NY mom opens up to Dr. Phil about the moment her husband told her he accidentally left their twin babies in hot car
A mother has opened up about the horrific day she learned her twin babies Luna and Phoenix had died after being left in a hot car by their veteran father who thought he had dropped them off at daycare in New York City.
In a recent episode of Dr. Phil scheduled to air Thursday, November 14, Marissa sat down with Dr. Phil McGraw and spoke to him about her ordeal, People reports.
The emotional mother fought back tears as she remembered how her husband, Iraq war vet Juan Rodriguez, called her on July 26 to reveal the shattering news.
“I was working,” Marissa said. “The first call was at about 4 or so. He told me, ‘Alright, it’s your turn to pick up the kids.’ He was going to a military event. He generally brought the kids to daycare but we switched off who picked them up. So I said, ‘No problem.’ I was still working for another hour at least.”
Marissa then phoned a client before her husband called her again.
“I kind of just ignored it because I was working,” she told Dr. Phil. “I realized he left me a voicemail which he doesn’t normally do. He called again, so I said, ‘Okay, it’s important.’ I got off the phone [with my client] … I heard him say they were gone.”
While Juan Rodriguez has been charged and arraigned for the deaths of their one-year-old twins Luna and Phoenix, prosecutors are still mulling whether they should pursue a case against him and are yet to present it to a grand jury for indictment.
Speaking to People in August, Bronx District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy said prosecutors can present a case to a grand jury until late December before they can move to indict Juan.
“We are not presenting to a grand jury at this time,” O’Shaughnessy said at the time. “We still need to conduct the investigation. We have to make sure that we know all the facts and everything that happened.”
On the tragic day, Juan had worked at the James J Peters VA Hospital in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx before returning to his car. He realized his kids were in the back seat only after crossing two blocks and looking at his rearview mirror.
The embattled father immediately pulled over, only to find the twins were unresponsive and foaming at the mouth. “I blanked out,” Juan told responding officers at the time. “My babies are dead. I killed my babies.”
The veteran subsequently pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
Marrissa, who wants other parents to learn from her tragic tale, told Dr. Phil in the highly anticipated episode why she chose to stand by her husband in the wake of their loss.