Angelina was a beautiful, intelligent, and charismatic 20-year-old when she moved to Florida and joined the Air Force. She had a light brown wavy hair, big brown eyes, tan skin, and a photogenic smile. She worked constantly and had various jobs like managing a fast-food restaurant, selling insurance door-to-door, and earning a license in cosmetology. Angelina had a habit of collecting settlements from lawsuits. She sued the fast-food restaurant for sexual harassment, a Target store for negligence after she slipped in a dressing room, and her landlord for asbestos poisoning.
According to her older sister, Angelina felt like the world owed her something. Angelina got quite a bit of money throughout her life in settlement payments, but it seemed like it was never enough. This could have been from the life she had growing up in New York in a working-class neighborhood. Her father was a first-generation Puerto Rican trucker and cabdriver, and he later left the family. Her mother was a full-time nurse who worked long hours to send the kids to Catholic school and pay for ballet lessons, cheerleading, and basketball. Out of the sisters, Angelina was the hopeless romantic, so she was never without a boyfriend to provide her with the attention she craved. She first married at the age of 19 to a local man named Hector, but the marriage did not last long due to his growing demands. While stationed in Colorado, she met a military man named Thomas Fuller, and they married soon after and had two children together while living in Lompoc, CA. After the death of their youngest daughter, they divorced. After receiving her cosmetology license, Angelina remarried to a trucker named Don, but they divorced months after their marriage because she said Don was too possessive. She joined the Army National Guard and met another man, who is unnamed, and he later left her after she loaned him $20,000. I don’t know if this story is true because with Angelina’s history of suing people, why would she not go after this guy? Especially if he is in the military, she would know who he is and be able to easily identify him, so I think this story is made up. In her life, she was engaged twice and married 4 times by the age of 32.
Angelina and Jose Francisco Rodriguez, also known as Frank, met in February 2000 while they were both working at Angel Gate Academy in San Luis Obispo. Angelina was 34-years-old and Frank was 41-years-old when they met. This was a 4-week boot camp for troubled youth led in part by the National Guard and the Los Angeles School District. Angelina and Frank had very similar upbringings and he loved her 9-year-old daughter Autumn, so the two hit it off instantly. Frank had grown up with a troubled childhood which made him passionate about working with troubled youth at the academy. He grew up in central Illinois and his father was a doctor who was abusive towards the family and later deserted them. His mother was a full-time lab technician and raised the family on her own. After joining the Navy, Frank married a local girl and earned a teaching degree from Southern Illinois University and attempted to finish law school, but never did. After 14 years, his marriage to hometown sweetheart ended and devastated Frank while leaving him penniless. After his divorce, he joined a Pentecostal church to guide him through life and pick him back up. He swore off of smoking and drinking to start on a clean slate. He later joined Angel Gate Academy and was looking for someone to marry when he met Angelina.
Frank was a devout Christian and wanted to save a sexual relationship until after marriage. The two married a few months after they met on April 8th 2000. Angelina had been terminated from her job at Angel Gate for some workplace drama, and she left on a bad note. Frank was able to get a job with the Los Angeles Unified School District shortly after their marriage and they both moved to Montebello with Autumn.
In July, Angelina inquired about a $250,000 life insurance policy at Midland National Life Insurance. Frank didn’t quite understand why they needed the policy since his work at the school gave him so many good benefits. Angelina also brought up taking out a $50,000 life insurance policy for her. I think this was her attempt to suggest the possibility of both of them dying and making sure Autumn was taken care of. She was able to persuade Frank into allowing them to take out a life insurance policy on him and he underwent the physical examination, but he felt like the life insurance policy on Angelina wasn’t necessary.
Angelina had a close friend named Palmira in Paso Robles that she vented to about her marriage to Frank. Paso Robles is close to San Luis Obispo and 4 hours away from Montebello, so they spent most of their time talking on the phone, but Angelina would sometimes visit her. Angelina would say that she was unhappy with Frank because he was becoming more possessive of her and Autumn, and she felt like everything was about him. Her friend suggested she just divorce Frank like she did so many times in the past. Angelina told her that Frank meant more to her dead than divorced because of the life insurance policy she had just taken out. Palmira’s mother later chimed into the conversation and told Angelina about a woman who poisoned her husband with oleander tea. This was sort of a dark sense of humor, and not something she meant to be taken seriously.
My Horticulture side is going to kick in for a moment to inform you about oleander. It is also referred to by its botanical name Nerium and it is one of the most toxic and commonly landscaped plants you will see in the U.S. It is used as a folk medicine in some cultures, but these are extremely low doses and are not proven to work. In large doses, it is used to commit suicide in lesser developed countries. There are some beauty care products on the market that use small doses of oleander to treat skin conditions, and small doses on the skin isn’t the same as ingesting, so keep an open mind when using products like these because there are no long-term studies on the side effects. When the plant is cut, there is a white sap that oozes and when it gets on your skin it can cause a severe and painful rash. Several leaves can kill a small animal or child, whereas more than 10 leaves can cause death in adults. All parts of the plant can cause gastrointestinal pain and the chemicals in oleander affects the sodium-potassium pump in your heart causing extreme electrolyte imbalance within 4 hours after ingesting. Extreme cases of adults ingesting oleander result in death due to heart malfunction. It grows really well in California, in fact, the cities plant it along roads and freeways to keep the dust and debris down from passing cars. It’s quite a beautiful plant but I would never suggest planting it because of how deadly it can be to animals and small children.
A day later Angelina got a call from her friend Palmira and her boyfriend who were talking about a neighbor’s dog who bit their kid. They told Angelina that they were going to put antifreeze in hotdogs and then throw them over the fence to poison the dog. They continued to explain how antifreeze is sweet and that when you mix it with a sugary drink of a similar lime green color that “children and animals would drink it without thinking twice.”
My Chemistry side is going to kick in so I can tell you more about antifreeze poisoning, but I won’t go super deep into the chemistry. I got the medical information from the NCBI website. I used this site a lot when I took Organic Chemistry, so I prefer and recommend it over WebMD. Antifreeze comes up a lot in true crime, so it is important to know a little more than “It’s a green color with a sweet taste.” Ethylene glycol is sweet because it is a simple sugar alcohol that is found in antifreeze and is used in cars as a rust inhibitor to prevent corrosion, and it also lowers the freezing point, while also raising the boiling point of water based liquids. It prevents pipes from bursting since water expands as it freezes. Once ethylene glycol enters your system it forms metabolites which affect the metabolic pathways of cells and results in cell damage. These metabolites affects the brain, liver, lungs, and especially the kidney, causing organ failure and shock. Since antifreeze has a sweet taste that can be easily masked, the U.S. has seen a recent push for manufacturers to add bitter tasting agents to antifreeze so that poisoning can be prevented.
A few weeks later, Palmira again talked with Angelina on the phone while she made a special milkshake for Frank since he wasn’t feeling well. Palmira asked more about Frank being sick and Angelina said he wasn’t sick yet. I am going to assume at this point that she put the oleander in the milkshake. Oleander has a really bitter taste so there would need to be a lot of sugar and other flavors to mask it. Angelina’s neighbor has an oleander bush growing over their fence so this is how she was able to either make a tea or put the flowers and leaves straight into the milkshake.
While in the midst of poisoning her husband, Angelina started an affair in August with Palmira’s nephew named Loran. They were close in age and he had just been released from jail a month earlier. The name Loran comes from the People v. Rodriquez court documents, but the article by the Los Angeles Times says his name is Matt. The LA times article also says he was an old friend and did not mention any ties to Palmira. These could be two different people she was seeing at the same time, or it is the same person. The article mentions that Angelina took a paycheck from Frank and was planning to live with Matt and his family. She saw Loran frequently and she told him on September 3rd that she had left the gas on in her home hoping that Frank would die by an explosion or pass out. Frank had just come home after chaperoning students at his old job at Angel Gate. Frank smelled the gas and called the gas company to take a look. When the inspector came out he noticed that the valve fitting on the dryer and water heater were very loose and were manually loosened. I am not sure if this alerted Frank that someone tampered with the gas, but it didn’t seem like Angelina talked to any of her friends about Frank accusing her of trying to kill him.
On September 7th, Frank was taken to Kaiser Hospital with vomiting and diarrhea. The physician saw it as signs of food poisoning and did not suspect that he was intentionally poisoned so they discharged him the same day. The physician made some recommendations to Frank to stay hydrated and replace his electrolytes with Gatorade. This is a clear sign of the effects of oleander that I mentioned previously affecting the heart pump. Angelina and Autumn both tried to nurse Frank back to health by feeding him soup and having him drink red Gatorade every 4 hours. Angelina told Autumn not to drink the Gatorade they were giving Frank.
Two days later on September 9th, a police officer was called to Angelina and Frank’s home at 3:19 am. The officer found Frank laying facedown on the carpet with blood coming from his nose. The officer saw Angelina crying but got a weird feeling that it didn’t seem genuine. He noted how her crying sounded rehearsed and forced. He didn’t notice any tears on her face and her crying would stop immediately when answering a question.
The autopsy did not show any obvious sign of how he died.The normal toxicology will look for things like PCP, heroin, meth, arsenic, and cyanide. The only thing that showed up in Frank’s system was Vicodin. Just 7 hours after that 911 call, Angelina called Midland National Life Insurance to notify them of Frank’s death. The insurance agency told her that they would need a death certificate showing the cause of death. He also told her that they would investigate deaths within the first 2 years of someone taking out a life insurance policy. Without going through the proper steps, Angelina still called the insurance company again to ask when she would get paid the money and they kept telling her that they needed a cause of death and that it would be another 4-6 weeks to process the claim. Angelina told the insurance company that she needed some sort of claim documentation to show a real estate agent since she was trying to buy a house.
Frank’s sister lived in Florida and heard about his death from their mom. On the day of Frank’s death, his mom talked to Angelina asking what happened and she was told that Frank drank too much. This was a shock to his mom because Frank didn’t drink alcohol. He pledged off alcohol when he became a Pentecostal. Angelina also told his mom that Frank was sick on Wednesday and Thursday before his death and she took him to the hospital on Friday, but that he died of a stomach infection. When asked about what caused the stomach infection, Angelina told people that the Angel Gate trip Frank recently went on had cookies and gatorade which was laced with poison by the Officer at Angel Gate. She was telling people that she suspected it was the school kids that poisoned him back in June when he got sick the first time. She went on to say that it was because she left Angel Gate on a bad note and it was their way of getting back at both her and Frank. Frank’s other sister Shirley spoke to Angelina the day after his death and was told that Angelina wanted him cremated and sprinkle his ashes at the beach or have a military burial.
On the way to Frank’s funeral, Shirley rode with Angelina and along the way she pointed out a bush growing on the side of the road. “That’s oleander” Angelina told Shirley.
Detective Wilsey, who was assigned to investigate Frank’s suspicious death, was told by Angelina that someone from Angel Gate Academy poisoned Frank. She explained how earlier in the year she and Frank blew the whistle on someone abusing the children there. This led to people being fired or reassigned at the academy. It was this situation that Angelina felt there was hostility towards her and Frank. Detective Wilsey noticed that when he was speaking with Angelina the few days after her husband’s death, that she seemed void of emotion. The case was handed off to Detective Steinwand and Sergeant Holmes. Angelina was a suspect from the beginning, but the detectives played along with her story to try and get more information from her and recorded their conversations with her without her knowledge. While talking with Frank’s family, the topic of oleander came up a few times and the family found it odd that Angelina suggested this plant as a way to poison someone. The detectives notified the coroner’s office to test for oleander in frank’s system, but they could not do so at that location since they did not have the proper equipment. Angelina became persistent with police to have Frank’s cause of death determined so she could claim the insurance money, but police had stalled her by saying that they would need more time to try and understand if Frank was poisoned or not.
On the morning of October 19th, Sergeant Holmes received a phone call from Angelina. She said that a man had just called her on the phone. Wanting to record the phone call, Sergeant Holmes told her that he would call her back when he got to his office. When he called her back, she told him that the man on the phone said he talked with Holloway and Holloway said “they can’t pin me” “ask them about antifreeze.” Angelina said that the phone number was blocked and that the guy did not say who he was. Holloway was the guy at Angel Gate that Angelina and Frank had blown the whistle on while they worked there. They had accused him of the abuse against children.
Right after this call, Sergeant Holmes called the coroner’s office to look for antifreeze in Frank’s system. Antifreeze poisoning is a lot more common so they were able to test this quickly.
Testing Frank’s body again, they were able to narrow their tests to look for the presence of ethylene glycol. This is found in antifreeze and ……….The results came back showing fatal levels of ethylene glycol in Frank’s system and later tests showed the presence of oleander. The ethylene glycol amounted to 5 times the lethal amount. Frank’s cause of death was determined to be ethylene glycol poisoning. The toxicologist continued to describe how the high levels would have needed to be given within 24 hours before his time of death, but he later felt like it was most likely given 6 to 7 hours before his death. When Frank was first taken to the hospital on September 7th, his illness was most likely the oleander poisoning and that he was poisoned with antifreeze when he got home.
Detectives weren’t ready to get an arrest warrant just yet and wanted to get as much evidence as they could from Angelina. They contacted Holloway and told him the information they had and wanted him to aid in their investigation. Holloway agreed to having his phone calls recorded on December 13th and called Angelina to ask her why she implicated him in Frank’s death. Angelina told Holloway that she cannot talk to him and that he would need to get in touch with the investigators. Literally a minute after this conversation, Sergeant Holmes got a 911 page from Angelina to call her back. Most of you will know what a pager is, but I never personally had one because they were too expensive back in the day. For those of you not knowing what I am talking about, it is a device that acts like a text messenger. You can only get small texts of information and a call back number. Anyways, so Holmes called her back and Angelina said she just got a call from Holloway and he told her that they will never be able to catch me anyways and you better watch your back. I also want to reveal here that the call Angelina received back on October 19th was also a lie. She made up the whole thing, obviously, and her phone records show that she never got a call from an anonymous number that day.
On January 19th, 2001 Sergeant Holmes told Angelina that oleander had been found in Frank’s body and the death certificate would be ready in a few weeks. Angelina found it necessary to tell detectives that Holloway could have known Frank would be visiting Angel Gate because when she worked there the office would receive faxes of attendance lists and event details. The problem with this is that Frank wasn’t on the attendance list for the trip because he was only chaperoning the students to the camp, so he didn’t need to be accounted for on the faculty orientation roster.
On February 5th Sergeant Holmes received an anonymous fax from a Staples store. On the fax it said, “Urgent. Detective Holmes, I mailed this to you. Why is Holloway still free? Thought maybe you did not get it. Here it is again.” the following pages of the fax showed the faculty orientation roster at the Angel Gate Academy and F. Rodriguez was hand written on the document. The mailed documents did come in a little later like the fax had said. The letters were the same as the fax with a note reading “I found this in second platoon’s locker, in Sergeant Holloway’s papers. I figured this is how he knew Sergeant Rodriguez was coming into SLO (referring to San Luis Obispo). I hope this helps fry the bastard.”
Up until now I am trying to think of why it took so long for them to try and arrest her. I feel like the detectives already had enough and that she was just going to string them along with conspiracies similar to this so there isn’t any real reason to keep this charade going. On February 6th, detectives went out searching for Angelina to arrest her. They obtained a search warrant for the new home in Paso Robles she had moved to after Frank’s death and a search warrant to arrest her. I am thinking that because she was in the process of moving may have stalled police. Maybe they were hoping she would leave evidence behind at the old house and they could search that house without her knowing.
While driving to Angelina’ new house to arrest her, they received a page from her and called her back. They were still playing along saying they received a fax and she said she didn’t know who sent it. She wanted to know if they were going to arrest Holloway and said she wanted to be there when they did so she could “see the expression on his face?” Are you thinking what I am thinking? How awesome would it be as a detective to convince her that they are going to arrest Holloway and then pull a switch on her and watch the expression on her face when they arrested her. That would be perfect, right? It wasn’t exactly that when they arrested her.
When they searched her house they found a piece of paper in her purse showing how she would spend the insurance money. They also found a napkin with the sheriff’s fax number written on it. This must have been a big purse because they also found a fax confirmation sheet from the same Staples store the anonymous fax was sent from and that original document that had the handwritten F. Rodriguez. The red ink used to write F. Rodriguez was determined, by a forensic examiner, to be the original copy of that document. To be thorough, detectives asked the school administrator who coordinated the event and she explained how names were not handwritten on the roster and that Frank didn’t need to be on the roster because he only chaperoned the students to the event.
The Arrest
Angelina was officially arrested on February 7th 2001. While in jail, Angelina called Palmira, the friend from way back who said she was going to kill her neighbors dog. Angelina tried persuading Palmira to back-track on what she initially told investigators about their conversation. Angelina suggested Palmira tell detective that she caught Angelina sleeping with her boyfriend and that’s why she made up a fake story against Angelina. This whole conversation was recorded because the call was made while Angelina is in jail. People must be so desperate that they forget these calls are being recorded. Because of this call, Angelina’s phone use was restricted for intimidating a witness.
In May, Angelina asked a female inmate if she could arrange to have Palmira killed for $30,000. She suggested killing her in several ways; robbery gone bad, make it look like the boyfriend did it our of rage, shoot them both in their sleep and use a pillow to muffle the sound, suicide, overdose. She also said that if the house blew up from a gas leak that no one would be surprised because the house is so old. She provided this inmate with Palmira’s address and tips on escaping. She advised them to watch Palmira leave with her kids to take them to school to make sure she is alone when she returns home. When the hit is complete, she told the inmate to send her a misspelled happy birthday card. When the inmate asked how she would get paid, Angelina said that she would take a trip to Las Vegas to take out a large amount of money over a couple of days. Angelina did not know that the conversations between her and this inmate were being recorded because the inmate agreed to help police. This is why I have refrained from saying the inmates name and I will continue to refer to her as the inmate. Out of fear that Angelina may be soliciting other people to kill Palmira, they set up a ruse to convince Angelina that Palmira was dead. The inmate told Angelina that the hit on Palmira had been done by a guy named Antonio Davis, and Angelina started making small payments to Antonio. She talked to Antonio (his real name was Detective Mejia) face to face but not without the plexiglass between them and talking on the phone so they could get a recording and videotape of the conversation. The videotape was useful because they communicated by writing notes and holding them up to the plexiglass so this was caught on video. Antonio held up the pictures of Palmira’s dead body to prove he killed her. Detectives even went as far as staging Palmira’s death with a special effects gunshot wound and blood and took pictures of her. Antonio wrote down “How do you want to take care of it? These guys are asking about the money.” and held it up to the glass. Angelina responded on a note reading “I thought the inmate stopped it” “My star witness” “best friend of 6 years” and then Angelina said verbally “this is what I told her” and then wrote “When out as soon as insurance in--about 45 days I give it to the inmate.” then she said “I think that’s about as long as it takes” and then wrote :it’s up to how long the insurance takes” “i thought she was joking” “my star witness”
Back when Angelina was having an affair with Palmira’s nephew, he did tell police that Angelina confessed about loosening the gas valve at the home she shared with Frank and how she hoped he would die. During the trial, this information was thrown out and I am not quite sure why because they court documents are not very clear about it.
You may be wondering when Alicia Fuller’s name is going to pop up in this episode, since her name is in the episode title. During the trail some interesting information surfaced about Angelina’s past when she was living in Santa Barbara. On September 18th, 1993 Angelina’s 13-month-old daughter Alicia choked on a pacifier and died. This happened when Angelina’s husband at the time, Thomas, was on a business trip. When firefighters arrived to the scene, they saw Angelina standing outside of the house waiting for them. He thought this was unusual because in most cases the parent is with the child. Alicia was unresponsive and they found the pacifier’s rubber nipple in her throat. With some effort they were able to get the pacifier out of her throat. They were unable to revive Alicia and she was dead on arrival. While Sheriff Ginter notified Angelina that her baby died, she asked for the pacifier pieces so she could make the company pay for her daughter’s death and she wanted to make sure this wouldn’t happen to another child. Two months prior to Alicia’s death, Angelina took out a life insurance policy on her for $50,000. Alicia’s dad Thomas was not named as a beneficiary and was not told about the insurance policy until after her death. On October 22, 1993 Angelina was paid $50,000 plus interest.
Thomas testified in Frank’s trial that when him and Angelina were vacationing in Michigan earlier in 1993 someone informed them that the pacifier in Alicia’s mouth was part of a product recall. Gerber did recall the product in March 1993 due to five deaths resulting in the pacifier breaking into pieces and choking children. Angelina and Thomas lawyered up to sue Gerber for the death of their daughter. In her deposition for the lawsuit, Angelina said that she tested the pacifier once a week by pulling on it. The pacifier was sent to a professor at Caltech and their attorney was dissatisfied with the results so he sent it to a professor at the University of Akron for a second opinion. That first opinion from the professor at Caltech was found in Angelina’s home when she was arrested and they followed up with that professor. He actually testified at the trial and explained how the way the rubber nipple tore off from the pacifier showed signs of being forcibly separated. In his opinion, this was not caused by Alicia’s two lower teeth or common wear of a pacifier. The professor implied that a heavy object rolling over the pacifier or manual separation using tools could cause the rubber nipple to tear off. The second opinion suggested that there may have been a previous cut in the nipple that the baby’s lower teeth could have exacerbated.
Gerber settled out of court for a total of $710,000. When Angelina and Thomas divorced, they split the money from the lawsuit 60/40 with Angelina getting the larger portion because she suffered emotional trauma from being present at her daughter’s death.
A Troubled Past
During the trial of Frank’s death, Angelina’s family testified on her behalf to explain the troubles she faced growing up in Rockaway Beach, New York. Angelina’s older sister said that their grandfather had sexually molested both of them from when they were 2-years-old until they were teens where the abuse escalated to incest. The other sisters fought back making the grandfather focus on Angelina, and because she wanted to be liked, she did not resist him as aggressively as her sisters had done. Angelina first attempted suicide at the age of 8 by ingesting over-the-counter pain relievers. She later attempted a second time at the age of 16 by ingesting sleeping pills and was hospitalized for depression. Angelina became pregnant from her grandfather and had an abortion. During this time, Angelina escaped by creating an alter ego named Victoria.
A psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Vicary testified about Angelina’s mental state. He described her as a victim of sexual abuse and this negatively impacted her. He noted that she was most emotional and animated when talking about her children and that she would be a model prisoner. Throughout her life she had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. She showed signs of being manic and having borderline personality, but she was never officially diagnosed.
Her sister asked to have Angelina’s life spared because she felt that Angelina was a good person and that she would never hurt anyone. Her sister was quoted as saying, “ She could never do something like that. She’s not smart enough.” In fact, Angelina had an IQ of 112, so smart enough and narcissistic enough to think she could get away with murder and creating elaborate stories. Neighbors and friends say Angelina’s deceptive side by recounting webs of lies she had spun. In the past, Angelina told people she was pregnant with twins, but that she had lost them when she fell down the stairs. People found this hard to believe since Angelina previously claimed that she had her tubes tied to make her infertile. It is possible to still get pregnant after your tubes have been tied, and I know of someone where that happened, but in Angelina’s case there was no medical records to prove this ever happened. Angelina also totaled her car and falsely blamed it on a man she was dating at the time and claiming that he drove her off a cliff.
On August 1st 2002, Angelina’s Attorney filed to be relieved as her attorney due to her lack of cooperation and uncalled for misbehavior in jail. Prior to this, Angelina had sought other counsel and did not want her original attorney anymore. The court appointed her an attorney which did not work out and she requested a new one. The court said they would appoint her another attorney, but that she could not refuse one again. She still tried to ask for another attorney after a long battle with him on the issue but was ultimately denied a new attorney. She used every excuse to claim she was not being properly represented to get a new attorney. She complained about her living conditions in the jail,how she needed to see her attorney more, she needed phone privileges to talk to her attorney, a psychiatrist more, her degrading mental state, and that potential witnesses from the jail were not being considered. Reading about this woman was so hard because she is the worst person and her sense of entitlement is childish. She complained about every little thing and exacerbated all the details to waste the court’s time.
In October, 2003 Angelina was found guilty of first degree murder of her husband Frank Rodriguez and attempting to dissuade a witness. The charge relating to soliciting murder against the witness resulted in a mistrail. On January 12th, 2004 she was sentenced to death. Her mother died of emphysema and pulmonary disease shortly after Angelina was found guilty, and most of her family has cut ties. Her daughter Autumn, who now lives with Thomas, cut ties with her because she is convinced that she may have unknowingly helped poison Frank. Angelina’s younger sister has also cut ties after she requested very costly items for her time in jail including a TV set, VCR, and expensive perfume.Her step-father remains by her side and funds her legal needs. Angelina is the 15th woman on death row in and is at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Her last appeal was denied in 2014.
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