Kriti Mehrotra
On August 24, 2015, 24-year-old Army Private Karlyn Ramirez was shot dead inside her off-station home in Severn, Maryland, leaving her family, friends and loved ones devastated. As explored in NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Alibi,’ the intelligence specialist was found with her 4-month-old daughter in her arms the following morning, but the baby was thankfully unharmed. It took federal officials a while to uncover the truth behind the matter, with phone records and location history ultimately providing them with a breakthrough in the case, which led to the arrest of Dolores Delgado.
Dolores Delgado and Maliek Kearney Were Personally Involved For Years
Dolores Delgado served as an army officer until her discharge in the early 2010s. It was during her active service in Kuwait that she first met fellow soldier Maliek Kearney. They soon get to know one another before entering into a physical relationship. According to the show, they were intimately involved on and off for years, largely without a long-term commitment, only to rekindle their bond around the mid-2010s. In other words, as per the episode, Sergeant Maliek ended up developing a connection with former officer Dolores while already building a life with Private Karlyn Ramirez. After all, not only did they welcome a daughter named Cataleya Vail Ramirez into this world on April 23, 2015, but they also tied the knot in a cozy, intimate ceremony in July of the same year.
He was stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, at the time, whereas his wife was at Fort Meade, Maryland, and his longtime friend-turned-girlfriend had settled down in Cocoa, Florida. Maliek was hence navigating two long-distance relationships, but he maintained his union with Karlyn was without affairs and issues when questioned by authorities the day after her demise. He asserted he had no idea she was planning on leaving him, despite them being newlyweds, before agreeing to fully cooperate with the FBI by giving DNA samples, his cell phone, and an alibi. He claimed he was in his apartment the entire time, with his cell phone data as well as Netflix use essentially corroborating the same, that is, until a detailed cell record came to light.
Dolores Delgado Was Maliek Kearney’s Accomplice in His Wife’s Murder
It was in early 2016 when detectives noticed that Maliek’s cell phone history showed signs of him having what investigators later identified as an extramarital relationship with Dolores, who was in South Carolina at the time of the incident. This obviously led them to question if he had lied about anything else, all the while also wondering why he would not admit to the liaison if the other woman could back his whereabouts. It turned out that Dolores was indeed in Maliek’s apartment the entire night, driving investigators to travel to Florida to question her in March — she too seemed very cooperative at first.
According to records, Dolores claimed her boyfriend went to bed early on the fateful evening and had remained there, whereas she spent most of the night watching television on the couch. However, as investigators looked further into her, they discovered she had lied to them about having limited knowledge of guns, as she had purchased a weapon just around peak summer 2015. They even found text messages between her and Maliek discussing the miles on her car, gas usage, as well as much more — all of which had reportedly been deleted from his cell phone.
Detectives also noticed that, after Maliek was transferred to San Antonio, Texas, to be closer to his daughter, who was in the custody of her maternal grandmother, Dolores, moved to the city as well. They were consequently arrested in September 2016, leading to an ex-boyfriend of the former army officer coming forward to reveal he believes he had disposed of evidence of the crime. He stated he was hanging out with her one day, not long after the incident, when she took him to a pier, where they burned some male clothes as well as a sneaker before getting rid of a revolver.
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Dolores Delgado is Serving Her Sentence in a Federal Prison
The statements made by Dolores’ ex-boyfriend sparked efforts by a dive team to recover any form of concrete evidence in Merritt Island, Florida, just for them to find pieces of a handgun. Dolores was hence deemed responsible as an accomplice, especially as the partial serial number recovered from the gun matched the weapon she had purchased and the ballistics from the crime scene. Officials hypothesized she had not only provided her boyfriend with her car for the 15-hour round trip to murder his wife but also stayed at his place to use his devices for an alibi.
In the end, Dolores confessed, telling detectives Maliek had made it clear that if Karlyn didn’t reconcile and drop the idea of leaving him upon learning of his infedility, he would kill her. She even revealed that she had purchased gas cans for his round-trip from South Carolina to Maryland and back to South Carolina at his behest, so that he could avoid the risk of being seen at any gas station. She additionally confirmed that she tried to create his alibi by staying at his apartment and using his devices, before later disposing of the evidence, including his set of keys to his estranged wife’s townhouse.
Dolores eventually pleaded guilty to one federal count of interstate travel to commit domestic violence resulting in death in August 2017, in exchange for her damning testimony against Maliek. Therefore, on September 7, 2018, the former army officer was sentenced to 204 months (17 years) in federal prison with credit for time served, followed by five years of supervised release. So, today, at the age of 40, Dolores is incarcerated at the administrative-Security Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is expected to remain until at least April 1, 2030.
