Port Weinemi is a quiet ocean side corner of the city of Oxnard, California.

The area is known for its strawberry production.

You can hardly get in or out of Oxnard without driving past massive fields of them.

And during the summer, the smell of strawberries is constantly hanging in the air.

Unfortunately, in early June, 1993, the aroma of fresh fruit was probably the last thing

on the minds of 11-year-old Andrew and four-year-old Austin.

Because that morning, just after Memorial Day weekend, their lives changed forever.

When their mother, Norma Rodriguez, was found strangled to death.

Her head wrapped in duct tape.

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast.

I'm Brooke.

And this story, adapted from a classic episode of Cold Case Files, is told by the unparalleled Bill Curtis.

It was Tuesday morning, and it was the morning after the Memorial Day weekend.

On June 1, 1993, a house that was once a home, look up the crime scene.

When I got here in front of 135, I was met by the estranged husband of the victim and his brother.

They were seen to be in a panic, and they told me to come in the front door.

Dennis Fitzgerald is a homicide detective with the Port Wayne Neymie Police Department.

Inside the house, Andrew Rodriguez is 11 years old and watches as they cut duct tape off the body of his mother.

32-year-old Norma Rodriguez.

Mom was checking the post.

The first thing they did was get all the scissors and cut the tape.

I mean, if she was still alive, and when they cut the tape, I mean, I'd just seen her face.

...