The mother of the disgraced Hollywood producer who murdered two models by plying them with a lethal cocktail of drugs is standing by her son.
Ilene Pearce strongly criticized David’s legal team and the judge who presided over his trial. She believes David made a mistake by testifying on the stand.
‘He’s not a monster,’ Pearce, 78, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview after he was found guilty on Tuesday. ‘I still love him.’
Pearce, 43, who received private education, was convicted of two counts of murder. He provided Christy Giles, 24, and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, with a lethal mix of drugs at his Beverly Hills residence, including fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and the date rape drug GHB.
His mother, a former teacher turned advocate for fostered teenagers, was devastated by the news of her son’s conviction. A jury in Los Angeles, consisting of seven men and five women, unanimously found David guilty of all charges.
‘It’s like being hit in the stomach with a sucker punch,’ she added. ‘It’s like I’m here, but I’m not here.’
The court was told Pearce wanted to let the tragic friends die rather than call 911 when they blacked out at his Beverly Hills apartment on November 14, 2021 after they met at a wild rave.
Pearce and roommate Brandt Osborn, 45, waited 11 hours before they dumped their lifeless bodies outside two different LA area hospitals and fled.
They then had a meal at El Pollo Loco as doctors tried in vain to resuscitate the women.
Prosecution star witness Michael Ansbach, 50, a longtime friend of the murderer, said Pearce made a sinister comment to him on the fateful evening: ‘Dead girls can’t talk.’
Ilene said she was ‘surprised’ her son was hit with first-degree murder charges ‘because I don’t ever think there was an intent. I thought that was a little off.’
Asked if she believes Pearce committed the heinous crimes, she said: ‘I don’t know. I’d like to always think in the positive – but it may not be the case. And it’s not for me to decide.
Ilene Pearce, 78, (left) insists her disgraced Hollywood producer son David (right) is ‘not a monster’ after he was found guilty of murdering two girls by plying them with drugs at his Beverly Hills home. They are pictured together at her early birthday meal in 2021
‘I obviously wouldn’t have wanted him to do any of that. It was pretty brutal.
‘I love him dearly. He’s my son. I may not like the things he does, but I love him. And that’s being a mother for me…that’s what it means.’
But she did claim Judge Elenor Hunter was unfairly biased against Pearce and accused police of approaching the case with tunnel vision.
‘David was never treated as innocent,’ she claimed. ‘They saw him as guilty from the start of the investigation. And what happened to a speedy trial? He was in jail for three years.
‘He was entitled to a fair trial. Elenor Hunter had it in for David. She didn’t like him from the get-go. She made no bones about that.’
She said the judge’s scolding of Pearce at times during proceedings ‘clearly influenced’ the jurors because they asked to hear his testimony again when they were deliberating.
‘Was it a fair trial? I really don’t know. It just didn’t feel right. Maybe it just didn’t feel fair because he lost.’
Ilene also said her son’s attorney Jeff Voll gave a lackluster closing argument, which she described as ‘just okay.’
And she criticized Pearce’s decision to take the stand in his own defense as the ‘biggest’ mistake.
Christy Giles, 24, and Hilda Marcela Cabrales Arzola, 26, died in November 2021 after being dumped at separate hospitals by masked men
Pearce was found guilty of first degree murder in the overdose deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday in Los Angeles, California
‘I think he felt like his attorney wasn’t giving them all the information and he wanted to make sure they heard everything,’ she added.
The jury hung on whether Osborn was guilty of two counts of being an accessory after the fact in relation to the deaths so Judge Hunter declared a mistrial on those two charges.
Prosecutors will be back in court on March 13 to announce if Osborn, who is free on bond, should face a retrial.
‘I’m angry that Brandt is going to walk away free,’ said Ilean. ‘I don’t know if he did as much as David but I know he was involved and I know he was an accomplice.
‘For them to say, “Oh well, it’s too hard to do another trial” – what does that say about our justice system?’
Ilene said she hasn’t spoken with her son in over 20 days because he is not allowed visitors in jail.
Judge Hunter removed phone privileges for Pearce as punishment after he stole a list of jurors’ names from his attorney’s desk during a court session.
Prosecutors said he was trying to cause a mistrial.
‘You can read all you want about the trial,’ said Ilene, ‘but when you’re in there hearing it it’s a different ball game. It’s so much more real when you’re there. I’ll never forget the experience. It was horrible.’
Prosecutors banished the mother of two from Department 109 in case they chose to call her as a witness.
But she made it in on two days of the trial. ‘I wanted my David to know I was there and I was trying to see him,’ she said.
She claimed she was ‘humiliated’ by the way Deputy District Attorney Catherine Mariano spoke with her.
‘I’m not my son’, she said. ‘I said I felt like I was being punished and I haven’t done anything wrong and she didn’t like that at all. Apparently people don’t stand up to her.
‘I may not have been to law school but she’s not any better…and she acts like she is.’
But of co-prosecutor Seth Carmack, she said, ‘He was just so much kinder. He was still doing his job and still calling David names but he was so much kinder.
‘You knew beneath him doing what he needed to do there was a kind human being. But I don’t feel that way about Mariano.’
Ilene commented of Giles and Cabrales-Arzola, ‘Everybody has a responsibility to take care of themselves.
‘The coroner said they had a lot of drugs in their system. I’ve never had any desire to do any of that stuff. I like to be in control of my life. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around someone having that many drugs in their system.
‘The bottom line is two young ladies died and that’s not right.’
Ilene says she believes in a ‘higher being’ for comfort, adding, ‘There are times when I’m surrounded by angels. It helps to keep me grounded.
‘The thing that’s gotten me through thus far is that I have amazing friends.
‘Actually, I’m really very grateful about my life. Not about David, obviously, because he will – maybe – have to spend the rest of his life in prison.’
‘He’s got a lot of talent. He’s very smart. He’s an organizer,’ she added.
Growing up in Maryland, Pearce attended the private boarding school West Nottingham Academy.
His parents recognized young Pearce had ‘learning disabilities and wasn’t really getting the help he needed.’ Once there, he ‘flourished.’
After high school, Pearce enrolled at Ohio University for two years then transferred to the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. He preferred ‘producing and finding talent’ to acting.
Pearce was ‘funny’ as a youngster and ‘very logical.’ Ilene recounted that when he was four years old he wanted to be a ‘stranger’ because ‘nobody bothers strangers.’
Accused double murderer David Pearce, 42, told police during an interview he feared being portrayed as a ‘f**king monster.’ He has denied all wrongdoing. Pictured 18 years ago in 2007
‘He was that kind of kid,’ said Ilene.
Their mother-son relationship has seen ‘good times and bad.’
Ilene said, ‘I didn’t know very much at all about his lifestyle. David told me only what he wanted me to know. I was not aware of what was going on with the parties and the drugs. I never knew until the trial.’
She spoke of more pleasant times she shared with Pearce about 13 years ago when he was 30.
‘The memories I will hold close are the times we went to Malibu with a blanket, a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread and he would just lay down with his head in my lap and we would just talk,’ said Ilene. Michael Pearce, the younger Pearce’s father, died two years ago aged 76.
Ilene suggested her son would possibly want to study for a law degree behind bars. ‘He’s talked about that throughout the years,’ she said. ‘He likes going to school.’
During the trial, Ilene awkwardly crossed paths with Christy’s stoic mother, Dusty Giles, 53, in the courthouse corridors and they shared brief exchanges.
‘I said to her words cannot express my sincere sorrow for your loss,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry just doesn’t sound like enough. She was lovely – sweet as sugar.’
Giles, a model and aspiring actress from Alabama and living in Los Angeles, died of multiple drug intoxication the same day she was dropped at the LA hospital
Pearce is seen with Cabrales-Arzola on the evening she and Giles died
Ilene said Dusty’s mother, Sandy Leslie, 75, told her, ‘Don’t forget, dear, it wasn’t your fault.’
And she said Dusty told her, ‘We raise our children to be moral and good – and then sometimes they go off and do things we don’t approve of – and she was spot on.’
‘They were gracious to me,’ she said.
Giles told DailyMail.com of Pearce after Monday’s verdict, ‘I do believe he’s a monster. He’s a predator.
‘I’m relieved he was found unanimously guilty of charges all the way down the line.
‘I hope the man never sees the light of day again.’
Osborn’s attorney, Michael Artan, declined to comment.
Sentencing for Pearce is scheduled for March 13.
