Cheryl Lucero

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Speaker 6 He was beloved in his small California town for a unique talent.

Speaker 13 He was well known for being the Derby King. And he was just a big, loving man.
And his whole purpose was to put a smile on your face.

Speaker 6 Until one fateful Sunday morning, I saw him laying there.

Speaker 14 He wasn't moving.

Speaker 15 There was this massive pool of blood and there was a clear ground to his chest.

Speaker 6 A hidden life soon rises to the surface.

Speaker 7 There's nefarious people that work in this type of a business. You're talking a lot of money.

Speaker 14 He was not happy in his marriage. There were other folks that he was spending time with.

Speaker 10 Did anything ever happen between you?

Speaker 6 No, because I know that he married me.

Speaker 6 Amid rumors and false leads, investigators find a very real obsession.

Speaker 3 She would go to his church, the same grocery store. It was starting to get weird.

Speaker 15 Her bedroom was a shrine, a lot of pictures of him and his derby car.

Speaker 15 Ultimately, we were dealing with the fatal attraction.

Speaker 6 February 16th, 2014.

Speaker 6 It's a quiet Sunday morning in Sonora, California, a former gold rush town at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Speaker 4 Sonora is in the foothills. It's a slower pace of life.
You can kind of go back 100 years almost. It's not like city living.

Speaker 6 Just after 11 a.m., married couple Buddy and Casey Thompson pull into the parking lot of Ricky Roberts' U2 auto shop.

Speaker 6 They have stopped by the garage run by their friend, 49-year-old Rick Roberts, to drop off an ATV they paid to be stored there.

Speaker 14 Ricky was very good friends with one of my best friends growing up, so we kind of got to know each other more on a friendlier basis.

Speaker 14 Ricky communicated with my husband, hey, I'm getting ready for church.

Speaker 14 Go ahead and park in front of the shop if I'm not there.

Speaker 14 We pulled into the shop and it was quiet. My husband said, hey, wait in the car.
I'm going to go see if he's even here.

Speaker 14 My husband leaned in and then came out of the doorway and

Speaker 14 this look on his face.

Speaker 14 He was pale and just in shock. And he said, you need to go in there.

Speaker 6 A former first responder, Casey, races to the door.

Speaker 14 I saw him laying there. He definitely had lost a color and he wasn't moving.
And I observed a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Speaker 14 There was blood underneath him.

Speaker 7 I could tell without even touching him that he had passed.

Speaker 6 Casey and Buddy exit the shop. She calls 911.

Speaker 7 When the first responders get to the scene, they find the victim's body on the floor inside.

Speaker 17 They've checked the pulse.

Speaker 7 It was obvious to them that he was deceased.

Speaker 7 Ricky Roberts had two wounds, the grazing wound to the left shoulder, also a wound to the center of the chest.

Speaker 6 Sonora police officers call for backup from the California Department of Justice.

Speaker 15 They They taped off the perimeter of the shop. Nobody was allowed to go in.

Speaker 6 Meanwhile, Buddy and Casey struggle to grasp how their Sunday morning took such a dark turn.

Speaker 14 Ricky was well-respected and well-loved, the kind of person that everybody got along with. So this was just absolutely like mind-blowing.

Speaker 14 What the hell happened here?

Speaker 5 Why, how?

Speaker 14 You're trying to make sense of of it

Speaker 6 born on january 2nd 1965 rick roberts grew up in sonora

Speaker 3 ricky had one sister and three brothers ricky and his mother were really close um ricky was a uh mama's boy

Speaker 13 She was a single mom for most of her life and just raised the kids herself. Very Christian-oriented, very strict.

Speaker 3 Ricky was very close to his mother. She liked him the best out of everybody.
He had a few brothers and one sister, but Rick was the golden child.

Speaker 3 He'd like to go to his church with his mom and always be there, you know, for his mom.

Speaker 6 Following high school, Rick opted to join the workforce.

Speaker 3 He started doing security work at a pretty young age.

Speaker 14 He was a man of integrity, and security work just seemed like a natural way for him to make a living.

Speaker 6 With his career path decided, Rick found a hobby that would quickly become a passion. Cars.

Speaker 14 He had a family member who said, hey, you have a lot of energy.

Speaker 12 You're creative.

Speaker 14 Let's do this, and we're going to go work on cars.

Speaker 6 Rick loved to fix cars, but even more, he loved to wreck them.

Speaker 3 Rick took off, started to learn how to do destruction derbies. Ricky was my uncle, father figure, and we did destruction derbies together and worked with each other a lot.

Speaker 13 The destruction derby is where you get a bunch of old cars and you make them as strong as you can.

Speaker 14 The cars would bash into each other. Last one standing typically would be the one to move on.

Speaker 6 My uncle Ricky loved it.

Speaker 13 He wanted to make sure that he made the best of it.

Speaker 6 In Sonora, derby was more than a sport. It was a way of life.
And Rick Roberts had a reputation.

Speaker 13 He was well known all over the surrounding counties for being the Derby King.

Speaker 6 To support his hobby, Rick rented a garage space in Sonora that he dubbed Ricky Roberts U2 Auto Body.

Speaker 3 Rick, he just liked the whole process of getting a car, get it, haul it to his place, and then start stripping it out.

Speaker 6 In 1990, 25-year-old Rick had a chance encounter at a local bar that led him into a whirlwind romance.

Speaker 14 When he met his wife, there was a connection there and that she made him feel safe and appreciated.

Speaker 13 They were like the biggest love birds you'd ever see, and she stood right by him through all the derby stuff.

Speaker 6 In July 1990, they married.

Speaker 14 They got married up on top of the derby car. It was adorable, unique, absolutely unique, and it was great.
They were very happy.

Speaker 6 After their wedding, the couple began building a life together. By the mid-2000s, they had added a new member to the family.

Speaker 15 They had adopted their son, and it was something that they found to be one of the best things that they had done.

Speaker 14 The child came into the picture. You saw a transformation in Ricky.
He was just head over heels for this little boy.

Speaker 6 By 2014, Rick was now in his 40s and focused on family and faith.

Speaker 14 He was devoted to his church and bringing the community together.

Speaker 14 Ricky loved being part of that and just being happy to be among friends and family.

Speaker 6 But Rick's happy family life is abruptly halted when on February 16th, 2014, the Derby King is found dead on the floor of his auto body shop.

Speaker 6 When homicide investigators arrive, a crowd is already gathering outside outside Rick's garage.

Speaker 3 Buddy called me and told me what was going on.

Speaker 3 We all crowded around, friends, family, everybody, and we were all in shock of what happened.

Speaker 15 Rick's wife came to the shop when the police presence became known. She was distraught, absolutely distraught, emotional, in shock.

Speaker 14 She was animate about seeing him before they had removed him.

Speaker 6 Amid the chaos, a neighbor steps forward to speak with investigators.

Speaker 15 Crystal Wise did report that she'd heard what sounded like gunshots around, you know, this 10.20 to 10.30 a.m. timeframe.

Speaker 15 Buddy and Casey had called 911 shortly after 11 o'clock.

Speaker 6 Investigators must determine if the pair missed the killer by minutes or if there is more to their story.

Speaker 6 To find out, Buddy and Casey are escorted to the station for more questioning while authorities get their first look at the crime scene.

Speaker 15 There were no signs of forced entry. The door was open.
They found his phone. They found his wallet.
It had money in it. All of his credit cards were present.

Speaker 15 We quickly ruled out that this was any sort of robbery.

Speaker 7 The blood looked still fresh, and so they knew there was a smaller time window involved.

Speaker 6 Coming up, investigators press Rick's friends for answers.

Speaker 15 When an investigation begins, everyone's a suspect.

Speaker 6 And they uncover unsettling details about his life.

Speaker 14 He was entertaining other relationships.

Speaker 15 When there's infidelity in a marriage, that opens up all kinds of possibilities and motive.

Speaker 6 February 2014.

Speaker 6 Investigators in Sonora, California are called to the brutal murder scene of 49-year-old Rick Roberts.

Speaker 15 This is a small town to have a homicide is shocking. Rick's friends, Buddy and Casey Thompson, who were the ones to find Rick, are on scene.

Speaker 6 The couple is en route to the station to give their statements.

Speaker 6 However, Rick's wife begs for more time.

Speaker 15 They did not attempt to interview Rick's wife in any sort of substantive way that day because she was really overcome with emotion.

Speaker 15 She agreed to be interviewed later, but her focus that day was on their son, who was quite young.

Speaker 6 Investigators then make their way back inside the shop to get a closer look at the crime scene.

Speaker 15 Rick was laying sort of on his back in the shop on the floor of a shop with a large pool of blood around his body.

Speaker 7 There was a gunshot wound to the victim's chest, a grazing wound to the left shoulder.

Speaker 6 Investigators are unable to locate a weapon, but they do find another potentially important clue.

Speaker 15 What they located very close to Rick's body was a shell casing.

Speaker 7 The casing belonged to a 9mm handgun. It was a semi-automatic.
There were two gunshot wounds discovered on the victim's body. However, there was only one expended casing.

Speaker 7 So the possibility was that whoever had fired the gun ran out of time and quickly just took off, leaving the one casing.

Speaker 6 Authorities bag up the shell for testing.

Speaker 6 Outside, they come across another clue.

Speaker 15 So there were footprints on the scene. They

Speaker 15 compared tracks to Rick's boots that Rick was wearing at the time. They also knew what Buddy Taylor and Casey's footprints were and where they had parked and entered the shop.

Speaker 15 But this was a smaller footprint from, you know, not likely a male. It also had a real distinctive boot type tread on it.

Speaker 15 They measured it and they photographed it and so we knew the size of it, we knew the tread of it.

Speaker 6 As they wrap up at the crime scene, investigators consider possible theories.

Speaker 7 Once you rule out robbery, this was something possibly a little bit more personal.

Speaker 6 At the station, detectives speak with Casey and Buddy Thompson separately.

Speaker 6 But their stories remain the same.

Speaker 15 When an investigation begins, everyone's a suspect. But they were very, very cooperative.

Speaker 7 Everything they were telling investigators, really, it matched up and they could eliminate them.

Speaker 6 But investigators aren't letting them go just yet.

Speaker 6 They press the Thompsons for information about who might have wanted to harm Rick.

Speaker 14 The questioning got a little bit more specific as to who did he hang out with, how's his relationship with his wife.

Speaker 6 Casey admits that she has noticed tension in Rick's marriage.

Speaker 14 A couple months prior to his death. I was just picking up on the cues of the breakdown communication.
There's a problem in the home.

Speaker 6 While she doesn't know exactly why there's tension between Rick and his wife, she's heard rumors.

Speaker 4 She wasn't around the shop very often, that

Speaker 14 myself and everybody knew that there were some marital stresses going on. He was entertaining other relationships.

Speaker 15 When there's infidelity in a marriage, that opens up all kinds of possibilities and motives.

Speaker 6 The following day, Rick's wife agrees to come in for an interview.

Speaker 6 She confirms that there is some truth to the rumors.

Speaker 15 She was aware that there had been infidelity and they were working on that. Rick assured her it was over.

Speaker 6 Rick's wife says she doesn't know the names of any women her husband was associated with.

Speaker 6 When asked for her whereabouts the morning of the murder, She says she was at home with their nine-year-old son.

Speaker 15 She'd been home all morning with their son, and then he confirmed that his mom had been with him all morning and hadn't left the home.

Speaker 6 Following the interview, investigators return Rick's personal belongings to his wife.

Speaker 15 They gave her Rick's wallet and I think some keys and things to the shop.

Speaker 6 Rick's wife appears to have a solid alibi, forcing investigators to dive deeper into Rick's private life.

Speaker 6 They turn to the tight-knit community of Sonora for help.

Speaker 7 Now you're going to start looking to talk to Ricky's friends, anybody that might have information.

Speaker 6 Friends tell detectives that Rick had a lucrative side gig.

Speaker 7 Ricky Roberts was dealing in scrap metal. But this scrap metal, what makes it unique, is that it's worth money.

Speaker 15 He would take a lot of scrap metal to to these huge recycling centers and get paid.

Speaker 7 You're talking a lot of money. Sometimes there's nefarious people that work in this type of a business.
And so you want to look into that.

Speaker 15 The investigators interviewed the workers there to see: hey, did you ever see Rick have any kind of, you know, confrontation with anybody? Was there any problems?

Speaker 6 But the promising lead quickly becomes a dead end.

Speaker 15 Rick was well known down there. Nobody knew of any sort of, you know, confrontations that Rick had had with anybody.
And so those leads really didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 6 Investigators are stumped until suddenly Rick's wife shows back up and hands them a lead.

Speaker 15 During the investigation, Rick's wife brought us a photograph that she'd located in Rick's wallet.

Speaker 7 She identified the photograph as her husband and her son.

Speaker 6 But it's the handwritten inscription on the back that gets their attention.

Speaker 15 The handwriting said, My husband, Rick, and his son, but the son's name was misspelled, and she didn't recognize the handwriting.

Speaker 7 This isn't her writing. Somebody else is saying that Ricky Roberts was their husband.

Speaker 6 Coming up, the mysterious inscription reveals a hidden life.

Speaker 7 She was at the grocery store and she just felt that somebody was staring at her.

Speaker 6 An unsettling obsession takes center stage.

Speaker 15 He had told her he wanted her to stop following him.

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Speaker 6 Within a week of the murder of Derby King Rick Roberts, investigators were hitting dead ends until Rick's wife brings them a suspicious photograph.

Speaker 15 Rick's wife had found the photograph in Rick's wallet. She had noticed handwriting on the back that said, my husband Rick and his son, and she knew it wasn't her handwriting.

Speaker 6 Rick's wife says she has no idea who might have written the inscription, but it does bring to mind a troubling encounter she had three years earlier in 2011.

Speaker 7 She was at the grocery store and she just felt that somebody was staring at her.

Speaker 15 This woman had like a cowboy hat on and was dressed all, you know, really Western.

Speaker 15 It was super

Speaker 15 creepy and

Speaker 6 She got in her car and the woman followed them.

Speaker 7 This vehicle followed her all the way up until she got close to her home, and then it veered off.

Speaker 15 She immediately told Rick about it, and Rick said, Oh, I'll take care of it. I know who it is.

Speaker 15 He initially brushed it off as some woman that's kind of obsessed with me. So then she brought it to Rick's attention, and he assured her it was over.

Speaker 6 With this unnerving revelation, investigators make discovering the mystery woman's identity their top priority.

Speaker 6 They head to the place where Rick spent even more time than he did at the garage, his church.

Speaker 15 Detectives go to the church and they started interviewing the pastor and members of the church.

Speaker 6 When asked for information about Ricky, Longtime member Susan Hume tells them about a woman who started coming to church around three years ago,

Speaker 6 Cheryl Lucero.

Speaker 15 Sue tried to befriend Cheryl because she knew Cheryl was a new member. So they tried to make her feel welcome.

Speaker 6 However, Susan says that she immediately noticed that Cheryl's eyes were rarely on the pulpit.

Speaker 7 Susan observed her looking all the time staring at Ricky and the church.

Speaker 6 Cheryl told Susan that she recently moved from Modesto and worked as a manager at a fast food restaurant. To earn extra cash, she also accepted a job clearing brush.

Speaker 4 At that time, Cheryl had an apartment in Sonora. My husband, Joe, had hired her to help with some work around our property.

Speaker 4 Cheryl was kind of difficult to know. You had to pull things out of her.
Cheryl's mother, I believe, lived in Nevada and her father in Modesto.

Speaker 4 I knew that she had had a daughter and a son that lived in another state. She was very quiet.

Speaker 4 Very quiet.

Speaker 6 In contrast to her quiet nature, the way 45-year-old Cheryl dressed made her hard to miss.

Speaker 7 Cheryl loved to dress in cowboy gear to look like what some would say rodeo queen.

Speaker 6 Cheryl's quirky get-up drew the attention of church members, as did her habit of staring at Ricky.

Speaker 7 Susan would confront Cheryl about that and tell her that, you know, she needed to basically knock this off.

Speaker 6 Cheryl's reaction caught Susan off guard.

Speaker 15 Cheryl's response was like, oh no, God has meant for us to be together. So it was clear that Cheryl wasn't there.

Speaker 15 because she was a member of the faith. It was clear that Cheryl was there because she wanted wanted to be anywhere Rick was, that she could be.

Speaker 6 Susan says the more she learned about Cheryl's fascination with Rick, the more concerned she got.

Speaker 15 Sue at one point went to Cheryl's apartment, and as they went by Cheryl's bedroom, Sue looked in and there was a shrine to Rick Roberts.

Speaker 15 We're not talking about a photograph on a nightstand.

Speaker 15 It's like like a lot of pictures pasted. All these photographs of him and his derby car.
Sue just sort of said, what is that? This isn't appropriate, Cheryl, like Rick's married.

Speaker 6 Susan's account concerns investigators. Eager to learn more, They reach out to one of Ricky's closest confidants, his nephew Eric.

Speaker 6 He tells them that his uncle first met Cheryl back in 2009 on one of their bi-weekly trips to Modesto.

Speaker 3 After taking the scrapload to the scrapyard, we would go to Pandas Express and we would have lunch. We got to be friends with all the employees there.

Speaker 3 And so this lady named Cheryl was a supervisor. She and Rick were trying to get a sponsorship for Panas Express for his derby car.
And so we would get free lunches.

Speaker 6 Once, Cheryl approached Eric when Rick had stepped away.

Speaker 3 Cheryl came up to me one day and she gave me a little scrap paper with her name and number on it.

Speaker 6 She asked Eric to give it to his uncle.

Speaker 3 I was assuming that she was trying to hit on him. I went ahead and just ripped it up and threw it away.

Speaker 6 Soon after, Eric says he and Rick spotted Cheryl everywhere.

Speaker 3 Cheryl would go to his church, be at the same grocery store, same parking lot,

Speaker 3 and it was starting to get weird. Rick was starting to get a little nervous.

Speaker 15 He had told Cheryl he wanted her to stop following him.

Speaker 6 But Eric says that didn't work. And in 2010, Rick revealed another troubling development.

Speaker 15 Rick had shared with him that she had moved up here to Sonora to be closer to Rick and was working at McDonald's.

Speaker 3 He had told me that the girl was stalking me.

Speaker 3 She was kind of bloony. You can see it in her eyes.

Speaker 6 However, Eric says Rick felt in the months before his murder that he had the situation under control.

Speaker 7 He hadn't had any communication with her for quite some time. He no longer had anything to do with her.

Speaker 6 When investigators check Rick's phone records, they confirm that he had not been in contact with Cheryl for some time.

Speaker 15 We didn't find anything related to Cheryl. Two years leading up to his death, there was just no contact.

Speaker 6 Faced with the fact that Cheryl may be yet another false lead, investigators turn to the only evidence they have, the 9mm shell casing.

Speaker 15 The shell casing from the crime scene was processed and the Department of Justice was able to narrow the type of firearm down to three different manufacturers. We knew that it was a 9mm.

Speaker 15 Detectives ran anyone that had registered in their name those types of firearms. They noticed Cheryl Lucero's name.

Speaker 6 On March 12th, investigators find Cheryl at her work, a Sonora fast food restaurant, and she agrees to come in for an interview the following day.

Speaker 15 She indicated that she really didn't know Rick Roberts very well, that she hadn't spoken to him in three to four years.

Speaker 7 The detectives asked her on the day that Ricky was shot, what was she doing? She stated she was at work and that she clocked out at 10 a.m. in the morning and she went straight home.

Speaker 7 The witness said the gunshots were between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Speaker 6 Investigators asked her about the gun.

Speaker 7 They went on to ask her if she could give them the gun so they could go and check it out.

Speaker 7 She was cooperating. She tells them that, look, I'll bring the gun in tomorrow.

Speaker 6 But the next day passes with no sign of Cheryl.

Speaker 7 She told him she'd bring it in, but she never did.

Speaker 6 Three days later, investigators try to track her down.

Speaker 15 The address that they had was listed on the paperwork for the gun.

Speaker 7 They talked to the landlord. The landlord tells the detectives she hasn't lived there for two years.
So they couldn't find her at that given address.

Speaker 15 So then it's this whole cut-mouse game. And so they have to keep tracking her back to work.
It's like, hey, if you're innocent, why are you playing this?

Speaker 6 Coming up, a new narrative comes into play.

Speaker 6 But an even darker truth is exposed.

Speaker 15 She had created wedding invitations announcing her marriage.

Speaker 7 What you see is that she was obsessed with Ricky Roberts.

Speaker 6 While it's clear the relationship between Rick Roberts and Cheryl Lucero ended years ago, her gun purchase and behavior behavior since his murder has made her suspect number one.

Speaker 7 She initially said that she was going to bring the gun, but time keeps going by and now she hasn't even showed up at all.

Speaker 15 The police go to her address. They find out she hasn't lived at that apartment in over two years.

Speaker 6 On March 18th, one month after Rick Roberts' murder, investigators finally track Cheryl down at the fast food restaurant where she works.

Speaker 15 She says she had moved and was now living at an address in Twain Heart.

Speaker 4 I believe it was November of 2012 that Cheryl moved in with us.

Speaker 4 I thought, well, she's trying to save money, so why don't we just rent her a room and then she can get rid of her apartment.

Speaker 15 They once again told her they wanted her to come in for an interview. She indicated she was busy that day, but that she'd come in the next day and bring the firearm in so that they could compare it.

Speaker 6 Investigators leave Cheryl to finish her shift, but they don't take her at her word.

Speaker 15 Rather than wait for her to come in the next day, the detectives got a warrant and responded to the Twain Hart address she'd provided them that evening.

Speaker 6 Detectives are met by Cheryl and later, Yvonne and Joe Iniguez.

Speaker 4 The sheriffs came to our home with a search warrant. They told us that they were investigating the murder of Rick Roberts and they wanted to search Cheryl's room.
It was surreal

Speaker 4 and I couldn't believe it was going on in my home.

Speaker 6 An investigator combs through Cheryl's belongings. He doesn't locate Cheryl's gun, but he does find the next best thing.

Speaker 15 So So he sort of opens this dresser drawer and he finds a test fire envelope that comes with your gun. When you purchase a gun, they give you a casing that was fired from your gun.

Speaker 15 Now he has that casing to compare to the casing at the scene.

Speaker 6 Investigators take Cheryl back to the station.

Speaker 6 There, Cheryl claims she quit attending the same church as Rick two years ago when Rick started hitting on her.

Speaker 19 I was leaving and he was getting ready to leave and he nodded me over to the side. He was persistent.
That's when I decided, you know what, this.

Speaker 19 We can't go to this church anymore.

Speaker 16 Did anything ever happen between them?

Speaker 19 No,

Speaker 19 no sexual whatsoever. Because I know that he's married.

Speaker 6 Investigators steer the conversation to Cheryl's whereabouts on the day of the murder.

Speaker 7 She clocked out at 10 a.m. and she said she went straight home.
The witness who heard the gunshots said the gunshots were between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Speaker 7 So they knew that Cheryl had time to clock out, drive over to Ricky's garage, shoot him, and then leave.

Speaker 20 You left work

Speaker 20 within

Speaker 20 just a few minutes, and then Ricky's killed with a gun that's just like yours.

Speaker 19 That's all speculation.

Speaker 20 It's not speculation.

Speaker 15 There were two different ways she could have traveled from her place of work.

Speaker 15 It was approximately seven to eight minutes to Rick's shop, so we knew that she had the ability to make it there shortly after 10 o'clock. The detective continues to talk to her about the case.

Speaker 15 She's denying any involvement.

Speaker 19 There's things like,

Speaker 20 is it something you just don't want to believe that happened.

Speaker 16 Something you just can't take back.

Speaker 19 That's not what that is.

Speaker 6 Detectives don't let up.

Speaker 6 Hours into the interrogation, Cheryl suddenly changes her tune.

Speaker 19 It's not an accident.

Speaker 1 How is it an accident?

Speaker 18 Tell me that.

Speaker 19 Because I was just finding him. I just told him, I want you to leave me alone for good.
I don't ever want to hear from you. I don't ever want to see you.

Speaker 15 I just went there to scare him,

Speaker 15 is what she says.

Speaker 6 But the confession makes little sense to investigators.

Speaker 15 She hadn't seen or talked to Rick Roberts in years.

Speaker 15 And then she says that it was an accident and it accidentally fired not once, but twice.

Speaker 6 Either way, the statement is enough for an arrest.

Speaker 15 They say, okay, we're going to arrest you. And she says, what do you mean you're gonna arrest me?

Speaker 6 At that point, Cheryl's story changes again.

Speaker 19 I wasn't there when he actually was killed. No.

Speaker 18 So that was all a lie, but

Speaker 7 she is now protecting another person. When asked who this other person was, she tells detectives it's Chris Tinkham, her former boyfriend.

Speaker 6 She claims Chris knew Rick hit on her in the past and wouldn't let it go.

Speaker 7 She gives him this gun and just wants him to go over and to scare Ricky.

Speaker 15 Chris Tinkham was going to rough Rick up and scare Rick, and then he came back and he'd killed Rick and she was, you know, surprised.

Speaker 6 Detectives inform her that she is still under arrest.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 19 I don't understand what you wouldn't need, Smileville.

Speaker 20 You're under arrest right now.

Speaker 7 Yes, you're not free to leave.

Speaker 6 One day after Cheryl's arrest, investigators set out to bring Chris Tinkum in.

Speaker 6 Chris is in shock and eager to clear his name.

Speaker 7 He has not been in a relationship with Cheryl Lucero for years. He also tells them that at the time of this shooting, he's at his place of employment.

Speaker 15 His boss, you know, verified that he'd been at work early, so there was absolutely no way that he could have been involved.

Speaker 7 After ruling out Chris Tinkum, they started to realize that Cheryl was just making up more lies. They need to focus more on her.

Speaker 6 The day after her arrest, authorities uncover a storage unit rented by Cheryl.

Speaker 15 One of the boxes that detectives found in the storage unit was filled with Rick memorabilia.

Speaker 6 Among the hundreds of photos, they make a particularly disturbing find.

Speaker 15 She had created wedding invitations announcing her marriage to Rick Roberts.

Speaker 7 What you see is that Cheryl Lucero was obsessed with Ricky Roberts.

Speaker 6 Coming up, yet another tale of obsession emerges.

Speaker 4 I discovered that Cheryl was involved with my husband Joe.

Speaker 6 Will the truth finally come out?

Speaker 15 She pointed the gun and she told him, I never want to see you in my life again.

Speaker 6 The arrest of 45-year-old Cheryl Lucero for the murder of Rick Roberts leaves the small town of Sonora, California reeling.

Speaker 4 The next morning, we found out that she had been arrested.

Speaker 4 All of it was shocking.

Speaker 15 In the storage unit, the detectives did find a pair of Cheryl Lucero's boots and were able to match the tread on her boot to this specific footprint from the crime scene.

Speaker 15 They were able to take the test fire casing that had come from her firearm and compare it with the casing that was located next to Rick Roberts' body.

Speaker 15 And the criminalists determined to 100% certainty that her firearm had fired a bullet that shot Rick Roberts.

Speaker 7 In July of 2014, Cheryl goes to court and there she pleads not guilty.

Speaker 6 At her trial in 2015, prosecutors allege that Following a brief affair with Rick in 2012, Cheryl became obsessed.

Speaker 15 He quickly realizes he needs to stop this relationship. And by all accounts, he attempted to do that.

Speaker 6 But Rick couldn't stop her.

Speaker 15 We were dealing with what ultimately was a fatal attraction.

Speaker 6 Over the next few years, Cheryl made fake wedding invitations and created a shrine to her unrequited love.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors allege that almost three years after Rick ended the affair, Cheryl was still stewing.

Speaker 7 She was still obsessed, and she just felt that there was no other way to stop her emotional hurt, but to kill him.

Speaker 6 Two days after Valentine's Day, 2014, she enacted her plan.

Speaker 7 She left her place of employment at 10 a.m. in the morning.
She drives over to Ricky Roberts' business. There, she confronts him.

Speaker 15 Per her own interview, she pointed the gun at Rick. She told him, You know, I never want to see you in my life again.

Speaker 7 She shoots not once, but she shoots him twice.

Speaker 7 She then leaves him on the floor and walks out. She gets rid of the gun.
Where it is to this date, nobody knows except her.

Speaker 6 In a surprise move, Cheryl takes the stand. Once again, she tries to cast blame elsewhere.

Speaker 7 She tries to pin this case on Joe Iniquez, the landlord. That's who she says was the real person behind the killing of Ricky Roberts.

Speaker 4 Sometime in April, I discovered that Cheryl was also involved with my husband, Joe. I came home for lunch from work and found them together.
I said, you're going to have to leave.

Speaker 4 I said, I'll give you time to find another place.

Speaker 4 I was trying to be reasonable, but she still hadn't moved out by June when the sheriff's department came and also interviewed Joe.

Speaker 6 Cheryl walks the jury through yet another version of events.

Speaker 7 The motive that Cheryl Lassero gives for Joe doing the killing is that he was jealous because she had told Joe about Ricky and that he was upset and he used that gun and he himself killed Ricky Roberts.

Speaker 6 The story falls apart when Joe's wife, Yvonne, takes the stand.

Speaker 4 I knew he had nothing to do with it because he was home at the time of the murder.

Speaker 6 After a 15-day trial, the case goes to the jury.

Speaker 7 On September 4th, 2015, The jury came back with the verdict of guilty of first-degree murder

Speaker 7 and also guilty of the use of a firearm in a crime.

Speaker 15 Her sentence was 50 to life, 25 to life on the homicide, and 25 to life for use of the gun.

Speaker 13 Let her bathe in her mistakes. Let her live in her own misery.
She is sitting where she's supposed to be sitting.

Speaker 6 With Cheryl behind bars, Rick's family is left to pick up the pieces.

Speaker 13 He was there for everybody. Whether you were, you know, in a dark place or doing your best, he was there for you.
He was just a big, loving man, and his whole purpose was to put a smile on your face.

Speaker 13 We don't remember him as how he got murdered.

Speaker 13 He'll always be remembered as the Derby King.

Speaker 21 Cheryl Lucero is serving her life sentence at the Central California Women's Facility.

Speaker 6 She will be eligible for parole in 2034. She will be 65 years old.

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