A Fairfax County mother is back in jail after she pleaded guilty to chaining her children to a table while she was away at work.
When police were called to an apartment in the Groveton area in August 2024, officers said they could hear chains rattling. Inside, they found two little boys, ages 7 and 9. Investigators said they had red marks on their ankles and later found a chain, two padlocks and keys.
An older sister who didn’t live in the apartment alerted police after learning her little brothers were chained.
Mother Wendi Del Cid Rodriguez and her boyfriend, Franklin Viera Guevara, were charged with abduction and child cruelty.
The boys’ father took custody of the boys after the couple’s arrest.
“Children don’t deserve to be treated like this. We don’t have the right to treat them like this. Maybe a criminal, but not innocent children. They’re children,” he said in Spanish at the time.
In court on Tuesday, Del Cid Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one count of abduction and one count of assault and battery. Other charges were dropped.
The prosecutor said evidence revealed the boys’ were chained up multiple times.
After the guilty pleas were entered and accepted, the commonwealth’s attorney office did not ask for bond to be revoked, meaning Del Cid Rodriguez would have been free to leave court.
But the judge asked about the children. He learned they were getting supervised visits with their mom and that they wanted to see her. He said that concerned him, so he revoked bond and sent Del Cid Rodriguez to jail.
Speaking to our news partner Telemundo 44 by phone, the victim’s father said his boys would be upset to learn their mom is behind bars.
“My children never complain about their mother. I would visit them, and I had never seen anything like this,” he said in Spanish. “The kids now say the idea was her mother’s boyfriend.”
In February, Guevara was deported by ICE before his case could be heard, so he will not face a trial or punishment.
Del Cid Rodriguez will be sentenced in late November. She faces a maximum prison term of 11 years.
