Angela Benitez, Deysi Benitez’s sister, visits the El Cementerio General de Sensuntepeque in El Salvador with her youngest daughter, Lydia Navarrete, 3, Friday to lay flowers at the graves of her family. Staff photo by Erin Henk

Her youngest daughter Lydia, 3, balanced on her right hip, she walks along rows of tombs painted in brilliant shades of blue, yellow and purple. Taking a right and meandering down a dusty slope, she walks to the far corner of the cemetery where her three nieces — Elsa, 9, Vanessa, 4, and Carena, 1 — her nephew, Angel, 3, and her brother-in-law Pedro Rodriguez, 28, were entombed in concrete blocks Thursday.

"They are in heaven. That's all I can think of right now," she said Friday.

That, and the whereabouts of her sister, Deysi Benitez, 25, who has been missing since mid-March.

As she moved from one white cross to the next, carefully collecting wayward flowers and reshaping the colorful bouquets that adorned each tomb, Angela wondered aloud where her sister is and whether she is suffering.

The four children and their father were found dead in a Danielle Drive townhouse in Frederick on March 26. Autopsies revealed the three girls were suffocated and Angel died from blunt force trauma to the head. Police believe the children were murdered by their father, who was found hanged from a stairway banister.

On Friday, Angela said making sure the graves look pretty is the one small thing she can do for the three younger children she never met. They were born after her sister and brother-in-law emigrated to the United States with Elsa.

How long will it be before the flowers die or blow away, she asked? She is grateful the bodies were brought to her family's hometown for burial so she can visit the tombs.

Sensuntepeque government stepped in to help cover the $200-per-person burial fee and pay to transport the bodies from the airport in San Salvador, more than 60 miles away.

The cost to prepare and ship the bodies to El Salvador, estimated at about $25,000, was paid by friends, church members and other Maryland residents, said Mayor Jesus Edgar Bonilla Navarrete.

Rodriguez's father, Pedro Rodriguez, paid a small amount to reserve space at El Cementerio General de Sensuntepeque. The city lacks the financial resources to pay for burials, but the rare and tragic circumstances of this family's loss prompted a special response, Navarrete said.

Manuel de Jesus Sanchez, who works in the mayor's office, estimated 1,500 people walked with the family Thursday as five cars carried the bodies from Santa Barbara church in the center of the city along battered streets to the cemetery more than 30 minutes away.

"This hit the town hard," Sanchez said.

Navarette said people wanted to help shoulder the sorrow of the Rodriguez and Benitez families.

"Sensuntepeque is a friendly city where we share each other's burdens," he said.

The families couldn't afford to pay to bury and transport the bodies, but that is one way the government could show support, he said.

Other deaths have recently shaken the city.

On March 19, the bodies of residents Nidia Calles, 28, and Adan Ortega, 29, were found shot to death in their car in a nearby town, said Angel Iraheta, editor of Sensuntepeque's newspaper. The killer has not been found.

The fear residents experienced following that murder drew many of them closer. The Frederick deaths have united them even more, Iraheta said.

As she left the cemetery Friday, Angela said she found the unity comforting. Before Thursday, she had not visited the cemetery in nearly 10 years, although other relatives are buried there. She plans to make the hour-long walk from her house this fall to lay flowers on the tombs during a Latin American holiday when families honor the dead.