Speaker 1: Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
Speaker 1: you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
Speaker 1: because the story starts out with once upon a Times
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
Speaker 1: and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Today's guests are true crime producer Chris Graves, joined by
Speaker 1: Antenette Levy. Antenette is a journalist with fifteen years of
Speaker 1: experience as a crime and court reporter. She is currently
Speaker 1: a host and correspondent for the Law and Crime Network.
Speaker 1: You can find her on Twitter at a Geanette five
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Anjeanette. Episode eighteen The Case of the Dentist,
Speaker 1: the spurn Lover, and the Hipman. Kendra Hatcher was born
Speaker 1: on February third in Springfield, Illinois. She grew up in
Speaker 1: the tiny Maybury esque town of Pleasant Plains, Illinois, where
Speaker 1: her mother ran a quiltch up. Kendrew was beautiful inside
Speaker 1: and out. She loved life, had an infectious laugh, and
Speaker 1: was popular. She was a straight A student in the classroom,
Speaker 1: and Kendra also excelled at sports, where she was the
Speaker 1: captain of a cheerleading squad and her volleyball team. Being
Speaker 1: kind and generous was at the core of who Kendrew was.
Speaker 1: While still in high school, she taught Bible studies to
Speaker 1: underprivileged sheath as well as went on mission trips abroad
Speaker 1: to build churches. But her biggest dream was to become
Speaker 1: a pediatric dentist. Here's Chris. Kendra was this lovely young woman.
Speaker 1: She's a volunteer and just ef revested personality. I mean,
Speaker 1: she grows up in this tiny little town. From your research,
Speaker 1: what kind of place was pleasant Plans to grow up
Speaker 1: in Pleasant Plane sounds like just this idyllic place to
Speaker 1: grow up in. Kendra Hatcher. You know, she came from
Speaker 1: a nice family. She was just a nice woman. When
Speaker 1: I was reading up about her, I was really surprised
Speaker 1: to find out that there was less than a thousand
Speaker 1: people in that town. I mean, that's really small, eight
Speaker 1: d two as of the census, you know, incredibly small.
Speaker 1: So you have to imagine it's a community where everyone
Speaker 1: knows everyone. Despite how beautiful Pleasant Plane sounds, Kendra also
Speaker 1: had a need for adventure and travel. I mean she
Speaker 1: was going to Central America to build churches with people.
Speaker 1: That speaks to me, to someone who wants to see
Speaker 1: the world. On top of that, that's outside of that
Speaker 1: tiny town. I think so. And you can only imagine
Speaker 1: that growing up in a small town and you're in
Speaker 1: high school and you see there's more to the world
Speaker 1: out there, and you want to explore. For college, she
Speaker 1: decides to move away to Indiana. She goes to the
Speaker 1: DePaul University. She majored in Spanish, minored in biochemistry, and
Speaker 1: then after she graduated, she enrolled at the University of
Speaker 1: Kentucky College of Dentistry. Continuing her love of helping those
Speaker 1: less fortunate, Kensdra would spend spring breaks volunteering with Habitat
Speaker 1: for Humanity. She also gave free dental work to children
Speaker 1: a need, though not everything was perfect. Kendra married her
Speaker 1: college sweetheart in two thousand and four, but it hadn't
Speaker 1: worked out. By the time she graduated with her degree
Speaker 1: in pediatric dentistry. In two thousand and ten, Kendra was
Speaker 1: thirty years old and single. She was ready for a
Speaker 1: fresh start and moved to Dallas, Texas, excited to give
Speaker 1: big city living a go. By Kendra was thirty five
Speaker 1: and thriving in Dallas. She loved the youthful energy of
Speaker 1: the city, and she lived in a trendy part of
Speaker 1: town and in joyd working at Smile Zone. The only
Speaker 1: thing missing was someone to share it with. Kendra found
Speaker 1: herself checking out profiles on Tinder one night in May.
Speaker 1: Someone caught her eye and so she swiped right on.
Speaker 1: Kendra went on our first date with thirty eight year
Speaker 1: old Ricky Pantiagua Here's Chris. Ricky had some similarities with
Speaker 1: Kendra as well. He grew up in rural northern California,
Speaker 1: so it was probably not the biggest town he grew
Speaker 1: up in. But he also grew up in a in
Speaker 1: a single wide trailer, so he probably didn't come from
Speaker 1: too much wealth. Despite those humble beginnings, he went to
Speaker 1: Stanford and then did his internship at the University of
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and then inven moved to Dallas, and he too,
Speaker 1: was getting over a divorce when he met Kendra. You know,
Speaker 1: so you've got these two people who meet and have
Speaker 1: so much in common. When Ricky moved to Dallas, it
Speaker 1: was to complete the last step of is medical training,
Speaker 1: which was to do a dermatology residency. So it was
Speaker 1: a very specialized residency at the University of Texas Southwestern
Speaker 1: Medical Center and all of the patients and when people
Speaker 1: talk about him, they described him as having a bedside
Speaker 1: manner second to none, so he was really good at it.
Speaker 1: So Kendra works at the Smile Zone. She's working as
Speaker 1: a pediatric dentist, living her dream. And she had actually
Speaker 1: moved into this apartment complex. It was called Gables Park
Speaker 1: seventeen and it's a really awesome place. I mean, it
Speaker 1: has a saltwater pool, it has a gourmet coffee bar,
Speaker 1: a cyber lounge, twenty four hour concierge, so um in
Speaker 1: a fitness studio. So this is a really swanky place
Speaker 1: and she's basically living her best life. Kendra and Ricky
Speaker 1: really hit it off, and even after their first date,
Speaker 1: things seemed to move really quickly. They both loved to travel.
Speaker 1: They went to Denver, and they went to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and they were really inseparable. And one of Kendra's nieces
Speaker 1: actually came to visit her that summer and she described
Speaker 1: Kendra and Ricky as always cuddling and it really seemed
Speaker 1: like they had found each other's missing piece, kind of
Speaker 1: like they were soul mates. And one of the trips
Speaker 1: that they took was actually to northern California. Kendra met
Speaker 1: Ricky's parents there, and that's always a clue of just
Speaker 1: how serious things are getting. Not only that, Kendra and
Speaker 1: Ricky were planning to travel the Pleasant Plains in October
Speaker 1: for the town Fall Festival for Ricky to meet Kendra's parents.
Speaker 1: It's getting really serious when you introduced the boyfriend of
Speaker 1: the parents. And this happened three months after they started dating,
Speaker 1: and that was right after they had met on tender.
Speaker 1: Kendra and Ricky's relationship had moved fast, and by late August,
Speaker 1: Kendra was telling her friend she thought Ricky was the one.
Speaker 1: It felt like wedding bells were in her future. Both
Speaker 1: Kendra and Ricky loved to travel, and they had already
Speaker 1: taken several trips to California, where Ricky was from. By
Speaker 1: Labor Day, the pair planned to leave the country and
Speaker 1: take a romantic trip to Cancun, Mexico. Very sadly, Kendra
Speaker 1: would never make that trip. The night before they were
Speaker 1: slated to leave on September two, Kendra had driven into
Speaker 1: her buildings gated parking garage and parked. As she got
Speaker 1: out of her car. A stranger with a gun walked up.
Speaker 1: Kendra screamed, Her assailant shot her in the head, and
Speaker 1: Kendra died instantly. A fellow resident of her building had
Speaker 1: just come down the elevator to the parking garage and
Speaker 1: heard both kendra screams and the pop of the gunshots.
Speaker 1: He then saw a black SUV peel out of the
Speaker 1: parking garage. He called nine one one. The witness was
Speaker 1: only sixteen years old. Let's take a listen to the
Speaker 1: nine one one call Hi, who of the gable park
Speaker 1: piece in the one parking want I can girl? You
Speaker 1: t was that? Uh think you the next I'm not serious,
Speaker 1: but I thought I thought like Kerry key right out.
Speaker 1: And when I passed them to go, they had like
Speaker 1: the maths and he took it off because you carry
Speaker 1: with me. We made in the card. It was it
Speaker 1: was I think that's a man. I'm like, I'm finished. Man,
Speaker 1: It's like you look like me. He was he was white.
Speaker 1: You were white. He had a he had a diffus
Speaker 1: with me on this as been off so with like,
Speaker 1: uh yeah it was black because I don't know all
Speaker 1: of it was greeting and then a lot of and
Speaker 1: then I thought of laying on the board and then
Speaker 1: it was like, let's like food net her name and
Speaker 1: her phone going the board of the card that was open.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. You think that uh it
Speaker 1: was was coming was the card and steers it was
Speaker 1: a steady I think it was little sewers that she's there,
Speaker 1: like it was a card parts the doors the door open,
Speaker 1: and he was laying on about the doors like I remember,
Speaker 1: imagine that sixteen and he sees that in this building
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be one of the securest buildings for
Speaker 1: young people to live in. Yeah. I've probably listened to
Speaker 1: hundreds of nine one one calls over the years. And
Speaker 1: to listen to a young person, a teenager call nine
Speaker 1: one one and to have to hear something like that
Speaker 1: and then walk up and see a woman shot in
Speaker 1: the head, especially in a place that it is supposed
Speaker 1: to be so safe and an exclusive community, it's um,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just really horrifying. I'm startled by how
Speaker 1: composed he actually remained. I think that he had to
Speaker 1: be in shock. I mean, something kicks in and adrenaline
Speaker 1: or something kicks in and you're just relaying what you
Speaker 1: know what you have just seen and you just need
Speaker 1: to get out, And there's probably something that comes from
Speaker 1: within him to where he wants to He knows, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a good person. He knows what he has seen
Speaker 1: and witnessed. He understands the gravity of it. Sometimes there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really good information in these nine one
Speaker 1: one calls. This one was pretty detailed, so any information
Speaker 1: they might go through, and the detective may listen to
Speaker 1: this several times. It's a priceless clue. There may be
Speaker 1: something that's corroborated by a piece of video, something that
Speaker 1: he says, or you know, they see a particular car
Speaker 1: pull out, or he sees the car pull out and
Speaker 1: then they find it on the video. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing can often lead to another in these cases,
Speaker 1: and then he becomes a key witness at that point.
Speaker 1: Most definitely, when Dallas Police Department's homicide detective Eric Barnes
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene of Kendra's murder, he had a
Speaker 1: mystery on his hands. At first glance, it had looked
Speaker 1: like a robbery gone wrong. Kendra had been shot twice
Speaker 1: in the back of her head at close range, and
Speaker 1: her paris was missing. Could the answer be as simple
Speaker 1: as a robbery or had someone wanted her dad? Here's
Speaker 1: a Jeanette. We have a woman who's dead and been
Speaker 1: shot in the head, and her purse is missing, her
Speaker 1: camera is missing. And they talked to a teenage boy
Speaker 1: who called nine one one, and he tells the police
Speaker 1: that he thought the person was driving a black Jeep
Speaker 1: Cherokee and that it was maybe a white man, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't tell because the windows were tinted. And so
Speaker 1: Detective Barnes goes in search of surveillance footage. This is
Speaker 1: a really nice apartment complex, so you've got to believe
Speaker 1: they have surveillance cameras, and so he goes and finds
Speaker 1: this from the parking garage. UM and to him, the
Speaker 1: driver looked like she could be a Hispanic woman. And
Speaker 1: Detective Barnes goes and talks to Ricky panton Niagua, who
Speaker 1: is Kendra's boyfriend. Ricky was brought to Detective Barnes told
Speaker 1: the detective that he'd been waiting at Kendra's apartment earlier
Speaker 1: that evening while she was coming home. UM. I believe
Speaker 1: they had been texting while she was at work and
Speaker 1: then on her like she must have texted, Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: on my way home, and while he was waiting, he'd
Speaker 1: gotten hungry, so he left the building to go get
Speaker 1: some tacos, and all of this happened while he was
Speaker 1: out having his tacos. And he comes back to basically
Speaker 1: the Gables Park seventeen being a crime scene. Right, so
Speaker 1: he encounters officers. He asked what happened. He tells them
Speaker 1: that he knows Kendra because he's her boyfriend, so they
Speaker 1: bring them to Detective Barnes for questioning. They were leaving
Speaker 1: on a trip from Mexico the next morning, so he's
Speaker 1: there at the building waiting for it because they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna sleep at her place to go to the airport.
Speaker 1: Detective Barnes then when he meets him meets Ricky. He
Speaker 1: notes just how distraught Ricky is um and that he's
Speaker 1: being very cooperative with the police, telling him everything he knows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and right now, at this point in the investigation, Detective
Speaker 1: Barnes is really at square one. He doesn't really have
Speaker 1: any idea of why Kendra Hatcher is dead, why anybody
Speaker 1: would kill her, and so he didn't really have much
Speaker 1: to go on, so he does what a lot of
Speaker 1: cops do. Uh. Sometimes cops will hold evidence close to
Speaker 1: the best, but this time he decides, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've got nothing here, So he releases the surveillance footage
Speaker 1: to the public. He puts it out in the news.
Speaker 1: He's hoping somebody recognizes the suv and bingo, somebody sees it.
Speaker 1: It's a local mechanic. He owns the jeep, Cherokee, and
Speaker 1: he's shocked. He can't believe he's seeing his suv on
Speaker 1: the news, and he calls the police on September four,
Speaker 1: this is two days later, and this mechanic tells the
Speaker 1: detective Barnes that on September two, two days before, he
Speaker 1: had a friend named Brenda Delgado, and she was with
Speaker 1: her friend Crystal Cortez, and they had actually brought a
Speaker 1: BMW into be fixed. So he loaned her his jeep
Speaker 1: and the mechanic tells Barnes that he didn't have any
Speaker 1: idea how his jeep wound up in a garage speeding
Speaker 1: away from the scene of a crime, a murder, no less,
Speaker 1: and so Detective Barnes talks to the mechanic. He calls Ricky,
Speaker 1: and Ricky told him that Brenda Delgado was his ex girlfriend,
Speaker 1: but they were just friends now. And Ricky also mentioned
Speaker 1: that for a moment when he watched the surveillance video
Speaker 1: the jeep, he actually thought the driver looked a little
Speaker 1: bit like Brenda and he wondered if it could be her.
Speaker 1: So it was a really shocking moment, not only for
Speaker 1: Ricky but the detective too. It's insane, but it's also
Speaker 1: like it's real life. This is actually happening, you know.
Speaker 1: In this poor mechanic sees his his SUVs crime scene. Ricky,
Speaker 1: here's the name of his ex girlfriend, thirty one, Brenda Delgado,
Speaker 1: and she's born in Mexico, so she's a Mexican citizen,
Speaker 1: but her parents immigrated to the US when Brenda was little,
Speaker 1: and so she grew up in a lower income neighborhood
Speaker 1: of Dallas called Pleasant Grove. And so she's been ambitious.
Speaker 1: She excelled at school herself. She dreamed of going to
Speaker 1: Meddle School school, but unfortunately, you know, her parents couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to send her there. So she spent some time
Speaker 1: working at dental offices and then decided to go to
Speaker 1: dental hygiene school at a place called Sanford Brown College.
Speaker 1: Brenda definitely had aspirations and dreams. When she met Ricky.
Speaker 1: It was he took her to a Jennifer Lopez concert
Speaker 1: for their first date, and things moved really fast, and
Speaker 1: they had moved in together just after about three months,
Speaker 1: and eventually Ricky gave her a promise ring. Brenda thought
Speaker 1: they were getting married, and then everything was over, you know.
Speaker 1: He told her one day that they had to move on.
Speaker 1: This relationship was just not going to be working for him.
Speaker 1: It was about three years into it and they broke up.
Speaker 1: And um, Ricky actually considered Brenda a really good friend
Speaker 1: and he just couldn't imagine that she would have had
Speaker 1: anything to do with killing Kendra. He he couldn't. He
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that because he felt like she was such
Speaker 1: a good person and she even offered to bring over
Speaker 1: food for him and do anything she could to be
Speaker 1: of help after Kendra was murdered. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they even talked that night, didn't they. He texted
Speaker 1: or called her and told her what had happened. You
Speaker 1: don't do that with someone you don't think is a
Speaker 1: good friend. No, you don't. We're going to take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a moment. The only logical
Speaker 1: thing that Detective Barnes can do next is talked to
Speaker 1: Brenda Delgado, so he brings her in for questioning, and
Speaker 1: she swears she she doesn't know Kendra Hatcher or that
Speaker 1: she was Ricky's new girlfriend. And she also throws her
Speaker 1: friend Crystal Cortes under the bus. And she tells Detective
Speaker 1: Barnes that she had no idea how the jeep Cherokee
Speaker 1: wound up in Kendra's garage that night, and she told
Speaker 1: Barnes that it was actually Crystal and not her that
Speaker 1: borrowed the mechanics jeep, and that she'd only known Crystal
Speaker 1: for about a month. And she gave Detective Barnes a
Speaker 1: receipt for an airtight alibi. She said she was at
Speaker 1: Chili's having drinks with the classmate when Kendro was murdered.
Speaker 1: Here here it is, here's the proof. But Dallas PD
Speaker 1: had actually tracked down Crystal and brought her in for questioning.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is a woman who's twenty three
Speaker 1: years old. She doesn't have a lot of money, she's
Speaker 1: a single mom and lives with her grandmother, and she
Speaker 1: was making like eleven dollars an hour working as a receptionist.
Speaker 1: So Detective Barnes had interviewed Brenda and then bounced between
Speaker 1: the two rooms. You know, this is like something you
Speaker 1: see on television shows. You know, you go to suspect
Speaker 1: one and then get their story, and then you go
Speaker 1: into suspect two and you say, well, suspect one told
Speaker 1: me this in blah blah blah, and they play the
Speaker 1: two off of each other when they don't even know
Speaker 1: what the other is saying. And so Crystal is really nervous,
Speaker 1: and she goes through several versions of of what's going
Speaker 1: on in the parking garage and what happened in there,
Speaker 1: and Detective Barnes was obviously able to knock her off
Speaker 1: her game, and she just breaks down and she tells
Speaker 1: him that Brenda hired her and this guy named Lamar
Speaker 1: to rob Kendra, but she didn't know who Lamar was
Speaker 1: and or that he was going to shoot Kendra. And
Speaker 1: so Crystals arrested. She's charged with capital murder. And before
Speaker 1: Crystals taken to the county to jail, she actually gave
Speaker 1: investigators a description of Lamar, and she told them a
Speaker 1: crucial piece of information that he drove a blue sea bring.
Speaker 1: So she provides kind of like another big key to
Speaker 1: this whole thing. I mean, this must be a detective's dream, right.
Speaker 1: He's got two suspects in two separate rooms, and he
Speaker 1: can bounce between the two. He probably knows he's got
Speaker 1: the right people here, just having to break them both
Speaker 1: down to try to figure it all out. Brenda obviously
Speaker 1: tried to think this through the best she could. She
Speaker 1: comes up with the Chili's receipt. You know, that's my
Speaker 1: air tight alibio is at Chili's. But it really shows
Speaker 1: you how manipulative Brenda is. Because Brenda had actually courted
Speaker 1: Crystal through this old roommate of hers. She had met
Speaker 1: her through her because the roommate had brought Crystal over
Speaker 1: to let her a little boy go swimming in the pool.
Speaker 1: And then she starts praying on this woman. She realizes
Speaker 1: that this is somebody I can bring into my life
Speaker 1: and I can groom her to do this for me.
Speaker 1: Brenda's got some issues. I think she's a pretty manipulative
Speaker 1: person to be able to cajole Crystal into this. And
Speaker 1: Crystal basically later says she had a little boy to
Speaker 1: take care of she did this for six hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: So as Crystals trying to keep all of these stories straight,
Speaker 1: she she tells like a bunch of different things, you know,
Speaker 1: she tells all these different versions. She she told Detective
Speaker 1: Barnes she was looking for a place to park that
Speaker 1: night and that's why she in the garage, and she
Speaker 1: wanted to go to this Mexican restaurant nearby. And then
Speaker 1: she said she had had her six year old little
Speaker 1: boy with her and wanted to find a park to
Speaker 1: take him too, and was looking for a parking spot
Speaker 1: for that. And then she actually told him that there
Speaker 1: was a man that she didn't know called Lamar who
Speaker 1: had Carjacktor and he had held a gun to her
Speaker 1: and forced her to go into the parking garage and
Speaker 1: so he could rob Kendra. So that she's kind of
Speaker 1: grasping at straws here. She's coming up with all these
Speaker 1: different stories. And you see that in these cases sometimes
Speaker 1: where people are lying at first, and then the truth
Speaker 1: slowly starts to bleed out, you know, Lamar is introduced
Speaker 1: into the story and and then that's when finally, you know,
Speaker 1: Crystal just can't do it anymore. She admits that Brenda
Speaker 1: hired her and Lamar to go to the garage and
Speaker 1: rob Kendra. But she says that she didn't know that
Speaker 1: Lamar was going to actually shoot Kendra. She thought he
Speaker 1: was just going to rob her, and so she didn't
Speaker 1: really put up a fight about driving away because Lamar
Speaker 1: was armed. She didn't know what would what would happen
Speaker 1: if she said she wouldn't drive him away. Even if
Speaker 1: she drove in there, for Lamar to just rob Kendrew,
Speaker 1: it's still a crime. I do wonder what Barnes thinks
Speaker 1: is going on now. I mean, this is he's got
Speaker 1: these two women in these two rooms, and they're telling
Speaker 1: all kinds of wild stories, right, and yet he's got
Speaker 1: this poor woman, Kendrew. Why would anyone want her debt?
Speaker 1: Detective Barnes had started to get a picture of why
Speaker 1: Kendra Hatcher had been killed, and it involved Ricky's jealous
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. Back in Brenda Delgado's interview room, he tested
Speaker 1: his theory. Here's a clip of Detective Barnes trying to
Speaker 1: get Brenda to show emotion and crack. Do you really
Speaker 1: say or anybody else? It's probably you know, I'm Marrea,
Speaker 1: this guy that you're sell in love with Did you
Speaker 1: just say the world to believe that you had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this? I think you didn't have anything
Speaker 1: at all. Even though you made an arrangement for the
Speaker 1: younger boy beginning this VI. You set that up. You
Speaker 1: said that, you said it's playing emotion. It starts because
Speaker 1: you make a song called every day you started like you,
Speaker 1: and I can prove that your phone records. I can
Speaker 1: prove that through your text someone. I'm not asking you
Speaker 1: what she did because I know what she did and
Speaker 1: I'm will improve what she did. I mentioned why because
Speaker 1: that is the single most important thing. I can't understand
Speaker 1: why somebody would kill someone else. I never killed anybody,
Speaker 1: but I haven't had my heart brooking, and I know
Speaker 1: what it feels like. There's another person in this world
Speaker 1: hasn't going through that kind of man. Now, I can't
Speaker 1: tell me what was the one through your head. This
Speaker 1: one by for you is important for you to say
Speaker 1: of the why because people are going up and think
Speaker 1: about the people that are close to you. I think
Speaker 1: about the people that are imported to you. They're gonna
Speaker 1: to know why you're coming up in this situation. But
Speaker 1: if you let Crystal telling, it's gonna come out totally
Speaker 1: different because Crystal is here for her baby right now.
Speaker 1: She's not here for you. She came down her because
Speaker 1: she didn't know what you were gonna say about her.
Speaker 1: But she's got a very strong description of how she
Speaker 1: ended up in your friend's car, this guy that grew
Speaker 1: up with you, that you do very well, and how
Speaker 1: she ended up in that garage that that belongs to
Speaker 1: this young lady to stay your a boyfriend that she
Speaker 1: still talk to all the time. People will put this
Speaker 1: together very fast. That's why I'm asking you why he
Speaker 1: absolutely a motive You're gonna be explain to people. Motive
Speaker 1: is because you may not known definition of logive motive.
Speaker 1: This wouldn't drive something. Sometimes just hate so I was love.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's three in this situation. Hate. I think you
Speaker 1: needed it back and she weren't good enough. That's true,
Speaker 1: you weren't good enough. It is very hard swallows I
Speaker 1: gonna have and it hurts. Yeah, I don't like what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I don't know. This is just somebody who
Speaker 1: obviously is deeply disturbed, and so he's trying to get
Speaker 1: her too. You know, he's trying to say, I I
Speaker 1: feel your pain. I I've been I've been there girlfriend,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, and um, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. You would think that after all of this,
Speaker 1: maybe he would be able to get through to her
Speaker 1: and get her to just admit, yeah, I was so
Speaker 1: in love with them, but she she doesn't. She doesn't
Speaker 1: budge an inch. So it's it's really kind of disturbing
Speaker 1: in a way. It shows kind of a lack of feeling,
Speaker 1: kind of like only she's only feeling things for her,
Speaker 1: for herself, not for anyone else. In that clip, we
Speaker 1: we also heard a little bit of her basically saying
Speaker 1: she didn't know who Kendra was. How is that possible
Speaker 1: if she remains such good friends with Ricky, and Ricky's
Speaker 1: telling her on the night that Kendra died and she's
Speaker 1: offering to bring food that she didn't know who this
Speaker 1: person was. She knows exactly who Kendra is. I think
Speaker 1: she thought she was smart enough to outsmart the police.
Speaker 1: So one of those things in her head was if
Speaker 1: I say I don't know this person, they can't connect
Speaker 1: me to her. Detective Barnes really he tries his best
Speaker 1: trying to get Brenda to spill the beans to give
Speaker 1: herself up, but she stuck to her story. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have a confession from her, he doesn't have any you know,
Speaker 1: hard evidence. He's got another co conspirator basically implicating her.
Speaker 1: She's got this Chili's receipt with her airtight alibi. I
Speaker 1: say that in air quotes, And so he has to
Speaker 1: let her go. But he knows that Brenda's basically the
Speaker 1: mastermind here. He knows that she's responsible for what happened
Speaker 1: to Kendra. But he has to build a case, and
Speaker 1: he knows that. A couple of days after Detective Barnes
Speaker 1: interviewed Brenda Delgado and Crystal Cortes, investigators had found a
Speaker 1: number for the man Crystal had called Lamar. Crystal had
Speaker 1: texted with this person quite a bit in the days
Speaker 1: leading up to Kenja Hatcher's murder. Investigators called the FBI
Speaker 1: in to help them track down Lamar, and the FBI
Speaker 1: discovered that the man's name wasn't in fact Lamar. The
Speaker 1: person they were looking for was named Christopher Love. He
Speaker 1: was a thirty one year old petty criminal and small
Speaker 1: time drug dealer. Christopher had a rap sheet going back
Speaker 1: to his teenage years. The Peah I quickly located Christopher's
Speaker 1: phone pinging from a Dallas apartment complex, a blue seabring
Speaker 1: set in the parking lot. Dallas PD staked out the car,
Speaker 1: and soon a man matching the description Crystal Cortes had
Speaker 1: given investigators came out to the Blue Seabring. Investigators brought
Speaker 1: Christopher to Detective Barnes for questioning and executed search warrants
Speaker 1: for his blue seabring and his apartment. Here's an Jeanette.
Speaker 1: The Lifetime movie script keeps unraveling and writing itself. Here
Speaker 1: the cops spring Christopher Lovin, and he's pretty cool. He's
Speaker 1: been through this drill before. And so Detective Barnes has
Speaker 1: Christopher in this interrogation room for hours, and Christopher just
Speaker 1: remains calm. He doesn't give Detective Barnes anything. The investigators, though,
Speaker 1: are going over the Blue Seabring with a fine toot comb.
Speaker 1: They have search warrants. They don't find anything, and then
Speaker 1: they bring in a cane line and the canine dog
Speaker 1: sniffs around the vehicle and actually smells gunpowder near the
Speaker 1: ashtray and the center console. So they take apart the
Speaker 1: console and the dashboard and lo and behold they find
Speaker 1: this forty caliber semi automatic Smith and Wesson, and it's
Speaker 1: buried behind the glove box. And so Barnes tells Christopher
Speaker 1: Love that they found the Smith and Wesson in the car,
Speaker 1: and Christopher starts to talk and he knows he's caught,
Speaker 1: and he tells Detective Barnes that Brenda hired him. She
Speaker 1: had told him she had ties to a Mexican cartel
Speaker 1: and get him a mix of money and drugs to
Speaker 1: bump up his drug dealing operation if he'd just go
Speaker 1: and rob Kendra. And Detective Barnes arrested Christopher Love and
Speaker 1: charged him with capital murder. What's interesting is with the cops,
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a big stroke of luck
Speaker 1: with the canine unit. So the cars at the impound
Speaker 1: unit where they're going over with a fine tooth comb
Speaker 1: and at the same time there was a canine unit
Speaker 1: and his handler. The handler was giving a uh m
Speaker 1: a demonstration to other police officers, So the canine unit
Speaker 1: wasn't brought in specifically for this. He happened to be
Speaker 1: at the same place as the car that they were
Speaker 1: going over, and when the investigators saw the canine unit there,
Speaker 1: they approached him and asked if he would have the
Speaker 1: dogs sniffed the car, just that like a happenstance kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, yeah, but that seems to be what
Speaker 1: this case is about, right, definitely. It's just a matter
Speaker 1: of days after Kendra Hatcher is murdered, Detective Barnes he's
Speaker 1: already got the getaway driver in custody, the hitman's in custody,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't have Brenda Delgado, and he knows that
Speaker 1: she is responsible for this, that she orchestrated the whole thing,
Speaker 1: so he goes looking for He wants to bring her
Speaker 1: back in, wants to take another run at her to
Speaker 1: see if he can knock her off her story. And
Speaker 1: it had been about two days since he had interviewed
Speaker 1: Brenda and she took off. She'd gotten on a bus.
Speaker 1: She went south and crossed the border into Mexico where
Speaker 1: she had family living. So it's another kind of plot
Speaker 1: twist where the young girl from Mexico who came to
Speaker 1: America then flees to Mexico after the big murder. It
Speaker 1: also is just one of those moments for for the detective,
Speaker 1: for you know, he had her in his hands and
Speaker 1: then he had no ability to keep her in custody,
Speaker 1: and this you know, if she's got extended family there,
Speaker 1: she could probably disappear pretty easily in Mexico, or at
Speaker 1: least she thinks she can disappear really easily. You know
Speaker 1: who who knows. You know that Mexico is a big place,
Speaker 1: and so you know a lot of people think they'll
Speaker 1: flee to Mexico and nobody will ever see them again.
Speaker 1: Detective Barnes has decided to dig a little more into
Speaker 1: that relationship between Ricky and Brenda, and of course he
Speaker 1: has to keep building a case because it's all circumstantial
Speaker 1: with Brenda. So the more he can dig up and
Speaker 1: the more proof of, the better the cases. While they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to get Brenda back right
Speaker 1: to the US, so he finds out that in June,
Speaker 1: Brenda found out she was pregnant, but she wound up
Speaker 1: aborting the baby. After talking to Ricky in early Ricky
Speaker 1: gave Brenda a promise ring. I think we mentioned that earlier.
Speaker 1: So at some point Ricky too pro what we had
Speaker 1: thought it was going to go to the next level.
Speaker 1: And about a month after giving Brenda the promise ring,
Speaker 1: that's when he had a change of heart. So something
Speaker 1: happened in that month that made Ricky ask Brendotta to
Speaker 1: break up and asked her to move out. It sounds
Speaker 1: to me like Brenda wasn't expecting that. I don't think
Speaker 1: Brenda was expecting the break up at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: she aborted her baby for this guy, which kind of
Speaker 1: makes me wonder if they were going to get married,
Speaker 1: why they would go that route. Anyway, She'd put three
Speaker 1: years of her life into this, and she had an abortion,
Speaker 1: she she had the promise ring, and then just one
Speaker 1: day it's over. And I think she probably was just devastated,
Speaker 1: and it probably just unearthed some really unhealthy stuff going
Speaker 1: on with her, you know, in her mind. Um, and
Speaker 1: she's she's going to start stalking him, and she wants
Speaker 1: to get him back, and you know, she's acting like
Speaker 1: their friends. And I'm sure she thought, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: even if he starts dating somebody, he'll he'll eventually come
Speaker 1: back to me. I'll just be the you know, the
Speaker 1: good friend or whatever. And they had lived together, and
Speaker 1: Ricky and Brenda had shared a wireless you know, cell
Speaker 1: phone plan, and he may have asked her to move
Speaker 1: but he left her on the cell phone plant. That's
Speaker 1: a lot for someone, and I think she went over
Speaker 1: the deepened. Let's stop here for another break. Ricky Paniagua
Speaker 1: has no clue that Brenda has started stalking him after
Speaker 1: they broke up. She could track him. She knew how
Speaker 1: to get into his texts and his emails, and she
Speaker 1: would just start showing up. She was randomly showing up
Speaker 1: on a hike that he was taking, at a coffee shop,
Speaker 1: at salsa class, and the whole time she's just acting
Speaker 1: like she's too, totally cool with the two of them
Speaker 1: being friends. And it seemed to work. I mean, her
Speaker 1: just kind of being wherever. He was paid off for
Speaker 1: her because in November, she surprisingly took the same salsa
Speaker 1: class that Ricky signed up for and they really started
Speaker 1: to hit it off again and they started dating. But
Speaker 1: a few months later, you know, February fift Ricky had
Speaker 1: lost interest again and he broke up with her, and
Speaker 1: she's just so obsessed with him. In June of Ricky
Speaker 1: emailed Brenda to tell her he was seeing someone new
Speaker 1: and it was going really well. All the while, Brenda
Speaker 1: was seeing his text to Kendra and pictures that Ricky
Speaker 1: and Kendra would post on social media. Detective Barnes would
Speaker 1: learn from seven old friends and family members of Brenda's
Speaker 1: that by the summer of Brenda was so obsessed with
Speaker 1: Ricky and Kendra it was all she would talk about
Speaker 1: to them. Brenda went so far as asking some of
Speaker 1: her friends if they quote knew anyone who would hurt someone.
Speaker 1: Brenda's plans to do something about Kendra Hatcher escalated when
Speaker 1: in late August of Ricky told Brenda that he was
Speaker 1: going to remove her from a cell phone plan. On
Speaker 1: August thirty one, Ricky also told her he had gotten
Speaker 1: a job in northern California and that he was moving
Speaker 1: there on October. Detective Barnes had a pretty clear motive
Speaker 1: for why Brenda Delgado had wanted Kendra dead. Just seven
Speaker 1: weeks after Kendra Hatcher was killed. In November of Brenda Delgado,
Speaker 1: who was still having out in Mexico, was formally indicted
Speaker 1: on capital murder charges. After months of appealing to Brenda
Speaker 1: Delgado's family to help get her back on US soil
Speaker 1: with no love, Um Dallas p D turned to the
Speaker 1: FBI for help. On April sixteen, Brenda Delgado became only
Speaker 1: the ninth woman to have been put on the FBI's
Speaker 1: ten most Wanted Fugitive list. The FBI held to press conference.
Speaker 1: Kendra Hatcher's family was there, overcome with the motion, Let's
Speaker 1: hear a little of the FBI's announcement. Delgado's addition to
Speaker 1: the list underscores the violent and calculated nature of the
Speaker 1: crime she's accused of committing. It's April eighteen. It's just
Speaker 1: two days after the FBI announced that Brenda Delgado was
Speaker 1: on the ten most Wanted Fugitives list. And they enlisted
Speaker 1: the help of Mexican law enforcement, and they find Brenda
Speaker 1: in the city of Torreon, Mexico. She was taken into
Speaker 1: custody without incident, but there was a hurdle to getting
Speaker 1: Brenda back into the US. Mexico constitutionally abolished the death
Speaker 1: penalty in two thousand five, and because Brenda Delgado was
Speaker 1: born in Mexico, she was considered a citizen, so Mexican
Speaker 1: authorities would not extradite Brenda if she could be sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. So the prosecutor and Brenda Delgado's case actually
Speaker 1: dropped the death penalty for Brenda despite her facing capital
Speaker 1: murder charges, and Mexico then extradited her back to the US.
Speaker 1: You know, that just must have been a pretty tough
Speaker 1: decision for the prosecutor. Either give up the death penalty
Speaker 1: and get her back into the US, or are you
Speaker 1: risk her going away and you know, maybe fleeing forever.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant conversation if Kendra's
Speaker 1: family supported, you know, a death penalty and death sentence
Speaker 1: in this case. But I think they had to take
Speaker 1: what they could get. Knowing he had a mainly circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence case against Brenda Delgado, the Dallas prosecutor turned to
Speaker 1: Crystal Cortes. Crystal agreed to a plea deal. She would
Speaker 1: testify in both Brenda's trial and Christopher Loves in exchange
Speaker 1: for the death penalty being removed from her case. The
Speaker 1: prosecutor tried Christopher Love's case first on October. With the
Speaker 1: damning evidence of the gun found in his car and
Speaker 1: Crystal Cortes's testimony, the jury found him guilty of capital murder,
Speaker 1: and he was sentenced to death by lethal injection on
Speaker 1: October thirty one. Christopher is serving his time on death
Speaker 1: row at the Allen B. Polunsky Unit, a notoriously harsh
Speaker 1: correctional facility near Livingston, Texas. Brenda Delgado went on trial
Speaker 1: on June three. When Crystal Cortez took the stand to
Speaker 1: testify against Brenda, it was the first time most people
Speaker 1: heard the actual details of the revenge murder plot that
Speaker 1: Brenda had sent into motion to kill Kendra. Here are
Speaker 1: some excerpts from Crystal's testimony during Brenda's trial. Was discussion
Speaker 1: about about the situation, what she wanted to have done? Yes?
Speaker 1: What was the discussion? She wanted to get rid of
Speaker 1: Kendra Hatcher? And why did she want to get rid
Speaker 1: of Kendra Hatcher because she was envious with her? Did
Speaker 1: she ask for any help? Brand? What was your role?
Speaker 1: She did ask her help? She asked if I knew
Speaker 1: anybody who could take care of it. That's how I
Speaker 1: became a play member in it. And did you at
Speaker 1: some point time I started help planning this this event? Yes,
Speaker 1: I did. How often do you think you and Brendon
Speaker 1: Delgado had discussions about about doing something in this Hatcher
Speaker 1: Almost every day. I go and pick up Christopher a
Speaker 1: little in the g we go back to Kendra's play
Speaker 1: some job. We parked across the street at the Salvation
Speaker 1: Army and when we wait for her to leave. As
Speaker 1: soon as she leaves, we follow her, but we lose
Speaker 1: her in traffic. So we beat her to the apartment
Speaker 1: complex where she stayed, and we waited for somebody to
Speaker 1: come in, and when we did, we followed the vehicle
Speaker 1: into the gate. The part where Kinder don't really parked
Speaker 1: was packed, so we had a park on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the game. And here's way he had Christopher
Speaker 1: the and where's for love in the back seam? How
Speaker 1: does he have a gun with it? Yes? What are
Speaker 1: you wearing? I am wearing a hoodie with a Day
Speaker 1: of the Dead mask and ribs on it. It's a
Speaker 1: black hoodie. Uh. And what's lover? He's wearing jeans and
Speaker 1: a black T shirt. And what is he doing with
Speaker 1: the guy and the bullets and all that? He's cleaning
Speaker 1: the bullets and the cliff and the gun cleaning him? Yes?
Speaker 1: For what reason? So that he will not leave finger
Speaker 1: parents time? And eventually what happens um Miss Kender comes
Speaker 1: in and she parkes caddy corner to where we park,
Speaker 1: and Christopher Love gets off the vehicle through the driver's
Speaker 1: sign in the back and he exists the vehicle close
Speaker 1: to the vehicle and he um approaches Kendra and I
Speaker 1: didn't see him kill her. I heard the shots fired.
Speaker 1: I backed down and when I backed down, he ran
Speaker 1: into the jeep with you can't just belong with the guy.
Speaker 1: When he comes back, he's got a purse, the camera,
Speaker 1: the verse, the camera, and again why does he have
Speaker 1: those isems? Because Brenda wanted it to make it look
Speaker 1: like a robbery. Not bad Crystal did her into the deal.
Speaker 1: She's pretty descriptive of everything that happened with her and Brenda,
Speaker 1: and I think she's very guilty of having taken part
Speaker 1: in this and being willing to be part of a
Speaker 1: murder that she's also a little bit of a victim
Speaker 1: of being manipulated. She's twenty three year old single mom
Speaker 1: who needs money. You know, she was desperate six. She
Speaker 1: wanted that money to help take care of her son.
Speaker 1: She's living with her grandmother. So it's incredibly sad. You know.
Speaker 1: When she was asked later on why she chose to
Speaker 1: take the plea and testify against both Christopher and Brenda,
Speaker 1: it's because she'd gotten a visit from her mother. Came
Speaker 1: to visitor and told her she was disappointed and she
Speaker 1: realized she had really gone off the rails and needed
Speaker 1: to make up for it, so Crystal came very clean
Speaker 1: on trial. I think that anybody who's feeling like this
Speaker 1: about a man or a woman should really seek out
Speaker 1: some professional help, because this is a whole another level
Speaker 1: of being scorned and jilted. This is beyond that. So
Speaker 1: it never ceases to amaze me how horrible or how
Speaker 1: terribly I should say human beings can treat one another
Speaker 1: over things that are just really not that important. It's
Speaker 1: just a disturbing case, that's for sure, and and ultimately
Speaker 1: so sad for Kendra Hatcher's family. A woman is dead
Speaker 1: and three people are now imprisoned, including the mother or
Speaker 1: of a six year old boy. I think people need
Speaker 1: to think a little more thoughtfully about things before they act.
Speaker 1: Kendra Hatcher's family felter loss deeply, and there will now
Speaker 1: always be a missing piece in their family puzzle. Several
Speaker 1: members of Kendra's family gave emotional victim impact statements after
Speaker 1: Brenda was found guilty. Here's a portion of what Kendra's sister,
Speaker 1: Ashley Turner had to say. Had almost four years to
Speaker 1: think about what I would say to you when I
Speaker 1: at least saw your disgusting space. And here I am
Speaker 1: with another book. Who knows that I made? And I'll
Speaker 1: even think about for my two children, aw who asked
Speaker 1: me every single day why they here? Cool? Three kaf
Speaker 1: my son wanted to be here, was so bad he
Speaker 1: was eight when you had My sister executed, my ei girls,
Speaker 1: her god daughter, and I'm nants our third. That will
Speaker 1: never get to me, Kendrath, because you because we're evil.
Speaker 1: Because if you're envy has a so perfectly put it,
Speaker 1: No matter how envious you were of any human being,
Speaker 1: does not be the right to destroy lives, many lives.
Speaker 1: Your own family's lives are lives, Kendra's lives, my children's lives.
Speaker 1: Who the helly thing you are? We the You will
Speaker 1: go down in history as one of the most hated
Speaker 1: women in Dallas, possibly in America, and stud me will
Speaker 1: be forgotten, but Kendra's legacy won't, because we'll make sure
Speaker 1: that it's not. You can't even look at me. After
Speaker 1: only a five day trial and deliberating for just eighteen
Speaker 1: min it's the jury found Brenda Delgado guilty of capital
Speaker 1: murder and sentenced her to life in prison with no
Speaker 1: possibility of parol. Brenda is currently serving her time at
Speaker 1: William P. Hobby Unit in Marlin, Texas. Crystal Cortes is
Speaker 1: serving her thirty five years sentence at Christian Melton Crane
Speaker 1: Unit in Gatesville, Texas. She has a parole eligibility date
Speaker 1: of shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love, leave
Speaker 1: us a review to view our recent documentary Murdered Missing
Speaker 1: in Montana. You'll find it extreaming now on Peacock, Follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy and Love
Speaker 1: is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, and
Speaker 1: me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Ta.
Speaker 1: Crazy in Love is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shoes. Stay safe, lovers,