Relatives Think Man’s Jealousy Led Him to Kill Wife, Children

An all-consuming jealousy led a Hollywood man to kill his wife and three children, before shooting himself, relatives of the victims theorized Monday.

Police said Rodolfo Meinguer, a 40-year-old butcher, apparently killed his three children, Rodolfo, Jr., 8, Rosalyn, 6, and Joe, 3, and common-law wife, Maria Ortiz, 28, sometime Friday night. However, police did not discover the murders until Sunday afternoon.

“He probably didn’t kill himself until late Saturday night or Sunday,” homicide Detective Russell Kuster said.

The bodies were found on the ground floor of the family’s North Normandie Avenue apartment after Ortiz’s sister, Graciela Moto, tried to make contact after not hearing from Ortiz for two days. She called the police, who needed the help of firefighters Sunday to break down the apartment’s steel-frame door, which had been bolted from the inside.

“He was jealous, too jealous,” Moto, 22, said of Meinguer, who like Ortiz was a Mexican immigrant. “My sister was very pretty, and he was crazy because of his jealousy.”

About a month earlier, Moto said, Meinguer “was talking to me about killing his children. But I didn’t take it seriously because he was drunk.”

Co-workers at the Alpha Beta supermarket on Sunset Boulevard near Western Avenue, where Meinguer worked, said they were shocked at the events concerning the well-liked man they called “Rudy.” A relief butcher was on duty because Meinguer’s co-workers “feel so sad, they called in sick,” said one worker, who asked not to be identified.

People knew Meinguer was having domestic difficulties, produce worker Jack Corey said. “He’d been down and out lately, very unhappy.” But Meinguer didn’t provide details, Corey added. “He’d stand here talking to me in the morning and just cry. He’d ask me a lot about my divorce.”

Kuster said his investigation indicated that Ortiz was involved with another man. But the victim’s sister denied this. “She didn’t even have male friends. She was dedicated to her home and her children,” Moto said.

Meinguer was just jealous of everyone Ortiz had contact with, even Moto, she added. “When she would take the children out on a walk, he would be jealous,” Moto said. “When she went out to eat, he would be jealous.”

The couple met in Mexico City about 10 years ago, Moto said, where Meinguer was working as a butcher and Ortiz was selling jewelry in a market. They moved together to California soon after. Before they moved to Hollywood about two years ago, the pair lived in Lomita, Kuster said.

In recent days, Moto said, Meinguer did not eat, sweated profusely and seemed nervous. Police said there was evidence Meinguer had been drinking heavily before the killings.

Ortiz was found in bed, stabbed with a butcher knife, and Meinguer and the three children were found on the living room floor with gunshot wounds, Kuster said.

Kuster said there had been no record of domestic violence between the couple.

But, Moto said, Meinguer “would threaten her, say he was going to kill the children, as a way to punish her. Afterwards he would speak sweetly to her. . . . She would forgive him. . . . I told her to be careful. She said, no, he would never dare to kill his children. He loved them, and they loved him.”

Moto said she hoped to send the bodies of her sister and the children back to Mexico for burial.