The couple’s teenage daughter called 911 after finding the attack underway inside their Perth Amboy home.

PERTH AMBOY, N.J. — A New Jersey man has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison for fatally stabbing his wife inside their family home while their four daughters were present, bringing the criminal case to a close more than a year and a half after the killing.

Superior Court Judge Andrea Carter imposed the sentence on Wellington Leonardo, 47, after a Middlesex County jury convicted him in March of passion-provocation manslaughter in the death of Rosanna Rodriguez. Jurors rejected the more serious murder charge but also found Leonardo guilty of weapons offenses and child endangerment. News reports from the sentencing said he must serve 85% of the term before becoming eligible for parole, which would amount to about 17 years. The sentence reflects the jury’s decision that Leonardo was criminally responsible for Rodriguez’s death while accepting the lesser form of homicide presented during the trial.

The sentencing focused not only on the violence that killed Rodriguez but also on the lasting harm to the couple’s daughters. They were 13, 11, 3 and 11 months old at the time of the attack, according to reports based on court proceedings. Judge Carter said Leonardo would not be permitted to contact the children unless they chose to see him. That condition places the decision with the daughters, who lost their mother and then heard the courts determine the fate of their father. Leonardo’s child-endangerment convictions arose from the children’s presence in the home during the fatal confrontation.

Leonardo addressed the court before he was sentenced and said he regretted what happened. He told the judge that he missed Rodriguez and wished he could return to the time before her death. Rodriguez’s sisters rejected his expression of remorse. Rosalia Rodriguez told the court that the loss had left a permanent emptiness in the family and that the victim’s daughters would now grow up visiting their mother’s grave. Another sister, Lisbeth Rodriguez, said the girls would spend more years grieving their mother than they had been able to spend living with her.

The case began in the early hours of Sept. 21, 2024, when police were called to a home on Bertrand Avenue in Perth Amboy. Authorities said officers found Rodriguez and Leonardo on the kitchen floor. Both had blood on them, according to reports describing the police response. Emergency workers took Rodriguez to Hackensack Meridian Health Raritan Bay Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Leonardo was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital for treatment. Early official reports spelled their names as Rosana Rodriguez and Wellinton Leonardo, while later court and family-related reports used Rosanna Rodriguez and Wellington Leonardo.

The most direct account of the attack came from the couple’s oldest daughter, who was 13 at the time. Trial and detention-hearing reports said she awoke at about 3 a.m. after hearing her mother scream. She entered the kitchen and saw her father attacking Rodriguez. Her mother told her to call 911. During the emergency call, the girl told a dispatcher, “My dad is trying to stab my mom.” Audio from the call was later played in court, placing jurors and others in the courtroom inside the emergency as the child sought help for her mother and tried to protect her younger sisters.

The dispatcher instructed the girl to go into a room with the other children, lock the door and signal to officers through a window when police arrived. According to testimony and reporting from the proceedings, the teenager also returned toward the kitchen and threw a bag at her father in an attempt to stop the attack. She then gathered her sisters in their mother’s bedroom. The account showed why prosecutors pursued separate child-endangerment charges: The children were not merely elsewhere in the building but were drawn directly into an unfolding act of violence and the emergency response that followed.

Prosecutors initially charged Leonardo with first-degree murder, weapons offenses and endangering the welfare of a child. At an October 2024 detention hearing, Assistant Prosecutor Brian Shevlin argued that Leonardo should remain jailed while the case proceeded. Defense attorney Daniel Gonzalez argued at the time that physical injuries on Leonardo’s hands and arms could support a claim of self-defense. Prosecutors disputed that interpretation and pointed to the nature and location of Rodriguez’s wounds. The judge ordered Leonardo held pending trial, leaving the competing accounts to be tested through evidence and testimony.

Reports from the detention hearing said prosecutors alleged that Rodriguez had recently told Leonardo she wanted to end their marriage. That claim provided part of the background presented by the state, but it did not remove the prosecution’s burden to prove the required elements of murder. At trial, jurors were asked to evaluate the fatal act, the surrounding circumstances and the available homicide offenses. Their verdict rejected both a complete defense and the state’s request for a murder conviction. Instead, they selected passion-provocation manslaughter, a lesser homicide offense recognized under New Jersey law.

The distinction shaped the sentence. A murder conviction could have exposed Leonardo to a longer punishment, while the manslaughter verdict established a different degree of criminal liability. The jury’s decision did not excuse the killing or treat it as lawful. It meant the jurors concluded that the evidence supported the elements of passion-provocation manslaughter rather than murder. The weapons and child-endangerment verdicts separately addressed the use of a weapon and the danger imposed on the four children during the attack.

Public accounts contain differences in Rodriguez’s listed age. The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office initially identified her as 40, while later reports connected to the trial and sentencing described her as 39 and said her 40th birthday was approaching. Family materials and some news organizations also used a different spelling of her first name from the spelling in the first official release. Those variations do not alter the established sequence: Rodriguez was fatally wounded inside her home, transported to a hospital and pronounced dead, and Leonardo was later convicted and sentenced for causing her death.

Rodriguez was remembered outside the courtroom as a mother, a local worker and a member of Perth Amboy’s Dominican community. An obituary and family fundraising material said she was born in the Dominican Republic and worked as an apartment inspector in the city. Relatives described her as compassionate and caring. Mayor Helmin Caba called her death heartbreaking and said the city would support her loved ones. A funeral and community vigil followed, shifting public attention from the criminal allegations to the four children and the family members responsible for caring for them after the killing.

The sentence is the latest and most consequential stage of a case that moved from an emergency call to an arrest, a detention hearing, a jury trial and final punishment. Leonardo is expected to remain in state custody and will be subject to the parole requirements attached to the term. Any future contact with his daughters will depend on their wishes under the condition announced by the judge. For Rodriguez’s relatives, the court proceedings have ended without reversing the central loss described at sentencing: four daughters will continue growing up without their mother.

Author note: Last updated Aug. 4, 2026.