'Today...I Want to Be with My Father'
By JANET GRAMZA
And MIKE GROGAN
Two-and-a-half years ago, Augustin Rodriguez was killed in a shootout with police after he threatened his wife and three children with a gun in their west side home. His eldest daughter, Maribel, never stopped grieving over her father's death, but her family and her teachers thought she was finally beginning to get on with her life. She had almost completed modeling school, had recently starred in a Levy Middle School musical and was looking forward to her eighth grade prom and graduation.
Monday, in the early hours of Memorial Day, 15-year-old Maribel put on her graduation dress, kissed her younger brother and sister goodbye, clutched her father's picture under her arm and made the decision to join him.
"She said in one of the notes she left, 'Mom, I love you so much, you are the best mother in the world,'" her mother, Maria, said Monday. "'But today is Memorial Day and I want to be with my father.'"
Maribel died the same way her father did, from a gunshot wound, but one she inflicted on herself. Police reports say she shot herself in the upper abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver that her mother kept locked in a trunk at their home at 555 Seymour St.
She was pronounced dead at 4:10 a.m. Monday at Upstate Medical Center. Today she will be laid out at Greenleaf Funeral Home, the same place she went to see her father for the last time.
"In a sense, when they killed her daddy, they killed her," said a cousin, Elva Melendez. "She just could not live with what happened."
What happened Nov. 18, 1982, was that Maribel's father got drunk, bought a gun and went to the house at 120 Fitch Street where his family lived then. His wife had asked him to leave many times because his alcoholism made him abusive, "but he kept wanting to come back," she said.
What ensued was a fight between Augustin and his wife, during which he threatened his family... Maria had one of the children go next door to call police, and when they arrived Rodriguez fired wildly at them. One of the officers shot back, Rodriguez fell, and everyone ran out of the house. Police staked out the house for 2 1/2 hours before they knew Rodriguez was dead.
Maria never blamed police for her husband's death. "To me, my husband was different, because he was sick," she said. "He wanted to kill himself, but he was trying to take me and the children too, and I thank God it didn't happen that way. But with my daughter...it's kind of touch."
It had been tough for Maribel herself ever since the shootout that took her father's life, family and friends said. "When it first happened, she totally denied it," said Linda Cimusz, principal at Levy. But recently, "She'd talk about her father quite openly, which I thought was a good sign. We saw major progress from then until now, so I thought."...
'She Dressed Up Nice'
The following account of her death was pieced together by her mother, family, friends and police reports.
Friday, Maria Rodriguez went to Boston for the weekend to attend the christening of her sister's baby. Maribel knew in advance that her mother was leaving and expressed concern to Cimusz about being left in charge. "I offered to let her stay at my house," Cimusz said. "But, obviously she had other plans."
She had her 16-year-old boyfriend over to watch a horror movie on television Friday night, and he spoke to her on the phone Saturday and Sunday. "He said she sounded happy," Maria Rodriguez said. "He couldn't tell anything was wrong."
Maribel told no one about her plan, and did not carry it out until shortly before 2 a.m. Monday, when her uncle and his family - who live downstairs - and her siblings were asleep. Then she put on the purple dress her mother had bought for her upcoming graduations from Barbizon Modeling School and from Levy.
"She had that dress on, and a black hat, black shoes, and she fixed her face and everything, and she put two rosaries, a black one and a white one, around her neck," Maria said. "She dressed up nice and she had her father's picture in her hand."
She had to go into a locked trunk in her mother's room to find the picture of her father, the same trunk where her mother hid the gun she bought to protect her family just after Augustin Rodriguez's death. Maria kept the gun, which she had never loaded, on one side of a foot locker, and the bullets on the other, both covered with clothes. She hid the two keys to the trunk in a bureau drawer below the trunk, in a shampoo box under papers, photos and miscellaneous "junk."
"I don't know how she came to find the key and open this thing," Maria said. "I don't know how she found the gun, put the (bullets) inside and used it."
'She Just Said, "Help Me"'
Before she used the gun, she kissed her brother, Sixto, 9, and her sister, Rosabel, 10, as they slept. She wrote two notes in Spanish, leaving one on a coffee table in the living room and one on a kitchen table.
Then she went into a porch off the living room, the farthest place from her family's bedrooms, and shot herself in the abdomen.
Rosabel was the first to reach her sister. She called the police and ambulance, as her mother always told her to do "if anything happened," and then ran to wake up her uncle.
When police arrived, Sixto handed a police officer the weapon his sister used to kill herself.
Officer Walter J. Peczywski found Maribel lying on the porch floor. Peczywski administered first aid until Eastern paramedics arrived.
Peczywski accompanied the wounded girl as she lay on a stretcher aboard an ambulance headed for a hospital.
"She stated she shot herself and wanted to kill herself because of school and other problems," the officer later wrote in his police report.
While paramedic Brian Kinsella administered medical care, Maribel begged him to save her life.
"She wasn't crying out in pain," Kinsella recalled. "She just asked a couple of times for help. She just said, 'Help me.'"
Maribel's cousin later translated one of the suicide notes for police: "She was sorry for all the things she had done bad on this earth, that she had kissed the children one last time, was sorry for being poor in her school work, that she wanted this to end and join her father in the other world."
-The Post Standard, Syracuse, NY, Tuesday, May 28, 1985, p. A1, A5
By JANET GRAMZA
And MIKE GROGAN
Two-and-a-half years ago, Augustin Rodriguez was killed in a shootout with police after he threatened his wife and three children with a gun in their west side home. His eldest daughter, Maribel, never stopped grieving over her father's death, but her family and her teachers thought she was finally beginning to get on with her life. She had almost completed modeling school, had recently starred in a Levy Middle School musical and was looking forward to her eighth grade prom and graduation.
Monday, in the early hours of Memorial Day, 15-year-old Maribel put on her graduation dress, kissed her younger brother and sister goodbye, clutched her father's picture under her arm and made the decision to join him.
"She said in one of the notes she left, 'Mom, I love you so much, you are the best mother in the world,'" her mother, Maria, said Monday. "'But today is Memorial Day and I want to be with my father.'"
Maribel died the same way her father did, from a gunshot wound, but one she inflicted on herself. Police reports say she shot herself in the upper abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver that her mother kept locked in a trunk at their home at 555 Seymour St.
She was pronounced dead at 4:10 a.m. Monday at Upstate Medical Center. Today she will be laid out at Greenleaf Funeral Home, the same place she went to see her father for the last time.
"In a sense, when they killed her daddy, they killed her," said a cousin, Elva Melendez. "She just could not live with what happened."
What happened Nov. 18, 1982, was that Maribel's father got drunk, bought a gun and went to the house at 120 Fitch Street where his family lived then. His wife had asked him to leave many times because his alcoholism made him abusive, "but he kept wanting to come back," she said.
What ensued was a fight between Augustin and his wife, during which he threatened his family... Maria had one of the children go next door to call police, and when they arrived Rodriguez fired wildly at them. One of the officers shot back, Rodriguez fell, and everyone ran out of the house. Police staked out the house for 2 1/2 hours before they knew Rodriguez was dead.
Maria never blamed police for her husband's death. "To me, my husband was different, because he was sick," she said. "He wanted to kill himself, but he was trying to take me and the children too, and I thank God it didn't happen that way. But with my daughter...it's kind of touch."
It had been tough for Maribel herself ever since the shootout that took her father's life, family and friends said. "When it first happened, she totally denied it," said Linda Cimusz, principal at Levy. But recently, "She'd talk about her father quite openly, which I thought was a good sign. We saw major progress from then until now, so I thought."...
'She Dressed Up Nice'
The following account of her death was pieced together by her mother, family, friends and police reports.
Friday, Maria Rodriguez went to Boston for the weekend to attend the christening of her sister's baby. Maribel knew in advance that her mother was leaving and expressed concern to Cimusz about being left in charge. "I offered to let her stay at my house," Cimusz said. "But, obviously she had other plans."
She had her 16-year-old boyfriend over to watch a horror movie on television Friday night, and he spoke to her on the phone Saturday and Sunday. "He said she sounded happy," Maria Rodriguez said. "He couldn't tell anything was wrong."
Maribel told no one about her plan, and did not carry it out until shortly before 2 a.m. Monday, when her uncle and his family - who live downstairs - and her siblings were asleep. Then she put on the purple dress her mother had bought for her upcoming graduations from Barbizon Modeling School and from Levy.
"She had that dress on, and a black hat, black shoes, and she fixed her face and everything, and she put two rosaries, a black one and a white one, around her neck," Maria said. "She dressed up nice and she had her father's picture in her hand."
She had to go into a locked trunk in her mother's room to find the picture of her father, the same trunk where her mother hid the gun she bought to protect her family just after Augustin Rodriguez's death. Maria kept the gun, which she had never loaded, on one side of a foot locker, and the bullets on the other, both covered with clothes. She hid the two keys to the trunk in a bureau drawer below the trunk, in a shampoo box under papers, photos and miscellaneous "junk."
"I don't know how she came to find the key and open this thing," Maria said. "I don't know how she found the gun, put the (bullets) inside and used it."
'She Just Said, "Help Me"'
Before she used the gun, she kissed her brother, Sixto, 9, and her sister, Rosabel, 10, as they slept. She wrote two notes in Spanish, leaving one on a coffee table in the living room and one on a kitchen table.
Then she went into a porch off the living room, the farthest place from her family's bedrooms, and shot herself in the abdomen.
Rosabel was the first to reach her sister. She called the police and ambulance, as her mother always told her to do "if anything happened," and then ran to wake up her uncle.
When police arrived, Sixto handed a police officer the weapon his sister used to kill herself.
Officer Walter J. Peczywski found Maribel lying on the porch floor. Peczywski administered first aid until Eastern paramedics arrived.
Peczywski accompanied the wounded girl as she lay on a stretcher aboard an ambulance headed for a hospital.
"She stated she shot herself and wanted to kill herself because of school and other problems," the officer later wrote in his police report.
While paramedic Brian Kinsella administered medical care, Maribel begged him to save her life.
"She wasn't crying out in pain," Kinsella recalled. "She just asked a couple of times for help. She just said, 'Help me.'"
Maribel's cousin later translated one of the suicide notes for police: "She was sorry for all the things she had done bad on this earth, that she had kissed the children one last time, was sorry for being poor in her school work, that she wanted this to end and join her father in the other world."
-The Post Standard, Syracuse, NY, Tuesday, May 28, 1985, p. A1, A5
'Today...I Want to Be with My Father'
By JANET GRAMZA
And MIKE GROGAN
Two-and-a-half years ago, Augustin Rodriguez was killed in a shootout with police after he threatened his wife and three children with a gun in their west side home. His eldest daughter, Maribel, never stopped grieving over her father's death, but her family and her teachers thought she was finally beginning to get on with her life. She had almost completed modeling school, had recently starred in a Levy Middle School musical and was looking forward to her eighth grade prom and graduation.
Monday, in the early hours of Memorial Day, 15-year-old Maribel put on her graduation dress, kissed her younger brother and sister goodbye, clutched her father's picture under her arm and made the decision to join him.
"She said in one of the notes she left, 'Mom, I love you so much, you are the best mother in the world,'" her mother, Maria, said Monday. "'But today is Memorial Day and I want to be with my father.'"
Maribel died the same way her father did, from a gunshot wound, but one she inflicted on herself. Police reports say she shot herself in the upper abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver that her mother kept locked in a trunk at their home at 555 Seymour St.
She was pronounced dead at 4:10 a.m. Monday at Upstate Medical Center. Today she will be laid out at Greenleaf Funeral Home, the same place she went to see her father for the last time.
"In a sense, when they killed her daddy, they killed her," said a cousin, Elva Melendez. "She just could not live with what happened."
What happened Nov. 18, 1982, was that Maribel's father got drunk, bought a gun and went to the house at 120 Fitch Street where his family lived then. His wife had asked him to leave many times because his alcoholism made him abusive, "but he kept wanting to come back," she said.
What ensued was a fight between Augustin and his wife, during which he threatened his family... Maria had one of the children go next door to call police, and when they arrived Rodriguez fired wildly at them. One of the officers shot back, Rodriguez fell, and everyone ran out of the house. Police staked out the house for 2 1/2 hours before they knew Rodriguez was dead.
Maria never blamed police for her husband's death. "To me, my husband was different, because he was sick," she said. "He wanted to kill himself, but he was trying to take me and the children too, and I thank God it didn't happen that way. But with my daughter...it's kind of touch."
It had been tough for Maribel herself ever since the shootout that took her father's life, family and friends said. "When it first happened, she totally denied it," said Linda Cimusz, principal at Levy. But recently, "She'd talk about her father quite openly, which I thought was a good sign. We saw major progress from then until now, so I thought."...
'She Dressed Up Nice'
The following account of her death was pieced together by her mother, family, friends and police reports.
Friday, Maria Rodriguez went to Boston for the weekend to attend the christening of her sister's baby. Maribel knew in advance that her mother was leaving and expressed concern to Cimusz about being left in charge. "I offered to let her stay at my house," Cimusz said. "But, obviously she had other plans."
She had her 16-year-old boyfriend over to watch a horror movie on television Friday night, and he spoke to her on the phone Saturday and Sunday. "He said she sounded happy," Maria Rodriguez said. "He couldn't tell anything was wrong."
Maribel told no one about her plan, and did not carry it out until shortly before 2 a.m. Monday, when her uncle and his family - who live downstairs - and her siblings were asleep. Then she put on the purple dress her mother had bought for her upcoming graduations from Barbizon Modeling School and from Levy.
"She had that dress on, and a black hat, black shoes, and she fixed her face and everything, and she put two rosaries, a black one and a white one, around her neck," Maria said. "She dressed up nice and she had her father's picture in her hand."
She had to go into a locked trunk in her mother's room to find the picture of her father, the same trunk where her mother hid the gun she bought to protect her family just after Augustin Rodriguez's death. Maria kept the gun, which she had never loaded, on one side of a foot locker, and the bullets on the other, both covered with clothes. She hid the two keys to the trunk in a bureau drawer below the trunk, in a shampoo box under papers, photos and miscellaneous "junk."
"I don't know how she came to find the key and open this thing," Maria said. "I don't know how she found the gun, put the (bullets) inside and used it."
'She Just Said, "Help Me"'
Before she used the gun, she kissed her brother, Sixto, 9, and her sister, Rosabel, 10, as they slept. She wrote two notes in Spanish, leaving one on a coffee table in the living room and one on a kitchen table.
Then she went into a porch off the living room, the farthest place from her family's bedrooms, and shot herself in the abdomen.
Rosabel was the first to reach her sister. She called the police and ambulance, as her mother always told her to do "if anything happened," and then ran to wake up her uncle.
When police arrived, Sixto handed a police officer the weapon his sister used to kill herself.
Officer Walter J. Peczywski found Maribel lying on the porch floor. Peczywski administered first aid until Eastern paramedics arrived.
Peczywski accompanied the wounded girl as she lay on a stretcher aboard an ambulance headed for a hospital.
"She stated she shot herself and wanted to kill herself because of school and other problems," the officer later wrote in his police report.
While paramedic Brian Kinsella administered medical care, Maribel begged him to save her life.
"She wasn't crying out in pain," Kinsella recalled. "She just asked a couple of times for help. She just said, 'Help me.'"
Maribel's cousin later translated one of the suicide notes for police: "She was sorry for all the things she had done bad on this earth, that she had kissed the children one last time, was sorry for being poor in her school work, that she wanted this to end and join her father in the other world."
-The Post Standard, Syracuse, NY, Tuesday, May 28, 1985, p. A1, A5
By JANET GRAMZA
And MIKE GROGAN
Two-and-a-half years ago, Augustin Rodriguez was killed in a shootout with police after he threatened his wife and three children with a gun in their west side home. His eldest daughter, Maribel, never stopped grieving over her father's death, but her family and her teachers thought she was finally beginning to get on with her life. She had almost completed modeling school, had recently starred in a Levy Middle School musical and was looking forward to her eighth grade prom and graduation.
Monday, in the early hours of Memorial Day, 15-year-old Maribel put on her graduation dress, kissed her younger brother and sister goodbye, clutched her father's picture under her arm and made the decision to join him.
"She said in one of the notes she left, 'Mom, I love you so much, you are the best mother in the world,'" her mother, Maria, said Monday. "'But today is Memorial Day and I want to be with my father.'"
Maribel died the same way her father did, from a gunshot wound, but one she inflicted on herself. Police reports say she shot herself in the upper abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver that her mother kept locked in a trunk at their home at 555 Seymour St.
She was pronounced dead at 4:10 a.m. Monday at Upstate Medical Center. Today she will be laid out at Greenleaf Funeral Home, the same place she went to see her father for the last time.
"In a sense, when they killed her daddy, they killed her," said a cousin, Elva Melendez. "She just could not live with what happened."
What happened Nov. 18, 1982, was that Maribel's father got drunk, bought a gun and went to the house at 120 Fitch Street where his family lived then. His wife had asked him to leave many times because his alcoholism made him abusive, "but he kept wanting to come back," she said.
What ensued was a fight between Augustin and his wife, during which he threatened his family... Maria had one of the children go next door to call police, and when they arrived Rodriguez fired wildly at them. One of the officers shot back, Rodriguez fell, and everyone ran out of the house. Police staked out the house for 2 1/2 hours before they knew Rodriguez was dead.
Maria never blamed police for her husband's death. "To me, my husband was different, because he was sick," she said. "He wanted to kill himself, but he was trying to take me and the children too, and I thank God it didn't happen that way. But with my daughter...it's kind of touch."
It had been tough for Maribel herself ever since the shootout that took her father's life, family and friends said. "When it first happened, she totally denied it," said Linda Cimusz, principal at Levy. But recently, "She'd talk about her father quite openly, which I thought was a good sign. We saw major progress from then until now, so I thought."...
'She Dressed Up Nice'
The following account of her death was pieced together by her mother, family, friends and police reports.
Friday, Maria Rodriguez went to Boston for the weekend to attend the christening of her sister's baby. Maribel knew in advance that her mother was leaving and expressed concern to Cimusz about being left in charge. "I offered to let her stay at my house," Cimusz said. "But, obviously she had other plans."
She had her 16-year-old boyfriend over to watch a horror movie on television Friday night, and he spoke to her on the phone Saturday and Sunday. "He said she sounded happy," Maria Rodriguez said. "He couldn't tell anything was wrong."
Maribel told no one about her plan, and did not carry it out until shortly before 2 a.m. Monday, when her uncle and his family - who live downstairs - and her siblings were asleep. Then she put on the purple dress her mother had bought for her upcoming graduations from Barbizon Modeling School and from Levy.
"She had that dress on, and a black hat, black shoes, and she fixed her face and everything, and she put two rosaries, a black one and a white one, around her neck," Maria said. "She dressed up nice and she had her father's picture in her hand."
She had to go into a locked trunk in her mother's room to find the picture of her father, the same trunk where her mother hid the gun she bought to protect her family just after Augustin Rodriguez's death. Maria kept the gun, which she had never loaded, on one side of a foot locker, and the bullets on the other, both covered with clothes. She hid the two keys to the trunk in a bureau drawer below the trunk, in a shampoo box under papers, photos and miscellaneous "junk."
"I don't know how she came to find the key and open this thing," Maria said. "I don't know how she found the gun, put the (bullets) inside and used it."
'She Just Said, "Help Me"'
Before she used the gun, she kissed her brother, Sixto, 9, and her sister, Rosabel, 10, as they slept. She wrote two notes in Spanish, leaving one on a coffee table in the living room and one on a kitchen table.
Then she went into a porch off the living room, the farthest place from her family's bedrooms, and shot herself in the abdomen.
Rosabel was the first to reach her sister. She called the police and ambulance, as her mother always told her to do "if anything happened," and then ran to wake up her uncle.
When police arrived, Sixto handed a police officer the weapon his sister used to kill herself.
Officer Walter J. Peczywski found Maribel lying on the porch floor. Peczywski administered first aid until Eastern paramedics arrived.
Peczywski accompanied the wounded girl as she lay on a stretcher aboard an ambulance headed for a hospital.
"She stated she shot herself and wanted to kill herself because of school and other problems," the officer later wrote in his police report.
While paramedic Brian Kinsella administered medical care, Maribel begged him to save her life.
"She wasn't crying out in pain," Kinsella recalled. "She just asked a couple of times for help. She just said, 'Help me.'"
Maribel's cousin later translated one of the suicide notes for police: "She was sorry for all the things she had done bad on this earth, that she had kissed the children one last time, was sorry for being poor in her school work, that she wanted this to end and join her father in the other world."
-The Post Standard, Syracuse, NY, Tuesday, May 28, 1985, p. A1, A5
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