Donta Cradock And Ivan Rodriguez
I’d like you to meet Donta Cradock and Ivan Rodriguez. Donta, 18, and Ivan, are stepbrothers. Both have extensive police records, both as juveniles and now as young adults. Both were also wanted by police for reasons involving not showing up to face pending charged against them. Donta and Ivan, hmmm, how should I put this? Well, Dante and Ivan suck.
Donta Cradock’s mother, Vanessa Cradock, said that he has been in and out of juvenile facilities since he was 13 years old, and had convictions for Armed Robbery and Grand Theft Auto. Recently he was being held in a Pittsburgh lockup for a 2006 armed convenience store holdup where he racked up an unbelievable list of charges in an attempt to steal a sixpack of beer (See Court Records). He was given a pass around Easter time for a visit home, but mom said he refused to go back.
Ivan Rodriguez was also on the lam, after a bench warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to appear for a preliminary hearing on charges involving a stolen car (See Court Records). Between the two stepbrothers, there was a total of 13 arrests.
On the evening of June 10th, Cradock and Rodriguez were sitting in a borrowed silver Pontiac in the Feltonview neighborhood of Philadelphia when they noticed another young man getting onto a Yamaha motorcycle. In a fateful decision, the two predators decided they were going to steal that motorcycle.
At the same time, about a mile away on Third Street, Latoya Smith sat on her stoop, rocking the stroller that contained her baby daughter Remedy. Nearby, her niece Aaliyah Griffin, 6, and her new friend, Gina Marie Rosario, 7, were playing jump rope and sucking on blowpops.
Around 7:30PM, Cradock and Rodriguez cruised up to the unsuspecting biker, flashed a .357 Magnum and allegedly demanded the man’s bike. Rodriguez hopped on the Yamaha and sped off, while Cradock fled in the Pontiac.
Neither man noticed they were being watched. The witness quietly followed Cradock and, when he noticed a Philadelphia police officer on patrol, flagged the officer down and pointed out Cradock and the Pontiac.
The veteran officer followed Cradock he weaved from the outer to inner lanes, until Cradock stopped in traffic near Fourth Street, which merges with Third Street at the intersection. The patrolman, a couple of cars back, instructed Cradock over a loudspeaker to get out of the vehicle.
Instead, Cradock jumped the median, turned left and sped down the street, striking some other vehicles along the way. He then lost control of the car and slammed into the porch stoop of a house on Third Street.
The same stoop where Latoya Smith and the three children were.
Aaliyah Griffin and Gina Marie Rosario were killed instantly. Remedy Smith, two days shy of her first birthday, was hurled from her stroller and died a short time later in at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Latoya Smith lasted a bit longer – she made it to Thursday, when she also succumbed to her injuries.
There were no skid marks at the crash scene, indicating that Donta Cradock never tried to brake.
Police released a tape of the radio calls as the officer followed Donta Craddock up until he rode up on the scene of the accident. You can hear that tape, and follow the tragic events as they happened, by viewing the following video.
The online newspaper Philly.com described the reactions of neighbors and family members, and described the victims:
“When I close my eyes, I can see the little girl in half. I can’t take this,” said Abby Aponte, a block captain who lives kaddy-corner to where Cradock crashed.
On 3rd Street yesterday, relatives wasted no thought on the destructive duo.
They sobbed and embraced as they remembered the girls and accepted well-wishers’ condolences.
The older girls were new friends; Aaliyah lived on the block, while Gina Marie, who lived in Kensington, was there to visit her grandmother.
Brieanna Richards, Gina Marie’s aunt, remembered her as a “girlie girl” who loved princesses and “High School Musical” while still appreciating the antics of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Aaliyah was a kindergartner excited to start first grade and ride the school bus in September, relatives said.
“She loved coloring and writing her name and numbers,” her grandmother Vanessa Boyer said. “She was proud to do it.”
Aaliyah, nicknamed “Pooka,” had a younger brother and sister on whom she doted.
“She took very good care,” Boyer said. “She loved her sister and brother. She would play with them and make faces at them to make them laugh.”
Boyer and her family moved to the street six months ago. She said that she didn’t often let Aaliyah play on the sidewalk because the street was unsafe.
“We were looking for another place to live, because everyone was telling us they had shoot-outs [and] robberies [here],” Boyer said.
Smith’s sister surveyed the memorial yesterday and sobbed.
“I just want them back,” cried Porscha Canada, 18, who lost a 3-year-old niece in a 2007 car accident and her 18-year-old brother to gun violence in 2005. “[I take it] day by day. It’s a day-by-day thing.”
Latoya “loved that little girl,” said Boyer, adding that Smith was always with her daughter.
Cradock was injured and arrested at the scene, and a gun was found in the car, police said. He remains hospitalized, paralyzed from the waist down.
Ivan Rodriguez was arrested at his nearby home, where several weapons were found. Officers were attacked by a dog at the home and had to shoot it but didn’t kill it, said police, who recovered two shotguns, two handguns and a rifle there.
Donta Craddock and Ivan Rodriguez were both charged with four counts of murder. The men also are charged with robbery, conspiracy and related offenses. They are being held without bond.
Photographs, from top to bottom:
1. Donta Craddock and Ivan Rodriguez
2. Latoya Smith
3. Remedy Smith
4. Aaliyah Griffin
5. Gina Marie Rosario
6. Photo of the accident scene. You can just make out the beginning of the porch stoop that the victims were sitting on and around to the immediate left of the car’s bumper.
Do Donta Cradock And Ivan Rodriguez Deserve Hell?
- Yes (97%, 412 Votes)
- No (3%, 14 Votes)
Total Voters: 426
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42 Comments »
they should have either been locked up for life, or drowned at birth
And the scumballs who caused all of this suffering are still alive. Betcha a buck Cradock will file suit against the police department for “making” him paralyzed. I wish that was just a joke, but unfortunately I am serious. Fuckers.
Three beautiful babies. A caring mother. A helpless dog.
These beasts need to be locked up forever, and then sent to hell.
why would the man upstairs let these men walk the streets and kill three babiess and a grown woman is is also still a lil yung If the court system wasnt so fuckin messed up these fags wouldnt be on the streets these are the guys that ruin innocent lives. they should bein jail for the recent crimes they have committed fuck parole and passes to come home. if it wasnt for the free pass to come home them babiies will still be alive I am always gonna be blamin the court and justice office.Let these men, as a matter of fact they shouldnt be called man they should be called coward bitches and pussies I blame their mothers for they way these bitches were brought up where were there moms prbaly fucking every dude in philly wile these assholes r out fuckin commitin crimes. I hope these cowards rottt in hell and those victims become the most prettiest angels in heaven R.I.P Babies
Nicholas, while your comments are crude, I don’t really disagree with you. The first thing I thought when I read this story was how easy it is to question your faith when something like this happens. But we have to remember that Man has free will. Not just the free will to commit crimes, but the free will to decide how to punish these criminals.
Make your voice heard. Check around your community and see if there is some kind of group that is trying to change things. We ALL have to do whatever we can to make our politicians and authorities aware that good, decent people are SICK of this. Blaming the system is just the start – now we have to try and change it!
The court system CAN BE fucked up but it’s there to be FAIR (in theory) to everyone… unfortunately due to other issues… i.e. evidence getting mishandled, loop holes, really good lawyers, all sorts of things… losers like these can end up getting free long enough to destroy someone elses life.
BUT: It’s not the fault of the police that these retards decided to steal a bike instead of buying one. The police didn’t hold a gun to his fucking head and say “Steal this bike or I’ll blow your head off”. Neither did he make this “man” speed and not bother breaking until he killed a bunch of people… fuckhead could have just said “aw crap I’m screwed” and got out of his vehicle like a good little perp. Alas, he decided he wanted to get away, and took away the lives of others.
At least one of them is paralyzed. I wonder if he can feel anything below the waist at all? Because i am positive… that there are many people in jail that won’t take too kindly to the deaths of all those pretty little babies.
Also, if you don’t like the system and you don’t like what’s going on… bitching won’t solve the problem… try to DO something about it.
/end rant.
I’m with you Nicholas, and I have alot of the same questions and complaints you do. Why was Cradock out on a pass with the list of charges he was facing? I agree mom and dad did a lousy job on these two kids, but I also think Donta Cradock and Ivan Rodriguez were just plain bad. It’s amazing how much damage a pair of sociopaths can do because they don’t care about anyone but themselves.
But it’s hard for me to blame the courts for this. Cradock’s record was pretty bad as a juvenile, but not bad enough to be treated as an adult, and Rodriguez managed to stay out of trouble for the most part, except for a couple of car theft raps as a kid and the one he was facing recently.
No, the only people I blame for these 3 dead kids are Donta Cradock and Ivan Rodriguez. I’ll be honest, I cried for the Latoya, Remedy, Gloria and Alliyah when I wrote this story, especially as I listened to the tape of the police radio calls. I feel a lot of hate for Cradock and Rodriguez – which is why I wrote about them. That’s how I’ve learned to deal with my pain – yeah, pain, because like you, I hurt like hell for these kids and every other victim I’ve ever written about.
Find a way to deal with your pain brother, or it will eat your soul. Evil like this is man’s creation, not God’s, so try not to be so hard on the guy. Sure, God allows things like this to happen, for what reason I can’t say, but he also gave me a gift for words, so I can help myself and other get over that feeling of helplessness tragedies such as this one bring on. Like Mazzi said, find your gift to help others man – it’s the only and best thing you can do.
It’s too bad the police were right there……. I wish that someone in the ‘hood got to this bastard first and used this guys gun on him or had a chance to make the accident just a little worst.
Our court system is going to see only this live POS confined to a wheelchair and have some pity on him, he’s already been “sentenced”.
Trouble is a crackhead in a wheel chair can still do some damage to society.
He should be sent to jail into the GP with pictures of his victims tattooed on his body, so the prisoners, who have a better sense of right and wrong than most of our judges, can dispense justice.
One of these days I will be picked for jury duty, I hope I get a simple case becaise a POS like this may never make it out of the same court room that I am assigned.
waste down = waist down
Philly.come = philly.com
Just some grammar nazi suggestions real quick.
Excellent write up for the right people to write about.
Thanks for the heads up and the compliment Jason. Both are very much appreciated. (waste down? – LOL)
This may be philly.com’s fault, but ‘kiddy-corner’ should be spelled ‘kitty-corner’. That one always bugs me.
Oops, or ‘kaddy-corner’.
Nope that’s my bad, I’ll fix it now. I’d never heard the term “kaddy corner” before, so I assumed it was a misprint and changed the ‘a’ to an ‘i’. Thanks for the help Neil.
Funny- I thought that too. And then thought, wow, what a nitpicking bitch I can be sometimes!
I’ve always heard it described as being ‘catty-corner’.
For what it’s worth.
c
R.I.P. – Poor children…
All this to steal a motorcycle. Was it worth it?
Such beautiful children. What a tragedy….all for a stupid motorcycle?? WOW.
You waited to steal the motorcycle….until the owner came out and got on it???????? Because you were too stupid to steal it……when it was just sitting there unprotected???????
I hope he remains paralyzed for the rest of his life! To not even have braked, KNOWING that he was going to hit those babies. They both, but the driver especially, deserve to rot!!
I hope that his death has something to do with the fact he is paralyzed – like someone drops his ass on some railroad tracks and he can see his death coming, but do little to nothing to prevent it.
I so totally fucking LOVE that they are charging them BOTH with murder, even though the really ugly one wasn’t even at the scene.
Those three precious girls and Latoya will be ushered into Heaven on the wings of angels, may they forevr rest in peace.
As for the shitheel gangbangin etards, may they suffer the torment and tortures of being babykillers in GP, and ultimately, may they fry….
dumb fucking murdering losers. man this makes me so mad!!!
Put those pieces of shit DOWN!!! They have shown NO REGARD for other people, even down to that last moment when donta CRACKHEAD didn’t bother trying to break before he killed 4 innocents, 3 of them children!!! Does PA have the death penalty? If so, I hope these 2 are both sentenced to it. Nothing can bring those poor babies and their mom back, but putting these pieces of shit down would atleast stop them from doing something like this again to someone elses children. I wish we could go back to biblical times so i can attend a public stoning of these two, now THAT would brighten my day.
RIP Latoya, Remedy, Gina Marie, and Aaliyah…
I blame the parents of these 2. Where the hell were they when they were growing up? What about teaching them right from wrong? What kind of brain damaged people raised them? If they didnt know right from wrong by the age of 14 …. I say they FAILED their jobs as “parents” and should be spayed and/or nutered.
It is not the mom fault it is thecops why didn’t they been come and get
them when they called a alot of times.
though it may be tempting to blame the police, its not their fault. they didn’t tell these pos mom to procreate and they didn’t tell these pos to commit a horrendous crime because they were a. greedy b. lazy.
If that guy with motorcycle hadn’t run, everyone would still be alive. Yeah it sucks…but it might have ended differently. But events unfolded and now 4 people are dead. Man I hope those 2 diaf…really.
R.I.P. To all three children and the innocent mother who lost their life on June 10th Gina lived on my block and was my grand-daughters best friend. All four victims were to young to die. And the two bastards that caused their death should burn in hell, I know only GOD should judge but I can’t help but to feel this way these were innocent children and a mother just enjoying the outside weather with her child. Now I understand why people don’t allow their children outside to play. We need to do something to take our streets back and keep Philly safe for our children. Another person who needs to go to hell is the man who raped the 11 year old girl on her way to school BURN IN HELL TO ALL PEOPLE WHO HARM CHILDREN God forgive me but this is how I feel R.I.P Gina,Pooka,Remedy,and Latoya
paralysis is too good. these assholes need to be killed the same way their victims died. as far as i’m concerned, anytime someone harms a child their punishment should be an eye for an eye, it should be done quick so they can burn in hell asap.
and who the hell voted no???
Stupid people. Stealing a motorcycle?
I was riding a motorcycle 20 years ago in Santa Barbara, and was hit by a cadillac that ran a stopsign. I have had massive chronic pain ever since I got out of the hospital. Idiots!
That said, it’s sad that these people/children were killed on their porch. There is more than one book/article that has been written about how newer housing developments have eliminated ‘front porches’ and how that has affected society. None of the newer homes have front porches. They just stay inside and don’t form networking communities.
The one jerk is now supposedly paralyzed from the waist down? Too bad. He won’t even feel it when he gets ass-raped in prison. And in my opinion, people who mow down a woman and children should be able to feel getting ass-raped.
c
Donte Cradock and Ivan Rodriguez deserve to be the ones lying in a coffin instead of these innocent victims. I hope they burn in hell for the precious lives that they took. My condolences go out to all of the victims families. RIP Latoya, Remedy, Aaliyah, and Gina!
“He was given a pass around Easter time for a visit home, but mom said he refused to go back.”
OK mom, who is in control here?
It is a crying shame that J-dog had to die for useless pieces of shit like them.
I dont think passes should be issued at all. If holidays are so important to thugs, they shouldnt break laws which jeopardize their freedom to observe holidays. This is a joke. And now four people are dead? For what??
I hope they both burn in hell. I am glad that little fucker is paralyzed. I hope he suffers along with his bastard brother for the rest of their lives on this planet.
A senseless waste of human life on everybody’s account, each in their own differing ways.
The criminals in that they were a senseless waste of flesh.
The victims in that they were tragically cut down for no good reason.
Rather, the criminals in that they ARE senseless wastes of inhuman flesh.
i know what they did was wrong,but if you put your
family in their shoes how would you feel.
think of it in both sides of life.you guys are unfair
for those comments.you would never want to see people
speak so bad about you right?
Unfair? I’ll tell you what’s unfair honey. Having your life and the life of your 1-year-old baby ended by some asshole who’s running from the cops because he helped steal a motorcycle, that’s unfair. Being 7-years-old and DEAD because two anti-social shitheads think the law is for suckers, that’s unfair. Having you little body cut in half by a speeding car, that’s fucking unfair! And if I ever did anything to cause those kinds of things to happen to innocent people, then I deserve to have everyone talk shit about me too.
So go and find someone older and wiser than you and ask them to explain the concepts of personal responsibility and consequences for bad acts – then get back to us, OK. Because right now Ashley, you don’t have a clue.
amen
I would never want anyone to associate my name with a heinous crime or tell me that I deserve hell for what I’ve done wrong, so you know what I do? I do my best not to do wrong or hurt other people. If I ever hurt another human being in pursuit of my own selfish desires, if I ever do something that puts my child in harm’s way, if I ever do something that deprives another mother or father of their child, then by God, I DESERVE to have people “speak so bad” about me!
If only DHS wouldn’t have stepped in when these two halfwits were growing up and just allowed their parents to beat thier asses like they deserved…
Hopefully you are proud, mothers and fathers of these murdering pieces of crap.
To the one who asked if it was worth all that to steal a bike, I guess not..four people died as a result, but those thugs don’t give a shit.
This will be something to brag about for them, that’s just how callous they are.
Pathetic excuses for humans…
Wet them down for the electrocution…
Or they could do them dry like Percy did to Del.
i live in front of this is sad i have to see it everyy day and its just not so good to see it . i hope they die iin prison they have to pay for wat they did so thye know how it feels they could drown there that will make there family very happy. ihope the police will always remmberd this reply and 3 st angels we miss u gone but never forgtone .
3 of the victims of the crash were my family and no matter how hard my family andi cry our tears will never be able to bring back toya nee-nee and pooka. so yes they deserve hell and everything else that goes with hell
he should be kill in jail
It’s a big waste of money to just let them rot in jail. they should be beheaded.