Correspondent Erin Moriarty and “48 Hours” examine the loss of life of a California man and the case towards his ex-wife in an encore of “The Killing of Officer Green,” now streaming on Paramount+.
It’s such a twenty first century factor to do and 31-year-old Daniel Inexperienced was, in spite of everything, a millennial. He was in love and he wished his buddies to understand it.
Inexperienced had suffered by way of a tumultuous marriage and a bitter divorce however now he was completely satisfied once more, so he posted {a photograph} of himself and his smiling new girlfriend. Days later, he was bombarded with greater than 100 texts and calls from his ex-wife Erika Sandoval.
Tulare County DA’s Workplace
And inside per week, Sandoval went into Inexperienced’s dwelling, ambushed him and shot him lifeless in his personal lavatory. She admitted that to police and at her homicide trial.
Police and his household questioned: was the photograph a catalyst?
Daniel Inexperienced was an Exeter, California, police officer in 2010 when he met and married Erika Sandoval, a 23-year-old aspiring nurse. It was a whirlwind romance that had hovering highs, but in addition horrible lows when the couple would viciously struggle. Daniel’s twin brother Matt Inexperienced and their youthful sister Misty Grey feared that Daniel was being abused by his spouse, each psychologically and bodily. Sandoval had minimize up furnishings in a rage and will make their robust brother cry, says Matt Inexperienced. “It devastated me to hear my brother crying … and to hear the way she was talking to him. It broke my heart.”
I requested Matt Inexperienced why his twin brother stayed within the relationship. “As an officer, he would run into women who are abused. Would he not recognize himself in that same situation?” I requested.
Matt Inexperienced replied that he thought that Daniel “probably felt like he had nothing he could do about it. You know, that he was maybe trapped in a cycle.”
Irma Sandoval
That cycle continued even after the couple divorced. They’d proceed to often spend the night time collectively. Within the spring of 2012, after Sandoval instructed buddies she was pregnant with Daniel’s little one, the couple tried to make one other go of it. They welcomed their son Aiden into the world in January, 2013. “I don’t have any doubt that the day his son was born was the happiest day of his life,” Daniel’s brother recollects.
But, by August of that very same 12 months, the connection as soon as once more floundered. Daniel Inexperienced confided in buddies that he believed Sandoval had minimize the brake traces on his bike and that she had as soon as threatened him along with his personal service weapon. When Sandoval moved out of the couple’s dwelling for the final time, taking Aiden along with her, the battles revolved round custody points. Nasty and contentious texts had been despatched on each side and at the moment are a part of the court docket file.
In January 2015, they appeared to have ironed out lots of their variations and joined the prolonged household to have a good time Aiden’s second birthday. Daniel Inexperienced’s sister Misty thought the couple would possibly even reconcile. “We thought that Daniel and Erika were getting back together.” Misty was incorrect. Daniel had truly met somebody new, and shortly after that celebration, posted the image that introduced the brand new chapter in his life. Lower than a month later, he was shot lifeless.
Erika Sandoval was arrested and charged along with his homicide. If convicted of first-degree homicide, she may face the loss of life penalty.
At her trial this fall, the prosecution, of their opening statements, offered that posted photograph of Daniel and his new girlfriend because the prime motive for homicide. Erika Sandoval’s legal professional Dan Chambers, nonetheless, turned tables on the prosecution and instructed jurors that Erika was the one who was abused in her marriage, successfully placing the lifeless police officer on trial.
Chambers launched audio tapes of the couple’s heated battles, all recorded by Daniel Inexperienced. The jury heard Daniel yell profanities and name his ex-wife names. However essentially the most dramatic second within the trial was when Sandoval herself took the stand and instructed a narrative that she had by no means revealed publicly earlier than: she had gone to her ex-husband’s dwelling to snoop and located images of kid pornography. She snapped and shot him — she instructed the jury—as a result of she feared he is perhaps abusing their son. She supplied no proof to again up her story, however her legal professional hopes that her testimony and people audio tapes will elevate doubts within the jurors’ minds.
Erika Sandoval killed Daniel Inexperienced. That’s not disputed. The query is why? Did Sandoval commit the crime to guard her son? Or was she pushed by plain jealousy? Lawyer Chambers, hoping to avoid wasting his consumer’s life, will argue she killed Daniel to guard her son.
Or will the jury consider {that a} photograph of Daniel’s new girlfriend on social media was the final straw for Erika? After she was arrested, Sandoval admitted to investigators that she was “bothered” that Daniel was seeing another person. As she was booked, police searched Erika’s purse and found a easy yellow Put up-it with two notations: the complete identify and the delivery 12 months of the lady in that social media publish, Greens’ new youthful girlfriend.
