CRIME HUNTER: Lesbian love triangle climaxed in teen’s murder

Homicide investigators began peeling back the layers of the onions, and were stunned when they untangled her complicated web of love and sex

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Published Apr 25, 2026  •  Last updated 25 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

DEADLY LOVE TRIANGLE: Devon Guzman.

The Lehigh Valley was once the throbbing muscle of American heavy industry.

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Hometown proud, the Bethlehem Steel mills were the second largest in the world, employing tens of thousands of workers and bringing immense prosperity to the area.

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But by the late 20th century, Bethlehem Steel — battered by cheap Asian Steel — was kaput. Its demise threw workers out of work en masse and was often cited as an example of American industrial decline.

Stunning vistas, depressed economy

These days, the Lehigh Valley metro area, which includes Allentown, Easton and Bethlehem, remains the third biggest metro area in Pennsylvania. The surrounding area offers stunning hilly vistas and roiling rivers and streams.

LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP: Devon Guzman, left, and Kealy Renner.

It was away from the city where the body of Devon Guzman, 19, was found on June 15, 2002, after being reported missing in the parking lot. She was dead in the backseat of her compact car. Cops noticed a four-inch gash through her neck.

At first, detectives put the horror down to suicide. But upon further investigation, that notion was torpedoed and cops were calling her death a murder. Someone had made it look like a suicide and they were almost certainly her killer.

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A ‘perpetually happy person’

Her uncle, Brian Otto, described her as a “perpetually happy” person who “didn’t have any enemies” and “always put her friends and family before herself.”

Homicide investigations typically zero in on a victim’s personal life, family, friends, lovers, husbands, and wives. Devon Guzman’s love life was, well, complicated.

Renner and Guzman before the tragedy.

The “vibrant” young woman had come out to her parents as bisexual and they were cool with it.

Her mom, Melody Guzman, said several years before the killers were tried: “I don’t miss her any less today than the day I lost her. I have to stay strong for her and my son. … I believe in an eye for an eye … and I believe they will get what’s coming to them through the justice system.”

Complicated relationships

Homicide investigators began peeling back the layers of the onion and were stunned when they untangled her complicated web of love and sex.

Devon Guzman lived in a lesbian relationship with her longtime girlfriend Keary Renner in nearby Forks Township, Pennsylvania. The pair lived in an apartment over the bar and the watering hole’s habitues claimed they heard loud arguments coming from upstairs. Several times, they went up to check and see if everything was alright.

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SEX TRYSTS: Gal pal on the side, Michelle Hetzel and Devon Guzman.

There was more.

Guzman was also engaged in a clandestine affair with a married woman named Michelle Hetzel, 20. Her hubby, Brandon Bloss, didn’t know about the clandestine trysts. He seemed oblivious when Michelle and Devon went on a romantic beach vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

According to reports, the two women had discussed marriage. But even though Hetzel remained married to Bloss, she was upset that Guzman continued her torrid affair with Renner.

Bitter clash over Keary

Matters came to a head on June 14, 2002, when Devon and Hetzel bitterly clashed over Keary. Then, when Guzman returned her to the apartment she shared with Renner, the two lovers got into a physical fight over Hetzel. The victim fled and drove to Hetzel’s house.

She did not return.

How cool was Brandon Bloss, 26, about his wife having a sexual affair with another woman?

What Devon Guzman didn’t know was that sinister machinations were afoot. Hetzel, her lover on the side, decided that the young woman had to go and went so far as to contact a man who later told cops he had been offered cash to kill Guzman.

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And what about her husband? How cool was Brandon Bloss, 26, about his wife having a sexual affair with another woman?

Evidence was mounting against the pair

But the evidence began mounting.

One witness told detectives that on the night of June 14, the last time Devon Guzman was known to be alive, he saw her at the home of her girlfriend, Hetzel and her husband, in Easton. Investigators believed that Guzman was not murdered in her car because of the lack of blood.

Michelle Hetzel and Brendan Bloss.

But inside Hetzel’s car, police found bloodstained clothing, which authorities said fit Bloss, along with four latex gloves. The bloodstains on the shirt were determined to be Devon Guzman’s, and bloodstains and hair samples found on her shirt match Bloss’s hair and blood samples, cops told reporters.

The motivations were a mess. Prosecutors eventually settled on jealousy and desperate desire by the couple to get Guzman “out of the way.” Bloss didn’t much like being a cuckold, while Hertzel was white with rage after Guzman returned after their tropical trysts to Keary.

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“Brandon didn’t like that,” Keary later said.

Keary Renner

The couple were both charged with first-degree murder — a death penalty case in the Keystone State. Their lawyers had hoped to move the trial because of the ramped-up media circus. They were turned down.

“I’ve been waiting for this for so long,” Melody Guzman said. “But now that it’s here, I’m scared. I have to go through (the details of the murder) again, and I hope I can handle it.”

Life in prison

The killer couple had separate legal representation. On one hand, both honed in the blood of a third, unidentified person was discovered in Guzman’s car and Hetzel’s home. And why would the couple kill together when they had planned to divorce?

None of their arguments held up in court.

In 2001, Hetzel and Bloss were sentenced to life in prison, where they remain. A 2020 appeal from Hetzel was torpedoed.

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@HunterTOSun

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