Although a blood-covered frying pan was found at the scene where an Española man died of blunt trauma to his head, the state Office of the Medical Investigator has ruled his death was not necessarily a homicide, according to the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department.
The Office recently released an autopsy report that stated Bobby Rodriguez’s manner of death was undetermined.
“Given that the circumstances surround (sic) the head injury are uncertain, the manner of death is best certified as undetermined,” Chief Medical Investigator Ross Zumwalt wrote in the autopsy report.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department investigator Wayne Salazar said the Office’s ruling means he will have to establish whether Rodriguez was murdered in October 2008 at his North Prince Drive home.
“Their autopsies are based on forensics evidence, so we rely heavily on their opinion,” Salazar said. “They indicated blunt force trauma could mean that he fell, or that he was hit with something, which is going to cause us some problems.”
The Sheriff’s Department did not release its own report on the incident until more than four months after Rodriguez’s death. Rodriguez, 52, had died Oct. 15 at St. Vincent Hospital, two days after suffering a brain injury and a fractured skull. Deputy Billy Merrifield turned in the incident report last month, not until after the autopsy report was released Feb. 16. Autopsy reports are usually released months after the police report since the former are a detailed document recording external and internal examination of the body, microscopic tissue analysis and toxicology testing. Merrifield’s report was made available only after the SUN filed a complaint for failure to produce the public record.
Merrifield’s report discloses new details that throw suspicion on Rodriguez’s girlfriend, Kimberly Sandlin. Sandlin had called 911 Oct. 13 to report Rodriguez was bleeding from a gash on the back of his head and had an injury near his eye.
Sandlin was highly intoxicated when she was questioned by deputies the night of Rodriguez’s death, the report states. She told deputies she was watching television at Rodriguez’s house when she heard her dog whimpering, looked out the window and saw Rodriguez in the yard, lying unresponsive and face up, the report states. She dragged Rodriguez inside the house, put a sheet on his head, and called 911. She couldn’t plausibly explain how drops of blood ended up in a bedroom far from the front entrance where first responders found him, the report states. Sandlin claimed the blood was from earlier in the day, when she said Rodriguez had a bloody nose.
Also peculiar was the fact that Sandlin said she exited the house through a window after seeing Rodriguez, because only he had the key to a padlock that secured the front door. Deputies questioned why Rodriguez was found inside by first responders when she said she found him outside, but she told them she didn’t want him lying outside bleeding. No mention is made of whether she found the key to open the padlock. However, the autopsy report states abrasions on Rodriguez’s body are consistent with being dragged into the house.
“Medical personnel appeared to believe Bobby Rodriguez was battered with an unknown object to cause such an injury,” Merrifield wrote in his report.
The frying pan was taken into evidence. Sandlin is the only suspect in the case, Salazar said.
Three days after Rodriguez’s death, Sandlin was arrested and charged with breaking and entering and criminal trespassing after a neighbor saw her enter Rodriguez’s house in a separate incident. Deputies at the scene could hear a voice inside a bedroom. However Sandlin didn’t come out when they ordered her to, so they kicked the door open and found her highly intoxicated.
Sandlin has been charged in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court and has not been indicted. Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Thwaits said last week that Sandlin’s case was being screened for possible presentation to a grand jury. She is currently free.
Thwaits said she hadn’t seen a report of Rodriguez’s death, but didn’t rule out the possibility it had been received by her office.
Merrifield’s report also contains details about the last hours of Rodriguez’s life before he was injured and hospitalized. At around 9 a.m. Oct. 13, Rodriguez’s friend gave him and Sandlin a ride to Gallegos Recycling, where they cashed in cans and received $10.50. They got a ride to Walgreens and bought beer, picked up a $55 refund check from Mr. Carpet, cashed the check at Allsup’s, then returned to Walgreens for more beer.
The three returned to Rodriguez’s house and stayed there until 4 or 5 p.m., when Rodriguez and the friend left to work on windows at an unknown location. Sandlin told the deputies she didn’t see Rodriguez again until she found him unconscious outside the house at 9:30 p.m.
The report states Rodriguez was transported from Española Hospital to St. Vincent Hospital. Alcohol, the sleep aid Ambien, the antidepressant Zoloft and a metabolite of the anti-anxiety medication Diazepam were found in his blood, along with injectable painkillers commonly administered to patients before surgery, according to the toxicology report produced after his death.