"Trini" Rodriguez taught his teenage daughter to play the guitar. (Special to the Press-Enterprise)
The San Bernardino Homicide Watch blog will occasionally feature stories of the men and women killed on city streets. This entry looks at the aborted redemption efforts of 2008’s fourth victim.
By Paul LaRocco
Fatigue from years of struggling to survive in and out of prison defined Trinidad Rodriguez’s poetry.
“I’m no longer afraid of death,” he wrote in one posted on his MySpace profile. “It will be a deliverance for me/For since my youth/Misery and anguish have been my constant companions.”
Along those lines, detectives’ account of the night Rodriguez was killed does little to erase the image of a hardened man living a tormented life.
The 31-year-old victim made an advance toward the female friend of a man he had just met, threatened the man, and was ultimately stabbed in the chest with a hunting knife, according to a search warrant affidavit.
San Bernardino police officers arrived on North Mountain Avenue early on Jan. 13 to find the onetime parolee with tattoos down to his hands slowly dying.
It was not a homicide that would enflame the public or the politicians. No stray bullets or unintended targets here.
But a month later, the mother of his children wants it known that the man everyone called “Trini” was not a simple statistic or a one-dimensional ex-con.
Rodriguez, she said, was a quiet guitar player who passed along the skill to his 14-year-old daughter; a poet who amassed nearly 50 writings while incarcerated; and most importantly — someone who strived for redemption.
“He was so many things, but he was such a firm believer in second chances,” said 31-year-old Audrey Montano, Rodriguez’s ex-wife who later reconciled with him. “He was just a very humble person.”
(Special to the Press-Enterprise)
Other than a December arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, Rodriguez, a Redlands resident, had stayed away from trouble following his parole from prison more than four years ago, Montano said.
He had served nearly eight years on a 1995 conviction for second-degree murder, according to state Department of Corrections records. Montano said she does not know details of that case from Yucaipa, as it occurred during a time the two were not talking.
A summary of that case was not immediately available.
“When he came home to my children and I back in October of 2003, he was truly a changed human being,” Montano wrote in a recent e-mail. “His mentality and drive to be a better person was so strong that he cried with emotion at times because he vowed to NEVER go back to prison, to do right and be the father & husband that we had missed out on.”
Montano recalled meeting “Trini” when both were 15, and noticed that he already had a “13” tattoo on his hand, likely from a teenage gang affiliation. But she also immediately saw a “big teddy bear” — a man whose demeanor belied his appearance.
Within two years they were dating, and almost immediately, Rodriguez became a father figure to Montano’s now 15-year-old daughter, Anissa.
A year later, they had their own child, Lisa.
Before and after his time in prison, Rodriguez worked jobs ranging from a mechanic’s assistant to a car detailer. Montano recalls how he’d become frustrated when employers blanched at his gap-filled resume and lack of high school diploma.
“I used to tell him, ‘Sweetie, I know it’s hard but just go back to school and forget about work. I can support us,’” Montano said. “It was just one of those things where things got the best of him.”
Rodriguez moved to Las Vegas late last year in an attempt to change his luck, Montano said, but often saw his children and talked to his ex-wife regularly. The weekend he was killed he was in town to visit friends and family.
After a trip to San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino near Highland, Rodriguez caught a ride home with a man and two women he did not come with, police have said. During the ride, Rodriguez made an advance toward one of the women, according to the affidavit from Detective John Munoz.
That angered the driver, Lynell Leonard Page, who then told Rodriguez to leave the woman alone, Munoz wrote. But Rodriguez responded by threatening Page, Munoz wrote.
When the car arrived outside Page’s home in San Bernardino, he and Rodriguez got out of the car and fought, Munoz wrote. Page is then accused of running up to his apartment and returning with a large knife he used to stab the victim, police have said.
Rodriguez tried getting back inside the car but was left on the roadside where police found him, Munoz wrote.
The next day, the 31-year-old Page was arrested and a hunting knife with blood on it was recovered from his apartment, according to the affidavit. Page has since been charged with murder.
"Trini" with his family (Special to the Press-Enterprise)
Montano said she has received few details about what occurred the night her ex-husband was killed. She is struggling to understand why Rodriguez got in a car with people he didn’t know for a ride to San Bernardino.
But as she follows the case through court, she has turned Rodriguez’s MySpace profile into a memorial, highlighting his passion for music — everything from hard rock like Korn to reggae to country.
“I think that’s why we were meant for each other,” Montano said. “We were music junkies: give us a live show and we were there.”
She also noted a phrase that Rodriguez always said would go on his headstone.
“When my time comes to its end, please do not weep at my demise. At last, for I have escaped death, and stumbled upon life’s surprise.”
