Helen Rodriguez recently pulled her car over because she couldn’t see the street through her tears after seeing a blue Cadillac, the same kind of car her murdered son used to own.
Another time, she started bawling uncontrollably at a KFC drive-through window when she recalled a moment with her son, Desiderio Rodriguez Sr., 32, before he was gunned down.
“You can’t tell everyone why you are crying,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, 58, also can’t forget what happened Nov. 8, 2004, on the sidewalk outside Sebastian’s Grill in the 100 block of South Broadway. She hopes it will be harder for others to forget as well.
On Sunday, a light blue sign erected a few days ago on the west corner of Broadway and Maple Avenue will be dedicated by members of the Denver-area branch of Families of Murdered Children.
She said it’s the first such sign in the country, mirroring similar memorial signs at locations where victims of drunken drivers were killed.
“Stop Violence, Choose Peace; In loving memory of Desiderio Rodriguez Sr.,” says the sign, illustrated with a broken heart.
After she spent years prodding and collecting petition signatures from owners of businesses on the same street, Denver city officials authorized and paid for the street sign, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez’s son was working as a bartender at a friend’s bar to make some extra money so he could buy a Christmas present for his son, Desiderio Rodriguez Jr., when a fight broke out in the bar over a football game. William Lee Davenport, 36, was expelled from the bar.
Davenport went to a nearby bar and plotted the shooting. Though bartenders overheard the exchange he had with his brother, they didn’t call police. Such inaction is something Rodriguez hopes to discourage in the future by speaking out about her son’s murder.
Davenport later said he shot Desiderio Rodriguez because he was disrespected.
“I can’t comprehend that,” Helen Rodriguez said, weeping.
Davenport was sentenced to life in prison for the murder.
She hopes people will think of her son’s sign for a moment before killing a complete stranger over a trivial conflict.
Joe Cannata, a leader of Families of Murdered Children, who helped Rodriguez get her sign, said the city will soon have a wall with the names of all murder victims near the new crime laboratory at 1331 Cherokee St.
The hole in the heart of grieving parents of murdered children never mend, Cannata said. He said he hopes other signs will be erected throughout Denver remembering murder victims.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, or
