Man Arrested Two Years After Wife’s Slaying

An Irvine man long suspected of strangling his wife and dumping her body along a remote San Diego County road was arrested early Wednesday outside his Westpark apartment, more than two years after the killing.

Daniel Rodrick, 40, was startled by detectives in street clothes who approached him shortly before 9 a.m. as he prepared to leave for work in his white Jeep Cherokee.

“Remember us?” asked San Diego County Sheriff’s Det. Rick Scully, who has worked as the lead investigator on the case for the past year.

Rodrick froze, considering the officers surrounding him, but did not speak until they placed him in handcuffs. “Why are you doing this now? There is nothing new. What are you doing this now for?” He sobbed as he was led to a waiting Irvine Police Department patrol car.

San Diego Sheriff’s officials, however, said there wasn’t “any one break” in the 2-year-old case that led them to arrest Carolyn Rodrick’s husband on suspicion of murder. Instead, it was an accumulation of evidence--much of which they concede is largely circumstantial, gathered since her July 21, 1995 slaying--that finally convinced San Diego prosecutors to move ahead.

“It became a collection of little pieces that all pointed at one person,” Sgt. Tom Bennett said. “The pieces, when looked at all together, eventually became convincing enough.”

But Rodrick’s attorney, Jim Riddet, said he was baffled by the arrest. If detectives didn’t have anything new, Riddet said, why did they wait so long to take his client--who has always proclaimed his innocence--into custody?

“I’m shocked and curious,” said Riddet, a Santa Ana criminal defense lawyer. “I don’t think there’s ever been evidence that suggests he did it, and I don’t think he did do it. The timing of it just begs the question: Why now?”

The attorney said that although his client has known for two years that he was a suspect in the murder, he had no idea “things were warming up” on the case.

Rodrick was booked into the San Diego County Jail, where he is being held without bail. The couple’s children, a 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, were interviewed by police and released to child protective workers.

They will probably stay with Rodrick’s mother in Garden Grove, the attorney said.

Many of Carolyn Rodrick’s friends and relatives didn’t share Riddet’s surprise when told of the arrest Wednesday, expressing relief that the man they had once shared Christmases and vacations with was finally behind bars.

“I prayed for this day, dreamt about it, but I was never completely sure it would come,” said Carol Montana, a longtime friend of Carolyn Rodrick. “Finally, hopefully, Carolyn can find peace.”

The victim’s sister, Janet Vanzyl, who lives in South Africa, said she had almost given up on the case after as it dragged on for so long.

“It started to seem like the police would never settle this,” Vanzyl said. “Now I know it’s true that God doesn’t always answer your prayers immediately, but eventually.”

Few who knew the Rodricks were surprised when, shortly after the killing, they learned Rodrick was the focus of the criminal investigation.

Almost immediately after Carolyn Rodrick’s body was identified at a San Diego County morgue, her husband of 17 years started erasing her memory from his family’s life, Vanzyl said.

Investigators say Rodrick spent the two weeks after his wife’s disappearance selling the couple’s Mercedes, pawning his wife’s jewelry, scrapping the bedroom mattress they shared and moving.

When she and other relatives tried to talk to Rodrick about his wife’s death, Vanzyl said he began to avoid them, isolating himself and his children.

It’s been nearly a year since Vanzyl--the children’s aunt--has been allowed to speak to her niece or nephew.

Carolyn Rodrick’s body was found at an illegal dumping site off Pala-Temecula Road, hours after her husband reported her missing from their home, about 70 miles away.

Rodrick told police that when he woke up in the middle of the night on July 21, 1995 and found his wife gone, he suspected she had left him for another man.

Friends said in the weeks before the slaying, Rodrick had become increasingly paranoid that his wife was having an affair, and Carolyn Rodrick had confided to them that she thought he was following her.

And it was no secret that Carolyn Rodrick also was unhappy, admitting in a letter to her mother shortly before her slaying that she and her husband were “never suited.”