A Deadly Love Triangle: The Case Of Christian Aguilar

day eight in the search for missing university of florida student christian actually a missing university of florida student is growing more intense at least 100 people have joined the search partner is christian aguilar authorities say the missing 18-year-old university of florida student was last spotted at a best buy in gainesville eighteen-year-old christian aguilar was a freshman at the university of florida he was a talented young man and obtained a scholarship to the university studying biomedical engineering his brother described him as quiet and shy and said it took him a while to open up to people but when he did he was incredibly funny and charming with lots of charisma while at university and living in gainesville he and his longtime friend erica freeman who made known since school became an item from this point on the pair were joined at the hip carlos christian's father said he had never seen his son so happy as when he was dating her erica described them as soul mates and believed that one day they would get married september 20th 2012 would seemingly start as any other day as usual as soon as erica finished her classes she sent christian a text message to arrange a meetup at this point they'd been dating a little while but their relationship was blossoming and they spent every day together always quick to respond when erica didn't hear back from christian she became a little concerned telling herself he must have been busy with something she headed back to her apartment alone several hours would pass however and despite many calls and texts erica still had no idea where he was she now knew something was wrong and walked to his dorm room to ask his roommate if he had seen him hours would pass with no word from christian and just after 4 a.m erica rang christian's childhood friend pedro bravo the boys had gone shopping the day before but pedro said they had parted ways in the afternoon and he hadn't heard from him since frantic with worry she decided to phone christian's father carlos 300 miles away in miami praying he might have heard from his son but carlos hadn't either and knowing his son and how out of character this was he and christian's mother claudia immediately set off to gainesville florida my name is carlos aguilar and um i'm the the parent of christian aguilar he's una student over at the university his girlfriend has been trying to contact him since yesterday and he's not answering he normally respond to his girlfriend right away and if she's so concerned about it we are concerned right now this is not his normal behavior and i'm wondering if you guys can help us just before 10 a.m the next day september 21st erica and pedro met with officer timothy peck of the university of florida's police department to report christian as missing christian erica and pedro had all known each other since attending doral academy together pedro and erica had data prior to her relationship with christian it hadn't worked out and she had ended the relationship shortly before going to college although pedro had been upset about the breakup he soon moved to gainesville himself and it appeared that the trio from school were back together christian and erica had yet to tell pedro about their relationship and were waiting for him to be in a better place mentally before they broke the news growing more concerned by the hour erica made the police aware that christian had suffered from depression and this rang more alarm bells they wondered if maybe christian had attempted to hurt himself in some way so officers headed out to his apartment they found absolutely nothing not a thing was out of place and there were no obvious signs of anything being disturbed pedro and erica were both interviewed separately pedro said that the previous day he and christian had left campus in pedro's car christian got his flu shot and then they had driven to a best buy store to buy a cd and grab some lunch that's a like encounter do you want to go get something with me like do you want to go get chicken with him like that's actually chicken so he's like sure okay what's the excuse uh there's one yeah the whole character of the one that's right and oh that's right so you're thinking sometimes the time turned around 3 30 p.m he got a cd from um best buy when you live there did he listen to the cd did you play it did he open it yeah he did over there would you have a backpack or anything really anything like that anything else that you remember that i need to know about about where y'all went what you did and after that i remember we spent a few minutes fidgeting because my car it takes music cds and it eats them too do you take his uh scene yeah it says he followed them out of the car yeah he the boys got into a verbal argument in pedro's car so pedro dropped christian off on a street and drove home by himself feeling guilty about the argument he attempted to ring him but to no avail and he hadn't heard from him since he was he wasn't answering his phone we didn't know where he was um [Music] i got up and tried to go back to sleep but i couldn't because i like i was because i felt kind of guilty because i i dropped off the road and i was afraid like what if something happened what if he's lost right now what if he's trying to get back to the door and he went the wrong way because he doesn't have any good sense of direction as well as erica carlos christian's father rang pedro 2 to get the story she called his parents to let them know what's going on so that they know what's happening and um his father calls me and he tells me like what happened what were you like where he lost with him and what happened all like that and i'm like i was like i got an argument with him and they want to get out of the car and i'm so sorry it's because like i said i understand he was just trying to help me because i've been born for a rough time and i don't know what i'm doing myself but if i if i can't get him back pedro didn't know gainesville very well having only just enrolled in college there and he couldn't remember the name of the street so he tried describing the location as best he could the area that pedro appeared to be talking about was quite notorious known for crime and drugs and police began to worry that something had happened to him there police checked the cctv cameras from best buy and quickly picked the pair up just as pedro had said on september 20th at around 3pm best buy showed them both drinking coffee browsing the aisles and chatting to each other but after this there was nothing hundreds of cameras from all over the neighborhood that pedro said he dropped him off in were still being checked days worth of footage from local businesses and homes were being gone through with a fine-tooth comb and christian wasn't on a single one of them christian's family volunteers in multiple police departments in florida were now searching for the missing freshman one camera from a local car wash did pick up someone of interest but it wasn't christian as they had hoped it was pedro pedro had told police that he left christian on the side of the road and driven straight home but a camera from outside a car wash picked him up power washing his car at 2am police were drawing a blank and needed pedro to explain pedro suddenly added more to his story despite erica and christian thinking they had kept their relationship a secret pedro told the police that he had recently found out that the pair were dating and this had resulted in a fight that had become physical after finding out that his ex-girlfriend and good friend were now dating it had upset him pedro said that he hit christian in the face causing his nose to bleed all over the car he said that after they had fought for a while he kicked him out of the car and left him on the side of the road almost unconscious and drove away following this version of events on the 24th of september pedro was placed under arrest for depriving a crime victim of medical care this also gave officers more time to look into pedro's claims because his story just wasn't adding up i hit him in the face and i made him get out but there's there's more to that and i think that you need to be honest about it you need to tell me what else happened because something else happened besides just that we know that he's not coming back okay i know he's not coming back i've been doing this for too long you know you know he's not coming back we can help you a little bit as far as if you can explain things well actually we'll go home with my parents tonight if i i'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that you can go home tonight okay you you you you know it's something we gotta work on cctv cameras were still drawing a blank about christian's location after pedro had left him but one thing remained clear the last person known to have seen him was pedro alongside the blood in his car and the footage of him washing his vehicle at 2am police were looking at pedro for more answers officers obtained a warrant to search his apartment what they found truly shocked them a receipt dated just a few days before christian was last seen was retrieved following up on the date and time on the receipt cctv cameras had picked pedro up he was seen buying a shovel duct tape and sleeping pills [Music] marks day eight in the search for missing university of florida student christian actually a missing university of florida student is growing more intense at least one hundred people have joined the search partner is christian aguilar authorities say the missing 18-year-old university of florida student was last spotted at a best buy in gainesville also found in pedro's apartment was christian's backpack although they had yet to find christian they knew that he was no longer alive and this was now a murder investigation we have to start thinking the worst the evidence was irrefutable pedro bravo was subsequently arrested for christian's murder well what we've um found out we've gotten the latest information now from the authorities in gainesville and we now know pedro bravo who had been picked up as a person of interest in the case of missing freshman christian aguilar well bravo has now been charged with murder there is no body though that has been found so far after three weeks of searching in an area around 60 miles from gainesville local hunters found human remains buried in a shallow grave using dental records it was confirmed that the body was christian aguilar an autopsy confirmed that he had been strangled and his ankles and wrists were both bound with duct tape pedro bravo was still being investigated for the murder but how and why had things possibly come to this it all started years prior when pedro bravo developed a dangerous obsession with his now ex-girlfriend erica freeman pedro was fixated with erica and when she broke up with him he spent the next few months campaigning to win her back when he found out that she had moved on he set a plan in motion to remove christian from the picture erica and pedro had began dating as sophomores although initially things seemed to be going well erica became unhappy and decided she needed to end the relationship she tried to break up with him several times but pedro warned her that things would never be the same if she left him out of fear erica agreed to stay [Music] however as erica and pedro made plans to go to different colleges erica felt that this was now the right time to end the relationship and go their separate ways erica enrolled at santa fe community college in gainesville she and christian bumped into each other and a romance quickly blossomed but just a few months into their time in gainesville pedro turned up there too he was originally set to attend florida international university hundreds of miles away but quickly decided to transfer to santa fe community college to try and win erica back but erica and christian were now dating and very happy together pedro asked erica several times if her and christian were together but erica said they were just friends the pair were conscious of pedro's state of mind as he was clearly still mentally in a bad place pedro had frequently spoken about committing suicide after the breakup so erika and christian decided to keep the relationship a secret until they felt pedro was ready to accept it and in a better headspace little did they know pedro was already well aware of the relationship and was completely consumed and enraged by it another item was recovered from the search of pedro's apartment it was a journal it showed the extent of his obsessive thoughts and feelings and the lengths he was willing to go to endless pages of drawings poems quotes and lyrics love letters to erica and threats to christian filled the book paragraphs and paragraphs of speeches saying things such as i can do this i believe in myself i will do it i can win her back i will win her back [Music] no one will stop me i will get into gainesville and get her back [Music] i will get out of miami and into university of florida [Music] one entry from july read i'm scared she might end up with chris he then wrote underneath you are overreacting again remember that chris goes to university of florida and erica goes to santa fe so limited conversation and contact plus they don't talk much and he lives on campus they got separate classes in schools plus you have time his obsession with the pair of them was growing and completely consuming his life on september 20th pedro had contacted christian asking if he wanted to meet with him and go shopping pedro told christian he wanted to confide in him about his depression and suicidal thoughts and get his advice worrying that he may have been trying to meet him to talk about his relationship with erica christian was hesitant about going but eventually he decided he would go as the pair would be out in a public place and it felt safe in the parking lot of walmart as they sat in pedro's car pedro subdued christian using sleeping pills in a bottle of gatorade and strangled him with a belt pedro's phone showed that he was in the walmart car park for two hours that afternoon [Music] he then put his phone in airplane mode for 5 hours and drove to a swampy area where he attempted to bury him logs from his iphone 4 showed that the torch had been used 9 times for a total of 48 minutes that night on the way home pedro stopped to get food at mcdonald's and then went to wash the dirt off his car but experts managed to find soil in the undercarriage of the vehicle the shovel pedro was seen buying also matched the soil that surrounded christian's remains in august 2014 almost two years since christian's body was found the trial of pedro bravo began he entered a not guilty plea pedro's former cellmate michelangelo took the stand and testified that pedro had told him it had taken him 13 minutes to kill christian and he had originally had several plans for how he was going to carry out the violent attack michael also led officers to where pedro had told him he had hidden the shovel under a wooden walkway at his apartment complex i think originally he said that he was gonna try to poison him with a mixture of sleeping pills and pesticide and mixed with soda or something like that i guess soda and uh his backup plan was to uh have a knife you know to cut his throat you know after he had got back in the driver's seat and he was you know i guess riding around to dispose of the body that it was making us sound like and that's the reason that he held on to the driving strap while he was riding around because it freaked him out he said at one point pedro panicked as he almost got caught by a security guard driving past the vehicle as he was strangling christian drove a little bit more than that point him and christian got into a verbal argument and christian requested that he be dropped off at which time pedro dropped him off and then pedro went home with regard to the comment that he made to you that there was an argument was there any indication from at this point in his conversation with you that this argument had been in any way physical no well he told me that it kept the roll of duct tape in his car because he had a crack in the windshield of his car and he was putting the duct tape over the crack to keep it from getting bigger you have this conversation at this point is he telling you he believes you and christian are dating well he asked me and i tell him that we're not so i i lied to him saying that we were not dating and i think he was ready to hear that at that time a very sensitive point in his life i suppose i didn't want to you know throw him over the edge or anything and tell him you know by the way now i'm dating a mutual friend of ours um i didn't think it was the appropriate time especially how he was acting and what he was claiming that he was going to do pedro took the stand in his own defense and he was the only witness the defense team called to the stand during the two-week trial the discussion is getting very heated now i'm arguing with him and he's arguing with me i turn around and i hit him in the nose with my left fist while you're driving while i'm driving did he sustain any injury when you hit him in the nose he is no starter bleeding yes at this point i pull over to the left and i pull into a small driveway with a building and some skinny trees what happened next uh i went to sleep i believe i got a call around four o'clock in the morning erica was calling me she said have i heard from chris that i know what was going on chris he hasn't been back in his dorm room he hasn't been anywhere his room she said i asked her why was she trying to ask about chris why why is her concern and she said because his roommate said he didn't come back i thought nothing i thought probably he probably just decided not to go home or probably went somewhere else he probably got lost along the way i'd tell her i don't know a big moment in the courtroom was the showing of a screenshot of the iphone feature hey siri although it was initially reported that pedro had askery questions relating to the awful act he would go on to commit gainesville police and experts disputed that the screenshot in question had been viewed using the phone but it had been viewed via facebook pedro had an iphone 4 which did not have siri compatibility the footage was eventually pulled from the courtroom [Music] the defence team argued that although pedro had a physical altercation with christian and was wrong to leave him at the side of the road he most definitely didn't kill him pedro had said that the duct tape was being used to seal a crack in the window of his car and the shovel was bought with the intention of him killing himself and digging his own grave pedro claimed he tried to kill himself after his fight with christian by drinking a concoction of painkillers and pesticide he quickly threw up and said he took it as a sign from god that it wasn't his time to go but the case against pedro was too strong dna and forensic evidence cctv footage his journal and a pattern of very disturbing and obsessive behavior meant that the jury took just three hours to deliberate we the jury fosters follows as the defendant pedro andreas bravo in this case has to count one the defendant is guilty of felony murder first degree pedro bravo was convicted of first-degree murder poisoning false imprisonment tampering with evidence giving false information to authorities and improper transportation of human remains the judge sentenced pedro bravo to life in prison without the possibility of parole although he didn't take his own life pedro did write a suicide note in prison that was found by a prison guard an extract of the note read i'm a monster for hurting chris [Music] despite this and the confession he gave to his former cellmate pedro still denied killing christian upon his sentencing he said god knows the truth about what happened i did not kill christian aguilar i know that i will face my sentence i will do my time but i know in my heart that i did not do anything to hurt my friend throughout the trial pedro continuously attempted to contact the aguilar family and erica and upon his sentencing carlos aguilar begged the judge to help prevent him from ever contacting his family or erica again the aguilar family were relieved and satisfied with the verdict carlos said the reality is the verdict will not bring my son back but pedro was held accountable i promised christian at his burial there would be justice the funeral for christian aguilar was held in miami it was open to the public and packed out a kind and loving young man with a life full of such promise was cut so dreadfully short erica freeman said of christian he was such a good person so kind and so compassionate i always feel like when i describe him i'm never describing him enough you had to meet him [Music] you

Channel: Truly Criminal

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Length: 24min 42sec (1482 seconds)

Published: Sat May 08 2021