Brian Hinck followed from a distance the suburban New Orleans trial resulting in the convictions on Thursday of three people charged in the drugging death of his son-in-law, Telemundo sports reporter Adan Manzano.

That was because he and his family had simultaneously been girding themselves for another trial scheduled to start four days later: that of the motorist charged in the car crash that killed his daughter, Ashleigh Boyd, in Topeka, Kansas.

Nonetheless, Hinck on Friday said he and his wife, Nicole, have done their best to shield their granddaughter, Eleanor, from the legal fallout of the brutal reality that she lost both of her parents over a roughly 10-month period beginning in the spring of 2024.

“We don’t talk about it with her,” Hinck said on Friday referring to Eleanor, whom he and Nicole are now raising. “The only thing she knows is her mom and dad are in heaven, and she will see them one day.”

Hinck’s comments came on the front end of a four-day break between the trials prompted by the deaths of his daughter and her husband. As he put it during a telephone interview, both cases have strained his faith in aspects of the criminal justice system.

Boyd, 24, was in her sedan on 11 April 2024 when the driver of a pickup truck on the wrong side of the road hit her head-on in south-west Topeka. The Topeka elementary school teacher was pronounced dead at the scene, and her infant daughter, who was a passenger, was injured, investigators said at the time.

Authorities charged a man named Todd W Armstrong with vehicular homicide in Boyd’s death. But Hinck said he was bitterly disappointed to learn that particular charge was a misdemeanor carrying no more than one year in prison.

Hinck also alluded to how there evidently was a urine drug screen result showing metabolites in Armstrong’s system. However, according to court records, Armstrong’s attorney successfully argued that the screen result should be omitted from being introduced as evidence during the defendant’s trial, set to start on Monday.

Meanwhile, Boyd’s widower was working for Telemundo’s affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri – relatively near Topeka – when he traveled to cover Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. Manzano was found dead on 5 February 2025, days before the big game, in his hotel room in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, Louisiana.

Investigators ultimately determined Manzano had been preyed on by a group who targeted victims in New Orleans’ French Quarter with the prospect of sex – then knocked them unconscious by furtively drugging them before stealing their phones and bank cards to drain their financial accounts.

An autopsy revealed Manzano had died lying face down on a pillow, having asphyxiated after ingesting a combination of alcohol and the pharmaceutical depressant Xanax.

Late on Thursday, after a four-day trial, jurors from suburban New Orleans convicted Danette Colbert, 49, of negligent homicide, which can carry up to 10 years in prison. They also convicted both Colbert and her accomplice, Rickey White, 35, of racketeering, which can carry up to 50 years’ imprisonment.

Colbert had drawn the Kenner police’s scrutiny after using Manzano’s credit card at various local stores. Her prior arrest record had also included allegations of theft and drugging men.

A third defendant, 35-year-old Christian Anderson, testified against Colbert and White, whose sentencing was tentatively scheduled for late September. Anderson pleaded guilty to lesser charges of simple robbery and fraud in exchange for a six-year prison sentence.

Hinck on Friday said he could not help but reflect on how Colbert was out on probation in connection with theft and fraud charges when she encountered Manzano on the day of his death.

She was eventually given a 25-year prison sentence for violating her probation and being determined to be a habitual offender – but that was because of her arrest in Manzano’s death. And Manzano and Boyd’s daughter was orphaned by then.

“The disappointment in the justice system is at a peak level in our house,” Hinck remarked.

He said he loathed the idea that another trial centering on the death of one of Eleanor’s parents was fast approaching. And he said his hope was that the criminal justice system across the US improved as far as “protecting the general public” from offenders who should be subjected to more severe sentences.

Failing to do so “creates victims as young” as young as Eleanor, age three, Hinck said.

“She is an extreme victim of this,” Hinck added.