A Hollywood producer is accused of killing a model and her friend in Los Angeles after a night out. It is alleged that he said, ‘Dead girls can’t talk.’
Christy Giles, 24, a model, and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, an architect and interior designer, were discovered outside two different hospitals on November 13, 2021.
Brian Pearce, now 40 years old, was taken into custody for the deaths in December of that year. He was formally charged with their murders in July of the following year. Pearce is currently in jail awaiting his trial scheduled for early next year.
Legal analyst Kelly Hyman has now revealed newly uncovered evidence regarding the women’s murders, including Pearce’s alleged remark, in her bombshell podcast ‘Once Upon A Crime in Hollywood’.
In an exclusive clip shared with the DailyMail.com, criminal defense attorney Josh Ritter said: ‘Probably most crucial and damaging to Pearce, and perhaps even the reason why this case is a murder case, was a statement made by Pearce … where he said “dead girls can’t talk”.
‘And what that tells us is what he intended. He realized he could benefit and save himself if these girls were actually dead. Because if they survived, they could tell authorities what had taken place and he knew that would be the end of him.’
‘So that alone pushes this case, if there was ever a doubt, from manslaughter into a murder,’ he added.
The podcast, which launches in January, also claims to have new witness testimony about Pearce’s alleged history of drugging and sexually assaulting women.
Christy Giles, 24, a model and aspiring actress from Alabama and living in Los Angeles, was found murdered on November 13, 2021
Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, an architect and interior designer from Mexico traveled to Los Angeles to study and formed a friendship with Giles. She was also killed
On the night of the murders, the two women had visited an art exhibit at Soho House in West Hollywood.
They later went to see one of their favorite DJs perform at a warehouse party in East Los Angeles.
A third friend who was with them left early and the pair ended up meeting Pearce and Brandt Osborn, now 43.
Hours later, the women’s lifeless bodies were found outside different hospitals in the Los Angeles area.
Giles was declared dead at the scene, and Cabrales-Arzola later died in the ICU.
Both women had been drugged with a fatal cocktail of fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, heroine, MDMA and the rape drug GHB, police said.
Their deaths were classified as drug-induced homicides by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.
In July 2022, Pearce was charged with two counts of murder and two counts in the sale, transport and furnish of a controlled substance. Osborn was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact.
Pearce pleaded not guilty to the most recent charges and remains behind bars, while Osborn also maintained his innocence in court and was released on $40,000 bond.
Hollywood Producer David Pearce, 40, was charged in the double murder in July 2022
Giles was allegedly served a fatal cocktail of fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, heroine, MDMA and the rape drug GHB.
Pictured: Giles’ last social media post on the evening she was killed
In addition to the murder charges, the former film producer had been previously charged with several counts of sexual assault against a total of seven victims spanning a 13-year period.
At the time, then-District Attorney George Gascon asked for other potential victims to come forward and contact investigators if they had contact with Pearce or Osborn.
A third man, cinematographer Michael Ansbach, 47, was originally arrested alongside Pierce – but was not charged in the case.
During the podcast, Ritter suggests that Ansbach will testify to Pearce using the chilling ‘dead girls can’t talk’ phrase.
LAPD investigators said the three men met Giles and Cabrales-Arzola at an after-hours warehouse party in Los Angeles on November 13 before continuing to Pearce’s apartment on Olympic Boulevard.
Giles’ body was left on the sidewalk outside Southern California Hospital in Culver City and Cabrales-Arzola was found outside Kaiser Permanente hospital in West Los Angeles.
Surveillance video of a Toyota Prius bearing no license plate was determined by police to be the vehicle the women had traveled in before their bodies were dumped on the roadway by masked men.
Both women were drugged and died from ‘multiple drug intoxication,’ while Cabrales-Arzola also suffered from multiple organ failure, according to the Los Angeles County’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
Legal analyst and host Kelly Hyman (pictured) of the podcast ‘ Once Upon A Crime in Hollywood ‘ has uncovered damning new evidence – including Pearce’s alleged remark – just days before Pearce goes on trial.
In an exclusive clip shared with the DailyMail.com, criminal defense attorney Josh Ritter said, ‘Probably most crucial and damaging to Pearce, and perhaps even the reason why this case is a murder case, was a statement made by Peace … where he said “dead girls can’t talk”
Cabrales-Arzola remained in critical condition in ICU until her heartbroken family took her off life support later that month – just days before her 27th birthday.
Osborn, an actor who appeared on NCIS and one episode of Nurse Jackie, reportedly bragged about the weekend he met the two young women.
He referred to it as ‘the craziest weekend of my life,’ fellow actor David Murrietta Jr told The New York Post.
‘He told me how they’d partied, two girls came back to their place, and the girls had a bunch of drugs,’ Murrietta said.
He also revealed that Osborn told him he left the residence and when he returned his roommate told him Giles had died.
Recounting the conversation, Murietta said: ‘He checked her pulse, freaked out, decided not to call 911, and they decided what to do with the body.’
Osborn was later arrested on the set of NCIS.
Cabrales-Arzola remained in critical condition until her heartbroken family took her off life support later that month, and days before her 27th birthday
Brandt Osborn was an accessory to the murder of the two young women and released. The 43-year-old actor has appeared on shows NCIS and on Nurse Jackie
Pictured: Osborn’s appearance in court in January 2023 where he pleaded not guilty
The young woman, who just turned 24, got married to her artist husband, Jan Cilliers, 17 years her senior
Cabrales-Arzola’s body was left outside of Kaiser Permanente hospital in West Los Angeles
Giles was a fashion model from Alabama and studying interior design in LA.
While there she met Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, an architect and interior designer, who had moved to Los Angeles from Mexico in 2021.
Cabrales-Arzola’s father Luis Cabrales Rivera, 49, called on the DA to bring murder charges against the men arrested in the death of his daughter.
‘We want those people to spend the rest of their lives in prison and that they can’t hurt anyone ever again,’ Cabrales-Arzola’s father told The US Sun from his home in Mexico.
Giles, who just turned 24, married Jan Cilliers, 17 years her senior, in 2019 after meeting him at an art gallery in Los Angeles.
Cilliers previously shared how he found out that something was wrong the day after she was killed when he saw her iPhone’s location on Saturday, November 13, at the Southern California Hospital.
Piecing together the timeline from the night before death, he found that her phone had also been at a home on Olympic Boulevard in the Beverly Grove neighborhood – which investigators later said belonged to Pearce.
‘Anyone know someone that lives there?’ Cilliers, who was away on a trip up to Northern California at the time of her death, asked his Instagram followers.
‘This was [my wife’s] last known location before she turned up at the ER. Christy is no longer with us.’
‘People got back to me with saying that this guy lives at this address and he’s a very like suspicious person, that there’s lots of things out on the internet about him, that he’s not a very savory character. … A lot of really terrible things have been written about him online,’ Cilliers told CBS News.
After checking her text messages, he found out that she and Hilda had exchanged messages about getting an Uber at 5.31am, with Giles using an eyes-wide emoji. That Uber ride never happened.
Pictured: Cilliers discovered that his wife Giles’ phone was found at a hospital in Culver City
Cilliers later happened upon this location in her phone’s history, a home that cops say belonged to Pearce
Pictured: Giles’ final text message exchange with Cabrales-Arzola about leaving the house on Olympic Boulevard. The two of them never took that Uber ride
Cilliers used texts and her phone’s location to piece together the night of her death
The couple had eloped but planned to have a wedding back in Giles’ native Alabama.
Her devastated parents, Dusty and Leslie Giles, said they buried their daughter in the wedding gown she never got to wear.
Cilliers told People Giles was ‘a really incredible, incredible human.’
He added, ‘I’ve never felt love so deeply, and I doubt I ever will again.’
When his late wife’s alleged killers were arrested, he said he ‘sighed a sigh of relief’.
‘I also understand that this is just the beginning of the battle. There’s going to be a lot of stuff to get through in order to get these guys in prison.’
He added of his late wife: ‘I’ve never felt love so deeply, and I doubt I ever will again.
