Dateline NBC The Secret (1992– ) watch online HD

Patricia Esparza is a classic example of a book that should not be judged by its cover; diminutive, attractive, soft spoken, and of course extremely literate as one would expect of a PhD, she is also an arch manipulator, indeed the word manipulative is used several times in this documentary by different people. In April 1995, she had sex with Gonzalo Ramirez, then told her boyfriend Ramirez had raped her. That was a death sentence for the father of two young daughters; he was killed in an horrific fashion.

At the time, the murder was something of a mystery, and her name first emerged when her phone number was found among the dead man's papers. She was not a suspect, and if she had told the truth about their sexual encounter or simply said they had dated, quite likely nothing would have come of it. Instead, she did her best to put the man she said was her ex-boyfriend in the frame. The man she had secretly married in Las Vegas.

When he began working on this case, the district attorney who ended up prosecuting her said he thought at first she was a victim but came to realise she was, are you ready for it? A manipulator. When eventually the lachrymosal Esparza was brought to book she received a mere six year sentence, and that was after turning down an offer of three. She even had the gall to claim the authorities would not have been able to crack the case but for her cooperation, conveniently overlooking the fact that but for her there would have been no case because there would have been no murder, a crime for which her first husband would pay the heaviest price short of execution: life without parole.