Mistress reveals how Army sergeant allegedly plotted wife's murder
BALTIMORE — For the second day, the mistress of an Army sergeant charged in the death of his estranged wife testified about the plot to kill the Fort Meade soldier, CBS Baltimore reports. "I kinda figured they'd be knocking on my door at some point in time," Dolores Delgado said.
Police eventually arrested her and Sgt. Maliek Kearney more than a year after the killing of Pfc. Karlyn Ramirez in Anne Arundel County.
Delgado, at times, wept on the witness stand and described her restlessness and fear of Kearney after the murder.
"I was having nightmares that he was choking me or he would hurt me in some way… I was having nightmares about getting arrested," she said.
Delgado first met Kearney while they were serving in Iraq in 2007. She previously testified that she provided Kearney with the gun used in the murder and allowed Kearney to drive her car to Severn.
"I lied to give him an alibi so he wouldn't get into trouble," she told jurors.
The victim, Ramirez, was found holding her infant daughter. The child was unharmed.
"If he couldn't have his family back together, no man was going to raise his daughter. He was," said Delgado.
Delgado testified that she was upset about Kearney cozying up to Ramirez's family after the killing.
"He was visiting his dead wife's grave. Her family was welcoming him in, and I was not comfortable with that happening—the family not knowing who he was," she said. "I was upset he was playing this role of 'poor him, a widower' and letting her family comfort him. They should've been the ones being comforted."
Prosecutors went through her phone messages and screen captures before and after the killing. They showed jurors one meme she sent Kearney just days before the murder. It read, "Remember if we get caught, you are deaf and I don't speak English."
This is the meme Dolores Delgado told jurors she sent her lover—Army Sgt. Maliek Kearney—just days before prosecutors believe he murdered his wife in Severn with Delgado’s assistance @wjz pic.twitter.com/YoytNCFqXN
— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) July 19, 2018
She said she sat on Kearney's sofa in South Carolina while he carried out the crime in Maryland and went through his phone, becoming angry after finding pictures of other women.
She testified their sexual relationship continued until their arrests in Texas.
Describing the time she says Kearney committed the killings, Delgado said, "I realized something bad had happened, and I should have done something about it."
Delgado has already reached a plea deal with the government for her role in Ramirez's death.
Kearney maintains his innocence. His lawyers have yet to cross examine Delgado. That is expected to happen when the trial resumes with her on the stand on July 30.