True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 2: Cheerleader, Sorority Sister & Designated Driver: Murdered After NYE Party | Valerie Wilson

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

In Part 2 of True Crime with Kimbyr, the investigation into Valerie Zavala Wilson’s New Year’s Eve disappearance takes a shocking turn. As detectives piece together timelines, phone calls, and witness statements, cracks begin to form in someone’s story. How did a night filled with friends end in tragedy—and who was hiding the truth in plain sight? In this deeply researched and compassionate follow-up, True Crime with Kimbyr examines the evidence, the courtroom revelations, and the devastating betrayal that forever changed a tight-knit community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So the crime scene investigators process this vehicle right there in the parking lot. And inside the front passenger side floorboard, there was a black purse, as well as a red canvas Dickie's bag. In the backseat, there was a lot more clutter. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history.

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a pair of brown clogs, a pair of striped underwear, and a bunch of clothing scattered across the backseat, as well as on the floor. There was also a bag sitting on the top of the backseat with even more items in it, and everything needed to be sorted through. And when they were, something stood out.

A denim jacket. The same style Valerie had been wearing and inside of it, a light blue striped ruffled button-down shirt. These were her items of clothing that were missing from her body, and now they're found in the backseat of Anna's car. This clothing was collected as evidence, and technicians scoured the interior for trace evidence, blood, hairs, fibers, fingerprints, anything that could point

to who had been in that car after Valerie left that party. There were no visible signs of a struggle, except maybe a few marks on the driver's side handle inside the car, but they didn't know if those had already been there and that this car had possibly been wiped down as well. La Plaza's parking lot was small, it was dimly lit, and bordered by palm trees and a side alley. No surveillance cameras pointed towards the lot

or even the nearby intersection. There would be no footage to help piece together who left this car there and when. But what they did know was that when Valerie left that vehicle, she wasn't wearing her shirt or her jacket, and the rest of her clothing was still missing. They ordered this vehicle to be towed to the Ventura County Crime Lab for more of a detailed forensic examination, and a canine unit was brought out to search this area hoping they would find a scent and footprints or discarded evidence, but nothing turned up.

Now, the neighborhood behind the parking lot was quiet. It was a mix of farmland, modest homes, and storefronts that stretched all the way out to the orange groves. It was the kind of place where someone could come and go unseen. And there were so many theories about what could have happened at this point. Had she just gotten hot while she was driving and taken off those two layers of clothing and thrown them in the back seat? And for some reason, maybe stopped in this parking lot to make a phone call before heading to Isaacs. Or maybe she got pulled over by someone she thought was a police officer. There are so many cases I have done where a perpetrator has posed as an officer or even someone telling you, oh, your tire is flat.

You need to pull over so I can help you only to harm you. you. And the days that followed, fear was all over this town. Whoever done this to Valerie was still out there. And no one knew if the killer was a stranger passing through, a serial predator targeting young women, or more terrifying, someone from their own town. And Valerie's friends were terrified. They grew up together. They shared classes. They cheered at the same football games. And now they were all locking their doors at night and jumping at every sound. And a few days after Valerie's body was found, her closest friends met up and made a quiet pact. Stay close, watch out for one another, and never go anywhere alone. And of course, there was a lot of rumors.

There was so many theories swirling around so much speculation, especially when the news leaked, the detectives were focusing on two people, Isaac, the ex-boyfriend, and also 17-year-old Sammy, who had been the last person alone in the car with her, the same car that was later a bit of abandoned in that parking lot. This was Fillmore. It was completely unthinkable that either one of these two guys would have anything to do with this. The football players were like hometown heroes.

They literally had their faces on front pages of the local newspapers. Even Valerie's former cheer coach had spent years watching all these kids grow up, including Isaac and Sammy. People did not have faith in the detectives on this case. They definitely thought they were looking in the wrong direction, wasting their time. And finally, that shoe print came back.

It was determined to be a Nike sneaker. It was between men's size 10 and size 13. And I can imagine everyone looking at guys in their social circle and trying to figure out, you know, what size shoe are you wearing? But a size 10, that's pretty common, but as you get higher up in sizes, you can start to eliminate people. After Anna's car was discovered near Isaac Flores' house, detectives decided it was time to bring him back in for a second interview.

They were still looking at timelines. still holding on to the possibility that Isaac could be involved. And Isaac didn't even flinch. This man's story never changed, not once. He told him the same thing he had before. He was home the entire night, and he had not seen Valerie. And his friends that were at the party with him at his house backed him up, saying he never left that house after New Year's celebrations.

And to confirm, investigators pulled his cell phone data. Everything matched. But you know people can leave their phones at home. So of course, he was saying, still not off their list. But there were no angry text messages, no miscalls, no weird gaps in his timeline, no drama between the two of them and no red flags. Everything he told them lined up with the evidence. And still, it wasn't enough to cross him off their list. But it also wasn't enough to move forward and make him a suspect or arrest him. And for now, he just remained a person of interest

right alongside Sammy Puebla. Now, around the same time, new tips started trickling in from the community, just small observations, fragments of memories that on any other day would have seemed pretty forgettable. But now, it felt like they could mean something. The first one came from a woman named Michelle Hastings. She was a local Fillmore resident. She told detectives that on the morning of January 1st, before 9 a.m., which was right before Valerie's body was found, she had been driving along South Mountain Road, the same rural stretch of road where the culvert is located. And parked on the shoulder was a teal-colored van. And at the time, this woman didn't think much of it.

But later that day, when she saw the local news, it hit her like a jolt. It was like the exact same spot that she saw that van. She told detectives she was absolutely positive what she saw that morning, a van next to that culvert. And she wasn't the only one. Another Fillmore resident came forward with almost the identical account. She said her and her husband had been driving past La Plaza, you know where Anna's car had been found. And they saw a man standing beside her. a teal van with the driver's side open and the vehicle just pulled off on the side of the road.

The man, she said, looked to be Hispanic, maybe early 20s, a little heavy set, maybe around 5 foot 7, with a two-tone color jacket, which was dark in the center and light her on the sleeves. She couldn't explain it, but something about it just felt off. It was just like the way he lingered and he kept looking around and she remembered his posture and his body language, like he was waiting for something or someone, and that stuck with her. And now that same van is in two prime locations connected to Valerie, the place where the car was found and the place her body was found. So detectives bring in a sketch artist. And soon, a composite drawing of this man was circulated in the local media. Crime Stoppers was even offering

a $1,000 reward for any information that could help identify him. But for now, it's just a sketch. Just another shadow in a case that was quickly becoming more mysterious than anyone could have imagined. Time was just ticking by, and there were still no arrests, weeks, and then months past. And each time a tip came in, there was a little bit of hope. They were thinking, maybe this is it, maybe this is a break. But none of them went anywhere. Detectives chased every lead. They canvass area again and again. They re-interviewed witnesses and they studied that sketch. They rechecked timelines. They followed every rumor. and every whisper through Fillmore's quiet streets,

and still, nothing cracked this case open. The composite sketch of that man by the Teal van was printed in local newspapers. It was aired on every Ventura County news broadcast. Crime stoppers raised their reward, but still no one came forward. No one seemed to recognize this man, and if they did, no one was saying anything. And just like that, the momentum started to slip,

or did it. Because from the outside, it seemed that way. But even in a recent case of Spencer and Monique Tepe, I don't know if you've been following that one from Ohio, but the cops were silent. The media was talking about how the cops had nothing, and they were grasping at straws. But that wasn't true. The detectives were laser-focused on a suspect. They had already pinpointed the killer. They just had to make sure to submit everything concretely to the DA, so they had to have a solid case.

So behind the scenes, things were moving, and nobody knew it. And that was what was happening in Valerie's case as well. Two months after Valerie's murder, the town gathered once again. And this time it wasn't to mourn. It was to fight back. A benefit concert was held in Valerie's honor, not just to remember her, but to raise money for a reward that might finally bring someone forward, someone who saw something or heard something or knew something. The local hall filled with classmates, teachers, family, friends, and neighbors. People who had watched Valerie grow up.

people who still couldn't believe something so horrific had happened to one of their own and their own hometown. It was a night meant to celebrate her life. But underneath the music and the candlelight was a message, this isn't over. We want justice. And it was coming. Because back on January 7th, the same day that Valerie's funeral mass was held at 9.30 a.m. at St. Francis Church,

detectives were later scouring that same church parking lot in the afternoon. All of her family and friends had just gathered there to say their last goodbyes. So why were their crime scene technicians in the parking lot? News articles speculated what could be going on at the same church where Valerie's body laid in a coffin because it was odd. And it brought a lot of attention for that reason. Newspapers were reporting that this could possibly be the crime scene where she was killed, this same church parking lot. Well, what's interesting is that this church is directly across the street from the plaza where the black corolla was found. right across the street.

And then across from that location was a gas station. And Terry Stillsmith, a gas station attendant from that station, called in a tip. She said she thought she saw a young woman matching Valerie's description come to use the restroom sometime between 1230 a.m. and 3 a.m., which was during her shift, a New Year's Day. She said that the woman was wearing the exact same outfit that she saw in the news when they showed a picture of Valerie that night.

And that's not all. She said that there was also a guy. A guy that looked like he was acting really strange, just lingering around the pumps as Valerie came inside. It was like he was looking to see if there were any cameras there. He looked nervous. She described him as probably in his teens with dark hair, and he was wearing some kind of button-up shirt.

She doesn't even know if Valerie was with this guy or if he was just sneaking around and following her. But his behavior is what stuck out. And when she saw the crime scene investigators at the church across the street, that's what made her call the police and provide this tip, because she realized that maybe she had seen Valerie's last moments alive. But if you are wondering why they were in the church parking lot to begin with, that has to do with another detective who would come back from vacation the day before

in January 6th. Officer Turin Alamazon was being briefed on everything when he came back, including the two persons of interest at the time, Isaac Flores and Sammy Puebla. And when he saw the picture of Sammy, he was like, wait a minute, I recognize him. I interviewed him a month earlier because there were some home in that happened in his neighborhood. Him and his family were interviewed because they lived in that area and they wanted to know if they'd seen anything suspicious.

Well, the type of burglary that happened was called the hot prowl. And I'd never heard that term before. This is when you're dealing with a very risky type of burglary. It's when someone comes into the home when it's completely occupied and they know that. They know the owners are right inside and it's an adrenaline rush.

So there was a neighbor of Sammies who reported items of her clothing had been stolen, from her house while she was home. And then a Fillmore High School student who also lived in that neighborhood said, she heard someone in her house, and then her car keys and her house keys and her driver's license were missing.

Now, many times, especially when women are involved and they were the one burglarized and intimate items are taken, it's usually related to obsession or fantasy. This was not a big neighborhood. It was also the same neighborhood that Isaac Flores lived in. Sammy lives there too.

which meant he was also only four blocks away from where the Toyota Corolla was found. But it gets deeper. When Officer Alamazan was interviewing Sammy a month ago, they were putting a lot of pressure on him since he knew the high school classmate of his that had her item stolen. They asked if they could search the home. And of course, his parents said yes. And inside Sammy's bedroom, there was a dresser.

Inside one of the drawers, they found a stolen diary from the same girl. that reported her keys stolen. They found her keys and her license, as well as his neighbor's clothing, stuffed in his drawer. We're talking about a guy with a 4.0 GPA, homecoming king, charming, popular, comes from a good, respectable, hardworking family.

So they were shocked. There were also items still missing. And Officer Alamazan pushed Sammy even more until he finally admitted that not only did he take these things, but he wasn't interested in keeping all of them, so the rest he just threw away. Not uncommon in these crimes, so they asked, where did you discard the items? And he said in the church dumpster, which was walking distance from his home, less than a thousand feet away.

So what does all of this mean? Well, when this officer realized that the same guy who committed the hot prowl was one of the last people to see Valerie alive, he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that criminals have patterns, and they tend to be comfortable what's worked for the in the past, they will do again. So they head to that same church parking lot on a hunch, thinking they may find items of Valeries that Sammy discarded the same way if he was involved. So that's why Cruz were scouring the grounds the very next day on January 7th. They were everywhere, specifically in the big field behind the church parking lot, metal detectors

and everything. But the first place they looked was that same dumpster where Sammy had discarded items before. And inside, they found a pair of black women's underwear, a used tampon, one white vans tennis shoe, and a half of a black hoop earring. The same exact earring that was missing from Valerie's bloody earlobe. And that's not all. Cypress branches were all around this dumpster. Cypress branches that matched the same type that were laid on top of Valerie's body. They knew they were onto something, so they kept searching.

And what is so eerie is that there's a channel. of water that runs between the church property and the neighborhood that Sammy lived in. And there was a culvert there with water coming out of this little tunnel. And they go to that area and they find Valerie's cell phone. Now, this had only been a few days since Valerie's murder. And they were meticulously looking at every inch of this parking lot because now they believe this is where Valerie was killed. And that's when they noticed footprints.

Two sets, large and small. And it showed a pattern like someone was wearing a smaller of shoes and being chased by the person with the larger ones, and that is terrifying. The shoe prints, the larger ones, matched the same Nike shoe print that was at the drainage ditch where Valerie's body was found. These tracks of shoe prints led towards a dumpster before fading into a gravel lot behind the asphalt parking lot. Every piece of evidence, the earring, the underwear, the branches, the shoe prints, they were carefully documented and collected and sent immediately to the crime lab.

Detective Alamazan's gut was right. This wasn't just a break-in stash. This was a dump site for something far worse. They theorized that this was a case of fantasy, obsession, and escalation to acting out in an attempt to satisfy an urge, and it led to murder. And their prime suspect was Sammy Puebla. The pressure was building, and detectives wanted another interview with Sammy.

They met him at his home hoping that the familiar environment might help break down this guy's defenses. And again, he repeated the same story word for So another officer, Detective Rivera, said he wanted to try talking to Sammy because he noticed that Sammy's body language when they were talking about Valerie, he would get slumped over, his voice would get really soft, his eye contact would fade, and he would almost whisper to them. And he was sweating profusely. But when they changed the subject to football, Sammy's comfort zone changed. He straightened up. He was confident. He was more straightforward. So Rivera wanted to try to build some rapport, which is really smart. So they had to have to be able to. So they had to be able to. So they had to be able to. So they had to be able to. So they had some small talk and Sammy would get animated and it was like they flipped a switch. Rivera realized talking about Valerie made Sammy shut down and it wasn't grief. It was avoidance. He doesn't want to talk about the subject. But it seemed like Sammy's body temperature went from hot to extremely cold because then he was shivering and he asked for a jacket. Detective Alamazan offered to grab a jacket

from his room and what they found would destroy the image of this golden boy. In Sammy's room, They spotted the same style jacket that the guy next to the teal van had been seen wearing. That two-toned one with it dark in the center and light on the sleeves. And sure, there's a lot of people with similar jackets, especially because, you know, there's high school students living here. But remember that footage from the camcorder? Well, it didn't just capture Valerie that night. It also captured Sammy wearing the same jacket.

So there's video proof. And on the chest area, there was a faint but visible dark stand. that looked like it could be blood. Instead of handing the jacket to Sammy, it was collected as evidence, and he was required by a search warrant to provide a DNA sample. But what they found next inside his room

was even worse than they expected. They picked up his mattress, and they found multiple stashes of women's underwear and bras, everything from cell phones, from high school students, to other intimate items. And later, they confirmed that it had been stolen from that young woman in town, that he went to high school with that other items were taken from.

There were purses. There were all kinds of private tokens like memorabilia. And this is definitely a sign of escalation. I knew about investing, but I really didn't know how to go about it. Meet Corey, a wealth front client. With Wealthfront, it could put money in, and it would automatically distribute it into a diversified portfolio. Then it starts to compound.

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This wasn't a one-time event. It wasn't an isolated act. He was doing it again and again. And he was getting more and more brazen, stealing more and more important things. And it had been happening for years because they actually confronted women from the community and they had them come there to identify their pairs of underwear. So he had been doing this for a long time. And Sammy had already admitted to breaking into at least one of these women's homes. And while they were at Sammy's house,

they collected a pair of his shoes that he admitted he was wearing on New Year's Eve. They were a size 11. So definitely between a 10 and a 13, and it matched the size at the scene. When detectives pressed him again about the evidence they found behind the church and the dumpster, the earring, the underwear, the site,

and the chry's branches matching the ones that were found where Valerie's body was. They told him, walk us through that night one more time. What happened after Valerie dropped Anna off? And Sammy started the same way. We hugged. She drove off. But this time, he started fidgeting. His shoulders got tense. His answers got shorter.

He stopped making eye contact. And then he cracked. Just a little, though. He said, Okay. I tried to kiss her. He claimed she pulled away and he was embarrassed, but nothing else happened. And then he added, almost offensively, if I did have sex with her, so what? Rivera paused.

It wasn't the kind of thing an innocent person usually just blurts out. So he leaned in, he softened his tone and he tried to build even more rapport and he said, bro to bro, did you get it on? And Sammy hesitated, but he finally changed the story again. This time, he said yes. He and Valerie had intercourse, but according to Sammy, it was consensual. He said after they dropped off Anna, they drove to the parking lot behind St. Francis Church. Valerie parked the car and they just started kissing and one thing led to another.

And according to Sammy, she willingly removed her clothes. They got into the backseat and it just happened. He claimed he didn't bring it up before because he was scared. Why? Because he was only 17. And Valerie was 19. and he didn't want anyone thinking anything statutory. But to detectives, this felt like a cover story,

something he made up on the fly not to hide the relationship, but to explain away any DNA evidence that might link him to something. Because if Valerie had been forced into something that night, Sammy's story was going to fall apart fast, and I just have to say, as a woman and also someone that's very detail-oriented, they're being a used tampon along with underwear in the dumpster, Quite possibly that could have belonged to Valerie. And she was on her way to Isaacs, the guy that she wanted to be with.

That she could have easily been intimate with him. Why would she stop and be intimate with Sammy? It made no sense, especially because he was 17 and he was her younger sister's friend. But until that DNA evidence came back, things were silent. So when I told you that this community was thinking that the wheels were just turning and nothing was happening, That wasn't true. They thought they had their man, but they needed to prove it with science,

not just speculation. Meanwhile, Sammy wasn't hiding. He was part of this community, standing right next to Valerie's family and friends at that benefit concert, at the funeral, at the rosary. He wasn't hiding. He mingled.

He talked to people. He stood beside Valerie's sisters and he comforted them and he offered to help them whenever he could. To everyone watching, he looked like another, heartbroken friend, a young man grieving the death of someone that he had grown up with. He even got closer to Jessica, Valerie's younger sister. He became protective. He would come to their

house and chuck on them like he was trying to be an older brother. And it seems sweet and thoughtful. The kind of thing a good guy would do. But maybe he was just trying to stay close enough to find out what the investigators knew. They knew he had his DNA, so he must have known the walls were closing in. This was the kid who once made everyone laugh at pep rallies, the goofy one, the artist, the football player. A familiar face caught up in a tragedy, not the one responsible for it. Not yet, anyway. But Anna would later admit that Sammy seemed tense whenever she saw him after Valerie's murder, like he was on edge. He would stay places for a bit, but then just leave suddenly without even saying goodbye. And at the time, it didn't raise any red flags because people assumed

he was overwhelmed. He had been one of the last people to see her alive, and they thought that guilt must have been crushing him. And I'm sure it was. But guilt on a different level for a different reason. Months afterward, in June of 2003, the weight was finally over. Just a couple weeks before Sammy was supposed to graduate

from high school, he was being put in handcuffs. The lab results came in, and science made the connection. Everything matched. The black earring, the DNA and the tampon, the underwear recovered from behind the church, all Valerie's DNA and no one else's. The blood stains on Sammy's jacket? Valerie's.

The shoe print found beside the culvert where her body had been dumped, a perfect match to the Nike sneakers that Sammy had handed over. And inside Valerie's bra that she was wearing when she was found, they recovered a saliva stain that was also on her chest, and it was swabbed. And guess what? It matched Sammy's DNA. It was over.

Right? Well, not yet. 17-year-old Samuel Pueblo was arrested and charged with one count of murder with special circumstances that had occurred during an attempted sexual assault. He was booked into the Ventura County Jail and held without bail. Because he was only 17 when Valerie was killed, the death penalty was off the table, but prosecutors made it clear. They would seek life without the possibility of parole. And the news spread fast, and it sent me. shockwaves through Fillmore, not just because of what happened, but because of who had just been arrested. Sammy was once voted most likely to become a talk show host. And now there are complete shows about this

man. They didn't think he was going to be behind bars three days from graduating. His teachers were stunned. Students were devastated. Friends told reporters they couldn't make sense of it. One even said, unless he was under the influence of something, this is unimaginable. Sammy's artwork was all over campus. His doodles and caricatures had lived on lockers and notebooks for years. It seemed like every person in this town had something drawn by Sammy, and now they were seeing a very different kind of sketch. His mugshot.

And for Jessica, Valerie's younger sister, the betrayal cut even deeper. The day she found out that Sammy had been arrested, she was actually sitting in St. Francis Church, the same church where her sister's underwear and earring had been found, found. It was a place that she would go to feel close to her. And now it felt like everything shattered all over again because Sammy was her friend or he was supposed to be. He was one of the first people to hug her at her sister's funeral. He prayed with their family. He stood

beside them. He checked in like he was protecting her. She said it felt like losing her sister twice, once to violence and then again to betrayal. And as the case moved towards trial, the town was divided. Some people felt like justice was finally happening, that this long, painful chapter might finally come to a close, but others were in denial. And I see this so much online, especially in cases like the Idaho case. There are so many conspiracy theorists out there

that still think that Brian Coburger just happened to admit that he killed four people because he just wants to spend the rest of his life in prison because it's this big framing conspiracy, and he didn't really do it. Right. This town was no different, though. They said the detectives were biased, that they were targeting Sammy because he was the last person with Valerie, and they just wanted to solve the case. They just didn't want to feel the pressure of the media and the families anymore. But science doesn't take sides, and it's impossible to ignore that fact. The trial officially began in July of 2004

with Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox leading the state's case. Sammy was represented by defense attorney Stephen Meister. And before the trial even began, Judge Rebecca Riley ruled on several key pretrial motions. The defense had asked that if the prosecution mentioned anything about Valerie's history with men, i.e. her sex life, that they would be allowed to respond in kind, which meant paint her as an S word that ends with T that YouTube doesn't like. Judge Riley denied this request, and she agreed with the prosecution. She said, that's irrelevant and inadmissible. Valerie wasn't on trial.

Sammy was. They weren't going to let the defense smear her name and reputation. And from the opening statements, it was clear there would be no middle ground. Both sides agreed Valerie's death was tragic. But that's where the agreement ended. The prosecution argued that Sammy had been intoxicated and been looking at Valerie all night, and he got it into his head. He wanted her.

And once he had that opportunity to be a lone, in that car after she dropped off Anna and Robert, he made his move. He even admitted he made his move. And when she resisted, they believe he hit her in the right side of the head and force her to pull over into the church parking lot, where he then forced her to remove her clothing and attempted to force himself on her. But she ran. And she made it out of that car and into that church parking lot only to be chased down by him, at which point they believe he took off the rest of her clothing, including her underwear and feminine hygiene product, while holding his hand on her neck.

And as she probably tried to scream, he killed her to silence her and get his way. The defense said this was all a misunderstanding, that police had rushed to judgment, that investigators had focused too heavily on Sammy and ignored other leads. The defense attorney told jurors that there was no compelling evidence

directly linking Sammy to the murder scene, and I was thinking, um, what about his DNA on her body? Hmm. They were still going with the whole consensual act theory. He even showed the jury the composite sketch that was released early in the investigation, the man that was said to be seen near the van, and he pointed to the fact that he thought

it looked nothing like Sammy. I mean, composite sketches, they have a history and a reputation of not exactly looking like the perpetrators, but I think it's close enough. Some people said that it was an Vanekman in his 20s. And if it wasn't Sammy, he would have to be really unlucky

because right after he was supposedly consensually with her, somebody else just happened to come along, kill her, dump all of her stuff in the same dumpster that he used to get rid of evidence in another crime he committed. And then someone matching his description was seen at the drainage ditch where her body was found. But the defense tried to push back on everything. From the shoe impression,

saying that so many people wore Nike's outside, even though it had the same wear pattern as the prince. Yeah. But by the end of the testimony, even people in Fillmore who had once believed in Sammy were struggling. The narrative was breaking down. The science was too strong.

And the lies seemed to rehearse now. And for Valerie's family, this courtroom became a place to finally tell her story, an innocent girl having fun with friends who just happened to be alone with a monster. In his closing arguments, the defense attorney told the jury, someone's life has ended, and now another person's life is about to end. He wanted to paint Sammy as a calm, steady, misunderstood teenager caught up in grief.

But Mae Fox reminded the jurors that Valerie's voice had already been silenced, and now it spoke through every silent piece of evidence that are killer left behind. And on Monday, August 2nd of 2004, the jury returned their verdict. Guilty, a first-degree murder with special circumstances. And in May of 2005, Samuel Puebla was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Because he'd been a minor at the time, he could not face execution. But the sentence was final. There would be no freedom, no future not for him, and not for Valerie either.

And before the sentencing, her mother spoke. She stood in that courtroom and she faced this boy. He was a man at this point who had stolen everything from her. But she didn't yell and she didn't fall apart. She just said quietly, you have truly destroyed my life. She admitted she didn't know how to hate him. She hated what he had taken from her. Her daughter and her peace and her ability did to feel safe

in a world where bad things weren't supposed to happen, places like Fillmore. The judge denied his motion for a new trial and she upheld avertie. and ordered him to pay $20,000 in restitution to Valerie's family. The courtroom emptied out, and just like that, the case was closed. But the truth is, for Valerie's family, it's never over. Not in the years that followed. Not on New Year's Eve, not ever. What used to be a night of fireworks and confetti is now a night of candles and memories.

And while the rest of the world cheers for another year, they remember the one, year she didn't get to see. Valerie had always loved stars. She wore them around her neck. She didled them in the corners of her notebooks. She even had one on her skin and signed her letters with little constellations. Her dad used to say she carried her own sky with her, and now that's how they find her. Every December 31st, when the sky lights up with fireworks and noise, her family looks up. They search for Valerie and the stars, the ones that are still shining, even in the dark. And they think about the girl who should have been there to see another year. Don't ever forget Valerie's story.

She did everything right. She stayed sober. She offered rides. She told her mom where she was going and she checked in on her friends. She was responsible. She was a designated driver and still. She never made it home. If you're a young woman that's watching this and you've ever been,

been the one who stays sober, who gets everyone home safely, who walks to your own car with your keys between your fingers, because that's what we have to do. Just know, it wasn't Valerie's fault. You can do everything right, and someone can still choose to do the wrong thing. So we have to be vigilant. We have to be cautious and be aware. Don't ever blame yourself for someone else's darkness, but please protect yourself any way you can. Talk to your friends. Make safe. and always tell someone where you're going. Don't worry about being paranoid or dramatic because your instincts are survival instincts.

Valerie never got to become a teacher that she dreamed about being, but through her story... All right, everyone, welcome to ARCO rewards orientation. I'm Hannah. Whoa, is everything okay? That's a code green. Someone just earned at least five cents a gallon in rewards. Wow.

Another one? Well, that one's a code goal. That one's a code gold. The customer just redeemed savings of up to a dollar a gallon. Impressive. What does that one mean? Oh, that's just piggy. He gets excited when we talk about rewards.

Savings of up to $1 per gallon redeemable with $20 rewards dollars in your loyalty account. At participating locations, terms and conditions apply. She still gets to teach us something to take care of each other and always make sure your friends get home. I'm so sorry to Valerie's family for what happened to her. She did not deserve it. And I thank you all for being here for Valerie's story. I will see you in my very next video.

Bye.