Police found suspicious things: possible (but ultimately false) bloodstains at the house where Barrientos, Brenda, and Frank lived, and real blood in Barrientos’s unlocked car, which was found days later in Houston. Frank’s story about last seeing Barrientos asleep didn’t add up; places he said she’d mopped showed blood.

Years later, in 2001, Frank confessed to killing Barrientos during an argument. He said he and Brenda tried to stage a suicide, but it failed. They then buried her body in a field near Fulshear, Texas. Despite Frank leading police to the site, her body was never found due to disturbances of the land. Cadaver dogs still sensed human remains, even if the body itself was gone.

Both Frank and Brenda confessed, though Brenda claimed she only helped cover up the crime. They were convicted of murder in separate trials in 2005, with Brenda receiving 80 years and Frank 45 years in prison. Barrientos’s body has never been recovered, but the evidence strongly suggests she was murdered by her daughter and son-in-law.