Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Love Triangle: The Murder of Tzatzi Sanchez

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

On January 15th, 2001, Tony Mayan and Carlos Rene stumbled out of their home at 5075 East Hayward Avenue, Las Vegas, in a panic. Carlos was bleeding from his head, and both were desperate to get help. They approached a neighbor and asked him to call 911 because they had just survived a violent home invasion, and they needed medical assistance for their roommate and friend, Tzatzi Sanchez. Who was also a victim of the attackAs the investigators untangled what had happened the previous night, they realized that this apparent home invasion was something far more sinister…. It was one of the most horrific crime scenes they’d ever seen.https://sinspod.co/94https://sinspod.co/94bloghttps://sinspod.co/94sourceshttps://sinspod.co/94sub (Substack Article)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.Domestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag! Get ad-free access for only $1 a month or ad-free and bonus episodes for $3 a monthApple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms

To listen ad-free, visit sinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show. On January 15, 2001, Tony Mayan and Carlos Reney stumbled out of their home at 5075 East Hayward Avenue, Las Vegas, in a panic. Carlos was bleeding from his head, and both were desperate to get help. They approached a neighbor and asked him to call 911 because they had just survived a violent home invasion, and they needed medical assistance for their roommate and friend, Satsi Sanchez, who was also a victim of the attack. As the investigators untangled what had happened that previous night, they realized that this apparent home invasion was something far more sinister. It was one of the most horrific crime scenes they'd ever seen. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons, and unsolved cases.

I'm your host, Sean. And I'm your co-host, John. So we're going to do this a little bit differently this time. We're going to talk through the case, and you don't know what's coming, and I'm going to tell you all about it. I know. This is very different. Welcome to season three, everyone. Season three, we're doing different stuff.

Okay, so I want to set the scene here. This case happened about 20 years ago, so this is pre-social media era, so it was difficult to find information on all of this. The public information was very, very limited. But first we're going to start with Sassi's background. Sassi was born in May 12, 1973 in Mexico City. She came from an affluent family. She had a private education. Her parents were well-respected members of the community and business owners. And when it came time for her to go to college, she decided that she wanted to go to UNLV's William F. Hara College of Hospitality for hotel management. Her parents agreed that she would go. She would come to the United States, which of course

was a very new and novel thing for her. And they wanted to make sure they set her up for success. So they purchased a single story home for her at 5075 East Hayward Avenue, which is right on the corner of Hayward and Nellis, about seven and a half miles east of UNLV. The area there is not particularly unsafe, but it's maybe not the best area in the world. But it was not a particularly unsafe area. You know, it's not the worst area in Las Vegas for sure. It's right near the wetlands Nature Reserve Park, which of course is a very important thing for the ecology, the local ecology, right? There's wildlife trees, water, and all of the water from the Las Vegas wash goes through the wetlands park in order to be kind of pre-filtered before

it goes back into Lake Mead, which we've talked about many times before. And it's important for the whole Colorado River system, which supplies water not only for us here in Nevada, but for California, New Mexico, Utah, and even for Mexico. So very important. So the house was on the far east side of town. Yes. So Satsi is at school. She's a motivated student.

She has friends. She has, she's very close with her roommates. She has two very close friends named Tony Mayan, who we mentioned in the intro, and Carlos René. Carlos is also her roommate and lives in one of her extra bedrooms. They had a three bedroom. Are they like college age guys too? They are all around the same age, yes. I don't know if they went to UNLVE though.

That wasn't stated anywhere. One of the things that she wanted to make sure of was that she had enough spending money and doing the things she wanted to do in and around Las Vegas. This was right around the year 2000. So there was a lot to do. There were a lot of clubs, a lot of fun things. So she took a job at a place called the Piranha Night Club, which is right near campus. It's a gay club. Latino, but also LGBT.

Oh, okay. Both. I was thinking it was in that area of town. It was in that area. Yeah, it's in that very same area. And it's still open today. I actually went and looked at it and it's still there. So she was also looking to meet new people and have a romantic connection.

She had just broken up with her boyfriend. and she confided in her friend, Tony, that she was looking for love. So she's working at the Piranha Night Club. She's going to school. She's having a great time. And one night at work, she meets Marcella Whaley, who is 29, and Kimberly Estrada, who is her girlfriend, who is age 23. And at the time, Satsi is age 27.

So these three hit it off very quickly. They become regulars at the Piranha Club, and Marcella and Kimberly just become great friends with Satsi, particularly... Because Marcella has a very boisterous and outgoing and friendly personality. And Sassi is very drawn to that, as a lot of people were at the time. Marcella starts to become closer and closer with Satsi. And it wasn't just that the two met her in this nightclub. Marcella and Kimberlin had also moved here from Mexico recently in 1998.

So Marcella has a very similar background to Satsi. She was from Durango, Mexico, and also had a very affluent upbringing. So she had a brother who was a high-ranking individual in the Mexican government. She had earned a journalism degree, and she was aspiring to be a newscaster. At age 23, she, unfortunately, though, for her, began her relationship with Kimberlin, who was then 17 years old. She grew up in a very strict Catholic household in the 90s in Mexico, and this was not acceptable to them. So those two left Mexico for California in 1998. They were really interested in finding a place that was more accepting of their lifestyle.

At the time, mid-90s, it was probably very difficult, of course. And it's not really clear if that led to any sort of family estrangement, but they did leave. They took off from Mexico and they lived there. In 2000, they moved to Las Vegas, and they were just living east of UNLV, similar to where Atasi was living. and instead of working as a newscaster, Marcella was working in a factory located at 1900 Aerojet Way, which is still there today. It's a paint factory now. So the two of them actually worked at the same factory. So Marcella drove a forklift in the warehouse and the factory, and Kimberlin worked in the front office. But they worked there together. But at night, they were having a great time. They were exploring nightclubs and really just having a fantastic time in Las Vegas, exploring the club scene. And that's how they connected with Satsi. As they became friends, Marcella and Sotsi started to get very close. And in fact, friends of Satsi said that they thought Marcella was actually pursuing her for a romantic relationship.

Even though in the past Satsi had only been with men, but she was being pursued by Marcella, she obviously found this very compelling. And they decided that they're going to start a relationship and they were hiding it from Kimberlin, which is never good, right? Oh, okay. I'm following now. So, Kimberlin suspected something was going on, but didn't really know something was going on until she overheard them on the phone one night. And when she did, she called Marcella out for cheating on her. And Marcella said, that's it. We're over.

I'm moving out. And I'm going to go be with Sotsie. So Marcella moved in with Satsi. Into the house with Carlos and, what was his name again? Tony wasn't living there. They were just friends. But Carlos was living in the house. And Marcella and Satsi were living in.

the primary bedroom. Okay. So they were a couple. They were a couple officially. They were a couple officially. Right. They're living together. They are a couple. In summer of 2000, though, Marcella starts to feel, started to feel guilty about what she did to Kimberlin, leaving her in the lurch. I mean, they moved here when, when she was very young. She was really the only family that Kimberlin had. And they were still friendly, right? They still knew each other. They still ran in the same circles. Still had to work together? I'm guessing. They still worked together. Yeah. So there's a lot of ties still there. So in the summer of 2000, Marcella asks Satsi for a very big favor. She asks if Kimberlin can move into their third bedroom and be their roommate. Wow. That is a big favor.

It is a big favor. But Tatsi being Satsi, being a very, you know, friendly, outgoing, caring person doesn't want to see Kimberlin left in the lurch. Those two were friends as well. of course and so she agrees she allows kimberlin to move in so now we have a situation where marcella kimberlin and sassy are living in the same house marcella and sassy are together and kimberlin is living in in the house as well the ex who was cheated on is now living in the house exactly with the couple all of this seems to be working out fine so that brings us to the morning of January 15th, 2001. And what we talked about, where Tony and Carlos come out of the house, Carlos's head is bleeding, and they approach a neighbor and say, we've just been the victim of a home invasion. We need you to call 911. They're an absolute

panic. And the neighbor's like, oh my God, so he calls 911, and the police arrive. So they walk into the house, not knowing exactly what to expect, and they find an absolute nightmare of a scene. Tasi is in the primary bedroom, in her bed, partially covered with a sheet, lying in blood, and they quickly determined that she's been murdered. She was tied up using the cable from a lamp that was obviously ripped from a lamp in her room. She had a piece of clothing stuffed in her mouth and then something else tied around her head to keep the thing in. And she had obviously been raped. They realized that due to the presence of a condom

on the floor. And it was just an absolute nightmare of a scene. Where were the other two women? The other two women left for work at 7 a.m. Oh, okay. So they were at the factory. They were working the early shift at the factory. So the only people in the house that night were Carlos,

Tony, and Sazzi. Okay. The night before the police realized they'd obviously had a party in the house. There are beer bottles everywhere. There are alcohol bottles everywhere. The place is trashed. So it looks like there was a huge party. It's an absolute mess. And what they realize, though, is that that is not true of the primary bedroom where Satsi was found. That room is trashed, but in a different way. So it looks as if it has been tossed, like ransacked, like someone

was searching for something. And they noticed that things look like they've been overturned and probably things are missing. So this makes them start to believe maybe this was a home invasion. So they start interviewing Tony and Carlos after Carlos gets some medical attention, and they explain what's going on. And they get a little different story at this point about the relationships in the house. So they explain that Carlos lives in the house. Satsi and Satsi's family own the house. Marcella moved in. Kimberly moved in. Carlos lives there. Tony is a friend who stays over every now and then. But what we hadn't known before is that when Kimberly, moved in,

Kimberly and Satsi started getting close. And at a certain point, just a few weeks after Kimberly moved in, Satsi started up a relationship with Kimberlylin. And Marcella didn't know those? Marcella found out.

Satsi told Marcella that she wanted to now be with Kimberlin and they switched rooms. So on the day that this happened, the living arrangements were actually Marcella was living in the third bedroom, Carlos was living in the second bedroom, and Satsy and Kimberlin were living together in, just having started just recently, were together in the primary bedroom. But what Carlos said was that Marcella was not accepting of this at first. She was really enraged. She was really mad. She was, you know, she had a real problem with it. But over time, she started to accept it and demonstrated that she accepted it by starting a new relationship with somebody else. And this was over the course.

of a month or six weeks. And she was the ones that suggested they have the party. Oh, okay. So she was seemingly trying to demonstrate to, you know, the roommates and her friends that, hey, I'm okay with this. And that was Carlos's view on this whole thing. And Carlos lives in the house. So he knows them all really well.

He's friends with them. Presumably they're confiding in him on some level or he's just straight up witnessing what's going on around him. Exactly. Okay. So the police then say, all right, we've got to get Marcella and Kimberland back here and tell them what happened. So they call Marcella and Kimberland, they come home from the factory and they find out that Satsi has been murdered. The two are inconsolable, absolutely inconsolable.

Everyone is freaking out. They can't believe this has happened. They can't believe they've been the victim of a home invasion. And the police can't even interview them. They are so upset. one of the police, one of the officers investigating said that Marcella was so upset. She was slipping between English and Spanish and she didn't know what had happened. So they were obviously inconsolable about the whole thing.

So they leave them with the paramedics to calm them down and they go into the house to try and figure out what has been stolen, figure out what the deal is here. That was going to be my question. So they look around the house and they find that several values. valuable things have been stolen. A video camera, laptop, some jewelry, a Cartier watch. Some things have definitely been stolen. So they are missing. And they also notice that Satsi's car is missing. She has a 2,000 white Nissan Pathfinder. Okay. So this is weird. So these people came in. Ransacked her room. Ran saced her room. Took expensive jewelry, a watch, computer, a video camera. And what? Threw it in Satsy's car and took off?

That is apparently what happened. And when they talked to, when they talked to Carlos and Tony, their part of the story with what happened to them was that Tony was awakened by the sound of a breaking bottle. And what it was was these two assailants smashing a bottle over Carlos' head, hence the head wound. And they pulled guns on them and they said,

if you two make a sound, you're dead, we're going to shoot you. They had guns. So they did the same thing. They tied them up with cables from a lamp and said, you know, shut up, we're going to come here and kill you, and we're going to kill your friend. So it was, they're saying it was two assailants, and was Satsi shot to death? Was she strangled? The Emmy determined that her cause of death was strangulation and asphyxiation.

Okay. But she was also raped and severely beaten, just brutally beaten. The explanation that Tony and Carlos give, because obviously the police are wondering, if they are involved. They're the two men there. This woman has been raped. They know her. Typically, this kind of a crime is perpetrated by someone known to the victim.

Or it was a set up of some kind, yeah? So they explained about the party and that after the party started winding down, they left and went to a bar. And they went and hung out and they had a few too many drink. They actually weren't even planning on coming back to the house that night. So they decided that they were going to go out and not come back, sleep at a friend's house. but Carlos had too much to drink.

So instead, they just came back to the house and crashed in Carlos's room. They'd both been drinking and they were just crashed out. And that was the last thing they remembered. And they knew that Marcella and Kimberlin left around 7 a.m. Tony indicated that he heard them leave. Okay. And that was it. They were asleep.

And the next thing he knew, bottle breaking, assailants. The only thing they could tell the investigators is that the two assailants sounded Hispanic. Okay. And the other weird thing that he told them that the assailants said was they demanded of them, where's the money? Where are the drugs? Where are the cars? And Tony was like, we don't have any of that. Like, there's no, there are no drugs in this house. There's no, like, there's no. And it was like, what, nine in the morning? It must have been around nine in the morning. Okay. It was very early. It was after seven o'clock. Because the other women were gone to work already. Okay. So they were like, you know, we don't know what you're talking about. There's no, nothing. We don't have any particular valuables here. So the two assailants were obviously searching for something.

The cars. That's interesting. So they stole the car. Right. Yeah. So at this point, police have really no suspects. They're, they're pretty sure that Tony and Carlos are not involved because their stories very much match up with what happened. It doesn't seem to be like, you know, one.

is being questioned and they're contradicting the other one's story. And I know this was like 25 years ago, but there's nothing in the reporting about like there being a string of break-ins or this neighborhood known for any kind of... Nothing like that. No, there was not like other home. Property crimes weren't a huge... Weren't other home invasions in the area or anything like that going on. No rash of home invasions or anything.

And they obviously know that Marcella and Kimberlin were at work. So it wasn't that. They had a nice alibi as well. So what kind of investigating did the police do? So the police immediately put out the be on the lookout, the Bolo for the car on the evening news and immediately tips start pouring in because there's white white pathfinders everywhere in 2000, right? So they're getting tips and they get one particular tip that really makes them stand up

and take notice. So the tipster says that he knows where this car is, he says a co-worker of his showed up in this car and parked it. and then talked to him and bragged about stealing it murdering a woman raping her and then showed him

the bloody gloves including the bloodstains inside the gloves what yes completely admitted to the crime to this anonymous tipster very specific to a co-worker

to a co-worker so the police just go right where that tipster says the car is they find the car Oh. It's just parked there. Same registration.

It's Satsi's car. Inside the car, they find several of Satsi's items. So like the watches and the jewelry and whatever else was taken? They haven't found that yet. Oh, okay. But they did find some of her belongings. It's obviously her car. Okay.

So they notice a very particular thing, though. This car is parked a half a mile away from the factory where Marcella and Kimberly work. an odd coincidence and the person who the tipster is talking about whose name is Louis Barroso a 23 year old

employee of that same factory so it turns out Luis Barroso works in the same factory as Marcella and Kimberlin and he is the one who stole the car he was in possession of the car so at this point police we still don't know the relationship

between Luis and the tipster we don't they're just co-workers the tipster finally admitted you know who he was he came out and but i i chose not to reveal the name oh no i don't need to know his name i just find it very strange that you would just say to your like just confess the whole crime to a co-worker that is insane yeah yes that is absolutely insane they um he was called as a witness in the um in the eventual trial okay so the investigators are thinking okay number one is this coincidence that they work in the same factory. It could be, like, it could be something like Marcella or Kimberlin had been talking about

how their roommate was so rich and she had all this stuff and maybe made her a target. Absolutely possible. That can happen. So investigators, that's one of the things investigators are thinking, like are Kimberlin and Marcella now in danger? Yeah. From the same person. Or is there some other involvement?

So when the police found out that Luis definitely worked with Marcella, and Kimberlin, they sought out the women to make sure they were okay? They reached out to Kimberlin first, and they asked what was going on there, and they said, you know, do you know this person? We think you might be in danger. And she said, I do know that person, but not very well. But Marcella does know him. Okay.

And I've noticed they've been spending a lot of time together. So what did Kimberlin say, if anything, to the police about her relationships with Sotsie, with Marcella? So they learned some more information. from her about the whole context around when the swap took place when Satsi started dating Kimberlin and why that was. So originally, the roommates just sort of thought that they were growing close because they were living together. But it turns out that when Marcella moved in with Satsi, she started exhibiting some behaviors that were really problematic. Like she was

very controlling. She was very jealous. She was telling Satsi when she could come and go, who she could talk to. So typical abusive domestic abuse behaviors. And Sotzi wasn't at all used to this because she had never experienced that before and she didn't know who to talk to. But she did know who to talk to because the one person in the world who would know what Marcella was like in a relationship was living there. Oh, Kimberly. Right. Kimberlin and Marcella had been together for six years previously. So she reached out to Kimberlin, who was living in her third bedroom at the time and talking about it. And Kimberly confirmed that she did the same thing to her, although it was probably in a way worse because she was much younger when the, when the behavior started. So

Marcella really had Kimberlin under her thumb by the time she was an adult. So that was the thing that got them, you know, that they bonded over and originally and eventually started up their relationship around. Sotsie just decided that she didn't want to be in a relationship like that and she was much more happy with Kimberly. So she started dating Kimberly. So it wasn't just a case of, you know, changing affections. It was Sotsie getting out of a bad relationship, getting out of an abusive relationship. Well, what did Marcella say then? Great question. Kimberlin told the police, you're not going to be able to find Marcella because she's gone. She's gone. Marcella has disappeared and Kimberland tells the police she has not seen Marcella since the day that they

were asked to come home from the factory January 15th and she took Kimberlin's car so so Marcella Kimberlin is saying Marcella took my car and she's been gone for like what two three days at this point hasn't seen her took her car she's in the wind and this is before cell phone well not before cell phones were invented but before they were everywhere all the time before easy tracking, yes, for sure. They had no idea where she is. Okay, wow. So they can't get in touch with her. The other thing that Kimberlin told the police other than Marcella was in the wind was that Carlos's explanation of the fact that when Satsi started dating Kimberlin and basically broke up with Marcella, his opinion was that she was sort of accepting of the situation

after a while. But this was not Kimberlin's impression. Carlos was wrong about that. Marcella never really got over it. She went into her room and hid for days at a time. She was very hostile toward the two. And in fact, Tony at one point said that she would come out of her room and if they were displaying any affection at all, she would do things like growl at them and tell them to cut it out. So she was not accepting of the situation at all until one day when a very strange thing happened. She came out of her room and she walked into the living room where all of the roommates were sitting. and it was Carlos Satsi and Kimberly were there and Marcella came in

and she wanted to play a game with them. She asked them all what would be the most horrible, terrifying way that you could possibly die? And you're kidding. Sotzi's answer, which I'm sure you can probably guess, is that the thing she most fears is being assaulted, strangled, raped, and then murdered. So it's at that point that they realize that Marcella is in the wind and they need to find her, but they do have two very strong suspects here. But at this point, the police believe Kimberland's story that Marcella left voluntarily.

The police are not thinking that it could be that Marcella is also a victim or what are they thinking then? They're believing everything Kimberland says at this point. At that point, they're not sure. Okay. But they definitely have their two very strong suspects, and that will be their next stop. So knowing all of this, they immediately get a search warrant. Like, it's a no-brainer to get a search warrant from a judge. They get it signed.

They head to Luis Barroso's home. Right. Luis is not home, but his brother is there. Okay. And his brother is like, yeah, I thought it was weird that he came home last night in a white pathfinder. Wow. And they search Luis's room. and they find a video camera

and they press play on the video camera and it's video of some people playing video games and whatnot and then it transitions to the Thanksgiving dinner that Satsi and her friends had so the person had partially overwritten the tape but it was Satsi's video camera right obviously

and they also find the gloves so now they have the bloody gloves in Luis Barroso's bedroom they have his brother saying he showed up in a white pathfinder and they had the video camera but they're wondering okay who is this other assailant right because the brother helps them with that too and says yeah it was weird that he showed up in the white pathfinder and he also showed up with this old this other old friend i haven't seen in a while named obed maraquin veil those two are friends for a while and he just showed up suddenly he was in the car

so they're like what okay we don't know where he is but we know where he is but we know where Luis Barroso is. So they head to the factory. And they arrest Luis Buroso. Luis immediately shuts up and says, I want a lawyer. He doesn't want to talk to them. So that's possibly the right thing to do. It's 100% the right thing to do. But anything you said before that can be used against you as well. I'm just reminding you. And then of course, they start looking for Obed. Happily, Obed is easy to find. He is at home. They go to talk to him. And unlike Luis Barroso, he tells them everything. He spins them an absolute tail down to the most minute detail of what happened.

Wow. So he tells them, Luis works with Marcella and Kimberlin at the factory, and he is friends with Luis. Okay. And one day, Marcella just started noticing Luis more and more, paying attention to him, being flirty with him. and eventually says she wants to talk to him and that he should bring a friend. And keep in mind, this is what Obed is telling the police. So he is completely spilling the beans on what happened.

So he tells the police that Marcella started talking to Luis and taking an interest in him, which wasn't very common for him. We'll talk about that a little bit more in the overtime. But it turns out that what Marcella wants is she tells the two that she wants them to kill Sots. And not only that, she wants them to kill her in a very specific way. She tells them there are drugs, that there's money, that there's fancy vehicles, all in the house.

And she promises they can have all of it, as long as they kill her in a specific way. She said that they need to bind her, gag her, beat her, and rape her. And then before she dies, tell her, this is from Marcella. Wow. And that's exactly the death she said that she most feared. Did Obed were the police, did the police try and make a deal with him? Is that how they got him to talk and say all this stuff? He just talked.

Wow. There was no deal made. They agreed to this deal with Marcella because they wanted all this loot and they didn't care. They were happy to kill her. So on the morning of January 15th, they showed up at the house after they knew that Kimberlin and Marcella would be gone from work and they forced their way in. in through a window, and they found Sasi in one of the bedrooms in the primary bedroom, just like Marcella said she would be. And they beat her and tied her up with a lamp cord. And then once she

was unconscious, Obed went about the house trying to find the loot. So they didn't, they really didn't expect Carlos and Tony to be there. No, they didn't. Marcella doesn't appear she expected that either. When Obed found Carlos and Tony asleep in Carlos' bedroom, Obed went and got Luis, and they came into the bedroom, smashed a bottle over Carlos's head, tied them up, and told them if they moved, they were dead. And then once they were subdued, Obed went about the house looking for the loot again. And Luis went back and finished the job as he was told by Marcella. And that explains why they were saying where the drugs were the cars to them. Exactly. Did Obed and Luis have a criminal history? I couldn't find very much in the way of criminal history. But

It would have all been from before 2000, and I didn't find it in the portal in the 8th Judicial District, which has been down recently because of the recent hack. Right, right. So it's really hard to find. And I wasn't able to find either of their records either. So Marcella, Marcella just, she just knew they would be willing to do this horrific crime? Wow. Apparently. So with all this, Frank Kumu is the prosecutor and puts them both on trial.

And because this is murder for hire. and a conspiracy. They are both charged with murder and first, you know, first-degree murder, kidnapping several things. Like they both have a laundry list of felonies they're being charged with. Because of the nature of the crime, the prosecutor left the death penalty on the table for both of these men. But in the end, Obed, Mariquin, Vail pled guilty to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years for his role. He wasn't directly involved in the murder.

His were more like accessory to murder, home invasion, assault, kidnapping, things like that. He will be eligible for parole 40 years. So he was convicted in 2002. He will be eligible in 2042 when he is in his 70s. Okay. Luis Barroso, on the other hand, was convicted of 10 felonies, including first-degree murder, sexual assault, kidnapping. And before he was sentenced, for some reason, Frank Kumu offered him a deal. He said he would take the death penalty off the table if Barroso would agree to the sentence

of life in prison without parole, which he did. Okay. So he is in prison for the rest of his life. He was convicted in February of 2004. He will spend the rest of his life in prison. All right. But what about Marcella? So we have one more incredibly important loose end, Marcella.

Where's Marcella? She's in the wind. They finally got a tip that she was found near the Mexican border at Eagle Pass in Texas. She'd crossed into Mexico and she'd gone back to Durango, Mexico. And, of course, we talked about that with the case of Nathaniel Oswaldo Perez Sanchez, who allegedly murdered Tabitha Tazi and then fled to Mexico, just like Marcella, except that while he was there, he murdered someone else. Since the death penalty was on the table in the case of Marcella,

but potentially Mexican authorities refuse to extradite her. They flatly refused to extradite her. Mexican legal system doesn't recognize either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Right. There were months of legal wrangling between the State Department, local officials, and local Las Vegas authorities, and the Mexican government that had finally happily apprehended her in Durango. The Americans were having a very difficult time convincing the Mexican authorities that they would be willing to take. the death penalty and life without parole off the table. The Mexican authorities just didn't believe them.

So in the end, they agreed to a compromise, which no one is happy with. They agreed she would be tried in Mexico, in a Mexican court. What? Okay. So the Las Vegas prosecutor was obviously very concerned that she would just get away with this. She would be just set free. But in 2005, she was tried in a Mexican court. she was sentenced to 39 years

in a Mexican prison and she'll be released in 2004 at the age of 73. Wow. And Kimberlin never suspected of knowing being involved in any kind of way. No one else was charged.

The conspiracy was Marcella to those two. Luis Obed. And everyone else was a victim in the crime. Kimberlin was absolutely absolutely innocent of the crime was never accused

and the same with Tony and Carlos. Yeah. So this is an important reminder, of course, that jealousy, controlling behavior, stuff like that knows no gender. Yes. It's a very big red flag

and could potentially be a predictor of future violence and escalation. Yeah, regardless of gender, like you said. It's not on, it's not, common to have a murder in a same-sex female relationship, but it's not as if it's never heard of. And it seems to me that these individuals were in a very toxic, I'll call it, space, trying to share this space together when there's all these, you know, broken hearts, jealousy, all of this is going on around them. I mean, Carlos,

He had nothing to do with any of those women, you know, in a romantic way. But he felt it. He experienced it. He saw it. And this, I guess what I always talk about is how important it is to be able to control your own money. So if you are in a situation, like hopefully you can figure out a way to get yourself out of that.

I think that that was awful that Kimberlin was living in that environment. Even though she wanted to, I think it's terrible that she was in that house with all of them and experienced that. Obviously, it's Satsi's house, and she can have whoever she wants to live there. But it does feel like it was just a simmering kettle that was about to boil over. Absolutely. It was a bad situation at the beginning. It's an important reminder that if you or someone you know is in a domestic violence abuse situation,

please reach out to the DB hotline. You can find that at sinspot.com slash the hotline, or you can go straight there at the hotline. You can find a complete set of resources on our website, too, at sinspot.com slash resources. And, of course, if you have suggestions for topics you'd like us to cover, feedback, please reach to us on the website. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. We'll see you in the Swing Shift episode. And until next time, remember what happens here, happens everywhere. Thanks for listening.

Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at Questions at Sins and Survivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sins and survivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your

host, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, Sins and Survivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those. of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice.

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