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By the end of today, Deysi Benitez will be back in her home country. The 25-year-old's skeletal remains will be placed on a Taca International Airlines flight from Dulles International Airport to San Salvador, El Salvador, said Wanda Bacon, owner of W.H. Bacon Funeral Home in Washington. The remains were released from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore on April 8, said Cpl. Jennifer Bailey of the Frederick County Sheriff's Office. The family requested the funeral home ship the remains back to El Salvador. Neither Bacon nor Salvadoran Consul General Ana Margarita Chavez could provide details about funeral arrangements. Benitez's remains were found in a shallow grave on a wooded property near St. Anthony's and Helmer roads in Emmitsburg on Feb. 29. Authorities believe the remains had been there for about a year. She was positively identified through DNA evidence by the medical examiner's office April 3. Investigators believe she died from asphyxia, and her husband, Pedro Rodriguez, killed her. Benitez was last seen by a neighbor March 18, 2007. Two of the couple's four children were absent from Hillcrest Elementary School several days prior to a liaison worker being sent to their home to check on them March 26, 2007. When no one answered knocks on the door, officers with the Frederick Police Department were called, and made the gruesome discovery. The four children, Elsa, 9, Vanessa, 4, Angel, 3, and Carena, 1, were found dead, tucked into beds. Rodriguez was hanged by a rope tied to a second-floor banister. Police later determined Rodriguez killed his children. The three girls each died from suffocation while Angel died from blunt force trauma to the head. Rodriguez's death was ruled a suicide. Because Benitez could not be found, investigators launched an international search to find her, which ended with the discovery of the remains nearly a year later. On April 3, Angela Benitez told The News-Post she wanted to bury her sister's remains in the family's shrine in Sensuntepeque, El Salvador. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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