BONNIE: My mom has these four beautiful kids.
She's married to a great successful car salesman.
They were on their way to having a good family life.
BONNIE: Everything on the outside looking in looked perfect,
and for her,
we know all too well, it wasn't.
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[Barbara speaking]
We were very afraid.
[gunshot blasts]
[operator speaking]
He had already shot one person.
It was very tense.
[gunshot blasts]
[operator speaking]
I mean, that's a twisted mind, right?
[man speaking]
I could never imagine my dad turning into the monster he did.
[theme music playing]
NARRATOR: It's May 13th, 1995, in Midland, Texas.
26-year-old Aldo Pacheco and 22-year-old
Barbara Paredes have just tied the knot.
Their wedding was at a gazebo at the park.
After that, we had the reception
at my house in like a backyard.
Everybody was getting along.
Barbara was smiling. She looked happy.
Barbara was a very positive person.
She was always smiling.
NARRATOR: Barbara has lived in Midland since she was a child.
MARY: She had two sisters and two brothers.
EVA: Barbara's life at home
was not smooth sailing at all.
She did not have a good
relationship with her family or her mother.
EVA: She had just turned 19,
and she came and talked to my husband and I
and said, "I can no longer live in my parents' home."
And I said, "We have a bedroom that you could live here.
We will help you."
So she moved in with us.
Barbara wanted to be a school teacher
from probably five years old,
six years old.
She would talk about being a teacher.
She had a big heart and was real friendly.
We wanted her dream to come true.
So we moved her to Saint Angelo State
to get her education degree.
My husband and I were very proud of her.
NARRATOR: In 1994, while working on her degree in education,
Barbara meets business scholar, Aldo Pacheco.
EVA: Aldo grew up in Fort Stockton, Texas.
My dad was one of seven children,
and he lost his sister when he was 21.
And I think, as a result,
through trauma, I think him
and his brother, Memo, really grew closer.
Um, I think it was a hard loss.
EVA: During the first visit that Barbara brought Aldo to
our house,
she introduced him, said they were friends.
The way he described it,
he came from a very
dysfunctional family.
MARY: I do think she cared for him.
Barbara wanted to always see the good in people.
EVA: But I'm a person that goes a lot by
gut feeling and intuition -- when I shook his hand,
my first reaction is that he was not good
for her, that he was not a good person,
from day one.
NARRATOR: Unaware of her family's misgivings,
Barbara and Aldo start dating,
and just a month later, she falls pregnant.
MARY: Barbara told me she was pregnant.
She hadn't told anybody yet.
I wouldn't say I was disappointed,
because that's not a disappointment to me,
but I just knew that...
as any parent knows, once you have a child,
things are never the same.
We did tell her, both me and my sister,
Eva, that she did not have to get married.
But she did.
It kind of brings me peace for her, because I know
it wasn't all bad times, that there were
some good times, and this is a reflection of
a few of those good times.
NARRATOR: Six months after the wedding,
Barbara gives birth to a baby girl, Bonnie.
MARY: Then it was an exciting time,
you know, the birth of her child.
Barbara and Aldo decided to name Bonnie
after his sister that had passed away.
EVA: She was a wonderful mother.
She had a lot of patience.
She was a nurturing type of mother.
MARY: They moved into an apartment that was close to
the university so that Barbara could finish her education.
EVA: He had quit college to go work
so that they could get a bigger apartment.
NARRATOR: Aldo gets a job as a car salesman
to support his young family.
Aldo was a good car salesman, I think,
because he was good at convincing people,
you know, they needed to buy that vehicle.
Aldo was very good at portraying himself as a good person.
NARRATOR: In December 1996, Barbara graduates
after completing her degree in education.
She moves closer to her family and gets a job as a teacher.
Barbara was very happy when she got her job
teaching kindergarten at Carver.
She loved being a kindergarten teacher.
She told me that numerous times.
Barbara was always trying to help the students that struggle.
NARRATOR: It's all change for Aldo, too,
when he gets a job at a prestigious
local country club.
EVA: Aldo worked at the Petroleum Club of Midland
in the kitchen.
Midland is a big oil industry city,
so that Petroleum Club members are all in the oil industry.
So it would appear that they were
on their way to having a good family life.
NARRATOR: But one night, Eva gets an unexpected phone call.
EVA: Barbara called me.
It was like one or two o'clock in the morning, and she was
crying because he had been out for days
and had not come in to the house.
She suspected that
he had gone with a previous girlfriend,
and she was upset over that.
But she called me back later that day, and she said,
"I don't want Bonnie to grow up without a father.
So I wanna stay and see if I can make this work."
[indistinct conversations]
WOMAN: Who gave her that?
EVA: It was at my mother's house, Christmas that year.
It was quite noisy
when you get all the kids together.
[child exclaiming indistinctly]
NARRATOR: It's Bonnie's second Christmas,
and she's already becoming a daddy's girl.
EVA: He would always call Bonnie,
"My little buddy, my little pal."
BONNIE: It was a wonderful childhood.
I mean, I have nothing but incredible memories
with my dad.
[indistinct talking]
NARRATOR: Mom, Barbara, takes over the present opening duties.
[indistinct talking]
It's an Elmo doll!
My mom, she was always so good at helping me open presents,
and it looks like I got a talking Elmo,
and my cousin is getting the first try at it,
it looks like.
They look so comfortable together.
They --
and my dad's arm is just around her.
Makes my heart a little sad,
seeing them so happy,
and we all know how the story ends.
NARRATOR: Five years after tying the knot in Midland, Texas,
Aldo and Barbara Pacheco's marriage is
beginning to show signs of strain.
MARY: Aldo went back to work as a car salesman.
It was frustrating to him, I think,
and, uh,
he had long hours,
and Barbara was working at what she wanted to do.
He started just
treating her different, like more -- like resentful.
It was all Barbara's fault.
I don't think he ever abused her physically, but mentally,
I think he did, and emotionally.
She was such a good-hearted person,
maybe sometimes a little naive, too trusting.
She stuck by Aldo, and I think she was
giving it her best to make it work.
And then she got pregnant again.
BONNIE: When I found out that my mom was pregnant with my sister,
I bawled.
I had my mom and my dad all to myself,
and I was so confused as to why we needed another party.
I was seven years old when Maddie was born.
I think once we brought Maddie home,
it was a completely different tune.
I remember just -- I looked at her
through her crib and just being in awe.
Four or five short months later,
she let me know that she was pregnant again.
And, um, with twins this time.
I was so nervous, and, uh, she said,
"We're just gonna do it, and we're gonna do it together."
NARRATOR: On September 17th, 2003,
Barbara gives birth to two twin boys,
Elijah and Ryan.
Aldo being the macho man he was,
he was happy that it was two boys.
The family dynamic changed when the twins were born.
BONNIE: My mom made sure everyone thought everything was
very perfect,
but there was definitely a shift in the household.
My mom had to attend to three babies essentially,
and I could see
my dad became very irritable
right after the boys were born,
just very almost annoyed that we had to tend to
these children.
NARRATOR: In this home video,
daughter Bonnie films her mom in the laundry room.
[Bonnie speaking]
BONNIE: She has these four beautiful kids.
She's married to a great successful car salesman.
Everything on the outside looking in looked perfect.
And for her, we know all too well, it wasn't.
EVA: She told me that he would time her
when she would go to the grocery store,
and if she was not back in his timeframe,
he would start calling her and saying, "Where are you?"
And I told her then,
that's not good.
That is a control issue.
I always told her
that she needed to value herself
and that she deserved the best in life.
But that it would be up to her
to make a decision of what she wanted her life to be.
NARRATOR: Barbara pours all her focus into her children,
who are a constant source of joy.
She has another reason to smile.
She's recently returned to teaching.
EVA: She was happy to go back to work.
One of the things she told me is she did not feel as
caged in, because she could go back to
having friends and colleagues and teaching and the students.
While she was teaching, that helped her get
away from the situation and have a reprieve.
[Barbara speaking]
NARRATOR: On September 17th, 2004,
the family gathers to celebrate the twins' birthday.
When the twins' first birthday party, and there was a cake,
in Hispanic culture,
sometimes you get a cake, and they can mess it up,
get chocolate in their face or cake on their face
and so forth.
NARRATOR: But Aldo takes tradition a step too far
and pushes one-year-old Ryan's face into the cake.
EVA: He was struggling to breathe.
Aldo was laughing.
I think sometimes the bully Aldo would come out.
When the incident happened with the cake,
that's what broke the camel's back for Barbara.
Barbara decided,
I cannot have my kids live in
that type of environment with this man.
The next day,
she called me and told me that
she had talked to him about getting separated.
I was relieved and scared
at the same time.
I'd asked her then, are you sure you tried the counseling?
Are you sure on your decision?
She said, "Yes, I am."
I said, "Okay."
NARRATOR: With the separation official,
Aldo moves in with his brother Memo while Barbara and the kids
go to live with Aunt Eva.
My dad would visit, but it was a very big adjustment for me to
not have him every night,
every morning, taking me to practices.
It was definitely weird not having my dad there.
NARRATOR: As their divorce proceedings begin,
Aldo becomes fixated on getting full custody
of the kids and starts to pressure Barbara.
So he would call the house.
He knew they were at my house,
and leave messages.
[answering machine beeps]
[Aldo speaking]
BONNIE: I would hear my dad leave messages.
It was very scary, and she was very frightened.
[answering machine beeps]
[Aldo speaking]
We were very afraid, all of us.
[answering machine beeps]
[Aldo speaking]
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
The police got a call from the Motel One on Highway 80 in
Odessa from a woman who said she had been
assaulted by her husband.
[siren wailing]
Her name was Barbara Pacheco, and she had been assaulted by
her husband, Aldo Pacheco.
NARRATOR: Officers find Barbara covered in blood,
with injuries to her face.
She was very, very distressed.
Aldo had abducted her in her car when she had dropped off
Elijah and Ryan,
and the first police officer who showed up was wearing
a microphone and had a dash cam in his car.
[Barbara speaking]
[Barbara sobbing]
ERIC: He pulled out a knife and forced
her to the floorboard of the car.
[Barbara speaking]
He was attempting to force her to go back to
the hotel room that he had rented under an alias.
She eventually was able to get away from him
in the parking lot of the hotel,
at which point Aldo drives away in her car.
Barbara was so injured that she was taken
to the hospital to have her injuries looked at.
You wouldn't treat a dog like this much less
a human being and certainly not
the mother of your children.
EVA: My phone rings, and it's Barbara.
She said, "I'm on my way to the hospital.
I'm in an ambulance, because he tried to beat me up."
Mary and I proceeded to go to Odessa,
to the hospital emergency room.
Barbara's hair was all messed up where he had dragged her,
and then she was bruised in her nose and her face.
It was sad. It was scary.
It was...
traumatic for Barbara, Bonnie, and Maddie,
because she would cry and say
what was wrong with her mom, because she had
swollen eyes.
MARY: Barbara had told me after that,
said, "I can't believe Aldo did this to our family."
[siren wailing]
NARRATOR: A couple of hours later,
Odessa police receive a call from Aldo's brother, Memo.
Memo had two letters in his possession that Aldo
had given him,
that he instructed him to mail, one to his mother,
and the other to his children.
So the police intercepted those letters,
and Memo turned them over to them.
NARRATOR: In the letters, Aldo suggests that he was
planning to kill Barbara and take his own life.
ERIC: He felt that Barbara was having
an affair and if he couldn't have Barbara,
nobody could.
NARRATOR: Aldo's second letter, this time to his kids,
is even more chilling.
How twisted it must be for someone to think that their
children are better off with their parents being dead
than divorced.
I mean, that's a twisted mind, right?
It's bone-chilling.
NARRATOR: After reading the letters,
police are increasingly concerned for Aldo's well-being
and whereabouts.
ERIC: I think the police, at the time,
thought that he could have committed suicide.
Aldo came back to the parking lot at the Motel One there
in Odessa a few hours later and was apprehended by police.
Aldo was charged with aggravated assault,
possession of a deadly weapon, and aggravated kidnapping.
MARY: Aldo went to jail in May
after he had assaulted Barbara.
He paid the bond after three months, and he got out of jail.
My mom was extremely frightened when she heard
that my dad had been released from prison.
She didn't understand it.
EVA: He was consumed by rage,
and so we started getting worried
about what else he could do.
NARRATOR: In the fall of 2005,
Barbara is trying to put her past behind her.
She's spending more time with a special work colleague,
39-year-old James Eric Wiggs.
BONNIE: My mom met Eric at Cavazos Elementary.
I loved Eric.
He was so kind,
and he was the special education teacher there at
Cavazos where she worked, and he was just kind.
He was always just so gentle
and sweet and helpful,
and I think they brought out the best in each other.
He was just
somebody who was easy for her to talk to.
He was just a good person.
NARRATOR: Like Barbara, Eric is divorced and has
a 10-year-old daughter named Micalee.
In this home video, four-year-old Micalee
is playing with her dad.
So my dad, he was just goofy all the time,
always trying to just find any
way that he could to just annoy you.
He was always videoing you.
But he was a really outgoing person,
really funny and just fun to be around, really.
Barbara was really sweet to me.
I met her and Bonnie and her three siblings,
and I just remember it being really happy and full of joy.
NARRATOR: It's Christmas 2005,
and Barbara is opening a present
from her daughter, Bonnie.
Choosing to get my mom a ring
was so special, because she had survived
this awful year and was doing it with grace.
[man speaking]
-[Bonnie speaking] -[man speaking]
BONNIE: And I just wanted to get her something that was
so special, and I would
have never known that it was gonna be my last gift
that I would give her.
-[phone ringing] -[child crying]
[Barbara speaking]
[phone ringing]
[gunshot blasts]
It's Monday afternoon on January 16th, 2006,
around 2:30 or so in the afternoon,
Midland P.D. received a 911 hang up call
from Eva Luna's house.
[numbers dialing]
-[phone ringing] -[child crying]
[Barbara speaking]
[phone ringing]
BJ: There was -- sounded like a female voice
on the phone, saying something to the effect of,
"Come on, hurry up,"
is all you can make out on the 911 recording.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: The line remains open, and officers
race to the location of the call.
[woman speaking]
-MAN: 23. -Hey, 10-4, 23.
Officers arrive at the scene.
They learn that there is a body lying on the ground.
NARRATOR: An unidentified man lays in the front yard.
He has been shot.
KAY: And it was determined that he was deceased.
BJ: Everything was -- it's a residential area.
Officers were making sure people
were staying inside their homes.
NARRATOR: With a woman and child potentially in danger,
hostage negotiator BJ Land arrives on the scene.
The role of a negotiator is to bring peaceful end
to a bad situation without injury or harm to anyone.
It was a very fast-moving, fluid situation.
NARRATOR: The 911 call remains open.
-[911 operator speaking] -[Aldo speaking]
KAY: It was learned that there was a child
inside the house and a woman inside the house.
The subject who had barricaded himself inside the house,
that was his estranged wife and his biological son.
So you currently had hostages inside
the house, and you had an armed subject barricaded.
BJ: Aldo was sounding tense and angry on the phone,
and a lot of bad things could happen,
and one would he could end,
you know, kill or shoot everyone inside and himself.
I needed to calm the situation down,
to get it to come to
a safe resolution without injury or harm to anyone.
NARRATOR: Outside the house,
one of the responding officers has an idea.
Officer Bermea was familiar with him, and he was
able to get a dialogue started with Pacheco.
[Officer Bermea speaking]
[Aldo speaking]
NARRATOR: Police are now able to identify
the deceased male outside
as 39-year-old James Eric Wiggs.
By Aldo
admitting that he had shot this guy,
he is confessing to the murder of Eric.
KAY: We knew he had shot and killed one person outside.
Time was not on our side.
[Officer Bermea speaking]
-[Aldo speaking] -[Officer Bermea speaking]
BJ: Everyone on that scene was very nervous.
It was stressful.
KAY: Could we get them out safely, get Aldo in custody?
Because he had already shot one person.
It was very tense.
NARRATOR: Across town,
Barbara's Aunt Eva receives a page from her work colleague.
Eva was looking at her pager,
distraught, and I said, "Is everything okay?"
They told me that there was a call from my house
and that they had heard a gunshot.
Eva said, "Barbara is being held
hostage, and Eric has been killed."
I just prayed that he would not hurt them.
NARRATOR: Back at the scene, BJ Land takes over
negotiating with Aldo.
At this point, my main objective was to get
Elijah out.
I convinced him to let Elijah out.
[BJ speaking]
I told Aldo to let him out the garage door, and
SWAT team was in place to retrieve a child.
It was just a -- a feeling of great
relief when my SWAT guy said, "I've got him."
NARRATOR: BJ now turns her attention to Aldo's second hostage.
his ex-wife.
BJ: The sun was going down.
The negotiation has been going on for about 3.5 hours.
Our main priority was to do whatever
it took to convince Aldo to release Barbara.
He was not letting Barbara
speak on the phone to negotiators.
In my mind, there was only one reason for that,
that she could not speak.
It was a very big concern.
BJ: Later into the negotiation,
in my own feeling, I wanted it to come to an end.
I was pumped, and I was exhausted at the same time.
I did somewhat feel that might be
a way for him to surrender himself.
I was hoping for that,
but it didn't happen that way.
[gunshot blasts]
And that's when I hear a gunshot
in the background and relay that to SWAT.
SWAT made entry.
[distant shouting]
BJ: When they found Aldo in one of the bedrooms,
he appeared to still be alive.
However, he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound
to his face.
NARRATOR: Police begin searching the home for Barbara.
The home was in disarray.
I entered the master bedroom.
Blood on the walls, blood on the ceiling.
Barbara was lying on a bed on her back, deceased,
with what appeared to be two shotgun wounds to her body.
It's a moment where you realize
somebody's life was taken from them,
not by their own choice or their own means,
and you can't reverse that.
It's -- it's, uh, it's heartbreaking.
BONNIE: Everyone starts kind of filing in.
The first person I see is my Uncle Raymond,
and I'm looking out the door, trying to see behind him.
I'm looking for my mom -- right as he walks in,
and I see my Aunt Eva come behind him,
and I see a couple more family members.
I keep looking for her over his shoulder,
and she is never -- she's not behind him.
My Uncle Raymond grabs me by the shoulders.
He said...
he said, "Baby, your mom didn't make it."
And I remember just falling forward into
his arms, and then everything went black.
NARRATOR: News of Eric Wiggs' murder reaches his family.
My mom looked at me, and she said,
"Micalee, your daddy's been killed."
I thought I was dreaming.
I wanted to wake up -- it was something that I never
thought in a million years would have happened to my daddy.
KAY: The next day, other detectives and I went
and visited the hospital where Aldo was currently
being treated.
Upon examining his hands,
you could see where there were numbers
and letters written on the left palm of his hand.
It was a partial license plate.
We realized it was the same numbers
and letters that belonged to Eric Wiggs.
This proved to me that he was looking for Eric Wiggs.
NARRATOR: Detectives theorize that Aldo was jealous of
Barbara's new man and hunted him down.
According to witnesses, they heard a gunshot,
looked out, Aldo was still in his vehicle.
At that point, Eric had fallen down.
NARRATOR: Upon hearing a gunshot,
Barbara calls 911 from her aunt's house.
-[phone ringing] -[child crying]
[Barbara speaking]
[phone ringing]
I can only imagine the fear she was
experiencing at that point.
Maybe even a minute later,
there were two shotgun blasts, and then you heard a third.
[gunshot blasts]
We believe the first two shotgun blasts were to Barbara.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: After hours on the phone to police,
Aldo turns the gun on himself...
[gunshot blasts]
...but survives.
On November 16th, 2006,
after a four-day trial, Aldo Pacheco is found
guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life
without parole.
He changed a lot of people's lives that day.
My feelings towards Aldo are a lot of anger,
a lot of hatred.
A lot of
you know, questions like, why did you do this?
Do you realize that you took
a 10-year-old little girl's dad away from her
for no reason?
BONNIE: I could never imagine my dad turning into the monster he did.
I think he struggled with inner demons that I never
saw before.
And I think that
he wanted so badly for things to go his way,
but it would never go back to the way it was.
MARY: I would like people to remember Barbara with
her laughter, her good heart.
BONNIE: Missing my mom at my wedding was obviously
a detrimental part of a happy day,
and I really just needed her with me.
And so that ring that I bought her in 2005 for Christmas,
I had it sewn into the heart of my dress,
so that she was close to my heart that day,
and it's still there to this day.
Next time on American Monster...
When India met Kevin he seemed very nice, loving...
...but, I didn't know him at all.
♪