Who Murdered Aileen Seiden in Room 15?

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Speaker 4 This is where it all began, right?

Speaker 5 This is where it all began.

Speaker 3 April 23rd, 2018,

Speaker 6 I received the call that a body was located off of Highway 98.

Speaker 6 I come over to this area and approximately here was about where the head of the body was at, and stretched out across the ditch with the feet facing in that direction.

Speaker 6 She had bruises from head to toe, covering her entire body. She had lacerations on her face, stomach, legs.

Speaker 7 So, this woman suffered before she died.

Speaker 6 She suffered.

Speaker 6 I've never seen anything like it.

Speaker 6 It was extreme violence.

Speaker 6 Extreme violence, overkill.

Speaker 9 And who would do something like that?

Speaker 6 At the time, you don't know. And what you worry about then is: are they loosing our community?

Speaker 6 What type of individual am I dealing with? Or individuals?

Speaker 6 Is there one person? Is there two?

Speaker 6 You have a million questions that you can ask, but you have no answers at the time.

Speaker 6 The next date, they identified the woman as Eileen Sidon,

Speaker 6 a young 31-year-old female in the Miami area.

Speaker 10 I've known Eileen Sidon for 25 years. She was my best friend.

Speaker 10 Eileen had called me. She had told me it was pretty where she was.

Speaker 10 The last talk I had with Eileen was very different.

Speaker 10 She told me just these horrific things you never think you'll hear from your best friend. She said, I need your help.

Speaker 10 It was like a movie.

Speaker 12 My sister's involved and I don't know what's happening. I told her to run.

Speaker 8 You used the word run? Did you say run?

Speaker 12 100%. I said run.

Speaker 10 Get out of there.

Speaker 12 Go. She's like, I can't.

Speaker 10 She was scared to death.

Speaker 12 This doesn't happen. This doesn't happen to us.

Speaker 12 This doesn't happen in real life.

Speaker 6 We received a call from the Sportsman's Lodge motel.

Speaker 6 There was a room that they were in the process of cleaning. There was blood.

Speaker 4 And what goes through your mind as you walk through all this beauty?

Speaker 6 This right here would be the last place that you could ever imagine a homicide taking place, especially right here in this piece of paradise.

Speaker 6 I'll take you to room number 15.

Speaker 18 Now, when the housekeepers first came through this door, what did they see?

Speaker 6 They said the furniture was knocked over onto the floor. As they started cleaning the room, they found more and more stuff to be wrong.

Speaker 6 They noticed stuff missing from the beds, the sheets, anything like that. This bed here was completely covered in bloodstain.

Speaker 16 So that tells you there was a violent scene going on.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 And what happened in room 15?

Speaker 6 It's unknown.

Speaker 19 If these walls could talk, right?

Speaker 6 Oh, if they could talk, I'd like to hear them.

Speaker 21 Peter Van Sandt reports who killed Eileen Seidman in room 15.

Speaker 22 Apalachicola, Florida is a wonderful small place.

Speaker 28 For Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Jared Patterson, The sleepy Gulf Coast town of Apalachicola and surrounding countryside are among the last remnants of a bygone era.

Speaker 22 It certainly still harkens back to a time before there was condos on every inch of the beach and before there were high-rises.

Speaker 22 We're referred to here the counties along this area of the coast as the Forgotten Coast.

Speaker 25 But when a couple heading to a nearby fishing pond discovered Eileen Sidon's battered body on April 23, 2018, Patterson wondered what had brought a killer to Florida's forgotten coast.

Speaker 22 The horror that it really was, it absolutely shocked people.

Speaker 6 It looked like someone was in a hurry. Whoever it was, dumped the body and took off.

Speaker 29 Lead investigator Lieutenant Ronnie Jones, then with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, says documenting Eileen's unsettling dump site was the first of two ominous events over the next 24 hours.

Speaker 24 He was soon dispatched to the second crime scene at the Sportsman's Lodge Motel

Speaker 5 and that bloody spectacle inside room 15.

Speaker 7 So what's it like for you to be back in here

Speaker 6 brings back some pretty bad memories.

Speaker 29 Joan's memories live in stark contrast to the tree-shaded grounds of the otherwise peaceful motel.

Speaker 6 As soon as I came in, I noticed the bed.

Speaker 11 I mean,

Speaker 6 you couldn't miss it.

Speaker 36 I mean, this whole area was covered and had bloodstains on it.

Speaker 7 And when you saw that kind of blood loss, what did that tell you?

Speaker 6 I just put two and two together and I automatically put that back to the body that was found the day before.

Speaker 9 You did that quickly, like that?

Speaker 6 Had to have. It wasn't just somebody cut theirself and bled a little bit on the bed.
I mean, the amount of blood that was on this bed tells me that whoever was here was probably deceased.

Speaker 35 Jones recalled there was a smell of vinegar in the room.

Speaker 37 And what did that tell you?

Speaker 6 That someone attempted to clean the crime scene.

Speaker 27 A luminol test for traces of human blood revealed what an apparently hasty cleanup couldn't hide.

Speaker 6 The whole entire bathroom lit up.

Speaker 14 So that was the scene of perhaps some of her most vicious attacks was inside that bathroom?

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 5 And Jones says the shower curtain rod was a possible weapon.

Speaker 6 On the rod was located a palm print and also blood.

Speaker 7 And that's significant evidence, right?

Speaker 19 That's right.

Speaker 39 Testing would soon confirm that it was Eileen's blood in the motel room.

Speaker 34 Now came the gut-wrenching duty to notify Eileen's sister, Francesca Sidon.

Speaker 12 He said my sister was murdered.

Speaker 13 I don't know.

Speaker 12 Like, what do you do?

Speaker 13 You look for support.

Speaker 12 That's all I could do.

Speaker 13 I didn't understand why, like, it was given to me again, like, to handle another

Speaker 13 loss.

Speaker 41 While growing up in Miami, then 16-year-old Francesca and nine-year-old Eileen faced their first tragedy when their beloved mother, Mertha, passed away from cancer.

Speaker 14 How did the two of you deal with this?

Speaker 42 We didn't talk about it because it was so

Speaker 42 fast.

Speaker 24 Six years later, their father Frank, a successful furniture manufacturer who Francesca says shared a special bond with Eileen, suddenly died from a heart attack.

Speaker 25 It left Eileen, then 14, an orphan, and 22-year-old Francesca with a decision to make.

Speaker 42 I signed the papers and I became her legal guardian.

Speaker 9 And what did that mean? What were your responsibilities?

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 42 became a parent. I had to take her to school.
I had to pick her up from school. I had to finish my own school.
I was was working. I didn't have time to grieve.
And I don't think that she did either.

Speaker 24 Seven years later, Francesca moved to Los Angeles on her own.

Speaker 25 That's when she says Eileen, now in her 20s, began grieving their parents.

Speaker 42 She started to think a lot. She became more sensitive.

Speaker 10 Something like losing your parents has long-lasting effects throughout your life. It's obvious that it did.

Speaker 29 This is Eileen's best friend.

Speaker 5 Not wanting her name associated with this case, she has asked 48 Hours to refer to her as Allie.

Speaker 27 She remembers a strong and determined Eileen making it on her own in Miami.

Speaker 10 She worked as a property manager. She lived in a great apartment.
You know, she paid her own rent. She made her bills.
She was very independent.

Speaker 18 Francesca saw that independence firsthand when Eileen made an extended visit to L.A.

Speaker 16 in 2016.

Speaker 45 Looking back, do you wish she had stayed with you?

Speaker 12 100%.

Speaker 12 Because

Speaker 12 whatever happened when she went back to Miami is when she reconnected with Zach.

Speaker 27 Zach was Zachary Abel, who Eileen had known since they were teenagers.

Speaker 10 I'm not sure if I had the best reputation in high school. At first, she wasn't really sure about him.

Speaker 25 But years later, she and Zach Abel started dating.

Speaker 10 I think in the beginning, Eileen found Zach fun, but I think it changed pretty quickly.

Speaker 29 Investigators in Franklin County would soon learn all about Zach Abel.

Speaker 15 They discovered that Zach, Eileen, and this woman, Christina Araho, had all been seen in the Apalachicola area.

Speaker 23 Detectives also learned the three shared a room at the sportsman's lodge.

Speaker 26 Room number 15.

Speaker 22 We needed to know what happened inside that hotel room. Outside of three people entered and two came out carrying a body.

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Speaker 29 Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Captain Mike Picavet set sail on his 50-foot boat.

Speaker 50 It's kind of weird trying to remember any good times. I just weren't.
There was always some issue.

Speaker 15 Back in 2018, Mike would play a central role in Eileen Sidon's murder investigation.

Speaker 27 He knew Eileen and her boyfriend, Zach Abel, well.

Speaker 50 Zach is just

Speaker 50 very entertaining. He's very extroverted.

Speaker 39 Mike had met Zach by chance at a bar about seven years earlier.

Speaker 50 He came up to me at Duffy's and said, hey, I like your shirt. And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 37 Then Christina came up.

Speaker 39 Christina Araho, Zach's girlfriend at the time.

Speaker 30 The two had been dating for about four years.

Speaker 33 Mike says Christina immediately started boasting about her powerful father.

Speaker 37 Right out of the gate, she said, Oh yeah, my dad's a major with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 11 And if we ever get into any trouble with the law, he can take care of it.

Speaker 3 I was like, what? Who says that?

Speaker 16 Despite their odd first meeting, Mike says he began hanging out with the couple.

Speaker 46 What followed were years of wild nights, wild parties, and lots of heavy drinking.

Speaker 11 That was their go-to thing.

Speaker 37 Okay, we've got to do shots of this, shots of this.

Speaker 15 But Mike says there was an interesting power dynamic in the couple's relationship, with Christina, who was eight years older than Zach, calling the shots.

Speaker 37 She was very controlling and very direct, and he would follow her lead with stuff.

Speaker 23 One day in 2016, Zach stopped by Mike's boat, but not with Christina.

Speaker 31 Instead, Zach introduced Mike to Eileen Seiden.

Speaker 34 Mike could tell Zach now had two women in his life.

Speaker 11 It was the weirdest thing.

Speaker 37 If the relationship's not working, just end it and move on.

Speaker 32 However, Mike says that Zach couldn't make a clean break from Christina, who was also his business partner.

Speaker 37 He tried so many times, he just didn't know how to. And then also all the threats all the time that she couldn't make him disappear.
Every time she got drunk, she'd say some weird things.

Speaker 41 Eileen's best friend, Allie, says Zach and Eileen began to secretly date.

Speaker 10 She seemed to love him so much that she was still hoping that he would, you know, decide to be with her. He would lead her on to to think he was trying to end it with Christina.

Speaker 44 In 2017, Eileen unexpectedly lost her job as a property manager.

Speaker 10 She was really starting to lose control of her own life.

Speaker 25 Allie says that may explain why Eileen eventually started working at Zach and Christina's used car dealership.

Speaker 10 It wasn't the independent life that she had always lived.

Speaker 31 Allie says Eileen continued to pressure Zach to break up with Christina for good. But when Zach finally tried to end things with Christina, she countered with an unconventional proposal.

Speaker 10 It was not the answer that anyone expected. Christina came back and said, well, why don't we try and all be in a relationship then?

Speaker 10 It now became this opportunity for this thrupple, three-way kind of relationship.

Speaker 16 A thrupple is a romantic relationship among three people.

Speaker 30 Allie says Eileen was against the idea.

Speaker 10 And Eileen said, absolutely not. There's no way.
It's never going to work. And there was kind of a

Speaker 10 crickets for a few weeks.

Speaker 51 But Allie says Eileen later changed her mind.

Speaker 35 The trio was now a thruple.

Speaker 10 I was in shock, really, but also a little bit happy for them that maybe this could work.

Speaker 5 But it didn't work.

Speaker 46 Before long, there was trouble.

Speaker 10 This whole dynamic started to... change where one of them always seemed to be the odd man out or was jealous.
And at that point, it just started to spiral out of control.

Speaker 26 According to Mike Picovet, things escalated, leading to irrational behavior and fights fueled by alcohol.

Speaker 27 He says Eileen and Christina traded punches often, usually resulting in black eyes on one or both of the women, that they'd sometimes hide behind big sunglasses.

Speaker 11 It was an everyday thing, every second day thing, I could say.

Speaker 29 Allie remembers things differently.

Speaker 35 She says Zach was the main aggressor aggressor in the relationship.

Speaker 10 Eileen would call me and say, you have to come over here. Like, he hurt me again.
And I'd rush over there and photograph her and beg her to go to the police.

Speaker 43 But Allie says Eileen refused, fearing Christina's law enforcement connections would work against her.

Speaker 16 Eileen's sister Francesca was furious when she learned of the abuse.

Speaker 12 I wanted my sister out of this situation.

Speaker 42 I wanted her out of this situation. It's hard to leave.

Speaker 12 It's hard to leave, and I had this feeling that Christina was more violent of the two.

Speaker 10 It was really difficult to see her going through a time like this. It was just so hard, and she was scared to death.

Speaker 47 Once, Allie says the abuse got so bad, she took Eileen to the emergency room.

Speaker 10 They took her to the hospital because they have to report things, but she wouldn't say where the bruises came from.

Speaker 32 Eileen's best friend had to deliver a hard truth.

Speaker 10 Eileen, you have to break up with this guy. Someone's going to end end up dead.

Speaker 10 When Eileen was in real trouble, it was hard to get anyone to come rescue her.

Speaker 32 The path that led to Eileen Sidon's murder may have begun weeks earlier.

Speaker 53 In 2018, Allie was surprised that despite the physical violence in their relationship, Eileen had decided to move in with Zach Abel and Christina Araujo.

Speaker 30 The throuple was now working together, sleeping together, and living together.

Speaker 10 Eileen was trapped in the relationship because she was trapped financially, but she felt that that was one last chance to make it work. It was like a one-month or two-month trial.

Speaker 52 But within a few weeks, Allie says Eileen had had enough.

Speaker 10 Eileen was just going to move out. She was really done with the relationship.

Speaker 4 But Eileen's plans to leave were halted on April 7th, 2018, after Zach and Christina had gotten into a violent fight.

Speaker 27 Allie says she got a call from Eileen on Zach's phone.

Speaker 10 She was going to leave and get Zach out of the house, but like to go to a coffee shop. The next call I got was from Christina.
She was... angry and furious.

Speaker 30 Allie says Christina threatened to report the car Eileen and Zach were driving in as stolen in an apparent attempt to keep them from leaving her behind. Allie immediately warned Eileen and Zach.

Speaker 10 Instead of coming around and coming back like I thought they would, they hit the gas and went to Georgia. I said, what are you doing, Eileen? You don't have your phone.
You don't have a wallet.

Speaker 10 This is crazy. She said, we're going on a road trip.
This is a good thing.

Speaker 53 But the road trip wasn't a good thing to Christina Arajo.

Speaker 39 She began harassing Zach and Eileen, sending a storm of angry texts.

Speaker 52 You two deserve each other.

Speaker 30 Christina sent more than 150 texts in roughly 24 hours.

Speaker 2 All went unanswered, including this one.

Speaker 41 My dad will be calling you.

Speaker 33 Later, Christina issued this threat.

Speaker 30 You effed me over and now I'm effing you over.

Speaker 10 I was just trying to tell her, Christina, you know, why don't you worry about your own life?

Speaker 5 About 48 hours into the road trip, Zach and Eileen were heading to Texas.

Speaker 34 And Christina seemed to have a change of heart, texting, if you want to come back home, come back.

Speaker 25 You never have to question my love.

Speaker 16 For reasons that are unknown, instead of coming home, Zach invited Christina to join them, and she flew to Dallas.

Speaker 5 But with the Thruppel United, the old problems returned.

Speaker 10 Eileen started to call me from Zach's phone at night saying, you know, this is getting bad. And I don't know what to do.
It wasn't until Christina arrived that that started to happen.

Speaker 10 I was really worried someone would get hurt.

Speaker 38 By day 10 of the road trip, Eileen's older sister, Francesca, was also worried.

Speaker 29 She hadn't heard from Eileen in a while.

Speaker 25 When the trio stopped in New Orleans, Eileen finally called Francesca and shared an alarming suspicion.

Speaker 42 She's like, I think they're going to kill me.

Speaker 42 No joke. So I was like, Eileen, run to the nearest gas station.
Go tell the person.

Speaker 12 Call 911. Yeah, run to like, I said, run, get the, get out of there, go.
She's like, I can't.

Speaker 35 Francesca, desperate to help, tried to get more details from Eileen.

Speaker 12 If I had where the address was, I would have called the police then and there. But she had to go.
She had to get off and she hung up. I was extremely frustrated,

Speaker 12 and I was scared.

Speaker 16 With no way to help her sister, Francesca hoped Eileen would stay safe.

Speaker 33 The road trip continued into its second week.

Speaker 25 The trio then headed to Panama City, Florida, but a missed exit led them to the Forgotten Coast.

Speaker 55 The road trip is difficult to understand. Partying one day and murdering the next.

Speaker 31 David Adlerstein is a reporter for the Apalachicola Times, one of the oldest newspapers in Florida.

Speaker 55 I've been covering the Eileen Sidon case since the week it happened.

Speaker 24 On the evening of April 21st, the trio seen here in this screenshot from surveillance footage stumbled into the quiet peace of Franklin County.

Speaker 55 They went to a popular restaurant, the Red Pirate, played miniature golf, partied.

Speaker 31 At the recommendation of a local, the Thruppel headed to the nearby Sportsman's Lodge Motel.

Speaker 29 They reserved the last vacancy of the night, room 15.

Speaker 34 The next morning, on April 22nd, 2018, the Thruppel made a plan.

Speaker 55 They decided they'd spend another day there, not get back on the road, and make it a party. So they got up in the morning and went to the the liquor store.

Speaker 54 Here they are in these screenshots from the store's surveillance footage.

Speaker 26 While there, the trio purchased large bottles of vodka and fireball whiskey.

Speaker 55 When I went to investigate their path that day and went to the liquor store, the clerk, she pointed out that the fireball that they bought was the largest bottle you could buy.

Speaker 55 And this is just the three of them.

Speaker 54 The thruple then returned to the Sportsman's Lodge motel.

Speaker 10 I I don't think Eileen was having fun. I think she was just trying to maybe get by and stay alive.

Speaker 47 Allie says she spoke to Eileen that day.

Speaker 10 Eileen said, I need to leave him. I'm telling you, I'm like a sex slave.
He has this really scary look in his eye. It's very scary.
It's different. And she said, I need your help.

Speaker 26 Allie says the two friends had crafted an escape plan.

Speaker 31 Eileen would get on a bus from Tampa, the trio's next destination.

Speaker 10 I bought her a Greyhound ticket because she didn't have a wallet.

Speaker 40 The bus would drop Eileen off near Miami and Allie would take her home.

Speaker 31 Eileen just needed to get on that bus and she'd be safe.

Speaker 10 And then, you know, I never heard back. I never heard anything after that.

Speaker 15 The next night, hundreds of miles away in Fort Lauderdale, Mike Pigovet was home and alone.

Speaker 32 There was a knock at the door.

Speaker 36 It was Christina Arajo and Zach Abel.

Speaker 11 I was like, okay, where's Eileen?

Speaker 37 And right away, Christina says, oh, she ran away. And I said, bull.

Speaker 11 I said, where is she?

Speaker 37 And Zach right away started to choke up and he said, she's dead.

Speaker 31 The news was shocking enough, but Mike says once Christina was out of earshot, Zach told him what happened.

Speaker 11 He said, Christina killed her.

Speaker 37 He woke up. She was dead next to him.
And he tried to give her CPR,

Speaker 37 then wanted to call 911. Christina said no and told him you can't call 911.
For some reason, he kept on saying he had to protect Christina.

Speaker 16 I'm like, what do you got to protect her for?

Speaker 44 Mike says he wanted to protect both of his friends.

Speaker 29 He feared a violent outcome if he called 911.

Speaker 37 I didn't want them to get killed. I just wanted to make sure that they were brought in in a safe way.

Speaker 11 And the only thing that I could think about is to go talk to her father.

Speaker 18 Christina's father, Colonel Tony Arajo, the one Mike says Christina had always bragged could make her problems go away.

Speaker 31 When Zach and Christina fell asleep, Mike took this photo and says he went online to search for Christina's father, a man he had never met.

Speaker 37 Says, panicking, trying to find his phone number.

Speaker 8 When Mike finally got a hold of Colonel Arajo, he didn't immediately reveal the deadly news.

Speaker 11 I said, I got to talk to you.

Speaker 37 It's about Christina. It's very important.

Speaker 28 Mike says Christina's father directed Mike to meet him at an odd place, a gas station.

Speaker 11 So I went up there and I said, Christina killed somebody.

Speaker 37 And he says, you know I'm a cop, right? I'm like, yes, sir, I do.

Speaker 11 He right away said, wait right there.

Speaker 25 Mike says Christina's father then brought him to the sheriff's office. to make a formal statement.

Speaker 11 He did what was the right thing to do.

Speaker 37 He got two other people to ask me all the questions.

Speaker 29 Later that day, Mike was shown a photo, and he was the one to identify the battered body of Eileen Sidon.

Speaker 29 With that confirmation, police descended on Mike's home as Zach and Christina were about to leave.

Speaker 23 They were arrested and brought back to Franklin County.

Speaker 5 The pair were later charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 30 It would take almost six years before Zach Abel and Christina Araujo would face a jury.

Speaker 35 And by then, only one of them would stand trial.

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Speaker 13 You're healing, you're doing the things that you need to heal, and then

Speaker 12 you're stopped.

Speaker 53 For almost six years, Francesca Sidon lived in agonizing limbo as her sister Eileen's case complicated by having two defendants face delay after delay after frustrating delay.

Speaker 13 And now you're going to get ready for this big moment, and it stops again.

Speaker 27 Finally, in January of 2024, at the Franklin County Courthouse Courthouse in Apalachicola, Florida, Zach Abel was about to face trial.

Speaker 25 He had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and would stand before the jury alone.

Speaker 15 Eight months earlier, Christina Arajo took a plea deal for a lesser charge of second-degree murder.

Speaker 7 So she admitted taking part in this.

Speaker 22 Yes, she implicated herself in the actual beating of Eileen.

Speaker 25 After studying the mountain of evidence, prosecutor Jared Patterson believes Zach Abel was more responsible in Eileen's murder.

Speaker 53 And the state is relying on the jury believing Christina Araho's version of what happened inside room 15.

Speaker 22 The only one who has told us anything about what happened in that room is Christina Arajo.

Speaker 55 Once Christina made her plea deal,

Speaker 55 she would become the prosecution's star witness.

Speaker 5 Print reporter David Adlerstein, camera in hand, was there as Christina Araho transported the courtroom back to the evening of April 22nd, 2018.

Speaker 28 Araho testified that she, Zach Abel, and Eileen were relaxing in the room at the sportsman's lodge after a day of heavy drinking.

Speaker 49 When Zach drinks, does he

Speaker 50 act differently?

Speaker 50 He becomes very aggressive, aggressive,

Speaker 59 very mean.

Speaker 31 Zach Abel became violently enraged, says Araho, when Eileen posed a seemingly innocent question.

Speaker 42 But she said, Christina, guess what?

Speaker 7 And she looks over at Christina and says, hey, Christina, guess what? How would that sentence be finished?

Speaker 37 I have no idea because she never got to finish it.

Speaker 59 Zachary got up immediately

Speaker 59 and went over to her

Speaker 59 and was in her face, hitting her. He's just yelling at her, telling her to always start problems.

Speaker 4 Araho admits to also hitting Eileen as she demanded to know what she was about to say. She never got an answer.

Speaker 59 And I got so frustrated. I just went, I left the room.

Speaker 26 After stepping outside room 15 for a few minutes, Araho claims she returned to find Abel and Eileen in the bathroom.

Speaker 59 When I opened the door, he had something white in his hand, like if he was poking hotter.

Speaker 22 The medical examiner was able to identify small circular bruising to the body of Eileen that could be consistent with a shower curtain rod.

Speaker 29 Like the shower curtain rod, investigators recovered that had palm print impressions in Eileen's blood.

Speaker 19 Whose palm was it?

Speaker 22 The palm print belonged to Zachary Abel.

Speaker 47 The assault continued near the bed, says Araho, where she says Abel reached for his wooden walking stick.

Speaker 59 He hit Sarah several times with it. When he hit her in the back, oh,

Speaker 59 the stick broke.

Speaker 22 We had actually found pieces of

Speaker 22 that wooden staff in the hotel room. We didn't realize the significance of it until we found the other piece in the vehicle that contained our victim's DNA.

Speaker 38 Araho says she watched in terror as Abel began using that stick to sexually assault Eileen.

Speaker 55 Christina's description of the crime was horrifying to listen to. Eileen clearly suffered terrible death.

Speaker 27 Adlerstein recalls the medical examiner saying Eileen's injuries reminded him of those he had seen in motor vehicle crashes.

Speaker 55 As a reporter, I try very hard

Speaker 55 to not be emotional. I distinctly remember fighting back tears.

Speaker 40 Araho claims she eventually put herself between Abel and Eileen, and the attack finally stopped.

Speaker 8 Eileen was badly beaten, but still alive, she says, and the exhausted trio just fell asleep.

Speaker 51 Araho claims it wasn't until she woke up the next morning that she realized Eileen was dead.

Speaker 5 She says she only participated in the cover-up out of fear of what Abel might do to her.

Speaker 55 She seemed to me genuinely remorseful. Others had different opinions.

Speaker 4 Who is Christina Araho in your book?

Speaker 60 Manipulative,

Speaker 60 cunning,

Speaker 60 chameleon. I think that there's evil in her.

Speaker 24 Alex Morris is Zach Abel's attorney.

Speaker 30 He says Christina Araho acted alone.

Speaker 60 I believe that she is the murderer. Let's talk about her story.

Speaker 28 Morris says it was Christina Araho who beat Eileen, and that photo taken by Mike Picovet at his home after the murder shows she had injuries to her hands and feet.

Speaker 4 Which tells you Christina must have been the attacker.

Speaker 60 That's right.

Speaker 41 Christina Araho was the one with homicidal intent, says Morris, triggered when Abel and Eileen took off with her in the rearview mirror.

Speaker 28 And he says those threatening texts that she sent to Abel's phone before joining them on the road trip read like a confession.

Speaker 60 There are threats of bodily harm to both Eileen and Zach, and the messages.

Speaker 40 You come near me, ho,

Speaker 11 I will kill you.

Speaker 60 I think it speaks for itself. And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 35 After Eileen's murder, Morris says Araho wiped down the motel room using the vinegar that Ronnie Jones would later smell.

Speaker 30 He says Abel's palm prints on the curtain rod got there when he moved it during the cleanup.

Speaker 60 He was instructed to pick the curtain rod up over there and put it over there.

Speaker 29 Bye.

Speaker 60 Christina.

Speaker 53 This toll booth surveillance photo from after the murder shows that Christina Araujo and not Zach Abel was the one driving the car. And therefore, Morris says she was the one in control.

Speaker 60 The evidence indicates Christina to be the one giving the directions and had everything

Speaker 60 to be able to manipulate the situation.

Speaker 25 Manipulating Zach Abel, says Morris, because of those threats she had been making for years about her father's influence in solving her problems.

Speaker 60 Bottom line is Zach was fearful of Christina's father.

Speaker 26 Abel chose not to testify.

Speaker 53 When Morris made his final arguments to the jury, he concluded the evidence showed there was only one person who wanted Eileen Sidon dead.

Speaker 60 They haven't proven any motive as to why Mr. Abel would be interested in murdering Miss Sidon.
But I'll tell you where motive lies, and it's clear as day, and that's with Miss Arajo.

Speaker 60 the motive being i want rid of the person who's taken my man so jealousy yes

Speaker 47 in his closing patterson said christina araho already accepted her role in this crime he asked the jury to hold zach abel accountable for his part by finding him guilty of murder They lived together.

Speaker 22 They worked together. They owned a business together.
They went to the sportsman's lodge together. They emptied out the room together.
They ran ran away together. They got arrested together.

Speaker 22 The only thing they didn't do together was kill Eileen Sidon?

Speaker 3 No way.

Speaker 30 But who would the jury believe?

Speaker 21 What do you make of Christina Arajo's testimony? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X.

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Speaker 6 She wasn't born here, and she didn't live here, but she was left here, and she'll always be remembered by Franklin County.

Speaker 15 Residents of Florida's forgotten coast

Speaker 34 will now long remember Eileen Sidon, says Ronnie Jones.

Speaker 16 Almost six years after her death, the community waited for justice for the stranger they now had come to embrace as one of their own.

Speaker 14 What was going through your mind as the jury begins its deliberation?

Speaker 6 Make it quick.

Speaker 55 I was told by the jury foreman that when they first went in, there was 10 in favor of first-degree premeditated murder with two holdouts.

Speaker 3 All right, everyone, please be seated.

Speaker 25 After about five hours of deliberations, the jury reached a consensus.

Speaker 62 In the case of the state of Florida versus Zachary Ray Abel, the defendant is guilty of the lesser included offense of second-degree murder.

Speaker 15 Second-degree murder.

Speaker 31 Just like Christina Arajo, Adlerstein says the jury foreman told him they just couldn't decide if Zach Abel had actually intended to kill Eileen.

Speaker 55 They knew that Christina had pled guilty to second, and I think they eventually said, we're going to give him the same.

Speaker 37 It doesn't tell me that they're equally responsible.

Speaker 29 Mike Pikovic says, even with the verdict, he is convinced his friend played no part in Eileen's death.

Speaker 37 To me, there's an innocent man sitting in jail.

Speaker 6 I think they're both just as guilty as the other.

Speaker 34 Now retired from law enforcement, Ronnie Jones spends his days tending his bar in Apalachicola.

Speaker 26 He says he's still left wondering what really happened inside room 15.

Speaker 16 Is this case a mystery to you?

Speaker 6 It's not a mystery on exactly what happened, but exactly why it happened. That is what still bothers me to this day.

Speaker 37 Why?

Speaker 40 Like what Eileen might have been about to say that sparked the attack.

Speaker 6 It was my understanding and the rumors that she was fixing to disclose the fact that she was pregnant.

Speaker 3 Pregnant?

Speaker 7 And was she pregnant? Did you learn that at autopsy?

Speaker 6 I was at the autopsy and she was not pregnant. I don't know if she thought she was or not.

Speaker 34 When it was time for sentencing, Zach Abel finally spoke.

Speaker 9 and told the courtroom another twist in this tortured story.

Speaker 37 I had stopped and I grabbed a ring pop and I proposed to her with a ring pop and asked her to marry me.

Speaker 60 And she said yes.

Speaker 3 And me and Eileen were going to go our way and leave Christina out of it.

Speaker 14 Zach spoke at his sentencing and said that he'd actually proposed to Eileen during this trip.

Speaker 42 I think that is just BS. It's a great story, but no.

Speaker 14 I have been in the justice system in one form or another

Speaker 49 for 40 years.

Speaker 37 Rarely have I seen the sort of injuries that I saw on Eileen Sidon.

Speaker 19 The judge told Abel he wished he could impose a harsher punishment before sentencing him to the maximum life in prison.

Speaker 22 In the state of Florida, life means life.

Speaker 50 We don't have parole.

Speaker 5 At her sentencing, Christina Arajo's father, Colonel Tony Arajo, set the record straight. He said he never used his influence to benefit his daughter.

Speaker 26 And he recalled the conversation he had with her after the murder.

Speaker 20 You will own up to the truth. You will accept responsibility.
You will be the voice of the victim.

Speaker 3 And you will testify under oath in a court of law.

Speaker 20 And then whatever is sentenced to you, that's fine.

Speaker 22 There was no agreement with her as to the length of sentence. She gave her statement with the knowledge that she could still receive life in prison.

Speaker 50 I think about that thing every day of my life.

Speaker 3 The details haunt me and the memories keep me up.

Speaker 34 The judge acknowledged her cooperation and sentenced Christina Araujo to 25 years.

Speaker 6 Justice has been served. He won't beat up any more females.
Neither will she.

Speaker 10 I think that every woman kind of thinks, I would leave if I was in that situation. I would just get up and leave.
I would never tolerate that.

Speaker 15 Eileen's best friend, Allie, hopes there will be more compassion for those trapped in abusive relationships.

Speaker 10 It's always that, I'm sorry, it's never going to happen again. Then you believe it because you're in love and things are good 95% of the time, but the 5% that are bad are so bad.

Speaker 9 With your sister gone, how do you want her to be remembered?

Speaker 42 I want her to be remembered as a sweet, loving human being who

Speaker 20 unfortunately had lost her parents at such a young age, but she was still so sweet, like she was such a sweetheart.

Speaker 20 Her soul was so kind.

Speaker 21 Christina Arajo is scheduled to be released in 2043. She will be 63 years old.

Speaker 21 If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Speaker 1 Join me Tuesday for post-mortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case.

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