They Know Everything

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Speaker 4 And all-new 2020 starts right now.

Speaker 5 There's this photo at Prom their senior year.

Speaker 5 Knowing how the story ends, it's really hard not to put really intense symbolism on it.

Speaker 2 Today is April 16th, 2025.

Speaker 6 This is Brian Kramer, State Attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit. We are at the Alachua County Jail.

Speaker 8 Stitch your name, please.

Speaker 8 I'm shocked by the complexity of it. The amount of lies and false evidence is beyond what we would ever see.

Speaker 6 Is he asking, I want you to commit a very serious felony out of the goodness of your heart?

Speaker 5 Once a student is officially reported missing, all hell breaks loose.

Speaker 2 A frantic search.

Speaker 10 There was dogs, helicopters, horses, 4x4s.

Speaker 2 One of the largest in Florida history.

Speaker 13 How did you just vanish?

Speaker 3 How? How is that possible?

Speaker 2 Who did this mystery witness turn out to be?

Speaker 14 I told him, like, there's nothing else I can do. I have to come forward.

Speaker 15 After I got the phone calls, it was clear.

Speaker 16 I just decided on my own.

Speaker 3 Why not say what happened that day?

Speaker 15 I thought, okay, this is probably the connection I'm looking for.

Speaker 17 They know about you. They know everything.

Speaker 8 I've never seen anything like this before. He was going to not only murder, but he was going to get away with it.

Speaker 8 Are you ready for some Gator football?

Speaker 5 If you live in Florida, the University of Florida is the big dream school.

Speaker 5 The academics are great. The partying is great.
The atmosphere is intense.

Speaker 18 Oh, it's nothing but open field ahead.

Speaker 19 Here is a ton of University of Florida pride.

Speaker 13 Gator Nation is everywhere. Gator Nation is something special.

Speaker 19 It's a sea of orange and blue. The place comes absolutely alive on Saturdays for football game days.
Let's go, kids! Here we go!

Speaker 2 18-year-old freshman Christian Aguilar was new to the swamp, but had already secured his tickets for the upcoming season.

Speaker 7 I think think Chris was excited for a few things like football season. That might have been a part of why he chose Florida, but I do think academically is kind of what drove him the most.

Speaker 20 For Christian Aguilar, this was such a big moment in his life. He had just started college and he was living on his own for the first time.

Speaker 2 Five hours from Miami, that made you a little bit afraid that he was going to be a little farther away.

Speaker 21 I was very proud, but at the same time, I was afraid because he was living far away from us.

Speaker 22 We told him, every day you communicate with us every day.

Speaker 2 Did he communicate with you guys every single day? Every single day.

Speaker 23 Latin families are very tight, especially in Miami. People don't necessarily move until they're married.

Speaker 23 So I can imagine Christian being nervous, but also feeling kind of relieved that a few of his friends were also going. Some familiar faces, you know, to see when you move, I think is comforting.

Speaker 2 That comfort came in the form of a close high school friend, Erica Freeman, who was enrolled at a local community college.

Speaker 5 Shortly after Christian moved to Gainsville, he started hanging out with Erica again.

Speaker 5 She was a little buffer against all the homesickness he was starting to feel, and before long, that relationship blossomed into a romantic one.

Speaker 24 The way he looked at me. I don't know how to explain it.
Someone just gives you that much just with their eyes. I don't need anyone else.
I need you.

Speaker 24 And that's how he would describe it, and that's how I felt.

Speaker 2 Christian is doing so well in school. He has a girlfriend.
Everything seems like it's perfect.

Speaker 22 We were living in a bubble

Speaker 4 of happiness.

Speaker 22 Suddenly, you know, our life just

Speaker 4 changed forever.

Speaker 22 Everything was

Speaker 3 gone.

Speaker 21 University Please.

Speaker 26 Yes, look, my name is Carlos Aguilar and I'm the parent of Christian Aguilar and he has not been answering our calls.

Speaker 26 His girlfriend has been trying to contact him since yesterday and he's not responding.

Speaker 24 It's really strange that he wasn't answering. It wasn't just wasn't like him.

Speaker 5 She called him and texted him over and over and he never responded.

Speaker 24 I start asking all my friends, now have you seen Christian on campus? Oh, I'm like, no, no, no, I haven't seen him. I haven't seen him.
And I'm getting, you know, more anxious.

Speaker 2 Erica is getting increasingly desperate. She comes here, Christian's dorm.
It's called the Springs. She knocks right on his window, hoping to find him at home.

Speaker 24 His roommate comes out and I'm explaining to him, you know, like, Christian's not answering me. I'm really concerned.
Like, I don't care what time he gets in. Just please, can you ask him to call me?

Speaker 20 The previous day, Christian spent most of the day on campus with his best friend from high school, Pedro Bravo.

Speaker 5 Christian didn't touch base with Erica that night and she got worried. So she started calling Pedro.
And at one point, Pedro picked up.

Speaker 24 First thing I'm asking was like where's Christian? And he's just like you know listen you know it's late. I'm sure he made it home.
He just didn't call you.

Speaker 2 4 a.m. You get a phone call from Erica.
Tell me about that phone call and what happened next.

Speaker 27 She calls me worried about Christian, about where he's at

Speaker 27 and I know I had just gotten a fight with him. He hasn't showed up to his apartment that we have to report him missings.

Speaker 24 And now I really start to panic because I'm like, where he all night?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 27 I'll tell her we should go to the University of Florida and at least try and report him there.

Speaker 2 Inside the station Pedro's request for help is relayed to a dispatcher.

Speaker 28 You guys are concerned for his safety or something or you just well he's I don't know where he is right now.

Speaker 29 So

Speaker 29 he's not answering it so I don't need what time of day was this? This was around six or seven.

Speaker 28 Okay, an officer sounds right down there.

Speaker 30 Is the officer right there?

Speaker 21 I receive a phone call in my work

Speaker 21 and was Serika almost screaming.

Speaker 2 What was she saying to you?

Speaker 21 She asked me, when was the last time that you talked to Christian? Because I'm trying to call him since yesterday. He's not answering me.

Speaker 2 Carlos, what was it like getting that call from your wife telling you that his girlfriend can't find Christian?

Speaker 4 I immediately hung up with her, called Christian.

Speaker 7 No answer. No answer.

Speaker 31 Christian Aguilar's parents were calling our communications center.

Speaker 26 Normally respond to his girlfriend right away and if it is so concerned about it, we are concerned right now.

Speaker 16 This is not his normal behavior.

Speaker 4 Kids get reported missing on college campuses all the time.

Speaker 4 And sometimes it's just as simple as going to the classroom where he's supposed to be and seeing that he's in there and saying, hey, can you please call home?

Speaker 28 Or we have an officer that's coming there to do a well-being check on on a student.

Speaker 2 We had checked his residence hall on campus.

Speaker 32 He wasn't there.

Speaker 2 It was just going home.

Speaker 32 We had checked his classes. He never showed up to him.

Speaker 28 I did advise the instructor that if he shows up to have him call, say

Speaker 32 there's something really going on here.

Speaker 2 Christian's brother Alex is sitting in his AP English class when he gets the news that something is wrong.

Speaker 7 It was around 10, 11 o'clock in the morning, and the PA system goes off.

Speaker 19 My father's there to pick me up.

Speaker 7 When I finally got to my father, who was waiting in the waiting area of the high school, he was in tears.

Speaker 2 Had you ever seen your father in that state before?

Speaker 7 No, I've never seen my father anywhere close to that. He didn't have the words to tell me anything.
We just knew something had happened to Chris. We vaguely know that he's just missing.

Speaker 7 From there, we picked up my mother at her work and it was a straight shot from the route straight to Gainesville.

Speaker 2 You spoke to Pedro on the way up to Gainesville. What did he tell you?

Speaker 22 They got into into an argument and Christian opened the door and got out of the car and he left

Speaker 4 there.

Speaker 33 So that made me feel, you know, peace.

Speaker 22 Say, probably Christian got lost.

Speaker 20 The minute Christian's parents heard that he was missing, they got in the car and they drove straight to Gainesville. Initially, they thought maybe their son who was new to the area was just lost.

Speaker 2 Did you start searching immediately? Immediately. Where did you go first?

Speaker 21 We started walking around the trails. The trails?

Speaker 23 Screaming Christian.

Speaker 35 Christian!

Speaker 2 Alex,

Speaker 21 Christian, we are here. Where are you?

Speaker 21 Raise your hand.

Speaker 21 Please answer. Your mom is here.

Speaker 22 We know Gainesville. Gainesville is full of swamps.
It was a swamp. And we went inside and it was an alligator nearby.

Speaker 4 And we were not scared at all.

Speaker 27 We just wanted to find Christian.

Speaker 30 It's been three days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.

Speaker 37 After nine days, University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami has not been found.

Speaker 13 I can't imagine a worse feeling as a parent than sending my child to college and having them disappear.

Speaker 38 Tonight, authorities in Gainesville are searching for a missing University of Florida student who could be in danger. University of Florida student Christian Aguilar is still missing.

Speaker 30 It's been three days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.

Speaker 37 After nine days, University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami has not been found.

Speaker 11 I've covered Florida for ABC for years, spent my entire career here. This story always stuck with me.

Speaker 11 The sheer scale of the search, the throngs of people that descended on Gainesville was like nothing I'd seen before or since.

Speaker 13 In the first week after Christian Aguilar disappeared, it was intense coverage on our part. It led our newscast every day for weeks.

Speaker 13 And it wasn't necessarily because of the mystery, it was more that we felt this great empathy towards the family and the friends and just the lives of these people who were touched by this.

Speaker 13 That something could go so wrong with a life that had so much promise.

Speaker 2 What was Christian like as a kid?

Speaker 22 He likes to read a lot, study, play music, drawing.

Speaker 21 He was very shy like me,

Speaker 21 but at the same time he was a very funny guy.

Speaker 2 He used to make the family laugh?

Speaker 3 A lot.

Speaker 40 He was pretty funny.

Speaker 23 Christian was a very charismatic person. He loved to make people laugh.
He loved to make people smile.

Speaker 5 Carlos and Claudia Aguilar made their way to the United States from Cali, Columbia, and they made a life for themselves in Miami. Christian was born in 1993.

Speaker 5 A few years later, his younger brother, Alexander, was born.

Speaker 2 As an older brother, would Christian protect you more? Would he pick on you a little bit?

Speaker 4 Combination of both?

Speaker 7 Yeah, Chris would definitely pick on me, but since you're brothers, you're allowed to kind of get away with it.

Speaker 20 The Aguilars wanted the best for their son, so they enrolled them in the Dural Academy, and Christian was part of a very close-knit group of friends: Christian, Pedro, and Erica.

Speaker 20 And these three did everything together.

Speaker 2 Pedro had a similar childhood to Christian. His parents, also having emigrated to the U.S.
from Latin America, they speak limited English.

Speaker 2 If you could describe Pedro for people who have never met him before,

Speaker 40 he was very smart.

Speaker 40 He learned how to play chess.

Speaker 21 Uneño muy wanito, muy lindo, muy feliz como todo uniño.

Speaker 21 Muya alegre.

Speaker 2 Tell me about your friendship with Christian Aguilar. What drew you guys to each other?

Speaker 27 And I met Christian through classes that we had together. He liked to draw, I liked to draw, and just something that began to flow naturally.
We began to talk and share ideas and thoughts.

Speaker 27 He was a really, really sweet guy, really charismatic.

Speaker 25 And

Speaker 27 he always made you feel like when he would laugh, you'd want to laugh with him.

Speaker 7 Pedro was somebody that Chris thought was just hilarious and Pedro is a very funny person. In high school he was quick with the jokes,

Speaker 7 very kind.

Speaker 27 I put on this persona on the outside of telling jokes and smiling because on the inside I didn't know where I was going in life. I didn't know who I was and I always felt sad

Speaker 27 but I didn't want to show other people that I'm depressed or I'm feeling down because I don't want people to leave me in my life.

Speaker 2 What was Erica's relationship to Christian in high school?

Speaker 33 They were just good friends.

Speaker 22 They participated in a lot of events together.

Speaker 5 Both Pedro and Christian saw in Erica a smart, sweet, shy, kind, and beautiful woman who had goals for herself and was a really good friend to everyone around her.

Speaker 24 We hung out a lot and Christian had the car so you know we would just hop in his car.

Speaker 20 After graduation all the friends went their separate ways and Christian had been accepted to the University of Florida.

Speaker 7 He would have been one of the first cousins in our family to graduate from a university and he wanted to challenge himself.

Speaker 2 Did you ever get a sense early on with Christian that he was destined to do something great with his life?

Speaker 22 He told us that he wanted to become a biomedic. called engineer because he wanted to help people to rehabilitate and to accommodate them to have a better life.

Speaker 2 After graduation, what was Pedro planning on doing?

Speaker 40 He was planning on going to the FIU. He was very, very smart.
He had a good future.

Speaker 2 That you got scholarship to FIU, but you decided to leave that behind, leave Miami, and go to Gainesville.

Speaker 13 Why?

Speaker 27 Everywhere I turned to, Miami just reminded me of my friends, reminded me of all the times we spent together.

Speaker 27 And it was a last-minute decision to try and go up there to try and see if I could, you know, reconnect a part of that feeling.

Speaker 2 And just a few short weeks after Pedro had moved up to Cainesville to be closer with his friends, Christian had disappeared.

Speaker 2 Pedro says he talks to police in the hopes he can help them find his missing friend.

Speaker 31 Let's see if we can locate Christian or figure out where he may have been.

Speaker 42 Please.

Speaker 20 Pedro told police the day before he had been hanging out with his best friend.

Speaker 31 When I first met with Pedro, I asked him to take me through through his last meeting with Christian.

Speaker 45 We went, he took his flu shots at campus.

Speaker 4 The day before, he

Speaker 22 got in contact with Claudia.

Speaker 21 He was at Teth Messev, he got a democrat for the flu.

Speaker 2 Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Speaker 22 Nothing.

Speaker 46 And then I'm like, oh, do you want to go get something to eat?

Speaker 47 And he's like, oh, okay, sure.

Speaker 45 So we went to, we got in my car and we went to Zaxby's Chicken. And then he's like, oh, yeah, can we pull him to the Best Buy? And I was like, sure, because he wanted to get the new Kanye West CD.

Speaker 45 So we looked around and we found the new Kanye OS CD and he got it.

Speaker 43 And then we left.

Speaker 31 Pedro went on to tell me that as they were driving,

Speaker 31 he and Christian got into an argument. Pedro got upset with Christian.
And Christian demanded to be let out of the vehicle.

Speaker 46 So I stopped the car and I let him get off and I drove away. Because

Speaker 17 I was...

Speaker 46 I didn't want to

Speaker 46 deal with that anymore. But like, as I was driving away, like, I really regret it now because I wish I could have gone back.
And then that's the last I heard of him.

Speaker 31 My whole intent on interviewing Pedro was give me some indication that, you know, some lead that we can follow up on. What do you know about what Christian was thinking, what his plans were?

Speaker 47 Do you think Chris would have been upset enough yesterday to hear him

Speaker 31 about you guys having the argument?

Speaker 47 I really hope not.

Speaker 43 I don't think so.

Speaker 2 Police also interview Christian's girlfriend, Erica.

Speaker 48 Pedro,

Speaker 12 let's close this case. Somebody walks by.

Speaker 24 I was telling them, no, no, no, we're doing just fine.

Speaker 41 We're doing great, actually.

Speaker 24 And he's not one to not even answer me. So it's been very strange.
I don't know where he is.

Speaker 2 Scrambling for any clues, police learn from Pedro about an impulsive decision he says he and Christian made. They picked up a hitchhiker.
along this road.

Speaker 31 While they're in the course of driving around, Pedro tells me they they pick up this hitchhiker.

Speaker 46 It's two of us against one person if anything happens. If anything, he'd be in the back seat, so we'd overpower him if anything bad happens.

Speaker 2 One couldn't help but wonder, who was this mystery hitchhiker and what, if anything, did he have to do with the disappearance of Christian Aguilar?

Speaker 5 Once a student is officially reported missing, all hell breaks loose.

Speaker 20 If a student goes missing, the University of Florida has an alert system. They send out text messages, emails, they even put posts on social media.

Speaker 49 We had multiple detectives respond, start checking information on telephones, on apartments, just where, if anybody's seen.

Speaker 50 Aguilar was last seen by a Miami native Pedro Bravo at a Best Buy in Gainesville.

Speaker 2 Let's go back to that day with Christian. What did you guys do?

Speaker 27 We met up together at the hub,

Speaker 27 we got something to eat, we got a Kanye West CD, we picked up a hitchhiker.

Speaker 20 Pedro describes to police that they were hanging out, listening to music, and that they picked up a hitchhiker, something that Pedro says they'd never done before.

Speaker 46 Yeah, they still know and we're like, why not? Because it'd be an interesting experience to pick up someone like that on the road.

Speaker 31 He's never done that before. But this guy seemed, according to Pedro, seemed harmless.

Speaker 12 This guy just looked very tall and very like

Speaker 46 a sort of a gentle giant sort of thing.

Speaker 47 Do you remember anything about,

Speaker 31 he said he had a hat?

Speaker 43 Yeah, a cowboy hat.

Speaker 31 Pedro tells me they drove around, listened to this hitchhiker story. about what brought him to Gainesville for approximately 10 minutes.

Speaker 46 He's like, just dropped me off right over there. Then I pull into like this storage place, what looks like a storage place.
I remember seeing storage somewhere.

Speaker 46 And I'm like, I pull in there, he gets off and I do a you and leaves there.

Speaker 31 He sat in the back seat of Pedro's car and according to Pedro was playing with a roll of duct tape.

Speaker 46 I checked my car to see if there was, like, if there was anything missing because I had a bunch of my art supplies on the back. My duct tape is missing.

Speaker 2 Police collect security video and they're able to piece together much of Pedro and Christian's day.

Speaker 2 Although it doesn't capture that hitchhiker Pedro claims they picked up, the footage largely matches Pedro's account.

Speaker 5 The police got security camera footage from all over the place.

Speaker 13 They were caught on security cameras in various stores around town just having a day together at Best Buy and some other places hanging out.

Speaker 19 Nothing odd about that footage.

Speaker 5 The next time security camera footage caught the two of them, it was in Pedro Brevo's car inside a nearby Walmart parking lot.

Speaker 13 The security video at Walmart picked them up in a vehicle and departing the parking lot. And that was the last time that anybody saw Christian Aguilar.

Speaker 20 Christian disappeared outside the boundaries of the university, so the case was handed over to the Gainesville Police Department.

Speaker 49 I got a telephone call from our lieutenant, and he said that the University of Florida Police Department had a missing student and asked if I would respond to the University of Florida Police Department.

Speaker 9 University Police Department contacted us about Christian missing

Speaker 42 and we're going to be taking over the investigation.

Speaker 35 Pedro seemed to be a young man who was

Speaker 49 a little bit meek and mild.

Speaker 9 How long have you known

Speaker 47 Christian?

Speaker 27 For four years all of high school.

Speaker 44 He's been

Speaker 43 He's been one of my really good friends.

Speaker 46 I brought him with me into art class.

Speaker 9 What high school did you go to?

Speaker 45 Durrell Academy Charter High School.

Speaker 49 After interviewing Pedro for 15, 20, 30 minutes, he explains the relationship between Erica Freeman, Christian Aguilar, and himself.

Speaker 42 What's your relationship with Erica?

Speaker 46 I dated her for two years. And from then I just became friends.

Speaker 2 What was that relationship like with Erica? How did it start? How did it end?

Speaker 27 It was teen love when I think about it. When you're young you think you know what love is, you think what you know what you want.

Speaker 27 But as you get older you look back and you realize you were just excited that you had someone that wanted you in that type of way. We spent a lot of time together.

Speaker 2 And what were your interactions with her like after your breakup?

Speaker 27 We stayed in touch for a very short while, but after that all my friends moved from Miami to all parts of Florida.

Speaker 27 Most people were following their dream and it just became the breakup of the relationship became a symbol that everything was changing.

Speaker 47 Has Christian been the skiing?

Speaker 46 Christian's been dating her for from what I know

Speaker 43 from for

Speaker 46 three weeks, a month I guess.

Speaker 9 How do you know that?

Speaker 53 He's the one that told me.

Speaker 9 And how'd you handle that?

Speaker 47 At the beginning it was kind of rough.

Speaker 46 But then after that I'm like, I'm like, I'm in a way, I was glad it was Chris and not someone I didn't know.

Speaker 46 Because I knew Chris and I knew what type of person he is, and I knew if anything happened, he could take care of her, sort of thing.

Speaker 2 Pedro says he's happy for Erica and Christian.

Speaker 54 It's very like soap opera-like.

Speaker 2 But it turns out they've been keeping the relationship a secret.

Speaker 31 Erica shows me some text messages between her and Christian.

Speaker 54 All this chaos came forward, and we didn't know how to handle it.

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Speaker 2 The University of Florida is on high alert as 18-year-olds Christian Aguilar is still missing.

Speaker 2 His friend, Pedro, is talking to police about what happened the day Christian disappeared, and during that conversation, it has come to light that Pedro and Erica Freeman dated in high school.

Speaker 2 Erica was now dating Christian.

Speaker 42 And your friends dating your ex-girlfriend?

Speaker 43 Oh, no, but I'm okay with that. Because I, like, I know he's a good guy.

Speaker 9 You're okay with that?

Speaker 3 I didn't buy that at all.

Speaker 49 Just in the way that Pedro talked about it, you could tell that

Speaker 49 he was not real happy about it, but he was telling me he was happy.

Speaker 58 Okay.

Speaker 48 So

Speaker 48 I understand that you and Pedro were dating all through high school. Yes.
Basically.

Speaker 54 It was going to be three years in October.

Speaker 12 So about three years, yeah.

Speaker 24 We would go out, we went on dates, we texted all the time. He was a little funny.
He was very sarcastic.

Speaker 24 He was kind of the class clown a little bit. He was able to make me laugh so easily.

Speaker 20 Christian, Erica, and Pedro were part of a larger group at high school. In fact, they all went to prom together, but before graduation, Erica breaks up with Pedro.

Speaker 54 I started seeing problems in December of last year.

Speaker 54 It was simple things, but they kept adding up and I kept making up excuses for him and I just, I didn't like the fact that I had to keep making up excuses that, oh no, it's not his fault.

Speaker 5 Erica Freeman ended up breaking up with Pedro Bravo right before they graduated.

Speaker 24 He was very emotional about it. He cried a lot.
He was very, I mean, it was not what I was expecting at all when I broke up with him.

Speaker 20 So now police want to know a lot more about Erica and Pedro's relationship in high school. So they brought in former classmates and friends to fill them in.

Speaker 12 Was he in love with Erica?

Speaker 24 Yeah,

Speaker 54 they were in a three-year relationship, almost three-year relationship, and she broke up with him before the summer because she was gonna come up here.

Speaker 54 And so he came here kind of to like get her back.

Speaker 5 Pedro couldn't accept their breakup, he couldn't accept that things were over.

Speaker 5 And that culminated in him driving up to Gainesville and going to school there so he could be closer to her.

Speaker 48 He decided to move here two days before classes started because he was visiting and he's like, hey, Erica lives here. I might as well stay to see if she'll take me back

Speaker 49 after moving to Gainesville Erica Freeman runs into Christian and they develop a relationship

Speaker 54 but they were keeping it secret because they didn't want to hurt Pedro were you telling other people about this or were you hiding that no we were we were keeping it quiet we were trying to just you we were just trying to keep it between us I mean that just We didn't have a problem saying it.

Speaker 54 Like we would walk around campus holding hands and stuff. We didn't have a problem with it.

Speaker 54 And we knew people in Miami would not be comfortable with the idea of us dating because, again, I had just broken up with Pedro.

Speaker 2 But Erica and Christian's relationship wouldn't stay quiet for long.

Speaker 5 Pedro found out about Erica and Christian through mutual friends.

Speaker 2 Christian was one of your best friends. You two knew each other very well.
Were you mad that he was dating your ex-girlfriend and didn't tell you?

Speaker 27 At first, I was.

Speaker 27 But at the same time,

Speaker 27 I grew up with him, and he's my best friend

Speaker 27 and we've shared countless moments together. It sucked that he didn't tell me, but I understood his reasons why.

Speaker 25 And

Speaker 27 I was just

Speaker 3 mad that

Speaker 27 he couldn't have told me sooner.

Speaker 54 It's very soap opera-like.

Speaker 54 Me and Christian were very uncomfortable with all of it. We didn't want him to come to Gainesville.
We were very happy, just the two of us.

Speaker 54 Everything was doing fine, and then all this chaos came forward, and it it was just, it was surprising and we didn't, we didn't, we didn't know how to handle it.

Speaker 48 Once the rumors got out that Christian and Erica were seeing each other, he would say that it would like that he was sad about it.

Speaker 2 This is the 34th Street Wall. It's a local landmark here in Gainesville lined with graffiti.
This is where Pedro and Erica met up, where he confronted her about dating Christian.

Speaker 24 He showed me a picture of me standing next to Christian and I was just like, listen, we're friends. You know, we're hanging out, you know, we're not dating, we're just hanging out.

Speaker 32 But you lied to him.

Speaker 24 I did lie to him, yes.

Speaker 32 Why did you lie?

Speaker 24 I just felt like it wasn't the appropriate time to tell him that. You know, I don't want to push this kid at all.
I don't want him to think anything, you know, that might throw him over the edge.

Speaker 54 He told me that he wanted to talk to Chris to kind of clear the air.

Speaker 49 His motivation was to

Speaker 49 get with Christian to talk to him about the relationship he started with Erica Freeman. So he had mutual friends call Christian to arrange this

Speaker 49 get-together.

Speaker 54 Once Christian was with Pedro, I had not heard from him. The last thing he told me was have a great day in class and

Speaker 54 I'm gonna go talk to Pedro and act like we're not dating.

Speaker 54 It's fairly traumatizing, this whole situation.

Speaker 47 Yes, certainly.

Speaker 48 I understand that.

Speaker 2 Hoping to establish a timeline of his whereabouts after dropping off Christian, police speak with one of Pedro's roommates.

Speaker 48 He came in

Speaker 48 around

Speaker 48 9.

Speaker 48 I was able to see like the very last

Speaker 48 of like his shoulder to his head leaving. He didn't look dirty, he didn't look sweaty.
Was he carrying anything? Was he yeah.

Speaker 48 I didn't. I didn't notice him.
I didn't notice anything in his hand. He stayed for, he couldn't have been at home longer than five minutes before he left again.

Speaker 35 The location where Pedro Bravo was living had its own surveillance cameras at the very front.

Speaker 49 So we were able to see him come and go, which direction he turned.

Speaker 48 And when he left, was the last time I've seen Pedro.

Speaker 2 With little evidence to go on, police asked Pedro for permission to search his car.

Speaker 31 There were some suspicious items that were located in there.

Speaker 2 And what they find feeds the investigation.

Speaker 22 The police was telling us that they're gonna come over here for one or two days,

Speaker 22 but after that, we don't know if we're gonna continue with the search.

Speaker 22 I told them, you can do whatever you want, but until I find my son and I'm living, I think that created a very powerful statement for the community, and people

Speaker 22 felt compelled to help us out.

Speaker 23 On the search, Christian's family was on the front lines. I remember seeing their interviews, pleading for help.

Speaker 7 I'm looking for people's heart

Speaker 33 that can come and found me.

Speaker 2 I'm looking for somebody that can walk with me.

Speaker 3 That's the only thing that I ask.

Speaker 2 You were never going to leave Gainesville?

Speaker 22 No, I told my wife we're not leaving.

Speaker 22 We don't care if we lose the house, we don't care if we lose everything,

Speaker 22 you know, Christian is missing, we're going to find Christian.

Speaker 13 When Christian Aguilar's parents came up from South Florida, they became the face of the search.

Speaker 13 They became an embodiment of what we were all hoping for, and that was a successful recovery of Christian Aguilar.

Speaker 35 Christian, Alex, God, Christian.

Speaker 13 To see their faces almost every day, actively out there asking for help. searching themselves, calling Christian's name, just touched our community's heart.

Speaker 37 University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami has not been found, dead or alive.

Speaker 19 The problem is we didn't know where to search. There was really no boundary of where our search was because we didn't know what we didn't know.

Speaker 19 So we sat and looked at everything.

Speaker 19 Matt Gekkel was our digital forensics expert detective at the Gainesville Police Department at the time.

Speaker 4 Pedro did consent to a search of his phone initially.

Speaker 4 It just seemed that he was very worried about Christian, where he might be, what might have happened.

Speaker 4 The initial review of the data was to, you know, reconcile the phone data with Pedro's statements to then hopefully be able to find where Christian may have been.

Speaker 49 Matt Gekkel was able to determine that the two of them were together for a long period of time, directions they went.

Speaker 30 As we continue our coverage of the missing 18-year-old University of Florida student, it's been days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.

Speaker 5 The search for Christian was one of the biggest searches in Florida for any missing person.

Speaker 37 Hundreds of volunteers this weekend combing through the woods of Gainesville. Still, no sign of the missing team.

Speaker 2 The area in and around Gainesville, it's unforgiving and incredibly hard to traverse with swamps and this thick underbrush teeming with wildlife.

Speaker 10 There was dogs, helicopters, horses, 4x4s.

Speaker 49 There were law enforcement from all over the state helping to assist in the search.

Speaker 2 How involved was Erica in the search and how was she holding up during this time?

Speaker 7 Erica was extremely involved.

Speaker 7 I do feel like we felt like we had to stick by each other. She is such a sweet person, so sincere, and she was with us from the very beginning.

Speaker 24 We had been searching and searching and searching, you know, screaming out his name, every forest we got to, every road we got to, every river we passed.

Speaker 39 I think the most difficult part for me was seeing every day the faces of my family completely in pain, crying with no hope.

Speaker 22 And I couldn't do anything about it.

Speaker 13 It was like suddenly he no longer existed. He had disappeared and no one had seen anything of him.

Speaker 31 I asked Pedro at the time, would you mind if we went through your vehicle to see if Christian maybe left anything that might give us an indication of where he might be?

Speaker 27 I'm left in a room at times for hours waiting for them to come back to ask me something else. I couldn't leave.
So I wanted to give them whatever I needed to.

Speaker 2 So when police asked permission to search the vehicle, what did you say?

Speaker 27 Said yes. I gave them my car keys.

Speaker 2 Pedro's blue Chevy Blazer is a mess.

Speaker 20 It's got trash everywhere. Wrappers, bottles, paint cans, and in the back, there are a bunch of crumpled up receipts.
One receipt is for a late-night Big Mac.

Speaker 60 I ended up finding a McDonald's receipt that was dated when he had told Sergeant Wilder he was in bed passed out because he had taken sleeping pills.

Speaker 2 The night that Christian disappeared, where did Pedro Bravo tell investigators that he'd been?

Speaker 8 Pedro Bravo told the investigators that he was asleep in his apartment until the early morning hours of the next day when he was awoken by Erica calling, looking to him to tell her where Christian was.

Speaker 60 That kind of blows his alibi of being at home at that period out of the water.

Speaker 42 And why didn't you tell me that the first time?

Speaker 47 I forgot.

Speaker 43 Honestly, I'm sorry, but I forgot. I forgot.

Speaker 46 Like, I might have been drowsy from the pills, and I don't remember.

Speaker 49 So, Pedro changed his version because of the receipt.

Speaker 49 And every time that we would ask him questions and go through, it seemed the version would change a little bit.

Speaker 27 They came back and they asked me about this McDonald receipt and the timestamp on it. And the previous day I'd just gotten a fight with Christian.
I haven't eaten. I've barely slept.

Speaker 27 I feel completely destroyed in the sense that my whole life feels like it's falling apart. My parents said they're coming over to check on me and I just want to give them enough to go find Chris.

Speaker 27 They keep repeating the same things over and over again. It feels like I'm just answering things just to satisfy them.

Speaker 2 They find that receipt, it has the time stamp on it, and it shows that your story is not adding up all of a sudden, that it's changing.

Speaker 2 Why not be more forward with them from the beginning?

Speaker 27 I'm not used to talking to law enforcement.

Speaker 27 And as time goes on, I'm worn down by the interrogation, by the same questions over and over, and I tell them everything that happened.

Speaker 2 Pedro says he finally comes clean to detectives about what happened that day Christian disappeared.

Speaker 46 There's one thing that's bugging me that I have to tell you that if I don't tell you, it's gonna break.

Speaker 61 You're keep everything from you.

Speaker 2 And what started out as a missing person's case later becomes more complex than anyone could have imagined.

Speaker 8 I've never seen anything like this before.

Speaker 62 What the f did you do?

Speaker 18 What do you mean?

Speaker 17 They know about you. They know everything.

Speaker 9 Oh my gosh, what the f did I get myself into?

Speaker 8 Here's the preparation. Here's the planning.
Here's the execution. Here's the cover-up.

Speaker 8 He had been searching things like how many sleeping pills will it take to kill someone. He at some point viewed a meme of someone asking Siri, where can I hide my roommate?

Speaker 2 Asking Siri, Siri.

Speaker 64 The search for Christian Aguilar continues today.

Speaker 50 Christian Aguilar is still missing.

Speaker 34 The police say time may be running out.

Speaker 65 The University of Florida student has been missing since Thursday.

Speaker 2 Tonight, the tale of two tapes.

Speaker 9 We know that he's not coming back.

Speaker 2 What he told police.

Speaker 42 I know when somebody's coming back, when they ain't coming back.

Speaker 2 And what he told me in this exclusive interview. Do you understand how that looks? Everyone is looking for Christian.
You were the last person with him.

Speaker 61 Remember, Chris has to disappear. Chris has to go missing.

Speaker 3 This is the plan.

Speaker 2 The recordings never heard until now.

Speaker 17 What the f did I get myself into?

Speaker 2 How twisted the plot really got. So he invented a fictitious attorney.

Speaker 24 It sounds like the mind of a sociopath.

Speaker 5 He wanted to orchestrate more murders of more students in Gainesville, make it seem like there was a serial killer.

Speaker 2 Have you ever come across a scheme like this one?

Speaker 15 That was an aha moment.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a story of love, friendship, betrayal, and this cheek of recording you'll only hear on 2020.

Speaker 38 Tonight, authorities in Gainesville are are searching for a missing University of Florida student who could be in danger.

Speaker 13 When Christian Aguilar was reported missing, it was like he no longer existed.

Speaker 19 This was one of the largest searches that I have ever seen in my career as a police officer. The problem is we didn't know where to search.

Speaker 2 Pedro Bravo and Erica Freeman dated in high school. Erica was now dating Christian.

Speaker 5 When police realized the last person to see Christian was Pedro, they pulled him into an interrogation room and asked him what happened.

Speaker 49 The more I asked him questions, the more the story evolved and changed.

Speaker 2 Throughout the day, as Pedro Bravo was being questioned in an interrogation room, his story wasn't adding up to police.

Speaker 2 Then a McDonald's receipt is found inside Pedro's vehicle that raises more questions about what exactly Pedro was doing late the night before.

Speaker 19 One of the other things that we located was some security footage from Scrub's car wash of Pedro at one in the morning power washing the underside of his blazer.

Speaker 19 I like a clean car like anybody, but I'm not sure that one o'clock in the morning is going to be the time that I'm going to get out and spend 10 minutes washing the underside of my blazer.

Speaker 49 At some point, I had to confront him and say, look, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Speaker 8 What really happened?

Speaker 46 There's one thing that's bugging me that I have to tell you that if I I don't tell you it's gonna

Speaker 9 happen.

Speaker 43 I don't know.

Speaker 46 It's one thing I have to tell you because it's you're right.

Speaker 47 I can't keep everything from you and I have to tell you one thing.

Speaker 49 He said he didn't ask me to let him out.

Speaker 10 I told him to get out

Speaker 49 because he said something nasty to me.

Speaker 46 At one point I made the comment about his his the girl that he has a crush on and he got angry at that But then he came back with maybe you should just like maybe you should just kill yourself

Speaker 46 and That's when I turned around and punched him straight in the face

Speaker 46 and that's what i told like he want like he got up but i told him get out of the car

Speaker 27 you did not tell police that you punched christian in the face initially i just wanted chris found i didn't want to say that i gotten in the fight if they could have found chris and not have gone into too much detail about that that's what i wanted to accomplish Then it changed to, well, I got out and we had a fight and I beat him up and then I left him there.

Speaker 46 I stopped the car I got out and then I started a small fight with him

Speaker 9 and then I left.

Speaker 49 That evolved to well I beat him there but he was still alive.

Speaker 66 Was he breathing?

Speaker 49 Yeah but barely.

Speaker 42 Pedro, what really happened to Christian?

Speaker 49 And then I finally confronted him. I was like, Christian's not coming back, is he?

Speaker 42 If that's all that happened, he would have gone somewhere, called the police to get his phone and to get his stuff.

Speaker 42 We know that he's not coming back, okay? I know he's not coming back. I've been doing this for too long.

Speaker 42 I've been doing this for 30 years.

Speaker 9 I know when somebody's coming back, when they ain't coming back, he ain't coming back.

Speaker 42 You know he's not coming back.

Speaker 49 He just kind of moved his head. He didn't say anything.
He didn't say no. He didn't say yes.

Speaker 2 Detective Roberts, he is almost pleading with him. What does he say?

Speaker 8 He's telling him that he doesn't want his family to find a pile of bones. He wants Pedro Bravo to tell him where Christian Aguilar's body is.

Speaker 42 Why don't we do this, okay?

Speaker 42 I'm helping this. Why don't me and you and somebody take a ride and let's go see if he's still there.

Speaker 58 Okay.

Speaker 42 You're gonna be honest? Show me exactly where he left him.

Speaker 62 Exactly where he was.

Speaker 31 We drove the route with Pedro for him to show us where did you pick up the hitchhiker, where did you drop off the hitchhiker, where did you leave Christian?

Speaker 49 After hours of searching for Christian, we still didn't find anything.

Speaker 20 Police are desperately searching for Christian and there are just no signs of him, but they do find something in Pedro's apartment.

Speaker 2 During the search of your apartment,

Speaker 2 police uncovered your journal.

Speaker 2 And there are a lot of vivid entries in it about Erica, your relationship, and your desire to get back together with her.

Speaker 2 Pedro, were you obsessed with Erica?

Speaker 27 That journal covered two months after the breakup with Erica.

Speaker 27 And I started writing about how I was feeling to try and get it out of my system.

Speaker 27 I wanted to try and feel better somehow.

Speaker 42 Your friend's dating your ex-girlfriend?

Speaker 43 Oh no, but I'm okay with that.

Speaker 46 Because I, like, I know he's a good guy.

Speaker 49 He's telling me he's happy for Erica. He's happy for Christian.

Speaker 49 And this journal is completely opposite.

Speaker 49 He was totally obsessed with it.

Speaker 4 At this point in the investigation, we're doing everything everything we can to try and find Christian. As part of that, I requested his cell site records.

Speaker 4 Unfortunately, his records stopped on the day that he disappeared.

Speaker 19 One of the things that Detective Gekkel was able to find is that Pedro's phone was put into airplane mode for quite a bit of time on the day that Christian went missing.

Speaker 19 That told us a lot of things.

Speaker 4 The other big piece of information that we discovered on the device was the app usage log. It's a log that an iOS device keeps that shows the amount of time that particular applications were used.

Speaker 49 He was able to determine that the flashlight mode was used for 40 some odd minutes in the middle of the night.

Speaker 2 Police said that running a forensic search of Pedro's computer hard drive yielded some chilling results. What did they find?

Speaker 8 The search of Pedro Bravo's hard drive revealed that he had been searching things like where can I bury a body? What are the effects of sleeping pills?

Speaker 8 How many sleeping pills will it take to kill someone? And at some point, he viewed a meme of someone asking Siri, Where can I hide my roommate?

Speaker 49 The evidence is indicating that something bad has happened to Chris. He hasn't called, he hasn't been seen.

Speaker 2 How concerning was it when you learned that he'd purchased a shovel?

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Speaker 58 Jonas, brother, you got it.

Speaker 51 It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 42 Can't wait to see you guys. We love you.

Speaker 63 If they can only make it home.

Speaker 39 What's going on? Our tour plane burned?

Speaker 37 We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 9 Wait, huh?

Speaker 2 Nothing can stop us from getting home now.

Speaker 9 Homeland.

Speaker 5 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 2 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 51 A very Jonas Christmas movie now streaming on Disney Plus in Hulu with a TVPGDL.

Speaker 52 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 5 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood and that's gone to flames.

Speaker 30 New secrets and lies are coming out.

Speaker 50 This is gonna be catastrophic.

Speaker 34 We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 56 They make everything about themselves. I can't.

Speaker 5 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 52 Watch the Hulu original: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundling subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 65 Now a South Florida family is searching for their loved one and police say time may be running out. The University of Florida student has been missing since Thursday.

Speaker 2 As the search continues for Christian, authorities are conducting a search of their own through Pedro's apartment. What is it that they find?

Speaker 8 When the authorities enter Pedro's bedroom, they go in and they look in his closet. And in his closet, there is a travel suitcase.

Speaker 8 Inside that suitcase is another suitcase, like a Russian nesting doll. And inside of that suitcase is a backpack.
That backpack belongs to Christian Aguilar.

Speaker 8 And in that backpack is Christian Aguilar's identification. It's everything he would need if he were going to be continuing to live in this life.

Speaker 2 The backpack wasn't the only thing that you guys found inside Pedro's apartment, right?

Speaker 3 Correct.

Speaker 35 We actually did three search points at his apartment. We ended up finding receipt from Lowe's.

Speaker 19 The accompanying security footage there of Pedro purchasing a shovel, some insecticide, and a bottle-up Gatorade.

Speaker 2 How concerning was it when he learned that he'd purchased a shovel?

Speaker 35 Well it was very concerning because I knew that he would probably only use that to hide evidence or a body.

Speaker 31 One of the first charges that was brought against Pedro was the failure to render aid.

Speaker 31 Under his own admission, he got into a physical altercation with Christian, injured him, and left him on the side of the road.

Speaker 49 Well, the evidence is indicating that something something bad has happened to Christian. He hasn't called, he hasn't been seen, he's not where Pedro said he'd he'd left him.

Speaker 20 Erica wants to know what happened to Christian, so she goes to the jail and she questions Pedro. She begs him to tell her what happened to Christian.

Speaker 29 I need your help because we have nothing. Do you understand? Nothing.
How? How is that possible? How did he just vanish?

Speaker 3 Erica, I don't know what happened after I left him.

Speaker 64 Friends and former classmates, teachers all came out to to Miami's North Trail Park. They were all praying and hoping that young man will be found safe soon.
So far, absolutely no sign of him.

Speaker 19 About eight days into the search, we had enough evidence and we had enough reason to believe that this was making a turn from a missing person's investigation into a murder investigation.

Speaker 37 The evidence continues to mount in the murder case of missing UF student Christian Aguilar of Miami, his friend Pedro Bravo, wearing the suicide protection vest while making his first court appearance Saturday on the charge now of first-degree premeditated murder in the case.

Speaker 20 Pedro pleads not guilty to the charges.

Speaker 7 I think when Pedro was arrested, there is some level of disbelief. Like, no, this can't be Pedro because this is one of Chris's close friends.

Speaker 2 In a very short amount of time, you go from reporting one of your best friends missing to being arrested and then charged with his murder.

Speaker 27 I don't think anyone's ever prepared for a situation like that. I mean, I'm used to school.
I was the art kid and I was cracking jokes.

Speaker 27 Now I'm in a place where there's hardened criminals, people that have done serious things. And to add to all that, they're also calling me my best friend's killer.

Speaker 2 As Christian's parents, how did you manage to cope with the stress, the uncertainty during the search?

Speaker 22 Only God can answer you that question.

Speaker 22 You see your family members crying and you cannot do nothing about it.

Speaker 49 Over a period of time they came to realize that they may not get him back alive but they were going to get him home.

Speaker 2 It's now been three weeks since Christian Aguiler disappeared.

Speaker 13 A couple of hunters just by sheer coincidence happened to be out in this part of Levy County and they came across what they initially thought was a dead deer and on closer inspection they found out it was not.

Speaker 13 It was human remains.

Speaker 49 It's hard to do a death notification for anybody. It's hard to tell them that their loved one's not coming home.

Speaker 2 So that conversation with Randy Roberts where he tells you that they found a body.

Speaker 33 He just told me, I asked him, Randy, in your experience,

Speaker 22 you know, the body that you guys found in there matches the clothing, everything that Christian was wearing. And he he says 100%

Speaker 33 so you know at that moment we all start crying

Speaker 21 Claudia you wanted to go see the body after it was recovered why because I didn't believe that he was that he was he passed he he was murdered

Speaker 21 even that Randy said that he found the Christian body I didn't believe that for me it's been 30 years I've been doing it and

Speaker 49 that was the only time that I ever probably broke down with the family. That was the hardest one I ever did.

Speaker 2 You just spent more than three weeks searching for your son. You must have been exhausted physically and mentally.
What was it like when you had to bury him?

Speaker 33 My brain was not there. My heart was not there.
My physical presence, yes.

Speaker 22 But, you know, I don't remember everything

Speaker 8 clearly.

Speaker 23 What touched me about the funeral was just seeing like how many people loved him.

Speaker 23 Everyone was crying.

Speaker 2 Did your focus shift to now getting justice for Christian?

Speaker 22 Somebody has done a wrongdoing and you know it and it's really bad. That person is to be brought to justice.
We asked for justice.

Speaker 22 We didn't ask for revenge, which is different.

Speaker 8 Justice.

Speaker 2 What was it like when you finally saw Pedro walk into the courtroom?

Speaker 7 There's no words for it.

Speaker 19 You're betrayed.

Speaker 24 I have to have this monster, you know, staring at me while I'm on the stand.

Speaker 2 The investigation into Christian Aguilar's disappearance and murder only lasted a few weeks, but it would be almost two years before Pedro Bravo would finally go on trial here, charged with killing his best friend.

Speaker 2 With the case making national headlines, all eyes were on this courthouse in Gainesville.

Speaker 30 Jury selection is now underway in the trial of Santa Fe student Pedro Bravo.

Speaker 13 Bravo is charged with premeditated murder.

Speaker 5 The trial itself was just such a huge deal in Gainesville and every single day Christian's parents were there, his brother was there, they sat right up in the front.

Speaker 7 For us this was our way of representing Chris and all this because he didn't have a voice anymore so we had to be there for him.

Speaker 2 What was it like when you finally saw Pedro walk into the courtroom?

Speaker 7 There's no words for it.

Speaker 7 You're betrayed. I mean, this is somebody that's been to your house.
This is somebody whose house you've been to. It doesn't process as

Speaker 3 real.

Speaker 2 What do you remember about it?

Speaker 27 Remember cameras. Remember two weeks of

Speaker 27 watching my parents distraught, my mother in tears.

Speaker 27 My dad, who I've always seen as a giant broken down, seeing Christian's dad and his mom over there.

Speaker 27 trying to hold themselves together. And at the heart of it is me, me, labeled as this killer.

Speaker 8 All right, you may proceed.

Speaker 2 What was your strategy in presenting all of this evidence to the jury?

Speaker 8 We start from the beginning. We give them, here's the relationship.
Here's what happens with Christian and with Erica. Here's when Pedro comes to town.

Speaker 19 When you piece all of the evidence together, it gives a pretty good picture of what happened. Pedro was jealous of Christian and developed a plan to kill him.

Speaker 8 Here's the preparation, here's the planning, here's the execution, here's the cover-up.

Speaker 2 This is security footage from a Walmart parking lot here in Gainesville, 2012. Walk us through what happened here.

Speaker 8 So this is the car that Christian Aguilar and Pedro Bravar are in.

Speaker 8 He has come into the parking lot and he has stopped. And then he's going to wait here for about two and a half hours.

Speaker 8 And during that two and a half hours, he's waiting for the medication, sleeping pills that he's given to Christian Aguilar to take effect. When they take effect, he's falling asleep in the car.
Mr.

Speaker 8 Bravo crawls into the back seat of the car.

Speaker 8 He gets a toe strap.

Speaker 8 He loops it over the seat. He pulls it back with his hands.
He braces his knees against the back of the car and he holds it there, choking Christian Aguilar to death.

Speaker 5 Police say that Pedro drove all the way out to the woods in Levy County, dug a shallow grave, and left his friend there with his body tied with duct tape.

Speaker 61 Remember, Chris has to disappear. Chris has to go missing.

Speaker 3 This is the plan.

Speaker 2 Can't get Erica back.

Speaker 61 Chris is here.

Speaker 2 During opening statements, Pedro's attorney tells the jury: yes, Pedro and Christian got into a physical fight. Pedro hit him, but he did not kill him.

Speaker 6 He did hit his friend. They did get in a fight, and he left his friend.
That is what he did not want to tell the police.

Speaker 20 A parade of witnesses was called to testify, and Erica Freeman was one of them.

Speaker 2 What was your strategy in calling her to the stand?

Speaker 8 Well, Erica is the linchpin to why this happens.

Speaker 8 So we called Erica to the stand to provide context in which would explain the relationship between all the parties, that she was boyfriend with Christian Aguilar and former boyfriend was Pedro Bravo.

Speaker 24 I don't know why you read this far. You're the greatest person on this bloody earth.

Speaker 3 I won't let you fall.

Speaker 24 Where he took down the time to write down his plan and his,

Speaker 24 you know, what he was thinking of me or what he was thinking of Chris.

Speaker 24 It sounds like the mind of a sociopath.

Speaker 5 She had to take multiple breaks and at one point she had to identify items from Christian's backpack.

Speaker 5 She just couldn't hold it together and started crying and they had to take a break.

Speaker 24 And now I have to have this person, this monster, you know, staring at me while I'm on the stand. I don't want him to look at me.
I don't want him to see me ever again.

Speaker 19 I did lock eyes with Pedro once.

Speaker 19 And there was nothing there. It's just kind of a dark emptiness in his eyes.

Speaker 4 You know what it was the worst part of that trial?

Speaker 22 Seeing Pedro sitting in front, seeing somebody so sarcastic?

Speaker 4 No regret,

Speaker 22 no

Speaker 4 remorse.

Speaker 2 Was there a particular testimony that was difficult for you to sit through?

Speaker 22 Michael Angelos.

Speaker 2 And the story he tells, prosecutors say, illustrates just how far Pedro Bravo would go to get away with murder.

Speaker 50 No one really knows what happened the night that Christian Aguilar disappeared. However, one witness testifies his side of the story as told to him by Pedro Bravo, the suspect in this case.

Speaker 61 Next witness.

Speaker 8 Michelangelo is an inmate at the Elacho County Jail and Mr. Angelo has a series of conversations with Pedro Bravo where Pedro Bravo explains to him how, when, and where he killed Christian Aguilar.

Speaker 69 I think originally he said that he was going to try to poison him with a mixture of sleeping pills and pesticide

Speaker 69 and mixed with soda or something.

Speaker 69 His main plan was to choke him with a moving strap.

Speaker 2 According to Michelangelo, Pedro had another plan to cast suspicion elsewhere. What can you tell us about that plan?

Speaker 8 So, one of the things that Pedro Bravo did was he solicited Michelangelo to use Michelangelo's gang connections on the outside to do additional murders similar to the murder of Christian Aguilar.

Speaker 66 Was it ever brought up about the shovel and what you would need to do with the shovel as part of the plan?

Speaker 62 Yes.

Speaker 66 What was that?

Speaker 69 Or have somebody go get the shovel to,

Speaker 69 I guess, copycat that murder to make it look like somebody else had did it.

Speaker 66 And in order for you to do that, would you have to know where the shovel was then currently located?

Speaker 69 Yes, sir.

Speaker 8 His information checked out. We were able to find the shovel exactly where he said it was.

Speaker 66 Finding the shovel was a big deal, principally because it verified what Michelangelo was saying.

Speaker 2 On cross-examination, Pedro's lawyer argued that Michelangelo was getting a deal to testify and attacked his credibility.

Speaker 67 And the deal you are seeking is to get that life mandatory sentence off your back. That's the least that you wanted then.

Speaker 69 Yes, sir.

Speaker 4 State rest.

Speaker 40 State with rest.

Speaker 34 The young man on trial for allegedly killing his best friend, driven by jealousy, taking the stand in his own defense.

Speaker 2 Today we're hearing what Pedro Bravo says happened the day his friend and UF student Christian Aguilar was last seen alive.

Speaker 2 You decide to take the stand in your own defense. That is an unusual, risky move.
Why did you decide to do that?

Speaker 27 Because it didn't feel like there was anything else to do.

Speaker 27 It felt like

Speaker 27 it like it needed to be done.

Speaker 2 Pedro testifies as to why he says he bought the Gatorade and Zequil.

Speaker 66 You bought all those things?

Speaker 62 Yes.

Speaker 52 For what purpose?

Speaker 62 It was to kill myself.

Speaker 2 And as for buying the shovel, Pedro had an answer for that as well.

Speaker 66 Tell the jury why you bought a shovel.

Speaker 62 It was going to be part of my idea to kill myself.

Speaker 12 In a way, I was going to go find the spot, and I was going to mark my tomb and I was going to dig it.

Speaker 34 All right, thank you, Cross.

Speaker 66 Mr. Bravo, I want to start by asking you about your timeline that you described to Mr.
Rupert. Now, you're on your way to kill yourself, right? Correct.
But you've got to get gas first, right?

Speaker 61 Correct.

Speaker 66 Okay, because you can't kill yourself without a tank of gas, correct?

Speaker 61 Correct.

Speaker 8 I tried to question him about things that seemed inconsistent so that you can show the jury that their testimony is unreliable.

Speaker 2 Do you ever think about that last day that you spent with Christian?

Speaker 27 Every day.

Speaker 27 I try to not think about it because I don't want that to be the last

Speaker 27 or the most important memory of me and him. But I wish I would have done things differently.

Speaker 27 I wish I wouldn't have gotten into an argument. I've got him out the car.
I wish it would have been me on the ground instead of him.

Speaker 46 All right, we'll be adjourned for you.

Speaker 49 All right.

Speaker 35 It was a two-week trial and only a few hours for the jury to come back with a verdict.

Speaker 70 We, the jury finds as follows as the defendant Pedro Andreas Brawl in this case. The defendant is guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, first degree.

Speaker 2 What went through your mind when you heard the jury say guilty?

Speaker 27 I immediately turn back and I see my parents

Speaker 27 and I feel

Speaker 27 I failed them as a son.

Speaker 22 He destroyed two families,

Speaker 22 his and ours.

Speaker 22 Nobody won that day.

Speaker 31 You have to sit back and ask yourself why.

Speaker 31 You know,

Speaker 31 it's just, it's so senseless.

Speaker 31 What could possibly drive this young man to bend his abilities and his talent and his motivation in such a negative direction?

Speaker 2 Did you kill Christian Aguilar?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 27 Did not kill Christian.

Speaker 31 Pedro was ultimately sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 20 Pedro had spent more than a decade behind bars, his appeals exhausted before a bombshell claim was alleged. It had the potential to turn this case upside down.

Speaker 57 Defense attorneys are attempting to overturn Pedro Bravo's conviction.

Speaker 18 An eyewitness has come forward who specifically supports Pedro's version of what happened between him and Christian, the fight, and also most

Speaker 18 importantly, verifies that Christian got up and walked away.

Speaker 20 According to an affidavit signed by this alleged witness, in 2012, she was in town trying to get tickets to a University of Florida football game and was supposed to meet someone in a parking lot.

Speaker 20 While she's waiting, she says she saw two young men having a fight. She insisted it was Pedro and Christian.

Speaker 27 And it felt vindicating to finally have someone that

Speaker 27 can corroborate what I said.

Speaker 18 And at the end of that fight, Pedro gets in the car and leaves Christian. And she goes to approach Christian, who basically tells her to move on.
He's okay.

Speaker 2 Pedro's lawyers also point to Michelangelo's recantation of his trial testimony as new evidence in the case. Michelangelo is still incarcerated.
We spoke with him in 2024. He called us from prison.

Speaker 2 We wanted to know what his motivation was to make this new claim.

Speaker 16 It's always been in the back of my head that he kind of ate at me about everything that happened during that trial and that investigation.

Speaker 16 And so after thinking about it for a little bit, you know, I decided to just tell the truth.

Speaker 2 We're here at the courthouse in Gainesville for a pivotal hearing with Michelangelo and the alleged eyewitness, Kelsey Edwards.

Speaker 2 What they say here inside this courtroom courtroom today could have a major impact on the case.

Speaker 14 I told him like there's nothing else I can do. I have to come forward.

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Speaker 2 Pedro Bravo is housed at a prison here in Okeechobee, Florida. He's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 2 To date, all of his appeals have been denied, but there are new developments in the case. In 2024, I spoke to Pedro in his only interview.

Speaker 2 You've spent more than a decade now in prison, locked up. Did you ever imagine you'd be here?

Speaker 27 No, sir, I never thought this would ever be a day that would happen.

Speaker 2 How did you end up here?

Speaker 27 It's hard to say.

Speaker 27 It's been a struggle every single day, not letting go of hope.

Speaker 20 Then this alleged witness came forward claiming that she had seen Christian get up and leave after this fight with Pedro.

Speaker 20 It was a very surprising development to many, especially authorities, who then turned to Tom Mullins, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, to investigate these claims.

Speaker 15 It seemed somewhat convenient for Mr. Bravo

Speaker 15 to have this witness with all this information kind of all of a sudden. Thought that there had to be some kind of connection here.

Speaker 2 Who did this mystery witness turn out to be?

Speaker 8 Kelsey Edwards is a woman who is sort of down on her luck. She has four kids.
She doesn't have a lot of income.

Speaker 15 I've started looking into who she associates with. Has she ever been to prison? What would be the connection?

Speaker 8 Tom Mullins was able to determine that Kelsey Edwards was a person who had children with a man named Brandon Campbell. And he was incarcerated six beds away from Pedro Bravo.

Speaker 3 That was an aha moment.

Speaker 2 Investigators have drawn a direct link between Pedro Bravo and Kelsey Edwards. They say this is a big step in debunking what she swore in her affidavit.

Speaker 2 Mullins and Kramer interview Campbell in prison. This is audio of their conversation.
I'm here because I think you could help us.

Speaker 15 Mr. Campbell was quite surprised, had no idea why we were there at the prison, and initially denied even knowing who Pedro Bravo was, which is expected.

Speaker 15 It wasn't until I showed him a picture of his children's mother that his eyes kind of opened.

Speaker 65 He told me this, is my mother and my children in trouble?

Speaker 71 Because she got two of my kids.

Speaker 15 And at that point, it seemed to click in his head exactly why we were there.

Speaker 71 He wanted to pay her, which I didn't know he was talking serious about, was to

Speaker 3 be

Speaker 71 a witness?

Speaker 53 Did he go into any details about what he wanted her to do or say or whatever?

Speaker 71 No, but he did tell that he was going to pay her like 10 or 15 grand to do it.

Speaker 20 After the visit, Brandon Campbell calls Kelsey, his former girlfriend.

Speaker 17 You know,

Speaker 17 the state prosecutor from Gainesville came and talked to me. They know, they know, they know about you getting

Speaker 17 they know everything.

Speaker 14 I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything.

Speaker 18 I'm like, what the f did you do?

Speaker 17 What do you mean?

Speaker 9 I'm like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 17 I'm just saying, like, what the f did I get myself into?

Speaker 2 You were also able to go through some financial records. What did you find that helped you connect all the dots?

Speaker 15 So once obtaining Ms. Edwards' cash app, I found payments to her and larger sums of money, hundreds, sometimes a thousand.
So then my challenge was to figure out, well, who's sending those deposits?

Speaker 7 Well, was he charged with anything?

Speaker 15 No, Mr. Campbell cooperated fully in the investigation.

Speaker 2 Investigators discovered transactions and messages confirming that Pedro Bravo using the pseudonym Anthony Gibbons arranged for more than $7,000 to be sent to Kelsey Edwards.

Speaker 2 How was it that Pedro Bravo was able to communicate so frequently with Kelsey Edwards?

Speaker 15 He always seemed to have actual regular cell phones. One would get seized from him and then he'd seem to find another one.

Speaker 2 Did you determine that Kelsey Edwards was a willing participant in this plan?

Speaker 8 I don't know how to characterize her willingness.

Speaker 8 I think that Kelsey Edwards was a person who was desperate and she was a person who needed money and she made a decision to do something she knew was wrong.

Speaker 20 The signed affidavit was just one part of Pedro's bigger plan to try and get a new trial. The other piece was to get Michelangelo to recant.

Speaker 8 Michelangelo's motivation for recanting his testimony was that he was going to receive money.

Speaker 20 Pedro had gone so far to dupe Michelangelo that investigators discovered that he had actually posed as an attorney online and he was offering to represent Michelangelo.

Speaker 15 Mr. Angelo believed that that was a real attorney and there were some times where this attorney would send money for Mr.

Speaker 13 Angelo.

Speaker 2 And where was that money coming from?

Speaker 15 It was coming from Pedro Bravo.

Speaker 2 As you're learning all of this, what's going through your head?

Speaker 8 I guess I'm shocked by the complexity of it. The amount of subterfuge lies and creation of false evidence is beyond what we would ever see.

Speaker 3 It's very unusual.

Speaker 2 Pedro Bravo serving a life sentence. Where was all of this money coming from?

Speaker 15 Mr. Bravo was actually sending money to these folks

Speaker 3 through his mom.

Speaker 2 I reached out to Pedro's mom, who previously spoke to me for comment.

Speaker 2 My messages were not returned.

Speaker 2 Was Pedro Brajo's mother ultimately charged with anything?

Speaker 15 No, she was never charged. I never could prove that she was a willing participant in the sense that she had knowledge of the scheme.

Speaker 2 As Pedro's plans started to unravel, Kelsey Edwards began to have second thoughts reflected in WhatsApp messages obtained by 2020.

Speaker 15 It was clear she was definitely scared and she was trying to back out at that point. But Mr.
Bravo wasn't having that. And Mr.
Bravo insisted that she had to go through with it.

Speaker 3 He even got to a point where he began threatening her.

Speaker 20 Pedro Bravo, Michelangelo, and Kelsey Edwards were ultimately indicted for their roles in Pedro's plan. Kelsey Edwards is arrested and while in prison explains what she knew to Brian Kramer.

Speaker 14 He wanted

Speaker 14 me to sign an affidavit saying that I had witnessed his fight with Christian

Speaker 14 and that Christian got up and walked away from the fight still breathing.

Speaker 6 Is he asking if you commit a very serious felony out of the goodness of your heart?

Speaker 14 He told me that he would pay me a lump sum when I signed it and that he would pay me weekly after that until trial.

Speaker 2 Kelsey explains that she and Pedro communicated for more than a year. Over time, she says they developed an emotional connection.

Speaker 14 He was talking about like his struggles in prison, being lonely, and stuff like that. He just had a way of

Speaker 14 talking to people that would make you feel bad for him.

Speaker 2 It doesn't seem like Pedro Bravo was ever going to quit here.

Speaker 15 He just became more desperate as the walls are just starting to close in on him and got to the point where eventually he only found one way out.

Speaker 13 It is the last act in the long legal drama that began with the murder of U.F. student Christian Aguilar in 2012.

Speaker 3 All rise, please.

Speaker 2 The hearing with Michelangelo and Kelsey Edwards just wrapped up.

Speaker 2 And in yet another twist in this case, they both pled guilty for their roles in what prosecutors call a scheme orchestrated by Pedro Bravo to get out of prison.

Speaker 20 At their court appearance, Michelangelo pled guilty to perjury for his false recantation. Kelsey Edwards pled guilty to fraud for the fake affidavit.

Speaker 13 Angelo was sentenced to seven years in prison while Edwards got five years probation.

Speaker 2 It doesn't seem like Pedro Bravo was ever going to quit here. He just kept on pushing this.

Speaker 15 He just became more desperate as the walls are just starting to close in on him and got to the point where eventually he only found one way out.

Speaker 13 Pedro Bravo died in prison on Wednesday.

Speaker 12 We're told Bravo killed himself at the Okeechobee Correctional Institution where he was serving a life sentence.

Speaker 13 I think when Pedro Bravo realized that the testimonies of these two people wasn't probably going to work, it probably left him in a place where he just couldn't see himself staying behind bars for decades.

Speaker 2 When sifting through the extensive correspondence between Pedro Bravo and Kelsey Edwards, authorities are surprised by one of the messages they find.

Speaker 15 For the first time, he admitted that he took Christian's life.

Speaker 2 He did? What did he say?

Speaker 15 He said that they fought and he left him there, like he'd said in trial. But this time, he said he went back and picked him up and he drove around

Speaker 15 and that eventually Christian passed away in his car.

Speaker 2 He panicked.

Speaker 15 and ultimately went out and buried him.

Speaker 2 To your knowledge, is that the first time he's ever come close to actually confessing to that murder?

Speaker 15 Other than the confession he made to Mr. Angelo, yes.

Speaker 2 We asked Pedro's lawyer about the alleged plot by Pedro to solicit false witness testimony.

Speaker 2 He said he couldn't comment on anything that occurred after his client died, which includes Edwards' new assertions and guilty plea.

Speaker 2 Is Pedro Bravo's death the end of this saga?

Speaker 8 More than anything else, my hope is that Christian Aguilar's family, that this is the end of the story for them.

Speaker 8 That they don't have to continue to think about him and what he did and the people's lives that he ruined.

Speaker 2 So what is this?

Speaker 22 This is Christiana's sketchbook.

Speaker 33 That's Gator.

Speaker 2 That's a Florida Gator.

Speaker 33 We think this is Erika.

Speaker 2 We think that this is a drawing of Erica.

Speaker 3 Erica, yeah.

Speaker 2 Christian's belongings, once collected by police as evidence in his murder investigation, now cherished by his parents.

Speaker 36 Everything that belongs to my son belongs to me.

Speaker 33 Those items are precious to us.

Speaker 2 Is it too painful to think about

Speaker 2 what his future might have been?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 21 especially when I saw the pictures of Christian Frey having his lives with the new careers, with the families. I prefer to not

Speaker 21 think too much about it.

Speaker 2 How do you want Christian to be remembered?

Speaker 7 I want Chris to be remembered by how sweet and kind and genuine of a person he was.

Speaker 2 Although Christian was only a student for a couple of months, the University of Florida presented his family with a posthumous degree in biomedical engineering, symbolic of a promising future cut too short.

Speaker 4 I can't imagine where his life would have ended up

Speaker 7 kind of leading him to, but I know it would have been great things.

Speaker 2 How you choose this photo? Because he looks so happy there. Was that on prom night?

Speaker 3 On prom night.

Speaker 33 We want him, people to remember him, smiling.

Speaker 22 I think one of the most beautiful things is his mother.

Speaker 41 A smile so many will never forget. And Christian's father posted a condolence note on Facebook to Pedro Bravo's parents saying no parent should go through the pain of losing a child.

Speaker 1 And the Aguilar family's younger son, Alex, actually followed in Christian's footsteps, enrolling at the University of Florida. That's our program for tonight.

Speaker 30 Thanks so much for watching.

Speaker 20 I'm Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 41 And I'm David Muir from All of Us here at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 9 Good night.

Speaker 12 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 59 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland, Ohio into a crime scene.

Speaker 66 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 52 The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 72 A new series from ABC Audio in 2020: The Hand in the Window.

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