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'She just wanted to eliminate Kendra Hatcher' - witnesses describe obsession as Brenda Delgado murder trial begins

Prosecutors call Brenda Delgado the 'mastermind' in the plot to kill Dallas pediatric dentist Kendra Hatcher in September 2015.

DALLAS — For the second time in eight months Bonnie Jameson has sat in a Dallas County courtroom and recalled the worst moment of her life, in front of a jury.

The mother of five on Monday said the loss of her third child, Kendra Hatcher, is still something that is hard to comprehend nearly four years later.

Jameson was the first witness called to testify in the capital murder trial of Brenda Delgado.

Delgado, 36, is charged with capital murder for planning the murder of Jameson's daughter.

During a 10-minute questioning, Jameson recalled her daughter's budding romance with Ricardo Paniagua, a Dallas dermatologist.

Jameson, through tears, told jurors that one of Kendra's sisters told her what happened.

"It's been three and a half years of hell ever since," Jameson said. 

Prosecutors worked Monday to show jurors how Delgado tried to enlist other people she knew to carry out the murder but refused.

Jennifer Escobar told jurors she was friends with Delgado for over two years.  She said after Delgado broke up with Paniagua, she would show her how she tracked the location of his phone and read his emails.

"She was really obsessed with him," Escobar said.

Escobar admitted being addicted to drugs in 2015 and says it's one reason she didn't go to police after she says Delgado offered her $2000, drugs and a car to put her ex-boyfriend in a coma and to kill Hatcher.

"For Kendra Hatcher, she wanted an injection needle to put into the back of her neck," Escobar said. "She just wanted to eliminate Kendra Hatcher or even both of them.”

Defense attorney George Milner told jurors in opening statements that everyone agrees his client exhibited obsessive behavior, but that it didn't mean she planned Hatcher's murder.

Milner said the blame for the murder rests with the getaway driver Crystal Cortes and the hit man she recruited Kristopher Love.

Love received the death penalty last October.

Cortes faced the death penalty as well, but received 35 years in prison after testifying against Love last fall.   She will testify against Delgado during this trial as well.

If convicted, Delgado faces an automatic life in prison sentence without the chance of parole.

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