Fatal Love Triangle Unveiled: Christian Aguilar Case Investigation
Fatal Love Triangle Unveiled: Christian Aguilar Case Investigation
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00:00 [no audio]
00:11 Day 8 in the search for a missing University of Florida student, Christian Aguilar.
00:14 A missing University of Florida student is growing more intense.
00:17 At least 100 people have joined the search party.
00:20 There is Christian Aguilar.
00:22 Authorities say the missing 18-year-old University of Florida student was last spotted at a Best Buy in Gainesville.
00:28 [no audio]
00:47 18-year-old Christian Aguilar was a freshman at the University of Florida.
00:52 He was a talented young man and obtained a scholarship to the University, studying biomedical engineering.
00:58 His brother described him as quiet and shy and said it took him a while to open up to people.
01:04 But when he did, he was incredibly funny and charming, with lots of charisma.
01:10 While at University and living in Gainesville, he and his long-time friend Erica Freeman, who'd been known since school, became an item.
01:18 From this point on, the pair were joined at the hip.
01:21 Carlos, Christian's father, said he had never seen his son so happy as when he was dating her.
01:27 Erica described them as soulmates and believed that one day they would get married.
01:33 September 20th, 2012 would seemingly start as any other day.
01:37 As usual, as soon as Erica finished her classes, she sent Christian a text message to arrange a meet-up.
01:44 At this point, they'd been dating a little while, but their relationship was blossoming and they spent every day together.
01:50 Always quick to respond, when Erica didn't hear back from Christian, she became a little concerned.
01:55 Telling herself he must have been busy with something, she headed back to her apartment alone.
02:01 Several hours would pass, however, and despite many calls and texts, Erica still had no idea where he was.
02:09 She now knew something was wrong and walked to his dorm room to ask his roommate if he had seen him.
02:14 Hours would pass with no word from Christian and just after 4am, Erica rang Christian's childhood friend, Pedro Bravo.
02:21 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.
02:28 Frantic with worry, she decided to phone Christian's father, Carlos, 300 miles away in Miami, praying he might have heard from his son.
02:37 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.
02:47 My name is Carlos Aguilar, and I'm the parent of Christian Aguilar.
02:53 He's a student over at the university. His girlfriend has been trying to contact him since yesterday, and he's not answering.
03:00 He normally responds to his girlfriend right away, and if he's so concerned about it, we are concerned right now.
03:06 This is not his normal behavior, and I'm wondering if you guys can help us.
03:13 Just before 10am 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.
03:24 Christian, Erica and Pedro had all known each other since attending Doral Academy together.
03:29 Pedro and Erica had dated prior to her relationship with Christian.
03:33 It hadn't worked out and she had ended the relationship shortly before going to college.
03:38 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.
03:46 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.
03:54 Growing more concerned by the hour, Erica made the police aware that Christian had suffered from depression, and this rang more alarm bells.
04:01 They wondered if maybe Christian had attempted to hurt himself in some way, so officers headed out to his apartment.
04:08 They found absolutely nothing. Not a thing was out of place, and there were no obvious signs of anything being disturbed.
04:16 Pedro and Erica were both interviewed separately.
04:19 Pedro said that the previous day he and Christian had left campus in Pedro's car.
04:24 Christian got his flu shot, and then they had driven to a Best Buy store to buy a CD and grab some lunch.
04:30 [Bleep] gets his flu shot, and, um, what did y'all do then?
04:35 I was, uh, like, I'm kinda hungry. Do you wanna go get something to eat with me? Like, do you wanna go get chicken with me?
04:40 I got a Zaxby's chicken. So, is that sure?
04:42 Okay, which Zaxby's do we have on the menu?
04:44 Uh, there's nothing Zaxby's?
04:46 Yeah.
04:47 Oh, the one with carrot churro? The one that's, like, Best Buy?
04:50 So, you're thinking sometime in the town, apparently around 3.30 p.m.?
04:55 Something like that, yes.
04:56 Well, let's go back and revisit a couple things, um, that you told me.
05:01 Um, one, you got a CD from, um, Best Buy when y'all went there.
05:07 Uh, did he listen to the CD? Did he play it? Did he open it?
05:10 Yeah, he did open it.
05:12 Okay. Did he have a backpack or anything with him?
05:15 Anything with him?
05:16 He had a backpack, yeah.
05:17 Anything else that you remember that I need to know about, about where y'all went, what you did, all that kind of stuff?
05:24 We ate at Zaxby's Chicken. We went to Best Buy.
05:29 You ate at Zaxby's Chicken?
05:31 I ate there. I got dragged through and ate at a thing.
05:34 We went to Best Buy.
05:36 And after that, I remember we spent a few minutes fidgeting because my car, it takes music CDs and it eats them too.
05:44 Did he take his CD with him?
05:47 Yeah, it's his CD. Oh, no, out of the car?
05:50 Yeah.
05:51 It was all in his backpack.
05:53 The boys got into a verbal argument in Pedro's car, so Pedro dropped Christian off on a street and drove home by himself.
06:00 Feeling guilty about the argument, he attempted to ring him, but to no avail, and he hadn't heard from him since.
06:07 Because he wasn't answering his phone. We didn't know where he was.
06:13 And, yeah, we just didn't know where he was.
06:17 What happened? Did you get up?
06:22 I got up and tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't because I felt kind of guilty because I dropped off my robot and I was afraid, like, what if something happens?
06:34 What if he's lost right now? What if he's trying to get back to his door and he went the wrong way because he doesn't have any good sense of direction?
06:43 As well as Erica, Carlos, Christian's father, rang Pedro too to get the story.
06:48 She called his parents to let them know what's going on so they know what's happening.
06:55 And his father calls me and he tells me, like, what happened? Where were you last weekend? What happened? All like that.
07:04 And I'm like, I was last weekend, I got in an argument with him and he wanted to get out of the car.
07:09 And I'm so sorry. It's because, like, I said, I understand he was just trying to help me because I was going through a rough time and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself if I can't get him back.
07:23 Pedro didn't know Gainesville very well, having only just enrolled in college there, and he couldn't remember the name of the street.
07:31 So he tried describing the location as best he could.
07:35 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.
07:44 Police checked the CCTV cameras from Best Buy and quickly picked the pair up.
07:49 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.
08:01 But after this, there was nothing.
08:05 Hundreds of cameras from all over the neighborhood that Pedro said he dropped him off in were still being checked.
08:10 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.
08:18 Christian's family, volunteers and multiple police departments in Florida were now searching for the missing freshman.
08:26 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.
08:34 Pedro had told police that he'd 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.
08:45 Police were drawing a blank and needed Pedro to explain.
08:48 Pedro suddenly added more to his story.
08:51 Despite Erika 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.
09:02 After finding out that his ex-girlfriend and good friend were now dating, it had upset him.
09:07 Pedro said that he hit Christian in the face, causing his nose to bleed all over the car.
09:13 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.
09:21 Following this version of events, on the 24th of September Pedro was placed under arrest for depriving a crime victim of medical care.
09:29 This also gave officers more time to look into Pedro's claims, because his story just wasn't adding up.
09:37 [Pedro's story continues]
09:44 [Pedro's story continues]
10:12 CCTV cameras were still drawing a blank about Christian's location after Pedro had left him, but one thing remained clear.
10:20 The last person known to have seen him was Pedro.
10:23 Alongside the blood in his car and the footage of him washing his vehicle at 2am, police were looking at Pedro for more answers.
10:31 Officers obtained a warrant to search his apartment.
10:35 What they found truly shocked them.
10:38 A receipt, dated just a few days before Christian was last seen, was retrieved.
10:43 Following up on the date and time on the receipt, CCTV cameras had picked Pedro up.
10:48 He was seen buying a shovel, duct tape and sleeping pills.
10:53 [Pedro's story continues]
10:59 [Pedro's story continues]
11:03 Marks day 8 in the search for missing University of Florida student Christian Aguilar.
11:14 A missing University of Florida student is growing more intense. At least 100 people have joined the search party.
11:20 Here is Christian Aguilar. Authorities say the missing 18-year-old University of Florida student was last spotted at a Best Buy in Gainesville.
11:28 Also found in Pedro's apartment was Christian's backpack.
11:32 Although they had yet to find Christian, they knew that he was no longer alive and this was now a murder investigation.
11:39 We have to start thinking the worst.
11:46 The evidence was irrefutable. Pedro Bravo was subsequently arrested for Christian's murder.
11:52 Well what we've found out, we've gotten the latest information now from the authorities in Gainesville
11:57 and we now know Pedro Bravo, who had been picked up as a person of interest in the case of missing freshman Christian Aguilar,
12:05 well Bravo has now been charged with murder. There is no body though that has been found so far.
12:14 After three weeks of searching in an area around 60 miles from Gainesville, local hunters found human remains buried in a shallow grave.
12:23 Using dental records, it was confirmed that the body was Christian Aguilar.
12:28 An autopsy confirmed that he had been strangled and his ankles and wrists were both bound with duct tape.
12:34 Pedro Bravo was still being investigated for the murder.
12:39 But how and why had things possibly come to this?
12:43 It all started years prior when Pedro Bravo developed a dangerous obsession with his now ex-girlfriend, Erica Freeman.
12:53 Pedro was fixated with Erica and when she broke up with him, he spent the next few months campaigning to win her back.
13:00 When he found out that she had moved on, he set a plan in motion to remove Christian from the picture.
13:08 Erica and Pedro had began dating as sophomores.
13:12 Although initially things seemed to be going well, Erica became unhappy and decided she needed to end the relationship.
13:18 She tried to break up with him several times but Pedro warned her that things would "never be the same" if she left him.
13:25 Out of fear, Erica agreed to stay.
13:30 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.
13:40 Erica enrolled at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville.
13:44 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.
13:54 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.
14:05 But Erica and Christian were now dating and very happy together.
14:09 Pedro asked Erica several times if her and Christian were together but Erica said they were just friends.
14:14 The pair were conscious of Pedro's state of mind as he was clearly still mentally in a bad place.
14:20 Pedro had frequently spoken about committing suicide after the breakup, so Erica and Christian decided to keep the relationship a secret until they felt Pedro was ready to accept it and in a better headspace.
14:32 Little did they know, Pedro was already well aware of the relationship and was completely consumed and enraged by it.
14:41 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.
14:51 Endless pages of drawings, poems, quotes and lyrics.
14:57 Love letters to Erica and threats to Christian filled the book.
15:04 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".
15:15 "No one will stop me", "I will get into Gainesville and get her back".
15:22 "I will get out of Miami and into University of Florida".
15:28 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".
15:41 So limited conversation and contact. Plus, they don't talk much and he lives on campus. They got separate classes and schools. Plus, you have time.
15:54 His obsession with the pair of them was growing and completely consuming his life.
15:59 On September 20th, Pedro had contacted Christian asking if he wanted to meet with him and go shopping.
16:06 Pedro told Christian he wanted to confide in him about his depression and suicidal thoughts and get his advice.
16:13 Worrying that he may have been trying to meet him to talk about his relationship with Erica, Christian was hesitant about going.
16:21 But eventually, he decided he would go as the pair would be out in a public place and it felt safe.
16:26 In the parking lot of Walmart as they sat in Pedro's car, Pedro subdued Christian using sleeping pills and a bottle of Gatorade and strangled him with a belt.
16:36 Pedro's phone showed that he was in the Walmart car park for two hours that afternoon.
16:47 He then put his phone in airplane mode for five hours and drove to a swampy area where he attempted to bury him.
16:53 Logs from his iPhone 4 showed that the torch had been used nine times for a total of 48 minutes that night.
17:00 On the way home, Pedro stopped to get food at McDonald's and then went to wash the dirt off his car.
17:07 But experts managed to find soil in the undercarriage of the vehicle.
17:11 The shovel Pedro was seen buying also matched the soil that surrounded Christian's remains.
17:17 In August 2014, almost two years since Christian's body was found, the trial of Pedro Bravo began.
17:23 He entered a not guilty plea.
17:26 Pedro's former cellmate, Michael Angelo, took the stand and testified that Pedro had told him it had taken him 13 minutes to kill Christian
17:35 and he had originally had several plans for how he was going to carry out the violent attack.
17:40 Michael also led officers to where Pedro had told him he had hidden the shovel.
17:45 Under a wooden walkway at his apartment complex.
17:49 I think originally he said that he was going to try to poison him with a mixture of sleeping pills and pesticide
17:59 and mixed with soda or something, I guess soda.
18:04 And his backup plan was to have a knife, you know, to cut his throat.
18:12 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 a sound like, "Ugh, ugh."
18:20 And that's the reason that he held on to the driving strap while he was riding around because it freaked him out.
18:27 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.
18:38 He drove a little bit more, but at that point him and Christian got into a verbal argument
18:45 and Christian requested that he be dropped off, at which time Pedro dropped him off and then Pedro went home.
18:52 With regard to the comment that he made to you that there was an argument,
18:57 was there any indication from at this point in his conversation with you that this argument had been in any way physical?
19:05 No. He told me that he kept the roll of duct tape in his car because he had a crack in the windshield of his car
19:12 and he was putting the duct tape over the crack to keep it from getting bigger.
19:16 You have this conversation, at this point is he telling you he believes you and Christian are dating?
19:21 Well, he asked me and I told him that we're not, so I lied to him saying that we were not dating.
19:29 I didn't think he was ready to hear that at that time, a very sensitive point in his life I suppose.
19:36 I didn't want to throw him over the edge or anything and tell him, by the way, I'm dating a mutual friend of ours.
19:42 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.
19:49 Pedro took the stand in his own defence and he was the only witness the defence team called to the stand during the two-week trial.
19:59 The discussion is getting very heated now. I'm arguing with him and he's arguing with me.
20:04 I turn around and I hit him in the nose with my left fist.
20:08 While you're driving?
20:10 While I'm driving, yes.
20:12 Did he sustain any injury when you hit him in the nose?
20:14 His nose started 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.
20:23 What happened next?
20:26 I went to sleep. I believe I got a call around 4 o'clock in the morning. Erica was calling me.
20:33 She said, "Have I heard from Chris that I know what was going on with Chris? He hasn't been back in his dorm room. He hasn't been anywhere in his room."
20:40 I asked her why she was trying to ask about Chris, why it was her concern.
20:45 She said because his roommate said he didn't come back.
20:48 I thought nothing of it. I thought he probably just decided not to go home or probably went somewhere else or probably got lost along the way.
20:55 I'd tell her I don't know.
20:57 A big moment in the courtroom was the showing of a screenshot of the iPhone feature "Hey Siri".
21:05 Although it was initially reported that Pedro had asked Siri questions relating to the awful act he would go on to commit, Gainesville police and experts disputed that.
21:13 The screenshot in question had been viewed using the phone, but it had been viewed via Facebook.
21:19 Pedro had an iPhone 4 which did not have Siri compatibility.
21:24 The footage was eventually pulled from the courtroom.
21:27 The defense 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.
21:38 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.
21:50 Pedro claimed he tried to kill himself after his fight with Christian by drinking a concoction of painkillers and pesticide.
21:57 He quickly threw up and said he took it as a sign from God that it wasn't his time to go.
22:03 But the case against Pedro was too strong.
22:08 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.
22:31 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.
22:44 The judge sentenced Pedro Bravo to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
22:50 Although he didn't take his own life, Pedro did write a suicide note in prison that was found by a prison guard.
22:58 An extract of the note read, "I'm a monster for hurting Chris."
23:02 Despite this and the confession he gave to his former cellmate, Pedro still denied killing Christian upon his sentencing.
23:11 He said God knows the truth about what happened.
23:14 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.
23:23 Throughout the trial, Pedro continuously attempted to contact the Aguilar family and Erica,
23:28 and upon his sentencing, Carlos Aguilar begged the judge to help prevent him from ever contacting his family or Erica again.
23:35 The Aguilar family were relieved and satisfied with the verdict.
23:40 Carlos said, "The reality is, the verdict will not bring my son back."
23:45 But Pedro was held accountable.
23:47 I promised Christian at his burial there would be justice.
23:51 The funeral for Christian Aguilar was held in Miami. It was open to the public and packed out.
24:01 A kind and loving young man, with a life full of such promise, was cut so dreadfully short.
24:08 Erica Freeman said of Christian, "He was such a good person, so kind and so compassionate."
24:21 "I always feel like when I describe him, I'm never describing him enough."
24:26 "You had to meet him."
24:29 [Music]
24:41 (upbeat music)