Anatomy of Murder - Heart-less (Kendra Hatcher)

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

After a young dentist is gunned down in her apartment complex garage, unraveling what happened would not prove easy. A tenacious detective would tackle and piece together this messy puzzle. For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

It was definitely one of those moments where like you know they take the training wheels off the bike. This was a real big city murder. I have a job to do and part of my job is going to this young lady's mother and telling her that somebody killed her daughter. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. Good detectives are many things. Some of the traits that they share are being determined, analytical, and possessing an understanding of how humans operate.

The mastermind behind today's case thought that they could outsmart everyone and in the process get away with murder. Little did they know the detective that they were up against. Meet Eric Barnes, a detective in the Dallas Police Department's Homicide Unit. I always tell people whenever they ask about what helped me get to this point in my career, and it was working the streets. You know, the stuff that you learn while doing traffic stops, working in some of the neighborhoods around Dallas, just learning how to speak the language of the streets. With over 7.6 million residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis, there are a lot of different languages to learn. By the year 2015, Eric had accumulated

over a decade of detective experience. In September of that year, he was faced with a case that put everything he knew to the test. It was the late afternoon of September 2nd when a man called 911. Hi, someone just got shot in the parking lot of the Gables Park 17. Did you see someone that was shot? All I heard was screaming and then a loud pop and then I saw her laying on the floor and it was like red like blood coming out of her neck and her bones on the floor. Her car door was open. I don't know what happened. In that moment, Eric was sitting down to dinner when he got word of that 911 call. Typical way that it works, you know, you get home, get settled,

and it's time to go back to work again. The apartment complex where the shooting happened was in downtown Dallas and popular with well-off young people. It had a saltwater infinity pool, gym, and 24-hour concierge services. Police assumed that the shooting was connected to a robbery. These apartments were very high-scale apartments in a very affluent area of Dallas. So there was a lot of high-end cars in this parking garage. So if someone was looking for a target of opportunity, that would be a good area

to look for that. Eric arrived at the scene and went straight to the parking garage. On the second floor next to a car, a deceased woman lay on the ground with an apparent gunshot wound to her head. Next to her, a cell phone and the magazine of a gun. There was no purse or identification found, but the car's license plate was registered to one of the complex residents, Kendra Hatcher. We did a search for Kendra Hatcher, found the Texas driver's license, and compared photos, and it was our victim. Was Kendra the unlucky victim of a robbery gone wrong, or was it something even darker at play?

To try to answer that question, Eric first turned to the apartment security cameras. I'll take good surveillance footage over a good witness any day, because the camera doesn't lie, and the camera doesn't forget facts. I agree. I mean, these days it's become a really important part of canvassing in the surrounding areas of a fresh homicide. Not only did anyone see anything or hear anything, now it's who's got the cameras and let's get a hold of the footage. But like anything, it's always the sum of all its parts that helps investigators best. And the details from the 911 call told investigators where to focus as they sifted through the footage and what car to look for.

I saw a black Jeep Cherokee right out. And when I passed them in the garage, they had like these masks on and they took it off. It didn't take long before that same SUV was spotted on the footage. And that wasn't all. We got a good shot of the driver while they were actually waiting to get into the parking garage. They didn't just park in a parking space. They pulled their vehicle where it was facing the security access gates. So as soon as someone came in or out, they would be able to get access to the security gates as quick as possible before they closed. Between the 911 call and the video,

investigators believe that this car held the suspects who killed Kendra. But with no license plate number or a way of identifying the driver in the footage, they were faced with a dilemma. Try to figure out on their own or ask the public for help. And I think it's really important to point out

that these decisions early on in a homicide investigation is whether to continue to just pound the pavement, try to ID something through a number of investigators by knocking on doors and talking to sources, or do you put something out there to the media and have hundreds of thousands of eyes on that surveillance image? You know, to me, trying to identify a potential threat at a SIGA is so critical early on. And that's the exact balancing test that investigators use. They want to keep investigation details private for the good of the case.

But of course, they want to protect the public as well. And so here, with suspected killers on the loose, police decided it was in the interest of public safety to release the stills from the surveillance footage. Unless there's some pressing reason for you to hang on to the video, it's common practice for us to put it out. And that way we can say we've exhausted all investigative leads for the needs of public safety. We need to figure out who it is that committed this offense as fast as possible. But rather than publicly implicate the person in the image, police told the press that the driver may have witnessed the shooting

and could potentially help identify the assailant. While the media pushed the images out, Eric turned his focus to the victim, Kendra Hatcher. I reached out to Kendra's family and I spoke with her mother. And I just wanted to learn as much about Kendra as I could. You know, obviously, she wasn't able to speak for herself, but I wanted to talk to the people that were closest to her. Kendra was a 35-year-old pediatric dentist. She was known

for being a hard worker and going out of her way for her community. She wanted to use her skills as a pediatric dentist to help out poor and impoverished kids around the city of Dallas. And she actually had an office in Irving, Texas, where she wanted to give back and, like I said, help kids that dealt with a certain level of poverty. So she was one of those people that believed in giving back and using her skill set to help others. Her friends and family told Eric about her extensive social network and laid-back lifestyle. She didn't live, you know, a risky lifestyle that she would have made some bad choices or anything that she would have done that would have put her in harm's way. She was very professional. She lived a lifestyle that was kind of risk-free.

And there was also love in Kendra's life. A few months before she was murdered, Kendra started dating a fellow doctor named Ricardo. They hit it off right off the bat. It was like one of those fairytale relationships that she just happened to be everything that he was looking for. And I think that she happened to feel that same way about him. The pair had met each other's families and even talked about marriage. The day after she was killed, Kendra and Ricardo were supposed to have gone on vacation. They had a trip planned to go to Cancun.

And they were going to go to Cancun, enjoy each other's company. And once I learned that, I thought it was kind of ironic that she was murdered on the same day that they were planning this romantic getaway. While Eric was at the crime scene, the building's manager told Eric that Ricardo was at Kendra's apartment and had not heard the news. He's been going in and out of her apartment during the time you guys have been conducting this investigation. And he doesn't know that Kendra had been killed. Would you like to talk to him? And I said, yes. Eric was then tasked with telling Ricardo what had happened to Kendra.

He almost went into shock whenever he heard that she had been killed. He had been communicating with her throughout the day. He sent her a text message saying, hey, where are you at? I'm starting to get hungry. I'm going to run down to the taco stand to grab a taco. And she never replied. Ricardo had no idea what had happened to Kendra

after she stopped texting until he saw the face of the person in the surveillance footage. The morning after Kendra Hatcher was murdered, Kendra's boyfriend reached out to Eric. He said he looked at some of the still photos that we released to the news from the surveillance footage and the driver of the vehicle, he believed, looked a lot like his ex-girlfriend, Brenda Delgado. His ex-girlfriend? Not something anyone had expected. This would obviously turn the original

theory as if true, that it was maybe over a relationship and had nothing to do with money or robbery at all. Eric asked him about Brenda. Had they had a tumultuous relationship? Did she seem overly jealous or resort to violence? Ricardo said no, that he and Brenda had dated for several years and had broken up the year before Kendra's murder. He decided after Valentine's Day that they should just remain friends. And he told me that Brenda, at some point, seemed to have a hard time with the idea of breaking up, but she wanted to remain friends so they could still have some kind of contact.

So they were casually still communicating as friends, but their romantic relationship ended in February. Ricardo's ex-girlfriend was now a definite lead, but she wasn't the only person that police had a follow-up on. Once the surveillance images were published, the tip line rang nonstop. The phone rang pretty much all night. I was getting calls about any black Jeep Cherokee in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana that the viewers saw. And it was great to get those phone calls because that's what we were looking for. It just gave us

so much information to dig through and try to figure out how we were going to sort it out and which vehicle we were going to start with. Two days and hundreds of tips later, Eric got another break. It was from an attorney representing the owner of the Jeep that the police had been looking for and that Jeep's owner was more than willing to speak. All of the other phone calls that I got, they got put on the back burner. This is the most pressing thing that I need to figure out, who was driving this Jeep and why he needs an attorney. The car owner and his attorney sat down with Eric.

He explained that he owned an auto mechanic shop and had several spare cars. Eric knew from the 911 caller that one of the people in the car was a male, so he listened to the man's story with a critical ear. One of the first things that I wanted to know, because I knew that there was a shooter who I believe to be a male inside the vehicle. So I wanted to ask him, you know, about his whereabouts. He definitely owned the vehicle. So where were you at during this time?

On the day of the murder, the man said he had lent his black Jeep to a friend who was having car troubles. And the friend wasn't a man. It was a woman. He told me that he gave the Jeep to one of his childhood friends named Brenda Delgado. He grew up next door to Brenda. In fact, his older sister and Brenda were best friends. And for several years during his childhood, they lived next door to each other. You know, I think hearing the name once, that's coincidence. But twice, it just seems,

Scott, that that's exactly where investigators need to now go next. Think of it as a treasure map in the hands of an explorer. Do you have several threads of various pieces of information being laid out in front of you? And now it's beginning to paint a picture for Detective Eric Barnes. And, you know, he's really like the Indiana Jones of this case. The man told Eric that after he'd lent Brenda his Jeep, that she'd invited him out to dinner. But when she showed up, she didn't have his car. She said that it was being used by a friend of hers named Crystal Cortez. He said he was pretty upset with Brenda that she let some girl that he didn't know use his Jeep while they were out having dinner. So he was very pushy with Brenda that she let some girl that he didn't know use his Jeep while they

were out having dinner. So he was very pushy with her that, you know, Crystal bring his Jeep back as soon as possible. So after dinner, Crystal met him at his residence and they swapped cars. The Jeep owner didn't pay much attention to it until he saw his car on the news in connection with Kendra's murder. He handed the Jeep keys over to Eric and gave him Brenda's cell phone number. And Eric's next move would be to try and speak with Brenda. That was right at the top of my list to figure out how I could come across Brenda and have this conversation with her. Eric went with a straightforward approach to Brenda.

He called and asked if she was willing to chat with him. Eric went with a straightforward approach to Brenda. He called and asked if she was willing to chat with him, and she was. Here is a part of their conversation. Like I said, I appreciate you coming down to talk to me. Yes, sir. I want to tell you what I can come up with. Eric asked where she was the day Kendra was killed. Wednesday, I was in Carrollton, and I studied from day B-12 all the way to about 6. And then from 6, we went to Fuzzy's.

We had some tacos at Fuzzy's in Carrollton. And then from Carrollton, we went to the Chili's off of George Bush. Okay. And that was my day on Wednesday. Brenda didn't mention anything about borrowing a car from a friend, so Eric told her what he had learned from the car owner himself.

One of the things that he told me was that you dropped your car off at his shop. Last night or when? No, he said this week on Wednesday, specifically Wednesday. Then I dropped my car. No, it wasn't at his shop. That's what he said. He said that you dropped your car off at his shop and that you borrowed a vehicle. No, it wasn't me. It was Crystal, the girl that took me. Okay. Because I didn't have a car.

The Jeep owner said that it was Brenda who had borrowed his car. Now, Brenda was saying that it wasn't her. It was her friend Crystal who had borrowed the car. Both couldn't be true. So which of the two versions was false? And, you know, Scott, this is always a quandary, obviously, for investigators when, especially early on, they both can't be true. So you have to kind of try to figure out which one is more likely, I guess, and follow the evidence to see where that leads. I agree. Clearly, Eric knows there's something to gain from the conversation, but he's not exactly sure which direction she's going to.

And the main point here is to really keep her talking. So to ratchet down the tone and say, look, I'm looking just to get information and really remain very conversational. And that's exactly what his approach was. And also in the tool belt of every good investigator and any member of law enforcement is using the things that they have been taught by those more experienced than themselves. And so Eric recalled something that he had learned

from more senior officers in his investigation unit. Just be patient and not push too hard because a lot of times when you push and assume strongly, you could be making the wrong decision. So I'm like, man, let me get all my pieces together and let me see where the investigation leads. For now, Brenda was being cooperative and leading them to Crystal. And Brenda also agreed to stay at the station while police picked Crystal up. A short while later, both women were sitting in different rooms waiting to speak with Eric. And

Scott, obviously for investigators, this is like not only in a way like where the fun begins and that's the wrong way to put it, but this just might be the time to, as you said, keep them both talking and see how it all plays out. This is the best strategy, Anna Seeger, or advantage, I should say, when you have multiple persons of interest involved in the same crime. And I've had this happen. And there are some real tactical advantages to take, namely dangling the fact that the other person may choose to cooperate first. If the fact that they're really involved,

and if they have any information to provide, and that can be corroborated. And the beauty, too, is that they're both physically there. So what investigators very often do is they ping pong between the two, whether they are speaking to one another and you have different investigators speaking to, in this case, the two women, or it's one person going back and forth. They can use what one person's saying, not necessarily to divulge it to the other, but to see if they can then figure out like where the truth lies, one, neither, or somewhere in between. And so initially though, when Eric sat down with Crystal, something struck him right away.

Eric had doubts about Brenda matching the driver he had seen in the surveillance video, but Crystal, she looked like more of a certain match. Brenda's demeanor was cool, calm, collective. Crystal had a little twitch when she came in. Definitely her nerves were playing a part in her being there. Within minutes, Crystal told him where she was the day of Kendra's murder. She'd gone to pick up her son from school. And here is more of that conversation with Eric. And then afterwards, my son wanted to go to the park.

So I thought, okay, fine, we'll go to the park. And he lives downtown. So yes, I was in downtown at that time frame. Yes, I was in the parking lot at the time frame. The same parking lot where Kendra had been killed during the same time frame of the shooting. You know, Scott, this is just that automatic boom. You know, you know with the car now, they're right on the money and there's two people there. Brenda, I don't know. I look at that still as a question mark, but Crystal, now that's a definite yes. There's no doubt that she realizes that some information has come in putting her near the scene of the crime on the very same day. Right off the bat, if she come up with anything else right now, except for a reason why this surveillance video has you right there.

While admitting that she was there, Crystal claimed that like the 911 caller, she too was merely a witness. She said she heard a gunshot and tried to exit the garage in a hurry. I'm coming out. There's a guy running with a mask right in front of me. He stops. He looks dead at me and I'm just like horrid. I'm shaking literally at this point because I have my son in the back. So he looks dead at me. I heard the gunshot.

But Crystal's story didn't square up with what Eric had seen in the surveillance footage. This is the thing. Okay. I know that maybe you're nervous. Maybe you're a little anxious about this investigation. The most important thing that you can do for yourself and for your kid is to tell the truth, okay? This is where we're at with this investigation. I know what happened, okay?

I'm fully aware of what happened, and I know where you were parked at when this incident happened. And lo and behold, Crystal's story changed. She now said that a man had forced his way into her car, held her up at gunpoint and demanded she drive while he robbed Kendra. But this new version of events also didn't line up with the surveillance footage. Eric knew he was on to something. Once she was changing direction so much,

I felt pretty confident that, okay, you know, she's the weak link at this moment. But then Crystal altered her story yet again. And what she told Eric next took her from being the weakest link to being the key to uncovering who killed Kendra. After an hour of speaking with Crystal Cortez, she admitted to much more than just being present in the parking lot where Kendra was killed.

She then told me that the guy that was in the car, that it was set up by Brenda, that that was someone that Brenda knew, and Brenda sent both of them there to steal Kendra's purse so she couldn't go on her trip. Crystal also said that Brenda had been planning this for some time. So based on what Crystal told me, they had done several rounds of reconnaissance, just following Kendra from her job back to the parking garage. She knew from Brenda that Kendra was Ricardo's new girlfriend, and Brenda was very jealous over their relationship. Crystal said that Brenda had kept Ricardo's passwords after their relationship ended. She logged into his email and saw that he and Kendra were planning a vacation together.

What was her beef with this girl? I think that they were going back and forth between the same guy. I think that's what happened. And she just wanted to take her purse and that was it. According to Crystal, Brenda thought that if Kendra's purse was stolen, she wouldn't be able to go on that romantic trip with Brenda's ex. Brenda wanted her purse stolen, which I didn't believe that a gunman and a driver sit in a parking garage for

30 minutes waiting on someone to show up so they could steal their purse. I didn't buy that, but if that's what she wanted to sell to put herself there, then I'll take it. And some people may not realize that even if that had truly been their intent, that Kendra even being accidentally killed during this quote-unquote robbery, well, under the law, that's still murder. That is felony murder. So if that's what Crystal thinks going to get her out from under this, you know, crime by this likely fake robbery, then of course Eric will take it just fine. Eric wanted to know how Crystal got involved in this plan. Brenda's connection to Kendra was clear, but Crystal was a young mother with no criminal record and no apparent relationship to Kendra.

Eric went back to what Brenda told Crystal. Okay, and what did she tell you about this girl? Um, nothing. She just wanted me to go take her purse and that was it. She wanted you to take her purse? She wanted me to do it. How much was she going to pay you for doing that? Um, $500 just to take her purse. $500 just to take her purse. She wanted me to do it. How much was she going to pay you for doing that?

$500 just to take her purse. $500 just to take her purse. While the why didn't yet make sense, the what, Crystal had said, did give Eric enough to arrest her on felony murder charges. But before he did that, he wanted one more face-to-face with Brenda. This time, he took a different approach. Typically, when you're interrogating someone, you have your criminal case, and you're looking for any kind of emotion that you can pull up in an individual.

Underneath that emotion is the truth. And so if I can kind of stir up her emotion with her unsettled relationship with Ricardo, I feel like the truth was somewhere behind that. Eric focused on what he thought might be that tender spot for Brenda and watched her reactions closely. I went back in with Brenda, and at this point, it's time to turn the heat up a little bit. And so I wanted to kind of dig into, without getting into the offense so much,

I wanted to talk to her about her relationship with Ricardo and kind of how she managed the breakup and if there was any feelings from that relationship. But Brenda insisted that there were no hard feelings from the breakup. We'd call each other every day and then we just kind of give support each other. Like he was like saying it's hard for me and it's hard for you too, but we just kind of kept them at a friendly level. But Detective Eric Barnes noticed that Brenda was trying to pivot during this interview, not with her story, but who was in control of this conversation.

You know, typically we try to go in and build a rapport with the people we're interrogating. And she actually started using some of the rapport building techniques with me. I had an I am second bracelet on. And she told me how important God was to her. And she has a bracelet just like that. And she even started like leaning over, like just in this weird posture where she was like trying to distract me by her body. But not dissuaded by Brenda's attempted tact, Eric decided it was time to turn up the heat.

I just kind of said the things that, you know, this is very un-gentlemanlike, but I'm like, at this point, it's time to take the gloves off. I need to see what's behind this clean image she's trying to push out. His method worked. Once I start mentioning that Kendra is smarter, she's prettier, I could kind of see Brenda, like her eyes started twitching. And then so she's like got all these

nonverbal cues that are like just going crazy. Like she's squirming in her seat. She's readjusting herself in the chair, her eyes twitching, and she's just doing everything she can to just kind of hang on while I'm, you know, kind of jabbing at her. And at that point, Brenda decided that she was done with their conversation. She asked for an attorney, and the questioning came to an end. Once she asked for an attorney, that was it, because I think she knew that she was very close to saying something that was going to put her in prison for the rest of her life. Crystal Cortez was arrested on capital murder charges, but Brenda hadn't implicated herself the way Crystal had. He only had Crystal's word against Brenda's, and at least for now, that wasn't enough for an arrest. But Brenda did have an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation, so she ended up going to jail for the night.

Eric saw her before she left the station. I'm kind of a competitive person, and so I just wanted to let her know that, hey, right now you won this round, but I will see you again. She just kind of looked at me and shrugged her shoulders, you know, and that was the first time that I like actually saw she had a little smirk right before she got on the elevator to go to jail. Eric moved his focus from Brenda and Crystal to now identifying the shooter, the person he believed to be in the car with Crystal on the night of the murder. Brenda and Crystal's cell phone records were subpoenaed and obtained. Investigators looked for any numbers that might be in common, specifically any phone number that both women may have called around the time of Kendra's murder. And bingo, they found exactly that. The number came back to a registered user of K.Love, K.Love.

The name didn't mean anything to our investigation. We didn't know if it was an alias or if it was a true name, but to that point in our investigation, the name didn't mean anything. By now, the FBI had stepped in to aid the investigation. They start doing pings on this number to figure out where this physical location of this phone is at and who the possessor is of this phone. Over the course of a month, they were able to narrow in on a location, an apartment complex the phone number was frequently used at. The FBI set up a stakeout of that complex. While the FBI was working the phone angle, Eric was in touch with Crystal Cortez and with her attorney. Right now, as it stands, she's the only person in custody for this murder.

And if we don't get anyone else in custody, she's going to bear the brunt of this capital murder, which is death penalty eligible in Texas. In one of his conversations with Crystal, Eric showed her Caleb's phone number. Then she started to give more information. While the FBI is out doing surveillance, I started talking to her. I showed her the number for Caleb. And I'm like, hey, do you recognize this number? And she looks at the paper and said, that's it. That's his number.

And I said, who's the number? She says, the shooter. Crystal told Eric that the shooter drove a blue Chrysler convertible. And it had out-of-state plates that she believed maybe was like Tennessee or something like that. Just very nonchalant, you know, and this is the first time, like I said, in three weeks that we have heard any of this information from her.

And with this new information in hand, Eric immediately got on the phone with the FBI, who was waiting at that apartment complex. I called them to let them know about this vehicle description that we just got from Crystal. And they tell me that the phone is moving and there's a blue convertible Chrysler with Tennessee license plates pulling out of the parking lot as we speak. Law enforcement staged a sting operation in the apartment complex where the blue Chrysler was located. As the car left the garage,

the FBI made their move. The neighborhood is just swimming with police. Red lights, blue lights, sirens all over the place. So the Chrysler pulls into a nearby parking lot because the streets are too hot. While he pulls over, it gives the FBI enough chance to catch up to him. And the police are pulling into this apartment complex parking lot. He walks away from his car.

And that gave FBI enough time to walk up to him and have a casual conversation with him. Officers were on the phone with Eric at the same time. And they called me and said, hey, we got this guy stopped. Can you call this number? They want to see if he's got the phone on him. I called the number and the phone starts ringing inside the vehicle. It was clear that this was K-Love. The FBI eventually figured out that his name was Christopher Love.

And while they didn't have enough to arrest him for Kendra's murder, he already had a warrant out for his arrest for an unrelated crime. He was a multi-convicted felon out of Memphis, Tennessee, and he actually was wanted for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. Unfortunately, Memphis wouldn't extradite him from Dallas. It was outside of the area they were willing to travel to pick him up. But it was good enough for us to bring him in. Eric sat down with Love at the police station and showed him pictures of Crystal and Brenda.

And basically what he started with was denials. He doesn't know what I'm talking about. He had never seen any of these people before that I was showing him pictures of. And I obviously had the wrong person in there. During a break in the questioning, Eric saw an unexpected guest at the station. It just so happened that there was an ATF canine handler that wanted to come to Dallas PD and show them this amazing Labrador retriever that he has that can detect gunpowder. And Scott, I love the dog being phrased as the unexpected guest. And you obviously also have experience with these canines, which are some of my favorite law enforcement.

So in my canine days, I worked with a trainer, Anasega, by the name of Bobby Anderson, who specialized not only in training patrol dogs and narcotic detection dogs, but training dogs to detect low explosive powders, as well as the cleaning solvents that are used in cleaning weapons, in handguns, and which enable the dogs to indicate the presence of a firearm. Those type of canine dogs, Anastasia, are really effective, especially in schools, as an example. And so these dogs, they're not only people's best friend, but they're great investigators too. And as investigators were getting ready to search Love's car, they decided to bring the dog with them. And it was exactly the right move.

The dog alerted to strong odor gunpowder on the passenger side of the vehicle, the front passenger seat, right behind the center console where the radio was at. So when the console was pulled back, they found a handgun. But it wasn't just any handgun. It was an exact match for the magazine

found lying next to Kendra's body on the day that she was murdered. Once I got a text message saying, hey, this is the gun that was used in your murder. I feel like I just got eight hours of sleep. I was wired up. I was like ready to go. And I went in the room with him and I showed him a picture of the gun and asked him if he had ever seen it. He sits up. He looks at the gun. He shakes his head. And he said, I knew I should have never came to Texas. I can't help when hearing Eric say this come back to the line that you've attributed to me. So I'm just going to take it here, which is that at this point, the jig is up. Love knew that he'd been caught.

And he told Eric that he'd purchased the gun from Crystal. He also started talking to him about the night of Kendra's murder. And here, too, Eric had a plan. The medical examiner had determined that Kendra was shot at close range on the top of her head, and the bullet exited around her chin. The impact of the bullet hitting the pavement flattened it into a coin-like shape. This showed that Kendra was likely shot from close range while she was down on her knees. We also know that the shooter was standing right beside the victim's body. So all I needed to do

was to put him outside of the vehicle and have him denying that Crystal never got out of the vehicle, which he ate. That's exactly what he did. He said she stayed in the vehicle. He got out. And I knew by the magazine, the evidence from the bullet pancaking, the information from the medical examiner that he was my shooter. At that point, Love stopped the questioning. But he did have one more question for Eric. He ends up knocking on the door and he wants to know, why did we let Brenda get away? In the conversation that followed, Love told Eric that Brenda said she was part of a powerful drug cartel in Mexico. Brenda told him that Kendra had stolen drugs from the cartel and if he killed her, he would be rewarded

with drugs and money. I couldn't believe it. Like, I understood it like Brenda being able to manipulate Crystal. You know, Crystal is no involvement in the criminal world, so people make mistakes all the time and get talked into stuff. But for her to be able to talk a seasoned criminal like Christopher Love into doing this, man, she's pretty good. While the story wasn't true, it was exactly what Eric needed to finalize his case against Brenda. He took it to the FBI, which now placed Brenda on their 10 most wanted list. And you may be asking, the most wanted means someone absconded. That's exactly right. Weeks prior to Love's arrest, Brenda had fled to Mexico, where she held dual citizenship.

But with the FBI's designation and offering reward money to boot, her location was quickly disclosed and she was arrested. Eric faced one final hurdle before Brenda Delgado could be extradited back to Dallas. Based on a treaty that was signed with the United States, Brenda was, she had dual citizenship in Mexico and the United States. And so by being a citizen of Mexico, Mexico will only cooperate if you take the death penalty off the table and you have to agree with them that you won't place one of their citizens on death row. And hearing that is one of those interesting facts. And it really comes down to the punishment factor.

And Mexico isn't the only country that holds this type of requirement since it is physically attached to the United States. We see here very often it really comes down to certain countries will not extradite or let us get back people from their countries unless the United States agrees that if convicted of that crime, that that person will not be subjected to a punishment more severe than that could be in their own country. So, for example, in Mexico, it's all down to the death penalty. If it's a death penalty, it's off the table.

So once you take that off the table, then they say, okay, we'll give them back. Sorry, that's just my legal nugget for the day. Obviously comes down to justice authorities here in the U.S. talking to their counterparts in Mexico. And once they reach an understanding, like in this case, Brenda was just put on a plane back to Dallas to face trial. Eric was face-to-face with her right as she walked off the plane. There was a look of humbleness that was on her face. I can't imagine what her life was like for the weeks leading up to that, you know, just having to live on the run and being locked in a Mexican prison. But I think that she came to the realization that her run was over with. The moment was significant for more

than just Eric. He called Kendra's mother and told her that Brenda Delgado, the woman who had orchestrated her daughter's death, was now in custody. She told me that she never lost faith in the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas DA's office. And I was like, that meant the world to me to hear that from her. One by one, Crystal Cortez, Christopher Love, and Brenda Delgado had their day in court.

Cortez struck a plea deal where she would get 35 years in exchange for her cooperation, which included testifying against Delgado and Love. Love was found guilty at trial and sentenced to death. Delgado was the last person to stand trial. After four days of testimony, the jury left to deliberate. Eric was following the trial closely. You know, you get personally attached to the cases and you end up learning and connecting with the victim on your case. And it's almost like you know him by the point you get to trial.

Like, I almost felt like Kendra was a part of my family. But the one thing that I try to do is separate myself from the punishment phase, because I believe ultimately that it's up to the jury, but on an even higher power, it's up to God. So I don't think there's any escape, whether it's through life or death. We all have to be held accountable. After deliberating for just 20 minutes, a jury convicted Delgado of orchestrating Kendra's murder. She was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The tireless detective work of Eric and other investigators, including the FBI, helped ensure that Kendra's killers were held accountable.

And more broadly, he helped ensure that the wheels of justice continued to spin the way they were intended to. This case changed the way I looked at homicide investigations. You pour so much of yourself into it that I think you're different after each case. And just knowing that I was able to be a part of the reason that, you know, this family was able to get justice and these killers were taken off the street, it's a humbling experience. I'm just thankful that we got the results we got. Brenda Delgado could not face the reality that Ricardo had moved on. She resolved to orchestrate a plot, the murder of a woman she believed stole his heart away from her. In her mind, the plan was meticulous, a scheme so clever, she was convinced it would leave no thread for authorities to follow.

Yet as the plot unfolded, her confidence became her downfall. A digital footprint would begin to connect the dots. And in the end, her confidence, like her plan, crumbled like a house of cards. Homicide investigators spend a lot of time planning and preparing for interviews, just like Brenda Delgado and Crystal Cortez. Hoping to gain information, opening and closing loops in a story and getting people to open up to you is so critical. But being able to read the room, understand body language, and most importantly, maintain control while you still have cooperation can be the key to justice for your victim. It's hard to wrap our heads around Brenda Delgado's crime.

She refused to let her ex-boyfriend go, breaching his personal accounts, and then she decided that the way to get him back was to be rid of the thing that she believed stood in her way, and that was his new love, Kendra. Her actions are not only criminal and cruel,

but show complete disregard for human life. And it's the type of thing that even after all my years as a homicide prosecutor, I still grapple with to this day, how a person can so devalue another human life. The world lost yet another special person to homicide when Kendra was killed. She dedicated her life, her skills, to help those less fortunate and in need. Her light will shine on in the lives that she touched and also in the actual smiles her dental work gave to countless people and, in particular, many children. A legacy to be very proud of, indeed. Indeed.

Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an Audiochuck original. Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?