A film industry producer facing allegations of drugging and leaving a model and her companion outside different medical centers is now under fire for allegedly plotting to cause a mistrial.
David Pearce is accused of murdering Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola after a night out in November 2021.
Pearce has pleaded not guilty to two counts, along with unrelated alleged sexual assaults involving seven women between 2007 and 2020.
His former roommate, Brandt Osborn, has also pleaded not guilty to two charges of accessory after the fact.
He has been accused of helping Pearce carry the women’s limp bodies out of their apartment and drop them at two separate hospitals.
The pair’s joint trial began last week in Los Angeles and there has already been a shocking twist in the case.
During a court session presided over by Judge Eleanor Hunter, prosecutors revealed their intention to address a phone conversation that the producer, Pearce, reportedly had with his mother using the pin of another inmate.
According to prosecutors, Pearce informed his mother that he possessed details about the jurors, including their names and places of employment. This information raised suspicions and intensified concerns about the integrity of the trial proceedings.
Prosecutors alleged they he told her he was trying to engineer a mistrial, and his mom then called an attorney for a three-way conversation.
Pearce’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Von, said he had been informed about the situation and had spoken to police.
PHONE CALLS BANNED
Judge Hunter told the defendant, “That’s incredibly troubling. I don’t know what to say at this point but shame on you, but I’m sure you don’t care about that.”
Pearce, sporting grey hair, glasses, and a face mask, didn’t comment on the allegation and stared ahead with a blank expression.
Hunter later ruled that Pearce would no longer be allowed phone calls or visitors, and would only be allowed to speak to his defense team for the duration of the trial.
She also told him, “You can’t cause your own mistrial … just so you know that up front.”
Jurors were not present in the courtroom when the situation was discussed, but family and friends of the two victims were sat in the public gallery.
Pearce, 43, wasn’t the only one called out for their behavior at the beginning of the trial.
Defendant Osborn, 45, was also scolded by Judge Hunter after he threw his arms up after being told to wait to be seated.
“Again with the attitude, I don’t like it,” Judge Hunter told him.
During The People’s opening statement, attorney Catherine Ann Mariano described Pearce as a “nightmare” and claimed he had been assaulting women for more than a decade.
She told jurors, “Defendant Pearce is nothing short of a sexual predator, he’s the guy you fear at a bar.”
She explained they will hear from several Jane Does who claim they were drugged and sexually assaulted during separate incidents at Pearce’s home, along with other witnesses.
Prosecutors claim a pattern had developed which ultimately led to the deaths of Giles and Cabrales-Arzola.
The women had been to a warehouse party in Los Angeles on November 12, 2021, according to the indictment.
They decided to go back to Pearce and Osborn’s apartment with another man but ordered an Uber to leave after texting each other about feeling uncomfortable.
Although the Uber arrived, they never got in it, and it eventually drove off.
Giles, 24, was already dead when she was later found outside Southern California Hospital in Culver City.
Cabrales-Arzol, 26, was in critical condition when she was discovered outside Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Hospital hours later.
Surveillance footage revealed masked men in a black Toyota Prius without license plates dropping Giles off at the hospital.
On Thursday, jurors were shown disturbing images of the defendants allegedly carrying the two women’s limp bodies out of the apartment hours apart.
Prosecutors claimed Pearce didn’t call for help as he told pals that “dead girls don’t talk.”
Distraught dad demands life sentence for Hollywood producer who ‘drugged daughter & friend & dumped bodies at hospital’
A HOLLYWOOD producer who is on trial for the murders of a model and her architect friend “deserves to pay
.Mexican-born Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, and her friend Christy Giles, 24, were left for dead by two masked men who dumped their bodies outside two Los Angeles hospitals on the evening of November 13, 2021.
David Pearce, the only man charged with the murders of Giles and Cabrales-Arzola, went on trial on Thursday, more than three years since his arrest in December 2021.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Luis Cabrales Rivera, the father of Cabrales-Arzola, spoke exclusively to The U.S. Sun from his home in Mexico about the long-awaited day of justice for his daughter.
“This is all too difficult for me to try to remember till this day,” Rivera told The U.S. Sun in Spanish.
“I know this week is the start of the trial, and the only thing I can tell you is I hope justice is served and this f**ker pays for what he did.
“Like every parent who loses a child, we’re never prepared to lose a child.
“Most of us are prepared to lose a sibling, your grandparents, your own parents, but never a child.
“It’s a different kind of pain to lose a child, especially in that way, so tragic. She was my baby.”
The devastated father raced to Los Angeles from Monterrey, Mexico, the capital of the border northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León, after learning his 26-year-old daughter was in a medically induced coma.
In the years since his daughter’s murder, Cabrales-Arzola’s father has tried to remain resilient and allow her to rest in peace.
“In reality, we try to rebuild our lives and be strong,” Rivera told The U.S Sun.
“I promised myself to remain strong for her, whether my daughter, my Hildi, is here or not.
“I try not to worry her so much by continuing to mourn her and being sad all the time because if I continue, I’m probably not allowing her to rest in peace.
“Rivera said he can’t gather the strength to be present during the trial and has chosen to remain in Mexico to protect his mental health
.”I, voluntarily, decided to avoid the pain, to avoid reliving the moment and letting it affect my health, I decided not to go,” the grieving father said.
“I’ll be up to date with what happens at the trial, but I won’t be there physically.
“To be honest, it’s very, very difficult to relive all that.”If I do, if I think about it, I’ll fall back into depression, being without comfort, reopen wounds.
“The pain of losing a child never heals completely, but now I’ll leave justice up to the court and pray the full might of the law falls on this person and hope he never gets out of jail for everything he did to my daughter and her friend.”
Meanwhile, defense attorneys alleged the two women had their own supply of drugs which caused their deaths.
Attorney Voll claimed the two women were talking about how much they like to use ketamine and that they were using it on the night in question.
Toxicology reports found multiple drugs present in both victim’s systems.
Giles died of a mixture of cocaine, fentanyl, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (date-rape drug GHB) and ketamine.
Cabrales-Arzol suffered from multiple organ failure, as well as multiple drug intoxication.
She had cocaine, MDMA, and “probable other undetermined” drugs in her system, the medical examiner-coroner ruled.
Osborn’s attorney claimed when the friends returned home with two women he went “straight to bed” as he had an acting job on Monday and needed to go and get a COVID test.
“He didn’t know what if anything was going on, who was using drugs,” the lawyer said.
The first Jane Doe, along with former friends, also took to the stand to give witness testimony during the first day of the trial.
Doe, who was 19 at the time, claimed she met Pearce, then 25, in 2007 through an ex-boyfriend and they would go out to events.
She told of how Pearce allegedly spiked her drink at his apartment and barely remembers anything from the evening but awoke to find him on top of her.
Doe said she was “disgusted” by what had happened and reported it to the police at the time and DNA experts revealed samples matched skin swabs taken at the hospital.
Friends backed up her story and it was revealed she had tried to take her own life after the alleged incident.
Pearce and Osborn’s trial will continue this month and is expected to last up to 20 days.
