- NARRATOR: She was a single mother
building a better life for her and her daughter.
- My mom definitely looked at Princeton as a fresh start.
- Life got easier for her.
She was happy.
- NARRATOR: But a vicious attack
would tear her family apart forever.
- There were five gunshot wounds.
The stab wounds were primarily focused on her head.
We could tell from that crime scene
that she fought to the very end.
- Due to the nature of the victim's injuries,
everything was on the table.
Could this be something that was done, just for financial gain?
Could this be a jilted lover?
- NARRATOR: The revelation of a secret affair
will uproot one relationship...
And plant a deadly seed of jealousy in another.
- They wanted her out of the way.
She gave him an ultimatum,
you've got a month to get rid of her.
- He couldn't pick, ya know, either or,
he wanted to have both.
And that's, that's not how it works.
- You had two individuals who, while professing their love
for each other, let that so-called "love"
drive them to the point that they were willing
to take the life of another human being
to keep it going.
- It's hard to comprehend how one human being
can be so cruel to another.
It was the ultimate betrayal.
- *
- [muffled scream] [gasp]
- *
- NARRATOR: 25 miles outside of Dallas -
Princeton, Texas is a rural town, with suburban appeal.
- It's close enough to Dallas that some folks can live there
and commute to Dallas,
but it has a small-town feel.
- NARRATOR: But just after 6pm on September 20th, 2017 -
the Collin County Sheriff's office
receives a disturbing call about one of the town's residents.
- Kayden Graham hadn't heard from her mom, Kelli Underwood,
in a few days and, uh, got a little worried,
so drove over to her place in Princeton to see what was up.
- So, I did reach out to her a couple of times,
and I didn't hear back from her.
So, that kind of, you know, raised
a little suspicion for me.
Just because we hadn't had an argument,
there wasn't a reason for her to be ignoring me
or not answering my text messages
or my calls or anything like that.
So, that, I did go over there and as soon as I pulled up
it was kind of, like, I got just bad vibes completely.
I went up the sidewalk and then I walked up,
I knocked on the door for probably, like, fifteen seconds.
No answer.
But then that last knock, like the door opened.
As soon as I walked inside, I called out to her.
I was, like, "Mom, where are you at?"
I walked upstairs, you know, I, again, I called out to her.
Her craft room door was open
and I saw her, her feet.
I remember walking around her, her little craft table.
And she was just, she was just laying there.
That's when I noticed, you know, the blood on her head.
I remember kneeling down and as soon as I, like,
grazed my hand, like, to move it to go check her pulse,
I actually touched her leg, and she was just ice.
And that's when I went into, like, major freak-out mode.
- She was so scared that she didn't want to touch anything
or mess anything up.
So, she had called 911 from back outside the front of the house.
- NARRATOR: First responders quickly arrive on scene
and find a distraught Kayden.
- Kayden had described where her mother's body was found
and so they went upstairs to that room specifically.
A craft room across from the master bedroom.
- When they got there,
they noticed with this horrific scene,
blood around the room, things knocked over.
The body had been there for a while,
so there was no need to try to resuscitate
because obviously Kelli Underwood had passed away.
- The way that she was laying, they could tell,
without even moving her initially,
that she had possibly suffered stab wounds
and gunshot wounds.
- NARRATOR: Detectives wonder, who had done this
to Kelli Underwood and why?
- One of the difficulties in any murder investigation
is going back and trying to piece together
exactly how it occurred.
- NARRATOR: Born and raised in Mesquite, Texas,
Kelli Underwood had always been a shining light
in her small Texas community.
- AMBER: Kelli had a bubbly personality.
She loved to joke around, and she was just always,
you know, the, the fun person in the room.
- NARRATOR: From an early age,
Kelli had big plans for her future.
- She would talk about, you know, wanting to get married
and have children and have a career, be successful.
- Kelli married, uh, very soon after high school,
and she had her first child.
- Unfortunately, that marriage didn't work out.
And, um, she remarried another man, Kayden's father.
They were married a few years, and then,
unfortunately, that didn't work out.
She stayed in the Mesquite area and continued working and, um,
you know, it's a balance. It's a struggle for any single mom.
- When it came down to it,
she was always a very positive person.
Um, anybody that met her would say that,
you know, her smile would light up a room.
That's just the type of person that she was.
- NARRATOR: But in May 2001, Kelli was diagnosed
with a life-threatening illness.
- She, uh, had to have surgery for a brain tumor
that had been developing fo quite some time.
- They removed her tumor on her brain stem,
and it left a portion of her face, um, a little paralyzed.
- There would be days that, you know, I would walk downstairs,
and she would be like in the bathroom,
couldn't feel the left side of her body.
And, and as a teenager,
that's really hard to see, you know.
- Our whole family supported her and, you know,
tried to tell her it didn't matter.
But everybody has their own way of dealing with,
with things, and she internalized a lot.
She was very depressed.
- NARRATOR: That's when Kelli decided
it was time to make a change.
- One of her friends from high school, Tiffany,
said, "Come to Princeton, you can live with us
"for a while, while you get settled.
We'll see about helping you get a job."
Tiffany's husband, Ronnie, had a metal fabrication shop.
- Ronnie, his family lived there for, for decades.
Ronnie hung around with, yo know, a lot of people
that were in the racing circle there
in the small town in Princeton.
- Ronnie offered employment an a place to stay.
You know, "If you want to come work here, we can,
"you know, let you stay here with us
until you find a place of your own,"
and, um, that's what she did.
- She started working for, you know, Ronnie Welborn
at Express Fabrications.
Um, she started out being a welder,
and I'm pretty sure after about a year and a half
that's when she moved into the office
and started handling the, you know, the accounting,
the books, um, and stuff like that.
She really handled everything.
I mean, she was the face of the company.
She was very good at her job.
- NARRATOR: Kelli also offered her boss Ronnie
emotional support, when his wife
filed for divorce in May 2014.
- When he and Tiffany were going through the divorce,
he would confide in Kelli, and she was there for him.
He was there for her when she was going through
a hard time and, and she reciprocated.
They became really good friends.
- Obviously, he was her boss, but he was also a friend.
He was a supporter.
I mean, he was always one of her biggest fans
when it came down to it.
- NARRATOR: As Ronnie adjusted to his new life,
Kelli also became more independent.
In the spring of 2017, she moved into a new house in Princeton.
- Kayden graduated.
She moved in with friends and Kelli was living alone.
- She enjoyed spending time in her backyard,
so she wanted to put a pool in the backyard
and, uh, enjoy and relax when she got home.
- My mom definitely looked at Princeton as a fresh start.
She was very happy.
- NARRATOR: But on September 20th, 2017,
Princeton police have been called to Kelli's home,
where the 46-year-old has been found brutally murdered.
- Princeton was a small town.
It had crime but it had not had a murder
for twenty or twenty-five years.
- None of their detectives had ever investigated a homicide.
And so they had the foresight to call the Texas Rangers
to help them with that investigation.
- It was apparent from the moment our investigators
walked into the room that she had lost her life
in a violent way and in a struggle.
Our investigators looked at it, uh, through the lens
of could this be a jilted lover?
Could this be something tha was done, um,
just for financial gain? Everything was on the table.
- NARRATOR: Coming up...
Homicide investigators find evidence that suggests
possible persons of interest.
- It looked like people had been hanging out
after they've murdered her.
It's absolutely disgusting.
- It led us to believe that we had two perpetrators
instead of just one person doing the crime.
- NARRATOR: And the search fo clues will lead police
to uncover an unexpected relationship.
- There would be text messages
where they were telling each other
they loved each other, and then a couple of days later,
they were in a heated argument.
- *
- NARRATOR: In Princeton, Texas, 46-year-old single mother
Kelli Underwood has been found brutally murdered in her home.
Detectives are meticulously processing the crime scene
in order to help piece together what happened.
- We collected 5 .22 spent cartridge cases
in the, uh, craft room.
- Kelli had a gunshot wound to her ankle.
She had a couple gunshot wounds to her left upper arm,
but she also had two gunshot wounds
that had pierced her chest.
The stab wounds were primarily focused on her head.
So, she had one through her right temple,
she had one that entered her skull,
and she had a couple in her neck.
She also had some other, what they call superficial
or incise wounds, that really didn't penetrate deeply,
but were clearly from the same sharp object.
- It's not very common for someone to use
two different weapons, um, on a, on a victim.
And therefore, in this case, it, it, at least,
led us to believe that we had two perpetrators
instead of just one person doing the crime.
- NARRATOR: As Kelli's body is removed for autopsy,
investigators continue to process the rest of the home
for clues.
- In her bedroom, we found her cell phone.
- In modern-day investigations, cell phones are invaluable.
We all live with our cell phones.
We all use our cell phones.
If you wanna know anything about someone,
you can pretty much figure it out with a cell phone.
- NARRATOR: Next, investigators make their way downstairs,
where Kelli's 19-year-old daughter Kayden Graham
helps them to identify additional clues.
- You go into the living room,
which the front door opens up into,
and there's areas that looks a bit chaotic.
Over in the corner, there was an obvious disturbance
where surveillance equipment was pulled out,
and it just looked like it ha been yanked out
and just thrown on the floor.
- NARRATOR: Nothing else appears to have been stolen,
so investigators dismiss robbery as a likely motive.
- What was interesting about this crime scene
was we didn't see entry being made
through a broken door, a broken window.
It looked like it was someone who had been invited in.
- There were used plates and utensils on the counter.
- That was unusual to Kayden and stood out.
- My mom was very OCD.
Everything, when it came down to her
it was clean, clean, clean.
She didn't like anything being dirty.
- NARRATOR: Kayden quickly points out
another inconsistency.
- We went out into the backyard,
photographed it, looked like, you know,
people had been hanging out back there as well.
We collected some cigarette butts.
- My mom didn't smoke cigarettes either,
so that was another thing that I was, like,
she would not be okay with cigarette butts being,
you know, sprawled out all throughout her backyard.
- It looked like, you know, people had hung out,
out there after they've murdered her.
That tells you the lack of conscience they have,
the lack of respect for life, as a whole that they have,
and it's absolutely disgusting.
- Those were obviously important pieces of evidence
for us to try to collect an also get tested
for possible DNA evidence.
- NARRATOR: The following day, the Collin County
medical examiner performs an autopsy
to recover more evidence.
- Scrapings were taken from underneath Kelli's fingernails,
and that was preserved and passed forward for, uh, DNA.
- Based on the rigor mortis the window of death
was somewhere in the late evening of September 16th
to the very early morning hours of September 17th.
- NARRATOR: After the autopsy, investigators conduct
an extended interview with Kayden Graham.
- Any good murder investigation
is going to leave no stone unturned,
and if you start off without looking at everyone
as a suspect, then you do a disservice to the case.
- They sat Kayden down, questioned her,
checking for an alibi for her.
- Kayden told them, "We may have our fights,
"but I talk to her often and we were in a good place.
"I had just called her the Friday before to tell her
"that I was gonna be looking for a new job
"and she was talking me through it and, and supporting me,
"and so, when I didn't hear from her for a couple days,
I just finally went over there to check on her."
- They asked to, uh, look at her cell phone,
any communications with our victim,
and, and she willingly complied.
- They immediately started looking in her phone
and saw that Kayden had tried to get in touch with her mom
more than once in the days of September 15th
and September 16th, which was the Friday
and Saturday before she was deceased.
- NARRATOR: Police ask Kayden for a detailed account
of her whereabouts over the past few days.
- Kayden had been living with a family close by.
A friend and her parents.
Kayden also had a boyfriend at the time,
and so, the Rangers did every follow-up that they needed to.
The Rangers asked consent of that family to search the home,
to see if they could find a matching murder weapon.
They did not find any murder weapon
that would have matched the one
that killed Kelli, which was specifically a .22-caliber.
- Based on the victim's daughter's cell phone records,
based on other witnesses,
um, and based on the time of the offense,
it became very clear that,
that she was not involved in this offense.
- At the beginning I did feel like they were
a little too focused on me
and asking me too many questions.
And it did raise a little bit of worry.
I would never do this.
I would never hurt her.
Over a certain period of time they were like ok,
we know, we know you had nothing to do with it
and we thank you for you know, working with us
and being understanding.
That was, was my main thing.
Making sure I did everything that they asked.
Just to make sure that they, they found the right people.
That they weren't focused on the wrong people.
- NARRATOR: Investigators begin canvassing
Kelli Underwood's neighborhood,
searching for anyone who can speak to her final days.
- Investigators with the Princeton Police Department
and the Texas Rangers asked neighbors if they had seen
any individuals out of the ordinary over at the house.
There was a neighbor that reported last seeing
Kelli with a white male, who drove a truck
with Illinois license plates.
The neighbors had also described a Black male,
who had been over there, in the garage,
helping with work on September 16th,
the dates that we believe that our murder happened.
- NARRATOR: But who were these two men?
And what connection-- if any-- could they possibly have
to Kelli's murder?
In order to find out, police know they have to find both men
and fast.
- They obviously wanted to speak with them. What had happened?
What did they know?
- NARRATOR: In the days after 46-year-old Kelli Underwood
was found murdered in he Princeton, Texas home,
investigators have learned about two men
seen at Kelli's home in the timeframe
they believe she was killed.
Unfortunately, none of the neighbors are able to identify
the men by name.
But they believe the men were there to work on Kelli's house.
- Kelli had some things, you know,
she wanted done around the house.
She needed her pool put in, and she was having problems
with her cameras at home and wanted them replaced.
- NARRATOR: Hoping to identify the two workers,
Investigators reach out to Kelli's associates.
They start with her boss and close friend Ronnie Welborn,
who appears devastated by the news of her murder.
- It absolutely was a shock to Ronnie.
They were very close.
- Ronnie was like mental support throughout the whole situation.
I mean, from when I found her up until the funeral.
When I went up to the funeral home to, you know,
make arrangements and everything,
he was very adamant about being a part of it.
He wanted to make sure that I had support
and that I didn't feel alone.
- NARRATOR: When investigators meet with Ronnie,
he quickly offers them a crucial lead.
- He did know that she was getting some work done
in her backyard, and he provided the name
of Robert Veal as the person who was helping her
do that work in her backyard.
- Robert Veal was an old friend of Ronnie's,
a racing buddy.
Had worked for Ronnie for a while,
and Kelli was well aware of him also.
- NARRATOR: Unfortunately, Ronnie says he doesn't know
who the second man that neighbors
had reported seeing at the home could be.
When their calls to Robert Veal go unanswered,
investigators examine Kelli Underwood's phone records,
searching for information that will help to identify
the second worker.
But what they discover points the case
in a whole new direction.
- So, at that time, the Rangers had reviewed Kelli's phone,
and saw that there was some sort of romantic relationship,
not just a business relationship,
between Kelli and Ronnie.
There would be text messages
where they were telling each other
they loved each other, and Ronnie couldn't wait
to make her Mrs. Welborn.
- NARRATOR: But texts reveal that Kelli and Ronnie's romance
had also been quite volatile.
- A couple days later, they were in a heated argument.
You know, Kelli never wanted to see him again.
- NARRATOR: Investigators ask Kelli's daughter, Kayden,
about the relationship.
She confirms her mother and Ronnie
had had an on-again, off-again romance
going back to when Ronnie and his wife
had split three years earlier.
- He was showing up to the house a lot more.
We were going to do stuff with him
and going to dinners and shopping,
and that's when I kind of picked up on this
is kind of becoming more than a friendship.
- Kelli hid the relationship that she had with Ronnie
from the family.
Kelli worked for Ronnie and she knew that, you know,
it's probably not the right thing to do, dating your boss.
So, no one really knew about it except for Kayden,
and Kayden kept it a secret as well.
- NARRATOR: Kayden also claims to know why
her mother's relationship with Ronnie was so tumultuous.
- I told him Kadie Robinson.
Like, that's, that's the main person that came to my head.
- Kayden says one weekend at the races,
Ronnie met this young woman named Kadie.
A sweet Texas girl from, uh, Pilot Point, Texas.
She was 20 years younger than him,
but apparently, they hit it off.
- They developed a relationship and Kadie became pregnant
and Kadie ended up moving in with Ronnie.
This all was happening simultaneously
with the relationship with Kelli,
and then Kelli found out about it.
- She actually wanted to leave the company.
She didn't want to work for Ronnie any longer,
but Ronnie didn't really want to lose her,
because she was good at what she did.
- NARRATOR: Kayden tells police that her mother
eventually came to terms with the situation.
She even tried to befriend Ronnie's new girlfriend.
- We actually bought her gifts, um, for her baby
and my mom went to go drop it off to her.
At that time, my mom did end the relationship with Ronnie,
and she did apologize and you know, for you know,
kind of, like any overstepping that happened,
because Kadie was pregnant.
- NARRATOR: Despite Kelli's attempt to make peace,
Kadie never took kindly to Ronnie's ongoing relationship
with a former lover.
- He couldn't pick, you know, either or,
he wanted to have both, and that's, that's not how it works.
- NARRATOR: According to Kayden, the situation came to a head
one week before her mother's murder.
- When Ronnie was at work every day at the shop,
Kadie would take his oldest daughter to school,
and she could see Kelli's front door,
her sidewalk and her street from the parent drop-off loop.
About a week before Kelli's death,
she sees Ronnie's truck at Kelli's house,
and she becomes furious.
- Kadie came over to Kelli's house.
In the front yard, there was a very loud, verbal altercation.
Two Texas women butting heads hard.
- My mom did come outside and tell her, ya know,
to get off her property.
Kadie did cuss at her and stuff like that
more so try to instigate something
to where my mom would do something.
But my mom didn't do anything physical,
she just, ya know, got loud with her
and was like I don't show up to your house like this,
it's very disrespectful.
And then Kadie did get in her vehicle and leave.
- NARRATOR: Police can't help but wonder:
could the heated love triangle have resulted
in Kelli Underwood's murder?
- Because of the nature of the crime itself,
we, we had a crime that was a violent killing
and to find out that the boss was having a relationship
with our victim, um,
changed the dynamic and the way we looked at him.
- NARRATOR: Coming up...
As investigators unravel a tense romantic rivalry,
Kelli's daughter chases a potential lead,
and catches a major break.
- There are some individuals who prefer
not to speak to law enforcement,
so Kayden took it upon herself, to go out.
- I felt that I needed answers, and I just needed to know,
like, what happened.
- *
- NARRATOR: Eight days after Kelli Underwood
was found dead in her Princeton, Texas home,
investigators have discovered that Kelli was having an affair
with her close friend and boss Ronnie Welborn.
They immediately bring him in for another round of questioning
and confront him with the new information.
- Ronnie, uh, comes clean.
He says that after his breakup with his wife Tiffany,
and the divorce, he was single and lonely,
Kelli was single and lonely.
They got together and they have been seeing each other
for a few years.
Ronnie says that he loves Kelli, that he sees her regularly,
even though he has Kadie living with him.
- He told investigators that he had actually been over there
about mid-day Friday, September 15th,
the day before Kelli's murder.
Seen her alive. Actually helped her move
some sort of storage chest in her garage
and that was the last time that he saw her.
- NARRATOR: Ronnie provides investigators with an alibi,
which they quickly verify.
- Investigators then, of course, uh, wanted to interview Kadie.
She was forthcoming that she did not like Kelli,
that she knew of this secret relationship.
- Kadie was asked about the confrontation.
She described it as, you know, more traumatic for her,
right, that she's just trying to figure out
what the father of her child is doing
at this other woman's house, and she gets confronted
and yelled at and pretty scared.
- NARRATOR: Like Ronnie, Kadie also insists
that she has no idea what happened to Kelli Underwood,
or why.
- While they admitted the fact that the relationship
between Kelli and Ronnie was a friction point
for their relationship,
they quickly told investigators
that that was no reason why anyone should lose their life.
In a million years, they wouldn't have wanted
that to happen to someone.
- NARRATOR: Kadie also provides investigators
with a verifiable alibi.
With no reason to hold the couple,
investigators next focus their efforts
on tracking down Ronnie's former employee, Robert Veal.
- We actually had trouble finding Robert Veal.
Uh, we believe he was trying to run from the police.
- NARRATOR: At the same time, Kelli's daughter, Kayden Graham
does some investigating of her own.
- I felt that I needed answers,
and I just needed to know, like, what happened.
So, I went to, you know, neighbors' houses.
- There are some individuals who prefer not to speak
to law enforcement, um, may have their own rough past
with law enforcement and they weren't getting
any concrete information from some of those neighbors.
So, Kayden took it upon herself,
um, to go out and talk to one of the neighbors
who had described a black male
being across the street at Kelli's house.
The neighbor actually knew the black male
because they had spent some time together in county jail.
- He only knew the nickname that he went by, um,
and he told me that he went by Dee.
- Kayden was able to pull up a Facebook photo,
to identify who Dee was as Delvin Powell,
and then she passed that information along
back to the Texas Rangers.
When they ran the information for Delvin Powell,
they found that Delvin had an outstanding warrant
for an unrelated domestic violence charge.
They found him through his girlfriend at the time.
She had been reached out to and contacted,
and ultimately, they were tracked back to a motel
in the Princeton area.
- NARRATOR: Police take Delvin Powell into custody
on the outstanding warrant for assault.
They also search his hotel room for any evidence
that might connect him to Kelli Underwood's brutal murder.
- When investigators searched the hotel room,
they found a bag and in that bag,
there were knives and there was also a container
of .22-caliber ammunition.
- The exact same caliber that was used
to kill Kelli Underwood.
Same brand. Same caliber.
- NARRATOR: Back at the station, police press Delvin Powell
about the murder of Kelli Underwood,
hoping to get a confession.
- They confronted Delvin with the fact
that he had been at the house,
and he admitted to as much.
He said that he was there helping Robert
with the work on Kelli's house, but he didn't really know Kelli.
Didn't really interact with her directly.
His story was the last time I saw her on September 16th,
she was alive.
- NARRATOR: Investigators obtain a warrant
to take DNA samples from Delvin.
They keep him in custody while they continue
their search for Robert Veal.
Then on September 28th, authorities catch a break
when an informant notifies them that Robert's truck
has been spotted outside his house.
- Texas Rangers and investigators
went to the home of Robert Veal
to talk to him about what he knew.
- NARRATOR: Authorities immediately take Robert
into custody and transport him to headquarters.
In an interrogation room, investigators press Robert
about his truck being spotted at Kelli's house
the day she was murdered.
- Robert Veal admitted, "I was doing work for her.
"Yes, I knew her. I was in her house.
"The last time I saw her was September 16th
"and, in fact, I've tried to call her
and get in touch with her since, cause she wasn't answering me."
He didn't really have a good explanation for,
"Okay, if you'd been over at her house every day,
"sometimes for multiple hours a day,
"sometimes all day doing this work,
"why didn't you ever call police when she never responded to you?
Why didn't you try to figure out what happened to her?"
He didn't have a good answer for that.
- NARRATOR: As the interview continues,
Veal's behavior becomes increasingly suspicious.
- They notice him start to manipulate his phone
underneath his chair.
They're worried that he is trying to destroy evidence
right in front of them.
- The Rangers immediately grabbed him
and seized that cell phone as he attempted
to erase information from it.
- NARRATOR: Investigators examine the remaining contents
in Robert Veal's cell phone and are surprised to find
a series of incoming text messages
from Ronnie Welborn's girlfriend, Kadie Robinson.
- Kadie is demanding Robert to call her,
asking what is going on.
Robert and Kadie didn't have any kind of prior relationship
that they should be communicating at all.
- NARRATOR: Despite their suspicions,
the text messages alone aren't enough evidence
to keep Robert Veal in custody.
Before releasing him, they take DNA samples from Robert
and continue building their case against the four suspects.
Then, while they wait for results from the crime lab,
investigators receive an unexpected call
about Kadie Robinson.
- Texas Rangers received a tip from a woman
who used to work with Kadie.
Said that she had recently had lunch with her,
and Kadie just said something kind of odd to her.
Kadie had essentially said that she was glad
that Kelli was gone.
- NARRATOR: On November 15th, investigators arrange
another interview with Kadie Robinson.
- At this point, they let her know,
"We know more than, than you think we do.
It's time to come clean."
And she ultimately gave information
that only somebody who was involved with this crime,
and planning this crime, would know.
- NARRATOR: Two months after the murder of Kelli Underwood,
Kadie Robinson has agreed to cooperate with investigators,
and immediately implicates her boyfriend, Ronnie Welborn,
as the man responsible for Kelli's death.
Kadie claims that Ronnie had hired 34-year-old
Robert Veal to commit the crime.
But she swears she had nothing to do
with the conspiracy herself.
- Kadie admitted that there was a plan,
but Kadie's take at this time was,
"I wasn't involved."
She painted the picture that these other three people
had gotten rid of Kelli.
- Texas Rangers of course brought Ronnie Welborn
right back in to discuss the latest take
on what was happening.
- It wasn't an aggressive interview by the Texas Rangers.
It was just, "We know now, we know exactly what happened,
we know more, and this is now your opportunity to come clean."
And he did.
What Ronnie tells investigators
is that he had offered Robert Veal
eight thousand dollars.
He provided Robert Veal a .22-caliber firearm
the morning of Kelli's murder.
- Robert Veal was the kinda person who,
while he was more than willing to commit a murder,
didn't wanna do it alone,
and he brought his friend,
Delvin Powell, in to, to commit the murder with him.
- NARRATOR: Based on the evidence,
detectives theorize that on the morning of September 16th,
Robert and Delvin arrived at Kelli's house,
under the guise that they were there to build her pool.
She had been upstairs in the craft room,
when they decided to come upstairs and attack her,
'cause she had no way out.
She tried to fight them off, and they shot her
and they stabbed her.
She begged for them to stop, and they looked her in the eye
as they took her life.
And then the perpetrators went downstairs.
Evidence shows they had a meal.
They smoked some cigarettes at some time,
and sort of just chilled out with this person
they have just murdered upstairs.
- NARRATOR: Asked why he'd put a hit out on Kelli,
Ronnie claims he was tired of the drama brewing
between the two women in his life.
He also insists that his girlfriend, Kadie Robinson,
had nothing to do with the murder.
- Ronnie took all of the responsibility.
He tried to distance Kadie from, um, actually participating,
even trying to claim that she really knew nothing
about the murder, which ultimately, we didn't believe.
- NARRATOR: Following his confession,
investigators arrest Ronnie and continue building
their case against Kadie Robinson.
When they receive Kadie's cell phone records,
their suspicions are confirmed.
- Ronnie was physically and emotionally involved
with two very headstrong Texas women.
Kadie, uh, had a child with him,
so about a month before the murder,
Kadie gave him an ultimatum.
- On August 18th, she tells him that he has one month,
till September 18th, to figure out a way
to get Kelli out of their lives.
- Kadie was sending texts to uh, Ronnie Welborn,
saying, "Your time's running out.
I'm gonna take the kid and go."
Ronnie thought that his only apparent way out
was to kill Kelli.
-NARRATOR: In November 2017, all four suspects
are charged with capital murder.
Kelli's friends and family are both relieved and stunned.
- I was just kind of like, no there's no way like,
you know, he was my mom's best friend.
He would never do anything to hurt us.
No person that has a heart would ever in a million years
do that to somebody that they loved.
- It was the ultimate betrayal.
It's hard to comprehend how one human being
can be so cruel to another.
- NARRATOR: In late 2019 and early 2020,
Delvin Powell and Robert Veal
are separately tried and convicted
for the murder of Kelli Underwood.
Ultimately, the forensic DNA that we received back
from our, um, Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab
was that Robert Veal's DNA was confirmed
on one of the utensils found in Kelli's kitchen
and so was Delvin Powell's DNA confirmed
on one of those utensils.
Delvin Powell's DNA was also on one of the cigarette butts.
Additionally, there was DNA found
consistent with Delvin's male DNA profile
underneath Kelli's fingernails.
- NARRATOR: Robert and Delvin are both sentenced
to life without parole.
In October 2020,
Ronnie Welborn pleads guilty to avoid his own trial.
- We were informed by his attorneys
that he was willing to do the right thing,
accept responsibility,
plead guilty, and accept a sentence of life in prison.
- NARRATOR: A few months later,
Kadie Robinson also takes a plea bargain.
- Ultimately, we determined that the right result in her case
was a plea of guilty to 30 years in prison.
- That one didn't sit well with me at all.
The driving force behind the, the murders was Kadie Robinson.
100%.
Without her constant connection with both Ronnie
and Robert Veal, my sister would still be here today.
- I do feel that, that Kadie was the mastermind,
but also Ronnie had a role in that as well
because he did provide the money
and, and, you know, the weapon that was used,
but none of it would have happened if it wasn't for Kadie.
- One of the particularly scary issues with, with this case
was the fact that you had two individuals who,
while professing their love for each other,
let that so-called "love" drive them to the point
that they were willing to take the life
of another human being to keep it going.
It's scary that there's individuals out there like this.
- It took me a lot of time to process Kelli's death.
Even now, there are times when it doesn't seem real
that she's gone.
- I want her to be remembered by bein' that, you know, that lady
that helped everybody when they needed it
or she was always happy.
She always had a smile on her face.
- The laughter that, you know, she would create
and, and the fun of being around her.
She'll be missed forever.
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