Jealous Erika Sandoval hid in a closet and waited to strike when her ex-husband least expected it and was at his most vulnerable leaving devastation and a fatherless child in the aftermath
It started as a whirlwind romance. Daniel Green was a police officer in Exeter, California. Erika Sandoval was an aspiring nurse. Less than a year after they met, they surprised their loved ones by getting married in Las Vegas in 2010. Then the couple started their lives together.
Daniel had always wanted to be a police officer and loved his job. He was popular in the community and was proud to make a difference. When he wasn’t working, he liked to be out on his motorbike. But it wasn’t long before Daniel was confiding to family, including his twin brother Matthew, that Sandoval had a temper. She would cut up furniture with blades when she got angry and Daniel admitted she could make him cry.
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Things came to a head when neighbours saw them having an argument in which Sandoval was getting physical and taunting Daniel to fight back. Daniel asked the neighbour to call 911. They were both arrested for domestic abuse, although no charges were made.
The couple filed for divorce and their short marriage came to an end in January2012, but the pair would sometimes slip back into old ways. Just months later, Sandoval announced she was pregnant with Daniel’s baby. They decided to try and make their relationship work.
Their son was born in January 2013 and Daniel was a devoted dad, but things got worse with Sandoval. One day he was out on his motorbike and found he couldn’t stop at a red traffic light. He realised his brake wires had been cut. He also woke up one night to find Sandoval holding a gun to his head, threatening to kill him if he ever cheated or left her.
Daniel asked Sandoval to move out and she took their son. A battle began, with Sandoval very reluctant to share custody. Daniel started to record their arguments to avoid being accused of domestic violence and there were some nasty text messages from both sides. Yet the toxic couple would still have sex. And Sandoval still wanted to be with Daniel.
In January 2015, their son turned two and they celebrated together without arguing. But a few weeks later, Daniel, 33, posted a picture on Instagram of his new younger girlfriend, Brenda, 20. The caption said, “super fun time”. It appeared that Daniel was finally moving on.
A week later, on 6 February, Daniel didn’t show up for work. It was extremely out of character,so his colleagues were worried. Working in law enforcement had its risks. Had one of his cases come back to haunt him?
Grim discovery
It appeared that he’d dropped his son with Sandoval’s mum and had been to the gym that morning as usual. When officers went to his home in Goshen, they were horrified to discover a crime scene and their colleague dead.
Daniel had been attacked while he’d been sitting on his toilet and he was slumped in the bathtub, tangled in a shower curtain, where he’d stumbled back. He’d been shot four times, in the hand, chest, neck and the fatal shot was to the forehead. There were a few items missing, as though someone had tried to make it look like a robbery, but due to the direct and deliberate bullet to the forehead, it appeared like it was a professional hit.
Neighbours hadn’t heard the shots and no one had seen the killer. Sandoval rushed to the scene upset and said she hadn’t seen Daniel, but a neighbour’s surveillance footage showed she’d been at the house that day.
The police brought Sandoval in for questioning and when she was confronted with the surveillance video, she confessed to killing Daniel with his own gun. She told officers she had dumped some of the items from the house and the weapon on a local highway – where they found the gun.
Daniel’s family were left with the knowledge that Sandoval had been the killer and were desperate for more answers, but it took five long years before the trial started in October 2019.
The prosecution said it was no coincidence that a week after Daniel posted a picture of his new girlfriend, he was dead. They pointed out that a yellow sticky note was found in Sandoval’s handbag that had Brenda’s name and birthyear on it, and after the photo was posted, she called and text Daniel over 160 times in the days before the killing.
Shocking revelations
Sandoval’s defence claimed Daniel was abusive. When Sandoval took the stand, she alleged that she’d suffered abuse for years. She said Daniel had said he could kill her and make it look like an accident, but she hadn’t reported it because he was a cop. She said she only kept having sex with him to keep him happy.
She testified that on 6 February, the day of the killing, she went to his house and broke in through a window to get some things belonging to their son. She admitted taking two of Daniel’s guns from the open safe and said she also found two photos depicting child pornography. It was a shocking revelation as she hadn’t mentioned it in any past statements. Sandoval said she left the photos there, but they were never found.
Sandoval told the court that she heard Daniel’s truck pull up so she hid in a closet with the guns. She said she became obsessed with the thought that Daniel could abuse their son. When he entered the home and went to the bathroom, she said she “snapped” and shot him.
The prosecution said Sandoval had made up the story about finding photos and had gone to the house fuelled with jealousy. But the jury were deadlocked and it was declared a mistrial.
The second trial started in February2025 – ten years after the murder. Sandoval, now 38, was back in front of a jury. They heard how she had cut the wires to Daniel’s motorbike and watched videos and listened to audio files of Daniel being verbally and physically attacked by his ex-wife – once while holding his son. It built the picture of a woman who’d decided if she couldn’t have Daniel, no one would.
There was huge relief from Daniel’s family when she was found guilty of first-degree murder.
At the sentencing, Daniel’s twin brother Matthew shared his grief and said Sandoval was a danger to the public. It was an eerie scene with Matthew looking exactly like the victim.
“We didn’t lose Daniel, he was taken. He was murdered by Erika for the most repulsive reasons,” he said. “Her narcissistic and short-sided decisions will affect us for the rest of our lives.”
Matthew and his wife JoAnna revealed they were raising Daniel’s son, who was now 12.
“He has wrestled with questions that no child should ever have to ask,” said JoAnna. “When he was only five years old, he looked up at me and said, ‘If she loved me, why would she murder my father?’”
Sandoval was sentenced to 50 years to life with the chance of parole after 12 years. Finally, after 10 years, there was justice for Daniel.
Sandoval was never going to let him start a life without her.