GUILTY NY - Patricia Rodriguez, 21, found slain, Lackawanna, 13 April 1979

The testimony came during a pretrial hearing on a bid by defense attorneys for Michael Rodriguez to suppress his April 13, 1979, statement to police and evidence seized from his apartment after the body of Patty Rodriguez was found earlier that Good Friday in Lackawanna’s Holy Cross Cemetery with 108 stab wounds...

One of the key pieces of evidence, a brown leather jacket seized from the defendant’s apartment on Fernald Avenue in Lackawanna the day after the body was found, came up during Wednesday’s hearing. Sophisticated DNA testing allegedly detected traces of the victim’s blood on it, according to police sources.

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Jurors saw graphic pictures of what Patty Rodriguez looked like when a cemetery worker found her body around 8 a.m. on Good Friday, 1979. Family members in court cried when the worker told jurors the dirt around her body was ripped up and he said it looked like “she went through a battle.”

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Prosecutors presented powerful testimony in 60-year-old Michael Rodriguez’s murder trial Monday, which moved many observers in the courtroom to tears. There were five witnesses that testified on Monday, including two of Rodriquez’s ex-girlfriends.

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It took a jury less than three hours Friday afternoon to convict Michael Rodriguez in a 35-year-old murder that four Erie County prosecutors had refused to take.

An Erie County jury convicted the 60-year-old Rodriguez of second-degree murder in the death of his estranged wife, Patricia, in a Lackawanna cemetery on Good Friday in 1979. The 21-year-old mother of two was stabbed more than 100 times.

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After a jury convicted Michael Rodriguez on Friday of killing his estranged wife 35 years ago, the victim’s diminutive, elderly mother threw her arms around State Police Senior Investigator Christopher Weber, a giant of a man.

Weber is a giant in the eyes of Patricia Scinta for his drive and compassion in seeing to it that justice was finally delivered for her daughter, whose case languished for decades in an evidence locker and file cabinet at the Lackawanna Police Station, despite periodic attempts to interest prosecutors.

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Michael Rodriguez was not the only loser Friday when he was convicted of murdering his estranged wife in a cold case dating back 35 years. Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III also took a hit for his refusal to prosecute the case. And Sedita is the first to agree.

“I have a couple sentiments about the verdict,” Sedita said Saturday. “I made a judgment about the case, and I have to say I’ve never been so happy to say that I was wrong about something. I’m kind of angry at myself in retrospect for having made the wrong judgment...

Even though Schneiderman thanked Sedita for helping to prosecute Rodriguez, the district attorney has been the target of many area police who have accused him of placing unrealistic demands on them to provide an avalanche of evidence before taking a case to trial.

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An Erie County Court jury found Michael Rodriguez guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his estranged wife 108 times more than 35 years ago in a Lackawanna cemetery...

Rodriguez bowed his head and looked at the table in front of him and his current wife, who was sitting in the front row, cried. He is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 21. He faces a minimum of 15 years to life and a maximum of 25 to life.

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Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that Michael Rodriguez, convicted last month of the brutal murder of his estranged wife, Patricia Scinta Rodriguez, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in Erie County Supreme Court

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