WEBVTT - The Best Friends, The Plan and The Laced Gatorade 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:03.520 Falling in love is the best feeling in the world. 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:07.560 You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:13.000 you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.840 because the story starts out with once upon a Times 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.280 doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.599 and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.440 Today's guests are true crime producer Jeff Shane and Leah Rothman, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.240 writer and host of The Real Killer. You can follow 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:41.080 Leah on Twitter at Leah Underscore Rothman Episode seventeen, The 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:46.520 Case of the Best Friends, The Plan, and the Laced Gatorade. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.360 Christian Aguilera was quote every father's dream. He was a 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.200 hard working student, affable, and had a tight knit group 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.920 of friends. At the Dorill Academy and Leach Harter School 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.760 in Miami, Florida, where Christian attended. People described him as 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.520 shy at first, but behind that he was wickedly funny 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.800 and sarcastic. An animal lover and Kanye West fan, Christian 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:18.160 was known for his easygoing and charismatic personality. It's no 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:23.040 surprise he had supportive and loyal friends. Christian's closest friend 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.720 was Pedro Bravo, The two young men met in eighth 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.560 grade and bonded over their love of superheroes and action movies. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.320 Pedro was described as shy, hard working, and the kind 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.640 of guy who wouldn't heard a fly. Also in their 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.240 group was Erica Freeman, with her wide eyes and long 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.959 brown hair. Erica began dating Pedro their sophomore year, and 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.520 the couple fell in love. The pair dated through the 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.400 rest of high school, becoming the eight couple of their school, 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:57.880 going on dates and celebrating anniversaries. However, in the summer 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:03.000 of after graduation and with college approaching, Eric felt like 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.200 it was time to be single, and so she broke 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.640 up with Pedro. In a few months, they would be 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.440 headed to different places, Pedro to school in Miami to 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:19.000 study engineering, and Erica to Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.880 to study biology. Dating long distance just didn't seem realistic. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.000 Like Erica, Christian, Pedro's best friend, was also headed to 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.480 Gainesville to attend his dream school, the University of Florida. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:40.519 Christian got a scholarship to major in biomedical engineering in Gainesville. 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.320 Erica and Christian ran into each other and felt an 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:48.040 instant connection. While in high school, they've been in the 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.280 same group. Their biggest connection was Erica's boyfriend and Christian's 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.959 best friend, Pedro, but now in college they could really 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.320 get to know each other. It was not long before 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:04.960 the pair began and dating. Here's Jeff. Let's go back 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.359 to Pedro for a second. He was always known as 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.800 the class clown in school, so when Erica broke up 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.920 with him, she was really surprised how emotional he was. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.200 He cried and begged her to get back together. She 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.119 didn't think he would take it as seriously as he did. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.640 And you know, while she felt bad, she was adamant. 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.079 She wanted to be single going into college, and much 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:25.960 to her surprise, it seemed that Pedro really thought they 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.400 could be together. In reality, only two percent of high 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.839 school couples actually go the distance, so the idea that 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.440 somehow Pedro and Erica would be together forever just isn't realistic. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.840 So Erica and Christian may have just been friends in 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.840 high school, but she admitted that she always had a 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.720 secret crush on him, but she thought, nah, it is 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.839 never going to happen. Um, So when they did get 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.720 together in college, she was ecstatic over the moon and 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.760 I think very quickly felt like their soulmates. When they'd 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.280 spend time together, she used to tell him the world 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.360 could end right now, and if in your arms, I 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.920 don't care, which is just like talk about love like 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.440 that's a that's an amazing sentiment. Wow, So it seems 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.080 like she really felt hard for him quickly. Yeah, it 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.320 seems like she maybe had some feelings prior to them 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.919 getting together. She was totally excited when they did get together, 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.400 and then she was like living the dream with him. Yeah, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:26.719 And I think we can all relate to like that 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.080 feeling of going to college and feeling like you're in 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.200 a new place in your life and you feel a 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.520 little more mature and a little more free, and you 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.800 might look at someone in a different way or feel 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.719 like you're liberated to connect with someone in a new way. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.120 And that's what sounds like happened with her and Christian totally. 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.080 They're not under their parents roofs, you know, they can 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.320 have an adult kind of relationship and and and that 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.159 just it's almost like a better foundation for a real 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.640 war mature love exactly. It also might be a little 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.279 awkward for them because Pedro was Christian's best friend, but 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.200 I think when you're that age, you just don't really care. 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:04.960 You want to do what you want to do, and 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.839 if you have feelings for someone, everyone else is just 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.520 a little bit collateral damage. And Pedro wasn't in town, 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.279 so you know what he didn't know wasn't necessarily going 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.920 to hurt him. Well, Erica and Christian moved on. Patro 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.760 was struggling to forget his high school sweetheart. He decided 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.800 to take drastic measures to get Erica back, dropping out 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.960 of school in Miami and transferring to her community college 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:33.480 in Gainesville. Pedro began texting Erica with progressively frantic please. 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.440 She felt uncomfortable, but didn't want to abandon Pedro in 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.919 his time of need. What Erica did not know was 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.120 that Pedro had a master plan to get her back. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.040 He wrote in his journal about it, quote I will 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.479 get out of Miami and into Gainesville by January and 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:56.640 I will get her back. Quote no one will stop me. 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.080 Oh my gosh, she wrote a lot more. He wrote 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.919 about a plan to get rid of his acne, white 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.160 and his teeth and only wear red shirts because, according 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.719 to him, they catch women's attention. More. His journal was 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.600 also filled with intricate drawings of things like women's faces, 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:21.440 lots of hearts, shattered hearts, hearts and pieces, hearts and bits, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.359 lots of broken hearts, and tons and tons of writings. 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.679 He was getting more obsessed with the idea of getting 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.679 her back. Yeah, obsessed is an understatement. Despite his best 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.520 laid plans, Pedro ended up hearing through the grapevine that 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.640 Christian and Erica were dating, which was a big blow 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:43.640 to him, obviously, so on September sevente he ended up 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.720 confronting her. He pulled up a photo of her and 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.880 Christian together and demanded answers. Erica didn't know what to do, 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.920 so she lied and denied everything. She told Pedro that 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.120 she and Christian were just friends, and so, you know, 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:56.880 lying never seems like a good idea, But I think 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.320 we can all relate to feeling like you're under sure 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.440 and someone's confronting you with something, and the easy thing 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.680 to do is just to deny, deny, deny. Leah, what 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.400 do you make of his plan? Like getting rid of 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.800 your acne and whitening your teeth and just wearing a 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.840 certain color. It all seems so misguided, it does. It 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.480 seems superficial. But maybe that's he was just clinging onto 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:23.120 anything that could help. I did wonder why he was 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.400 worried about attracting like women of the opposite sex as 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.000 opposed to just Erica. Maybe there was a small part 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:32.720 of him that was like, Okay, look, I need to 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.920 get myself ready in case I can't get Erica back. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.720 And I do need to be out in the dating field, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.280 you know, playing the field again. And I want to 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.640 look good, have a bright smile and clear skin, and 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.840 I and a red shirt's going to help me get 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.160 a lady. I thought it was interesting that he wrote 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.680 that way. It seemed mildly optimistic. And also when you're 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.440 a teenager, you also just want those things in general. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.280 You want clear skin and you want wait teeth. Yeah, 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.640 to me, it seems like he just googled best way 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.960 to attract woman and it would say, you know, have 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.040 white teeth, have clear skin. I just googled what's the 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.080 color that attracts woman the most, and red is at 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.320 the top of the search. So he just probably did 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.400 that and thought he's so naive that he thinks this 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.320 is how the world works, that he wears a color. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.480 Eric will somehow fall back in love with him. It's 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:27.120 sad really. Increasingly desperate, Pedro reached out to his former 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:32.240 best friend Christian for answers. Pedro told Christian he was 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:37.000 depressed and needed help. Christian was apprehensive about meeting up 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:42.760 with Pedro. He seemed rather unhinged, but ever the nice guy, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.080 Christian agreed. The pair decided to meet at a public 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.560 place on the University of Florida campus. Here's the recording 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.560 of Erica explaining Christian's frame of mind before the meeting. 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.480 The audio was taken from Erica's testimony on the stand 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.760 in one year later. He was unhappy about meeting a 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.200 police fedro. He was a little I mean, he didn't 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.280 really want to want to um, But we weren't really 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.360 that concerned it going to meet in a public place. 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.439 You know, if anything was going to happen, it wasn't. 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.280 He might try to punch him or something, and Christian 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.520 wouldn't fight, you know, he was he's not much of 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.840 a fighter, so you kind of just walk away. I'm 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.120 sure he thought we're meeting in public, what could possibly 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.040 happen exactly. Maybe he'll punch me, maybe he'll like swear 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:30.960 at me, or yell at me and they will cause 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:35.160 a scene, but nothing more than that, especially since they're 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.480 meeting in public. You would never think anything other than that, right, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.000 you think you're safe? Yeah? And I think at this 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.720 point this just seems a little bit like a teenage 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.920 love triangle. Like I would imagine that Christian probably felt 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:48.319 like none of this was that big of a deal 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.400 at this point, and he might have something explaining to do, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.560 but he could probably work past it with someone who 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.280 was once his best friend. Exactly, this was his friend. 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.880 He knows how his friend reacts to things. I mean, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.320 his friend is going to be mad he's dating his 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.280 ex girlfriend, but that's it that. I mean, he's seen 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.560 his friend over many years react to various things. And 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.160 I didn't think that he was in any danger, right, Leah, 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.400 do we know that anything more about Pedro's frame of 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.840 mind at this point. Pedro was in a dark place. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.480 He seemed to know that Erica was lying. At this point, 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.640 he wrote in his journal, I feel like someone stabbed 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.760 me and I'm bleeding out and dying. I want her back, please, 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:34.439 I'll give anything. He was not in a good place. Yeah, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.360 it's dark, but I also I mean to play Devil's advocate. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.400 I think anyone who's kept a journal can probably say 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.000 that they've written what sounds crazy and dramatic in there. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.120 So how much can we really scrutinize someone's like private thoughts, 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.839 No exactly, And I mean he probably, as we all 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.040 do when we write our private thoughts, think no one's 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.000 ever going to read them, so we are very honest, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.920 and those honest feelings necessarily mean that anything is going 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.520 to come of them. It's just you know, these are 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.200 my hurt feelings, these are my deep dark feelings, and 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.240 they're for me and me only. So yeah, I mean 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.280 it's hard to read someone's journal and say like, oh well, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.360 if this then that right. I wonder though, what pedro 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.080 support system was at this point. I mean, he clearly 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.720 lost his best friend, Christian, and so if he didn't 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:24.440 have anyone else to talk to and he was just 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.320 alone in these thoughts, you could see how someone would 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.720 spiral out of control. Yeah, And as we know, if 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.440 one is in a dark place and left alone with 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:39.640 their thoughts, that doesn't always help. The spiral can be 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.800 worse when you don't have anyone to talk to. Right, 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.080 by all counts, he didn't really seem to have many friends. 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:48.720 I mean, he wasn't. He went to Miami for college, 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.080 originally stayed there a very short time, and then headed 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.360 to Gainesville with the sole intention of winning back Erica, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.319 and so it seemed like he kind of just honed 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.560 in on that probably and didn't have much else going 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:05.480 on in his life. On September, Christian met Pedro at 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.560 The Hub, a popular gathering place for students on campus. 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.200 Surveillance cameras were able to capture many of their movements 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.880 that fateful day. The young men met at one thirty 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:21.040 nine pm and had lunch. They then drove to best Buy, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.800 where Christian bought a Kanye West c D. At four 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.440 eleven pm, Pedro's blue Chevy Blazer pulled into a Walmart 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.760 parking lot. The car was there for more than two hours, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.120 and it wasn't until six PM that the car pulled 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.760 out of the lot. By this point, Erico was getting nervous. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.760 Christian usually texted her all the time, but today he'd 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.080 been radio silent. At four fifteen am, there was still 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.640 no word from Christian. Erica was officially freaked out, so 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:57.080 she called Pedro. Pedro told her he had dropped Christian 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:02.000 off and things were fine. By the next morning, Christian 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.800 was still missing. Erica decided it was time to go 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.000 to the police. At ninety four i am, she and 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.280 Pedro went to the University of Florida campus police to 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:18.240 report Christian missing. Well. Being the last person to see 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.320 Christian alive, Pedro had a lot to say to the police, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.240 and he ended up talking to them for eight hours. 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.240 While he denied knowing anything, his story didn't add up 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.560 rather quickly. At first, he told the cops that he 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.719 and Christian fought and he ended up dropping him off 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.760 in the woods near the Walmart they were last seen. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.640 Then he started saying that they picked up a hitchhiker 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.080 in a bad part of town. He described this guy 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.720 as a fifth year old, bearded man. At one point, 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.079 when he described the fight, he said that he punched 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.520 Christian just once. Then just minutes later he told them 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.640 he punched him multiple times. LEO, what else we're police 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.400 doing to figure out what happened this fateful day? Well, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.040 police began tracking Pedro's movements that day. It turns out 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:03.480 after he left the wall Mark parking lot at six pm, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.720 Pedro was off the grid for five hours before reappearing 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.319 at McDonald's, where he bought a Big Mac and a 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.520 Dr Pepper. He had put his phone in airplane mode, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.680 which was very suspicious to police, and then at one 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.880 thirty he went to get a car wash. At two 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.320 fifty three am, according to building surveillance cameras, he returned 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.840 back to his apartment and did a load of laundry. Now, 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.000 I've never gone to the car wash at one thirty 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.520 in the morning. I didn't even actually know they were 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:45.240 open that late, so that I would think to police 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.960 would be very suspicious. And then doing laundry at toft 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.080 it could wait till the next morning. Why are you 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.400 doing your laundry in the middle of the night, and 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.120 then of course having your phone off for five hours. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.160 People barely turn their phone off when they're actually flying. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.160 So yeah, I think all of this for police was 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.120 just highly, highly suspicious. I would say, I mean, college 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.360 kids keep weird hours, so maybe you could explain going 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:12.680 to the car wash or getting late man McDonald's, doing 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:14.640 laundry in the middle of the night, But I think 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:16.920 a college student is not putting their phone on airplane 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.840 mode for five hours. That to me definitely seems suspicious. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:26.240 Police really quickly could track these men. In that final day. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.920 There are cameras everywhere, and for some reason this five hours, 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.760 they really just disappear. And that seems weird too, because 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.080 where could Pedro and Christian have gone that they wouldn't 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.400 be on camera. But what police thought was very suspicious 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.320 was that during his interrogation, Pedro kept referring to Christian 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.400 in the past tense and you know, having covered a 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.240 lot of true crime, we know that is a very 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.280 common tell when people do that, because at this point, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.280 Pedro should think Christian is still alive. He said he 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.080 dropped him off. The question was though, for police, when 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.160 they looked at the two men, it seemed unlikely that 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.560 Pedro could have killed Christian. Christian was eight and just 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.200 taller than Pedro. It seemed like if they did actually 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.080 get in the physical fight, Christian would have probably won. 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:13.880 We're going to take a break. We'll be back in 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:29.760 just a moment. The first thing you should do if 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:31.400 police want to talk to you is call a lawyer. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.520 But these are practical children. I mean, they're just entering 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.560 adulthood and they don't know any better. And so he's 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.680 sitting there telling different stories and there's inconsistencies. I mean, 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.440 Pedro at this point is in way over in his 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.880 head over these eight hours. You'd also think that you'd 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.640 call your parents and say, come here, I need you. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.360 Maybe thought he was smarter than the investigators interviewing him, 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.400 and that he, you know, was slick enough that he 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.880 could give answers that could get him out. But as 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.000 the hours are ticking by during this interview, he would think, oh, gosh, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.000 I'm still here. They're still asking questions, They're trying to 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.440 hone in on things I might be in trouble here. Yeah, 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.680 I was surprised that he didn't ask for a lawyer 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.040 or his parents. I feel like when you're that age, 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.280 there's two types of people. There's the ones that, like me, 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.359 would call their mom and dad immediately, and then I 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.280 think there's the other type of people who there's like 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.240 a hue Bress that you think you're untouchable, and there's 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.840 a cockiness to you that you think you can say 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.840 and do anything. And it seems like Pedro would fall 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:40.119 into that latter category. Friends and family began searching the 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:44.200 Gainesville area in hopes of finding Christian While Love once 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.320 felt it was tragically unlikely that Christian was still alive, 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:52.920 they were determined to find him or his body. Meanwhile, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.359 eight days after Christian disappeared, police had enough to arrest Pedro. 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.360 He was charged with napping and first degree murder. Twenty 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.240 two days later, two hunters found Christians sixty miles from campus. 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.919 His body had been bound with duct tape, and he 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.359 was found face down in a murky swamp. Two years later, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.120 the trial began. Christians autopsy showed that the young man 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:24.280 was drugged and suffocated. Prosecutors were sure that Pedro did it, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.960 but they had yet to prove how. They started by 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.280 using Pedro's journals as evidence. In one entry, he wrote, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.800 when I fell. I fell hard. Now I can't pick 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.439 myself up. I feel weak. I want her back. I 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:48.960 do anything, Yeah, I mean it seems like the desperation 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.840 was at an all time high at that point. Sometime 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:59.040 after that, Pedro went to Low's and bought pesticide, gatorade, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.639 and a shovel. He then also went to Walmart and 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.640 bought Nike weel, duct tape, and a knife. He also 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:12.720 had some pretty damning Google searches. He searched what is chloroform? 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:18.120 How do sleeping pills kill you can, rubbing alcohol knock 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.320 someone out. And then he was also trying to find 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.479 some info on unsolved murders. Yeah, the police found a 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:31.159 lot of damning events that um, he was at the 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.840 very least plotting something. And while that all looks pretty bad, 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:40.080 that technically is all circumstantial evidence. But police also had 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:45.760 some pretty hard physical evidence against Pedro. They found blood 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.800 in Pedro's car and on his shoe. They also ended 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.200 up finding christians backpack balled up in the back of 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:56.199 Pedro's closet. They went as far as to match soil 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.320 that they found in Pedro's car to the swamp or 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.960 Christians bo he was ultimately found. And remember how Christian 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.040 was tied up with duct tape. They ended up looking 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.919 at the rip of duct tape on Christian's arms and 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.520 matching it with a tear of duct tape that they 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.160 found on Pedro's car, meaning allegedly he used the same 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.640 role of duct tape to tie up his ex best 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.439 friend that he then used to tape something together on 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.359 his car. It's a plethora of things that he did 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.800 wrong and that police caught him on. I mean, it's 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.000 just sloppy like he It's like he wasn't even trying 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.919 to cover up this crime. It's so incredible that they 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.320 could match the tears in the duct tape completely. And 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.439 it's so true about the Google searches. I mean, my 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:48.000 Google searches as a true crime producer are not good. Now, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.680 They're pretty bad. You can imagine the kind of searches 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.360 we all have. And so it's true that is circumstantial evidence. 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.040 But then when you couple that with the physical evidence, 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.560 it seemed like police had a pretty strong case against 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.639 Pedro now, and I go back to like what I 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.640 was thinking earlier about at that age, you just kind 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.119 of think you're untouchable. And it seems to me like 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.720 Pedro really did think he was, because he did all 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.679 these things and with no attempt to cover them up. 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:16.960 I mean, he kept his backpack. Why would you do that? 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:19.600 And then he had the audacity to go and march 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.080 himself into a police station and sit down for eight hours, 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.600 lying straight to CoP's faces. I mean, it's just he 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.200 clearly wasn't thinking straight, right. It is kind of amazing 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.240 that Erica, like she said, you're going to police with me, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.040 and he goes he doesn't even say I can't, I 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.760 don't feel well, or like come up with some excuse. 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.320 He goes, and it is it's that like I'm invincible 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.280 and I'll be able to talk my way out of this. 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.760 Speaking of Erica, Poor Erica, she must feel so bad 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.240 about this, which is just tragic. Yeah. I don't even 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.280 know how you handle the guilt. And it is absolutely 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.639 not her fault. She couldn't control Pedro. She had no 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.679 idea what Pedro was gonna do. She's not responsible for 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.840 Pedro's actions, but I'm sure she felt awful. I mean, 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:09.960 I think the only thing that probably helped her was 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.360 knowing that she could testify against Pedro and help ultimately 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.159 put him away hopefully. Yeah. Scary to think she was 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:18.960 going to have to face him in the courtroom though. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.199 But perhaps the most compelling evidence against Pedro was his 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:31.280 former cellmate. He was a man named Michael Angelo. Michael 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.359 had bumked with Pedro for two and a half years 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:37.720 and had gained his trust. According to Michael, Pedro not 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.600 only admitted to killing Christian to him, but also spilled 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:47.800 every Corey detail. Here's a portion of Michael's testimony. I 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:50.520 think originally said that he was gonna try to poison 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.920 him with a mixture of sleeping pills and pest aside 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.879 and mixed with soda or something like I had, I 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:04.840 guess soda. And his backup plan was to have a knife, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:07.840 you know, to cut his throat in case it didn't work, 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:09.840 you know, after he got back in the driver's seat 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.320 and he was you know, I guess, riding around to 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.320 dispose of the body that it was making it sound like. 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.000 And then that's the reason that he held onto the 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.240 driving strap while he was riding around because it freaked 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:28.199 him out. As we know, Michael Angelo really helped the 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.640 prosecution in their case against Pedro and what he thought 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:34.760 was pretty damning according to him. When Pedro and Michael 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.480 first met in jail, Pedro allegedly wanted to use Michael 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.800 for his gang contacts on the outside. Pedro's plan was 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:42.760 to get a gang member to start killing people in 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.040 a similar fashion to Christian so that the public would 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.720 think there was a serial killer on the loose. Um 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:51.440 Instead of doing that, which thank god he didn't, Michael 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.320