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2020 Season 2025 Episode 20 They Know Everything
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00:00:01An all-new 2020 starts right now.
00:00:09There's this photo at prom their senior year.
00:00:12Knowing how the story ends, it's really hard not to put really intense symbolism on it.
00:00:19Today is April 16th, 2025. This is Brian Kramer, state attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit.
00:00:24We are at the Alachua County Jail.
00:00:27Is that your name, please?
00:00:29I'm shocked by the complexity of it.
00:00:32The amount of lies and false evidence is beyond what we would ever see.
00:00:37Is he asking you, I want you to commit a very serious felony out of the goodness of your heart?
00:00:43Once a student is officially reported missing, all hell breaks loose.
00:00:48A forensic search.
00:00:49There was dogs, helicopters, horses, 4x4s.
00:00:53One of the largest in Florida history.
00:00:56How did he get damaged? How? How is that possible?
00:01:00Who did this mystery witness turn out to be?
00:01:03I told him, like, there's nothing else I can do. I have to come forward.
00:01:07After I got the phone calls, it was clear.
00:01:10I just decided on my own, why not show what happened next to me?
00:01:14I thought, okay, this is probably the connection I'm looking for.
00:01:17They know, they know about you. They know everything.
00:01:20I've never seen anything like this before.
00:01:22He was going to not only murder, but he was going to get away with it.
00:01:32Are you ready for some Gator football?
00:01:36If you live in Florida, the University of Florida is the big dream school.
00:01:43The academics are great. The partying is great. The atmosphere is intense.
00:01:48It's nothing but open field ahead.
00:01:50There is a ton of University of Florida pride.
00:01:54Gator Nation is everywhere. Gator Nation is something special.
00:01:58It's a sea of orange and blue. The place comes absolutely alive on Saturdays for football game days.
00:02:06Let's go kids! Here we go!
00:02:1518-year-old freshman Christian Aguilar was new to the Swamp, but had already secured his tickets for the upcoming season.
00:02:22I think Chris was excited for a few things, like football season.
00:02:25That might have been a part of why he chose Florida, but I do think academically is kind of what drove him the most.
00:02:31For 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.
00:02:38Five hours from Miami, that made you a little bit afraid that he was going to be a little farther away.
00:02:43I was very proud, but at the same time, I was afraid because he was living far away from us.
00:02:51We told them, every day, you communicate with us. Every day.
00:02:54Did he communicate with you guys every single day?
00:02:57Yes, every single day.
00:02:58Latin families are very tight, especially in Miami. People don't necessarily move until they're married.
00:03:04So, I can imagine Christian being nervous, but also feeling kind of relieved that a few of his friends were also going.
00:03:11Some familiar faces, you know, to see when you move, I think is comforting.
00:03:17That comfort came in the form of a close high school friend, Erica Freeman, who was enrolled at a local community college.
00:03:23Shortly after Christian moved to Gainesville, he started hanging out with Erica again.
00:03:27She was a little buffer against all the homesickness he was starting to feel.
00:03:31And before long, that relationship blossomed into a romantic one.
00:03:35The way he looked at me. I don't know how to explain it.
00:03:38Someone just gives you that much, just with their eyes.
00:03:41I don't need anyone else. I need you.
00:03:43And that's how he would describe it. And that's how I felt.
00:03:46Christian is doing so well in school. He has a girlfriend. Everything seems like it's perfect.
00:03:55We were living in a bubble of happiness.
00:04:00Suddenly, you know, our life just changed forever. Everything was gone.
00:04:08University, please.
00:04:17Yes. Look, my name is Carlos Aguilar. And I'm the parent of Christian Aguilar.
00:04:22And he has not been answering our calls.
00:04:25His girlfriend has been trying to contact him since yesterday. And he's not responding.
00:04:30It's really strange that he wasn't answering. It just wasn't like him.
00:04:33She called him and texted him over and over, and he never responded.
00:04:37I started asking all my friends, have you seen Christian on campus?
00:04:42I'm like, no, no, no, I haven't seen him. I haven't seen him.
00:04:44And I'm getting, you know, more anxious.
00:04:46Erica is getting increasingly desperate.
00:04:49She comes here, Christian's dorm. It's called The Springs.
00:04:52She knocks right on his window, hoping to find him at home.
00:04:56His roommate comes out and I'm explaining to him, you know, like, Christian's not answering me.
00:05:00I'm really concerned. Like, I don't care what time he gets in. Just please, can you ask him to call me?
00:05:06The previous day, Christian spent most of the day on campus with his best friend from high school, Pedro Bravo.
00:05:14Christian didn't touch base with Erica that night, and she got worried.
00:05:18She started calling Pedro. And at one point, Pedro picked up.
00:05:22First thing I asked him was, like, where's Christian?
00:05:24And 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.
00:05:304 a.m. You got a phone call from Erica. Tell me about that phone call and what happened next.
00:05:38She calls me worried about Christian, about where he's at. And I know I had just gotten in a fight with him.
00:05:46He hasn't showed up to his apartment that we have to report him missing.
00:05:49And now I really start to panic because I'm like, where was he all night?
00:05:54So I told him we should go to the University of Florida and at least try and report him there.
00:05:59Inside the station, Pedro's request for help is relayed to a dispatcher.
00:06:04You guys are concerned for his safety or something, or are you just...
00:06:08Well, I don't know where he is right now. He's not answering, so I don't need him.
00:06:13What time of day was this?
00:06:14This was around 6 or 7.
00:06:18Okay, an officer is right down there. The officer right there.
00:06:21I received a phone call in my walk. And was Erica almost screaming?
00:06:27What was she saying to you?
00:06:28She asked me, when was the last time that you talked to Christian?
00:06:31Because I'm trying to call him since yesterday. He's not answering.
00:06:35Carlos, what was it like getting that call from your wife telling you that his girlfriend can't find Christian?
00:06:40I immediately hung up with her, called Christian.
00:06:43No answer.
00:06:44No answer.
00:06:45Christian Aguilar's parents were calling our communications center.
00:06:50Normally, he responds to his girlfriend right away. And if he's so concerned about it, we are concerned right now.
00:06:56This is not his normal behavior.
00:07:01Kids get reported missing on college campuses all the time.
00:07:13Sometimes it's just as simple as going to the classroom where he's supposed to be, seeing that he's in there and saying,
00:07:18hey, can you please call home?
00:07:19We have an officer that's coming there to do a well-being check on a student.
00:07:22We had checked his residence hall on campus. He wasn't there.
00:07:25The belongings were there. There was just no one else.
00:07:28We had checked his classes. He never showed up to them.
00:07:31I did advise the instructor that if he shows up, to have him call the station.
00:07:36There's something really going on here.
00:07:38Christian's brother Alex is sitting in his AP English class when he gets the news that something is wrong.
00:07:45It was about 10, 11 o'clock in the morning, and the PA system goes off.
00:07:51My father's there to pick me up.
00:07:54When I finally got to my father who was waiting in the waiting area of the high school, he was in tears.
00:08:00Had you ever seen your father in that state before?
00:08:03No, I've never seen my father anywhere close to that. He didn't have the words to tell me anything.
00:08:08We just knew something had happened to Chris. We vaguely know that he's just missing.
00:08:13From there, we picked up my mother at her work, and it was a straight shot from Doral straight to Gainesville.
00:08:18You spoke to Pedro on the way up to Gainesville. What did he tell you?
00:08:21They got into an argument, and Christian opened the door and got out of the car, and he left dead in there.
00:08:27So that made me feel, you know, peace. They say probably Christian got lost.
00:08:35The minute Christian's parents heard that he was missing, they got in the car and they drove straight to Gainesville.
00:08:42Initially, they thought maybe their son, who was new to the area, was just lost.
00:08:46Did you start searching immediately? Immediately.
00:08:49Where did you go first?
00:08:50We started walking around the...
00:08:52The trails.
00:08:53The trails.
00:08:54Screaming Christian there.
00:08:55Christian! Alex!
00:08:56Christian, we are here. Where are you? Raise your hand. Please answer. Your mom is here.
00:09:06We know Gainesville. Gainesville is full of swamps. It was a swamp. And we went inside, and it was an alligator nearby.
00:09:18And we were not scared at all. We just wanted to find Christian.
00:09:29It's been three days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.
00:09:32After nine days, University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami has not been found.
00:09:38I can't imagine a worse feeling as a parent than sending my child to college and having them disappear.
00:09:45Tonight, authorities in Gainesville are searching for a missing University of Florida student who could be in danger.
00:10:04University of Florida student Christian Aguilar is still missing.
00:10:08It's been three days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.
00:10:15After nine days, University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami has not been found.
00:10:23I've covered Florida for ABC for years, spent my entire career here. This story always stuck with me.
00:10:35The sheer scale of the search, the throngs of people that descended on Gainesville was like nothing I'd seen before or since.
00:10:46In the first week after Christian Aguilar disappeared, it was intense coverage on our party.
00:10:54It led our newscast every day for weeks.
00:10:58And 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.
00:11:11That something could go so wrong with a life that had so much promise.
00:11:16What was Christian like as a kid?
00:11:22Likes to read a lot, study, play music, drawing.
00:11:28He was very shy like me, but at the same time he was a very funny guy.
00:11:34He used to make the family laugh.
00:11:35A lot. He was pretty funny.
00:11:38Christian was a very charismatic person. He loved to make people laugh. He loved to make people smile.
00:11:44Carlos and Claudia Aguilar made their way to the United States from Cali, Colombia, and they made a life for themselves in Miami.
00:11:54Christian was born in 1993.
00:11:57A few years later, his younger brother Alexander was born.
00:12:01As an older brother, would Christian protect you more? Would he pick on you a little bit? Combination of both?
00:12:07Yeah, Chris would definitely pick on me. But since you're brothers, you're allowed to kind of get away with it.
00:12:12The Aguilars wanted the best for their sons, so they enrolled them in the Doral Academy.
00:12:20And Christian was part of a very close-knit group of friends.
00:12:24Christian, Pedro, and Erica. And these three did everything together.
00:12:29Pedro had a similar childhood to Christian. His parents, also having emigrated to the U.S. from Latin America, they speak limited English.
00:12:36If you could, describe Pedro for people who have never met him before.
00:12:41He was very smart. He learned how to play chess.
00:12:46Un niño muy bonito, muy lindo, muy feliz como todo niño. Muy alegre.
00:12:53Tell me about your friendship with Christian Aguilar. What drew you guys to each other?
00:12:58And I met Christian through classes that we had together. He liked to draw. I liked to draw.
00:13:04And just something that began to flow naturally. We began to talk and share ideas and thoughts.
00:13:09He was a really, really sweet guy, really charismatic. And he always made you feel like when he would laugh, you'd want to laugh with him.
00:13:18Pedro was somebody that Chris thought was just hilarious. And Pedro is a very funny person. In high school, he was quick with the jokes. Very kind.
00:13:30I 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.
00:13:40I didn't know who I was and I always felt sad. 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.
00:13:54What was Erica's relationship to Christian in high school?
00:13:57They were just good friends. They participated in a lot of events together.
00:14:04Both 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.
00:14:16We hung out a lot and Christian had the car. So, you know, we would just hop in his car.
00:14:22After graduation, all the friends went their separate ways and Christian had been accepted to the University of Florida.
00:14:29He would have been one of the first cousins in our family to graduate from a university and he wanted to challenge himself.
00:14:36Did you ever get a sense early on with Christian that he was destined to do something great with his life?
00:14:42He 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.
00:14:53After graduation, what was Pedro planning on doing?
00:14:56He was planning on going to the FIU. He was very, very smart. He had a good future.
00:15:05That you got scholarship to FIU, but you decided to leave that behind, leave Miami, and go to Gainesville.
00:15:11Why?
00:15:13Everywhere I turned to Miami just reminded me of my friends, reminded me of all the times we spent together.
00:15:18And 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.
00:15:26In just a few short weeks after Pedro had moved up to Gainesville to be closer with his friends, Christian had disappeared.
00:15:32Pedro says he talks to police in the hopes he can help them find his missing friend.
00:15:37Let's see if we can locate Christian and figure out where he may have been.
00:15:42Please.
00:15:44Pedro told police the day before he had been hanging out with his best friend.
00:15:48When I first met with Pedro, I asked him to take me through his last meeting with Christian.
00:15:54We went, he took his flu shots at campus.
00:15:58The day before he got in contact with Claudia.
00:16:02It was a text message. He got a vaccine for the flu.
00:16:05Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
00:16:07Nothing.
00:16:08And then I'm like, oh, do you want to go get something to eat?
00:16:11And he's like, oh, okay, sure. So we went to, we got in my car and we went to Zaxby's Chicken.
00:16:16And then he's like, oh, yeah, could we pull into the Best Buy?
00:16:20And I was like, sure, because he wanted to get the new Kanye West CD.
00:16:23So we looked around and we found the new Kanye West CD and we got it.
00:16:27And then we left.
00:16:29Pedro went on to tell me that as they were driving, he and Christian got into an argument.
00:16:36Pedro got upset with Christian.
00:16:39And Christian demanded to be let out of the vehicle.
00:16:42So I stopped the car and I let him get off and I drove away.
00:16:45Because I was, I didn't want to deal with that anymore.
00:16:50But like, as I was driving away, like, I really regret it now because I wish I could have gone back.
00:16:55And then that's the last I heard of him.
00:16:58My whole intent on interviewing Pedro was give me some indication that, you know, some lead that we can follow up on.
00:17:05What do you know about what Christian was thinking, what his plans were?
00:17:10Do you think Chris would have been upset enough yesterday to hurt himself about you guys having an argument?
00:17:16I really hope not. I don't think so.
00:17:19Police also interviewed Christian's girlfriend, Erica.
00:17:22How you doing?
00:17:24Closest case, somebody walks by.
00:17:26I was telling them, no, no, no, we're doing just fine.
00:17:29We're doing great, actually.
00:17:30And he's not one to not even answer me.
00:17:32So it's been very strange.
00:17:34I don't know where he is.
00:17:36Scrambling for any clues, police learned from Pedro about an impulsive decision he says he and Christian made.
00:17:43They picked up a hitchhiker along this road.
00:17:47While they're in the course of driving around, Pedro tells me they pick up this hitchhiker.
00:17:53It's two of us against one person if anything happens.
00:17:56If anything, he'd be in the backseat.
00:17:58So we'd overpower him if anything bad happens.
00:18:01One couldn't help but wonder, who was this mystery hitchhiker?
00:18:04And what, if anything, did he have to do with the disappearance of Christian Aguilar?
00:18:09Once a student is officially reported missing, all hell breaks loose.
00:18:23If a student goes missing, the University of Florida has an alert system.
00:18:27They send out text messages, emails, they even put posts on social media.
00:18:32We had multiple detectives respond, start checking information on telephones, on apartments, just where, if anybody's seen.
00:18:43Aguilar was last seen by a Miami native, Pedro Bravo, at a Best Buy in Gainesville.
00:18:51Let's go back to that day with Christian. What did you guys do?
00:18:55We met up together at the Hub. We got something to eat.
00:19:00We got a Kanye West CD. We picked up a hitchhiker.
00:19:05Pedro describes to police that they were hanging out, listening to music,
00:19:10and that they picked up a hitchhiker, something that Pedro says they'd never done before.
00:19:15Yeah, it's dumb, and we're like, why not?
00:19:17Because it'd be an interesting experience to pick up someone like that on the road.
00:19:22He's never done that before.
00:19:24But this guy seemed, according to Pedro, seemed harmless.
00:19:28This guy just looked very tall and very, like, sort of a gentle giant sort of thing.
00:19:35Do you remember anything about, you said he had a hat?
00:19:38Yeah, cowboy hat.
00:19:42Pedro tells me they drove around, listened to this hitchhiker story about what brought him to Gainesville for approximately 10 minutes.
00:19:50He was like, just drop me off right over there.
00:19:52And I pulled into, like, this storage place, what looks like a storage place.
00:19:56I remember seeing storage somewhere.
00:19:57And I'm like, I pull in there, he gets off, and I do you and leave there.
00:20:02He sat in the backseat of Pedro's car, and, according to Pedro, was playing with a roll of duct tape.
00:20:07I checked my car to see if there was, like, if there was anything missing because I had a bunch of my art supplies in the back.
00:20:13My duct tape is missing.
00:20:17Police collect security video, and they're able to piece together much of Pedro and Christian's day.
00:20:22Although it doesn't capture that hitchhiker Pedro claims they picked up, the footage largely matches Pedro's account.
00:20:29The police got security camera footage from all over the place.
00:20:34They were caught on security cameras in various stores around town just having a day together.
00:20:40The Best Buy and some other places hanging out.
00:20:43Nothing odd about that footage.
00:20:46The next time security camera footage caught the two of them, it was in Pedro Bravo's car inside a nearby Walmart parking lot.
00:20:54The security video at Walmart picked them up in a vehicle and departing the parking lot.
00:21:00And that was the last time that anybody saw Christian Aguilar.
00:21:07Christian disappeared outside the boundaries of the university, so the case was handed over to the Gainesville Police Department.
00:21:15I got a telephone call from our lieutenant, and he said that the University of Florida Police Department had a missing student
00:21:22and asked if I would respond to the University of Florida Police Department.
00:21:27The University Police Department contacted us about Christian missing.
00:21:32Yes.
00:21:33And we're going to be taking over the investigation.
00:21:38Pedro seemed to be a young man who was a little bit meek and mild.
00:21:45How long have you known Christian?
00:21:48For four years, all of high school.
00:21:51He's been one of my really good friends.
00:21:54I brought him with me into art class.
00:21:56What high school did you go to?
00:21:58Durrell Academy Charter High School.
00:22:00After interviewing Pedro for 15, 20, 30 minutes,
00:22:04he explains the relationship between Erica Freeman, Christian Aguilar, and himself.
00:22:12What's your relationship with Erica?
00:22:15I dated her for two years, and from then I just became friends.
00:22:20What was that relationship like with Erica?
00:22:23How did it start?
00:22:24How did it end?
00:22:26It was teen love when I think about it.
00:22:28When you're young, you think you know what love is.
00:22:31You think you know what you want.
00:22:32But 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.
00:22:42We spent a lot of time together.
00:22:44And what were your interactions with her like after your breakup?
00:22:47We stayed in touch for a very short while.
00:22:49But after that, all my friends moved from Miami to all parts of Florida.
00:22:54Most people were following their dream.
00:22:56And it just became, the breakup of the relationship became a symbol that everything was changing.
00:23:03Has Christian been seeing her?
00:23:05Christian's been dating her for, from what I know, for three weeks, a month, I guess.
00:23:12How do you know that?
00:23:14He's the one that told me.
00:23:16And how did you handle that?
00:23:18At the beginning, it was kind of rough.
00:23:20But then after that, I'm like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, and the way I was glad it was Chris and not someone I didn't know.
00:23:25Because I, like, I knew Chris and I knew what type of person he is.
00:23:28And I knew if anything happened, he could take care of her, sort of thing.
00:23:34Pedro says he's happy for Erica and Christian.
00:23:37It's very, like, soap opera-like.
00:23:39But it turns out, they've been keeping the relationship a secret.
00:23:43Erica shows me some text messages between her and Christian.
00:23:46All this chaos came forward and we didn't know how to handle it.
00:23:50The University of Florida is on high alert as 18-year-old Christian Aguilar is still missing.
00:24:06His friend, Pedro, is talking to police about what happened the day Christian disappeared.
00:24:11And during that conversation, it has come to light that Pedro and Erica Freeman dated in high school.
00:24:17Erica was now dating Christian.
00:24:20Are your friends dating your ex-girlfriend?
00:24:23I don't know, but I'm okay with that.
00:24:25Because I, like, I know he's a good guy.
00:24:28You're okay with that?
00:24:29Mm-hmm.
00:24:30I didn't buy that at all.
00:24:31Just in the way that Pedro talked about it, you could tell that he was not real happy about it.
00:24:39But he was telling me he was happy.
00:24:41Okay.
00:24:42So I understand that you and Pedro were dating all through high school?
00:24:47Yes.
00:24:48Basically.
00:24:49It was going to be three years in October 9th.
00:24:50So about three years, yeah.
00:24:52We'd go out, we'd go on dates, we texted all the time.
00:24:56He was a little funny.
00:24:57He was very sarcastic.
00:24:59He was kind of a class clown a little bit.
00:25:02He was able to make me laugh so easily.
00:25:04Christian, Erica, and Pedro were part of a larger group at high school.
00:25:11In fact, they all went to prom together.
00:25:13But before graduation, Erica breaks up with Pedro.
00:25:17I started seeing problems in December of last year.
00:25:22It was simple things, but they kept adding up and I kept making up excuses for him.
00:25:26And I just, I didn't like the fact that I had to keep making up excuses that, oh, no, it's not his fault.
00:25:30Erica Freeman ended up breaking up with Pedro Bravo right before they graduated.
00:25:33He was very emotional about it.
00:25:37He cried a lot.
00:25:38He was very, I mean, it was not what I was expecting at all when I broke up with him.
00:25:43So now police want to know a lot more about Erica and Pedro's relationship in high school.
00:25:49So they brought in former classmates and friends to fill them in.
00:25:53Was he in love with Erica?
00:25:54Yeah, they were in a three year relationship, almost three year relationship.
00:25:58And she broke up with him before the summer because she was going to come up here.
00:26:02And so he came here kind of to like get her back.
00:26:06Pedro couldn't accept their breakup.
00:26:08He couldn't accept that things were over.
00:26:10And that culminated in him driving up to Gainesville and going to school there so he could be closer to her.
00:26:15He decided to move here two days before classes started because he was visiting and he's like, hey, Erica lives here.
00:26:20I might as well stay to see if she'll take me back.
00:26:25After moving to Gainesville, Erica Freeman runs into Christian and they develop a relationship.
00:26:32But they were keeping it secret because they didn't want to hurt Pedro.
00:26:36Were you telling other people about this or were you hiding that?
00:26:39No, we were keeping it quiet.
00:26:41We were trying to just, we were just trying to keep it between us.
00:26:44I mean, that's just, we didn't have a problem saying it.
00:26:47Like we, we would walk around campus holding hands and stuff.
00:26:49We didn't have a problem with it.
00:26:51And we knew people in Miami would not be comfortable with the idea of us dating because, again, I had just broken up with Pedro.
00:26:57But Erica and Christian's relationship wouldn't stay quiet for long.
00:27:01Pedro found out about Erica and Christian through mutual friends.
00:27:04Christian was one of your best friends.
00:27:06You two knew each other very well.
00:27:08Were you mad that he was dating your ex-girlfriend and didn't tell you?
00:27:13At first I was.
00:27:16But at the same time, I grew up with him.
00:27:20And he's my best friend.
00:27:22And we've shared countless moments together.
00:27:26It sucked that he didn't tell me, but I understood his reasons why.
00:27:31And I was just, just mad that he couldn't have told me sooner.
00:27:38It's, it's, it's very like soap opera-like.
00:27:41We, we don't, we don't, like me and Christian were very uncomfortable with all of it.
00:27:44We didn't want him to come to Gainesville.
00:27:46We were very happy, just the two of us.
00:27:48Everything was doing fine.
00:27:49And then all this chaos came forward and it was just, it was surprising.
00:27:53And we didn't, we didn't, we didn't know how to handle it.
00:27:55Once the rumors got out that Christian and Erica were seeing each other, he would say that
00:28:00it would like, that he was sad about it.
00:28:03This is the 34th street wall.
00:28:05It's a local landmark here in Gainesville lined with graffiti.
00:28:10This is where Pedro and Erica met up, where he confronted her about dating Christian.
00:28:15He showed me a picture of me standing next to Christian.
00:28:18And I was just like, listen, we're friends.
00:28:21You know, we're hanging out.
00:28:22We know we're not dating.
00:28:23We're just hanging out.
00:28:24But you lied to him.
00:28:25I did lie to him.
00:28:26Yes.
00:28:27I.
00:28:28Why did you lie?
00:28:29I just felt like it wasn't the appropriate time to tell him that.
00:28:32You know, I don't want to push this kid at all.
00:28:34I don't want him to think anything, you know, that might throw him over the edge.
00:28:38He told me that he wanted to talk to Christian to like kind of clear the air.
00:28:42His motivation was to get with Christian, to talk to him about the relationship he started with Erica Freeman.
00:28:51So he had mutual friends call Christian to arrange this get together.
00:28:57Once Christian was with Pedro, I had not heard from him.
00:29:01The last thing he told me was, have a great day in class.
00:29:04And I'm going to go talk to Pedro and act like we're not dating.
00:29:09It's really traumatizing, this whole situation.
00:29:13Yes, certainly.
00:29:14I understand that.
00:29:15Hoping to establish a timeline of his whereabouts after dropping off Christian, police speak with one of Pedro's roommates.
00:29:22He came in around nine.
00:29:27I was able to see like very last of like his shoulder to his head leaving.
00:29:34He didn't look dirty.
00:29:35He didn't look sweaty.
00:29:36Was he carrying anything?
00:29:38Was he?
00:29:39I didn't.
00:29:40I didn't notice him.
00:29:42I didn't notice anything in his hand.
00:29:44He stayed for, he couldn't have been at home longer than five minutes before he left again.
00:29:49The location where Pedro Bravo was living had its own surveillance cameras at the very front.
00:29:57So we were able to see him come and go, which direction he turned.
00:30:01And when he left was the last time I've seen Pedro.
00:30:05With little evidence to go on, police asked Pedro for permission to search his car.
00:30:10There were some suspicious items that were located in there.
00:30:13And what they find feeds the investigation.
00:30:16The police was telling us that they're going to come over here for one or two days.
00:30:29But after that, we don't know if we're going to continue with the search.
00:30:32I told them, you can do whatever you want, but until I find my son, I'm not leaving.
00:30:36I think that created a very powerful statement for the community.
00:30:42And people felt compelled to help us out.
00:30:46On the search, Christian's family was on the front lines.
00:30:52I remember seeing their interviews, pleading for help.
00:30:56I'm looking for people's heart.
00:30:58They can come and help me.
00:31:01I'm looking for somebody that can walk with me.
00:31:05That's the only thing that I'm asking.
00:31:08You were never going to leave Gainesville without Christian?
00:31:11No, I told my wife we're not leaving.
00:31:12We don't care if we lose the house.
00:31:14We don't care if we lose everything.
00:31:17You know, Christian is missing.
00:31:18We're going to find Christian.
00:31:20When Christian Aguilar's parents came up from South Florida,
00:31:24they became the face of the search.
00:31:27They became an embodiment of what we were all hoping for.
00:31:32And that was a successful recovery of Christian Aguilar.
00:31:40To see their faces almost every day,
00:31:42actively out there asking for help, searching themselves,
00:31:47calling Christian's name, just touched our community's heart.
00:31:51University of Florida freshman Christian Aguilar of Miami
00:31:55has not been found, dead or alive.
00:31:57The problem is we didn't know where to search.
00:32:03There was really no boundary of where our search was
00:32:06because we didn't know what we didn't know.
00:32:10So we sat and looked at everything.
00:32:13Matt Gackel was our digital forensics expert detective at the Gainesville Police Department at the time.
00:32:20Pedro did consent to a search of his phone initially.
00:32:26It just seemed that he was very worried about Christian, where he might be, what might have happened.
00:32:31The initial review of the data was to, you know, reconcile the phone data with Pedro's statements
00:32:38to then hopefully be able to find where Christian may have been.
00:32:42Matt Gackel was able to determine that the two of them were together for a long period of time,
00:32:47the directions they went.
00:32:51As we continue our coverage of the missing 18-year-old University of Florida student,
00:32:55it's been days since Christian Aguilar was last seen.
00:33:00The search for Christian was one of the biggest searches in Florida for any missing person.
00:33:05Hundreds of volunteers this weekend combing through the woods of Gainesville.
00:33:09Still no sign of the missing team.
00:33:12The area in and around Gainesville, it's unforgiving and incredibly hard to traverse with swamps
00:33:18and this thick underbrush teeming with wildlife.
00:33:22There was dogs, helicopters, horses, 4x4s.
00:33:26There were law enforcement from all over the state helping to assist in the search.
00:33:33How involved was Erica in the search and how was she holding up during this time?
00:33:38Erica was extremely involved.
00:33:40I do feel like we felt like we had to stick by each other.
00:33:45She is such a sweet person, so sincere and she was with us from the very beginning.
00:33:52We had been searching and searching and searching, you know,
00:33:55screaming at his name every forest we got to, every road we got to, every river we passed.
00:34:00I think the most difficult part for me was seeing every day the faces of my family completely in pain,
00:34:09crying with no hope and I couldn't do anything about it.
00:34:15It was like suddenly he no longer existed.
00:34:18He had disappeared and no one had seen anything of him.
00:34:23I 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?
00:34:37I'm left in a room at times for hours waiting for them to come back to ask me something else.
00:34:44I couldn't leave, so I wanted to give them whatever I needed to.
00:34:49So when police asked permission to search the vehicle, what did you say?
00:34:54I said yes, I gave them my car case.
00:34:58Pedro's blue Chevy Blazer is a mess. It's got trash everywhere. Wrappers, bottles, paint cans and in the back there are a bunch of crumpled up receipts.
00:35:09One receipt is for a late night Big Mac.
00:35:12I 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.
00:35:21The night that Christian disappeared, where did Pedro Bravo tell investigators that he'd been?
00:35:28Pedro 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.
00:35:46That kind of blows his alibi being at home at that period out of the water.
00:35:51Why didn't you tell me that the first time?
00:35:55I forgot. Honestly, I'm sorry, but I forgot.
00:36:00You forgot.
00:36:02I might have been drowsy from the pills and I don't remember.
00:36:07So Pedro changed his version because of the receipt.
00:36:11And every time that we would ask him questions and go through, it seemed the version would change a little bit.
00:36:18They came back and they asked me about this McDonald receipt and the time stamp on it.
00:36:22And the previous day, I just got in a fight with Christian.
00:36:26I haven't eaten. I barely slept.
00:36:29I feel completely destroyed in the sense that my whole life feels like it's falling apart.
00:36:34My parents said they're coming over to check on me and I just want to give them enough to go find Chris.
00:36:41They keep repeating the same things over and over again.
00:36:43It feels like I'm just answering things just to satisfy them.
00:36:46They find that receipt. It has the time stamp on it.
00:36:49And it shows that your story is not adding up all of a sudden, that it's changing.
00:36:55Why not be more forward with them from the beginning?
00:37:00I'm not used to talking to law enforcement.
00:37:02And as time goes on, I'm worn down by the interrogation about the same questions over and over.
00:37:09And I tell them everything that happened.
00:37:12Pedro says he finally comes clean to detectives about what happened that day Christian disappeared.
00:37:17There's one thing that's bugging me that I have to tell you that if I don't tell you it's gone.
00:37:22You're right. I can't keep everything from you.
00:37:24And what started out as a missing person's case later becomes more complex than anyone could have imagined.
00:37:31I've never seen anything like this before.
00:37:34What the f*** did you do?
00:37:35What do you mean?
00:37:37They know about you. They know everything.
00:37:39Oh my gosh. What the f*** did I get myself into?
00:37:41Here's the preparation. Here's the planning. Here's the execution. Here's the cover up.
00:37:55He had been searching things like how many sleeping pills will it take to kill someone.
00:38:01He at some point viewed a meme of someone asking Siri, where can I hide my roommate?
00:38:08Asking Siri.
00:38:09Siri.
00:38:10The search for Christian Aguilar continues today.
00:38:13Christian Aguilar is still missing.
00:38:15Christian!
00:38:16Police say time may be running out.
00:38:18The University of Florida student has been missing since Thursday.
00:38:22Tonight, the tale of two tapes.
00:38:24We know that he's not coming back.
00:38:26What he told police.
00:38:27I know when somebody's coming back, when they ain't coming back.
00:38:30And what he told me in this exclusive interview.
00:38:32Do you understand how that looks?
00:38:34Everyone is looking for Christian. You were the last person with him.
00:38:37Remember, Chris has to disappear. Chris has to go missing. This is the plan.
00:38:41The recordings never heard until now.
00:38:45What the f*** did I get myself into?
00:38:47How twisted the plot really got.
00:38:50So he invented a fictitious attorney.
00:38:53It sounds like the mind of a sociopath.
00:38:56He wanted to orchestrate more murders of more students in Gainesville.
00:39:00Make it seem like there was a serial killer.
00:39:01Have you ever come across a scheme like this one?
00:39:04That was an aha moment.
00:39:05Yeah.
00:39:06It's a story of love, friendship, betrayal, and a secret recording you'll only hear on 2020.
00:39:20Tonight, authorities in Gainesville are searching for a missing University of Florida student who could be in danger.
00:39:25When Christian Aguilar was reported missing, it was like he no longer existed.
00:39:30This was one of the largest searches that I have ever seen in my career as a police officer.
00:39:35The problem is we didn't know where to search.
00:39:39Pedro Bravo and Erica Freeman dated in high school.
00:39:42Erica was now dating Christian.
00:39:45When police realized the last person to see Christian was Pedro,
00:39:49they pulled him into an interrogation room and asked him what happened.
00:39:52The more I asked him questions, the more the story evolved and changed.
00:40:04Throughout the day, as Pedro Bravo was being questioned in an interrogation room,
00:40:08his story wasn't adding up to police.
00:40:11Then a McDonald's receipt is found inside Pedro's vehicle
00:40:14that raises more questions about what exactly Pedro was doing late the night before.
00:40:19One of the other things that we located was some security footage from Scrubbs' car wash
00:40:24of Pedro at 1 in the morning power washing the underside of his blazer.
00:40:29I like a clean car like anybody, but I'm not sure that 1 o'clock in the morning is going to be the time
00:40:35that I'm going to get out and spend 10 minutes washing the underside of my blazer.
00:40:38At some point, I had to confront him and say, look, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
00:40:45What really happened?
00:40:47There's one thing that's blowing at me that I have to tell you that if I don't tell you it's going to happen.
00:40:52I don't know.
00:40:53There's one thing I have to tell you because it's, you're right, I can't keep everything from you
00:40:57and I have to tell you one thing.
00:40:59He said he didn't ask me to let him out.
00:41:02I told him to get out because he said something nasty to me.
00:41:07At one point, I made the comment about his, the girl that he has a crush on, and he got angry at that.
00:41:13But then he came back with, maybe you should just, like, maybe you should just f***ing kill yourself.
00:41:18And that's when I turned around and punched him straight in the face.
00:41:21And that's when I told, like, he went, like, he got out, but I told him get out of the car.
00:41:31You did not tell police that you punched Christian in the face initially.
00:41:35I just wanted Chris found.
00:41:38I didn't want to say that I got in a fight.
00:41:40If they could have found Chris and not have gone into too much detail about that, that's what I wanted to accomplish.
00:41:45Then it changed to, well, I got out and we had a fight and I beat him up and then I left him there.
00:41:53I stopped the car, I got out and then I started a small fight with him and then I left.
00:42:00That evolved to, well, I beat him there, but he was still alive.
00:42:04Was he breathing?
00:42:05Yeah, but barely.
00:42:06Pedro, what really happened to Christian?
00:42:13And then I finally confronted him, I was like, Christian's not coming back, is he?
00:42:19If that's all that happened, he would have went somewhere and called the police to get his phone and to get his stuff.
00:42:27We know that he's not coming back, okay?
00:42:30I know he's not coming back.
00:42:31I've been doing this for too long.
00:42:33I've been doing this for 30 years.
00:42:36I know when somebody's coming back when they ain't coming back.
00:42:39He ain't coming back.
00:42:42You know he's not coming back.
00:42:45He just kind of moved his head.
00:42:46He didn't say anything.
00:42:48He didn't say no.
00:42:49He didn't say yes.
00:42:51Detective Roberts, he is almost pleading with him.
00:42:53What does he say?
00:42:55He's telling him that he doesn't want his family to find a pile of bones.
00:43:01He wants Pedro Bravo to tell him where Christian Aguilar's body is.
00:43:07Why don't we do this, okay?
00:43:09Let me help this.
00:43:10Why don't me and you and somebody take a ride and let's go see if he's still there.
00:43:15Okay.
00:43:16Are you going to be honest?
00:43:17Yes.
00:43:18Show me exactly where he left.
00:43:19Yes, exactly where he was.
00:43:22We 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?
00:43:30After hours of searching for Christian, we still didn't find anything.
00:43:40Police are desperately searching for Christian and there are just no signs of him.
00:43:45But they do find something in Pedro's apartment.
00:43:48During the search of your apartment, police uncovered your journal.
00:43:54And there are a lot of vivid entries in it about Erica, your relationship and your desire to get back together with her.
00:44:03Pedro, were you obsessed with Erica?
00:44:07That journal covered two months after the breakup with Erica.
00:44:13And I started writing about how I was feeling to try and get it out of my system.
00:44:19I wanted to try and feel better somehow.
00:44:22You're friends dating your ex-girlfriend?
00:44:27I don't know, but I'm okay with that.
00:44:29Because I, like, I know he's a good guy.
00:44:32He's telling me he's happy for Erica.
00:44:35He's happy for Christian.
00:44:37And this journal is completely opposite.
00:44:42He was totally obsessed with it.
00:44:49At this point in the investigation, we're doing everything we can to try and find Christian.
00:44:53As part of that, I requested his cell site records.
00:44:56Unfortunately, his records stopped on the day that he disappeared.
00:45:03One of the things that Detective Geckle was able to find is that Pedro's phone was put into airplane mode
00:45:10for quite a bit of time on the day that Christian went missing.
00:45:13That told us a lot of things.
00:45:17The other big piece of information that we discovered on the device was the app usage log.
00:45:22It's a log that an iOS device keeps that shows the amount of time that particular applications were used.
00:45:28He was able to determine that the flashlight mode was used for 40-some-odd minutes in the middle of the night.
00:45:36Police said that running a forensic search of Pedro's computer hard drive yielded some chilling results.
00:45:42What did they find?
00:45:43The search of Pedro Bravo's hard drive revealed that he had been searching things like,
00:45:49where can I bury a body?
00:45:51What are the effects of sleeping pills?
00:45:53How many sleeping pills will it take to kill someone?
00:45:56He at some point viewed a meme of someone asking Siri,
00:46:01where can I hide my roommate?
00:46:04The evidence is indicating that something bad has happened to Christian.
00:46:08He hasn't called. He hasn't been seen.
00:46:10How concerning was it when he learned that he'd purchased a shovel?
00:46:13Now a South Florida family is searching for their loved one and police say time may be running out.
00:46:35The University of Florida student has been missing since Thursday.
00:46:41As the search continues for Christian, authorities are conducting a search of their own through Pedro's apartment.
00:46:48What is it that they find?
00:46:50When the authorities enter Pedro's bedroom, they go in and they look in his closet.
00:46:55And in his closet, there is a travel suitcase.
00:47:00Inside that suitcase is another suitcase, like a Russian nesting doll.
00:47:05And inside of that suitcase is a backpack.
00:47:08That backpack belongs to Christian Aguilar.
00:47:10And in that backpack is Christian Aguilar's identification.
00:47:15It's everything he would need if he were going to be continuing to live in this life.
00:47:22The backpack wasn't the only thing that you guys found inside Pedro's apartment, right?
00:47:26Correct.
00:47:27We actually did three search points at his apartment.
00:47:30We ended up finding a receipt from Lowe's.
00:47:35The accompanying security footage there of Pedro purchasing a shovel,
00:47:39some insecticide, and a bottle of Gatorade.
00:47:42How concerning was it when he learned that he'd purchased a shovel?
00:47:47Well, it was very concerning because I knew that he would probably only use that to hide evidence or a body.
00:47:56One of the first charges that was brought against Pedro was the failure to render aid.
00:48:01Under his own admission, he got into a physical altercation with Christian,
00:48:07injured him, and left him on the side of the road.
00:48:12The evidence is indicating that something bad has happened to Christian.
00:48:17He hasn't called. He hasn't been seen.
00:48:19He's not where Pedro said he left him.
00:48:23Erica wants to know what happened to Christian, so she goes to the jail and she questions Pedro.
00:48:29She begs him to tell her what happened to Christian.
00:48:34I need your help because we have nothing.
00:48:37Do you understand? Nothing.
00:48:39How? How is that possible?
00:48:42How did you just vanish?
00:48:44Erica, I don't know what happened after I left him.
00:48:48Friends and former classmates, teachers all came out to Miami's North Trail Park.
00:48:52They were all praying and hoping that young man will be found safe soon.
00:48:57So far, absolutely no sign of him.
00:49:02About eight days into the search, we had enough evidence.
00:49:05We had enough reason to believe that this was making a turn from a missing persons investigation into a murder investigation.
00:49:11The evidence continues to mount in the murder case of missing UF student Christian Aguilar of Miami.
00:49:19His 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.
00:49:29Pedro pleads not guilty to the charges.
00:49:32I 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.
00:49:39In 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.
00:49:50I don't think anyone's ever prepared for a situation like that.
00:49:55I mean, I'm used to school. I was the art kid and I was cracking jokes.
00:50:00Now I'm in a place where there's hardened criminals, people that have done serious things.
00:50:05And to add to all that, they're also calling me my best friend's killer.
00:50:10As Christian's parents, how did you manage to cope with the stress, the uncertainty during the search?
00:50:18Only God can answer you that question.
00:50:22You see your family members crying and you cannot do nothing about it.
00:50:26Over a period of time, they came to realize that they may not get him back alive, but they were going to get him home.
00:50:38It's now been three weeks since Christian Aguilar disappeared.
00:50:41A couple of hunters just by sheer coincidence happened to be out in this part of Levy County.
00:50:48And they came across what they initially thought was a dead deer.
00:50:52And on closer inspection, they found out it was not. It was human remains.
00:50:55It's hard to do a death notification for anybody. It's hard to tell them that their loved one's not coming home.
00:51:06So that conversation with Randy Roberts, where he tells you that they found a body.
00:51:10He just told me, I asked him, Randy, in your experience, you know, the body that you guys found in there matches the clothing, everything that Christian was wearing.
00:51:20And he says, 100%.
00:51:25So, you know, at that moment, we all start crying.
00:51:31Claudia, you wanted to go see the body after it was recovered?
00:51:34Why?
00:51:35Because I didn't believe that he was, he was, he passed. He, he was murdered.
00:51:41Even that Randy said that he found the Christian body, I didn't believe that.
00:51:45For me, it's been 30 years I've been doing it. And that was the only time that I ever probably broke down with the family.
00:51:55That was the hardest one I ever did.
00:52:00You just spent more than three weeks searching for your son.
00:52:04You must have been exhausted physically and mentally. What was it like when you had to bury him?
00:52:09My brain was not there. My heart was not there. My physical presence, yes. But, you know, I don't remember everything clearly.
00:52:24What touched me about the funeral was just seeing, like, how many people loved him.
00:52:29Everyone was crying.
00:52:31Did your focus shift to now getting justice for Christian?
00:52:39Somebody has done a wrong doing and you know it. And it's really bad.
00:52:44That person needs to be brought to justice. We asked for justice.
00:52:49We didn't ask for revenge, which is different. Justice.
00:52:53What was it like when you finally saw Pedro walk into the courtroom?
00:53:01There's no words for it. You're betrayed.
00:53:06I have to have this monster, you know, staring at me while I'm on the stand.
00:53:11The investigation into Christian Aguilar's disappearance and murder only lasted a few weeks.
00:53:29But it would be almost two years before Pedro Bravo would finally go on trial here, charged with killing his best friend.
00:53:36With the case making national headlines, all eyes were on this courthouse in Gainesville.
00:53:42Jury selection is now underway in the trial of Santa Fe student Pedro Bravo.
00:53:46Bravo is charged with premeditated murder.
00:53:49The trial itself was just such a huge deal in Gainesville.
00:53:54And every single day, Christian's parents were there. His brother was there. They sat right up in the front.
00:54:00For us, this was our way of representing Chris in all this.
00:54:03Because he didn't have a voice anymore, so we had to be there for him.
00:54:07What was it like when you finally saw Pedro walk into the courtroom?
00:54:12There's no words for it.
00:54:15You're betrayed. I mean, this is somebody that's been to your house. This is somebody whose house you've been to.
00:54:21It doesn't process as real.
00:54:25What do you remember about it?
00:54:26I remember cameras. I remember two weeks of watching my parents distraught my mother in tears.
00:54:37My dad, who I've always seen as a giant broken down.
00:54:41Seeing Christian's dad and his mom over there trying to hold themselves together.
00:54:48And at the heart of it is me, labeled as this killer.
00:54:53All right. You may proceed.
00:54:56What was your strategy in presenting all of this evidence to the jury?
00:54:59We start from the beginning. We give them, here's the relationship.
00:55:03Here's what happens with Christian and with Erica.
00:55:08Here's when Pedro comes to town.
00:55:10When you piece all of the evidence together, it gives a pretty good picture of what happened.
00:55:18Pedro was jealous of Christian and developed a plan to kill him.
00:55:23We give them, here's the preparation. Here's the planning. Here's the execution. Here's the cover-up.
00:55:31This is security footage from a Walmart parking lot here in Gainesville, 2012. Walk us through what happened here.
00:55:37So this is the car that Christian Aguilar and Pedro Bravo are in.
00:55:42He 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.
00:55:48And during that two and a half hours, he's waiting for the medication, the sleeping pills that he's given to Christian Aguilar to take effect.
00:55:55When they take effect, he's falling asleep in the car. Mr. Bravo crawls into the back seat of the car.
00:56:00He gets a toe strap. 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.
00:56:15Police 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.
00:56:27Remember, Chris has to disappear. Chris has to go missing. This is the plan. Can't get Erica back. Chris is here.
00:56:34During 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.
00:56:47He 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.
00:56:55A parade of witnesses was called to testify, and Erica Freeman was one of them.
00:57:05What was your strategy in calling her to the stand?
00:57:08Well, Erica is the linchpin to why this happens.
00:57:12So we called Erica to the stand to provide context in which would explain the relationship between all the parties.
00:57:18that she was boyfriend with Christian Aguilar and former boyfriend was Pedro Bravo.
00:57:26I don't know why you read this far. You're the greatest person on this bloody earth. I won't let you fall.
00:57:34Where he took down the time to write down his plan and his, you know, what he was thinking of me or what he was thinking of Chris.
00:57:42It sounds like the mind of a sociopath.
00:57:45She had to take multiple breaks, and at one point she had to identify items from Christian's backpack.
00:57:53She just couldn't hold it together and started crying, and they had to take a break.
00:57:58And now I have to have this person, this monster, you know, staring at me while I'm on the stand.
00:58:05I don't want him to look at me. I don't want him to see me ever again.
00:58:08I did lock eyes with Pedro once, and there was nothing there. It's just kind of a dark emptiness in his eyes.
00:58:17You know what it was the worst part of that trial? Seeing Pedro sitting in front, seeing somebody so sarcastic, no regret, no remorse.
00:58:30Was there a particular testimony that was difficult for you to sit through?
00:58:37Michael Angelus.
00:58:40And the story he tells, prosecutors say illustrates just how far Pedro Bravo would go to get away with murder.
00:58:47No one really knows what happened the night that Christian Aguilar disappeared.
00:59:03However, one witness testifies his side of the story as told to him by Pedro Bravo, the suspect in this case.
00:59:10Next witness.
00:59:11Michael Angelus is an inmate at the Alachua County Jail, and Mr. Angelus has a series of conversations with Pedro Bravo,
00:59:23where Pedro Bravo explains to him how, when and where he killed Christian Aguilar.
00:59:29I think originally he said that he was going to try to poison him with a mixture of sleeping pills and pesticide,
00:59:36and mixed with soda or something like that.
00:59:41His main plan was to choke him with a moving strap.
00:59:45According to Michelangelo, Pedro had another plan to cast suspicion elsewhere.
00:59:51What can you tell us about that plan?
00:59:53So one of the things that Pedro Bravo did was he solicited Michelangelo to use Michelangelo's gang connections on the outside
01:00:02to do additional murders similar to the murder of Christian Aguilar.
01:00:09Was it ever brought up about the shovel and what you would need to do with the shovel as part of the plan?
01:00:16Yes.
01:00:17What was that?
01:00:19Or have somebody go get the shovel to, I guess, copycat that murder to make it look like somebody else did it.
01:00:26And in order for you to do that, would you have to know where the shovel was then currently located?
01:00:33Yes, sir.
01:00:35His impression checked out.
01:00:37We were able to find the shovel exactly where he said it was.
01:00:40Finding the shovel was a big deal principally because it verified what Michelangelo was saying.
01:00:46On cross-examination, Pedro's lawyer argued that Michelangelo was getting a deal to testify and attacked his credibility.
01:00:53And the deal you are seeking is to get that life-mandatory sentence off your back.
01:01:00That's the least that you wanted then.
01:01:02Yes, sir.
01:01:04No, stay with rest.
01:01:06Stay with rest.
01:01:10The young man on trial for allegedly killing his best friend, driven by jealousy, taking the stand in his own defense.
01:01:16Today we're hearing what Pedro Bravo says happened the day his friend and UF student Christian Aguilar was last seen alive.
01:01:24You decide to take the stand in your own defense.
01:01:28That is an unusual, risky move.
01:01:32Why did you decide to do that?
01:01:34Because it didn't feel like there was anything else to do.
01:01:37It felt like it needed to be done.
01:01:46Pedro testifies as to why he says he bought the Gatorade and Z-Quil.
01:01:52You bought all those things?
01:01:53Yes.
01:01:55For what purpose?
01:01:56It was to kill myself.
01:01:57And as for buying the shovel, Pedro had an answer for that as well.
01:02:02Tell the jury why you bought a shovel.
01:02:05It was going to be part of my idea to kill myself.
01:02:09In a way, I was going to go find a spot and I was going to mark my tomb and I was going to dig it.
01:02:14Alright, thank you. Cross.
01:02:16Mr. Bravo, I want to start by asking you about your timeline that you described to Mr. Rupert.
01:02:21Now, you're on your way to kill yourself, right?
01:02:24Correct.
01:02:25But you've got to get gas first, right?
01:02:27Correct.
01:02:28Okay, because you can't kill yourself without a tank of gas, correct?
01:02:31Correct.
01:02:33I tried to question him about things that seemed inconsistent so that you can show the jury that their testimony is unreliable.
01:02:41Do you ever think about that last day that you spent with Christian?
01:02:45Every day.
01:02:46I try to not think about it because I don't want that to be the last or the most important memory of me and him.
01:02:55But I wish I would have done things differently.
01:02:58I wish I wouldn't have gotten into an argument.
01:03:01Better not the car.
01:03:02I wish it would have been me on the ground instead of him.
01:03:05Alright, you'll be adjourned for the evening.
01:03:08All rise.
01:03:10It was a two-week trial and only a few hours for the jury to come back with a verdict.
01:03:16When the jury finds as follows is the defendant Pedro Andres Bravo in this case.
01:03:22The defendant is guilty of first degree murder, felony murder, first degree.
01:03:25What went through your mind when you heard the jury say guilty?
01:03:26I immediately turned back and I see my parents and I feel I failed them as a son.
01:03:34What was your reaction?
01:03:35What was your reaction?
01:03:36What was your reaction?
01:03:37What was your reaction?
01:03:38What was your reaction?
01:03:39What was your reaction?
01:03:40What was your reaction?
01:03:41What was your reaction?
01:03:42What was your reaction?
01:03:43What was your reaction?
01:03:44What was your reaction?
01:03:45What was your reaction?
01:03:46What was your reaction?
01:03:47What was your reaction?
01:03:48I failed him as a son.
01:03:54What was your reaction?
01:03:56As a mother, crying.
01:03:58Lamenting.
01:04:00Seeing what happened with him.
01:04:07He destroyed two families.
01:04:10His and ours.
01:04:13Nobody won that day.
01:04:16You have to sit back and ask yourself, why?
01:04:20You know, it's so senseless.
01:04:24What could possibly drive this young man
01:04:28to bend his abilities and his talent
01:04:31and his motivation in such a negative direction?
01:04:36Did you kill Christian Aguilar?
01:04:39No.
01:04:41I did not kill Christian.
01:04:43Pedro was ultimately sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
01:04:53Pedro had spent more than a decade behind bars.
01:04:57His appeals exhausted before a bombshell claim was alleged.
01:05:01It had the potential to turn this case upside down.
01:05:04Defense attorneys are attempting to overturn Pedro Bravo's conviction.
01:05:09An eyewitness has come forward who specifically supports Pedro's version of what happened between him and Christian, the fight, and also most importantly verifies that Christian got up and walked away.
01:05:29According to an affidavit signed by this alleged witness.
01:05:33In 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.
01:05:41While she's waiting, she says she saw two young men having a fight.
01:05:46She insisted it was Pedro and Christian.
01:05:50And it felt vindicating to finally have someone that can corroborate what I said.
01:05:56And at the end of that fight, Pedro gets in the car and leaves Christian.
01:06:01And she goes to approach Christian, who basically tells her to move on.
01:06:06He's okay.
01:06:08Pedro's lawyers also point to Michelangelo's recantation of his trial testimony as new evidence in the case.
01:06:15Michelangelo is still incarcerated.
01:06:18We spoke with him in 2024.
01:06:20He called us from prison.
01:06:21We wanted to know what his motivation was to make this new claim.
01:06:25It's always been in the back of my head and kind of ate at me about everything that happened during that trial and that investigation.
01:06:32And so after thinking about it for a little bit, you know, I decided to just tell the truth.
01:06:41We're here at the courthouse in Gainesville for a pivotal hearing with Michelangelo and the alleged eyewitness Kelsey Edwards.
01:06:49What they say here inside this courtroom today could have a major impact on the case.
01:06:54I told him, like, there's nothing else I can do. I have to come forward.
01:07:02Pedro Bravo is housed at a prison here in Okeechobee, Florida.
01:07:10He's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
01:07:14To date, all of his appeals have been denied.
01:07:17But there are new developments in the case.
01:07:20In 2024, I spoke to Pedro in his only interview.
01:07:25You've spent more than a decade now in prison, locked up.
01:07:30Did you ever imagine you'd be here?
01:07:33No, sir. I never thought this would ever be a day that would happen.
01:07:38How did you end up here?
01:07:41It's hard to say. It's been a struggle every single day, not letting go of hope.
01:07:47Then this alleged witness came forward, claiming that she had seen Christian get up and leave after this fight with Pedro.
01:07:57It 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.
01:08:09It seems somewhat convenient for Mr. Bravo to have this witness with all this information kind of all of a sudden.
01:08:17I thought that there had to be some kind of connection here.
01:08:22Who did this mystery witness turn out to be?
01:08:26Kelsey Edwards is a woman who was sort of down on her luck.
01:08:30She has four kids. She doesn't have a lot of income.
01:08:34I started looking into who she associates with. Has she ever been to prison? What would be the connections?
01:08:41Tom Mullins was able to determine that Kelsey Edwards was a person who had children with a man named Brandon Campbell.
01:08:48And he was incarcerated six beds away from Pedro Bravo.
01:08:53That was an aha moment. Investigators have drawn a direct link between Pedro Bravo and Kelsey Edwards.
01:09:04They say this is a big step in debunking what she swore in her affidavit.
01:09:09Mullins and Kramer interview Campbell in prison. This is audio of their conversation.
01:09:15I'm here because I think you could help us.
01:09:18Mr. Campbell was quite surprised, had no idea why we were there at the prison.
01:09:22And initially denied even knowing who Pedro Bravo was, which is expected.
01:09:28It wasn't until I showed him a picture of his children's mother that his eyes kind of opened.
01:09:33Can you tell me this is my mother and my children in trouble? Because she's got two of my kids.
01:09:38And at that point it seemed to click in his head exactly why we were there.
01:09:43He wanted to pay her, which I didn't know he was so serious about,
01:09:48was to be a witness.
01:09:53Did he go into any details about what he wanted her to do or say or whatever?
01:09:58No, but he did tell me he was gonna pay her like 10 or 15 grand to do it.
01:10:02After the visit, Brandon Campbell calls Kelsey his former girlfriend.
01:10:07You know, a state prosecutor from Gainesville came and taught me.
01:10:11They know, they know, they know about you getting, they know everything.
01:10:17I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything.
01:10:20What the f*** did you do?
01:10:22What do you mean?
01:10:23I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm just saying like, what the f*** did I get myself into?
01:10:28You were also able to go through some financial records.
01:10:32What did you find that helped you connect all the dots?
01:10:35So once obtaining Ms. Edwards' cash app, I found payments to her and larger sums of money, hundreds, sometimes a thousand.
01:10:45So then my challenge was to figure out, well, who's sending those deposits?
01:10:49Well, was he charged with anything?
01:10:51No, Mr. Campbell cooperated fully in the investigation.
01:10:54Investigators 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.
01:11:05How was it that Pedro Bravo was able to communicate so frequently with Kelsey Edwards?
01:11:11He always seemed to have actual regular cell phones. One would get seized from him and then he'd seem to find another one.
01:11:18Did you determine that Kelsey Edwards was a willing participant in this plan?
01:11:23I don't know how to characterize her willingness. I think that Kelsey Edwards was a person who was desperate and she was a person who needed money.
01:11:32And she made a decision to do something she knew was wrong.
01:11:37The signed affidavit was just one part of Pedro's bigger plan to try and get a new trial.
01:11:44The other piece was to get Michelangelo to recant.
01:11:48Michelangelo's motivation for recanting his testimony was that he was going to receive money.
01:11:54Pedro 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.
01:12:06Mr. Angelo believed that there was a real attorney and there were some times where this attorney would send money for Mr. Angelo.
01:12:13And where was that money coming from?
01:12:15It was coming from Pedro Bravo.
01:12:17As you're learning all of this, what's going through your head?
01:12:19I guess I'm shocked by the complexity of it.
01:12:22The amount of subterfuge lies and creation of false evidence is beyond what we would ever see. It's very unusual.
01:12:31Pedro Bravo serving a life sentence. Where was all of this money coming from?
01:12:37Mr. Bravo was actually sending money to these folks through his mom.
01:12:47I reached out to Pedro's mom, who previously spoke to me for comment.
01:12:53Hola, Susana. Soy Victor Ojendo, periodista con ABC News.
01:12:57My messages were not returned.
01:13:00Was Pedro Bravo's mother ultimately charged with anything?
01:13:03No, she was never charged. I never could prove that she was a willing participant in the sense that she had knowledge of the scheme.
01:13:11As Pedro's plans started to unravel, Kelsey Edwards began to have second thoughts reflected in WhatsApp messages obtained by 2020.
01:13:21It was clear she was definitely scared and she was trying to back out at that point.
01:13:27But Mr. Bravo wasn't having that.
01:13:29And Mr. Bravo insisted that she had to go through with it.
01:13:33He even got to a point where he began threatening her.
01:13:37Pedro Bravo, Michelangelo and Kelsey Edwards were ultimately indicted for their roles in Pedro's plan.
01:13:44Kelsey Edwards is arrested and while in prison explains what she knew to Brian Kramer.
01:13:50He wanted me to sign an affidavit saying that I had witnessed his fight with Christian and that Christian got up and walked away from the fight still breathing.
01:14:06Is he asking you to commit a very serious felony?
01:14:11He 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.
01:14:22Kelsey explains that she and Pedro communicated for more than a year.
01:14:27Over time, she says they developed an emotional connection.
01:14:30He was talking about his struggles in prison, being lonely and stuff like that.
01:14:36He just had a way of talking to people that would make you feel bad for him.
01:14:43It doesn't seem like Pedro Bravo was ever going to quit here.
01:14:56He 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.
01:15:05It is the last act in the long legal drama that began with the murder of UF student Christian Aguilar in 2012.
01:15:24All rise, please.
01:15:25The hearing with Michelangelo and Kelsey Edwards just wrapped up 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.
01:15:43At their court appearance, Michelangelo pled guilty to perjury for his false recantation.
01:15:49Kelsey Edwards pled guilty to fraud for the fake affidavit.
01:15:54Angelo was sentenced to seven years in prison while Edwards got five years probation.
01:16:02It doesn't seem like Pedro Bravo was ever going to quit here. He just kept on pushing this.
01:16:07He 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.
01:16:20Pedro Bravo died in prison on Wednesday.
01:16:22We're told Bravo killed himself at the Okeechobe Correctional Institution where he was serving a life sentence.
01:16:29I think when Pedro Bravo realized that the testimonies of these two people wasn't probably going to work,
01:16:35it probably left him in a place where he just couldn't see himself staying behind bars for decades.
01:16:46When sifting through the extensive correspondence between Pedro Bravo and Kelsey Edwards,
01:16:50authorities are surprised by one of the messages they find.
01:16:54For the first time, he admitted that he took Christian's life.
01:16:57He did? What did he say?
01:16:58He said that they fought and he left him there like he'd said in trial.
01:17:05But this time he said he went back and picked him up and he drove around.
01:17:10And that eventually Christian passed away in his car.
01:17:14He panicked and ultimately went out and buried him.
01:17:18To your knowledge, is that the first time he's ever come close to actually confessing to that murder?
01:17:23Other than the confession he made to Mr. Angelo, yes.
01:17:28We asked Pedro's lawyer about the alleged plot by Pedro to solicit false witness testimony.
01:17:34He said he couldn't comment on anything that occurred after his client died,
01:17:38which includes Edwards' new assertions and guilty plea.
01:17:41Is Pedro Bravo's death the end of this saga?
01:17:46More than anything else.
01:17:48My hope is that Christian Aguilar's family, that this is the end of the story for them.
01:17:53That they don't have to continue to think about him and what he did in the people's lives that he ruined.
01:18:00So what is this?
01:18:11This is Christian's sketchbook.
01:18:14That's Gator.
01:18:16That's a Florida Gator.
01:18:18We think this is Erica.
01:18:21We think that this is a drawing of Erica.
01:18:23Erica, yeah.
01:18:24Christian's belongings, once collected by police as evidence in his murder investigation,
01:18:31now cherished by his parents.
01:18:34Everything.
01:18:36Everything belongs to my son belongs to me.
01:18:38Those items are precious to us.
01:18:39Is it too painful to think about?
01:18:54It is too painful.
01:18:55What his future might have been.
01:18:56Yeah.
01:18:58Especially when I saw the pictures of Christian Fraze having his life,
01:19:03with the new careers, with the families.
01:19:05I prefer to not think too much about it.
01:19:16How do you want Christian to be remembered?
01:19:18I want Christian to be remembered by how sweet and kind and genuine of a person he was.
01:19:26Although Christian was only a student for a couple of months,
01:19:29the University of Florida presented his family with a posthumous degree in biomedical engineering,
01:19:33symbolic of a promising future cut too short.
01:19:37I can't imagine where his life would have ended up.
01:19:43Kind of leading him to.
01:19:46But I know it would have been great things.
01:19:50How did you choose this photo?
01:19:52Because he looked so happy there.
01:19:53Was that on prom night?
01:19:54That was on prom.
01:19:55Prom.
01:19:56We want him, people to remember him smiling.
01:20:01One of the most beautiful things is his smile.
01:20:12A smile so many will never forget.
01:20:14And Christian's father posted a condolence note on Facebook to Pedro Bravo's parents,
01:20:17saying no parent should go through the pain of losing a child.
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