2 women dropped off at hospitals were given drugs by 3 men before deaths, police say
The men have been arrested and are now facing manslaughter charges. Police believe they may have drugged other victims before.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Police have identified the three men arrested in connection with the deaths of two women they say were given drugs and dropped off outside of separate Los Angeles hospitals after a night out.
The three men - 37-year-old David Pearce, 47-year-old Michael Ansbach and 42-year-old Brandt Osborn - have all been arrested and charged.
Pearce has been charged with manslaughter and is being held on a $1 million bail. Ansbach and Osborn were both charged with accessory to manslaughter and are each being held on a bail of $100,000.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the victims - Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola - were given drugs at a home in the 8600 block of Olympic Boulevard. Investigators believe an overdose resulted in their deaths.
Giles, a 24-year-old model and aspiring actress who moved to L.A. from Alabama, was dropped off at Southern California Hospital Nov. 13.
Investigators said the men, who were wearing masks at the time, according to police, were in a black Toyota Prius without license plates when they dropped her off. Giles died shortly after.
RELATED: Mom of LA model found dead believes men held her against her will
Meanwhile, Cabrales-Arzola, an aspiring architect from Mexico, was left in critical condition at Kaiser Permanente West L.A. and later declared brain dead. One day shy of her 27th birthday on Nov. 28, her family took her off life support. Her organs were donated.
RELATED: Woman left outside hospital after night out in LA taken off life support
"Based on the investigation, the LAPD is concerned that there could be other victims in our community who could have been drugged by one or more of these men," read a statement issued by LAPD on Thursday.
Family and friends have stood by their claims, saying the women were drugged against their will in an apartment in the Pico-Robertson area after they first visited a club in West Hollywood.
Family has said the last text message Giles sent from her phone was to Cabrales-Arzola from that apartment, saying "let's go" with a shocked-face emoji.
Cabrales-Arzola replied, "Yes. I'll call an Uber," and that it was 10 minutes away -- but they never got in that car.
A toxicology report for Cabrales-Arzola stated heroin was found in her system. Officials concluded Giles' autopsy, but the cause of death was deferred to a toxicology report, which had not been released.
The families of both women said that neither of them would have taken the drug willingly.
David Murrietta Jr. is an actor who was on the set of a commercial back in November with Osborn and says the suspect told him about what happened that night and "how he found the first girl's body with no pulse and how they decided not to call police. They didn't call 911."
"He took the plates off his car and who was driving, who carried the bodies and kind of was bragging a little bit about, you know, trying not to get caught," Murrietta recalled. "That's why they dumped girls at different hospitals and stuff like that."
Murrietta said he was surprised how open Osborn was in discussing the details.
"I honestly didn't even think that it was true," Murrietta said.
Murrietta said he immediately called police once he heard about the model's death. He said a friend of his watched as Osborn was taken into custody by police Wednesday while he was working as an extra on the show "NCIS: Los Angeles."
"That's what initially made us not even believe the story because here we are, we barely know this guy. I've said hi and bye to him maybe a handful of times and we've never even had deep conversations," Murrietta said.
A woman, who didn't want to share her identity, says she knew Pearce because she ended up at his apartment in similar situation years ago, but was able to leave.
"We had always talked about this night and how weird it was, yearly. All of our friends knew that we had this weird encounter," the woman said.
The woman said Pearce lured her and her friend to his place in 2015 thinking they were going to a concert, but there was no concert and he freaked them out by offering drinks that she believed contained drugs.
The families of the two victims reacted to the arrests with appreciation for the police work, but says no arrests will ever bring back their loved ones.
"We have peace in the sense that they will not do this again to someone else, but this will not bring back my daughter," said the mother of Cabrales-Arzola.
"A small sigh of relief," said Jan Cilliers, Giles' husband. "At least they're off the street for now and hoping that the district attorney chooses to prosecute them and then really hoping that more victims that have been effected by these guys come forward."
