Brenda Delgado

The media often described this case as a love triangle case but that is not what this case was about. A love triangle involves people that know what is going on. The only person involved in this alleged love triangle that knew what was going on or what would happen is Brenda Delgado. No, this was not a love triangle; this was a case of a jealous woman who wanted to get an old boyfriend back and was convinced that the only reason she did not have him was because his new girlfriend stood in her way.

Brenda Delgado had dated Dr. Ricardo “Ricky” Paniagua, a dermatologist in the Dallas Texas area. They dated from the fall of 2012 until the summer of 2014. Then they tried again late in 2014 but it only lasted a few months. Officially, at least to Ricky and others the relationship ended in February of 2015. After the split Ricky met Kendra Hatcher, a thirty-five year old pediatric dentist. They met on a dating website and the relationship seemed to get serious very fast.

As is often the case Brenda did not take the break up well. In fact, it seems she did not even tell many of her friends and co-workers that the break up had even occurred. Some could argue that while Ricky had broken up with she had not necessarily broken up with Ricky. She had taken to stalking him, without his knowledge. She began tracking his phone; she had hacked into his email and his phone. She even had pictures of the new couple on her phone.

On September 2, 2015 Kendra Hatcher was shot in the parking garage of her apartment complex. The perpetrator then took things from her body so that it would look like a random act of violence but that did not work so well. It does not appear that there were too many leads but within a few days Delgado was interviewed by investigators. Just after she was interviewed she took off to Mexico where she also held citizenship. This of course made her look suspicious.

I was not exactly clear on how investigators fully broke this case but somehow they found their way to Crystal Cortes and Kristopher Love. Prosecutors would determine that Cortes and Love had been hired by Delgado to kill Kendra Hatcher. The chase was on for Brenda Delgado. On April 6, 2016 the FBI placed her on their most wanted list and two days later she was found in Mexico. It would take until October before Delgado would be brought back to the United States and Texas prosecutors had to agree not to seek the death penalty against her before Mexico would allow her to be extradited.

Kristopher Love would go on trial in October of 2018. It is unclear exactly what evidence the prosecution had on him or even if for certain what Crystal Cortes, who claimed he was the gunman while she was the “getaway” driver, testified to at his trial. What is certain is that in the end Kristopher Love was convicted of capital murder and was given a sentence of death. Brenda Delgado's trial began June 3, 2019. The reason that I question just exactly what it was that Cortes may or may not have said when it came to Kristopher Love during his trial is the fact that at Brenda's trial her defense attorney's argued that Cortes changed her story about a month before her trial began.

At Brenda's trial Cortes would testify that she was paid $500 for being the getaway driver and that Kristopher Love was given money and drugs to be the shooter in the crime. She also testified that she and Delgado had driven around town prior to the murder plotting different ways to commit the crime. Presumably she also told the jury other things and while I know other information given to the jury I am unsure what else came from Cortes. What I do know is that two other people (I did not see their names) testified that apparently before Cortes and Love were ultimately recruited for the job, Delgado had attempted to hire them to kill Kendra. I also know that Delgado was going to school to be a dental hygienist and one of her classmates testified that she was obsessed with Paniagua. She also testified that Delgado told her that Ricky's mother had told her to stay away from him, although the reason for this was not expressed in the information that I read. To add to this the classmate stated that Delgado was upset that Ricky was taking Kendra to San Francisco to meet his parents, something he had never done with her. Defense attorney's argued that Cortes was lying and implied that she and Love had come up with the plan on their own. Prosecutors argued that they had “many” things that collaborated Cortes' story although I did not see anything specific. It is obvious that they had ample information that Delgado was obsessed with Paniagua without anyone else testifying. We can likely assume that investigators and prosecutors looked into Cortes' story and looked for a link between she and Love and either Kendra Hatcher or Ricky Paniagua.

It appears that the jury did not even consider the fact that Brenda Delgado was not involved in the murder of Kendra Hatcher. They took only twenty minutes before rendering a verdict of guilty. Brenda Delgado was ultimately sentenced to life. After her trial Crystal Cortes was sentenced to thirty-five years as per her plea deal. She is eligible for parole in 2033.