The California Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a former Montebello woman who killed her husband in 2000 by putting anti-freeze in his Gatorade in order to collect his $250,000 life insurance policy.
The high court ruled Thursday that Angelina Rodriguez received a fair trial in 2004. It said if any errors occurred during her trial, they were harmless.
Rodriguez was sentenced to death on Jan. 12, 2004 for poisoning her fourth husband, 41-year-old Jose Francisco “Frank’ Rodriguez, by giving him drinks with oleander and anti-freeze. According to court documents. Rodriguez wanted to collect on a life insurance she had insisted they take out nearly two months before he died. She was the primary beneficiary.
A jury convicted her of first degree murder with the special circumstances of murder by administering poison and murder for financial gain. She was also found guilty of attempting to dissuade a witness.
But jurors deadlocked on a charge of attempting to have the same witness killed by a fellow inmate who was released from custody before the trial began.
Detectives said Rodriguez used oleander extract to sicken her husband, then finished him off with antifreeze while supposedly nursing him back to health.
On Sept. 9, 2000, Montebello police responded to a call at the couple’s home in the 800 block of Marconi Street in Montebello and found Frank Rodriguez lying facedown on a carpet in a bedroom. The officer testified that Rodriguez’s crying “seemed rehearsed or kind of forced.”
Telephone records showed Rodriguez called the insurance company just hours after her husband’s body was removed from the home.
She had tried to kill him before by loosening the connection on a gas dryer in the garage, according to court documents. But Frank Rodriguez smelled the gas and called a repairman.
The couple met in February 2000 while both were working for Angel Gate Academy in San Luis Obispo. They got married in April. Frank Rodriguez later landed a teaching job at Los Angeles Unified and the couple moved to Montebello.
Detectives said shortly after buying the life insurance, Frank Rodriguez began to complain of feeling ill.
Rodriguez told a friend how unhappy she was with her husband. When the friend asked why doesn’t Rodriguez divorce this husband like her other husbands, she was told Frank Rodriguez has a life insurance policy.
The friend and her mother also told Rodriguez a story about a woman who had tried to kill her husband by giving him “oleander tea.”
Prosecutors believe Rodriguez used oleander leaves from a neighbor’s shrub to sicken her husband, but the poison did not kill him. She later heard about antifreeze.
The same friend and her boyfriend mentioned a dog who bit the friend’s son. The boyfriend at one point said they could just soak some hotdogs in antifreeze and throw it over the fence.
When Rodriguez asked why, she was told about the toxic effects of antifreeze and that veterinarians warn people to keep it away from pets because it has a sweet taste.
Investigators said Rodriguez pressured the friend not to testify about their discussions of antifreeze as a poison.
At the penalty phase of her trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Rodriguez killed her 13-month-old daughter in Sept. 18, 1993 in Lompoc.
Alicia Nicole Fuller’s death had been blamed on a defective pacifier when the nipple part of the pacifier was found in her throat.
The prosecution said Rodriguez won more than $200,000 in a settlement after she sued the maker of the pacifier. According to court documents, she insured Alicia’s life for $50,000 two months before the child died. Rodriguez was the primary beneficiary. The insurance company paid her $50,000 plus interest.
Rodriguez wasn’t charged by Santa Barbara County authorities for the death of Alicia. She has also denied killing her daughter.
Twenty of the state’s 747 inmates on death row are women. Executions have been on hold in California since 2006 because of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of California’s death penalty.
