When I walk in an interview room, I'm walking into darkness,
And I'm the light in the darkness.
Okay. Here we go.
Here's the first lie.
I see the body, and I was in shock.
There were no eyewitnesses.
Detective waters finds ways to get people to talk.
So, at that point, we've got five suspects.
I never walk into any interview room expecting a confession.
I'm expecting to get to the truth.
Houston, texas -- america's fourth largest city.
I served as a homicide detective
With houston's finest for over 23 years.
I've investigated over 400 murders,
And solved 90% with a confession.
Once I have a suspect in the room,
I don't quit until I get justice for the victims.
I am homicide detective fil waters.
In all of my experience as a homicide detective,
I have come to find that no matter who the victim may be,
They are someone to somebody else.
They are someone's sister,
Someone's mother, someone's friend.
And so, my job as a homicide cop is a simple one --
I've got to find the right person
Who's done the wrong thing,
And make sure there's a measure of justice served.
It was a Saturday morning,
And I woke up really early that day to go to work.
Aracely worked at a sam's club that was close to her home.
Her sister, aidee, her two girls, lived with aracely.
And the night before,
Aidee went out to celebrate with her friends
For her 30th birthday.
She decided to dress up.
She was like, "why not? Just going to dancing,
And I can celebrate my birthday with friends."
And I remember, telling her to have fun,
And just come back safe.
Aracely said that, when she walked out of her apartment,
She saw that there was a body of a woman laying on the sidewalk.
Her hand had been over her face.
And aracely took her hand, and moved it,
So that she could see her face.
It was my sister.
On that morning -- June 19, 2010--
In those dark moments, I received a call
From the homicide division intake desk,
Regarding a single white female who had been found
In an apartment complex shot one time.
So, now I've got to get prepared, mentally,
For what I'm about to approach.
When I looked her, the first thought
That I had in my head about her was she looked like a doll,
Laying on the sidewalk, that a child had dropped.
She was so small, and so petite, laying there about 20, 25 feet
From the front door of her apartment.
She is an obvious victim of a gunshot wound
In the right side of her throat.
Now, looking around her body,
We see what might be a scuffle of some kind,
And then, we see those imprints walking away from her body.
And there is no purse presence, which is significant.
So, the next step was counting on aracely
To give me more information about what was in that purse.
But at the scene, aracely was so shaken
That I think she had a hard time
Even telling me what her name was,
Let alone trying to articulate to me
What aidee carried around in her purse.
I was in shock, so I was having a hard time to say anything.
I just told him that we found my sister.
If one can imagine the shock, of finding a body,
And then, what aracely did,
Realizing she's looking into the face of her sister.
I'm not sure how any of us would handle that.
Aidee and her sister, aracely, were originally from mexico,
And they moved to the united states
When they were in elementary school
Aidee had married, and had two beautiful children.
She was a loving mother, hard-working.
She had everything going for her.
And at the time of her death,
She and her husband were divorced.
When she was always with me.
We were best friends, so...
She was a hostess at a local restaurant.
She just purchased a new car.
She's getting ready to look at purchasing a house.
She is beginning to live the american dream.
But the great tragedy is that her life ended.
It's my responsibility to canvass the apartments.
So, we start knocking on doors.
And an 8-year-old little boy tells me that
He woke up early in the morning --
Around 4:30--
And had heard a gunshot,
And then, heard a car driving away
At a high rate of speed.
That gives us a time frame
For when the shooting may have occurred.
The night that aidee went out to celebrate her birthday,
The girls had gone to stay with their dad.
She left the two children with her ex-husband
But he certainly has an alibi.
He's got the two children.
So, he's eliminated from the mix fairly quickly.
Aidee was single.
She had had some boyfriends.
So, I asked aracely a question --
What kind of conflicts was they having?
Do you know of anyone, period?
And without hesitation,
Aracely named a possible suspect --
Humberto madrigal.
Humberto was aidee's boyfriend in that time.
They were together for a year.
But the problems start when aidee
Decided to break up with him.
This is a great lead.
Humberto was infatuated with aidee.
Now, I want to find out about his background.
So, I find a police report that is related to aidee.
The report we find says humberto
Shows up at the apartment.
He starts knocking on the window in the middle of the night.
She was sleeping. He was knocking.
He got upset, and he started knocking more and more.
She was like, "my god."
He makes entry into her bedroom.
Aidee gets in the closet, shuts the door.
Humberto, he starts looking for aidee.
5 to 10 minutes she was hiding.
But he didn't find her.
He was charged with criminal trespass.
We're trying to do everything to get this guy away from us.
My sister changed her cellphone number.
And we tried to look for another apartment complex,
But we had to finish the contract with them.
We even tried to buy a house together.
She was really scared of everything that was going on.
I was like, "how this is gonna end?
Because he needs to stop."
The most dangerous time of an obsessive relationship
Is when the pursued makes the decision that,
"I am no longer going to be the victim
In this relationship."
Not every time does it end in an explosion,
But too many times it does.
At this moment, humberto is the most likely suspect.
We've got a lot of smoke.
And now, we've got to go see if we've got a fire.
On the west side of houston, aidee reyna
Was returning to her home after celebrating her birthday,
When she met her death.
I was fil walters' partner
In the murder investigation of aidee reyna.
She had a boyfriend named humberto.
He had broken into her apartment on one occasion,
And her being shot there outside the apartment,
It gave detective waters something to to go after,
And pursue as a potential suspect.
We have a good idea of where he lives,
Which is not terribly far away from aidee.
And one of the doors that I knock on belongs to maria,
And she is the wife/girlfriend of humberto's brother, omar.
When I asked her where humberto
May have been on the early morning hours
June 19th
She talked about humberto had gone
To some bar hopping, came home at 3:30.
And omar, her husband, picked him up,
And took him to work at 6:30.
So, there's a three-hour window there.
Obviously, that falls well within the timeframe
Of when we know aidee was was murdered.
So, it is possible that he could have done it.
Now, maria offered to bring humberto
To the homicide division for an interview.
Humberto feels more comfortable speaking spanish,
So I'm going to bring in another detective to do the translation
In this interview.
After aidee had broken up with humberto,
She starts to see other people.
His demeanor was so lowkey.
One could say he's doing that because he was involved.
So, that's what I start to get pretty tough with him.
Still, there is no response.
I'm thinking, "my gosh," you know,
"he was obsessed with her.
But now, is he affected by
The gravity of what the situation is
And what I'm saying to him?"
He just denied everything.
So, I'm gonna try to collect some evidence from him.
At the crime scene, they were able to take some shoe imprints.
And I look at the bottom of his shoes.
They are a similar pattern
To what I saw in the dirt at the scene.
And we're gonna have those shoes analyzed.
Maybe aidee's dna on the shoes.
But at that point in time,
I was starting to sense from humberto that his denials,
Which are pretty strong, may be accurate.
I may not be looking at my suspect.
But right now, you're the best one I got.
I enter every investigation that "I'm gonna solve."
So, solve-ability is a frame of mind, a lot of times.
And there are times where you hit the wall.
I was like, "what's going on?"
My sister died 30 days ago."
I believed it was humberto the whole time,
And I'm afraid of him doing something to me.
I made a commitment to aracely that I was going to
Do everything that I could possibly do
To bring her sister's killer to justice.
A letter came in from the bank,
Saying that my sister's overdrafted her account.
Approximately 45 minutes after aidee's death
On the morning that she was killed,
Her debit card is used at a gas station,
Where $500 had been debited out.
This would renew the chase, here,
Because detective waters didn't have a suspect
Other than humberto.
It's an extremely, extremely hot lead.
It is the biggest clue that we've gotten yet.
One month after day had been gunned down, aracely,
Her sister, had new information for us.
A letter came in saying
Aidee's gonna have an overdraft in her account.
So, I went to the bank, and told them "it's not possible
Because my sister passed away."
Aracely tells me that my aidee's debit card
Has been overdrawn after she's murdered.
That was huge.
We have these little seminal moments, and boom.
Here it is. This is starting to go.
Approximately $2,000 was taken out of the account.
The card was used 45 minutes after the murder.
Over a period of 14 or 15 hours,
There's 19 separate transactions.
There was a racetrack gas station.
There was a texaco.
There were walmarts.
This card was used to to purchase or withdraw money from.
Detective waters starts to go to those locations
With the hopes that he's going to find video
That will show who's using the debit card.
So, what's the best place to start?
At the beginning.
The first transaction, $500,
Drawn from a racetrack gas station.
Make contact with the racetrack.
They have a system that overrides itself every 10 days.
So, we're shot there.
Move on to the next one --
Texaco station, $300 withdrawal.
That video system has been replaced most recently.
We have no video there.
End up going to the purchase of murphy's gas,
Which is in front of one of the walmarts.
And then, we get a purchase inside that walmart.
And then we get a purchase at another walmart.
So, we hit the goldmine.
We've got a very good video system,
And we are able to track purchases
In the stores at the particular cashier
Where the card has been used.
In the first video, it was one male
That was using the card, and that was not humberto.
It was a black male, medium build,
And he was wearing a red shirt and khaki shorts.
There's also another camera angle that shows a black male
With the khaki pants and the red shirt
Getting out of a black pontiac.
But they were unable
To get the license plate of that vehicle.
And at another walmart,
We see a group of individuals who walks in,
And makes purchases,
And that same black male with the red shirt
And the khaki pants is in this group.
We track them to the store.
We track them to the exit.
And now, they're getting into a green saturn.
And there's actually a license plate on that green vehicle.
That was a thing that blew this case wide open.
You know, if you want to use the football analogy,
We're making some first downs now.
And I'm pretty pumped up about it, at this point.
Fil knows these people are using aidee's credit card.
And his initial thought was humberto was a suspect.
So, it's conceivable that humberto
Still could have committed the murder.
He could have gave her information to someone else,
Or sold it to him for money.
So, at that point, you've got humberto
And you've got three black males and a black female.
Now, you have five suspects.
The license plate came back to being registered to a woman
By the name of "tierra davis."
Tierra davis did resemble the woman
That was in the second walmart video.
Suddenly, things started happening rapidly.
Pearland p.D. Made a traffic stop on that green saturn,
And had taken a male by the name of "hughe baldwin" into custody.
So, we immediately head down to pearland p.D.,
And interview hughe.
Hughe actually identified himself
As the person in the video.
And he also identified tierra has the female in the video.
We told we need to talk to tierra,
And hughe was readily available.
"I'll go pick her up.
I'll bring her to you, and you guys can talk to her."
So, now, the dots were connecting
Tierra readily admitted to using the card.
She had purchased some things for shajuana pope,
Who was hughe baldwin's sister.
And what kind of a car do you think shajuana pope drives?
A black pontiac...
...We see the black male with the red shirt
And the khaki pants getting out of.
Tierra looks at the picture, and says,
"yeah, I think that's kendrick."
Kendrick baldwin.
Kendrick baldwin's mother is shajuana pope,
The registered owner of that black pontiac.
The similarities and the identification is striking.
And I am confident that that's kendrick baldwin
That I'm looking at, in that red shirt and those khaki shorts.
At this point, they're thinking that
They're closing in on the suspect,
The person using the card, as being kendrick baldwin.
We locate a facebook account for kendrick.
And it was rather ironic that,
Shortly after the murder happens,
Kendrick changed his facebook name to "trigga man."
Well, that obviously kind of jumps out.
I mean, you see a day or two later
That he calls himself "trigga man,"
Potentially he's confessing, inadvertently,
To being the trigger man in this case.
At this point, the roads are all leading to kendrick baldwin.
Somebody had to hit me in the face with a 2x4
To make me stop.
It's been seven weeks since aidee reyna
That was gunned down in front of her home.
We have a new suspect,
And his name is kendrick baldwin.
And I am confident that that's kendrick baldwin
That I'm looking at, in that red shirt knows khaki shorts,
Using the card of the victim.
We believe it's him in both videos.
He calls himself "trigga man" -- kendrick "trigga man" baldwin.
We make a cruise at the apartment
Where we know kendrick lives, with his mother,
Shajuana pope.
And lo and behold, what do we find sitting in front of us?
A black pontiac --
The exact same black pontiac we see on the video.
We find kendrick in the apartment.
We get kendrick in the car.
We pull out onto the street.
So, just by chance, shajuana pope
Had walked to the convenience store.
And we stopped, and spoke to her.
And she volunteered to come in, and speak with us, as well.
We get them down to the homicide division office,
I put shajuana pope in one interview room,
And I put kendrick and the other.
It's all about relationships.
Now, as it turned out, sergeant roberts -- bobby --
Had established a relationship and a rapport with kendrick.
So, he conducts the interview with kendrick,
And I go ahead and conduct my interview with shajuana.
I showed her the picture of the black male
With the red shirt and the khaki pants
That we thought was her son, kendrick baldwin.
Shajuana adamantly denied that that was her son.
Well, what's the next logical question for me?
"well, then, who is it?
That gumsure looks like him.
She comes off with something like "beto" --
And it wasn't the guy that was running for senate in texas,
You know, running for president it wasn't that beto.
He is kendrick's good friend.
When she's telling my it's not her son,
It's not kendrick.
My thinking is that bobby
Is going to sift through the bullcrap, now,
And we're gonna come up with a viable suspect.
I trust bobby. He's a good homicide detective.
He's a good interviewer.
What was eye-opening was,
Kendrick talked about aidee's murder,
And he just freely told me who was involved.
I realize he's giving me the shooter.
He's telling me that seitrich buckner
Is the shooter --
You know, if he's telling the truth,
And not trying to play it off
That it's not him, it's somebody else.
On June the 19th, seitrich had gone to shajuana's house
For a family reunion.
Kendrick said that seitrich
Was walking through an apartment complex,
And that, when aidee got out of her car, he approached her.
Seitrich pointed a gun at her, and told her
"you know what time it is,"
Which was his way of saying
"you're getting robbed right now."
He said that seitrich pointed a gun at her.
She either grabbed him,
Or she's yelling "no, no" at him.
Seitrich told kendrick
That aidee fell to the ground unconscious.
Kendrick, the way he laid the facts out,
He was either the shooter or he was telling the truth.
Bobby walks in the room,
And hands me a picture, and walks out.
And the name on the picture is "seitrich buckner."
And I look at his picture.
And I'm like, "holy crap.
This looks like kendrick baldwin's twin brother."
It's starting to turn it in a direction
From a domestic-violence murder...
...To an aggravated robbery --
To a stranger-on-stranger aggravated robbery.
So, now, humberto is being eliminated pretty quickly.
We obtained a pocket warrant for seitrich buckner,
For capital murder.
The problem with seitrich was that he was transient.
He was really laying his head wherever anybody would let him.
We tracked his phone to his girlfriend's house,
And suffice it to say, we've located seitrich buckner.
We asked to speak to seitrich.
They said "he's back there, in the back room."
That's one of those moments you're going, "holy crap.
I can't believe he's here."
So, we walk to the back room, and sprawled out on the bed
Was a male who we found to be seitrich buckner.
And I said, "would you mind coming down with us?"
And his response was "let me put my shoes on."
It's not uncommon for people who,
For one, believe their own lies.
He knows there was no witnesses on the scene.
"they have nothing.
So, yeah, let's go talk to them."
I watch him.
I want to see just how he's sitting in that chair.
What's he doing?
Very calm. So, what does that tell me?
He's ready to tell his story -- his version of the truth.
There was zero connection between aidee,
Aracely, seitrich buckner.
And so, with nothing tying him to aidee
Or the crime scene, getting him to open up
Is the only chance we'll have to charge him with capital murder.
Close to two months after aidee reyna was gunned down,
We have a new suspect -- seitrich buckner.
We've got seitrich buckner identified as the black male
In the red shirt and the khaki pants
Using the card of the victim, aidee reyna.
But there was zero connection between aidee
And seitrich buckner.
This is a stranger-on-stranger murder
And the only way to seal the deal
Is to go for the confession.
When I talked to seitrich, knowing the fact
That he just lays his head
Wherever someone will let him lay his head,
He doesn't really have a home, my preparation for this
Is to appeal to him as a father figure.
Now, this is a good start, because he's immediately
Making an admission, telling me
"yeah, I had the card. I used it."
I talked to him about what I see on the videos.
I want him to know.
I'm telling him the truth.
Do you remember that red shirt
And those khaki shorts you were wearing?
And you could see lights going off, you know?
Okay. Here we go. Here's the first lie.
He's offering up a little bit of truth,
Which is the debit card, and the use of it.
But what turns that little bit of truth into a big old lie?
"I got it from a friend."
Well, no, you didn't.
I show him pictures of the scene,
Because I wanted him to understand
What he was responsible for.
Aidee is never going to hug her children,
And hold her children again.
At that point, I was starting to sense
That appealing to him on an emotional level,
In terms of what he had done, wasn't gonna work.
So, I'll change course, and tell him
That kendrick told us
About what happened to that young lady.
And, of course, I got the look --
Kind of that thousand-yard stare
That he didn't believe what I was telling him.
And I'm just looking at him, like, "that's kendrick, right?"
"yeah. But I don't believe anything he's saying."
Well, the problem for you, seitrich, is,
Is that I believe everything he's saying.
I said "we can sit here until the second coming,
And you're not gonna be able to deny it anymore.
Here are your choices..."
I know that, when I get tired of hearing myself talk
In the interview room,
That I have been in there way too long.
But time is always on the interviewer's side.
After four hours, he finally just hangs his head.
Alright. We're in the end zone,
And now it's time to spike the football.
Right?
But I can't do that.
I'm sitting here going -- you know inside, I'm like,
"holy crap. There it is." you know, "we got it."
But now, we've got to go further.
Lift him up. Tell him I'm proud of him,
And tell me what happened.
He was out hunting.
"why would you do such a thing?"
Seitrich's explanation was that he didn't have any money,
That his baby's mama gave him a hard time
About not supporting his son, and he had some attorney fees.
Without that confession,
It would have been near impossible to try.
We didn't have a lot of physical evidence.
The gun was gone, and so were the shoes.
So, it all rested on detective waters' testimony,
The confession,
And his total devotion to seeking the truth.
She's in my heart, and she's not gonna go away.
I don't think you can find a better definition
Of an innocent victim, in aidee.
It's only people that do what I do
That speak for the dead, that give them voice.
He's taken it away, and I'm giving it back to them.