- Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola attended a party in Los Angeles in November 2021 and were later allegedly drugged by David Brian Pearce
- Pearce and Brandt Walter Osborn allegedly left the unconscious women outside two separate Los Angeles hospitals
- Pearce was then accused of their murders in July 2022 and was convicted of first-degree murder in both of their deaths on Feb. 4
The man who was accused of killing Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola in November 2021 was convicted of first-degree murder in their deaths on Tuesday, Feb. 4, according to KCAL News, ABC 7 and NBC 4.
Giles was a 24-year-old model, and her friend, Cabrales-Arzola, was a 26-year-old architect.
David Brian Pearce, 42, was charged in July 2022 with murder in the drug-related deaths of Giles and Cabrales-Arzola. The Hollywood producer was initially arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. However, Pearce faced murder charges after the L.A. County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner classified the victims’ deaths as homicides.
On Tuesday, he was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for Giles’ and Cabrales-Arzola’s fatal overdoses. He is facing up to life in prison.
Before the 2022 charge, Pearce was charged with several sexual assault counts against seven victims between 2007 and 2020. On Tuesday, the jury also found him guilty of those sexual assault charges, including three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual penetration by use of force and one count each of rape of an unconscious person and sodomy by use of force, per ABC 7.
David Brian Pearce on July 11, 2022 at a Los Angeles Superior Court.
Frederick M. Brown/Daily Mail.com via AP
Although Pearce was convicted, the jury did not reach a verdict on Pearce’s co-defendant, Brandt Walter Osborn, 45. Osborn was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact. The Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter declared a mistrial on Osborn’s charges due to the jury’s deadlock.
Pearce’s sentencing was scheduled is March 13. That same day, Osborn will have a hearing to decide whether there will be a re-trial against him. Osborn is out on bond.
Christy Giles. Christy Giles/Instagram
Giles and Cabrales-Arzola attended a party in East Los Angeles on Nov. 13, 2021. Cabrales-Arzola was seen alongside Pearce in the VIP section, according to party witnesses’ accounts and surveillance video obtained by the investigators.
Later, the women were allegedly given drugs and allegedly overdosed at a home between the L.A. neighborhoods of Beverlywood and Miracle Mile. The prosecution also alleged that Pearce drugged and sexually assaulted the women, citing evidence that his DNA was found on the two women, specifically under Cabrales-Arzola’s fingernails.
Before their disappearance, Giles texted “Let’s go” to Cabrales-Arzola at 5:30 a.m. Cabrales-Arzola replied, “I’ll call an Uber, 10 min away.” They never showed up when the Uber arrived, Giles’ husband, Jan Cilliers, told CBS 48 Hours.
Masked men, later identified as Osborn and Pearce, then allegedly dropped them off outside separate hospitals, according to police.
Giles was found dead outside Southern California Hospital in Culver City. Her husband, who was out of town, tracked her location to the hospital. He then contacted her parents, Leslie and Dusty Giles, in Alabama and said he had not heard from her.
“I was just told, ‘I’m very sorry to inform you, Ms. Giles… But she was dropped off at our hospital on the outside, kind of like a bag of garbage,'” her mother told CBS 48 Hours. “And, um… ‘She didn’t make it.’… And I said, ‘What do you mean she didn’t make it?'” Adding, “And they said… ‘It is now a police matter.’… I hung up and I fell apart,” she said.
She died from a mixture of cocaine, fentanyl, ketamine and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB, which is known as the “date rape drug,” per the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola.
hilda marcela/Facebook
Meanwhile, Cabrales-Arzola was found that day unconscious outside Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center, according to police.
Her mother, Dr. Hilda Marcela Arzola-Plascenci, “received the phone call in the middle of the night” and was told Cabrales-Arzola was so ill that she was intubated, she said, per KCAL.
Cabrales-Arzola’s family took her off life support on Nov. 24, 2021, a day before her 27th birthday, per ABC 7. She died of multiple organ failure, with cocaine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy) and other unknown substances found in her system.
