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“Opportunist” Wife and Secret Lover Conspire to Kill Husband for Money and to Avoid Deportation
“Somebody wanted him dead and they wanted to make sure he was dead,” police said of the murder of Adrian Zapata on Snapped.
He seemed like the perfect man. Adrian Zapata was single, sophisticated, and even had a party penthouse in Lima, Peru for when he vacationed in the country. So, when he met 37-year-old Olga Vasquez, and brought her and her two sons to the U.S. with him in 2013, Vasquez and her children were living the American dream. But just 11 months into their marriage, the 58-year-old was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death in his bed. Despite her protestations of innocence, police had plenty of reason to suspect Vasquez wanted her husband dead.
“Adrian had confided that they weren’t being intimate — that he planned on potentially divorcing her,” James Wilson, a Westminster, California police detective, said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “If you get a divorce, you’re going back to Peru. And you’re not going to be able to stay here in the United States.”
Vasquez said she was dropping her kids off at school and running errands during her husband’s murder, and her alibi checked out, leaving police searching for the true killer and trying to figure out if Vasquez was tied to the homicide.
What happened to Adrian Zapata?
Westminster, California police discovered Adrian Zapata dead in his bed on the morning of May 22, 2014. Not only did he have blunt force trauma to his head, but he had seven stab wounds to his neck. Despite not a ton of evidence in the apartment, police did find two things of interest in the trunk of his car: a box of condoms and lingerie that did not belong to his wife, indicating Zapata might have been having an affair.
When officers spoke to Zapata’s friend, Ruth Sevilla, she confirmed that Zapata’s marriage was rocky.
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“It was a month after he brought her to the U.S., he told me, ‘We don’t sleep together no more.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean? This is not right,’” Sevilla said on Snapped.
Sevilla told police Zapata had confided in her that he’d looked at his phone records, and his wife was talking to somebody else daily. He’d also reached out to friends in Peru, and discovered Vasquez had been cheating on him when he was in the U.S., and she was in Peru.
“[She] believed that Olga was an opportunist and that the only reason why she wanted to marry Adrian was so that Adrian could bring her and her sons over to the United States,” one of Zapata’s cousins in Peru told Norma Vasquez Phan, a Westminster police detective, on Snapped.
Zapata’s family believed Vasquez wasn’t happy with her new American life, and had a lover.
“It was not what she expected,” Renzo Zapata, Adrian Zapata’s son, said on Snapped. “Coming from a penthouse in Peru, to an apartment in Westminster, California.”
What did police learn when they put Adrian Zapata's wife under surveillance after his murder?
Although she denied having an affair, police began tracking and observing Vasquez, including stationing undercover officers to watch her. Eventually, she and her kids met up with a man at a hotel, and she was even seen leaving his room in the middle of the night.
“It was obvious she was being romantic with this person,” Wilson said. “They seemed very friendly toward each other.”
The hotel identified the man as Roberto Saavedra. On March 14, 2014, Saavedra had arrived in the U.S. from Peru on a travel visa, but never returned home.
“Olga was having an affair and not only was she lying to us about it, she’s trying to make it look like Adrian was the one having an affair,” Wilson said. “Basically, to get us to not look into her.”
Police took a discarded water bottle belonging to Saavedra for DNA testing, and it returned to match the lingerie found in Zapata’s car after the murder.
“The DNA was important because it would show that the nightie and condoms were in fact planted in the trunk,” said prosecutor Janine Madera on Snapped. “It doesn’t prove it definitively, but it’s evidence that seems to suggest that.”
But it was Vasquez and Saavedra’s phone records that proved most crucial to the police investigation.
“The communication between the two seemed to be very personal — almost loving and doting,” Andrew Stowers, Westminster police detective, said on Snapped.
Police discovered both Saavedra and Vasquez were communicating frequently during her marriage, then it stopped suddenly. Officers have a theory this was when Zapata confronted Vasquez about the affair. Saavedra then began communicating with a new secret number, the location of which was traced to Vasquez’s apartment.
“It was very obvious this was a phone Olga was using that we were unaware of — that she didn’t tell us about,” Wilson said.
Saavedra’s phone location contained valuable data on his whereabouts when Adrian Zapata was murdered.
“His phone shows the night before the murder he comes to Westminster,” Wilson said. “And he’s staying just outside [Vasquez’s] apartment complex. Until about 8 a.m. Then his phone goes off for a short time.”
Saavedra and Vasquez began communicating again at 8:30 a.m., adding to the police theory that Zapata was killed between 8 and 8:30 a.m.
After DNA evidence linked Saavedra to the murder victim, police tried to arrest him, but he’d fled to Canada. After his refugee status was revoked in Canada, he was sent back to Peru, where was arrested by international officers and extradited back to the U.S. It took until March 15, 2019 — nearly five years after Adrian Zapata’s murder — for both Saavedra and Vasquez to be arrested.
In May 2021, Olga Vasquez went on trial for her husband’s murder.
“Olga snapped because she wanted to be with the person she loved: Roberto,” Vasquez Phan said.
A jury found her guilty of first-degree murder after only two and a half hours of deliberating. She appealed her sentence of 25 years to life in prison, but it was rejected in November 2022. She will be 54 years old when she is eligible for parole in 2031.
“She does the murder because she wants to stay in the United States, and she also has a financial gain of his life insurance policy and his 401K, and the condo in Peru,” Wilson said.
In July 2023, a jury found Saavedra guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Roberto was a puppet, OK?” said Adrian Zapata’s ex-wife, Annie Villegas, on Snapped. “A man who, being in love, believed what Olga told him. He was manipulated. And in the end, a man who I think, was not really sorry for what he had done.”
Watch all-new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.
