Shocking Murder of Loving Father: Jorge Rodriguez | Murdered at First Sight | Forensic Files

[LAUGHTER] WOMAN 1: You like that? - Oh my god. WOMAN 2: He ripped the box? [CHUCKLES]
Yeah. [EMOTIONAL MUSIC] DARLIN MOLINA: I love that he always managed to find a way to give us whatever we wanted,
considering they didn't have much and they were living paycheck to paycheck. KAREN MOLINA: Definitely.
DARLIN MOLINA: Mm-hmm. My dad wanted to move to the United States to have the American dream by being a hard worker
and just providing for his family. - He would just make everybody laugh and just crack jokes all the time.
DARLIN MOLINA: I remember we would paint his nails or do his hair. He would just do anything to make us happy.
There wasn't much money, but there was a lot of love. KAREN MOLINA: July 4, Independence Day.
Dad went to the grocery store to go get some stuff to make dinner. He did call us, just checking up on us.
I think, like 20 minutes prior to the incident. [OMINOUS MUSIC] [SIREN WAILING] SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: July 4 in the city of Pasco
is never a quiet night. But as I first got this call, it started to sound like more than just a routine injury call.
I turned my lights on and I increased my speed so that I could get there quicker.
When I got there, I saw a man that had blood covering his shirt, and I could tell that he had multiple injuries on his face
and blood was coming out of his mouth. DARLIN MOLINA: As soon as I saw my dad covered in blood,
I got really scared. I just didn't understand who would do this. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: It didn't make
me feel good knowing that someone was a potential threat to members of my community, and I wanted to ensure
that he was captured quickly. DARLIN MOLINA: He didn't only take my father away.
In a sense, he took my mother away, too. I feel like we all haven't been the same since.
[SOFT PIANO MUSIC] KAREN MOLINA: He would always go like, to work and always talk about us and stuff
and say how pretty we were. [CHUCKLES] There was actually somebody that came up to him
once, remember? And they were like, oh, you probably just think they're pretty because of your daughter.
[LAUGHTER] - Oh, jeez. Yeah, he was really proud of us. I just remember growing up in a happy family.
Like, we used to have a lot of fun together. - Yeah, we did. DARLIN MOLINA: My parents were definitely
planning for children. I feel like when they found out they were pregnant with me,
it was a little bit of a surprise, but it was a welcome surprise. He would always tell me that when I was born,
he grabbed a Sharpie and he drew a little Sharpie mark on my leg to make sure they
didn't switch me at birth. Very protective always. After me, Karen is born. She was born in September 29 of 2000,
and then Kimberly followed right after, March 7 of 2002. Mom was so pretty. This was her holiday work party.
When she worked at the photography studio, I think. That's when she met dad, while she was taking his picture.
KAREN MOLINA: I remember that. - Yeah. - I think he was waiting for her after her shift or something. - Yeah.
He kept saying, I'm going to pick you up. [LAUGHS] And she kept saying no and rejecting him.
He was being persistent, so she said yes and she finally caved. My parents were migrant workers.
They worked out in the fields. They had to follow wherever there was work. My dad's originally from Culiacán, Sinaloa in Mexico.
He grew up in a big family, very tight knit community, lots of love. My grandma was, I would say, absolutely smitten with my dad.
She loved him so much. When he moved here from Mexico, he went straight to LA, California.
My dad moved over here with next to nothing. He had to start off literally from zero
coming over here, 'cause he just wanted to get away from the violence in his area.
[SOMBER MUSIC] KAREN MOLINA: He decided to come over here because around that time his brother
was actually killed. I guess he was scared that something would happen to him eventually.
- As his brother was a victim of gun violence, they never thought that this would
be essentially in the Rodriguez's family's future in Pasco, Washington. DARLIN MOLINA: I was around 13 when we moved here.
We saddle down in Pasco. I feel like a Pasco was safe. I feel like it was a good place to raise a family,
and I feel like my parents felt the same way. My dad always loved Independence Day.
He just loved the whole celebration of the fireworks and the barbecues and just family getting together.
I feel like that was really important to him. [EMOTIONAL MUSIC] [MELANCHOLY MUSIC]
I'm right on the 4th of July of that year. I was pregnant. I wasn't feeling well and I did not want to do anything at all.
I remember him saying, let's go see the fireworks. I want to go see the fireworks with you and your sisters.
And I just kept saying, I don't feel good. I don't want to go anywhere. He's like, but I'm going to go to Fiesta Foods
and I'm going to get something to eat. What do you wan? KAREN MOLINA: My dad, he was a good cook,
so he would always make some stuff for my sister while he was here. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember getting
a phone call and I thought it was my dad, but it wasn't. Someone told me, your dad got shot.
You need to get over here. [OMINOUS MUSIC] I was like, stop playing with me. Who is this?
And they're like, no, I'm being serious. Your dad got shot. You need to get over here.
[GUNSHOTS] [BEEPING] [SIREN WAILING] SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: When I got there, I saw a man that had blood covering his shirt,
and I could tell that he had multiple injuries on his face. Had one gunshot wound in the side of his face and his cheek.
And I saw that a bullet had also grazed the other side of his face. And I was very concerned for his well-being.
And my main focus was to get him to sit down on the curb because I didn't want him to end up passing out
from the large amount of blood that was coming out of his mouth. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember we're getting out of the car.
And I saw my dad immediately. He was on the floor, sitting on the sidewalk, and I tried to run to him, and the police officers weren't
letting me go up to him. They told me there was too much blood, and the paramedics were handling the situation,
and Amber just being really upset and crying. Like, what if he dies and you won't let me talk to him?
Because my dad got shot in the face, he couldn't talk. So he was holding his hand to his cheek,
and with his other hand, he was just making little gestures to calm down. And he wasn't telling me, but he
was just signaling like, calm down, it's going to be OK. [SIREN WAILING] SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: The paramedics arrived
on scene to help Jorge. They spent a few minutes providing care to him there, and then they rushed him off to one of our local hospitals.
[TENSE MUSIC] DARLIN MOLINA: I got to the car and I immediately called Karen, saying, dad just got shot.
You need to go to the hospital. Go get mom. KAREN MOLINA: My first thoughts were like, is he conscious?
Is he not conscious? Is he going to need surgery? Like, what's going on? Is it that bad?
We didn't know what to think at the time. DET. JESSE ROMERO: Jorge was not able to communicate anything prior to being
taken to the hospital. He was not able to provide anything as far as what happened.
SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: Where did the rest of this crime take place? Everyone was telling us that a vehicle crash had
occurred in the nearby area. And then when I noticed a blood trail leading from where Jorge
had been speaking to us at, I followed that blood trail east, toward the intersection of 14th and Lewis
at the Los Pinos parking lot. SHAWN SANT: Law enforcement investigators were able to recognize that there was what appeared to be
a recent traffic accident. It was apparent that this black Cadillac Escalade had crashed
into the fence between a used car lot and a restaurant called Los Pinos. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: When I looked inside the car,
I saw blood. I could see grocery bags, and I saw bullet holes. The scene was telling me that Jorge had
just been involved in a crash. It was obvious that he had been shot while inside of that
vehicle, and then after the vehicle had crashed, he left and walked to where we found him at 15th and Lewis.
DARLIN MOLINA: The police start asking me, do you know who did this? Did your dad have any enemies?
Did he not get along with anybody? I was like, my dad was a great guy. I was like, I don't know who would want to do this.
KAREN MOLINA: Once we got to the hospital, Darlin was, you know, traumatized by the situation
just because she was the one to see my dad like that. DARLIN MOLINA: I was just still really confused.
I kept asking, can I get an update? Can you tell me what's going on' They kept telling me,
we're not sure. You have to wait for the doctor. - And I think it was after like about 10 minutes or so,
they were going to fly him out eventually to Spokane, Washington, to Sacred Heart Hospital.
- Upon further inspection at the hospital, it was determined that Jorge had been shot in the head.
The bullet had pierced his brain and his condition was serious, so therefore he was airlifted because Sacred Heart
is a Level III trauma center. [MELANCHOLY MUSIC] DARLIN MOLINA: Being taken to Sacred Heart in Spokane
was going to give him a higher chance of survival. I never thought my dad wouldn't pull through.
He was fully conscious at the scene. He looked fine. He was awake. In my head, my dad was going to be OK.
I packed him a bag with his favorite cologne, with his clothes, his favorite slippers, socks.
And I put it all in a duffel bag. It's going to be all OK the next day. And you know, it didn't turn out that way.
Spokane is about a two-hour drive from Pasco. When we got there, we went straight to the room.
My dad was in the ICU and he was asleep. They told us that my dad was in a coma.
It was pretty severe and his brain just had no more activity due to lack of oxygen.
KAREN MOLINA: Darlin was the one to, you know, communicate with everybody. She's the one that called everybody just to let
them like, what happened. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember being really mad at everybody.
And we're taking it out on the doctors, on the staff. I just kept saying like, how did you let this happen?
I remember even passing out and I got admitted because I was pregnant. It was just a really scary time and
we just weren't understanding the severity of it. [INTRIGUING MUSIC] DET. JESSE ROMERO: We saw security cameras
on Los pinos that pointed directly to the accident scene, so we knew that it more likely than not
captured what happened. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN (VOICEOVER): The Los Pinos parking lot surveillance footage
showed Jorge's vehicle going on Lewis and then crashing into the fence in the parking lot.
SHAWN SANT: They also saw a person come out and exit from the passenger side of the car,
and you were able to actually see this person have what appeared to be a weapon that they were
putting in their waistband. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: The video also showed Jorge get out of the vehicle
and begin walking away west in the road to where I later found him. The surveillance video also showed the suspect attempt
to remove the vehicle from the crash site, but he was not able to get the vehicle unstuck.
So then the video showed him flee the scene. DET. JESSE ROMERO: From slowing down the video,
we can actually see what we believe to be the actual gunshot within inside the vehicle
because there is a spark, and then obviously the vehicle is veering to its left and wrecking shortly after.
The fact that it's in black and white, it makes it difficult to fully identify our suspect.
DR. BRYANNA FOX: As a former FBI agent, I know firsthand that even in the 2020s, 2017 era, cameras,
while they're pretty much everywhere, the footage is not always that good. A lot of times it's grainy, it's difficult to identify,
especially from further away. DET. JESSE ROMERO: We have a suspect that is seen on security video, but we still have
to identify the individual. SHAWN SANT: Other family members didn't recognize who this person might be.
If this was a stranger encounter, where did they meet? DET. JESSE ROMERO: In this case,
we knew that he had been grocery shopping at Fiesta Foods. We were able to review the video.
We see our victim, Jorge, inside the store, and then we are able to identify the suspect also inside the store at the same time
that Jorge was there. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: The Fiesta Foods footage showed Jorge shopping, and then it
showed the suspect was observing Jorge as he did his shopping. SHAWN SANT: We weren't able to get a good shot at his face,
but we could see from the clothing it was similar. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: The video showed
when Jorge left the store that the suspect left as well. SHAWN SANT: It is unknown if they had an encounter out
in the parking lot, because there wasn't video surveillance available from the parking lot.
DET. JESSE ROMERO: We believe that when Jorge was putting away his groceries into his vehicle
and getting into his vehicle, the suspect took the opportunity to also get into the vehicle,
displaying the handgun to Jorge and forcing Jorge to exit the parking lot and travel
west bound on Lewis Street. [OMINOUS MUSIC] SHAWN SANT: The original information
was that the suspect had fled the scene, and they were pursuing leads and trying to locate this individual that was believed
to have been involved. KAREN MOLINA: The police were really great with us. They would let us know whatever was happening next.
They would contact Darlin like, every so often. They would, like, assure her pretty much
that they weren't going to stop until they tried to-- tried to find this person.
DR. BRYANNA FOX: Police released the footage that they were able to get from the CCTV.
An anonymous caller said, I recognize that person. SHAWN SANT: The person calling in said that this individual
told them that they used a 32-caliber handgun and shot somebody in Pasco. DR. BRYANNA FOX: That's an unusual caliber of weapon.
And the person that the anonymous caller had identified, Pedro Cadenas, had a juvenile record.
And in fact, he looked so similar to the image seen in that CCTV footage, all of it led police to think that this
was a very viable lead. [MELANCHOLY MUSIC] DARLIN MOLINA: After a certain amount of time at the hospital,
the doctor started explaining to us that he just wasn't waking up anymore. KAREN MOLINA: They were trying to tell
us that he's brain dead. And there's no going back from that. DARLIN MOLINA: The doctors gave us two options.
Option one was to pull the plug and put him into hospice care and let him pass away.
Or option two was to keep him plugged in, keep a feeding tube on him, and just hope one day he wakes up.
My parents were never legally married. So because I was next of kin, I was the one that
had to make the big decisions. And it upset me a lot because I just feel like it was just too much for me to be able to handle.
Like, I'm suffering the same way everybody else is. And the last thing I want to deal with
is being the one to pull the plug. KAREN MOLINA: My dad would always tell us that he would never want
to be in a vegetative state. If something were to happen to him, like, he would just
want us to like, let him go. DARLIN MOLINA: It really sucks being in a situation like that because you just
don't want to accept reality. When they gave us the options, I remember just saying,
he doesn't want to live this way. And as hard as it was for the whole family to accept that, that--
that was my decision. KAREN MOLINA: We decided to just take in a hospice home and live off the rest of his days there.
DARLIN MOLINA: And I remember talking about it with my mom and my sisters, and we ended up all agreeing.
And although it wasn't what the whole family wanted to hear, it was what the-- my immediate family and I decided.
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] DR. BRYANNA FOX: Nobody thinks when they're going to the grocery store,
particularly on such a great day, on July 4, that they would end up being the victim of murder
by a stranger. But that's exactly what happened to Jorge Rodriguez, and that really strikes fear in the community
because if he had it happen to them, it means it could happen to anybody. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: In the aftermath
of a shooting like this, the biggest fear is an officer is that the suspect would continue to go out into the community and hurt others.
So you want to capture them as quickly as possible. SHAWN SANT: One of the key witnesses
that ended up coming forward was the ex-girlfriend of our suspect. She observed the video sequence at Los Pinos.
So combined with his visual picture that was seen on the surveillance video, she was also able to say he also had that same walk.
DET. JESSE ROMERO: Pedro's girlfriend tells us that they were at a barbecue in Pasco on the 4th of July, that he showed
up with blood on his person. She asked him what happened. His statement to her was, I had to do it.
SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: When Detective Romero and his team were able to arrest Pedro and get him into custody,
it felt good knowing that he was not out in our community. He was not going to be able to hurt additional people.
SHAWN SANT: He was arrested for the assault against Jorge Rodriguez as well as the robbery charges.
When Pedro Cadenas was taken into custody, he did not provide any further statements
to law enforcement officers. KAREN MOLINA: We will always go to the arcade for Kimberly's birthday because during the winter,
I mean, it was always snowing, so we had to go somewhere inside. And that's where she liked to go all the time.
- Yeah, I remember that. KAREN MOLINA: Dad would always make sure we had fun somewhere,
especially in that timing. I mean, he wouldn't work too much because there was barely any work for any type of work
that he would do. But-- I mean, he made it work for all of us. DARLIN MOLINA: Yeah, I remember you guys loved going there,
but as I got older, I started hating it. KAREN MOLINA: Yeah. DARLIN MOLINA: [LAUGHS] Consider growing up,
we didn't have much, it was nice to be able to at least do this for her birthday every year.
- Yeah. - Where we used to love going there. - Yeah, we did. [EMOTIONAL MUSIC] It was about three weeks or so after the incident happened.
We were just trying to keep him like, you know, comfortable. That was the whole point of hospice,
just trying to keep them comfortable until the last of their days. It was, I guess, a little heartwarming sometimes
because like, we would grab his hand and like, we would feel his hand, like, kind of grab us.
They told us they could be like, you know, like, just like little muscle spasms and stuff.
But we like to believe it was like something else. [CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY] Just him trying to, like, let us know he was still there.
DARLIN MOLINA: The doctors would tell us that he couldn't hear us, but something in me
told me that he could hear us. I won't say what I said, but I remember telling him something,
and a teardrop fell from his eye. He heard me. [SIGHS] While my dad was in hospice, he wasn't getting better.
He was deteriorating day by day, and we can just tell that he was going to pass away soon.
KAREN MOLINA: We really didn't know, like, when to leave, when to stay, just because we really
didn't know if it was going to be, you know, his last day or something. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember my boyfriend had, like,
a party at his boss's house. My mom said, you should go. You need to get out of here.
I didn't want to leave because something told me something was going to happen, but
they were all insistent that I had to leave and get some fresh air. I remember going home to get ready,
and that's when Kimberly called me, my sister, and she told me that he passed away.
KAREN MOLINA: Eventually, he just stopped breathing out of nowhere. Um, I wasn't there, unfortunately.
I had literally left, like, a couple minutes prior to, like, you know, um, him passing away.
DARLIN MOLINA: It was kind of a sense of relief because I honestly don't know how I would
have reacted witnessing it. KAREN MOLINA: My mom took my dad's passing a little harder because of the way my younger sister reacted.
DARLIN MOLINA: The one that was hurt the most was Kimberly. Right. I was seeing her and she just got on top of him,
and she did not want to let him go. She was just sobbing and hugging him and just
seeing her that way, it made me so sad 'cause I was the oldest-- like, her older sister, I was just
trying to be strong for her. But I knew I had to be strong for everybody else, too.
And it just really sucked because I had never seen her that way. DR. BRYANNA FOX: It would have been tragic enough
if Jorge had just been carjacked and severely injured by gunfire, but the fact that he was taken off of life
support and died. [SIREN WAILING] [SOMBER MUSIC] Any evidence that they would have
been able to glean from him from eyewitness identification, that was gone now, and additionally,
this turned from an assault and a carjacking into a murder case. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember the detective calling to say
that an arrest had been made. - They told us who did it and how old he was. Pretty much everything that they knew.
SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: Pedro Cadenas was a 17-year-old man. The local police department here had some run-ins with him
in the past. DR. BRYANNA FOX: His father died when he was five. His mother, who was just 17 when she had him,
it was in and out of prison herself. Pedro was being raised by his older sister, who was just
a few years older than him. At age 11, he got into crystal meth, which is one of the most addictive drugs
and also very hard for people to essentially manage and function, let alone as a child.
So these are not excuses for his behavior, but at the same time, it helps explain
how a 17-year-old could go on to commit such a horrific crime. DARLIN MOLINA: He wanted to rob my dad
and unfortunately, the situation ended up badly for both of them. KAREN MOLINA: I do believe that he
was trying to fight this guy, like, in the truck when he was trying to steal it,
and I believe that's why he crashed the car, because he wasn't going to let somebody just take-- take
his car away, especially the truck that he worked so hard for. DARLIN MOLINA: After the arrest was made,
this was all over social media. I remember his sister posting that they had a rough upbringing and that's why he did what he did.
I understand that they had a rough upbringing, but that doesn't excuse what he did.
I feel like a lot of people have a rough upbringing and they don't go around killing people.
KAREN MOLINA: He was a complete stranger to us. With somebody like my age and, you know,
for him to do something so heinous, it's like-- yeah, it was shocking to us. [MELANCHOLY MUSIC]
DARLIN MOLINA: The days following his death were really hard with the funeral planning
and trying to get everybody together. And then on top of all of that, having to worry about money.
We definitely struggled financially to pay for the funeral. KAREN MOLINA: We'll always be, like, really grateful for,
like, the Mexican community, especially to know that they worked at a field, but everybody gave-- gave so much.
DARLIN MOLINA: They did fundraisers. They did raffles for us. They would put boxes around all the grocery stores.
I knew he had so many friends. I just didn't realize how much he meant to everybody.
I remember his coworkers coming up to me and saying that work just wasn't the same anymore,
that they missed hearing his cackle and his laugh every day. It felt like he was missing.
I feel like just being Mexican at the time made me really proud because it just showed me how supportive we are to one
another, because I don't know what I would have done without everybody's help. KAREN MOLINA: My dad's funeral was beautiful.
There was actually a band that were there that was playing music also. It was a beautiful thing to see.
DARLIN MOLINA: It's just a hard day. I remember everybody paid their respects. I was beyond thankful for anybody that showed up,
but I just remember being really hard for me. KAREN MOLINA: His family from Mexico
wasn't able to come, unfortunately. So we had to do everything over video chat. DARLIN MOLINA: Just hearing another son died that way.
Like, they just were devastated, especially knowing that my dad left Mexico not to be killed that way.
Shortly after my dad's death, we started noticing that my mom was really sad, but we didn't think much of it just because we were all sad.
She started throwing up a lot. KAREN MOLINA: She would get a lot of stomach pains,
and I feel like she kind of just ignored it 'cause she had other stuff to worry about.
DARLIN MOLINA: She would do anything not to go to the hospital. So I forced her to go, and I remember
that's pretty much when they told us that she had cancer and unfortunately, we caught it too late.
KAREN MOLINA: So it was pretty hard on us to find out that she was going to have
only, like, months to live. We're like, OK, we're going to go through this again.
[SPEAKING SPANISH] And she's, like, don't touch it. DAUGHTER 1: And my dad's, like, yeah, don't touch it.
KAREN MOLINA: Like, my mom was trying to tell us that my dad's, like, soul was trying to take her.
Yeah. [SOBS] DARLIN MOLINA: I remember her telling me that if he was there, he would treat her like a queen.
I know he would have been there all the time taking care of her. My mom passed away in October of 2018.
The only thing that gives me a little peace of mind is that they're both together now.
I really hope that they found each other and that they're happy wherever they are.
[SOMBER MUSIC] DR. BRYANNA FOX: It'd be one thing if Pedro Cadenas had shot and killed George Rodriguez, and
he felt very bad and very remorseful and had begged for forgiveness, but it couldn't
have been more opposite. This is a kid that was sort of wanting to live up to this,
you know, bad reputation, and was doing even more while he was in jail. He was assaulting guards, he was damaging the facility,
he was bragging about what he had done, really acting like, uh, nothing matters.
And if anything, he just wanted to have the street cred of being so bad and really didn't care what type
of consequences it brought. DET. JESSE ROMERO: Pedro was arrogant in trial. There was not a sign of remorse on his person.
SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: Pedro Cadenas was staring straight forward. He didn't show any emotion, didn't respond to my testimony
or to the video of me speaking with Jorge in any way. DARLIN MOLINA: I feel like he just
had this smug look in his face that he did nothing wrong. I remember just holding onto a lot of anger those days.
He not only hurt me, but he hurt my whole family. He not only took my dad away from me,
but he also took away my mom, because if we weren't so focused on what he caused with my dad,
we would have caught what happened to my mom sooner. [INTRIGUING MUSIC] SHAWN SANT: We all wanted justice for Jorge
because this was one of the most, I guess, sinister acts that we had seen, or at least that I
had personally witnessed. This person was willing to kill another person over a vehicle.
The fact is even more concerning-- is that it was done by a person that was 17 years of age at the time.
DET. JESSE ROMERO: You have a hard working individual that ends up being a victim of a horrific crime.
So in my opinion, this was a very senseless crime committed by Pedro. DR. BRYANNA FOX: After police put together
the best case they could with all of the evidence they had collected, a jury was able to return a guilty verdict and just half
a day of deliberations on November 26, 2018. DET. JESSE ROMERO: Pedro ruined multiple lies by his actions.
He ruined our victim's life, his entire family's life, and it could have been a contributing factor as to why
their mother passed early on. Pedro was sentenced to 36 years and two months. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: You do want to see the perpetrator go
away for a really long time. You don't want there to be an opportunity for them to get back out into society.
But the legal system is complicated, and 36 years is a very long time to go to prison.
DARLIN MOLINA: There was a sense of relief, but at the same time, I can't fathom the thought
that in a sense, I feel like he got away with it, because one day he's still going
to be able to walk among us. And I find that so unfair. [SOMBER MUSIC] DR. BRYANNA FOX: It's difficult enough
to have people come face to face with the killer in court. It's even worse in this case, as the offender is a juvenile.
So reconciling all of that in their minds, I'm sure was extremely difficult. SGT. CHAD PETTIJOHN: When a case like this
happens, as a police officer you want to say it doesn't affect you at all, or maybe it only affects you a little bit because you
want to stay strong. But a case like this does affect you, and it does stay with you.
You do remember Jorge bleeding and you do remember his daughter showing up and being hysterical, understandably, at the scene.
And you do remember how their family was destroyed. DET. JESSE ROMERO: It's a difficult case
to investigate, knowing that it's somebody that's so young and knowing his actions
and what his actions caused. It's one that I won't forget. DARLIN MOLINA: My dad, he was 51.
He was really young. And then my mom was also super young. I just feel like it wasn't their time.
[EMOTIONAL MUSIC] In a sense, our parents babied us a lot and at the same time, they taught us so much and they wanted us to do well in life.
So in a way, they prepared us, but in a way it kind of sucked losing them. I just wish they would be here.
KAREN MOLINA: We all had children after my dad passed away, so unfortunately my dad was never
able to meet any of our kids. DARLIN MOLINA: I remember when I told him I was pregnant,
he was like, is it for sure now? I had miscarried before, and he's like, OK, I don't want you lifting anything heavy.
I don't want you running around everywhere, all over the place, like, you need to lay down.
KAREN MOLINA: He was excited. He even went out of his way to, you know, grab some little slippers for his first grandchild.
[CHUCKLES] DARLIN MOLINA: I feel like my dad would have been such a great grandfather.
I feel like I would barely see my kids because my dad would always be taking them.
[LAUGHS] Like, my dad would be showering them with gifts and you-- just always being there for them.
I feel like the same way we grew up would be the same way he would treat his grandkids,
if not even better. KAREN MOLINA: He's here in spirit, and I know he's watching over them.
DAUGHTER 2: Oh my god. - [SPEAKING SPANISH] Oh my gosh. [CHATTER] DARLIN MOLINA: I miss him so much because it'd
be nice to just get one more phone call from him and just answer it. [SOFT PIANO MUSIC]
Holidays haven't been the same. Birthdays haven't been the same. Any type of gathering hasn't been the same.
And I just feel like it'll never be the same again. KAREN MOLINA: I'll always miss those times where
we were just hanging out. I would come in, like, you know, help out, we're here in the yard or just cleaning his truck.
I adore my dad. I'll always adore my dad. He's just not here anymore. DARLIN MOLINA: The only message I
can give others that have gone through something similar is to just keep pushing every day and be strong.
You will think about it every day, but you just have to find something in your life
that's worth fighting for. And just remember that your loved one would want you to keep going and remember them
and appreciate the life that they didn't get to live. [THEME MUSIC] [AUDIO LOGO]

On July 4th, Jorge Rodriguez is driving to the supermarket to buy food for the celebrations. Suddenly, he is shot in the head by a complete stranger.

Murdered At First Sight is a true crime documentary series that tells the first-hand stories of the most complex and hard-to-solve homicide cases: murders committed by strangers.

Brief Summary

Jorge Rodriguez was shot and killed during a robbery, deeply affecting his family and community.

Key points

A Father's Love. Darlin Molina shares how her father always found ways to make them happy despite financial struggles.
The Incident. On July 4, Darlin receives a shocking call about her father's shooting.
A Difficult Decision. Darlin faces the heartbreaking choice of her father's end-of-life care.
The Arrest. Pedro Cadenas is arrested for the assault against Jorge Rodriguez, bringing some closure.
A Tragic Goodbye. Darlin Molina recalls the moment she learned of her father's passing.
The Impact of Loss. The family struggles with the aftermath of their father's murder and the financial burden of the funeral.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There wasn't much money, but there was a lot of love.

Darlin Molina reflects on her family's values.

1:12WatchSep 26, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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