Ties That Bind

Assigning guilt by association is as American as motherhood, apple pie, and Chevrolet. The thinking goes something like this—if X is a bad person, and you are somehow tied to X, then you must be a bad person, too. This becomes especially true if those ties are familial, and person X is accused of a crime considered so heinous that the governor wants to bring back the death penalty because of it. In fact, in the eyes of some, you must be even worse than the accused if you are part of the family that spawned such a monster.

Just ask Angela Dellatorre, sister of Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., the accused murderer of Dru Sjodin. Dellatorre, who asked that I not use her real name, lives near New York City and called me after she heard about a previous column about the level of publicity generated by the search for Dru Sjodin, compared to cases involving missing women of color.

“I had to thank you,” she began, “for not writing something that trashed my family the way the press has in the Grand Forks area.” I replied that I did not necessarily write a piece supporting Alfonso Rodriguez. I simply wanted to point out that the blond, blue-eyed Sjodin’s disappearance garnered far more media coverage than the disappearance of a black or Mexican woman ever has in Minnesota.

“I understand that. Still, by pointing out that race makes a difference in how people have viewed this, you were supportive. You cannot imagine how hard this has been on my family, especially my mother, who is seventy-two years old.” Angela said there is a gag order that prevents her family in Crookston from talking to the media. However, she added, “the gag order has not stopped the people in Crookston and Grand Forks from writing the most hateful things you can imagine about our family to the local newspaper. Hearing all this stuff just reminds me how tough it was growing up poor and Mexican in Crookston. Our family was never really accepted in that town.”

How did the Rodriguezes end up in such an inhospitable part of the country? Angela’s parents were migrant workers who came north every spring from Laredo, Texas, to pick vegetables. “Eventually, they got tired of the back-and-forth and decided to put down roots in northern Minnesota,” she said. “We were one of the first Mexican families in town. I am not making excuses for Alfonso or anything like that, but it was hell. I cannot count how many times we were called ‘dirty Mexicans.’ We were a different color and lowly migrant workers. We got harassed in school constantly. I remember a teacher telling me, ‘I am sure that someday I will see you barefoot and pregnant with a bunch of babies.’ Within a year of graduating from Crookston Central High School I was on my way to the East Coast, vowing to never come back to live. And I have kept my vow.”

Angela continued: “We have a good family. My mother was a wonderful mother—quiet, gentle, and hard-working. She and my dad raised five kids—three girls and two boys. My brother who lives on the West Coast has a good job and so do the three girls. Two of my sisters have college degrees.”

Angela’s summary of her family’s accomplishments had one painfully obvious omission—Alfonso. As much as I wanted to, I carefully avoided directly asking about the Dru Sjodin accusations. And Angela, at some intuitive level, sensed my curiosity. Whenever the conversation drifted too close to the events of the past six months, she wearily said, “I do not know if I should be talking to you.” At one point, Angela whispered, “They are putting my family though hell up there. My poor mother… she has beat cancer twice, but this is killing her. She says now that she does not want to live anymore. My sister who lives in Crookston tells me that her three kids get tormented at school every day. What are we going to do, Mr. Collins?”

Unfortunately, the destruction of the family and close associates of a notorious accused person is simply considered “collateral damage,” especially if the victim is a member of a socially privileged group and the accused is not. I cannot offer any advice to Angela Dellatorre and her family. I can’t even assure them that things will get better for them. Because in the months to come, now that the feds are prosecuting Rodriguez and will most certainly ask for the death penalty, they’re bound to get worse.