In a heartbreaking turn of events, 11-year-old Chadal Rodriguez, her 13-year-old sister Arianny Rodriguez, and their 9-year-old brother Carlos Rodriguez were found deceased on May 8, 2024, in a suspected murder-suicide in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The three siblings were discovered inside a car at Lucky Shoals Park.
The children's mother, Karina Rodriguez, had allowed her ex-boyfriend, 56-year-old Jose Plasencia, to take the three children to get something to eat while she was at the hospital with another child she shared with him. Plasencia was not the father of Chadal, Arianny, or Carlos. This would be the last time their mother saw her three eldest children alive.
A Gwinnett County police officer on a routine patrol of Lucky Shoals Park around 1 a.m. noticed a car parked on a pedestrian walkway and found it unusual for that time of night. The officer received no response when calling out to the occupants of the vehicle. Upon approaching the car, the officer discovered the bodies of the three children and Plasencia inside. All four individuals had been shot.
The investigation concluded that Jose Plasencia shot and killed the three siblings before turning the gun on himself. Since the sole suspect in the murders took his own life, no arrests were made in connection with the deaths of Chadal, Arianny, and Carlos Rodriguez. Their mother, who described her children as her world, expressed her devastation and sought help to return her 'three little angels' to her native Dominican Republic for burial.
