Christy Giles, a 24-year-old model, and her friend Hilda Cabrales-Arzola, a 26-year-old architect and interior designer, ventured out for a fun night in Los Angeles. After starting the evening at Soho House, the women attended an all-night dance party at an East L.A. warehouse before heading to an apartment of two men they met at the event. Shortly after arriving at the Olympic Boulevard apartment, the situation took a tragic turn.
Around 5 a.m. on November 13, Giles and Cabrales-Arzola tried to leave, calling an Uber, but something went wrong, and they were unable to depart. The two women were later found in critical condition and were separately dropped off at two different hospitals by the men, aspiring Hollywood producer David Pearce, 42, and actor Brandt Osborn, 45. Giles was pronounced dead from an overdose, while Cabrales-Arzola fought for her life for over a week before passing away from multiple organ failure just before her 27th birthday.
The men are facing serious charges. Pearce is charged with murder, accused of giving the women a deadly mix of cocaine and fentanyl, and in Giles’s case, the date-rape drug GHB. Osborn is charged with being an accessory for his role in transporting the victims. Both men have pleaded not guilty. The defense argued that the women were responsible for their own deaths by ingesting fentanyl, but prosecutors claim the drugs given to them by Pearce directly led to their demise. Text messages exchanged between the women, along with security footage showing the empty Uber, are central to the prosecution’s case.
Pearce is also facing multiple sexual assault charges spanning. Despite the defense’s argument that the women’s deaths were not directly linked to Pearce or Osborn, the grieving husband of Christy Giles, Jan Cilliers, stated his intention to pursue justice for his wife, hoping to prevent the men from harming anyone else in the future.
