A GRIEVING mum has admitted she has forgiven her husband after he accidentally killed their twins by leaving them in a hot car for eight hours.
Marissa Rodriguez has described how “everything shattered” that day when her husband Juan, 39, left their one-year-old twins Luna and Phoenix on the backseat by mistake.
She admits that her relationship with her husband has changed but says she has forgiven him since.
Rodriguez avoided prison after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges with the judge branding the case a “tragic, unfortunate incident”.
She told 7news : “I realised Juan and I grieve in very different ways. I like to look at photos of happier times. He does not.
“But we are both in agreement that we focus on the twins’ lives, their birthdays and fun memories, and try not to focus on their death or the loss.
“I know Juan would have never hurt our children intentionally. My goal was then to keep him out of jail.”
The tragic incident happened in July 2019, when Juan accidentally left the two babies at the back of his Honda Accord in the Bronx around 8am before work.
Ms Rodriguez recalls that day she was at work when her husband called to ask her to pick up the tots from daycare.
She agreed and carried on with her work but she started to get worried when she saw she had several missed calls and messages.
She said: “I answered that time to hear him repeatedly say: ‘My love, oh my God, my love… I killed the babies’. He said the same thing over and over. And I just kept saying ‘no, no, no. It’s not true’.”
“The moment I heard the news, I honestly could not believe what Juan was telling me was real.
“I could tell how much panic and pain was in his voice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it.”
The twins were later found dead as the temperature rose to 30C in New York that day.
The New York Post reported at the time that the kids had an internal temperature of 42C when a coroner examined them in the car.
Rodriguez is said to have told cops at the scene: “I assumed I dropped them off at day care before I went to work.
“I blanked out. My babies are dead! I killed my babies!”
Rodriguez who had been free on bail since his arrest was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge in June 2020.
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