What began as a simple walk home from a shopping trip more than five years ago became a nightmare, she says.
"November 3, 2006, is when they stole my daughter," she said. "I had left to go shopping. When I came back, I did not realize that a woman was following me. When I entered my house, my daughter stayed on the patio, and that was when she was taken."
Now, the 7-year-old girl is at the center of an international custody dispute. She is a child with two identities, in two countries, with two sets of parents who claim her as their own.
In Missouri, they call her Karen. In Guatemala, she is known as Anyeli.
Guatemalan authorities say Anyeli was snatched from Rodriguez and sold to an international adoption agency.
Last year, a Guatemalan judge ruled that the girl belonged with Rodriguez and not with her adoptive U.S. parents.
The Guatemalan government suspended adoptions in 2007 after authorities found multiple cases of falsified birth certificates and paperwork as well as alleged thefts of babies.
This week, the U.S. State Department weighed in on the case of this seven-year-old girl, saying a U.S. state court would have to decide whether the girl should return to Guatemala because when the incident happened, the two countries had not yet signed an international treaty dealing with abducted children.
"Our view remains that, at the time, this appeared to be a legitimate adoption. So again, our preferred course of action would be for any claims to be pursued in the state courts of the United States," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Rodriguez said she was devastated by the news.
"I feel very sad, and I am still suffering, because I had hope that the United States would respond to me and would return my daughter. ... I do not know why they are unfair, because I have my rights, because I am her real mother," she said.
In Guatemala at least 10 people have been charged with human trafficking in connection with the case of this adoptive girl. So far, two of those people have been convicted, and the others are awaiting trial.
That's more than enough proof, Rodriguez says, that her daughter should come home.
"There is very important evidence, which revealed that she was stolen from me, and DNA evidence proves that I am her real mother," she said.
In the case of this 7-year-old girl, Guatemalan authorities say the adoption agency falsified documents to make the girl eligible for adoption, something that the adoptive parents in Missouri apparently didn't know.
Rodriguez says she now hopes to go to court in Missouri to try to get her daughter back.
The adoptive parents declined to comment.
Last year a family representative said the adoptive parents would "continue to advocate for the safety and best interests of their legally adopted child. They remain committed to protecting their daughter from additional traumas as they pursue the truth of her past through appropriate legal channels."
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