An Army Sergeant Was Convicted Of Fatally Shooting His Wife — After His Girlfriend Admitted She Gave Him The Gun

Three years after an Army soldier was shot to death in her home, her sergeant husband was convicted in her death — after his girlfriend admitted she gave him the gun he used to kill his wife.

A federal jury in Maryland on Thursday found Sgt. Maliek Kearney guilty of crossing state lines to commit domestic violence resulting in death, according to a news release from the Maryland United States Attorney's Office.

The 37-year-old NCO faces life in prison for gunning down his estranged wife, 24-year-old Pfc. Karlyn Ramirez.

Kearney’s girlfriend, Delores Delgado, 33, previously pleaded guilty to her role in the slaying.

Ramirez was assigned to Fort Meade, Maryland, and lived in her own off-base apartment, having separated from her husband four months earlier. The Army had previously issued an order prohibiting all contact between the couple, prosecutors noted.

But on August 24, 2015, Kearney showed up anyway, armed with a Taurus .357 magnum revolver. It was Delgado’s gun — and she admitted as much.

Inside Ramirez’s apartment, Kearney shot Ramirez three times: Once in the chest, and twice in the side — point-blank, prosecutors said, to muffle the sound.

Chillingly, Kearney stripped off his slain wife's pants and underwear — in an attempt to make the crime look like a rape.

He then placed the couple's 4-month-old daughter in Ramirez's lifeless arms, Delgado testified.

The next morning, cops found the baby lying next to Ramirez’s corpse.

Delgado testified against Kearney as part of a plea-bargain she accepted from prosecutors in 2017. In her plea agreement, obtained by Oxygen.com, Delgado admitted to not just providing her gun to Kearney, knowing he would use it to kill Ramirez — but also to loaning the car he used to drive to the scene.

While Kearney was away, Delgado admitted staying at his home in North Carolina, with his car and phone, to make it appear as though he never left. She also purchased and filled gas cans for him to take on the drive, so he wouldn’t have to stop for gas and expose himself to security-camera footage, she said.

After the crime, she admitted, she and another person drove to the Banana River in Florida and threw in the gun, the spent cartridge casings, the clothes Kearney wore during the killing and the key he used to enter Ramirez’s apartment.

After agreeing to cooperate, Delgado told federal prosecutors exactly where in the river she disposed of the evidence. FBI divers recovered the firearm, and forensic analysis determined that it was indeed the weapon with which Ramirez had been slain.

After the killing, Delgado testified, Kearney “said that he couldn’t believe that he just left her laying there,” according to the Baltimore Sun.

“He said that he wanted to shoot himself after he did it,” she added.

Then, she said, “he asked me why I didn’t stop him.”

Kearney's sentencing is set for November 16, with Delgado's slated for November 20.

[Photo: Karlyn Ramirez. Anne Arundel County Police Department via Facebook]