While according to multiple sources, including family members, there’s was not a marriage of total bliss, they were, after all, both working professions that were pulled in many directions. Husband Bruce Beresford-Redman, age 38, in addition to a number of publicly successful television productions also, according to a relative, also had a non-public secret, an alleged relationship with a female coworker that has been described as infidelity.

Like so many secrets, especially in Hollywood, in professional sports and in just everyday life, the offended party or spouse many times becomes aware of the allegations of infidelity and then, like millions of women and men before her, decide what she will do about it. Monica and Bruce had two children that lived with them, that counted on them for the same things that most children count on their parents, love, attention, care, and, hopefully a stable home environment that provides an example of how a couple works together for the good of the family.

According to sources, the Beresford-Redman marriage was already on rocky ground with the two parents having discussed divorce at least once. When news of her husband’s affair came to her, Monica made a decision. She could have broken down emotionally, ran to family members, challenged her husband for his alleged actions, etc. In her case Monica, originally from Rio de Janeiro, owned and operated a successful bar and restaurant in the LA area known as Zabumba Bar & Restaurant, a Brazilian eatery where she allegedly met her husband to be. She had faced both personal and professional conflict and challenge on a number of occasions since opening the bar with her sister Carla Burgos 16-years ago. She apparently knew what she must do.

Monica is alleged to have cleaned out the bank accounts to which her husband would have had joint access, grabbed their two children, and headed to Hawaii, perhaps to think things out.

She was subsequently contacted by her husband who told her he had made a mistake and wanted to work things out between them. It was then that Monica agreed to fly to Cancun with the children to meet and talk with Bruce. Like any man, he had his work cut out for him as he now needed to explain how, why, and with whom he had broken his marriage vows, a story that can be hard to sell for some.

The Critical Time Line

Now, as far as investigators are concerned, the time line becomes critical. The authorities need to determine exactly when the four family members arrived at the upscale Mexican hotel. While the past few year have seen crime and murder increase drastically along the U.S. Mexican border, Mexican officials have worked hard to keep the rich tourist areas, like Cancun, as crime free as possible, this by use of private security guards, a high presence of police, and by keeping the warring drug cartels out of that area as much as possible. After all, it is U.S. and other foreign tourists, and their dollars that keep Cancun afloat so to speak.

While the Beresford-Redman’s may have wanted to discuss reconciliation, by many reports this did not happen, at least successfully.

By some reports Bruce reported that his wife left on a shopping trip with friends a week ago Sunday and never returned, but then there’s the eyewitness report that Monica was seen returning to resort and her room on that same evening.

A second report placed Monica and Bruce arguing outside of their hotel room that same evening, with Monica entering the room alone at 8:30 PM.

Fast forward to 6AM Monday morning and a hotel guest in an adjoining room allegedly hears a commotion coming from the Beresford-Redman. Concerned by what was heard, the guest notified hotel security that the guest had heard “a woman screaming for help” from within that same room, this accompanied by the sound of furniture being moved, or thrown. A hotel employee called the Beresford-Redman room to inquire about the scream for help and other loud noises emanating from the room. A man answered from the room and said “everything was fine” but what about the woman’s scream, and what about Monica?

According to one media source, Bruce took their two children and flew back to Los Angeles before returning to Cancun alone and reporting that his wife was missing. It appears that Bruce’s accounting for his time and that accounting by provided by witnesses is at odds.

What we know is that Monica’s battered, bruised and nude body was found last Wednesday in the hotel sewer system. She was scratched, apparently strangled, and she had a significant blow to her right temple. Whether that blow was inflicted by her suspected assailant or the result of hitting her head when dropped into the sewer is, like so many other questions, still to be answered by the local Mexican Medical Examiner.

In such cases the surviving spouse is always a person of interest if not the subject of the now murder investigation. “Means, motive and opportunity” are but three of the critical questions to be answered by investigators. If Bruce sticks to his story that she simply disappeared in a well guarded, well secured resort hotel, it will be up to the authorities to first determine Monica’s exact cause and method of death, and then, of course, “who did it.”

Forensics will play an important part in this case. Since police believe that Monica was murdered in one place with her body disposed of at another location, we have three potential crime scenes: the location where she was killed, the means used to transport her body to the sewer, and the sewer itself. Investigators will look for evidence of an assault on the victim in her apartment, noting witnesses appear to place her in a struggle with someone at that location. Then they will interview yet other witnesses who might have seen someone come and go from the believed murder scene, or someone transporting a possible body away from the apartment or dropping one into the sewer.

Crime Scene Investigators will “hopefully” carefully go over every inch of the potential crime scenes, looking for evidence of a fight, of murder, and for evidence that could link Monica’s killer to her death. As they were husband and wife, the Beresford-Redmans would share many things, to include linking physical evidence that could be explained away due to their relationship and both being in the suspected murder scene. The missing clothes of Monica and all clothing worn by Bruce in Mexico will need be located, but some could have been destroyed or taken away, like back to America.

The autopsy could take days or even weeks and the processing of potential physical evidence, the review of surveillance camera film, and the interview of witnesses could take much longer. Meantime Bruce has obtained a high profile Mexican lawyer to help him face the potential charges that could be laid against him and his children are now in the custody of his deceased wife’s sister in America.

Means, Motive and Opportunity

Who, investigators must determine, had the means, the motive and the opportunity to commit this terrible crime. Without evidence of robbery or rape, they may believe that this was a crime of passion, emotion, anger, frustration and rage, all emotions that could point the finger at Bruce. But at this time there are many unknowns to be determined and the all so critical time line must be completed to allow investigators to determine who was with the victim when she died, and the whereabouts of the current lone person of interest, the husband. And meantime two remaining totally innocent victims, the children of this couple, well they must eventually face the death of their mother and the role, if any, that their father played in their mother’s death. It’s hard to grow up…