John Hillrich’s workday ended in violence on what had seemed like a routine Monday, when he was shot in the parking lot outside his California office.
The 39-year-old advertising executive was discovered unconscious next to his BMW, with the car door still open. Investigators found no obvious evidence of a struggle, and his personal belongings remained with him.
“What investigators want to know at this point,” San Bernardino Sun reporter Melissa Pinion said in an Aug. 30 episode of Oxygen’s Snapped, “is how does this man from an idyllic family, with a great job and two beautiful children, wind up dead in a garage?”
Who Was John Hillrich?
John met Nikki Hillrich while they were in college, where she was pursuing a nursing degree. The two married after graduation and later had two children together. As John’s professional life took off, Nikki devoted herself to raising their family as a stay-at-home mother.
“By all accounts,” noted Pinion, “they were the perfect American family.”
But a decade later, Nikki and John grew apart and separated.
“It was really hard for her to accept,” noted John’s sister Megan Gilfillan. “She wanted to stay together.”
On the day of John’s murder in August 2011, the estranged couple was scheduled for a family counseling session. In fact, by the time John left work, Nikki was already waiting at the appointment.
But police found a lead in the garage surveillance video.
The footage showed two men in a Ford F-250 drive slowly past John’s car and park. As John approached his vehicle, one man got out and walked toward him. Moments later, John fell to the ground, and the truck sped away.
A witness captured part of the truck’s license plate number, which led to its registered owner Kristen Morales. Kristen told police she had loaned the truck to her ex-boyfriend David Olvera, who asked her not to tell anyone. She also identified the passenger as David’s friend, Emilio Saldana.
“It appeared to us that David and Emilio conspired together to commit this crime,” said former Ontario Police Detective Alfredo Parra, Jr. “We didn’t know if David was the shooter or if Emilio was, but we knew that they were both together.”
The men were arrested that day.
“We found suitcases and personal belongings inside David’s vehicle,” said former Ontario Police Detective Gary Naranjo. “It was apparent that they were…getting ready to flee to Mexico.”
Nikki Hillrich’s Romance with David Olvera Reveals a Murder Motive
With David and Emilio refusing to talk, police investigated John’s personal life.
They learned his marriage fell apart in 2006 when a promotion at work required him to relocate. Nikki wasn’t thrilled, but John rented an apartment close to his job and came home on weekends.
Distance ultimately drove them apart and Nikki’s parents suspected that John was having an affair.
“The first step was placing a tracker on John’s car,” Pinion said. “The next step was hiring a private investigator who determined that John was staying with a woman. It was uncovered that he was having an affair with her.”
After Nikki and John separated, she got a job at a nursing facility, where she began dating David, who worked in the kitchen.
“She’s initially described as a Christian, soccer mom type,” said Naranjo. “But with David Olvera, I think she found some excitement in the fact that he was a tattoo artist and so he was exposing her to a different world that she had never experienced.”
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When John discovered that David had a criminal past, he told Nikki to not bring him around their children. However, a few days before his murder, she did so, and John threatened to take full custody.
“That is motive for Nikki to eliminate John from her life,” said Parra, Jr., “so that she can live the way she wants to with David and her children.”
Post-It Notes Unravels Nikki Hillrich’s Murder-for-Hire Plot
According to coworkers, David was in love with Nikki and willing to do anything to please her. Nikki, in turn, made no secret of her hatred for John, or her wish for him to die.
“She had made threats to get rid of John so many times,” said Pinion, “that apparently, Nikki’s coworker’s boyfriend offered to do the job for her.”
The $10,000 offer was a ruse, intended to expose Nikki to police. But according to Naranjo, “Nikki said she has David to take care of it.”
When detectives questioned Nikki, she insisted she had no issues with John and that she was single.
But when the subject of David came up, she got nervous. And when investigators shared plans to search her home and car, Nikki abruptly asked to call her mother.
On the recorded call, Nikki urged her mother to retrieve her purse from her car at any cost—even if it meant breaking a window.
“You could sense the urgency,” said Naranjo. “There was something about that purse that she did not want us to come across.”
It all made sense when police looked inside Nikki’s purse.
Inside were Post-It notes on which Nikki begged David to kill John, even writing, “John has to die today.”
Other notes apologized to John, thanked David and promised, “If you do this, I will give you a baby.”
Nikki had also done her homework.
“She basically was ready for the detectives to notify her,” said Naranjo, “and she already had pre-written questions to ask.”
After Nikki’s arrest, police found more evidence on her phone: Photos of the parking garage and instructions for David for how to disable John’s key fob if he panicked and triggered the alarm.
Authorities believed David initially planned to kill John by himself, but got cold feet and recruited Emilio, who agreed to pull the trigger. They also found another possible motive: Nikki was the beneficiary to John’s life insurance policy.
“She was going to be in control of $2 million dollars,” noted prosecutor Michele Elizalde-Daly. “And her home, and her children and not have to deal with John trying to control her.”
In March 2015, Nikki, David and Emilio went on trial for murder.
In court, Nikki claimed she wrote those sticky notes to vent about John on the advice of a spiritualist—which the woman denied on the stand.
The jury convicted Nikki, David and Emilio of murder. The men were sentenced to 51 years to life, while Nikki received 26 years to life.
