Original subtitles

She could completely light up the whole room with one smile.

She just loved to draw and paint.

That craft room was her sanctuary.

Kelli has a visitor at the door.

She knows the person.

She really trusted whoever she let into her home.

She realises she has made a big mistake.

So, who did Kelli open the door to?

In 2017, Princeton, Texas was a small town in Collin County

with a population of about 10,000 people.

If you're looking for a small-town vibe,

a rural community,

it could be a good place to raise a family.

Princeton, Texas is north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

It's about 30 to 45 minutes from downtown Dallas proper.

And it's one of those small towns

that it feels like the city of Dallas and the metroplex

has kind of grown around it,

but it still has that small-town feel.

Princeton has its own crime, just like any other place,

but when it comes to working homicide investigations,

that's just something at the time that was really unheard of.

46-year-old Kelli Underwood has moved to Princeton, Texas

to start a new chapter in her life.

She was very outgoing.

She was very humble.

She could walk into a room

and completely light up the room with one smile.

She was just a great person.

Kelli was looking to make a fresh start.

She'd had two failed marriages at that time.

She has three children and she needs to find stability and a new job.

It definitely was a change of pace for her

compared to, like, where we lived prior.

Princeton was just a cute little country town,

and that's where she envisioned herself being at,

and that's just where she wanted to build her life

and start over and start fresh.

In the fall of 2017,

Kelli was living on her own in a rental home in Princeton.

The neighbourhood where Kelli was living,

within a half a mile or so, was downtown Princeton.

It was a pretty well-travelled area.

She was living on her own cos I was living elsewhere

cos I had graduated

and I lived about three miles down the road

in another house at that time.

We did better apart, but I tried to visit her as much as I could.

Kelli had a craft room upstairs on the second floor.

She loved crafting.

Her house was always decorated, no matter the holiday.

She was big on creating her own, like, Christmas and Halloween

and, like, New Year's decorations.

She loved to draw, and paint, and spray paint, and cut things,

and that was just something that she loved to do.

But that craft room was her... her sanctuary.

So, late in the day on September 16th, 2017,

Kelli has a visitor at the door.

And that person will be responsible for her death.

We had plans to get together on the weekend,

and I had reached out to her a couple of times.

I had called her. There was no response.

I was worried, but I did not want to think,

like, something bad had happened.

There was just something in my body

that told me I needed to go check on her.

When I arrived at the house, I walked up the driveway

and I noticed that her keys were still in the truck,

and her wallet was open inside of the truck,

and that was not normal at all.

Kayden knocks on the door a few times

and she realises the door was left open and it had been unlocked.

At that point, I kinda, like, called out to her and was like,

"Mom," you know, "Are you here?"

I remember opening the front door and the first thing that I noticed

was there was a... like, a table that she had made,

that it was on its side, like it had been knocked over.

Her TV was on the floor.

It looked as if there was furniture being moved around.

All things that are very unusual for Kelli

because everything had its place.

There was a very distinct smell when I walked into the house.

It was just really strong and abnormal.

And the TV was on dubstep music.

She does not listen to anything like that,

like, electronic music, at all.

It's always country music.

But I remember walking around the kitchen

and there was as if somebody had made nachos

and just left everything out.

Which was very abnormal for her.

And as I walking up the stairs,

I called out to her a couple more times.

I remember looking into her bedroom and everything was nice and neat.

So, Kayden walks into the craft room

and immediately notices disarray.

Things have been toppled over, entire filing cabinets or chairs.

I could see her legs...

...cos she was on the ground,

and I, like, said something along the lines of,

"You're not funny," like, "You need to get up."

She was up against the closet door

and she was just kinda like slumped over on the laundry basket,

as if she was asleep.

And I called out to her a couple of times

and I just remember,

like, kinda like, lifting her head up just a little bit,

and it's as if, like, her eyes were white.

So, I called 911, and the 911 operators

asked me to check for a pulse.

And at that point I went to go check for a pulse

and my hand, like, grazed her legs and she was ice.

But the 911 operators just told me to, like, go downstairs

and, like, wait for someone to get there,

to not touch anything that was around me.

I went downstairs and went to her truck,

and I opened the, like, the truck door

to just go, like, check her truck and sit in the truck for a second.

Shortly after six o'clock when the 911 call was made,

the Princeton Police Department responded within minutes.

And they, like, blocked the doors off

and wouldn't let me go back inside.

That's kinda when the screaming started,

cos I was like, "I don't know how to handle this situation.

Y'all won't let me go inside and see her again."

When Princeton Police Department officers respond,

they go upstairs, they find Kelli.

It's clear that Kelli has been gone for a few days

and there's no hope of reviving her.

When Princeton police officers take a closer look,

they can clearly see stab wounds and gunshot wounds on Kelli's body.

They can tell by the disarray in the room,

things being toppled over, out of place,

that there was a struggle.

And it looks like Kelli probably fought for her life.

The Collin County Sheriff's Office crime scene unit

collects five bullet casings in the craft room.

They are .22 calibre bullet casings.

So, it tells them that they're looking for a .22 calibre firearm.

It's not a revolver because it's a firearm

that releases the casings along with the bullet.

They notice multiple gunshot wounds, a couple to her legs,

or her lower extremities, a couple to her upper right arm,

and a couple to the chest.

They also notice stab wounds.

She's got two to the head, one to the right side of her face,

and one to the right side of her temple.

She's got stab wounds around her neck,

and even what we call incise wounds that aren't quite as deep.

The combination of weapons used in this case

really provides police with one of two scenarios,

either two offenders,

one armed with a gun, one armed with a knife,

or a murder that perhaps began as a knife attack

and then was required to escalate to the use of a firearm.

Maybe she resisted,

maybe they were not as effective with the knife as they anticipated.

There was no signs of any sexual assault, anything like that.

It appeared to be a crime of personal violence.

The first responders from the Princeton Police Department,

realising that they now have a homicide investigation,

they make the right call.

They're a small department, they haven't had a murder in decades,

and so, they know they need to call in help.

So, they call the Texas Rangers.

The Texas Rangers are an elite unit

within the Department of Public Safety

who specialise in homicide.

I was at church with my family when I got called.

Anytime you get a call where there's a potential homicide

or even a death investigation,

you try to get there as fast as you can

because preservation of evidence

is essential to an investigation like this.

The first step into that house, it's just disarray.

It was apparent that Kelli didn't live the way that it looked.

There were security cameras on the outside

and inside the residence,

but unfortunately, we found out

that the ones on the outside had been disabled

and the ones inside were not connected either.

The mess in the kitchen was just really unkept.

Nobody had cleaned up from their last meal.

And so, what we were able to do

is collect some of those things, like the utensils,

for potential forensic evidence.

The backyard shows that there have been people there recently.

She doesn't smoke, and yet there's cigarette butts

scattered all across her backyard patio.

There are soda cans that she doesn't drink, open and left outside.

When we open the dryer,

there's a flame-retardant racing suit in the dryer.

And so,

nothing that we had seen or heard

from people that knew from Kelli

had indicated to us that Kelli had anything to do with racing.

It was just one more layer of evidence

that indicated to us that there were numerous people

that had been in the home

and potentially involved in the murder.

But based on what we're seeing...

there are certainly things that you would suspect to have been taken,

if it was a robbery, that are still there.

Investigators were not able to find

any signs of forced entry into Kelli's home.

And that told them that Kelli knew who killed her.

She had let them in.

So, who did Kelli open the door to?

It's standard in any homicide investigation

to start looking at the people that are closest to the victim -

the family members, the close friends.

So, in speaking to Kayden, they find out that, like any mother-daughter,

they had a rocky relationship, right?

They would fight. Kayden didn't want to live with her mom.

They had a very... at times, volatile relationship.

So, Kayden, she was as much of a person of interest as anyone else.

Investigators in these types of cases

have to start considering

the history of the family relationships.

Sometimes volatile relationships can escalate to murder.

I think that it was fair to say

that Kelli really trusted whoever she let into her home.

It was impossible to rule anyone out.

I was put in a cop car fairly quickly after I found her.

I wasn't given time to process anything that was happening.

It was just them saying like,

"Hey, we have to take you up to the police station."

I had communicated, you know,

to Bruce, that our relationship was a little rocky.

He asked on multiple occasions if I was the one who did it.

It just made me very uneasy because it's like, I'm her daughter,

I would never in a million years do anything to harm her.

So, to be thorough in their investigation,

they're gonna try to build a timeline for Kayden

in the days and hours

leading up to Kelli's murder.

They're going to interview the people that she stays with.

Figure out where she was.

See if there are any firearms around.

There was a boyfriend involved that was suspicious.

The night that I talked to Kayden,

he was standing outside the police department,

didn't want to come in.

There just... Something was off.

So, the investigation led us to the home

where she was staying with her boyfriend,

and the family gave us consent to come in their home.

And they actually identified a firearm

that the boyfriend had recently used,

that was a .22 calibre, which matched the same calibre

of the spent cartridges that we found on the crime scene.

We were fairly confident that even though he was suspicious

and the firearm matched,

it wasn't going to be the murder weapon,

because the timeline of events just didn't match up.

After talking to the family that Kayden was staying with,

after searching Kayden's cell phone,

they get a bigger picture of who Kelli is.

Investigators quickly found and determined

that Kayden had nothing to do with her mother's death.

And it's Kayden that tells Ranger Sherman

that Kelli has a complicated romantic relationship

with her boss, Ronnie Welborn.

Growing up in the small town of Mesquite, Texas,

Kelli was close friends with a girl named Kiersten Elworthy.

Kiersten ultimately moved out of Mesquite, Texas

and moved to Princeton, Texas after high school.

She got married to Ronnie Welborn in 1997.

Ronnie was the owner of a metal workshop,

which was a family business that he took over.

Meanwhile, Kelli stayed in Mesquite, Texas after high school.

But throughout the years, Kelli stayed in touch with Kiersten,

and it was Kiersten who suggested to Kelli, "Move to Princeton.

You can even stay with us and get a fresh start."

Kelli and her then 15-year-old daughter Kayden

moved in with Ronnie and Kiersten in their household in Princeton.

I was very happy. It was a very homey environment.

It was a cute, little house, and my mom was very thankful,

you know, to have a roof over her head

and have people that were willing to help her get where she needed to be.

Ronnie was really nice. He did everything in his power

to make me feel comfortable and feel safe in his home.

He was always there to help me if I was just having a hard day.

Ronnie, he was a business owner

at the metal fabrication company there in town,

so Kelli had an opportunity to go to work for him.

She started as a welder in the workshop,

but about a year, year and a half later,

she had shown her potential

and was now acting as the office manager for Ronnie.

Ronnie and my mom were like two peas in a pod

because of the fact that they worked together,

they drove into work together, they drove home together.

They were always, like, laughing.

It was always something fun with them.

Once Kiersten starts having suspicions

that Kelli and Ronnie are having extramarital affairs,

their relationship just really deteriorates.

I came home one day

and Kiersten was packing up the house

and she had, like, a moving truck outside.

And I was like, "What's going on?"

That's when Kiersten told me that she thought

that my mom and Ronnie were having a relationship.

And I was like, "That is not true. That doesn't even make sense."

Kiersten had had enough

and she decided to leave Ronnie and divorce him in February of 2014.

My mom decided right then and there

that we were gonna leave.

Kelli decides to move to an apartment in Princeton

where her and Kayden live for about a year.

And it wasn't until late 2015 into 2016,

that I started getting that inkling

that there was a romantic relationship going on,

that it was just due to the fact that I saw

that they were a little more physical towards each other.

I had witnessed them kiss,

and I don't think my mom knew that I could see that.

And when I brought it up, yeah, she was like,

"It's none of your business."

But then one day Kelli found a note on her car

that read "Home wrecker".

Shortly after that, Kelli found another note -

this time inside of her car - that read "home wrecker",

and that told Kelli it was time to move on again.

Kayden ultimately moves in with a friend after high school,

and so, it's about this time that Kelli decides to get her own home

and starts renting a place in spring of 2017.

All this time, though, Kelli has still been

working for Ronnie at the metal fabrication workshop.

At that point, my mom had gotten word

that there was somebody else that was moving into the house.

She had asked Ronnie about it, and Ronnie kinda like,

gave her the cold shoulder and was like, "I'm not moving anybody in."

So, at that point, my mom kinda did her own investigation,

and that's when Ronnie told her the truth and was like,

"Well, I am seeing Kadie."

Ronnie had moved a new girl in, Kadie Robinson,

who was much younger than he was.

Ronnie was into racing

and he met Kadie at a local racetrack.

But even after Kadie moved in with Ronnie,

Ronnie and Kelli were still seeing a lot of each other,

not just during work, but outside of work.

He would come to her house

and they still had this on again, off again relationship.

Unfortunately, the case is that women,

if they fall victim to murder,

are more likely than not to have been murdered

by a current or former intimate partner.

And it's precisely for this reason that there's now a term

that's been coined to describe this phenomenon, which is "femicide".

When investigators are looking at the nature of Kelli's injuries -

for example, gunshot wounds, but also stab wounds -

stab wounds indicate a very personal confrontation.

Somebody had to get up close and personal with Kelli

to cause the volume and the nature of injuries that she sustained.

So, they're already thinking

that someone who could have done that to her had to have known her.

Investigators are surprised

when they don't have to go looking for Ronnie Welborn.

He just shows up at the police department

and he has something he wants to tell them about Kelli.

Ronnie shows up

cool, calm, and collect, and very eager to help us.

He's willing to answer any questions that we have for him,

stay as long as we need him to.

Ronnie was able to provide some information

into how he and Kelli met through his ex-wife, Kiersten,

which is one of Kelli's best friends,

that led her there to Princeton.

Ronnie describes his relationship with Kelli,

really as an employee-employer...

but good friend relationship,

that they care for each other dearly as good friends.

Ronnie Welborn tells Ranger Sherman

that he and Kelli still have a relationship,

that they have been having an affair

while Kadie was pregnant with their daughter.

Ronnie tells us that Kadie has no idea

that he's been having a sexual relationship with Kelli.

Ronnie says that Kelli was very upset

when she found out that Kadie was pregnant.

But at the time that this interview is happening,

Kadie's daughter is about three months old.

Ronnie's very up front about his emotions

and care and love for Kelli.

He has nothing but nice, kind things to say about her.

Ronnie told Ranger Sherman

that he would go to Kelli's house often,

mostly for work - to pick up paperwork,

to bring her paperwork for her to process.

Ronnie told us that the last time he saw Kelli

was on the Friday before, on September the 15th,

and he'd come over to just meet with her about some business stuff.

Ronnie made no indication at all

that he had anything to do with Kelli's murder.

Ronnie also informs Ranger Sherman

that Kelli had been on a dating website,

and so he might want to look at that website

to see if there were any men stalking her

or that she had turned away and become upset.

The victim's dating sites are useful for investigators.

These sites will, for instance,

tell investigators

where they've been,

who do they associate with?

We were able to assess her account

and see that there was no evidence

from her activity on the online dating site

that she had been in any kind of altercation

or disagreement with anyone.

All of her online relationships

seemed to be pretty positive or expected.

Jealousy is protecting what you have to a pathological extent.

So, it's really about control.

And when a jealous partner feels that they're losing control,

it can become very unhinged.

And as you can imagine, Kelli and Kadie did not get along,

and Kadie was jealous of the time that Ronnie would spend with Kelli.

And there was a, a situation that happened a couple weeks prior

where Kadie came out to the house cos Ronnie was there

delivering a check to my mom cos she would work from home.

And Kadie would, you know,

pick up the kids from the elementary school that was across the street,

and she had saw that Ronnie's truck was at my mom's house.

Kadie was furious to see Ronnie's truck out front,

so she went over there and started looking through Ronnie's truck.

She had been calling him and texting him and he wasn't responding,

so she wanted to see if his phone was there.

Kelli notices Kadie there from inside the house,

and she comes out and tells Kadie to get off her property.

Ronnie doesn't come out of the house during this confrontation.

He stayed inside.

But after Kadie left,

she was sending furious text messages to Ronnie,

"Why are you there? How long have you been in there?"

Investigators bring Kadie in for an interview.

When Kadie shows up, she was very cooperative.

She came in, she wasn't emotional either,

but I don't know if I necessarily would've expected that

based on her relationship with Kelli.

She acknowledged that there had been some issues

and some confrontations between her and Kelli

that all stemmed from Ronnie.

After Kelli learned that Kadie was pregnant,

she even bought Kadie a gift for her baby shower.

After my mom died, Kadie had reached out to me

on multiple occasions with, you know, "I completely feel your grief.

I understand your pain

because my mom also passed away, of cancer,

and I just want to let you know that I'm here for you."

Kadie denied having any knowledge

about the affair with Ronnie and Kelli

and also had no knowledge

of who could be responsible for her murder.

When we canvased the neighbourhood, we discovered through witnesses

that they had seen the vehicle with Illinois licence plates

recurringly at her house in the days leading up to her murder.

Ronnie's actually the one that helped identify the vehicle

that had been at Kelli's house with the Illinois licence plate

and identified Robert Veal as the driver of the vehicle.

It's very common for detectives

to go through the victim's cell phone after their death

to try to figure out who they've been communicating with

in the hours or days leading up to their murder.

And from looking at Kelli's cell phone,

it was obvious there was a lot of communication

between Kelli and Robert Veal.

Kelli had a big backyard

and she had decided that she wanted to install an above-ground pool.

She also had a security camera system

that hadn't been working for a while.

It was outdated, and she knew she needed to upgrade the system.

She wanted to install cameras both outside and inside.

It was clear from the messages that it was Robert Veal that Kelli had

helping her install the above-ground pool in her backyard

and the security cameras at her house.

They're acquaintances,

but it doesn't seem to indicate any romantic relationship.

Robert Veal didn't come from much.

He didn't have stable income.

He had two young children.

He was desperate for a better life.

Kelli knew Robert Veal because Robert, at one time,

had also worked at the metal fabrication workshop for Ronnie.

So, Ronnie suggested that Robert could be the one

to help Kelli do the work at her home.

The primary thing that makes Robert Veal a person of interest

is the fact that he's repeatedly identified in our investigation

as someone who's been in the home,

potentially the last person that ever saw her alive.

So, we came to a point in the investigation

where we really needed to talk to Robert Veal.

And so, we located him at his residence in Princeton, Texas.

He lived in a trailer.

We sat in the living room.

Robert was very nervous and fidgety

and just kind of made the situation uneasy for everybody involved.

And so, he did answer our questions,

but some of his information was conflicting

or it was unreasonable to believe.

We got to a point where we asked him for consent

to collect a sample of his DNA, and he consented to that.

We laid it out to him and told him how we thought

his phone would be important evidence to the investigation.

Robert Veal didn't want them to look in the phone.

He said he would have naked pictures of his wife,

he might have communications about drugs in there.

But we weren't concerned about Robert Veal being

some big drug dealer.

When we told him that we're gonna have to take your phone,

that's when, you know, he lowers the phone kinda underneath the table

and he's manipulating his phone all of a sudden.

We felt like he was deleting information from his phone.

We had to forcefully remove it from his hand.

So, we found that there was evidence of phone calls

and communications with Robert and Kadie,

as well as Robert and Ronnie.

At this point in the investigation,

there wasn't anything that we had charged Robert Veal with.

We were still following up on leads and just working the investigation

as it related to Kelli Underwood's homicide.

They have to consider any person

that might have a grudge against the victim.

And so, when looking back

at the relationship between Ronnie and Kelli,

they decided they need to at least take a look

at Kiersten Elworthy, Ronnie's ex-wife.

Kiersten definitely could have been a suspect

just given the fact that she tried to blame, you know,

my mom for everything and left.

Could this murder have been any sort of revenge

for the way that her relationship ended?

At the time, I didn't put it past anyone,

but Kiersten... I don't think would've had it in her

to do something that to that extent.

It was like a crime of passion

and it didn't line up to me.

Investigators interviewed Kiersten,

but there was nothing from that interview

that really told them that...

she was involved in this murder.

She had moved on with her life.

She wasn't living in the area anymore.

And so, nobody is ever officially ruled out in real time,

but at that point they had no evidence

to believe that she was involved.

During the investigation,

like that first, you know, couple of days, that first week,

I just didn't feel that there was much movement happening

and I didn't feel that they were taking it

as serious as they should have.

I don't want to be getting blamed for this

because y'all aren't doing a proper investigation

or people don't want to speak to you.

So, at that point, I had knocked on my neighbour's door

and just kinda asked him, I was like, "Did you see anything?"

I went house to house and I was, "Y'all have to tell me something.

I understand they've already come out here and asked y'all,

and y'all don't want to say anything."

Handling the family members of victims in cases of homicide

can be problematic.

There needs to be accessibility and empathy,

but at the same time,

investigators don't always have the bandwidth

to provide family members with what they're looking for.

So, one of the neighbours comes out

and he kinda like sits on the steps of his house

and he's like, "You know, I did see someone

coming in and out of the home,

so, I definitely know who he is."

And I was like, "OK, can you give me, like, more information?"

That's kinda when he let me know like, his nickname is "Dee".

The neighbour knew Dee

because they had actually spent time in county jail together.

The neighbour would later tell law enforcement

that on that Saturday when she was last seen alive,

Dee actually seems like he really wants

to tell the neighbour why he's there.

"Oh, I'm just helping this lady put in a pool.

I'm helping her with her security camera.

Nothing to see here."

The neighbour could tell it all seemed really forced,

like Dee really wanted him to believe that,

and he was trying to make a point and an impression on him.

And this all occurred around midday Saturday.

We believe Kelli was murdered

sometime in the late hours of Saturday evening

into the early morning hours of Sunday.

And then I investigated on my own based off of my friend,

you know, kinda knowing people around town,

and pulled his picture up on Facebook and showed him

and he confirmed that that's who was coming in and out of the house.

From there, I communicated to Bruce and called him. He was like,

"That's definitely somebody I'll follow up with and look into."

Law enforcement ultimately identifies Dee as Delvin Powell.

Delvin Powell was known around town.

Again, it was a small town

and he worked at one of the main gas stations in town,

so people were very familiar with him.

We found that Delvin Powell had an extensive criminal history.

It involved some pretty violent crime.

He had an outstanding warrant for choking his girlfriend.

Once we realised that he was a fugitive,

we were able to work with several other law enforcement agencies

and apprehend him at a hotel in Allen, Texas,

just about 20 minutes or so from Princeton.

So, investigators simply knocked on the door.

The girlfriend came out, she admitted that he was in there,

that all of his stuff was in there,

and she allowed them to search the entire hotel room.

There are two knives found in Delvin's suitcase,

and one of them looks like

it could have some sort of reddish brown stain that could be blood.

They send both knives off to the forensic laboratory

for further testing.

They find bullets in her trunk that she says are his,

and that are the exact same calibre and brand

that were used in this murder.

So, little pieces of evidence start lining up.

Investigators go back to Kelli's phone

and they're trying to see if her communications

can help them put the pieces together.

The texts between Ronnie and Kelli

were very contradictory from day to day.

Ronnie is telling her that he loves her

and that he promises he's going to leave Kadie,

and she's gonna be Mrs Ronnie Welborn someday.

And so, it was clear that they still had

an ongoing romantic relationship.

She didn't believe that he was gonna leave Kadie

and a newborn child for her.

And so, she was constantly in this pull back and forth of,

"Do I love him? Do I believe him?

And do I ever believe we're gonna be together?"

We ended up having an anonymous, but credible, source of information

come forward and tell us that Kadie Robinson had disclosed plans

to plant drugs in Kelli's truck to get her arrested,

because she had become a problem between Kadie and Ronnie.

And that this plan went on for some time, weeks,

and they never could make it work.

Robert Veal was supposed to be planting these drugs,

and the pool and the security cameras were somewhat of a ruse

in order to get him to be able to plant these drugs

and then make a call to the police and set her up to have her arrested.

We got to a point where we felt like we had the ability

to get a search warrant for Kadie and Ronnie's phones.

And so, I called them in

and asked them to just come up and visit with me

at the Princeton Police Department, and I asked Kadie first.

She breaks down and confesses.

Kadie comes up there and I confronted her

with the information that I had

about the plan to plant drugs

just to see, you know, what her rebuttal was to those things.

Kadie Robinson cracks and actually admits to her part

in the murder of Kelli Underwood.

So, she ends up telling me that after the plan to plant the drugs

and have her arrested didn't work, murder was on the table.

And so, her and Ronnie

had paid money to Robert Veal to commit this murder.

And she learned that Robert had recruited Delvin Powell

to help him get the job done.

Kadie kind of tries to distance herself

from knowing exactly

how the murder unfolded,

but she still knew Ronnie was putting something in motion.

Ronnie came in after I talked to Kadie

and... he owns it all.

He accepts responsibility for setting it all up

and claims that Kadie had nothing to do with it.

Ronnie admits to hiring Robert Veal to commit this murder.

He knew that Robert was going to find a second person to help him

and that on the Saturday before the murder,

he knew that second person to be Delvin Powell.

Ronnie ends up telling me

that he went and took money out of his bank,

and that Robert Veal came over to his house.

And he paid him $8,000 cash

and provided him the firearm.

Described it.

Same calibre that was used in the murder.

Ronnie admitted to providing Robert Veal's name to Kelli

as a possible person who could help her

with the work that she wanted on her house.

He knew that she was looking for somebody,

and he knew that Robert and Kelli knew each other.

Ronnie Welborn and Kadie Robinson

were both placed under arrest for capital murder.

I was really shocked, but also, again,

I kinda felt a little bit of, like, peace

because of the fact of, I had told Bruce

that Kadie was my, like, number one person.

I really didn't have any thought of Ronnie.

I really didn't want to think that way

because of the fact that he was so close to us.

But it's almost kinda like I felt a sense of relief as well,

that they had finally found who did this.

Ranger Sherman got search warrants for their phones,

and their phones were a goldmine of evidence.

It was clear from Kadie's phone that Kadie was extremely jealous

and extremely suspicious

of any time that Ronnie spent over at Kelli's house.

She didn't even want her working at the business anymore.

Investigators could see from Kadie's phone

that she had even reached out to Kelli directly at some point

to ask, please just tell me if you're in a relationship with him.

Kelli told her that there was nothing going on.

It was revealed that Kadie had given an ultimatum to Ronnie

that if Kelli wasn't out of the picture by September 18th,

she was taking their newborn and leaving.

There were text messages in Kelli's phone

clearly showing Kelli was frustrated with Robert.

The cameras weren't working.

She wanted her old cameras back.

She was just gonna find somebody else to do it.

In hindsight, in the investigation,

we believe that Robert

wasn't setting up the security cameras on purpose.

That he knew that if he activated those cameras

inside or outside her home,

that it would capture them executing the plan.

We did get Delvin Powell and Robert Veal's DNA

on some of that silverware

that was sitting on the counter with the nachos,

like plates and stuff weren't clean.

It's just that the defence was able to say, "Yeah, they were there.

They were allowed in the home, they were helping her do this work."

We did find a relatively small amount of DNA

underneath her fingernails

that the analyst can say

was consistent with Delvin Powell's profile.

On September 16th, 2017,

Kelli Underwood had invited Delvin Powell and Robert Veal into her home

to set up the above-ground pool in her backyard.

They were both seen at Kelli's home.

Kelli being the host that she is, she makes them food,

she makes them nachos,

and we know that Robert and Delvin enjoyed some of that meal.

In the very late hours of September 16th, 2017,

possibly even the very early morning hours of September 17th,

Delvin and Robert decide it's time.

They turn the music up on her TV really loud.

They both head upstairs and they attack her.

Perhaps realising what was about to happen,

Kelli ran into the craft room.

Maybe she was looking for scissors or something sharp

to protect herself with.

But we know, based on who Kelli was, that she was gonna fight back.

Ultimately, one of them shot her multiple times

with a .22-calibre firearm.

And despite the fight that she put up,

the disarray and the mess in that room,

and the struggle that ensued,

the two attackers were able to overpower her.

We're able to figure out through communications in Kelli's phone

that communications ceased in those early morning hours.

Around 2:00am, Robert Veal texts Ronnie Welborn

to let him know that it was done.

Between the early morning hours of September 17th

and Wednesday, September 20th,

Kelli's body remains undiscovered in her home.

On Wednesday, September 20th,

Kayden Graham goes to check on her mother

after not hearing from her for several days.

Kayden found her mom upstairs and immediately called 911.

Ronnie was the one person

that I would've never thought in a million years

would've ever had anything to do with something like this,

just cos he was literally like a big, old teddy bear

and I really thought that he absolutely adored my mom.

I definitely felt betrayed by him in a lot of ways.

Ronnie Welborn, Kadie Robinson,

Delvin Powell, and Robert Veal are all charged with capital murder.

Robert Veal and Delvin Powell are sentenced to life in prison

without the possibility of parole.

Ronnie Welborn ultimately pleads guilty to murder

and gets a sentence of life in prison

with eligibility for parole after 30 years.

I was at the court hearing when he pled guilty.

And he, like, he turned to me and looked at me -

after they said that, like, you know, he's pleading guilty -

and mouthed that he was sorry.

And at that point, I just kinda like looked away

because I was like this...

like, I don't even want you saying anything to me at this point.

Kadie Robinson is given 30 years and eligible for parole in 2032.

Honestly, I don't feel that justice has been served,

especially with Kadie,

because I feel like she should have got

the same sentence that everybody else got.

And I don't feel like she should be able to ever get out

because she was the mastermind of all of this.

I feel that justice was served in this case,

that every single person was held responsible.

Their outcomes were slightly different,

but the two people who were willing to take money

to kill somebody that they barely knew, or didn't know at all,

they were held to the fullest extent of the law

and will serve the rest of their lifetimes behind bars.

Our team spent countless hours and days...

taking naps in our pickup trucks,

and at the office... with no or little sleep,

just seeking that justice

and to be able to cross that finish line for her and her family.

It was special.

So, criminal investigations are like anything in life.

They have a beginning, they have a middle, and they have an end.

And nowhere is this more true

than in resolving a complex murder investigation

where the end is closure, it's a solution and it's justice.

Kelli's life was ended because she opened the door to people

that she thought were supposed to be there to help her in a time of need,

and ultimately ended up being responsible for taking her life.

I don't want people to remember my mom as what happened to her.

I just want her to be remembered as a good mom,

a good sister, a great friend...

...just an overall...

just an absolutely wonderful individual.

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