Marlene Rodriguez

By Cecilia Levine From Daily Voice

A New Jersey woman accused of stabbing her 2-year-old brother told detectives that voices told her to do it, according to a newly released affidavit of probable cause.

Officers responding to a 911 call on Burke Lane in Brick Township found the child suffering from stab wounds around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

The child was transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where he was listed in stable condition, authorities said.

Detectives later identified 20-year-old Marlen Rodriguez as the suspect through an investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Brick Township Police Department Detective Bureau, and the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, Billhimer said.

According to the affidavit, Rodriguez had been in her bedroom for most of the day. Earlier that morning, she asked a cousin “if she’d ever stabbed anyone, and if so, who.” The cousin asked Rodriguez if she had ever “sacrificed anyone.” Rodriguez did not answer, the affidvait said.

It was learned that Rodriguez had a prior mental health history and had been hospitalized for a period of time for those conditions, the affidavit says. She had also been “using marijuana and other unknown substances on and off,” according to police filings.

Before the 911 call, Rodriguez’s sister heard crying and went to check on the boy in Rodriguez’s room, where she found him injured with “a knife near him,” police said. The criminal complaint indicates it was a butcher's knife. The boy suffered a punctured lung and a heart injury, according to the affidavit.

During a taped interview at Brick Township Police Headquarters, Detective Sgt. Uricks said Rodriguez told police that voices told her to stab her brother and that she remembers doing it. She told detectives that the voices are of people she knows, and this time they were a Puerto Rican family she knew. Rodriguez said that after hearing the voices, “she visually sees what she needs to do," police paperwork said.

When asked if she understood that stabbing someone was wrong, Rodriguez said she knew it was, according to the affidavit. When asked how it was wrong, she replied in Spanish, “something to the effect of a third person telling her to stop talking so she doesn’t go to jail.” The interview was then terminated.

Rodriguez was charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and endangering the welfare of a child, authorities said.