Woman Claims Boyfriend Encouraged Her to Fatally Shoot Man She'd Cheated on Him With: Police

After pleading guilty to the 2022 shooting, McKayla C. Archambaeu, 25, purportedly changed her story, telling investigators that it was her boyfriend who encouraged her to pull the trigger because she had cheated on him with the victim a week before.

As of Monday, Cordero T. Cervantes, 35, is facing a second-degree murder charge for the June 2022 death of Taylor Hawkins, 31. This after Archambaeu had pleaded guilty to all of the charges she was hit with on October 2022, including first- and second-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with evidence, and tampering with a motor vehicle.

Cervantes had been charged with tampering with evidence and tampering with a motor vehicle at the same time as Archambeau for his involvement in the incidents leading up to Hawkins' death, but only she had been charged with murder.

His murder charge would take three more years to come. Unfortunately for law enforcement, Cervantes was released on probation after the lesser charges in 2022. He is not currently in custody and a warrant has been put out for his arrest.

The story starts in a Platte City home in October 2022 when police responded to a report of a rural shooting. At the time, police said they arrived to find Hawkins had been fatally shot behind a barn on the property.

Initially, police asked the public's assistance in tracking down both Archambeau and Cervantes, stating that they were believed to be in a relationship and were both labeled "armed and dangerous," after a witness reportedly told them that it was Archambeau who shot Hawkins.

In the years since the initial arrests and round of charges, police said that a witness offered additional details of the events that occurred before the shooting which began to change the narrative they believed they were working with. The witness said that the only people present that day were himself, Hawkins, Archambeau, and Cervantes.

According to this witness, as detailed by Law&Crime, he was helping Hawkins unload boxes at the residence when Hawkins and Cervantes began to argue. As things escalated, the two men went behind the barn with Archambeau to hash it out, per the statement.

The witness said he heard one final thing from Hawkins before his death: "No, why'd you do it?" Just before this, a single shot rang out, the witness told police, after which Cervantes appeared from behind the barn "with a smirk on his face," according to the witness statement. Upon seeing it, the witness told police he ran for his life.

As the investigation continued to unfold, with Archambeau charged with the actual shooting, police came to the determination that Archambeau and Hawkins had had sex together approximately a week before the fatal shooting, per a probable cause affidavit cited by multiple sources, including Law&Crime, KCTV, and KMBC.

It is their belief that Hawkins came under the impression that this physical intimacy was an indication that Archambeau was going to leave Cervantes to be in a committed relationship with her. Investigators described the relationship between Archambeau and Cervantes as on-again, off-again, with Archambeau allegedly stepping out often to hook up with ex-boyfriends, per the court filings.

Cervantes' take on the whole situation, investigators now believe, was much darker. After pleading guilty, Archambeau opened up more about the lead-up to Hawkins' death, telling them that it was Cervantes encouraging her to shoot Hawkins. She told them, per the affidavit, that Cervantes told her that Hawkins "needs to go."

According to investigators, Archambeau had maintained that she was the sole shooter and the only one responsible for Hawkins' death until September of this year, a month after she'd pleaded guilty to the charges brought against her.

Now, she claims, per the affidavit, that Cervantes "wanted me to be the one to kill Taylor because I was the one that had slept with him ... He was mad and made me kill him."

She told investigators that the shooting was actually a fallback plan after their initial plan failed to work. At first, per the probable cause affidavit, Archambeau said she and Cervantes were going to try and convince Hawkins to kill himself. The alleged plan was for Archambeau to leave a gun out in easy reach so that Cervantes could pick it up and hand it to Hawkins.

But, she allegedly told authorities, she did not leave the gun as planned. She said that when Cervantes saw that the gun wasn't there, he looked at her with "such rage in his eyes," per the affidavit, which she interpreted as him directing her to shoot Hawkins.

She told police that she shot Hawkins and when he began to run, Cervantes shouted for her to "finish him."

Additionally, when she was asked if Cervantes was ever abusive toward her, Archambeau allegedly said that she had come to believe that he was in the years since the shooting. According to the affidavit, she said that Cervantes would hit her in bed while she was sleeping, but he had always blamed it on nightmares. However, she said that she noticed a pattern that the nightmare assaults only seemed to happen on nights after they had argued.

Both Cervantes and Archambeau had fled the state in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, ultimately being apprehended in Arkansas. KCTV details that they allegedly left the site of the shooting separately before reconnecting. Investigators determined that they had gotten rid of their electronic devices and Archambeau allegedly threw the gun into a river in Illinois, per the outlet.

They purportedly printed directions to Spruce Pine, North Carolina and allegedly made it as far as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when they heard that they were wanted fugitives back in Missouri. At that point, police said they began to make their way back when they were ultimately arrested in Carlisle, Arkansas.

In the press release issued on Tuesday, Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd called Hawkins' death "a brutal and senseless killing." He went on to state, "We allege this defendant played a direct role in the death of another man, and then fled the state to avoid justice. Platte County detectives and their law enforcement partners have worked tirelessly to allow us to bring these charges."

Anyone with any information that could lead to Cervantes' arrest is encouraged to report it to the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.