The True Story of The Murderous DeFrancisco Sisters

Oscar Velazquez had been dating Regina for roughly 3 weeks before the murder occurred. Regina called him to her apartment, where she, her sister, and their friend Veronica Garcia were waiting. Veronica had provided Regina with a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol to rob her boyfriend at gunpoint. 

However, we can assume that the plan went wrong at some point since instead of robbing Regina’s boyfriend, Margaret shot him in the back of the head.

They looted whatever cash he had and then used his car to transport the body to a vacant parking lot where they consequently set it to fire. It is reported that they also tried to sell his vehicle, a Camaro Z28, but failed to do so and were forced to set it on fire too.

A passerby immediately called 911 when he saw a body in the fire. The police’s suspicions immediately were focused on the sisters, and they were further ironed when the sisters gave confused and inconsistent testimonies. Realizing that the game was up, they fled, and thus the cat and mouse chase began.

The sisters parted ways at some point during their run from justice. Regina was arrested in Rockford, Illinois on March 22, 2002, where she was holed up with some relatives. Margaret was arrested some months afterwards on October 18, 2002, in Dallas, Texas. Ironically enough, she was much less careful than her sister and was initially caught speeding before being identified as the prime suspect in the murder case. 

The sisters pleaded not guilty and the trial ensued. Throughout the trial the sisters had each other’s back, even after spending two years apart and seemingly parting ways. They maintained the story that Regina’s boyfriend Oscar had a violent temperament, and he was holding her at gunpoint before Margaret shot him to protect her. 

The sisters’ friend Veronica sided with the prosecution in return for a lenient sentence and testified that the sisters had conned Oscar out of a thousand dollars and planned to get even more out of him. However, what had been initially planned as a robbery went drastically wrong as the situation escalated.

Regina is currently serving a 35 year sentence and Margaret is serving a 46 year sentence at the Logan Correctional Center. There is still no established motive for the murder and unanswered questions surrounding the case remain. 

Why did the sisters kill Oscar, if they only wanted to rob him? The possibility that he threatened them or tried to fight back is unlikely since he was shot in the back of the head. The sisters also appeared to not show remorse for the crime, burning his body and then trying to sell his car. 

These point to two possibilities: Either the sisters hated Oscar so much that they felt no remorse for killing him or they did not feel remorse because they were psychopaths, mentally incapable of feeling normal emotions. The truth of what transpired in that apartment is still unclear. 

The sisters likely parted ways to protect themselves and allowing the other to remain safe if one was caught. Even after spending a long time apart, they stuck to a narrative that protected them both instead of shifting the blame to each other. Regina could have seen a reduced sentence if she testified that Margaret acted alone and that they had only planned to rob Oscar, but she did not do so and stood steadfast with her sister.

The most probable theory is that Margaret either accidentally or out of spite shot Oscar, because there is no other motive to justify the murder. They could have just as easily incapacitated or drugged him if they merely wished to rob him. 

Since there was no further investigation into the case and the sisters stubbornly held onto their story of Oscar threatening Regina, we may never know the whole truth of the matter. More than 20 years later, it is still shocking and hard to believe that young teenagers could murder another human being without a hint of remorse, dispose of his body and then simply run away like nothing had happened.