who hanged himself in the same Maryland house.
More than 1,000 people turned out for the funeral Mass in the family's hometown of Sensuntepeque, a farming community in El Salvador. Some mourners wondered aloud whether the girls' missing mother played a role in their deaths, while others defended her.
Pedro Rodriguez, the children's grandfather said he thought the mother, Deysi Benitez, may have killed them. Benitez is on the FBI's national list of missing persons.
"I can't say for sure, but I think she killed the children and my son," the Rodriguez said.
His wife, Rosa Imelda Rodriguez, said "only (Benitez) knows what she has done."
"My pain is very great," she added.
At the other side of the chapel, Benitez's mother, Carmen Quinteros, said "only God knows what happened. But I have this enormous pain in my heart, because I do not know what has happened to my daughter."
"My daughter could not have harmed her children," Quinteros said as her other daughter, Angela, tried to comfort her. "She loved them, and she loved the children's father."
The four children _ Vanessa Rodriguez, 4; Carena, 1; Elsa, 9; and Angel, 3 _ were found murdered March 26 at the family's three-bedroom town house in Frederick, Md.
Autopsies showed that the three girls were suffocated and Angel was bludgeoned to death. Authorities have declined to say who may have killed the children.
After the service, the children and their father, 28-year-old Pedro Rodriguez, were laid in a concrete crypt. The father's larger coffin was flanked on either side by two smaller ones.
"People came here out of indignation, Sensuntepeque Mayor Jesus Edgar Bonilla said. "This is a repugnant act, and we hope the U.S. authorities find the person responsible."
