01x06 - Gone in Gainesville

[bunniefuu]

The University of Florida

had a missing persons report
on a student.

Not only was Christian's phone
not powered on,

the phone was turned off intentionally.

Knowing my son,
I knew something is wrong.

I think it's very clear
that we had to find Christian

as quickly as we could.

Is he hurt, is he injured?

There are animals

[Hissing]
that are dangerous –

alligators, water moccasins,
rattlesnakes –

that are dangerous to searchers.

He picked up a hitchhiker.

He might be in danger.

If anybody knows
who this guy is

or has seen this guy
or sees this guy,

we need to talk to him.

You know, interviewing people
for 24 years,

I felt like I knew that he
had – was involved it,

just had to, specifically,
be able to prove it.

He was keeping a journal
that contained a treasure trove

of notes and drawings related
to his obsession.

There was definitely stuff
in there

that would give you pause
to think, "Okay,

this guy is very dark-minded."

A master plan to commit
this crime was something

that kind of just makes
the back of your hair stand up.

It was horrific.

♪

[Laconic country tune plays]

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

Gainesville is
an interesting community

because it's a college town.

The University of Florida is
what put Gainesville on the map.

But aside from the college,

Gainesville, by itself, is,
to me, unique

because,
outside of the city limits,

it gets into very wooded areas

and a lot
of literal swamplands.

♪

There's an abundance
of alligators in this area,

both inside the city
of Gainesville

and Alachua County.

There's alligators
on the UF campus.

♪

My lieutenant contacted me

because the University
of Florida

had a missing persons report
on a student.

I was told that Erika Friman
and Pedro Bravo came to the UPD

and was making a police report
about their friend

Christian Aguilar being missing.

Christian was last seen

in the area of the city
of Gainesville,

rather than on the University
of Florida campus,

so, they contacted us
to come do the investigation.

Erika Friman
tells Gainesville police

she filed
a missing persons report

after not hearing
from her boyfriend, Christian,

for 24 hours.

She told us, the night before,

he was supposed
to spend the night with her

and he never showed up.

It made her incredibly worried.

After Erika checked
with his roommate,

found out that he wasn't home,
hadn't been there,

she contacted parents,
from South Florida,

who had not heard from him.

I was at work in Miami,
9:00 in the morning on a Friday,

and I received a phone call
from my wife.

She's crying, she's panicking,

and she told me that she just
got a phone call from Erika

and that Erika told her that
Christian was not in his room

and he's not answering
the phone.

Immediately, knowing my son,
I knew something is wrong.

♪

We live in Southwest Miami.

Christian went to USF
in Gainesville,

not only because it's
an excellent university,

but the biomedical
engineer curriculum

that he was looking for
was there

and he got a future
like nobody else in my family.

He was the first one in our
family going to the university.

Christian was having
the best time of his life.

Christian's parents know
something is wrong

when their calls
to Christian go unanswered.

He always answer his phone,
especially if my wife calling,

and we left immediately
to Gainesville.

♪

After contacting Christian's
parents and his roommate,

Erika then contacted
his friend Pedro

and was going,
"Where's Christian?

You know, where did
you last see him?"

This information
and so she convinced him

to go with her
to make a police report.

After speaking with Erika,

Detective Roberts sits
down with Pedro.

He asks Christian's
worried friend

for as much detail
as he can remember

about the last time
he saw Christian.

Pedro basically said,
the day before,

"We went to a couple of places."

Mm-hmm.

Pedro told me that,
on the way back from Best Buy,

he picked up a hitchhiker

around the painted wall
on 34th Street,

an area where students
go out and do some art.

♪

He said he dropped this guy off
in the area

of this storage facility
off County Road 121,

towards the city of Gainesville.

Pedro was able to give a great
description of a hitchhiker

that they picked up
and gave a ride to.

He was able to tell me
so much detail about him.

♪

He said this guy was like
in his late 50s, early 60s,

kind of long gray hair.

He said he appeared homeless.

He had on a shirt and a pair
of light-colored shorts.

He indicated that the guy was
in the car with him

like 10, 15 minutes

and that, while he was
in the back seat,

he was fiddling around
with like some duct tape

that, Pedro said,
he had in the back

and he thought
it was kind of strange.

He said that, on the way back,
they had a disagreement

and that Christian asked
to be let out

and he let him out.

♪

Pedro explains that he
and Christian

had a heated discussion
about how Pedro

was handling
some personal issues.

♪

Pedro says
he drops off Christian

in the side of the road, basically,

the side of a U.S. highway.

Peppered with woods.

He said, "I dropped him off
and haven't seen him since."

Typically, in a missing
persons investigation,

the last person to be with them

is, obviously, somebody
that we're going to pay

a little bit of extra attention
to, for two reasons.

Either, one, they're responsible
for the crime that occurred;

or, two, they're the person
with the most information

that can help point us
in the right direction.

And so, that – that was Pedro,
for us, at that time.

While the investigator
continues interviewing Pedro,

police begin a full-scale search
for Christian.

♪

Between us and the university,
I think there's 20, maybe –

maybe 30 people out there
for the initial search.

We really only had
Pedro's statement to go on.

♪

The detective asks Pedro
to show him the exact route

he and Christian drove
the day before.

♪

We just backtracked
the whole thing,

going to the location where
he said he dropped him off.

He told us that he had let
Christian out of his car

at a specific location

in Gainesville,
on Northwest 13th Street.

If Pedro drops off Christian
on 13th Street

and, let's say,
Christian is walking home,

who knows? You know, maybe he
gets out and disappears.

Pedro Bravo stated that,
when he left Christian,

that it was at a wooded area
next to a location

where 4-wheelers were for sale

and we conducted a search
in the wooded area

behind that business.

♪

There are animals
that are dangerous –

alligators, water moccasins,
rattlesnakes –

that are dangerous
to searchers,

that inhabit much in this area.

♪

There is the question of
is he hurt, is he injured?

I think it's very clear
that we had to find Christian

as quickly as we could.

♪

We found a receipt
for the shovel.

He didn't have a yard.

He didn't do any landscaping.

Wasn't in the
earthmoving business.

Why do you need a shovel?

He wasn't talking to Erika.

He wasn't talking
to his parents.

Everything just stopped.

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

Police in Gainesville
are searching

the alligator-infested swamps
near the University of Florida

for any sign of student
Christian Aguilar,

who's been missing for 24 hours.

His friend Pedro Bravo
told detectives

he dropped Christian off shortly

after the two of them
gave a ride to a hitchhiker.

We have the hitchhiker,

the description
that Pedro's given us,

and we're actively trying
to find this person to question.

The theories are
either the hitchhiker

has done something to Christian

or there's always
the possibility that,

if Pedro dropped off Christian,
like he says he did,

this third, unknown,
person comes by

and kidnaps him
or does something like that.

We always have to keep that
in mind as well.

♪

[Crickets chirping]

After searching and not finding
Christian or the hitchhiker,

it was the middle of the night.

By the time that we drove back
to the police department,

we'd been looking for Christian
and interviewing Pedro

for the better part of 10 hours.

He was very cooperative.

During the initial interview,

he told me that
the original reason

that he wanted
to talk to Christian was

that Pedro felt like he wanted
to k*ll himself.

♪

Based upon what he said,
I couldn't just release him.

So, he was taken into custody
under the Florida Baker Act,

which is a 72-hour hold where
they have to be interviewed

by a psychologist to determine
whether or not they're at risk

to harm themselves or others.

Okay.

Detectives believe Pedro
has given them plenty

of leads to follow up on

while the young man
gets the help he needs.

From the initial place where

Pedro described
that he dropped off Christian,

the buildings begin
to become more sparse

and the woods take over.

It's thousands of acres.

♪

We called out the air unit.

So, now, we've asked them
to shadow us on the search,

just in case Christian
was actually injured

and had maybe, you know, crawled
into the woods or something.

♪

The next day, the search went
from a few of us

working our way
through the woods

to hundreds, maybe even 1,000
or more, volunteers

to help and try and find this –
this missing kid.

♪

Erika believed that they were
going to find Christian.

♪

He was going to be okay.

That, you know,
he was in the hospital

or he was somewhere
and didn't know his name

or, you know, couldn't provide
information or something.

She was very hesitant to believe

that anything bad
had happened to him,

other than, you know,
being missing.

♪

Christian's family came
up from Miami

and brought a large
contingent with them.

♪

Any piece of evidence
or any indication

that we can find Christian
alive, I was pursuing.

The University of Florida
allowed students

to go and participate
in the search.

We participated
in doing the flyers,

all the while monitoring
the webpages and putting photos

and informing people
where we were searching.

♪

Christian!

We wanted to believe that
Christian was out there, lost,

and that he needed our help

and that we wanted
to bring him home

and that was our faith.

Any parent will grab
any type of hope...

♪

...just to keep his kid alive.

♪

While police and volunteers

desperately search
for Christian,

detectives are not having
much luck

tracking down
the mysterious hitchhiker.

♪

We needed to verify
Pedro's story

about the hitchhiker.

We put out an APB –

"Hey, this is the person
that we're looking for.

If anybody knows who this guy is
or has seen this guy

or sees this guy,
we need to talk to him."

We got surveillance
from every business

that had surveillance,
that was on the route

that Pedro Bravo traveled
through Gainesville,

looking for Christian
and the hitchhiker.

We had people looking
through hours and hours

of surveillance video.

The effort pays off
when investigators spot

a major clue in the video.

Christian and Pedro are on film
in the Best Buy,

where Christian purchases
a Kanye West album.

Seeing that surveillance
video of Pedro there is –

is a great confirmation for us
that he is telling us the truth.

Detectives also request
Christian's cellphone records,

hoping they might
contain information

pointing to Christian's
whereabouts.

We're looking
for that pattern of life.

Is this person doing what they
typically do in a given day?

If they call Mom every day
at 4:00,

did this guy call Mom
at 4:00 on this day, right?

That sort of thing.

And there are people that,
you know,

turn their phone off at night,
believe it or not,

and so it might be normal
to see somebody have

an eight- or ten-hour block,
no activity on their network.

But it completely didn't match
anything with Christian.

He wasn't talking to Erika.

He wasn't talking
to his parents.

Everything just stopped.

Detective Goeckel was able
to determine,

not only was Christian's phone
not powered on,

he was able to determine

that the phone was turned off,
you know, intentionally.

It didn't –
The battery didn't go dead.

That seemed to verify
that he might be in danger.

♪

His phone turned off indicated

that there was definitely
foul play involved.

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

Forty-eight hours have passed

since Christian Aguilar
was reported missing.

There's been no sign of him
or the hitchhiker

he and his friend Pedro
gave a ride to

the night he disappeared.

The one person who may be able

to provide police
with more details

remains in the hospital,
after claiming to be suicidal.

♪

After Pedro was placed

into a mental health facility
to be evaluated,

he was released after 48 hours.

The doctors were able
to determine

he's not suicidal at all.

♪

He has no intention
of k*lling himself.

He would say those things
to the people around him

in order to manipulate them.

Investigators wonder
if Pedro's also been trying

to manipulate them.

Detective Roberts brings him in
for another interview,

to determine if he's telling
the truth

about the last time
he saw Christian.

♪

[Thud]

♪

He kept changing his story.

First, Christian and Pedro
had a disagreement.

Christian asked to be let out
and he – he let him out.

Now, he said that they got
into an argument

where he punched Christian
and he got out of the vehicle,

made him get out of the vehicle.

When you're interviewing someone
on a possible crime,

the fact that they change
the story

makes you focus more on them.

[Thudding]

♪

Indications about Christian
were really red flags

because he didn't appear
that concerned about it.

After four or five different
versions from Pedro

and having done this for,
you know,

interviewing people
for 24 years, I felt like

I knew that he
was involved in it,

just had to, specifically,
be able to prove it.

There was a lot
of things that,

kind of putting pieces together,

we were able to kind of pick up
and say, "Okay, there's –

there are some things here
that – that are not adding up."

The information
about the hitchhiker

originally was viable,
but there was nothing there.

I don't believe
he actually existed.

I think it was just
a story they made up.

There's been no sign
of Christian for four days.

With Pedro now a person of
interest in his disappearance,

detectives start digging deeper
into their friendship.

When we spoke with Erika again,
at first, she didn't believe

that Pedro could do
something like this.

But the more information
she got from us,

she became more
and more suspicious,

and it made sense to her.

Erika told us she,
Pedro Bravo,

and Christian Aguilar
were all friends.

They'd hung out
in the same friend group

at a high school
in Doral, Florida.

They graduated
all in the same class.

Erika Friman and Pedro Bravo
had dated.

Erika told us that
she had stopped seeing Pedro

in May of their senior year
in high school.

She had made it very clear
to him that she didn't intend

to be boyfriend/girlfriend
with him anymore.

She had, in my opinion,
done everything right in regards

to this breaking up with him.

She was honest with him.

She was forthright with him.

She didn't try and lead him on.

When she shows up in Gainesville
to go to Santa Fe College

that fall,
she doesn't know anybody.

She and Christian end up
at the same event

around 4th of July.

They start seeing each other,
and that

relatively quickly sparks
to a romance.

That moves forward from there,

and you know, in Erika
and Christian's mind,

Pedro is – he's in
the rearview mirror.

When they first become aware
that Pedro's in town,

that he's going to register
and pay

to go to school in Gainesville,

Erika has not told Pedro
about the relationship.

She doesn't want to hurt him.

She knows how upset he is about
the end of their relationship.

But at the same time,
she cares about him

and she wants him to be happy.

Pedro found out through
mutual friends

that she was dating Christian.

The situation between Pedro
and Christian was very strained.

The information suggests
a possible motive for Pedro

wanting to harm
Christian – jealousy –

but there's no direct proof
that he's committed any crime.

Detectives devise a way to keep
him locked up to buy time

while they look for
incriminating evidence.

Pedro was arrested for failure
to render aid

based on his statements
about harming Christian

and leaving him helpless.

After he's arrested,

there's a search warrant
that is created

and the vehicle is impounded.

Once we start going through
the vehicle now,

we're starting to find evidence
of a lot more stuff.

We were able to find things
in that vehicle

that changed the dynamics
of the case.

They located a Gatorade bottle

and duct tape
in the back of the car.

The evidence is sent
to the FDLE for analysis.

One of the things they find
on the undercarriage is dirt.

So we take this dirt sample
off of the car,

we send it to a soil expert,
and we learn that this is

a specific mix of limestone
and dirt that is only found

in the southwestern area
of Levy County,

which is the county directly
west of Gainesville.

♪

God sent so many angels
in there

to help us out
through these difficult times.

It was crazy. It was –

Nobody knows how difficult it is
to lose somebody.

There was a lot of people calling

and giving us tips
and a lot of notes.

"Oh, I think we saw him
in this place,"

or, "That car passed by," or...

And every single one of
those leads ended up

in we sending a crew

or somebody to search for –
for Christian.

The hope remained.

♪

On October 12th,

some 22 days after
Christian Aguilar went missing,

there were two individuals
who were in the woods

in an area
of North Central Florida

that's extremely difficult
to access.

♪

When they smelled the odor
of decomposition,

they felt that they were
going to find a deer

that had been mortally wounded
by a bow hunter.

When they approached the area
where the odor was emanating,

they immediately recognized it
to be a human body.

♪

♪

Three weeks after
Christian Aguilar was last seen,

a body has been found deep
in the woods

outside of Gainesville.

The location was a hunting club
in Levy County,

40-some-odd miles
from Gainesville.

A couple of miles off of a main
paved road was a lime rock road.

The only thing that was found
was skeletal remains.

Because of decomposition mostly.

And the body had been disturbed
by wild hogs in the area.

And once the Levy County
Sheriff's Office got there,

they were able to tell
the types of shoes that

were there
and the color of the shirt.

And based upon
what we had put out,

they were sure that
this was Christian Aguilar.

It was like around 9:00
at night

when I got the phone call
from Randy.

He told me that they found
a body in an area, Levy County,

and it was Christian's.

I couldn't believe it.

I throw myself on the floor
because I was being –

I was by myself,

and I needed to deliver
that news to my family.

Let them know that, you know,
Christian was not coming back.

I was one of the worst days
of my life.

♪

Christian was facedown,
and he had been duct taped

around his ankles, around his
neck, around his wrists.

Any time we find a body
and it's not,

you know,
an obviously natural death,

the medical examiner
will perform the autopsy

to basically try to figure out
the cause of death.

There was so little left of him

that we had to use very deep
tissue in the hip joint

to identify his remains
through DNA.

And his dental records.

And that's not terribly uncommon
in Florida.

It was still very warm.

The body was out in the open.

So there was not
much of him left.

And because of that,
there wasn't a lot

that we could say about
how he was k*lled.

There was some things we could
say about how he wasn't k*lled.

We were able to say
that there were no cut marks

on any of his bone
or hard surfaces in his body,

that there was no destruction
of his body

through the evidence you would
likely see from a b*llet impact.

He had not suffered
sufficient blunt force trauma

to his head to say

that he had suffered any kind of
cranial injury of that nature.

When Christian's body
was discovered,

it was highly decomposed,

but the duct tape
was still very much present.

So, as part of
the investigation,

we sent the duct tape

that had been taken
from Christian Aguilar's body

and the duct tape that was
located in Pedro Bravo's vehicle

to the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement's Materials Lab,

where they were able to separate

every single piece
into its component parts

and then compare the ends
of each piece to each other

and reassemble
the entire roll of duct tape

and were able to show
that the end of the piece

that was in the car
matched pieces

that were used
to bind Christian Aguilar.

The accumulation of evidence

helps detectives
develop a theory

about what happened
to Christian.

They initially believed
Pedro acted in a fit of rage.

But further discoveries point
to something darker.

That this was
a premeditated crime.

When Pedro's vehicle
was searched,

they located a Gatorade bottle
in the back of the car.

The Gatorade bottle contained
a mix of Gatorade,

diphenhydramine, which is the
active ingredient in ZzzQuil,

and Tylenol, or acetaminophen.

And we believe that Mr. Bravo
gave the Gatorade

to Christian Aguilar.

This is going to make anybody
extremely tired, very sleepy.

Investigators believe Pedro
waited for the drug

to take effect so Christian
could not defend himself.

Christian Aguilar's DNA
was found in the back seat

of Pedro Bravo's car
in the floor mats,

and there was bloody fluid
from his lungs

that seeped into the carpet.

It would tell you that Christian
was likely strangled.

Christian was found
in a shallow grave,

and the reason
for the shallow grave

was because lime rock is
much harder than regular dirt.

It's much harder to dig in.

As they continue to collect
evidence against Pedro,

detectives build
a timeline of events

that led to Christian's death
and burial in the woods.

I spent the better part
of the next 30 days

doing nothing
but looking at Pedro's phone.

And I ended up going through
basically every fi–

folder and file on his device

to understand
exactly what was in there.

Using that data,
we're able to kind of start

tracking Pedro's movements

throughout the day on the day
that Christian goes missing.

We're able to see him go
to his apartment.

We're able to see him go
to Walmart.

And then, we see the records
just kind of disappear.

He goes off the network.

He put his phone on airplane
mode to hide from us,

went out to the place
where he buried Christian.

Somewhere between 11:00
and midnight that night,

there's a massive battery drain.

It was about over about a 40-,
43-, 44-minute period

where his battery
just drops in percentages,

which is very unusual

unless you're doing some
sort of resource intensive,

you know,
activity on your device.

And we're able to see
a usage of the flashlight app.

We suspect he's used
his flashlight

to help him bury the body.

And then, he turned off airplane
mode back in Gainesville.

People lie,
but data doesn't lie.

So seeing that there is – is
a great confirmation for us.

We were able to pull up
surveillance videos from stores,

stations, different locations
that have surveillance video,

and were able to match it up
with the vehicle,

where it went, at what times.

I saw that he washes
the outside of the car

and the wheels
with the power sprayer.

But of course,
what he doesn't wash –

because he probably
can't get to it –

is the undercarriage of the car,
and that's where we recover

the dirt.

Those little pieces
of evidence,

taken by themselves,
might not mean a lot,

but they add up
and they really help shore up

the story
that Pedro had done this.

♪

♪

Pedro Bravo is behind bars
in Gainesville, Florida,

as investigators build
what they're confident

is a solid case
of premeditated m*rder.

♪

A search warrant was ex*cuted
on his bedroom

and the residence
where he was living.

There was Christian's backpack,

a wallet,

and different things in his
closet inside some suitcases.

We found the receipt
for the shovel.

Even though
he didn't have a yard,

he didn't do any landscaping.

Wasn't in
the earthmoving business.

So why'd you need a shovel?

We learned that he went
to Walmart,

and at Walmart,
he purchased ZzzQuil,

which is a sleeping drug

that he used to adulterate
Christian Aguilar's beverage.

Pedro Bravo was also keeping
a journal.

♪

It contained a treasure trove
of notes

and drawings related
to his obsession over Erika.

♪

That would say things like,

"I hope she hasn't found
someone else.

I need to be back
together with her."

♪

There was also a fully
written out plan

of how he intended
to get Erika back in his life

as his girlfriend
by making Christian disappear.

With a step-by-step process
of how that was going to go.

There was a lot of stuff
in there that was concerning.

There was definitely stuff
in there

that would give you pause
to think,

okay, this guy
is very dark-minded.

♪

His journal talked about
his plan to dispose of Christian

so that he could get
his girlfriend back.

And talked about
getting an alibi.

He had a list of things to do
to try to dispose of –

of Christian, his competition.

♪

Chasing Erika and and then
planning out this m*rder

and then being so cold
and calculated,

it's very, very clear
that he thought about it

for a long time.

♪

We have probable cause, which is
being able to look at a person

with all the facts
and circumstances and say, okay,

Pedro is probably the person
that committed this crime.

And we were able to make
the arrest for the m*rder.

Pedro was a –
a friend of Christian.

It's unbelievable.

My words cannot explain
the place where he throw my son.

And...

You know, the only – the –
the only thing

that he was thinking
at – at – at that moment,

it was to get away
with all this.

I-It's incomprehensible
that a kid

with that potential
can become that kind of monster.

As police and prosecutors
work to solidify the case

against Pedro Bravo, he sits
in the Alachua County Jail.

The details of his alleged
m*rder plot have been uncovered,

but he's still
apparently plotting.

Now move ahead to December
of that year.

I had received information
from a defense attorney

that Pedro has told an inmate,

a person by the name
of Michael Angelo,

that Pedro wants
to convince this jury

that he did not commit
this offense

and that law enforcement
has gotten the wrong person.

Mr. Angelo has,
in his possession,

a letter that he purports
to have been written

by Mr. Bravo propositioning

to have people
that Michael Angelo knows

commit a series
of copycat murders.

The purpose for which
is to prove

that there is a k*ller
who is still on the loose

out there k*lling
University of Florida students.

You know, this master plan to
commit this crime was horrific.

Kind of just makes
the back of your hair stand up.

To prove that he's telling
the truth, the inmate,

Michael Angelo provides
detectives details

on where Pedro says he hid
the shovel

he used to bury Christian.

Mr. Angelo sort of draws a map
and gives an oral description

of where we will locate
these items,

which is in a –
a Spyglass Condominium complex

in Gainesville,
which is where Mr. Bravo

was living
at the time of this incident.

It's very important
to find the shovel

because the only way
that he could know

where the shovel is
is if Mr. Bravo told him.

It therefore follows
that whatever else Mr. Angelo

has to say about what Mr. Bravo
said is likely true.

Myself, several members of the
Gainesville Police department –

detectives,
forensic investigators –

head to Mr. Bravo's apartment.

It is set in the woods
and it has multiple buildings,

and these buildings
are connected by boardwalks.

And part of what Mr. Angelo
has told us

is that the shovel
is under a boardwalk.

There are many build– probably
40 buildings in the complex,

and each one of them
has multiple boardwalks.

And I start walking around and
looking around underneath them,

and there are a lot.

We get to the very, very end,

the southern end of the complex.

There is a boardwalk
that is maybe

two and a half inches
off the ground.

And I didn't think
that it was possible

that you could have put
a shovel underneath it

the way it was constructed,
but felt it was worth looking.

We had a flashlight,
shined in underneath it,

and we see a short-handled
garden spade.

It was covered by the dirt

from when he was burying
Christian Aguilar.

And it showed me that what
Mr. Bravo told Michael Angelo

about the shovel was true.

There is no question in my mind
that Pedro Bravo

is the person
who k*lled Christian Aguilar.

You could have taken away
my 10 best pieces of evidence.

I still would have tried
to convict him.

♪

♪

♪

On August 4th, 2014,

two years after
Christian Aguilar

vanished in
Gainesville, Florida,

Pedro Bravo goes on trial
for his m*rder.

Prosecutors present the jury
with a compelling narrative.

♪

What we actually think happened
was that Pedro Bravo

meets Christian Aguilar
at the Hub

on the University
of Florida's campus.

That leads to they're going
to go get something to eat.

Bravo managed to put
a combination of Tylenol

and diphenhydramine
into Christian Aguilar's drink.

♪

After going to the Best Buy,

they drove around Gainesville
for some short period of time

and ended up in the parking lot
of the Walmart

on North 13th Street.

While in the parking lot,

it is likely
that Christian fell asleep.

Pedro then got into
the back seat of the vehicle.

He used a – a tow strap,
looped the tow strap

over Christian's neck.

He then pulled back on it,

braced his knees against
the back of the seat

and choked him to death.

And he then leaves
for Levy County

and disposed of his body.

There are so many things
that were damning to him.

It's very difficult to pick one.

Pedro Bravo testified in his
own defense for over four hours,

trying to explain away
every single piece of evidence

that we had, unsuccessfully.

Was it just a fight
between guys?

It was just
a fight between guys.

And I wish I was less than that.

Come to regret that decision?

I feel like I'm gonna regret
that decision

for the rest of my life.

My impression of Mr. Bravo
during the trial

was that he fully believed
he would be acquitted.

He believed that he was going
to be able to convince this jury

that he did not
commit this offense.

He was very cold in the way
that he was acting like.

Yes.

"I'm the most smart person
in the room."

And you like, "Do you realize

that you took
the life of somebody?

How dare you?"

The trial was very painful,
difficult during that time.

It was economically

and spiritually
devastating for our family.

So sometimes we have
to step out.

And we had a room designated
to us where we can scream,

yell, or cry if we need to.

♪

At the end of the day,

the jury came back
and did convict Pedro

for the death of Christian.

Pedro was sentenced to life
without parole.

And it was,
for us, a big sigh of relief.

I believe the – the community
was satisfied.

I don't think that anything
that we did

is going to bring
Christian back.

Hopefully, you know,
Mr. and Mrs. Aguilar

have a little bit of closure

as far as knowing
that at least justice was done.

We didn't celebrate.

It was nothing to celebrate. Nothing.

We walk away in the air
with this same result

that we found two years before,

that Christian
was not coming home.

I know where my son is.
That family knows.

The difference
is he's still alive.

They can talk, they can share.

I can't.
We're going to heal.

As a family,
we will be able to heal.

Never forget.

The pain is not
going to go away,

but at least we're going to be
able to live with – with that.

And we're going to know
that we did the right thing

fighting for Christian's life.

Christian made me
proud so many times,

at so many times that, you know,
I cannot pick only one.

♪

Love about Christian
was the way that he preached.

Live your life
as a full potential.

Give everything that you can.

And that – that's what we take
every day from Christian

that, you know,
we have to live

and do it with all the spirit,
whatever we take.

And, by doing it,
we're honoring him.

♪