Murder for the Love of Money

Book excerpt: With the inside eight-page photo section published in black and white, the story of the 2015 capital murder of 96-year-old WW II vet Marty Knell in Texas's semi-tropical Rio Grande Valley just to rob him of the sizeable estate he and his deceased wife had spent decades building, underscores two polar opposites of the human spectrum: total depravity and unbridled heroism. For most of their lives, people like Monica Melissa Palacios Patterson, who was 47 when she committed the dirty deed, have proven to be failures once they move into their adult years after living a relatively pampered existence during their formative years. Their family members may flourish - business, politics -- but they never seem able to match their success. Instead, they leave in their wake failed business ventures, failed personal relationships. Ironically, in the end, Patterson did turn out to be successful at something. It's just that her two talents were illegal, not to mention immoral - murder and theft. As a side gig, the killer was stealing from the McAllen-based "hospice" where she served as its administrator caring for the dying, using some of the stolen money for some fun adventures. Like the time she flew to Vegas with her mother-in-law and married lover aboard the same flight, albeit seated in different rows. With two rooms booked at Caesars, life could be a blast. Then someone had to go to the Texas Rangers and blab about the murder, just because she couldn't keep her mouth shut, and Patterson could only watch as her world began to crumble. Oh, what a tangled web we weave...