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On the second anniversary of her daughter’s brutal death, Evelyn Rodriguez returned to the Long Island, New York, spot where she was killed.
The sun shone brightly as she lay candles, balloons and a large floral wreath next to a grinning photograph of 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas.
Hours later, 50-year-old Rodriguez learned that the vigil she’d left in honor of Kayla had gone.
She returned to the scene and – after a brief altercation – Rodriguez was run over by the woman who had dismantled her daughter’s memorial.
The grieving mother was killed – in the exact spot where her daughter was killed, on the exact same day of the year.
But the horrific turn of events wasn’t over the family.
Six years later, the woman who plowed into Rodriguez was spared all jail time over her death.
“There will still be no peace in me or my family’s heart,” Rodriquez’s daughter Kelsey Cuevas, 26, said at the court, according to CBS News.
MS-13 murder
The tragic turn of events began in 2016.
Kayla and her best friend Nisa Mickens, 15, were embroiled in a feud with a fellow schoolmate, who was a member of La Mara Salvatrucha – more commonly know, MS-13.
Born from impoverished neighborhoods of Los Angeles in the 1980s, the group initially comprised of Salvadoran immigrants.
Today, the violent transnational gang is approximately 80,000-strong and is considered one of most ruthless groups in the criminal underworld abiding by its twisted motto: “Kill, rape, control.”
Suffolk County has been a hotbed for MS-13 activity for more than two decades, with federal authorities claiming the group is responsible for more than two dozen murders in Long Island since 2013.
Onn September 14, 2016, a group of gang members including Enrique Portillo were patroling the Hispanic neighborhood of Brentford in their car when they spotted Kayla and Nisa.
They chased the two best friends with machetes and baseball bats.
The two teens were brutally slashed and bludgeoned to death.
Kayla’s body was found the next day behind a house.
Following her daughter’s death, Rodriguez became a symbol in the fight against MS-13 gang violence.
The grieving knocked on doors, pestered the police and, eventually, made in-roads with then-president Donald Trump.
Kayla’s murder became a defining moment in the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, gangs and “violent animals of MS-13”.
In January 2018, Rodriguez was a guest at Trump’s State of the Union address.
The grip MS-13 had held on Long Island ultimately began to loosen thanks to Rodriguez’s unwavering determination.
Portillo later pleaded guilty to the two murders in September 2023. MS-13 leader Alexi Saenz also pleaded guilty to charges over his involvement in the killings last month.
Tragedy strikes twice
One day before the second anniversary of the murders, Rodriguez featured in a five-minute segment on Fox & Friends campaigning against gang violence in schools.
Less than 24 hours later, on September 14, 2018, she had returned to the spot in Brentford to set up a memorial for her daughter.
The sidewalk outside the house had long been frequented by mourners who would light candles and pour drinks in memory of the slain teens.
The woman who lived in the property had had enough of the gatherings and had moved out, leaving her daughter Annmarie Drago to sell the house, according to her lawyers.
Fed up, Drago – a nurse from Patchogue – dismantled the memorial and placed it in the back of her car.
After learning that Drago had pulled down the vigil, Rodriguez returned to the scene and confronted her while she was pulling out of her driveway in her white Nissan Rogue.
The nurse began to accelerate – and Rodriguez began to scream.
Drago struck Rodriguez on the foot with the car’s front tire causing her to flip onto the pavement.
Drago continued driving, running over Rodriguez with her back tire, fatally crushing her.
Rodriguez was pronounced dead minutes after arriving at hospital.
The horrific scene was all captured on video by a local news crew and later confirmed by the Suffolk County prosecutor’s office.
Donald Trump tweeted about her death: “My thoughts and prayers are with Evelyn Rodriguez this evening, along with her family and friends.”
The trial
That November, Drago was indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide.
She was tried in February 2020, where the court was forced to watch the tragic video on repeat.
She was convicted and sentenced to nine months behind bars but served just one week before she was released on bail pending appeal.
A high court then overturned Drago’s conviction in 2022 and ordered a retrial after ruling that the prosecutor made “improper comments during summation”.
Prosecutors then retried her that October, and a jury was deadlocked on the charge.
She returned to court in 2023 to stand trial where her lawyer Matthew Hereth described Rodriguez’s death as a “tragic accident”.
Then in May, Drago pleaded guilty to a charge of criminally negligent homicide before she count be retried for a third time.
The family of both Rodriguez and Cuevas said they have been forced to relieve their deaths each day due to the seemingly never-ending trials.
Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of one to three years but, on Tuesday, a judge told the 63-year-old she would not face any jail time at all.
She stood in the courtroom emotionless as she was handed five years’ probation.
Rodriguez and Kayla’s loved ones wept. It was not the outcome they had hoped for.
“I will never forgive you for what you did,” one of Rodriguez’s surviving daughters, Kaitlyn Cuevas, 14, said in the court.
Kelsey told The New York Times she feels like she hasn’t even been able to mourn her mom yet.
“When does it end?” she asked.
“When can I sit here and grieve in peace?”
For her and the other loved ones of Rodriguez and Kayla, the house in Brentford – although now repainted – still stands as a constant reminder of their tragic deaths.
