Grief can lead us to do extraordinary things. In the case of Miriam Rodriguez, the kidnapping and murder of her 20-year old daughter set her on a path of the relentless pursuit of justice. With nothing but a handgun, a fake ID, and several disguises, Rodriguez spent years going after her daughter’s killers, tracking them down one by one until they could answer for their crimes. She built a reputation as a human rights activist not just for her efforts to find her daughter’s killers, but for the ways in which she helped other parents whose children had gone missing.
While her story is incredible, it begins the same way that countless other stories of violence and grief begin. Miriam’s daughter, Karen Rodriguez, first went missing in 2012. Although Miriam paid ransom for her daughter and followed the kidnappers instructions to the letter, it wasn’t enough. Tragically, her remains were discovered two years later in 2014. It’s a story that many parents who have lost their children to gang violence know deeply, but in this case, it set Miriam off on a path few had tread before.
Angry and fed up with the lack of justice delivered for killings like her daughter’s, Miriam spent the next three years of her life tracking down the people responsible for the kidnapping and murder of her daughter. She cut and dyed her hair, disguising herself as health workers and election officials to obtain the names and addresses of the killers. She talked her way into meeting the killers’ families so that she could find out details about them. She kept track of everything in detail, collecting evidence until she could track them down one after the other.
She caught one killer selling sunglasses on the street. Like something out of a movie, she chased him down the street, cornering him with her handgun until the police arrived to arrest him. She tracked one of her daughter’s killers to a chapel where he attended service, arranging for his arrest during Sunday service. Between 2014 and 2017, she caught almost every single member of the group that had kidnapped her daughter.
While her efforts were instrumental in fighting gang-related violence, they sadly put a target on her back. After some of the gang’s members escaped from prison, she made a request to the government for armed guards. Tragically, she was eventually murdered in her home on Mother’s Day in 2017. Armed men broke into her home and shot her 12 times. Her husband found her clinging to life, and she died on the way to the hospital.
Miriam’s legacy has forever changed her city of San Fernando, inspiring the community to work together to combat gang violence. The group she had started, the Colectivo de Desaparecidos (The Vanished Collective), got taken over by her son, Luis. Townspeople gathered to pay respect to the woman who had changed the community and inspired them to fight back. Miriam may be gone, but the movement she’s inspired lives on.
