She Wanted To Steal Her Victim's Life - The Female Killer On the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List

There are 2 younger women sitting around a table at a trap house in Dallas, Texas. They’re both Latina with a bit of baby fat in their cheeks - but they’re not just some college students looking to buy drugs. They’re here to sell them – a lot of them. One of the 2 women – she’s a narco with deep connections in Mexico. The other woman? Just a Spanish/English translator for her boss, the narco, and the dealer of the trap house, a man named Love. They need someone to move product for them and since Love has connections in the US - this deal could mean a lump sum of drugs and cash PLUS a lifetime supply from the cartel. He just needs to earn their trust. How? Kill someone. But not just anyone. They already have the target picked out. A 35 year old pediatric dentist named Kendra Hatcher. Why would the cartels want to kill a random dentist for children in Dallas, Texas? Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com

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• 1:31Speaker 01

  This is part three of the Kendra Hatcher case. If you haven't listened to the first two audio parts, please do, because there's really no easy way to simplify this case and give you a thorough recap. Thirty-five-year-old pediatric dentist Kendra Hatcher was found dead in her luxury apartment building parking lot. Originally, it seemed like the eyes of suspicion were headed towards her boyfriend at the time, Ricky, as well as a man named Jose. Because Jose's Jeep was found to be the getaway car in the shooting. Jose, however, doesn't even know Kendra. He says that his car was borrowed by a woman named Brenda. Brenda comes into the police station and she's got an airtight alibi. She even has the receipt to go along with it. She was at Chili's just honking down chili ritas, margaritas.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  But then, when they look into it, they realize that Brenda and Ricky had a relationship prior to Ricky dating Kendra. And all of this starts spiraling out of control until eventually a man named Christopher Love gets brought in and he confesses that, yes, he was the one that shot Kendra, but he doesn't know Kendra. He did it because the cartels wanted him to do it, because they were gonna make him a drug lord.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support Dentist Who Care, a nonprofit that provides free urgent dental care for uninsured children and adults, provided by volunteer dentists across the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's team of dedicated researchers. And we'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. Today's case has brief mentions of gun violence, stalking, relational violence, and a very viewer discretion is advice. Statements and quotes may be condensed for brevity. And with that said, let's begin. Sometimes the best relationship advice is no relationship advice, especially when the couple is constantly breaking up, getting back together again, breaking up, and you really don't know what's happening. The scenario is like this.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Two people in their 30s are dating. She's ready to get married, but instead of proposing, her boyfriend gives her a promise ring. Not an engagement ring, a promise ring. They both go and they tell their friends about it. Her friends are like, a fucking promise ring? Her friends might tell her, that is just a sure sign that he's not ready to make that plunge, so he's just giving you a promise ring, almost tossing you a bone so that you'll shut up and stop asking to get engaged. They might tell her, a promise ring is basically an IOU for an engagement ring, and it doesn't look like you're gonna get one anytime soon. But his side might argue, hey, that's actually really smart, because you are kind of unsettled in your career and you're in the process of getting your license, and you're very career-oriented, so it's not the right time to make a commitment, and this is actually thinking responsibly. Which side is correct?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Because usually when someone tells you their personal relationship problems, most likely, they're going to present themselves in the better light. Not Brenda. Not Brenda. The Dallas Police Headquarters is starting to feel like a Brenda support group meetup. Not that people are showing up to support Brenda, but they're coming in to the police about how they themselves feel victimized by Brenda. And normally, these would not warrant official police reports, but Brenda seems to be one of these strongest leads for Kendra's murder, aside from the fact that she has a pretty airtight alibi, placing her at a Chili's, but that's besides the point. Stacy walks in to the Dallas Police Department. She worked with Brenda for years at this dental office, where Brenda, she's studying to be a dental hygienist, would come in and sterilize equipment.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  She would stock the shelves and clean stuff mainly. She mainly did a lot of cleanup work. And Brenda was a yapper. She would yap people's ears off about her boyfriend Ricky, but Stacy always just felt like something was weird about that relationship. They would be dating one second with Brenda saying things like, quote, "My boyfriend is a dermatologist and makes more money than any other doctor." Which is just like kind of a weird statement and probably not true. Then the next day, I guess her rich dermatologist boyfriend and her would be on a break. And then at some point Brenda might have been single, because Stacy reports Brenda slept with the dentist at their practice once. Which, okay, Stacy is technically Brenda's boss, so I think it sounds like she's some sort of office manager. You know, I don't know her official title,

• 5:54Speaker 01

  but it appears she's some sort of office manager. And then the dentist is the one who owns the practice, right? Now, David is the main dentist. David and Stacy used to date a long time ago. I don't know. David needs to reflect on some, a lot of things. David and Stacy used to date years ago. They broke up, stayed friends and coworkers. And then Brenda starts working there, and David had intimate relations with Brenda just one time. Stacy knows this, okay? Which, David, what are you doing? But besides the point right now, Stacy says that David just had this feeling, and he confided in Stacy, it seems, that Brenda was um, kind of a little crazy? Like, yes, they slept together once, but like she just had a little crazy in her. But he still kept her on the team. She had keys to the office.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Brenda would still come in and clean. And one day Stacy notices something really weird. Stacy's working from home, and the way the security is set up on the office computers, if she's working at her office desktop, she can't log into her work account from a second device. It's only one account at a time for her login. Yeah. Now, if she's working from home, nobody can be, nor should they be using her work computer on her device, because, again, one login at a time. But Stacy's working from home, and she realizes she can't log in, because someone's already logged into her work account. She feels like it's Brenda. She even has a whole conversation with Brenda, and is like, you can't be in my office. Like, you can't go through my things. Stacy put a password on her computer, and she says, "The look Brenda gave me was very weird."

• 7:25Speaker 01

  And that's when I figured out that she and David had a relationship, and she knew that he and I previously had a relationship. So this is like Brenda slept with David once.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Now Brenda's like obsessive over...

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, David.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  David's ex as well, yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  After that, she would give me dirty looks when she would come into the office, and it was just always very weird for me around her. Eventually, Brenda stops working for this office, but she still has keys to the office, which Stacy said it always bothered her. She also knew that David, the dentist, was lending Brenda money here and there. And more so as a friend, it seems. Stacy just tells him, she's using you to borrow money. If you're getting something out of it, I guess that's one thing, but she comes here and I don't like that she still has a key here. I mean, it just concerns me from a work standpoint. He tells Stacy he has been asking for the key back, but every time Brenda comes to drop it off, she conveniently forgets the only thing that she's supposed to drop off, which is the key. But Stacy is hopeful that all of this would be in the past,

• 8:22Speaker 01

  because Brenda informed her that she would be moving very, very soon. Exactly one week before Kendra's murder, Brenda announces that she will be moving to California.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Same as Ricky?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Stacy tells the investigators that she feels like she has a good understanding of personalities like Brenda because Stacy used to have a stalker and that stalker ended up taking his life. Stacy could just feel something was off with Brenda. And that feeling was validated when, the day before Kendra's murder, on September 1st, Stacy learned that Brenda came to the dental office after hours. She used another employee's alarm code to disarm the alarm and spent exactly 12 minutes inside. When you win the lottery, depending on the state you're in, there may be open record laws that basically give the public access to your information, your name, your city, so on. There have been so many cases, some of that we've covered before, where this ends very badly.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  One way to get around this, though, and to guarantee almost full anonymity when cashing in on a reward, is the FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List. Before you start scrolling on FBI.gov in hopes of making a quick buck, I will say anonymity is not fully guaranteed. It's just typically done for safety's sake. If someone calls in a tip and receives a reward, the FBI will not release their information. And don't get me wrong, you probably have a higher chance of winning the lottery than becoming a tipster that leads to the arrest of a fugitive on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list, which despite its name, isn't actually a list of fugitives ranked by Most Wanted. I mean, you would think that there would be the Most Wanted, like number one, number two, number three.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  The Most Wanted would be the highest reward, the most dangerous, biggest threat, highest kill count, just some sort of metric. However, the FBI has actually clarified that everyone on the list is the same rank. They are all the Most Wanted. They want them equally. They are all the highest priority. And I mean, I have no idea, but the FBI probably did this purposely? That would have to be my guess, because fugitives on the run are just naturally going to be a bit competitive. So maybe they're trying to discourage any of that. They made every rank and made everyone equal. The list is limited to 10 fugitives at a time, with a total of 541 fugitives listed over the years. Some of them have been located, some of them have been caught, some are dead by now, but almost all of them are men, unsurprisingly.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Only 13 have been women. 13.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Including this case's very own Brenda Delgado. Tiny wrist Brenda is on the run. There are three different pictures of Brenda included along with her description that lists her occupation as dental hygiene student. Under details, it says Brenda Delgado is wanted for capital murder in Dallas, Texas. On September 2nd, a prominent 35-year-old dentist was shot to death in the parking garage of her apartment complex. Delgado allegedly orchestrated the murder-for-hire plot. It is believed she was jealous because the victim was dating Delgado's ex-boyfriend and had recently been introduced to his parents. Reward $100,000 for information leading directly to the arrest of Brenda Delgado. And right under that, it says in all caps, "should be considered armed and dangerous."

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Six months after the murder of Kendra, Brenda is added to the FBI's Most Wanted list. She's added onto the list with people like terrorists, El Chapo, just, it's a pretty insane list. And just to give you an idea, it's a quite effective list. About 92% of people on that list do in fact get caught. It's just a matter of when. Some of them have been caught within 72 hours of making the list. Others have made it 32 years before they're caught.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Brenda "Eager Beaver" gets caught within two days of being on the list. Two days. She was captured by Mexican federal agents in Mexico. She's plucked out of her hiding spot in this tiny town that had about 750,000 people. And I have no idea if anyone received the tip money. There were rumors that her family had known that she was there and they were sending her money, but I don't know if a family member had turned her in, or a family friend, or someone who knew. Her capture is fast, but it gets very complicated. Brenda is a dual citizen. She's wanted for a capital murder arrest warrant in Texas. Mexico has some negotiating to do. Mexico is very much against the death penalty. Texas, as you know, is very much pro-death.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And it's one of the last few states that still regularly issues death sentences. She is only extradited six months after heavy negotiations where ultimately, the Texas prosecutor concedes and agrees not to seek the death penalty in her case.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Six months later, after the murder, she was added to the list?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  And then she was caught in two days?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  And then took another six months?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  To extradite her back to Texas.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Wow, okay.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Brenda touches down in Dallas and Detective Barnes is the first face that greets her. He says, "Even though I didn't get a chance to interview her again, in my mind, I was like, I told you I was gonna get you." And Detective Barnes has been the lead investigator throughout all of this, and now, he is doing everything to ensure this outcome, that Brenda goes to jail for a very long time. She is in Texas custody, but now the state has a burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brenda orchestrated this murder. And there is a big problem, which is her alibi. Her damned three chilies, chili retas, and fried pickles. The prosecution now have the burden of convincing a jury. You have to convict Brenda for a murder that she clearly has an alibi for.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  A significantly harder case to prove, it's not uncommon, but it is a little more rare. The prosecution in Brenda's case, they need to get Crystal against her, and Detective Barnes knew exactly how to get Crystal to agree, which is using Crystal's son. Crystal is basically presented with a choice. Either she goes away for capital murder and gets a life sentence without parole, or she can testify against Christopher and Brenda in exchange for a guilty plea and a sentence of 35 years max and 17 years minimum before the possibility of parole. So to Crystal, it's more of like, would you rather never hug your son again in this lifetime or see him in as little as 17 years and at most 35? It's a choice, and it's, when it comes to a son, it's a pretty easy choice. Crystal agrees to be the prosecution's star witness.

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• 17:58Speaker 01

  And this is the testimony that pretty much seals the deal for Christopher and Brenda's trial. This is a decision that I think Kendra's family, at least to some degree, was okay with. At Crystal's sentencing, Kendra's brother even looks at Crystal and says, "Thank you for actually looking me in the eye. The other two idiots didn't have enough balls to do that." Bonnie, Kendra's mom, says something a bit unexpected. She says, "It really breaks my heart for you. I feel sorry for you. Thank you for being truthful." It doesn't feel like forgiveness per se. Kendra's family have made it clear that when Crystal is up for parole, they will be there. And this is not to Crystal's credit, but at least compared to Christopher and Brenda,

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Crystal does look Kendra's family in the eye, and she did tell the truth of what happened that night, the night that Kendra was killed, which is exactly what? The night before Kendra is killed, September 1st, so the day before, Brenda and Crystal are driving around North Dallas, and they find a random car. They steal the temporary license plate off the car. So you know how you, when you buy a car at the dealership, it has a temporary plate? Because yours is coming in the mail?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Like a paper plate?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they steal that off the random car. And the plan is they're going to put that temporary plate over Jose's Jeep license plates to disguise the license. September 2nd, the next morning, the day of the murder, Crystal starts her day by taking her six-year-old son through the school drop-off line, meets up with Brenda. The two of them go pick up Christopher Love, and they all eat breakfast at Jack in the Box. Then Brenda and Crystal drop off the BMW with Jose and ask to borrow his Jeep. Which, side note, the BMW isn't even theirs. They borrowed it from Brenda's friend, and had the BMW been working, that was going to be the getaway car, not the Jeep. But trying to be quick on her feet, Brenda takes it to Jose, and he lends her his Jeep in return.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Crystal then drops Brenda off at a public library where Brenda is supposed to be studying with a classmate for her state dental hygiene certification exam. Crystal goes back, picks up Christopher Love, the two of them park across the street from Smile Zone, and they just sit there watching and waiting for hours. Until, in the middle of this stakeout for a contract killing, it hits 2:30 in the afternoon, she's gotta go pick up her kid. So they just like leave. She drops Christopher Love back off at home, then picks up her kid, then drops the kid off at grandma's, and then picks Christopher Love back up. They go back to Smile Zone, and they start stalking Kendra. All the way back to her parking lot, where Christopher gets out and shoots Kendra dead

• 20:32Speaker 01

  as she steps out of her car. According to Crystal, when he got back in the car, he didn't seem phased. He just said, quote, "That bitch was being stubborn." From there, they drive around, they drive to an abandoned house in Pleasant Grove, but there was another car there, so they drive back to Crystal's grandma's place, and they start burning some evidence, like Christopher's gloves, the temporary plate, they rub the fingerprints off the Jeep and steering wheel. And meanwhile, Brenda is sitting at Chili's, ordering Chiliritas with Jose, who is wondering, "Where the hell is his Jeep?" Because it's not in the parking lot. And eventually, Crystal and Brenda meet back up to do a swap of the cars. And the second Crystal pulls up, Brenda reaches into the Jeep, grabs Kendra's coach purse,

• 21:17Speaker 01

  and slings it over her own shoulder.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Crazy, this is the same night?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. There are two photos on Crystal's phone from the next day. The first one is, well, there were nudes, but two other photos of interest was, the first one is cash, it's folded into the shape of a heart. So that's the payment that Crystal got for killing Kendra. And she folded it into a heart and took a Pinterest-esque photo of it.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  How much?

• 21:45Speaker 01

  She was paid $500 total.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Okay, so she was...

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Then there's a second photo, a selfie of Crystal smiling into the camera, and Brenda is driving in sunglasses. And that photo was taken the day after the murder. So they just, I mean, they don't really care. The detectives even showed Crystal the photo, saying, "It made you feel good this woman was killed, right? You're smiling because you're proud of yourself in that picture."

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  And this was a plot that was in the making for a while. Before Brenda got Crystal and Christopher Love to agree to this, she had allegedly tried to recruit other people into trying to either harm Ricky or to kill Kendra. It just seemed like after the breakup, she was in this obsessive phase where she had access to everything. She knew what was going on in Kendra and Ricky's relationship from the get-go. She was watching their text messages. She had his email account, so she knew that they were going to Cancun the very next day because the flight purchases were in there. She knew when they traveled to New York. She knew when they traveled to go meet Ricky's parents. She pretty much knew everything. She even had his location. She would screenshot messages between them and save them onto her phone.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  She had pictures from their trips together. She even had a saved picture of Kendra where she's wearing the "I'm with McDreamy" sweatshirt.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  What's McDreamy?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  The Grey's Anatomy, remember? McDreamy?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, oh, right, right, right, okay, okay.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the thing with Ricky is, I know that some people might be thinking that he was leading Brenda on after the breakup, but Brenda presented herself as someone who was moving on from Ricky as well. Ricky's mom never told Ricky about how much Brenda was saying to her in private, but another huge element is Ricky's parents are divorced, and they have always been really close friends. So his biological mom and dad are divorced, but they're always like hanging out and they're friendly, and they have new partners, but they get along. So it just set this example that you can still be friends after breaking up, because it just means that you weren't meant to be together romantically. It doesn't mean that you don't get along and have common interests in our platonic. And if you go through text messages between him and Brenda, which the police did, there

• 23:52Speaker 01

  is no suggestion, there's no like, "Oh, is he flirting? Oh, maybe he wants to get back together. Oh, maybe this could be interpreted this way." He is super professional in all the messages afterwards. He's setting pretty firm boundaries. Even if he does keep running into Brenda more and more frequently, to him, it's all a coincidence. Like her coincidentally taking the same salsa dancing classes that he's taking, even offering to practice with him after class, it's a coincidence. Or their little random run-ins on the running trail, or even a Panera. Ricky doesn't know it, but Brenda is staging every little run-in because she's obsessively tracking him.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  And that's, she in turn starts obsessively tracking Kendra. Kendra is the opposite of Brenda. She is not just the new girlfriend, and I really don't like to compare women together, but I do think that this is kind of relevant in this case. She is an upgrade in every sense of the word to Brenda, and it's very clear that upset her. Brenda grew up in a rough neighborhood. Kendra grew up in a very stable, small town. She was captain of her cheer team in high school, received multiple honors, scholarships, went all the way to dental school, graduated, became a pediatric dentist, even traveled to South America to provide pediatric dental care. She was the one that Ricky wanted to marry, not Brenda.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. That's what I wanted to ask, like, Brenda is studying to be a...

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Dental hygienist, yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Is it because of, you know?

• 25:18Speaker 01

  No, coincidentally, she always wanted to be a dental hygienist, but she saw Ricky as the prize.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  And Ricky and Kendra are, I guess, more aligned...

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  ...in their career goals, yes, and they have. And I think that really got to Brenda. Even during the interrogation with Detective Barnes, he starts pushing those buttons on Brenda. He confronts her and says, "I think you hated the fact that you weren't good enough. I think you hated that you weren't good enough for Ricky. Maybe he didn't like the way you looked. Maybe he didn't want a dental hygienist anymore. Maybe he wanted a dentist." Like, it's very hard to look in the mirror and say, "What is it that she has that I don't have?" Maybe he didn't want a girl from Pleasant Grove, and that hurts.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  That's crazy. What's Brenda's reaction to that?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Just quiet. And he keeps pushing. "You're 33? These are the glory years for women. Your internal clock is ticking. This guy took up two years of your best years. As soon as he got his license, he moved on." It's very clear that Detective Barnes is trying to get Brenda to crack. It's not that he genuinely believes these things. He's trying to find her sore spot and hit it over and over again until she breaks, but she doesn't. She just shakes her head and asks for her attorney. But once he leaves the room, you just hear her mutter two words to herself very quietly: "Oh, fuck."

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Was this the initial interrogation?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, where she's flirting. And Brenda is, for lack of a better word, and I really don't like using this word on women because it really is only ever used on women, she is kind of crazy. Jennifer, Brenda's roommate, remember, for two weeks, says that at first Ricky was the target, but that eventually changed. And Jennifer says about Brenda, "She wanted to follow around Kendra and basically eliminate her." She had so many ways of like, one was she was gonna plan on getting into Kendra's car and grab what was in the car, grab her from the front, and then stab her with some sort of needle with, I guess, a sedative. The other option was to put heroin in the needle and force an overdose. Others were just go and beat her up.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  People who knew the inside of Ricky and Brenda's relationship said that it was just really weird. Like Brenda just got weird about Ricky. So ever since the beginning, she didn't have a job because she's studying, and she would work at the dental office here and there cleaning, but it wasn't good pay. She moved in with him pretty instantly, or tried to at least, and then did all the cooking and cleaning and just was, it almost seemed like Brenda was trying to find a way for him to become dependent on her, to need her, but in reality, she needed him a lot more than he ever needed her. He didn't even ask her to do these things. He actually honestly seemed to like his own routine rather than Brenda's routine that she would force onto him. And then every time they would break up, because this is just not what Ricky wants, Brenda would go to her friends and rant. "He is a dog.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  No, he's worse than a dog, because a dog at least has feelings, and he has no feelings." Yeah.

• 28:19Speaker 01

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• 32:44Speaker 01

  She also did become pregnant with Ricky's child at one point, which they both decided to terminate. But to some who knew them said it felt like Brenda held it over Ricky's head. Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they said that, you know, she's very manipulative. She lies a lot. I mean, she lies like there's no tomorrow. And like, I understand that maybe, I think that there can definitely be negative feelings from Brenda to Ricky because she, maybe she didn't agree to terminate, or she felt pressured into terminating this pregnancy. But it does seem that Ricky tried everything to be right about this relationship. Even at the time that this murder takes place, Brenda is not paying for her own phone bill. Or her phone, like Ricky's still paying for it. Ricky, even after their breakup, he paid her so that she could move out. Because she didn't have money to get her own place.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  So it's not like he left her high and dry and then cut it off coldly and was like, oh, well, now you terminated the pregnancy. I don't care. Like, I just, I don't want to be stuck with you. There's, there's a lot of evidence that he kept trying to do right by Brenda.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  So what is Brenda's whole plan from, you know?

• 34:00Speaker 01

  It seems like in the beginning, once they break up, he is dating other people and she hates it. She hates it, okay? But it seems that she still believes that if she keeps doing these coincidental run-ins, he's going to fall back in love with her and they're going to get married. She's going to move to California, they're going to fall in love, get married. But once she realizes how in deep he is with Kendra, planning to marry Kendra, and seeing Kendra and the way that Kendra is where, yeah. And Kendra was making plans to move out to California with Ricky. So I think she knew there was no chance, no matter how many times she facilitated a stalkerish coincidental run-in,

• 34:45Speaker 01

  he wasn't going to leave Kendra for her. By every sense of the meaning, Kendra was way better than Brenda. And a lot of that has to do with Brenda's just straight evil and Kendra is like the opposite of that.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  And so she plod, plod this murder for hire and there's no afterthoughts, right? They didn't plan, what, what was the?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  She thought because of the Chili's receipt, she has an airtight alibi. And I'm sure she felt proud of herself because the day that Kendra was killed, Ricky did text her.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  In distraught. So maybe she thought that she could be the shoulder that he leans on and that would bring them together. And that seems to be a thing. She just seems really crazy. Ricky's mom remembers on one occasion Brenda called her and she's like, hello? Brenda starts telling Ricky's mom about how she just got rear-ended, got into this horrendous car crash where now she has whiplash. It was so bad, she was in the hospital, but she didn't want to call any family or friends because she didn't want a single soul to worry about her. And she's just being strong, but she's so lonely. Ricky's mom is like, I will call your parents, like, she's like, they're at work. Well, this is an emergency and any employer would understand them leaving. And she's like, no, don't bother. They already have enough problems. It's such a big traumatic life event that Brenda completely forgets about the next day.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  She never brings up this car crash ever again. She also brings up all her stalkerish tendencies, but she tries to make it seem like a coincidence. There was another time she told Ricky's mom that she walked into a restaurant and happened to see Ricky on a date. And you know what? Quote, "The girl was a very dark African American who is not cute at all."

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Telling the mom?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So she's a racist stalker. Okay, great. Also, Brenda's mom had her own cleaning business and she was still working with Ricky even after Brenda and Ricky broke up, which Ricky's mom did not like. But nevertheless, one day Brenda gets a text from her mom and it's a picture of Ricky and Kendra. Which I get wanting to fill your family members in on these types of things and keeping them in the loop. But I think it definitely fueled more fire in Brenda. Crystal agrees to be the star witness in Brenda and Christopher Love's trial. She pleads guilty, so she doesn't have her own trial. Now Christopher, unlike Crystal, recants the confession and just pleads not guilty, denying that he was the shooter altogether.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  But unlike Brenda, Christopher doesn't have an ironclad alibi and the gun was found in his car by a dog, a canine dog by the name of Titan, who they bring to the stand, actually. They bring the dog to the stand. The dog doesn't testify, his handler testifies, but the dog is there. His trial goes first and honestly, his trial isn't remarkable, except for the fact that he's found guilty and gets the death penalty. The jury deliberates for two hours. And I will say, it seemed because Crystal was the star witness, she pled guilty. Brenda and Christopher were both supposed to get the death penalty? Because it was a capital warrant, right?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  But Brenda, because of the negotiations with Mexico and the extradition, death penalty was off the table. But it was not for Christopher.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Wow. So is he on death row currently?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, at sentencing, Kendra's family members take the stand to deliver their impact statements. Kendra's little brother rips into Christopher and says, "You introduced me to new feelings of absolute hatred and disgust, things I never thought I could feel before. Your hate and idiot accuracy only underscores your ability to possess the true evil that resides within you. You are a shame to humanity and you are a destroyer of lives." Kendra's sister takes the stand and she says, "I have nothing prepared because I didn't know how long this would take. For two weeks, I've been away from my kids to attend this trial. I've tried to feel something to try and feel sorry for Christopher and I can't do it. I can't do it. Some cash and some drugs? Are you kidding? Are you kidding me?

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Do you know what she would have given to save your life? What I would have given you? What our family would have given you?" Basically underscoring that if Christopher Love was bleeding out somewhere or he needed life-saving treatment. I mean, Kendra was the type to do everything she could. And this is the type of person that he killed for some drugs. Kendra's mom takes the stand and she never refers to Christopher by name. She calls him the executioner. Up to the date of filming, he is currently still sitting on death row and. Brenda's trial finally comes around as well. Her defense attorney is privately retained. I'm not sure if he was playing Brenda and actually on the prosecutor's side because his brief,

• 39:23Speaker 01

  this is like a brief excerpt from his opening statement. He says, "They will say, the prosecutors will say that Brenda Delgado was an obsessed ex-girlfriend." She was. "They will say that Brenda Delgado stalked at times, stalked Dr. Ricky, her ex-boyfriend. And she did. They will say at times she used the internet to what they call cyber stalking. They will say at times she was cyber stalking. She did. She's not accused of any of that." I mean, obviously, that's just a clip, but if I were Brenda Delgado in that courtroom, hearing my attorney saying this, I would probably fire them. There's also this weird moment where her defense attorney asked Jennifer, her two-week-long roommate, what types of drugs Brenda offered her for the hit. She said, "Exo bars," and he goes

• 40:04Speaker 01

  condescendingly, "Say that in English." Jennifer gives him a weird look and is like, "Exos? I mean, that's some type of pill. I think it's like Xanax. I don't really know." He's super argumentative to the point the judge is like, "Mr. Robert, this is the third time we've had that line of questioning. Let's move on." On a more serious note, Brenda's trial, unlike Christopher's, is remarkable because Ricky will be testifying. Brenda, at this point, had not looked at anyone testifying during the trial. She is staring blankly and dressed like, I guess, how everyone thinks you should dress in front of jurors. She does make eye contact once with Ricky when he's testifying.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Like, what is it? She had her head down the whole time?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, or staring blankly at the table. But when he is asked to identify the defendant, she looks up at him. Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Now, Brenda's trial wraps in a week, and just like her record-breaking rank as the ninth woman ever on FBI's Most Wanted list, Brenda breaks another record for one of the fastest jury deliberations in Texas history. Her defense attorney says, um, you know, eighteen minutes. You usually don't acquit someone in eighteen minutes. Because usually fast deliberations only mean one thing. There was not a chance, suggestion, hint, or a whiff of acquittal, nullification in the room. Like, there was no, none of that. And this is according to one juror who was interviewed later. He said that when the jury went back to begin deliberations, one of them was like, "Hey, why don't we just start with a sample vote, right? And then see, like, what we can argue and discuss after the sample vote."

• 41:39Speaker 01

  They write their sample vote, and they read it out loud. All of them read guilty. To the point where they didn't know what to do, because they felt like it should be a little harder than this. So they just kind of sat around for a few minutes, and then they were like, "Well, what should we do?" And so some people are like, well, I guess some people were religious. They were like, "Well, I kind of want to pray." Other people said, "Well, let me just meditate and see if anything happens." And then eventually, near the seventeen minutes, they were like, "Well, if you guys are ready, I guess we can all press the button to signal we're done." So I don't even think it lasted eighteen minutes. It probably lasted, like, five minutes, and then they just were so shocked by, they didn't have any arguments or discussions. So they were like, "Well, how much longer should we sit here?"

• 42:24Speaker 02

  That's crazy. You were saying this was the fastest record?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  One of the fastest, yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Probably would have been faster if they just hit the button before prayer and meditation, but I think they were so taken aback that they were like, "I feel like no one will believe us if we leave this room so quick."

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Wow. And Brenda's lawyer brought this up because he thinks this is what? Because it makes her look more guilty. Why is he commenting on that?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  I think it's, you know, after the case is wrapped, people are asking, like, "What did you think about the jury deliberations?" And he's pretty honest of like, "Well, you know, it was eighteen minutes. I kind of had an idea of what we're walking back into."

• 43:04Speaker 02

  I see, I see.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  So they had their answer, and Brenda Delgado is found guilty of capital murder. Death penalty is off the table, so Brenda is sentenced to the next closest thing, which is life imprisonment without parole. And it's made clear by Kendra's family at the sentencing that she, they think that she belongs on death row with Christopher. Kendra's mother speaks first. "Brenda Delgado, justice has been served. Even though it has taken three years, nine months, and five days, justice was delivered to my family. You, Brenda Delgado, are the root of all evil. You and the other two pathetic lives you had joined you on your path of destruction, you could have never measured up to be the woman that my daughter Kendra Hatcher was. I take comfort in knowing our God has given our Kendra the

• 43:48Speaker 01

  ultimate spot in heaven, a spot in which you will never see. You, Brenda Delgado, have earned your spot on this earth behind cold steel bars for the rest of your miserable, pathetic life. And if justice could have handed you a death sentence, make no mistake, I would have been there front and center." Kendra's sister arrives at the stand visibly pregnant, and she starts her statement saying, "Who the hell do you think you are, Brenda? You will go down in history as one of the most hated women in Dallas, possibly in America, and then you'll be forgotten. But Kendra's legacy won't, because we'll make sure it's not. I'm pregnant with our third child that will never get to meet Kendra because of you, because of your evil, because of your envy. You can't even look at me. I hope you rot in hell."

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Bailiffs begin to escort Brenda out of the courtroom through the side door, but before she's forced to spend the rest of her life in prison, she looks back and scans the entire courtroom. People think she was looking for Ricky.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Hmm. Wow.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  When investigators had gone through Kendra's notes, there's one page where she jots down more of her thoughts. One reads, "Job will be demanding, going on trip, airplane to the mountains, long distance, could be out of country." Then she writes about her family. "Dad's mom not still alive, last passed two years ago. And musical, mom's father was a musician." So she's just jotting down notes about her family, and there's one part, she puts like a huge star around it, and she just writes, "Little girl, musical ability. Are there kids in my future? A little girl?" And she also writes, "Something bigger for me right now? Question mark, question mark. Be patient, delays, and enjoy your

• 45:32Speaker 01

  time off." And then there are things that she didn't even write down, because everyone just knew it about her. People said that she loved Christmas music, and her favorite song was "Oh, Holy Night." And apparently, she was really good at singing, but she was really shy to sing. She also loved Snoopy, which, she didn't call him Snoopy. Her family said that she called him Noop Noop ever since she was a kid. So Snoopy was Noop Noop. And Kendra's sister says, "If you ask anyone in the family what they miss most about Kendra, they say it's her laugh." And the day before Kendra dies, she actually called her sister, and they were making plans to carve pumpkins with her sister's kids. And that is the case

• 46:14Speaker 01

  of Kendra Hatcher. What are your thoughts on this case? I mean, the whole thing is just such a...

• 46:22Speaker 02

  What did Crystal get?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Seventeen to thirty-five.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  So bizarre. Wow.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments. Stay safe, and I will see you in the next one.

• 46:59Speaker 03

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