A jealousy-filled Florida man nearly got away with murdering his former fiancee's new lover - until the killer's estranged wife tipped off cops to his deadly plot after the two woman ran into each other while visiting him at a hospital, a shocking new report said.
Patrick De La Cerda, 25, was gunned down on the doorstep of his Deltona home in February 2018 after dating Jessica Devnani, who broke up with Gregory Bender in 2017 following a nearly decade-long relationship while he was still married to Daymara Sanchez.
Bender, 53, was convicted of the murder in May, but a new episode of 48 Hours: The Ring: The Murder of Patrick De La Cerda, lays out how the chance encounter in late 2017 between the two women while Bender was in the ICU unit of a Florida hospital helped crack the case.
'I was like, "what is she doing here?" and she's like, "What are you doing here?" And I told her I'm like his fiancée and I showed her the ring. And then she showed me her ring. She's like, "I'm his wife!"' Devnani recalled of seeing Sanchez.
'My heart just dropped. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock.'
In 2018, Gregory Bender, pictured, then a 50-year-old hedge fund manager fatally shot 25-year-old Patrick De La Cerda romantic rival
Pictured, Jessica Devnani and Patrick De La Cerda, who were engaged after she broke off a prior engagement with Bender after learning he was already married to another woman
Pictured: Bender and Devnani, an Orlando-based woman two decades Bender's junior who he had met online back in 2009
Pictured: De La Cerda's body after Bender shot him to death ambush-style in front of his front door
Devnani began dating Bender - who was two decades older than her - in 2009 and the two eventually became engaged despite his volatile jealousy that often escalated to verbal threats.
'I never feared what he could do to me, but I feared what he could do to other men,' Devnani said.
'It felt like we'd known each other all our lives ... he became my best friend.'
However, she dumped Bender after giving him an ultimatum to divorce his wife following the chance encounter at the hospital.
It was not clear why Bender was hospitalized but he told Devnani that his marriage was out of convenience so he and his wife could raise their son.
A month after moving on from Bender, Devnani met De La Cerda through a dating app in June 2017.
She tried tried to keep the new relationship under wraps so as to not incite Bender's rage.
'I was afraid that he would find out about our relationship,' Devnani said.
But Bender found out about Devnani and De La Cerda through Facebook.
He began messaging De La Cerda and threatening him within months of the relationship.
Soon after, Devnani said Bender would leave unnerving messages to them both, with Devnani eventually receiving a voicemail from him saying 'I'm giving instructions. And I'm going to have my plan put into action.'
After getting restraining orders against Bender, Devnani received another unexpected voicemail from him on February 27, 2018, and immediately tried to reach De La Cerda to make sure he was safe.
When she rushed over to De La Cerda's home, she found him dead in a pool of blood.
Deputies were called to the residence, where Devnani told them about her crazed ex.
However, it was Sanchez that gave investigators the ammunition they would need to arrest Bender. She told the cops about a 'murder plan' that Bender had written out, which detectives found inside the trash can in his home office.
'Once she told us about the murder plan, that gave us what we needed to get into the house to see, you know, what else was in there,' lead detective Chad Weaver of the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said of solving the crime.
Officers found the crumpled up murder plan in Bender's home office's trash can, police said, while also uncovering ammunition and a shell casing resembling that of the one's found at De La Cerda's crime scene.
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ShareDevnani was left to mourn her later lover, who proposed to her six months after meeting her and ordered a custom-made engagement ring.
'I was looking forward to getting married,' she told '48 Hours' of De La Cerda.
'We're going to have, like, the fairy-tale life... but he never got to give the ring to me.'
De La Cerda and Devnani were engaged to be married after she broke off a prior engagement with Bender upon learning he was still married to another woman
Bender, pictured, began sending threatening messages and voicemails to both Devnani and De La Cerda after learning she had moved on to be with another man
Devnani received an unexpected voicemail from Bender on February 27, 2018, pictured, and immediately tried to reach De La Cerda to make sure he was safe, only to find him dead
Cops found the murder plan while searching the trash bin, pictured, in Bender's home office
Pictured: the murder plan Bender had plotted to use against his romantic rival, De La Cerda
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