HAYWARD — Retired homicide detective Joe Kenda was going through the motions, describing for his TV audience how murders are solved through a meticulous, step-by-step review of physical evidence.

It was Dec. 9, 2019, the year that Kenda’s show, Homicide Hunter, aired its ninth and final season. Over in Hayward, one viewer allegedly rocked back and forth in his seat, nervously. His name was Emmanuel Padilla-Maciel , and at the time he was a 19-year-old known to the woman alone in her living room with him as a “laid back, chill type of person.”

She asked him what was causing him to behave so uncharacteristically. What followed, according to her court testimony, was a chilling confession to a homicide that occurred just two days earlier in the same city where they were watching TV. By coi

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