Maria Hernandez

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Every Monday and Wednesday night, it's true crime on TV one.

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They were a couple chasing the American dream.

She sacrificed a lot.

She gave a lot.

He wanted to be part of the United States.

He wanted to raise his family here.

They seemed like a perfect couple, perfect marriage.

But a fun night out in Sin City brings their idyllic romance to a horrific end.

They saw a Hispanic female woman who was covered in blood, holding a hatchet.

He was almost decapitated.

An unbelievable, terrible, gruesome, grisly scene.

To get to the truth, investigators must unravel a tangled web of lies and infidelity.

We realized there was a lot more that we were dealing with.

They have to figure out who's telling the truth.

Ultimately, uncovering a savage plot by killers no one expected.

It's shocking.

It's sick.

How could this be?

His words were, I do what I told.

What would drive somebody to do this sort of thing?

You can't prevent evil.

That's the bottom line.

You cannot prevent evil.

May 25th, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada.

It's Memorial Day in this lively desert oasis.

But on the west side of the valley, miles from the strip, Las Vegas police receive an alarming phone call from local resident Georgianne Lee.

I awoke at two in the morning to noise, to arguing.

She was living in a pretty nice neighborhood.

Here's some sort of commotion, some sort of fight happening outside her window.

She had heard voices, but she didn't actually see the occurrence happen.

She claimed that it sounded like voices of two males and that she had heard a female scream.

I couldn't understand what they were saying.

It was garbled.

There was a struggling sound and there was gurgling and I'm thinking, uh-oh, she is being choked or raped.

Something's going on.

And I saw a young man laying in the middle of the street in a pool of blood.

So much blood.

A female was over him

and her arms were outstretched And my first thought was, oh, it was a hit and run.

So I called the police.

Officers and medical personnel immediately head to the scene.

Once patrol officers arrive, they discover a scene that was pretty horrific.

They come upon, in the middle of this pretty nice street,

this woman, hysterical,

covered in blood,

blood everywhere, and she is understandably freaking out.

She was holding a hatchet next to a male who was lying in the street with an enormous amount of blood around him and who appeared to be deceased.

As officers approach, the woman drops the weapon and says that her name is Maria Hernandez and the dead man on the ground is her husband, 43-year-old Enrique Hernandez.

We were trying to get control and understand what exactly was occurring and what had happened.

Obviously, the first person we wanted to talk to was Maria, and that's what we did.

She said this unknown attacker had come out from a vacant desert lot, comes up and attacks him with the hatchet.

This is very shocking.

It's like

something out of a movie.

Growing up in Veracruz, Mexico, Enrique Hernandez learned the value of hard work from an early age.

It's hard work.

You have to get up before the break of dawn, and you don't get home until the sun has gone down.

So you are in humidity.

You're working sometimes 103 degrees with 50% humidity.

But even though Enrique always put work first, he still made time for fun.

He wanted to live the American dream.

To come here as an immigrant,

work his butt off, and eventually own some sort of business.

He wanted to be that person instead of just an employee or just a farm worker, you know, that has to work 12 hours a day in the hot sun.

As soon as he was old enough, Enrique moved from Mexico to the United States.

His brother followed suit, and the two found work in Central California.

That's what's the valley.

It's mostly agriculture.

That's where a lot of the fruit and vegetables that we get is from there.

Then, one day at work in 1997, Enrique noticed a beautiful young woman, 15-year-old Maria Olga Gutiérrez.

Enrique was working in one of the fields, and

Maria's father sold tamales to the field workers.

And just so happened that she was with her father that day, and Enrique goes to the food truck, and you know there's this wonderful young woman and he's smitten.

Miriam caught his eye and fell in love with her.

She was

very polite, would say hi to everybody and greet everybody.

Born and raised in California, Maria had a caring spirit that Enrique was immediately drawn to.

Maria came from a large family.

She had several brothers and sisters.

She grew up fairly isolated.

There was a troubled home life.

I think she was looking, but you know, hoping to be saved.

I definitely think Maria was excited and grateful for Enrique.

The family environment that she was in was not a good one.

She wanted out of the house, and she saw Enrique as that ticket.

They've been dating, seeing each other for a year and a half, a couple years.

She at the time is 17.

17, he's about 27.

10 years is a pretty decent gap.

But her family and that culture as well see him very much as a provider, someone who can provide for her, can take care of her, and she sees that as well.

So they go down to Mexico to see some family, and also while they're there, get married.

About a year after they've been married, Marie gets pregnant and he's over over the moon.

Over the next few years, Enrique and Maria had four children: two boys and two girls.

Enrique worked hard to support his family, constantly traveling to find seasonal work.

He worked in the farming communities.

Maria also worked.

She would go to some of the dairy farms and do minor bookkeeping, that sort of thing.

I know they lived in Missouri, they lived in Florida.

If there was work, that's where he was going.

Besides providing for his own children and his wife, he would also support his family back in Mexico, sending them money.

In 2011, Enrique settled his family in Burley, Idaho, and later applied to become a U.S.

citizen.

It seemed that finally after chasing work and chasing some stability for his entire life, that they finally found a place where they could settle down.

I mean, that's the American dream.

Sadly, Enrique's American dream comes to a sudden halt as his bloody body lies on a suburban Las Vegas street.

He was pronounced at the scene as he was nearly decapitated.

Officers turned to his shaken wife, Maria, to find out what happened.

So they get her calmed down enough that they get a quick statement from her.

They were here because of a conseñara and that they left their children out so that they could be alone and spend a great night together.

She explained to police that her and her husband had some car trouble.

They had pulled their vehicle over.

Her husband had gotten out of the vehicle to check to see what the engine trouble was.

She claimed that a assailant came out of the desert with his hatchet and started attacking her husband.

She says he then jumps in the van and drives off with their van, leaving Maria there

with her husband covered in blood.

An unbelievable, terrible, gruesome, grisly scene.

The Las Vegas Police Department clearly is concerned.

They don't want to have somebody who's hiding in the bushes in neighborhoods with an axe in his hand, getting ready to attack innocent victims.

Coming up, a massive manhunt begins.

Every law enforcement officer is starting to look for this particular band.

And pressure to catch a killer builds.

They have a murderer on loose in their city who's willing to kill people just for a quick ride.

If he was willing to do that, he's willing to kill again.

We needed to identify that person as fast as possible.

In the early morning hours of May 25th, 2015, detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police are investigating the gruesome homicide of 43-year-old Enrique Hernandez after he was attacked by a stranger with a hatchet.

He was completely hacked to death.

He was almost decapitated.

His head was only being held on to the rest of his torso with just a few ligaments left.

Enrique had been viciously attacked.

However, there were defensive wounds.

Enrique fought back.

And the hardest thing is that Enrique fought for his life.

And ultimately, he couldn't win that.

It's not that normal for somebody to be attacked in that type of manner.

And then ultimately, their car to be taken, specifically in the area of town that they were in.

Detectives want to hear firsthand from Enrique's wife, Maria, about the events leading up to the attack.

Maria was interviewed.

We wanted to get her side of the story as fast as we could, primarily because if there truly was a stranger out there that committed this heinous act, and we needed to identify that person as fast as possible.

Like she told first responders, Maria says she and her husband were visiting family from out of town.

They're coming for one of his brother's daughter's 15th birthday at Quinceinera.

It's something big.

Celebration of a girl's 15th birthday becoming a woman.

It's like attending a wedding, for lack of a better description.

The whole family had been there.

Maria says that last night they dropped the kids off at Enrique's cousin's house, and she and Enrique went out dancing at a bar on the east side of Las Vegas.

Maria had stated that her and her husband had a great night.

They were getting along very well.

They were dancing together.

They were having drinks.

Finally left that bar about 2 a.m.

in the van, driving through town.

Maria was driving the van.

Enrique was in the front passenger seat.

and they had gotten lost.

And while they were driving, they were having car trouble.

Maria says they didn't get far before she smelled something burning.

So they have to pull out to the side of the road, figure out what's going on.

She told us that she had told him that she felt more comfortable if they went to a gas station because it was more lit, and he felt that everything was okay in the area that they were.

She said that she got out of the vehicle with him.

They popped the hood.

She used her cell phone as a flashlight so that he could see under the hood.

While they were looking down into the engine compartment, is when the attack occurred.

Maria says it happened really quick.

It was so shocking.

He came out of nowhere.

It was a blur.

All I know is he was an African-American man.

So that's all police have to go on.

An African-American man somewhere in Las Vegas driving this van and willing to kill people.

According to Maria, the attacker drove south on Buffalo Drive, leaving Enrique Enrique for dead.

They've put an outer to be on the lookout, had units flood the area, start searching for someone, and the investigation begins immediately.

So every law enforcement officer, including officers in North Las Vegas and Anderson, were starting to look for this particular van.

While a manhunt begins, investigators scour the crime scene for evidence.

The hatchet that was found at the crime scene, it was consistent with the injuries on the victim, Enrique.

There was a pair of high-heel shoes that ultimately we learned belonged to Maria.

There was also a pair of glasses that didn't belong to Maria, nor did they belong to Enrique.

We also found footprint impressions in blood that didn't match Maria's, nor did they match Enrique's.

It was somebody who had left the scene that was there, and that was potentially our suspect.

Investigators also searched the vacant lot just north of the crime scene.

Maria had told us that this black male adult, this unknown black male adult, had come out from a vacant desert lot.

The area where the crime scene was,

just to the north of where Enrique's body was, there was a desert lot.

And she said that this person came out from that lot.

We canvassed that area.

We actually did a grid search to find anything as far as evidence.

We found nothing.

The more police survey the scene, the more trouble they have believing this was a random attack.

We noticed that it didn't look what we believed to be the occurrence that was being explained to us.

This was just a residential area where you wouldn't normally anticipate seeing a stranger out there to case somebody for a robbery and a carjacking.

So we were very skeptical.

The plausibility of a male coming out of a dark desert area with a hatchet and then suddenly attacking somebody just did not seem very plausible.

The area is not known for a high crime area, especially not violent crime.

It is not on a major crossroads of any public transportation, so that does not seem to be a plausible story.

The brutality of the attack also gives detectives pause.

For somebody to use an axe or a hatchet on a fellow living human goes to show how personal it is.

The significant anger, the hatred, the true evilness that went into this murder, they wanted somebody to be dead and to suffer.

This seemed to be something personal.

This wasn't something that was that random.

However, working homicide investigations, you have to be open-minded and you have to let the evidence and the facts of what you learned take you where you need to go.

You look at victimology, you look at the victim, and to see those connected to the victim to try to figure out who could have done this or why.

Before investigators get a chance to dig deeper into Enrique's history, police searching the area get a sudden break in the case.

The van was discovered some miles away.

And when officers found that van, they discovered that there was blood inside the van.

There was blood on the handle on the outside of the van, as well.

There was a buck knife that was found under the front seat.

But it's what's on the street surrounding the van that intrigues officers the most.

They discovered something very interesting.

The first responding officer looked down and started seeing a trail of blood.

What they find is a trail of blood leading from the driver's side door.

And so they start to follow this trail of blood like breadcrumbs through a forest.

And they go a block and it keeps going.

They go another block.

It keeps going.

Another block and another block.

And it goes on for a half mile.

The blood trail was followed through the streets and then ultimately ended.

It just ended.

So right now what we're thinking is, do we have an injured suspect?

Coming up, a new discovery leads police down a startling path.

He claimed that he was a victim of a robbery and that he had been stabbed.

Coincidence or not, we had to look and see.

And a hidden motive comes to the surface.

This couple had had problems.

There had been infidelity.

We determined that there was more to the story.

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After the brutal homicide of 43-year-old Enrique Hernandez, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police have discovered the van that was stolen and abandoned by the killer.

They were looking for somebody who got clearly got injured because of the fact that there was a blood trail.

Then, of course, seeing a knife there certainly added to the question of how was that knife used.

The police department did not know exactly what was going on, but they knew that it was a bloody scene.

Suspecting the killer might have sought medical attention, officers reach out to area hospitals.

Ultimately, we got a break.

And that break was

from one of the hospitals we got a call that a Hispanic male had showed up.

He was transported from a residence from across the valley with a stab wound to the abdomen.

And the person that claimed to have been stabbed was Hector Gutierrez.

Hector Gutierrez claimed that that he was a victim of a robbery and that he had been stabbed by his assailant.

With a little digging, police learn that Hector Gutierrez has a connection to the Hernandez family.

He was the biological brother of Maria.

Could Hector be involved in Enrique's murder?

Or was he the second victim of someone with a vendetta against this family?

Coincidence or not, we had to look and see.

It was something that we knew had to be followed up and had to be followed up immediately.

While one team of investigators heads to the hospital to speak with Hector, a second team reaches out to Enrique's family in the nearby suburb of Henderson to deliver the tragic news.

It's shocking.

It's sick.

It just makes you wonder, how could this be?

I don't know, it's just too many things to think about.

Enrique's brother, Danielle, is particularly devastated by the news.

Investigators ask Danielle if he knows anyone who would want to hurt Enrique, but no one comes to mind.

When detectives ask about Maria's brother, 22-year-old Hector Gutiérrez, Enrique's family confirms that he was also in town for the Quinsinera and was staying with another relative in North Las Vegas.

Hector Gutiérrez is the baby brother of Maria.

In many ways, Hector was actually raised by Maria.

He was one of the younger ones of the family, as far as the siblings went.

He struggled.

There was an accident that took place in Vesalia, California several years prior to this incident.

Hector was driving a vehicle with his mother in.

There was a car accident and ultimately it took the life of his mother.

I think he carried that weight on his shoulder for a long time.

But that's not the only burden Hector's been carrying.

Hector

was having a difficulty in his own identity.

Hector had decided that he wanted to have his gender reassigned at some point.

Hector decided he wanted to transition into being a woman.

While Hector planned his transition, Maria had vowed to help her brother in any way she could.

Maria kind of came to her brother's aid, even from a long distance, and told him that she was there to support him, that she would help him.

Maria was just this incredible,

loving constant for Hector.

Maria was someone that he could count on.

Hector did treat her as a motherly type figure.

She was a protector of Hector's.

Maria did provide some financial assistance over time, and they remained close.

From what police learn, it doesn't appear that Hector would have any motive to hurt Enrique.

That is, until family members reveal that Enrique's marriage to Maria wasn't as rosy as she had let on.

Police find out that this couple had had problems,

that there had been infidelity.

Maria had cheated on Enrique.

We believe that the relationship was at least three or four months.

There might have been a little bit of time in between that, but the relationship actually became intimate within about three or four months prior to this murder happening.

Despite Maria's betrayal, Enrique's family believes he had been trying to save his marriage.

Enrique grew up Catholic and then converted to Mormonism.

And And in both those religions, divorce is just not a thing, not an option, wasn't going to happen.

So he somehow has to reconcile all that.

He has to figure out what to do.

I guess they were trying to make it work to get back together.

And to me, my thought was, well, everybody makes mistakes.

Nobody's perfect.

So I thought they were just trying to make it work because they seemed like the perfect family.

In fact, they were using this quinceinera as a reason to try to reconnect and to get together back as husband and wife and doing it for the sake of the children.

Investigators learned that Maria's former lover lives in their hometown of Burley, Idaho.

He certainly would have had a motive, arguably, for perhaps losing his girlfriend back to her husband, and so the police wanted to check into his story.

They're like, we need to find that guy because there's a motive, there's a reason.

So where's this boyfriend?

Coming up, police track down Maria's lover.

His story is that she'd been in this troubled relationship for years, and she said that she needed help.

And a shocking admission unveils a deadly conspiracy.

They immediately started crumbling.

We asked him what he meant by get rid of him.

He said, kill him.

Hours after the violent murder of Enrique Hernandez, police have learned that the devoted father of four had been struggling to repair his marriage after his wife Maria had an affair.

The detectives certainly want to know, perhaps, is this boyfriend possibly a suspect?

They track him down pretty quick, but they figure out that he's still up in Idaho.

He was potentially a suspect in this murder, someone they're trying to find, and he has an airtight alibi.

He's in Idaho, 10-hour drive.

There's no way he could have...

gotten down to Vegas and been involved in this crime, in this murder.

There is no indication whatsoever that this boyfriend had anything to do with this homicide of Enrique.

Police immediately ruled him out as a suspect.

Investigators now turn their full attention to Maria's brother, Hector Gutierrez, who is recovering from a stab wound to his abdomen at a local hospital.

I sent detectives to the hospital to talk with Hector to find out what his story was.

Hector tells police that he had been at a local bar the night before, only to find that his car wouldn't start.

So he decided to walk to his cousin's house where he had been staying.

He wanted to go on a long walk because he wanted to get some exercise.

This was early, early in the morning hours.

He began to stroll along the streets of Las Vegas in an area that he didn't even know.

Ultimately, he said he was attacked by some men, two or three, he wasn't sure.

and that they pushed him to the ground and they stole his wallet and they stole his money and they took off.

He said in the process of fighting off this robbery, he got stabbed.

Hector claimed he had called his eldest sibling to come pick him up on the streets of Las Vegas and bring him to the hospital.

But as detectives questions get more pointed, Hector struggles to provide detailed answers.

He couldn't give officers an exact location of where this purported robbery had occurred, so they didn't know even where to start.

We couldn't even send police officers to a scene because we didn't know where the scene really was.

While they're at the hospital questioning Hector, investigators get word of a critical new clue.

Police records reveal that a Las Vegas patrolman had pulled over the Hernandez's van not long before the homicide occurred.

We found that there was a record that the van had been stopped about an hour prior and that that police officer was still on duty and we had actually talked talked with the police officer, and he told us what occurred during the course of the traffic stop.

The reason why they got pulled over is that they left without their headlights on, and so the officer pulled them over on the suspicion of perhaps being under the influence.

He determined that they were not intoxicated to where he felt that Maria was capable of driving the vehicle and that she could drive away.

He did identify Maria via her driver's license as well as he identified Enrique.

But what the officer reveals next changes the course of the investigation.

It seems a third passenger was along for the ride.

The description of what the officer said compared to what was at the hospital, we knew that person was Hector Gutierrez.

It's a big deal because Maria never told us that anybody else was in the van, even when she was asked.

And it puts the three together in this van right before the murder.

The pieces are starting to fall together for investigators, and Hector's story is falling apart.

Following up on their suspicion, detectives obtain Hector's shoes and discover they're a match to the bloody prince left at the scene.

When confronted with the evidence, Hector finally comes clean.

He started admitting to the fact that he had been up at the homicide scene, that he was in the van, and that he played a major role in his brother-in-law's death.

But Hector insists that killing Enrique wasn't his idea.

He claimed that he had been pressured by his sister Maria to do this act.

This was Maria's idea and to utilize her brother, Hector, to carry it out.

According to Hector, it all started when his sister called him crying.

Over the course of two or three months, his sister, Maria, had been telling him of how she felt she was being mistreated by her husband.

Maria admitted that she had been unfaithful to her husband.

She was afraid that Enrique was going to commit some type of violent act on her boyfriend.

She indicated that she had been under a lot of stress and a lot of violence.

that she had sustained on the hands of Enrique, and that's one of the reasons why she found a lover.

Hector's story is that she'd been in this troubled relationship for years, and she said that she needed help, that she was desperate.

She bought him a plane ticket to come down to Vegas to help her with her problem.

When pressed a little bit more about how that abuse was taking place, he really couldn't give us anything substantial as far as whether that was a physical or emotional or even sexual.

But he said that his sister had told him that she was being abused and that she wanted to, quote, get rid of him.

We asked him what he meant by get rid of him.

He said, kill him.

hector did not have a nasty bone in his body that he really would be willing and saying hey let me do this for you sis he needed to be conjoled and pushed into this maria reminded him about the horrible thing that had to happen with their mom she said that family needed to stick together this is all what you have family has to do these things for family The way that, at least Hector explained it, was that he would do what he was told to do from his elders.

That meant his sisters or anybody in his family, his siblings.

And his words were, I do what I told.

He felt obligated to help her because she was the most supportive

to him.

And they were really, really close.

But I guess that's what he felt obligated to help assist her.

She ultimately wired Hector $800 for him to leave California, come to Las Vegas for the weekend during the Kinsenura.

She wanted him to have assist her in her murderous plan that she had already concocted in her mind.

It was ultimately Hector, through a heavy conscience, told us what actually occurred.

Hector tells police that Maria had planned for the three of them to go out to a local bar the night after the family celebration.

Enrique was dancing with Maria.

There was not a lot of alcohol consumed, but Enrique clearly was the one who had consumed a little bit more than Maria.

And so that's why Maria had become the designated driver.

Maria had secreted the hatchet that he was supposed to use on his brother-in-law and had placed it under the seat.

She actually got the hatchet in Idaho and placed it in the car.

So that hatchet traveled all the way from Burley, Idaho down to Las Vegas with her husband sitting in the car, not realizing that his murder weapon was being transported by him.

They then all left together in the van with Hector sitting in the back.

They drove away from the place that they were attending and crossed Las Vegas Boulevard on Tropicana where they actually got pulled over by a patrol officer.

Following their traffic stop, Maria had driven the van to a dark part of town where she put the next phase of her plan into action.

At that point, she started feigning that she had engine problems.

And then she pulled over and asked her husband, Enrique, can you look under the hood to see what's wrong with the car?

Enrique gets out of the vehicle.

Maria gets out of the vehicle with them.

They open up the hood.

Enrique then tells her to try to start the vehicle back up.

She gets back in the vehicle and then tells Hector, go, do it now.

Go.

At that point, Hector decided it was the point of no return.

Reached down to

where the hatchet had been secreted by Maria.

He got out of the van, he walked around, got behind his brother-in-law Enrique, who was looking over in the engine, and suddenly picked that hatchet up, held it over his head, and then came crashing down with the blade striking Enrique's neck area.

That's when Enrique realizes he's being attacked, pulls his own knife, a buck knife actually, from his pocket and tries to defend himself, ultimately stabbing Hector.

But Hector claims that Maria didn't just witness the attack, she was an active participant in her husband's murder.

Maria actually grabbed, reached out and grabbed the arms of her husband, trying to hold him back so that her brother could continue to give the fatal blows.

Hector tells us that there was no possible way that he felt that without Maria's help, he would have been able to overpower Enrique.

He said it was because of Maria he was able to get Enrique down to the ground and ultimately hatchet him to death.

She is a cold-hearted murderer, four feet eight of pure evil.

Coming up, police confront Maria with her brother's shocking accusation.

Her stories continue to change.

She said that her brother may have done this out of love for her.

Nobody really saw this coming.

In Las Vegas, Nevada, 22-year-old Hector Gutierrez has just confessed to his role in the savage murder of his brother-in-law, Enrique Hernandez.

We were finally able to determine that Hector wasn't robbed, and Hector sustained his injuries due to the attack that he and his sister conducted on Enrique.

Hector was in the hospital until he was patched up.

He was immediately arrested under suspicion of having committed murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Detectives work quickly to bring in Hector's sister, Maria.

Once in custody, Maria tries to stick with her original story of a hatchet-wielding stranger that carjacked them.

The detectives confronted Maria and they start presenting her with some conflicting information that they learned from her brother.

Through the course of time that detectives did talk to her, her stories continue to change.

Maria admits that the carjacking story was a total fabrication.

It was a lie.

Maria tries to convince detectives that she had nothing to do with the murder and that her brother Hector had attacked Enrique on his own.

She told us that she never used the word kill him.

She said that her brother Hector was upset with Enrique because of the way he had been treating her.

She said that Enrique had been an abusive husband, that he had not been a good faithful husband himself, and that she had some problems in a relationship and that her brother may have done this out of love for her.

We felt that some were half-truths and some were just bold-faced lies.

We attempted to try to substantiate anything that Maria told us.

We were never able to substantiate that she was, in fact, an abused wife.

Law enforcement just did not believe that Hector did this all completely on his own, that it just so happens that the hatchet was there, and that he would act in a way that really just did not seem plausible because she already gave a fake story to the first one.

Now she's given the second version.

We believed it was Maria who helped Hector hold Enrique down

because Enrique was fighting back.

And she actually held his arms down while her brother, at her direction, Hector, hatcheted him to death.

In addition to that, they thought that she was probably the mastermind behind this whole horrific murder.

Maria and her brother are both charged with conspiracy to commit murder and murder in the first degree with use of a deadly weapon.

And it's unbelievable that this woman, this mother of four from a small rural town, had her husband killed in such a gruesome and grisly way.

I don't think anybody within the family on both sides, nobody really saw this coming.

How could you do that to someone you love?

How could you do that to the father of your children?

So you have to figure out what the story is.

What would drive somebody with no criminal record who described as a decent mother, what would drive somebody to do this sort of thing?

As prosecutors prepare for trial, they make a discovery that suggests Maria's true motives for wanting her husband dead.

I did some investigation.

I checked to see if Enrique had any type of substantial life insurance.

Did not find any of that.

I think what it really came down to it is just her sense of family.

Enrique found out about the affair and was beyond upset.

He threatened to take the four kids with him and take them away from Maria.

That's what made Maria snap.

She would be removed from her children.

And in Maria's mind, that was a line that you did not cross.

Having him dead and out of the picture was a lot easier than stressing and worrying about losing her children.

And when the time came that she needed help, she knew exactly the right person that she could manipulate into doing this horrific murder.

Finally, in January of 2017, they reach a deal and they both plead guilty.

It was an agreement by the state that they wouldn't seek life in prison.

Hector had a term of 20 years to 50 years on the murder.

As for Maria, she receives a sentence of 25 to 70 years for her role in the crime.

Maria had sent Hector the money, Maria had come up with a plan.

It was Maria that put things in motion.

That's why her case resolved for a little more time than what Hector's did, even though Hector was the actual person who did the killing.

Although there is justice for Enrique, his loss will forever be felt by his friends and family.

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Why did she not think about her family?

Well, it's hard to believe.

She didn't think about

her family that she was hurting.

It's those children at the end of the day who ultimately pay.

Those four children that belong to Maria and Enrique.

They'll never see their father again, and they'll only see their mother behind bars if they ever choose to do so.

Maria Hernandez and Hector Gutierrez are serving their sentences within the Nevada Department of Corrections.

Maria will be eligible for parole in 2040 at the age of 58.

Hector will be eligible for parole in 2035 at the age of 42.

Enrique and Maria's children are being raised by Enrique's family.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

It's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts.

I'm Alina Urquhart, and I'm Ash Kelly.

And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

The stories we cover are well researched.

Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group.

With a touch of humor.

Shout out to her.

Shout out to all my therapists out there.

There's been like eight of them.

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

That motherfucker is not real.

And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Way Back Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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