Sarina Rodriguez and her boyfriend, Franko Martinez, did not see the large rock hurtling toward their windshield.
Rodriguez, 25, was driving west on Highway 134 in the Antelope Valley shortly before midnight on Monday, according to authorities and her family. Martinez, 35, heard the windshield break, but didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.
“As soon as the noise hit, she was unconscious, and it knocked her back,” said Martinez, who steered the car to safety from the passenger seat. “I shook her twice and there was nothing, no response from her.”
Rodriguez never regained consciousness after being hit in the face with a rock about half the size of a football. Authorities pronounced her dead at the scene but have offered her family very few details about the investigation of the incident, prompting her loved ones to demand answers over the tragic death.
The California Highway Patrol said there was a similar incident on the previous night around the same stretch of highway, near the intersection with Highway 18, . The driver in that incident also reported a rock coming through their windshield.
The similarity between the incidents is being investigated by the CHP major crimes division along with the Antelope Valley Area field office.
Martinez doesn’t think it was an accident. He believes somebody threw the rock at the car he and Rodriguez were in. No suspects havae been identified.
On the night Rodriguez was killed, she and Martinez were driving back to Lancaster after visiting family in Riverside County. He told her to put on the high beams because the area is pitch black at night, devoid of street lights or visible landmarks.
Her brother, George Rodriguez, was the first to arrive on the scene after getting word that there was an accident.
“It’s an indescribable feeling of how all this went down,” he said. “It still feels fake. But it’s hitting my mom and dad and the rest of the family hard.”
Sarina Rodriguez, the youngest of 16 children, grew up in Lancaster and wanted to be a cosmetologist, her family said. It was her dream to make people beautiful.
“She was the life of the party,” her brother said. “She would just talk with everybody. She was a beautiful soul. She didn’t deserve to die that way.”
Martinez and Rodriguez were together for five years. He said she made him feel like part of her family.
“Yeah, she was the baby,” Martinez said, his voice breaking. “She was baby girl.”
Martinez and the Rodriguez’s family criticized the CHP for not spreading the word about the possibility that somebody has been throwing objects at vehicles on the highway.
“They never announced it. They never put it on those signs,” George Rodriguez said, referring to freeway emergency signs. “They just left us in the dark.”
The CHP did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Without any leads, family members say they are focused on honoring Rodriguez’s memory.
The family has started an online fundraiser to help pay for funeral expenses and will hold a vigil on Tuesday along the roadside where Sarina Rodriguez was killed.
Anyone with information about the case can contact the CHP at (323) 259-3200.
