Brenda Delgado In late 2015, True Crime producers from Dateline
and 48 hours flocked to Uptown Dallas.
Why?
They wanted to get an early start on the bizarre connection of Kendra Hatcher and the main
suspect, Brenda Delgado.
However, when they arrived, their cameras scanning for an iconic shot of the suspect
were disappointed.
Brenda was gone.
Not long after, the FBI placed Brenda on the top 10 Most Wanted List, along with a $100,000
bounty nailed over her head.
They warned anyone who saw Brenda not to approach her.
The FBI didn't know how dangerous Brenda could be at the time.
The crime she may have committed was brutal, and the events that led up to Kendra's passing
were something out of a Criminal Mind's episode or any True Crime documentary on Netflix.
So, the feds took no chances.
Despite their caution, Mexican authorities located Brenda and alerted the FBI six months
later, who sent a team to arrest her.
Brenda surrendered quietly when armed officers showed up at her hideout in the North Central
Mexican town of Torreón.
She'd been staying with her relatives the entire time.
Most of Brenda's family hailed from Mexico, a not so obvious fact that made it relatively
easy for authorities in their search for one of the FBI's Most Wanted.
Brenda, at the time, was only the 7th woman to make the Most Wanted List list.
She returned to Dallas as a minor celebrity, with her face posted on wanted lists, the
news, and several online articles.
But only a few years prior, Brenda had been happy, spending every day with the man of
her dreams, Dr. Ricardo Paniagua.
Ricky and Brenda Dr. Ricardo, or Ricky, as his loved ones call
him, is a dermatologist from Uptown Dallas, where many of his fellow young and successful
hipsters live.
Though he was living the high life, Ricky came from a trailer park in Northern California.
His ambition, intelligence, and love of dermatology helped launch Ricky out of the trailer park
and into a successful career.
Brenda, at the time, was still in her launching phase.
She initially wanted to attend medical school, but her parents couldn't afford the high tuition.
So, she settled for being a dental assistant, hoping she could climb higher in the future.
According to family members' testimonies, their personalities seemed well-matched, with
Rick being a classic introvert and Brenda being more extroverted.
Their relationship began after meeting on a dating app in 2012.
Ricky took Brenda to a J-Lo concert at American Airlines arena for their first date.
Amidst the music, the introverted doctor and the love-struck wannabe hygienist fell for
each other, and they fell hard.
Their subsequent relationship was fast and exciting.
They moved in with each other only three months after their first date.
Ricky even gave Brenda a promise ring, which Brenda proudly wore when introducing Ricky
to her parents.
Things seemed to be going great for Brenda and Ricky.
That was until Ricky decided to break up.
End of the Beginning Ricky's decision came out of nowhere.
Brenda didn't know what happened and refused to give up on their potential as a couple.
So, one evening, Ricky saw her during a salsa dancing class he'd recently signed up for.
He chalked it up to a coincidence, not thinking much of it.
When they started dancing together, he didn't think twice about falling for her all over
again.
Brenda and Ricky got back together, though they didn't stay a couple for very long.
Brenda believed it was because of Ricky's baggage from a recent divorce.
However, the divorce was not the problem to anyone else watching.
Kendra Hatcher A few months after breaking up with Brenda
in 2015, Dr. Ricky met Kendra Hatcher.
Ricky's relationship with Kendra followed a similar pattern to the one he had with Brenda:
fast and exciting.
Kendra wore a sweatshirt that read I'm With Dreamy on one of their first dates.
She wore this shirt on several other dates to fancy Dallas restaurants and on trips to
Cancun.
Kendra documented many of these dates and trips on her Facebook page, which anyone could
see since she didn't keep it set to private.
Brenda, like any decent Ex, stalked Kendra's page.
She saw every cute selfie, every picture where the man she loved had his arm around another
woman.
And not just any woman.
Kendra was beautiful.
But not just on the outside.
She was a pediatric dentist, for one.
Secondly, when she was in high school, Kendra went on mission trips to help build churches
abroad.
She even taught underprivileged kids about the Bible.
When Kendra grew up and graduated from dentistry school, she continued her charitable work
by providing free dental care to kids in Ecuador on Christmas of all days.
She also spent her spring breaks volunteering at the local Habitat for Humanity instead
of partying at the beach in a bikini.
Blissful Kendra was just plain awesome, and Brenda
knew it.
Brenda was a dental assistant.
Kendra was a dentist.
Brenda couldn't afford rent in the fancy part of town.
Kendra had a place all to herself.
So how was Kendra repaid for her saintly work?
Someone took her life in a dark parking garage on a gloomy September night—the night before
she was supposed to leave with Ricky on a trip to Cancun.
The police reminded Brenda of these facts when they interrogated her during their investigation
of Kendra's passing.
In other words, they interrogated her Law and Order style, yelling at her about how
she took Kendra's life because Ricky left Brenda for her.
Though Brenda seemed upset, she didn't give the cliche teary-eyed confession prevalent
in detective dramas.
Instead, she said nothing.
When they asked Brenda's friends and family, including Ricky, they didn't reveal anything
that twisted the plot.
They told police there was no way Brenda could have committed the crime, even though she
had a motive.
Ricky, of all people, told police that his ex is too kind to hurt someone like that.
Her other friends and family said essentially the same thing: Brenda didn't have it in her.
The police accepted the same conclusion and let her go.
Crystal Cortes The case went nowhere, and the only relevant
name detectives had to work with was Crystal Cortes.
Dallas police released a video of the getaway car, a Jeep SUV, to begin their investigation.
Sure enough, someone identified the car, and the supposed driver of that car, Crystal,
was brought in for questioning.
However, Crystal had a lot to lose.
Crystal is a single mother with almost no family and money to support her daughter if
she goes to jail.
So, she denied the detective's accusations.
They stopped asking Crystal questions and turned to her phone records instead.
One of Crystal's text conversations happened to be with a man named Kristopher Love.
When the police looked into Love a bit further, they discovered he was no model citizen.
Kristopher Love Love had a reputation.
Anyone who looked close enough at Love's tattoos would get a hint of the type of person he
was and what he’s capable of.
Love maintained a lengthy rap sheet dating back to his teenage years.
Such crimes included aggravated robbery and aggravated assault.
Though, he'd never been accused of taking anyone's life.
But when the police searched Love's car, they found a Smith and Wesson pistol, the same
make and model as the weapon that shot Kendra.
Love paid the ultimate price for his role in the crime.
Loose Connection Police immediately arrested Love and brought
him in for questioning, along with Crystal, who had to explain why she was driving near
the crime scene and how she knew Love.
But there was still a problem with the overall case.
Though Crystal and Love were against the wall, neither had motive enough to hurt Kendra.
Love tried to make the crime look like a robbery by stealing Kendra's purse, but it wasn't
enough to stave off suspicion.
They waited in the parking garage, and Love crunched in the back seat of the Jeep to hide
from the cameras.
Then they followed Kendra out, and then Love attacked and took her coach purse.
But who goes to all that trouble for a used purse?
The answer is almost no one.
However, there are plenty of heinous crimes committed by jealous lovers.
And Crystal happened to know Brenda quite well.
They'd been friends for weeks up to the day of Kendra's death.
In fact, Crystal picked up Brenda later that night from Chili's.
With all these coincidences, investigators guessed Brenda had to be involved somehow.
So, they brought Crystal in to make a deal.
Alibi With the evidence on hand, investigators couldn't
charge Brenda with anything.
On the night of Kendra's passing, Brenda was eating and drinking at Chili's.
She had a receipt to prove it.
On the other hand, Crystal was facing several years in prison for helping Love take Kendra's
life.
Police told Crystal they would lower her sentence to 15 years with parole if she told them why
she went after Kendra that night.
Crystal told them everything.
However, her own mother made Crystal spill the beans.
She told Crystal she was disappointed in her decision-making, as any normal mother would
be.
Crystal told reporters afterward that she wanted to make things right and hopefully
make it up to her mother.
She told the police how Brenda had befriended her, inviting the young mother to her nice
apartment on the edge of town.
Brenda wasn't rich by any means, but Crystal admired her decent success as a single woman
coming from first-generation immigrants.
But, some time into their friendship, Brenda asked Crystal if she wanted to help her hurt
Kendra.
Everything escalated so quickly, and before Crystal knew it, Brenda offered her money
to help take out her ex's girlfriend.
She gave the police every detail they needed to arrest Brenda.
And, eventually, they did just that.
Now, police could investigate Brenda more thoroughly, and once they got access to her
phone, they realized how obsessed she really was.
No Letting Go When he found out Brenda had been stalking
him, Ricky couldn't believe it.
After his breakup with Brenda, he assumed everything was fine.
He told interviewers that he and Brenda enjoyed a happy platonic relationship anytime they
were broken up.
She checked in on him to see how he was doing and catch up.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
He never imagined Brenda would follow him to the salsa dancing class and other places,
like Panera Bread.
Or that Brenda knew he was there because she was constantly tracking his phone.
And that she was able to track his phone because she had stolen his iCloud passwords, thus
giving her access to all his emails, text messages, and photos.
Ricky didn't know that Brenda could enter his apartment anytime she wanted because she
had a key made in secret.
She couldn't let go.
Investigators talked to witnesses who said Brenda kept asking people she knew to help
her attack Kendra around this time.
One witness said she walked around with a baseball bat asking if anyone would clobber
Kendra with it for money.
Aftermath The aggression turned into the ultimate crime,
and Brenda got her wish.
Now Brenda's in prison, and she’lll probably spend the rest of her life there.
Dr. Ricky moved back to California, hoping the worst is finally behind him.
He currently works for a large medical group in a suburb of Sacramento.
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Let us know in the comment section whether or not you would stay friends with an ex!