Brenda Delgado's mother says she is not the jealous type after murder of her ex's girlfriend

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Dentist Kendra Hatcher was shot execution-style in Dallas by an unknown hitman; woman who drove gunman has been charged with capital murder
Brenda Delgado, 33, is dead woman's boyfriend's ex-lover and dated him for two years before the split this summer
Maria Delgado said she knew her daughter and ex-boyfriend Ricardo Paniagua had broken up
Said daughter had been fine afterwards and was getting on with studies
But a former classmate said Delgado talked about her boyfriend constantly during their relationship and claimed they were engaged last year
Said he had heard her complain about how Paniagua was taking his new girlfriend to San Francisco

By Shekhar Bhatia In Dallas, Texas, For Daily Mail.com

Published: 10:24 EST, 12 September 2015 | Updated: 19:33 EST, 12 September 2015

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The mother of a woman said to be at the center of a love triangle, which police believe could be the key to the murder of a dentist, spoke about her daughter for the first time today.

Maria Delgado defended Brenda,33, who has been questioned by police and had her apartment searched under warrant by officers.

Mrs. Delgado talked as Mail Online learned that a single .40 caliber bullet killed dentist Dr. Kendra Hatcher and the casing has been recovered from her white Toyota Camry.

She was executed with a shot to the head in her upscale apartment building's garage last week.

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Ex-girlfriend: Brenda Delgado was Ricardo Paniagua's long-term girlfriend. But they split and he started dating Dr Kendra Hatcher in June

Picture of happiness: This was among the images posted by the couple from San Francisco

Mrs Delgado, speaking in Spanish at the family bungalow on the outskirts of Dallas, said: ‘Brenda is a beautiful and very Christian person. She is a good woman.

‘She has the best family values and is not the jealous type at all.’

Dr.Kendra,35, had recently begun dating Delgado’s ex-boyfriend Ricardo Paniagua, a dermatologist.

Mrs Delgado said: ‘I knew Brenda and Ricardo had broken up. I last saw him in February when he came to our home.

‘I understand he broke it off with my daughter because he said he ‘had some issues in his life that he needed to take care of.

‘Brenda has been Ok and getting on with her studies. She has done her exams since they broke up. But I cannot tell you where she is right now.’

Delgado is in hiding after being quizzed by detectives and her mother said she had not seen her since before the murder as she had been traveling herself on a religious pilgrimage.

Dr. Kendra, who had been dating her new boyfriend since June, had recently returned from a vacation with Paniagua in San Francisco.

Delgado’s friend Crystal Cortez,23, who drove her killer to the scene of the crime has been charged with capital murder. Police are investigating whether a love triangle is behind the murder.

Delgado has not not been arrested or charged, but a judge gave police permission to go through her apartment. In an affidavit they said they were looking for firearms, ammunition and 'digital photographs and/or video of the room and its occupants in its current state'.

The document disclosed that police were told Delgado had conspired to have Hatcher robbed and offered $500 in exchange for her driving license, but that the man who was to carry out the robbery actually killed the dentist.

So happy together: The dead woman and her boyfriend had posted pictures on social media of their vacation

Key clue: Police issued this picture of the Jeep Cherokee which the hitman was a passenger in. A witness told them it was his vehicle and that he had loaned it to Brenda Delgado

The affidavit applying for the search warrant, which was approved by a Dallas County district judge on 5 September, shows that police were led to Delgado after footage of the murder scene was aired on television.

They were contacted by a witness, Jose Ortiz, who recognized his 1996 Jeep Cherokee at the scene of the crime.

Ortiz told officers he had loaned it to Delgado, and that she let her friend, Cortez, drive it.

Mugshot: Crystal Cortez is being held on a capital murder charge

Delgado was questioned by detectives on 4 September, two days after Hatcher's murder, and confirmed that she allowed Cortez to use the car.

Cortez was then questioned voluntarily, and told police that she had conspired with Delgado to have 'an unknown male suspect' rob Hatcher.

Cortez said she would drive the man to Hatcher's apartment block in Cedar Springs Road, Dallas, and that he would rob the dentist of her driving license. In return he would be paid $500.

'Once there, the unknown male suspect exited the vehicle, shot Complainant Hatcher and took several items of her property. The complainant died at the scene.'

Mail Online has been told the police now believe the killer may have actually entered Dr. Hatcher’s car before shooting her in the head.

Cortez told officers that Delgado 'possessed a black i-Phone that was used to track the location of the complainant's cell phone prior to the offense'.

Police are also investigating a report of a shooting at Cortez's home last Sunday, after she was taken into custody.

A shot was fired at the home as children played on a trampoline in the front yard. Her family believes the bullet was fired as a warning to the young mother-of-one not to squeal about the identity of the 'hitman'.

Cortez, who admits to driving the gunman to the parking lot where he gunned down the pediatric dentist, has told police she has no idea who the wanted man is.

She has told her relatives that she was asked to pick up and drop off a man at an apartment in uptown Dallas and had no idea he was to carry out the murder.

Cortez,who has a six-year-old son, has been charged with capital murder and she is known to have been befriended by Paniagua's ex-love since late last month..

Delgado and Cortez were seen together last week and she visited Delgado's home.

Cortez says she was simply 'running errands' for the 33-year-old woman, who she claims she had only known a fortnight.

Murder scene: Police say that witnesses heard a single gunshot. The driver of the Jeep Cherokee got back into the vehicle and fled the scene, according to police

Cortez has told police he was an African-American man who did not tell her he was going to shoot Dr Hatcher.

Cortez told her family in a telephone call from jail yesterday: 'I did nothing wrong.

'She [Delgado] asked me to pick somebody up and drop them off and told me what he would be wearing.

'He got out of the car and I started to drive off. But I got stuck behind another car and after he shot her he got into the back seat and ordered me to drive again.

'He had a gun…what was I supposed to do? That's all. I didn't know he was going to shoot somebody. I believed he was going to pick up a drivers license.'

She added that her acquaintance with Delgado was new.

'I had been running errands for her and cleaned her flat. I don't know her very well,' she said.

Cortez has admitted driving the man, but claims she does not know his identity and cannot help police.

She added: 'I want out of here. I just wanna be with my son. I worry about him all the time and I wish I never got involved in this.'

Her sister Josephine, 35, said: 'Crystal has a few traffic offenses to her name and that is it. She has not been in trouble with the police.

'She just doesn't cause trouble and she had two jobs so that she can pay for things for her son Ivan, who she lives for.'

Evidence: The documents which show Delgado's apartment was searched by police

Asked why Crystal hadn't told her family about the shooting she witnessed before she was arrested, she said: 'I can't answer that. Maybe she was just scared.

'She could be in danger. This man who shot Dr. Hatcher is still out there and at least he can't come after Crystal while she's in jail. But she says she doesn't know who he is.

'We have told her to sit tight. But right now we can't afford to get her a lawyer.'

Her brother Rudy said a shot was fired at the family bungalow on Sunday evening. 'We were in the yard as a family and the kids were jumping on the trampoline.

'We heard the gunfire and a car took off, went to the corner of the street, put its lights on and then raced away.

'We just got everybody inside as quickly as possible. This is a tough area, but we have never experienced anything like this before.'

He added: 'We have filed a police complaint and they have said there will be extra vigilance and patrols. But I ain't seen nothing of them.

'It means I have to protect my family. I got guns too and I ain't scared of using them in self defense if anybody's going to harm my family.'

Claims that Paniagua had a jealous ex-girlfriend were made in the Dallas Morning News by an unnamed former classmate of the ex-girlfriend.

The paper did not name the ex-girlfriend but said she had been in a relationship with Paniagua at the same time as the police documents seen by Daily Mail Online say Delgado was seeing the dermatologist.

Searched: Brenda Delgado's home in Dallas which searched by police for pictures of the dead woman as well as guns and ammunition

The paper also said she studied at the same college as Delgado.

Her former classmate told the paper that she appeared to be obsessed with Paniagua.

When the class met for the first time and introduced each other by speaking about their backgrounds, she spoke only of her boyfriend.

'It stuck out because if you’re meeting everyone you talk about your family, where you’re from — and hers was all about Ricky,' the male classmate said.

The ex-girlfriend and Paniagua lived together, and she complained that he read at night, making it difficult for her to go to bed early enough to get up for classes.

She also spoke about his financial prospects. 'She kept reiterating that he was going to have money and that dermatology’s the highest-paying type of medicine,' he said.

In January 2014 she was wearing an engagement ring and claiming to be engaged to Paniagua, but a few weeks later she arrived crying and telling friends that his mother had told him to stay away from her, and that she needed 'psychological help'.

This summer she said they had split, and she fell out of class for a few weeks, he said. She also complained that he was taking his new girlfriend - Hatcher - to San Francisco, saying that he had previously not paid for her to travel there.

One of Dr Hatcher's closest friends, Dr Jennifer Williams, who studied with her, told Daily Mail Online: ' I couldn't think of a person in the world who would have reason to harm Kendra.

New couple: One friend of Kendra Hatcher, who had posted pictures of herself and her new boyfriend Richard Paniagua together, said she feared they had caused jealousy

The friend, Dr Jennifer Williams, said Kendra had been married before and divorced and was single for two years before she met Ricardo Paniagua

'She was a lovely person whose smile would light up any room. She cared for others and was a great friend.

'I can only think she has been killed because somebody was jealous of her.'

Dr Williams said the victim had been married before and divorced. She has been single for around two years before meeting Ricardo Paniagua.

Dr Williams added: ' She was so happy with her new boyfriend and I had a few texts from her saying that.

'They had been to San Francisco last month where Ricky had a conference to attend and their pictures were all over her Facebook page and all her friends could see that she was happy at last.

'We feel that it might have been these pictures which made somebody jealous of her.'

The victim's brother Neil Hatcher, who lives in California, said her murder is 'absolutely unfathomable'. Her funeral is to be held tomorrow.

Among the tributes paid to her were a lengthy statement from her former husband, Scott Fisk,an anesthesiologist who studied at DePauw University with Dr. Hatcher and is based in Kentucky.

The couple divorced and had not seen each other in seven years, he said.

In a letter to the Dallas Morning News he said: 'When our marriage ended, we both went our separate ways and tried to move on. In the end, perhaps, we both wanted different things. When young love and long relationships end, it hurts and we both took our space.

'When the news arrived I couldn't hardly process what I was hearing, and I was soon overwhelmed by grief.'

'Then came the happy, smiling pictures circulating in the media, and the reports from family and others about how successful and loved she had become, and that she had shown her capacity to love others in service of her community.

'I knew her to be full of love and compassion for others. Also, I knew her to be very resilient, and very determined in her goals.'

Dallas Police Department declined to comment. Delgado did not comment.