‘Dead girls don’t talk’: Man, 42, convicted of murdering 2 women in Los Angeles
A 42-year-old Los Angeles man is facing life in prison after a jury on Tuesday convicted him on two counts of murder and seven counts of sexual assault in connection with a high-profile murder investigation involving the deaths of two young women more than three years ago.
Arrested in November 2021, David Pearce, a self-described nightlife promoter, was accused by prosecutors of providing the drugs that caused Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola to overdose in his Olympic Boulevard apartment.
It was further alleged that some 12 to 14 hours after the woman passed out, the 42-year-old dumped the women’s bodies outside separate hospitals.
Giles, a 24-year-old Alabama native who moved to L.A. to work as a model, was left outside a hospital in Culver City on Nov. 13, 2021, and died several hours later of an overdose of fentanyl and cocaine.
Two hours after dumping Giles, Pearce left Arzola outside a hospital in West Los Angeles. The 26-year-old, who studied architecture at the University of Monterrey in Nuevo León, Mexico, her home country, was in a coma for 11 days before dying of cocaine intoxication and organ failure.
The two women befriended one another in 2019, according to the Los Angeles Times, and had reportedly gone out together the night they crossed paths with Pearce.
After his arrest, at least a dozen more women came forward accusing Pearce of sexual assault, saying he lured women to his apartment after a night of partying by pretending to be a well-connected Hollywood insider, The Times reported. Many of the alleged victims said that after drinks at his apartment, they would awaken while he was assaulting them.
Prosecutors alleged that Pearce’s roommate and co-defendant, Brandt Osborn, was an accessory to the murders and that he helped destroy evidence, though the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charges against him.
A third man arrested in connection with that deadly night, Michael Ansbach, became a witness for the prosecution, testifying that he got seriously ill after taking the same batch of cocaine the women had taken.
Ansbach said that Pearce seemed more worried about taking care of himself when he begged for someone to take Giles and Arzola to the hospital, The Times reported.
“Dead girls don’t talk,” Ansbach testified Pearce replied. “It’s a phrase that echoes in my nightmares and disturbs me.”
Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, Pearce maintained his innocence throughout the trial, even taking the stand in his own defense. He testified that he did a lot of drugs during that period and that it wasn’t uncommon that people passed out at his apartment while partying. He also said he never provided Giles and Arzola with the drugs that ultimately killed them and that he was not in the room when they took them.
The 42-year-old is scheduled to be sentenced in March.