DALLAS — A bar owner has been arrested in a Dallas killing that previously resulted in the wrongful arrests of a man and woman in December 2022, according to police documents.
Bernadino Delgado Jr., 47, the owner of the Player's Bar, faces a murder charge in the shooting death of Xavier Ramon Hernandez-Hankins, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Hernandez-Hankins died early on the morning of Nov. 5, 2022, after he was shot in the head near the 4300 block of West Illinois Avenue in west Oak Cliff.
Hernandez-Hankins had been at the Player's Bar with a woman that night. As he left and was walking north on Cockrell Hill Road, a witness saw a black Chevy Silverado pickup truck pull up to Hernandez-Hankins, and then they heard one gunshot, the affidavit said.
Surveillance video showed the truck pulling up next to Hernandez-Hankins and "then suddenly driving off about 1-2 minutes after," the affidavit said.
Police learned that Delgado, who is the owner of the Player's Bar, owned the pickup truck but sold it several weeks after Hernandez-Hankins was killed, according to the affidavit.
Police also obtained phone records that showed Delgado was in the area near where Hernandez-Hankins was killed, the affidavit said.
Delgado previously faced charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful carrying of a handgun, assault, residing arrest and violation of a protective order, the affidavit said.
A Dallas couple that owns a similar truck to Delgado's was previously wrongfully arrested in the case, their attorney Chris Mulder told WFAA.
Rubi Esparza and her husband, Badilio Tovar, were initially accused of killing Hernandez-Hankins, who was dating Tovar's sister.
On the night of Nov. 5, they all met up at the Player’s Bar on West Illinois Avenue in Oak Cliff. Esparza says they didn’t know Hernandez-Hankins well. It was the second time they’d met him.
According to the warrant, Basilio’s sister later told a detective that Hernandez-Hankins got upset and left on foot. The warrant does not indicate why he’d gotten upset.
A shooting call came in at about 1 a.m. not far from the bar. Someone had shot and killed Hernandez-Hankins.
The couple says they didn’t find out until later that he’d been killed.
Basilio’s cousin, who was with them at the bar that night, works in Mulder's law office. She told Mulder about the shooting. He says he told her to just wait for police to contact them for a statement.
Neither the cousin nor the couple were contacted for their statements prior to the couple’s arrest.
The couple drives a black Silverado with a bed cover similar to the suspect's vehicle. But Mulder says the rims on their truck are different than that of the suspected shooter’s truck, which police said had chrome wheels.
In a statement earlier this month, Dallas police said, “detectives…had probable cause the suspects were involved in the murder.”
“Upon further investigation, it was determined they did not commit the crime,” the statement said. “We can confirm the paperwork has been filed for the charges to be dropped.”
