True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 2: Nursing Student's Last Moments Recorded On Video - The Murder of Michelle Le | DEEP DIVE

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

In Part 2 of this chilling case on True Crime with Kimbyr, the search for nursing student Michelle Le intensifies as detectives dig deeper into the surveillance footage and scattered clues left behind... in the hospital parking structure. As investigators begin to reconstruct her final movements, new questions emerge—was this a targeted abduction or a tragic encounter that spiraled out of control? With every lead raising more uncertainty, the case takes even darker turns. What really happened after Michelle vanished, and are the answers finally within reach? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 The search went on a long time. Two months had already passed since Michelle had gone missing. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th.
Starting point is 00:00:25 Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Concord. Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. UN must be 21 to enter. And though the family kept up their press conferences begging for Michelle's kidnap her to return her, they must have known that she wasn't alive, right? I mean, you're looking in a canyon. They couldn't have believed that Mark and his team were looking for Michelle camped out there
Starting point is 00:00:52 or being held captive, but Mark never said that to them because he needed them to have hope inside. But it was true. Mark and his team were looking for Michelle's remains. What was left of the vibrant young woman that had so much life to live. And as the summer approach, the weather got hot. I'm talking like 100 degrees, especially where they were searching. So many of the volunteers, they called it quits. It was over 100 degrees, actually. And so far, any of the leads they thought they had like a pair of pink shorts, for example, ended up leading them nowhere. Meanwhile, as I told you, The investigators from Hayward Police Department were doing searches of their own. They were still interviewing people, still analyzing evidence, and Ritchie had watched that video
Starting point is 00:01:38 of Michelle walking to her car so many times hundreds, and he noticed something. And this is so telling. Watch this. See how Michelle is walking in a straight line, just casually making her way to her car, which is off camera to the right? Look at this. Watch what she does when she gets to where it's parked. Look. She veers off to the left like she's trying to avoid something or someone. Then as she gets maybe, I don't know, a comfortable distance, she stops. Why? Did she see someone? She have like an interaction with them before going towards her car? Well, Richie now believes that he knows what may have happened to her. He thinks that she makes her way to her car and someone's waiting for her. She saw them and
Starting point is 00:02:24 she's taken by surprise. This person or persons must have said something, that made Michelle at least feel like it was okay to walk toward her vehicle. Maybe she knew them. But once she got to that passenger side, she was attacked. This is apparent from the blood in the front seat of the passengers area, the blood on the floor, but ultimately she was put inside the back passenger side of the car. This matches up with the smears on the parking garage floor, with the smears in the car, with the blood droplets. Everything matches up to that theory. So Richie thinks he may find more information by interviewing the students and the staff at Samuel Merritt in relation to instructors, how these instructors are granted access to certain areas of the campus. He was told that their badges are used as key cards to open doors and classrooms and designated areas where they're permitted to be.
Starting point is 00:03:19 So remember the badge that was found in the front seat of Michelle's car, the adjunct instructor Elaine San Augustine's badge. Well, this is another lead. Richie wants to pull any data linking this card that they found in Michelle's car to any door on the campus building. He wants to know any doors accessed on the day that Michelle went missing. So he goes to speak with the program's administrative assistant Karen Casper. She was in charge of creating these ID badges, and she explained that the last time she saw that badge was actually the day before Michelle went missing, Thursday, May 26th. It was on her desk, along with the new hire folder with all of Elaine's paperwork. But then, when Richie called and asked about it, she realized it was gone.
Starting point is 00:04:02 So the security department ran a search. And they were able to pinpoint when the badge was used first. And it was around 517 the evening prior to Michelle's disappearance. This is when I was in shock because everything was moving so quickly once they found this evidence. Everything is about to come together. And I'm telling you, this is a crazy story. It's a scary story. Colleges, at least modern ones, typically are places that have a lot of cameras, almost everywhere. So Richie asked the security team to pull the videos from the door that the badge was used on.
Starting point is 00:04:34 They wanted to see who was using it. And sure enough, it's a woman matching the description of the picture on the ID. She had dark hair. It was pulled into a ponytail. The woman was wearing a hat and a scarf. And she also kind of resembled Michelle in a way. She was younger and was hard to tell what she looked like because she wasn't facing. the camera. Her back was turned. They couldn't see her face. She entered a back faculty door of the school with the key card. She makes her way up to where Michelle's nursing classes are held. Here she is. She's going through the faculty entrance. She's wearing black leggings, a dark colored shirt, and she's all alone. She wasn't following anyone. So could this be the new instructor getting acquainted with her new workplace? It looked like it could be. She goes in. She's just looking
Starting point is 00:05:21 around, but then they see something odd. She's trying to open office doors and they're locked, so then she would move on to the next one, like trying each one of the doorknobs, making her way down the hall. And then at one point, she spots someone else and she kind of backs up. This isn't normal. If she was permitted in this area, why would she be acting this way? It gave me the chills watching it. At first, I thought, is it Michelle trying to sneak in, like, change her grades? Because she wanted to get straight A's and did this instructor catch her? And did the instructor confront her in the parking lot the next day and something happened? It was really eerie seeing this footage.
Starting point is 00:06:00 Who is this person? Well, she makes her way into a classroom. And this time she kind of does seem casual and calm, sort of just checking out the space. Then she turns the lights off and leaves the room. And when she returns, she doesn't even turn them back on. And now she's wearing a white lab coat. and she's holding what looks like a clipboard with a class roster on it, it's looking more and more like this is the new instructor.
Starting point is 00:06:25 She's there after hours checking out the class. But she's supposed to be in Hawaii. The investigator gets a good look at that paper in her hand, and it was the class roster. They could see pictures of the students on it. And the woman's not doing anything weird or suspicious, I mean, unless this wasn't the instructor at all, then it would be odd for some random person
Starting point is 00:06:47 to be walking around the campus after hours checking computer screens, looking at the class roster, a roster that most certainly included Michelle Lay's picture, and information on it, including her shifts at the Kaiser Hospital. So Richie's informed that Elaine San Augustine was indeed in Hawaii on May 26th and before Michelle even went missing. It couldn't have been her on that video footage. So this meant whoever had that badge had stolen it, but had. How and when and why?
Starting point is 00:07:20 They scrub through hours of footage until they spot the same woman earlier the same day. It was 8 a.m. First, the administrative assistant Karen Casper, she opens the door to the front office. The woman comes inside. She's wearing the same black leggings. She has on a long sleeve, dark colored shirt. And this time her hair is down. But they still can't see her face.
Starting point is 00:07:40 She's sitting on the couch waiting and then all of a sudden Karen walks out. That's when this girl walks right into her office. and there was definitely enough time for her to steal that badge. Then she walks out and bam. She looks right into the camera while she's passing underneath it, and they finally get a glimpse of her face. They study it. It's definitely a cranny video.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Who do you think it looks like? I know you don't have an entire list of people that were friends of Michelle's, but she looks familiar to Richie, and he thinks it's Jezelle Estabon, but it's so hard. hard to tell. I don't think I could identify who it is just by looking at this video, but perhaps they enhanced the footage. Right after this at 8.40 a.m., the camera spots her again. She's walking inside campus. Clearly, she's the one that stole the badge. Still, if this is Giselle, why would she steal a badge and aimlessly walk the halls of the school? Did Michelle tell her to do
Starting point is 00:08:41 this? Or was she the one that harmed Michelle? Detectives don't know how that would be possible because this woman is only a little over five feet tall and pregnant. So Richie rules her out merely on size and stature. Take a look. This is what she looked like. Plus, he met her in person. He just didn't think that was a possibility. And if she was involved, she definitely had help. But this is the biggest lead that they have, so they have to run with it. So Ritchie thinks that perhaps Scott and Giselle concocted a plan to harm Michelle. They're really leaning towards Scott being the one that carried this out because he had enough strength to overpower Michelle easily and put her into her car.
Starting point is 00:09:22 So they need to find him and ask him some very pressing questions. They also had some questions for the administrative assistant that interacted with this mystery woman who stole the badge. So they set out on those two objectives. So according to Karen, a prospective student came into the school around 8 a.m. and told her that she was interested in enrolling in the nursing program. She said that she had an appointment with the student services counselor, so Karen leaves to go locate that counselor, but she wasn't on campus that day. So Karen goes back to speak with the prospective student herself.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Then afterward, the girl leaves. But we know that she didn't because we saw the footage of her going into that break room and walking around campus. Ritchie knew he needed to re-interview Scott, but before he had a chance to reach out to him, Scott gets in touch with Richie himself. It's May 29th, and Scott calls him. He's like, out of breath. And he tells the inspector that he's cleaning out his car. And you just found what he thinks is Michelle's white iPhone under a back seat floor mat.
Starting point is 00:10:29 Scott was instructed to turn the phone over to the police, which he did. And now Richie has a chance to go talk to him. He just happens to find Michelle's phone. It seemed just a little too coincidental, don't you think? is this some kind of ruse to come forward first so that they don't go looking for him he considered scott possibly trying to outsmart the police and maybe claiming someone's trying to set him up richie wasn't sure but it was time to ask scott a lot of questions and i'm going to tell you right now i was definitely not ready for where this went i've done a lot of cases i was caught off guard scott explained a lot
Starting point is 00:11:07 and a lot of things we already heard from Giselle, that he and Michelle had met through her, that they all went to college together back in 2003. When asked what the status of his relationship was with both women, he pretty much says he's caught no relationship, none with Giselle, but that wasn't exactly true because he had a child with Giselle. And he had just been texting Michelle.
Starting point is 00:11:32 So he explains at this point that he tries to have as little contact with Giselle, with Giselle as possible. Only what's necessary to facilitate their court-ordered visitations. Giselle's are chaperoned. That's what he tells Ritchie, and that's something Giselle did not mention. Scott says he now has full custody of their daughter, and he has ever since August of 2010. Recall that high-conflict parenting therapy session, well, that was due to the legal proceedings that the couple were going through at the time. And that was Scott's attempt to take Isabel away from Giselle. Richie wasn't sure what any of this had to do with Michelle yet, but it seemed at the very least that Scott needed to get all of this off his chest. So Richie took it
Starting point is 00:12:15 all in and there was a lot. But Scott promised he was getting somewhere with all of these stories. In the beginning he said that all three of them were very close friends. They hung out all the time and he thought that Giselle and Michelle got along really well. He reiterated what Giselle said set her off in the first place. The time that Michelle confided in him about the fact she was pregnant. But Scott insisted he and Michelle were merely platonic. And Michelle was just going to him for advice that she wasn't ready to tell Giselle because of her pride, not because Scott was the father. Things seemed to blow over for a while with Giselle, but their relationship was off to a rocky start. It came to an end in 2005, but he was still
Starting point is 00:13:00 sleeping with her at the time here and there. And that's when she told him she was pregnant, his baby and he tried to make it work with her but it was a nightmare according to him especially after the baby was born it seemed as though she might have had something like postpartum depression something set her off because all of a sudden she started to accuse scott of hanging out with michelle and once again becoming upset over the belief that she had that they were more than friends Scott once again tried to convince her otherwise but the issue was that scott just would not kick Michelle out of his life. He wasn't that kind of person. They have mutual friends within the Vietnamese community. Yet he did stop talking her for a while upon Giselle's request. They were living together
Starting point is 00:13:46 for three years, but their relationship was toxic, and they separated for good in 2008. And at that point, Giselle had custody and a move away order. So she took Isabelle back to San Diego, and Scott shared custody. He would go back and forth and visit his daughter as much as he could, which was was a lot. As a matter of fact, he wanted full custody. And that decision came in 2009. Giselle said that she was going to move in with her new boyfriend, and Isabel was coming with her, and Scott wasn't okay with it. So he filed for full custody in November of 2009. This would take several months to go into the legal proceedings and get finalized. And by April 2010, Giselle had broken up with that new guy. She was living back in Northern California, and she told Scott
Starting point is 00:14:30 she was pregnant again, but having an abortion. And after this, Scott said he would backslide. He would sleep with her again. He just had a soft spot whenever she was in need, but they just could not have a relationship because they were toxic, and they were both at fault in many instances. But he explained that Giselle had mental health conditions and made it nearly impossible to deal with her. He also told Ritchie that due to these apparent issues Giselle was facing, Michelle wanted nothing to do with her for a while. It was obvious that Giselle wanted someone to blame her breakup on and she felt like Michelle was just the perfect person. God explains Michelle had nothing to do with it.
Starting point is 00:15:12 It was Giselle's own behavior and her downward spiral over the years that made him leave. He said, I have seven years worth of domestic records involving Giselle. And that definitely sounded like a lot to deal with. But what does this have to do with Michelle? How does Michelle fit into all this? Was Scott suggesting that Giselle had something to do with what happened to Michelle over a relationship that ended four years ago? Because it wasn't really adding up. It was actually starting to make Scott look more suspicious.
Starting point is 00:15:41 Almost as though he was trying to make excuses as to maybe why he had done something. So Ritchie wants to understand how Michelle fits in and what Scott's current relationship with her look like. And that's when he admits he was hanging out with Michelle, especially more recently. And he was keeping it a secret from Giselle because he didn't want to deal with the drama. Even though back in August of 2010, it seemed as though with that meeting with the three of them at the therapist office that it provided closure, but Scott said it didn't. It only made things worse because remember they admitted to her, we were talking, we were hanging out, but we were just friends. That meant they were still lying.
Starting point is 00:16:19 Giselle truly believed Michelle tore her family apart. It was actually after that meeting that she was. she started to bombard Scott with really mean messages about Michelle, calling her all types of names, and really sharing her hatred for her. Scott said that she was obsessed with Michelle. She was fixated on this fantasy where she could place all the blame on Michelle for her life not going well while Michelle's was thriving. It was more than jealousy. And I am not going to go into seven years' worth of reports between Scott and Giselle. But in order for Richie to understand who Giselle was, it was imperative that he go through all of them. I'm going to highlight a few.
Starting point is 00:17:03 And these were reported by both Giselle and Scott. It was back and forth and back and forth. So toxic. So much trauma. No wonder people want to stay single sometimes. For example, in 2008, Jazel had swallowed an excessive number of pills and then attacked Scott hitting him in the stomach. And there was a witness to this. So Giselle was arrested, but then the same year, Scott was arrested for pushing Giselle through a doorway and endangering his daughter who was present for this altercation. But then another time, Giselle destroyed Scott's computer. But then he was the initial aggressor, according to the report. Giselle would constantly threaten to harm herself if Scott didn't answer her text or her calls or come see her.
Starting point is 00:17:47 This is why he couldn't get away, he said. He would leave her for a while. and then something would happen, some crisis, and he would have to come to her rescue. One time, she called him crying, begging for him to come over saying that she had her finger on the trigger and she didn't want to pull it. Wow. She would even lay in the middle of the road while there were cars coming, and he would sit there yelling for her to get up, and she wouldn't, and he had to physically grab her and throw her to the side of the road, and that is scary. And on one hand, I think it's easy for us to judge her and call her crazy, but clearly this woman,
Starting point is 00:18:22 needed help, she was hurting. And Scott wanted to be there for the mother of his child, even though he didn't want to be with her. He was stuck between, like they say, a rock and a hard place. She would constantly get him arrested by claiming she was a battered woman, and the cops would believe her because she had marks all over her body, marks that she made.
Starting point is 00:18:42 So Richie begins to feel bad for Scott. He's been through a lot, especially at such a young age. But it doesn't mean that he's not trying to get back at Giselle by implicating her and Michelle's case. But Scott finally says, I have nothing to do with Michelle's disappearance. And that none of these domestic issues have ever been prosecuted in a court of law. So no one has ever been determined to be guilty. They're merely reports. He just wanted to prove, you know, that he was a good guy, that he's not really guilty of any of these things. It's just he said, she said. He wanted to show
Starting point is 00:19:13 Richie that Giselle has the ability to be violent and that she's not this sweet, innocent little petite, pregnant girl with a kid. If there's anyone that Giselle would have her eyes set on to harm, he believes it would be Michelle. But Ritchie wants to know why. And Scott explains that just a few months ago, Giselle had become increasingly obsessed over Michelle, and he has proof. He pulls out his phone. Scott had started to record conversations, screenshot text messages, anything he could, because he was becoming more and more afraid of Giselle. These are some of the items he used as evidence to get custody of his daughter. It started back in November of 2010. Scott played a voice recording for Richie that he had saved. It was an argument between him and Giselle. She was once
Starting point is 00:20:02 again rehashing the accusation that Scott and Michelle had slept together and that he had driven her to get this abortion. We're talking about something that occurred years ago, but she was acting as so what happened the day before. And Scott, he's in there trying to remain calm, but it is very hard to do so. But this was seven months ago, but Scott's like, wait, there's more. And I know this is a lot,
Starting point is 00:20:27 but I think it's really important to understand everything in its entirety. That's why I locate the legal documents so I can really understand each case and the timeline. So on February 17, 2011, this is just three months before Michelle goes missing. Giselle asked Scott to meet her at a coffee shop and thinks we're okay until Giselle brings up this story about how someone
Starting point is 00:20:48 has this big problem with Michelle and that Giselle is finally going to let this person know where they can find her and teach her a lesson, that type of thing. She tells Scott that this person's going to go to a party where Michelle's at and they're going to use something to disfigure her like acid or a weapon. Well, Scott doesn't want to hear any of this. He's terrified. So he refused to discuss it any further.
Starting point is 00:21:08 And that's when Giselle literally throws a coffee at him. Yeah. And then later that night, she's begging him for forgiveness. She's acting as though she was the victim. The victim of Scott's poor choices, as she like to call it. She told him that she was still angry about what he did with Michelle and that she hadn't even begun to forgive them. That same night, Scott became aware that Giselle sent a text to both him and Michelle, and this is what the one to Michelle said. It said, quote, if you really were anyone's friend. Mine or Scots, you would just F off and leave my family alone, but all you are is a whore who had nothing better to do and follow me to San Francisco. That's all you'll ever be,
Starting point is 00:21:54 the whore who slept with other people's men and brothers because no one wanted you. You aren't my friend. You are always just a parasite. End quote. Just seconds later, Giselle sent a text to both Scott and Michelle, which said, you two really do deserve each other. I hope you get what deserve. You are both pathetic. You scott with no dreams or goals and the other chasing after someone else's dreams because she has none of her own. You are both parasites. But in reality, Giselle was projecting her own behavior. She had given up on her dreams. She didn't have any goals other than seemingly making other people's lives miserable. And it was truly sad. Michelle had better things to do at this point than respond to this nonsense.
Starting point is 00:22:43 So she ignored Giselle's texts and calls. Well, this didn't make Giselle very happy. The very next day on February 18th, she sent Scott a number of messages about Michelle calling him an idiot and to stop falling for Michelle's act. She warned him that Michelle better stop avoiding her calls because this won't end unless she does. But it didn't end there. She told him that their daughter was already aware, aware that he had picked his whore over his family and went on to complain that Scott hadn't even given her a birthday present. And instead, he decided to blow his money on his whore. And because of all
Starting point is 00:23:22 of this, Giselle took the liberty of letting Michelle's boyfriend know all about their history. Geez, I mean, I don't know. It does sound like high school drama. And Michelle, that was another thing. she had a serious boyfriend this whole time. She dated Tommy for years while this was going on. And by the end of February, Giselle was continuing to send nasty messages to Scott.
Starting point is 00:23:49 She told him that he had pushed her into insanity and that he would have to live with the consequences for the rest of his life. She threatened Michelle's life by telling Scott he wasn't going to be able to protect anyone. That is whore will get what she deserves to. and that she had many ways to make him pay for what he had done. She even told him that maybe he should just get it over with
Starting point is 00:24:13 and put a bullet in his own head. Because with him dead, their world would be a better place. He and Michelle would pay for their mistakes and that she was busy planning his demise. The thing is, I told you, Scott was hanging out with Michelle, and Giselle was watching them. She followed them the places and she knew they were together, and that only made this worse.
Starting point is 00:24:35 if someone's telling you they're not doing something, but they really are. I don't know, some people call it gaslighting or worse. You can start to feel like you're going crazy, but maybe Giselle really was. In March, she told Scott that she had seen him and Michelle together. She asked him, why do you keep lying? And like I said, to be fair, he was lying, and he admitted that to Richie. He was lying because he didn't want to deal with the drama, but it didn't matter. whether he hung out with Michelle or not,
Starting point is 00:25:08 because Giselle was already of the mindset that they had always been in a relationship behind her back. She texted him saying that Michelle dug her grave by being a home wrecker and a whore, but that she won't be an issue for long. She told Scott, you keep seeing your whore. I tried every positive approach, and you still keep running back to the whore
Starting point is 00:25:33 who made you lie to your family. So now I choose to take the negative and obliterate you and your baggage-toting whore from my family. You'll never have a good name again. My question is why not go to the police with all this like a long time ago if this person's threatening your life and someone else's life? And I promise there's just a few more of these instances, but they just get closer and closer to the time that Michelle goes missing.
Starting point is 00:25:58 On March 17th, Giselle texted, FYI, she won't pass her midterms. such an eerie thing to say since we know that she's gone now. And on March 18th, Scott drove over to Giselle's apartment. He's going to pick up some Girl Scout cookies. He had ordered them from his daughter. And Giselle was supposed to leave them outside because he did not want to have a confrontation with her. But that's not what happened. Because when he pulls up, it's got his little girl in the car with him. She's waiting. She gets into the passenger side of his car. And he knew he was going to have to record this conversation, he just knew it wasn't going to go well. He could sense it.
Starting point is 00:26:35 And their little daughter is in the car with them. And like many times before, Giselle used what had made Scott break. What made him have a soft spot for her, she said, I'm pregnant with your baby. Now, she actually was pregnant, but Scott didn't believe it. Then Giselle goes right into the conversation about Michelle again. She told Scott she tried reasoning with him in a nice way, but he's still, seeing Michelle more than he's even seeing her. In this recording,
Starting point is 00:27:06 Giselle is heard saying, I asked you if you could just be honest about Michelle because she is the one issue I'm really having a hard time dealing with. And it was like, fine, okay, starting now, we're going to be honest about Michelle, whether you sleep with her, you share food with her, whether you talk to her. And then suddenly,
Starting point is 00:27:24 Giselle yelled, look at me, be honest with me regarding her. Otherwise, I will take her life and yours. And you can take that to the grave with you. All Scott could say was why? And Giselle responded, because you lied about her so many times. It's just hard to believe you didn't sleep with her. You deserve to die for your lies.
Starting point is 00:27:44 And so does she, if you do this again. This is your last and final warning. And this was chilling. I have some of this recording to play for you. I asked you, can we just be honest about Michelle? Because she's the one issue that I really, really am having a hard time dealing with. That's not what you said. Do you understand me? Whether you sleep with her, whether you share food with her, whether you talk to her.
Starting point is 00:28:11 You will be honest with me. To the grave with you. Why? Why? Because your life, you deserve to die for your lies. As she, and you will. This is your last and final one. What? Do you understand me? It's your last and final one.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Her daughter could be heard in the background, her little voice. She said, Mommy. And then you just hear Giselle change her tone. saying yes honey what's wrong then she tells her impressionable daughter mommy doesn't like being lied to that's really sad and then Jazele asked Scott if he loved her and man this guy had some guts but he was honest and he told her no well after this Jizel started to punch herself in the face over and over again with her keys and Scott was pleading for her to stop this is in front of their daughter
Starting point is 00:29:17 and he threatened to call the police and she's like go ahead because they're going to end up arresting you anyway. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened, but the charges were dropped, they were dismissed, like they were so many other times in the past. But this next part is crucial to listen to. It's where Richie really gets a sense of a pattern of Giselle's behavior
Starting point is 00:29:39 and things start to add up for him. On May 20th, just a week before Michelle goes missing, Giselle goes over to Scots to pick up Isabelle for a supervised visit. I'm sure you've heard of this before, but this is where you have to be with a social worker. And that person was supposed to be there to make sure things went smootling, but they couldn't stop Giselle. She walked right past them into Scott's house where he was living with his parents. And she was acting very erratic.
Starting point is 00:30:07 She was causing a scene upsetting everyone. She finally leaves, but then Scott realizes his car keys are missing. And now that's a very important part of this incident because that's what led Richie to believe the possibility that Giselle may have planted Michelle's phone in Scott's car if Scott was telling the truth because he's only heard Scott's version of these events so far. Scott said that two days later on May 22nd, he's woken up really early in the morning by the sound of his car alarm going off out of nowhere. It's 8 o'clock in the morning.
Starting point is 00:30:39 And when he goes out to investigate, he goes outside, looks around and he doesn't see anything and he stops. When he hears his mom screaming, he turns and he runs back inside. and he sees Giselle coming out of his bedroom at this point. His mom had actually come down while Scott was outside and she saw Giselle standing inside her granddaughter's bedroom. So she yells to Giselle, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here.
Starting point is 00:31:07 Giselle turns around. She's like kind of thinking this is funny, like it's comical. And she's like, I'm just messing with your son. And that's when she runs into Scott's bedroom. By the time he gets there, he sees her running outside and he follows her to his gate out in the back or the front. And she's laughing. He says, give me my keys.
Starting point is 00:31:25 And she said, I don't have them. Well, later, he finds out. Not only did she probably steal his keys, but she had hacked into his computer. Any emails that he had ever sent between him and Michelle, they were forwarded to Giselle's email address and then deleted from his computer. All of his court-related files pertaining to her
Starting point is 00:31:45 and anything that had Giselle's name on it was missing. It was in that moment Scott decided to apply for restraining order against Giselle. And his parents came with him to the courthouse and they made statements in regard to this incident because they wanted to protect Scott and their granddaughter. Ritchie asked if Scott had any recent contact with Giselle, to which he said, sort of.
Starting point is 00:32:09 So Scott explains that at 1 o'clock in the morning the night Michelle disappeared. Giselle texted Scott with, where is Michelle? He was asleep and he didn't respond. And later that morning, Giselle was late to pick up Isabel from Scott's house for another supervised visit. Ritchie realized it was time to bring Giselle back into the station for more extensive questioning. They also wanted to get a copy of her phone record.
Starting point is 00:32:35 So Giselle comes in. They kind of go back over everything we already talked about. And they ask her when was the last time she spoke to Michelle? Giselle said that she had called Michelle several times in the days leading up to when she was reported missing. and she left messages, but none of them were ever answered. Richie wanted to know the reasons for these calls, considering Giselle was no longer really hanging out with Michelle at this point. And Giselle explained it was to make sure she was staying away from Isabel.
Starting point is 00:33:05 Richie asked if Michelle had something that was going on. She was interfering with her child or getting into her business somehow. And Giselle said, no. It was just that Michelle would surface every now and then, and she would hear about it from her five-year-old daughter. Interesting. So Richie asked to see her call log. She had a red Blackberry curve cell phone. And that's when she explains, oh, well, you may not find any messages to Michelle because I have them automatically deleted. And then she further explained that the reason she may have some copies of some older messages that she sent to other people was because she manually saved them. And I've never heard of this feature on a phone. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've also never really liked Blackberry, so I'm not sure. Richie asked Giselle what she was doing the evening that Michelle went missing, and she said she had a very boring day. She took a walk that evening because she was feeling a little restless. She talked on the
Starting point is 00:33:59 phone with her friend Vigelli, and after that, she eventually fell asleep on the couch. Okay, so Ritchie was like, what about during the daytime? Giselle said that that morning she went to volunteer at Isabel's school. Then she came home and took a nap. And around 4.15, she decided to go over to the hospital in her area, Kaiser Union City location, to talk about her pregnancy coverage because she was pregnant with Scott's baby. Wow, wait a minute. This is all really interesting. So she explained that the location near her was closed. So she went to the closest one, which was Hayward location, and that's the one that Michelle worked at. So Richie thinks this is very, very interesting. She said that she parked on the parking lot in the third floor, which is in the
Starting point is 00:34:47 maternity ward, since that's where she was headed to check on, you know, everything she needed for upcoming pregnancy appointments. But once she got inside, she realized that the member services department was closed. So she just used the bathroom real fast, and then she went back to her car and went home. She admits, without prompting, that she sees Michelle walking on the pedestrian bridge. She wasn't close enough to know for sure if it was her, but she was pretty sure. So Ritchie asked, well, what time was that? Giselle says, oh, I don't know, 6.6.6.30 maybe. This put Giselle in the same parking lot around the same time Michelle had gone to her car the last time she was seen before she disappeared. So Ritchie asked if there was any type of encounter
Starting point is 00:35:31 with Michelle. And that's when Jazel was like, do I need to talk to an attorney or something? Ritchie said, you're not under arrest. We're not accusing you of anything. We're just asking questions. Well, Giselle wasn't so confident about that and asked whether they were talking to anyone else because Michelle, according to Giselle, had slept with a lot of people's boyfriends. Wow. It's like she can't help but bash this poor girl. Ritchie said, well, they had all the footage of that parking garage and they could go through it at the exact time that she said she was there. He said, is it going to show any kind of confrontation with you and Michelle? And she's like, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:36:09 She said she couldn't recall ever having a discussion or an altercation of any kind of doesn't know much about those days. And she was already in her car when she spotted Michelle on that bridge. She got home around 7 p.m. and texted some friends. But she was like, you realize that you're at her workplace and she goes missing. You know how that looks right. And she admitted, yeah, the circumstances looked bad, obviously. But she said she doesn't know what happened to Michelle or where she. is. So Richie admitted that he was having trouble believing how little Giselle remembered about what
Starting point is 00:36:45 happened that day. She said that she'd been off her medication because she was pregnant. Now, this is where things get very interesting. It's true. When you're pregnant, doctors will sometimes take you off of certain medications, especially ones that are prescribed for mental health ailments, but they usually have to weigh the pros and cons of doing so. So Richie wanted to know what medications are you on and what are they for? Giselle says lithium but that she doesn't know what her diagnosis was. I'm sorry, but who doesn't know their own medical diagnosis? That seemed very odd. But being off a much needed medication is concerning. Putting the timeline together, it would mean that Giselle could have stopped her meds around February or March and recall that a lot of
Starting point is 00:37:29 this aggressive behavior in relation to Scott and Michelle began in and around February. The text, the threats, behavior that Scott relayed to investigators. Now granted, yes, they have had altercations in the past, but it's just something that they pointed out to note. Richie told her that if there was some kind of fight, now would be a good time to tell them about it. And she responded that she didn't know and that she does not know what happened to Michelle. She had been sleeping a lot lately and forgetting a lot of things. And that's when he used a tactic where you lie to someone. You're allowed to do this when they're being questioned to elicit information about a crime. so he says that he has footage of Giselle's car driving past Michelle's car.
Starting point is 00:38:11 And Giselle's like, yeah, I probably did. But I had no idea that Michelle even worked there until after I saw her walking across the bridge. And by that time, Giselle said she was already leaving to go back home. At this point, Ritchie is in the process of getting a warrant to search Giselle's apartment, her car. And you really wanted to know if they were going to find anything of Michelle's inside. She's like, I don't know pretty sure you're not. Pretty sure you're not going to find. anything of my previous BFF inside my home. And he asked her what she did on Saturday. And she said she took her daughter to Chucky Cheeses.
Starting point is 00:38:43 Then she stopped talking so she could text someone. And apparently it was her friend of Rijeli. And they were advising her by text to stop talking to the police. And Giselle says, my friend is telling me, you know, I have an alibi and I should stop talking to you now. And she was laughing when she was sharing this with Ritchie. He said, why would someone not want you to help the police find a missing person.
Starting point is 00:39:09 And Giselle explained that her and her friend, they did not trust the police because they had been in situations where the police never helped them when they were both victims of domestic altercations. Giselle also suggested that maybe Michelle didn't want to be found. Do you ever think of that? Maybe Michelle's not really missing. And if the police were really looking for her,
Starting point is 00:39:27 they should go do it instead of sitting there questioning her. She did become a little emotional and she said, she didn't want Michelle to be gone. And even though they weren't really friends, that she was never really a friend. She wasn't an enemy either. However, while Richie is going through her call log, she explained that her and Michelle did use to have text wars
Starting point is 00:39:47 before she changed her number. And that's when Richie sees two calls that Giselle made to the Kaiser Hospital where Michelle works. And he asked Giselle about these calls, and she said, yeah, I made two calls to the member services about my insurance coverage from my pregnancy. And that's when Richie asked if Giselle had called Kaiser the day before Michelle was.
Starting point is 00:40:04 went missing looking for Michelle. She's like, no. I went there to ask about the nursing program. I don't recall asking about the nursing students, but Richie assured her that the calls were recorded, so he would just check the records. Damn, I was so invested at this point. I'm like, this girl's so connected to this crime. It's obvious. And now Richie had a call log showing that Giselle, who says she merely went to the hospital to check on her maternity benefits, actually called there the day before asking about the nursing program. She's not even graduated from college. So that would be very premature. And it's way too much of a coincidence. Way too much. The interview was about to wrap up because Richie knew he needed to look into a lot of what Giselle had just
Starting point is 00:40:52 told him. But he wanted to know one thing. He asked, what did Michelle do or say that was so bad that would prompt them to have text wars and such? And Giselle, said that just being around her daughter was not okay because her daughter was getting the impression that Michelle was her new mommy. Then Richie asked about the reason Scott's mom had issues with Giselle enough to actually assist him in getting this restraining order to which Giselle replied, oh Scott's mom is just trying to keep her son out of jail, which is something that she did all the time. Richie just had a couple more things to cover his basis. He asked Giselle if she had ever been in Michelle's a new car. She said she didn't remember, but she didn't think so because she didn't even know Michelle had a new car. At this point, Giselle was free to go. But they had gotten her entire call log and they were able to download her phone records as well as a warrant to search her apartment and a DNA swab for a comparison to any DNA that they might find. By now, Richie believes it was Giselle, who they saw in that video footage and that she was the one that stole the bad.
Starting point is 00:42:03 used it to enter the campus, stole the roster with all that information about when and where Michelle would be the next day. And this is one of my favorite parts. It's when they really start to piece together all the evidence. Because even if they have a hunch, that's never good enough. They need concrete proof. So since they have Giselle's phone records and call log, they can make a timeline of where her phone was.
Starting point is 00:42:32 And those records show that Giselle made several calls to both Samuel Merritt and Kaiser starting on Wednesday, May 25th. She placed two calls to the nursing school. Then the next day, on Thursday the 26th, when the badge was taken, she called Kaiser at 10.45 a.m. And then again at 2.30 p.m. A priest who worked at All Saints Catholic Church in Hayward, California, had sent in a tip in regard to Michelle's case. He said on May 26, the day before Michelle went missing at 3 p.m. He sees a young woman sitting on a patio outside his office. She was wearing white medical scrubs
Starting point is 00:43:09 and she looked upset. When the priest asked the woman several times if she wanted to go into the confessional, she said no, which is why he was able to speak with the investigator. She simply said that she was there to ask for forgiveness and she needed it for something she hadn't done yet. Wow. This was the day before. Then on the afternoon of February, May 27th, the day that Michelle was last seen, Giselle made another call to Kaiser. And not only that, Giselle actually used her phone while inside the Kaiser Hayward parking structure on May 26th at 412 p.m., 432 p.m. and 8.55 p.m. And then on May 27th, the day Michelle disappeared from work, Jezelle's cell phone was in the Kaiser parking garage when she used it to send 91 text messages
Starting point is 00:44:00 between the hours of 3.11 p.m. and 7.12 p.m. Wow. Now Richie goes to Kaiser to ask the staff about these calls and this I found so frightening and so interesting. There's no question right. But to build their case, Richie has to know what the context of these calls were. Were they to Michelle? Because remember, Michelle changed her number. So was Giselle trying to reach out to her in another way? However, Giselle said she didn't even know Michelle worked at Kaiser. Remember that statement? Until she saw her on Friday night walking along that pedestrian bridge. So that means it was just a coincidence that Giselle was calling to find out about her insurance benefits, right? We're about to find out because Ritchie asked the staff at both the nursing school and Kaiser. Since Ritchie had all of
Starting point is 00:44:50 Giselle's text, I created a timeline of these days from May 25th to the days following Michelle's disappearance. On Wednesday, May 25th, Scott went to the courthouse to file for that restraining order. Well, Giselle's GPS shows that she actually followed him there. She sat outside, watching. And sometimes I think that these restraining orders do more harm than good. Sometimes it's what pushes someone over the edge and honestly, they usually don't work very well. many times they're not enforced, at least with the cases that I've read, recall Tiana notice, and if you haven't seen that devastating case, it's linked up here below and at the end of this video. But after this, Giselle sends several text messages to a guy named Alan.
Starting point is 00:45:36 He's a friend from college who knows Michelle, and Giselle's asking for Michelle's new address. She's telling Alan that his girlfriend might have it. But don't tell his girlfriend or Michelle that she wanted it because she was trying to serve some restraining order papers to Michelle. to stay away from her daughter. And these papers keep getting returned for Michelle's Oakland address, because apparently she has moved. creepy. That evening, Alan responded that neither him or his girlfriend had Michelle's new address.
Starting point is 00:46:06 The same day, Giselle calls the nursing school twice. And Richie takes a statement from Marjorie Villanouva, a school administrator, and she said she remembers a woman calling in. Her name was Jamie. And she sounded sweet. She was nice. She was friendly. She was calm.
Starting point is 00:46:20 she said, I'm at the airport. I'm supposed to get together with my friend Michelle Lay. She's like, can I have her phone number? And of course, this administrator was like, no. So Jamie calls back again asking the same thing for Michelle's phone number. And once again, the administrative assistant said no. But she did say, let me get your number, Jamie, and I'll give this to Michelle. But the caller said that she was borrowing a phone.
Starting point is 00:46:48 At this point, the admin left a message for Michelle. that her friend Jamie was looking for her. And I wonder if that message was ever given to her. But the next morning, May 26 at 8 a.m., is when the campus video footage catches Giselle going to supposedly talk to a counselor about the school. It was at this point she steals the badge and then walks around campus into the break room down the halls
Starting point is 00:47:12 before finally leaving. And then at 1034, she calls Kaiser. The calls answered by Scott Moore, who's a charged nurse in the emergency department. The caller said that she was Michelle Lay, and that she had just started an internship on Friday. And the caller just sounded so desperate to know the instructor's name and where she was supposed to report. But this call was weird because nursing students normally get this information from their school. So we told the woman on the phone that Michelle was not scheduled to work in the emergency department that Friday.
Starting point is 00:47:45 It was as though Giselle was just checking things off of her list. Like, oh, she's not going to be in the emergency department, she's going to be another one. A few hours later, the woman called back and pretty much asked the same questions. Then again, at 2.30 p.m., the third call comes in from Giselle's cell phone to Kaiser. This was answered by a nurse Bessie Wenz. And the caller says, I'm a skilled lab instructor for Samuel Merritt, and I need some information about the nursing students if they're going to be there that night. And Wentz confirmed that the students were there every Thursday. Friday, but she wouldn't provide any names of students who would be attending. Wow.
Starting point is 00:48:25 This is so calculated, but of course, I'm not done yet. The same day, her phone pings, Giselle's, at the Kaiser garage at 4.12 p.m., 4.32 p.m. and 8.55 p.m. She's in the garage at those times. Then the next day on Friday, May 27th, the day Michelle actually goes missing from Kaiser, nurse Scott Moore receives another phone call, regards to her. Michelle. Giselle called once again, this sign pretending to be an instructor from Merritt. She said she needed to arrange a meeting with Michelle Lay. But Moore knew the name that she had just given was Michelle's previous instructor and they weren't working that day and he knew the person and this definitely wasn't them calling. So he thought this call was very odd.
Starting point is 00:49:11 The caller went on to tell him that Michelle was actually on probation, which was something that schools usually kept completely confidential so he knew this wasn't even someone calling from the school. The caller was trying to confirm that Michelle was going to report for her program at 7 p.m. that night and Moore told the caller that 7 p.m. wasn't necessarily the start time because programs can start earlier in the afternoon. That was the day that Giselle sent 91 text messages from that parking lot between the hours of 3.11 p.m. and 7.12 p.m. Now remember Michelle's car was seen
Starting point is 00:49:51 in the parking garage sometime around 9 p.m. And around that same time, Giselle sends her friend Brian a text. It says, do you know how to unlock an iPhone? She explained that she found one earlier that day at the Kaiser Pharmacy. Lies.
Starting point is 00:50:07 All lies. And Ritchie knows this. I'm sitting here stunned. Have you ever experienced anyone like that? What do you even call this behavior? It's stalking, right? But I feel like there's got to be another name for it. Something that really defines the jealousy, the hatred, the calculation. It's scary.
Starting point is 00:50:26 Maybe premeditation. Well, let's continue, shall we? Investigators theorized that Giselle caused Michelle's death, but they needed to prove it. And without Michelle's body, that was extremely challenging. The police pulled Michelle's phone records, and they reviewed her pings from the night that she disappeared, and they compared them to where Giselle's phone had pings.
Starting point is 00:50:46 And as suspected, Giselle and Michelle's phone left the parking garage at the same time and they tracked together on that same exact path, through town, out into the canyon and then back at the parking garage. And then to the final place
Starting point is 00:51:03 that Michelle's car was parked. But then Michelle's phone stopped tracking. It was either turned off or it died. However, they continued to follow Giselle's movement in the days following Michelle's disappearance. Her phone pinged at Scott's rest of, where we know he said that she came for a supervised visit.
Starting point is 00:51:21 Then it tracks to the Apple store at a mall nearby. Richie goes there and he pulls that footage and he speaks to employees. And sure enough, one of the employees remembers Giselle. He says she came in. She was with her young daughter and she said that her daughter was playing with the phone and that somehow her daughter accidentally put a passcode on it and now they're locked out. Unbelievably, in my opinion, this Apple employee,
Starting point is 00:51:45 This Apple employee unlocked this phone for Giselle. According to Michelle Lay's phone records, the moment that the Apple employee unlocked the phone, her phone turned back on and was pinging at a tower near the Apple store. The employee also mentioned that he recalled just how many notifications were coming through on the phone. As soon as it turned on, it was going crazy with notifications.
Starting point is 00:52:07 Here's that footage, the surveillance camera. You can see Giselle and her daughter in the stroller with a social worker. That social worker had chaperoned that visit that day. You see Giselle walk up and talk to an Apple employee. Then she leaves the store with a white phone in her hand, and according to an interview with that social worker, Giselle told her that her brother gave her that iPhone
Starting point is 00:52:30 and that she needed to go get it set up at the Apple store. The social worker also explained that once they left the Apple store, Giselle had asked her to drive in the entire time on their way to Chucky Cheese. All she did was text. The whole way there. This was most likely when everyone was getting those responses back for Michelle's phone. And at 3 p.m., both phones tracked to Chucky Cheese, where the social worker, along with Giselle, her daughter, Isabelle, and her nieces were.
Starting point is 00:52:59 However, Giselle hardly paid any attention to the children and said she gets up and she leaves the kids with the social worker. She tells her, I left something burning on the stove in my apartment and have to run back and go turn it off. The social worker said that Giselle worked. returned in less than an hour, and she no longer had the white iPhone. However, Giselle's phone pinged near Scott's house. There was one other place her phone pinged that piqued Richie's interest. On the day of the candlelight vigil, Giselle's phone pinged right near where Michelle's friends and family were gathering, including Scott. She never got out of her car to pay respects or to support the
Starting point is 00:53:39 family. She obviously just drove around watching. Here's some photos. from the search that they conducted on Giselle's apartment. They collected a number of items, including a pair of white shoes that were seen in video footage of Giselle, and they were also shoes that Giselle had kind of been adamant about wearing out of her apartment when they initially interviewed her, so Ritchie definitely wanted them analyzed. Giselle was kept under surveillance.
Starting point is 00:54:05 A tracker was put on her car, and they monitored her whereabouts as they awaited those DNA results, because that could take weeks. but eventually the Hayward Police Department received the DNA results from Michelle's vehicle and Giselle's shoes. And according to those results, Giselle's DNA was found on the turn signal of Michelle's car, a black hair on the passenger seat matched to Giselle's DNA. However, that evidence alone was not enough to charge Giselle with Michelle's murder. However, not soon after this, they received those results from testing Giselle's shoes. Michelle's blood was found on them.
Starting point is 00:54:45 And they knew at this point, they definitely had enough evidence to arrest Giselle for the murder of Michelle Lay. But they weren't sure they would have enough to secure a guilty verdict at trial since they still did not have Michelle's body to prove that she was indeed deceased. They were fearful for Scott and his daughter's safety
Starting point is 00:55:05 and for Michelle's family safety because Giselle had already visited Isabel's school in defiance of that restraint. order and she even tried to enter her classroom. So Scott told the police, the disregard of the restraining order makes me fearful that Jazele may be increasingly unstable and that she had been diagnosed with manic depression and it had psychotic features as well as a form of bipolar disorder. So the police decided to make an arrest in order to know where Jazeel was at any given moment as they build their case against her. September 7, 2011, three months after Michigan,
Starting point is 00:55:42 Michelle disappeared, the Hayward Police Department arrested Giselle Esteban at her apartment. She didn't fight. She didn't argue. She just put her hands behind her back. She never even asked why she was being arrested. I mean, obviously she knew. She just remained as cold as ice. She didn't show any remorse. Of course, not knowing the details about the evidence investigators have found, Michelle's family was stunned. Of all people, Michelle's best friend from high school was being arrested for her murder, especially because they were still holding out hope that Michelle was still alive. There was no body found, so there wasn't closure. At this point, the reward offered was up to $100,000 for Michelle's return or information about her whereabouts. But now the family was able
Starting point is 00:56:30 to know details. They were called to the police department, and they were told everything. And it made sense. They saw everything. They saw Giselle in the lab coat, at the school, the DNA, the Apple store footage. It was just too much. And I hate this part of these stories, but you know it's coming. It was September 17th, 113 days after Michelle had gone missing and just 10 days after they arrested Giselle. Carrie and her dog Amber were combing through the Canyon area in one of their searches. It was an area where Giselle and Michelle's phone were stationary for at least 20 to 30 minutes on the night of the disappearance. And Carrie let the search dog Amber off the leash. She was acting really, really odd. She was just jumping all over the place, and the dog obviously wanted to get away from
Starting point is 00:57:14 Carrie, so she just let her loose. And a few seconds later, the dog returned, and she wanted Carrie to follow her, so she did. When she looked near a large tree stump, she saw what appeared to be white medical scrubs. And when she got closer, Carrie saw what she believed looked like human remains, but all that was left was a skeleton. The body was severely decomposed, and it could not be identified merely by looking at it. They couldn't even tell if it was a male or female. The authorities were notified and the remains were transported to the medical examiner's office for an official identification. What's sad is that Christine, she was back at the command post,
Starting point is 00:57:54 and she gets a phone call from a reporter, an insensitive one at that. And they're calling to get a comment from her on the discovery of Michelle's remains, and she was in shock. Christine told the reporter, they didn't find Michelle, but something in the report. her gut told her that they had. The identification took a couple days. Dental records were used, and once again, Christine was just holding on, holding on to that hope until they had proof that those remains belonged to her favorite cousin. But by the evening of Monday, September 19th, just two days after the remains were found, the Alameda County Coroner's Bureau confirmed
Starting point is 00:58:32 that they had found the remains of missing nursing student Michelle Le. But the forensic pathology examinations were still ongoing and they could not determine the exact manner or cause of death yet. Following confirmation that the remains were Michelle's, her families stayed in their hotel room just to mourn her death. It was unbelievable to them. You never think anything like this is going to happen. Ultimately, Michelle's cause of death could never be determined because her body was too decomposed. However, the theory is that a sharp object like a knife was used to render Michelle unable to fight back against Giselle. She was most likely wounded in the neck or the chest, somewhere that would incapacitate her very quickly. Giselle was indicted on December 14, 2011, and she entered a plea of not guilty.
Starting point is 00:59:22 The trial date was set for September 17, 2012. Giselle's defense attorney was Andrea Hour, and the prosecutor on the case was Butch Ford. He was determined to dig up all he could on and one of the pieces of evidence that I found interesting was there were over 300 pages of text messages between Scott and Giselle alone in regard to Michelle. Wow. So the prosecutor listened to the recordings of Scott and Giselle's conversations. He read over all those pages of text messages as part of his investigation and he concluded that Giselle hated her former best friend for at least six years according for what he can put together from all of the evidence. A senior computer forensic examiner employed by the FBI recovered all of the data from a hard
Starting point is 01:00:09 drive on one of Giselle's computers and she had conducted over 300 searches on the internet for the name Michelle Lay. Other searches included is there a certain chemical that can induce a heart attack without leaving a trace or how to find someone who doesn't want to be found how to follow someone without getting caught, how to induce a heart attack and where to buy potassium chloride. Clearly this was completely premeditated. Two psychiatric evaluations had been done. They were filed in that custody dispute between Scott and Giselle, and it said that she had a history of depression and included details about an incident when she was in her 20s. Her friend said that they called 911 after they found
Starting point is 01:00:50 her asleep near an empty bottle of antidepressants, but Giselle denied overdosing. Both of these psychiatric evaluations were done in the summer of 2010, and they found that she was not a danger to herself or others. This was around the same time that that meeting was facilitated between her, the therapist Michelle, and Scott. However, Scott relayed to the prosecutor that in the months leading up to the murder, Giselle took out a knife and threatened to use it on herself and her unborn child, which she claimed was his if he didn't leave Michelle alone. Giselle was indeed pregnant. That was not a lie. She actually gave birth the week before Thanksgiving in 2011 following her arrest. She had a son, but it was not Scott's child. Scott was made aware of this, and that's how they know when Giselle gave birth.
Starting point is 01:01:38 The child was put into the father's custody, and both Giselle and her attorney were very careful not to provide any information about her son's identity. The opening arguments began October 1st, 2012, and prosecutor Butch Ford presented the case to the jury as a devastating case of premeditated murder. He said, Giselle had a motive. Her life was in shambles. She lost custody of her daughter, and out of jealousy, Giselle wanted to murder her beautiful, smart, loving friend Michelle out of revenge. For her belief that Michelle had broken up her family. Giselle's attorney acknowledged that Giselle indeed killed Michelle,
Starting point is 01:02:22 but she argued it was not murder. It was voluntary manslaughter, not first-degree murder, not premeditated, and that it was Michelle's own fault. essentially that she was killed because she provoked Giselle into committing the killing in a heat of fashion. And I can't disagree more. Come on. There's so much evidence here, so much planning, so much calculation. And that is what the prosecutor was able to show.
Starting point is 01:02:49 And I mean, there were recordings of Giselle laughing while talking about wanting to kill people. And then she actually did. But Giselle's attorney wanted the jury to convict her of manslaughter because she was bipolar and not taking her medication at the time of the murder. Her attorney stated that Giselle's text prove that she had a fragile mental state, that she was paranoid and she was in psychosis and that put her over the edge. According to Giselle, after a conversation with Michelle in that garage, Michelle provoked her and Giselle killed her former best friend because she snapped in a moment of rage. The defense attorney even went on to alleged that Michelle was a lying schemer and robbed Jaselle of her family. It was unsettling to say
Starting point is 01:03:35 the least for Michelle's family to hear her being blamed for her own murder. She did nothing to deserve what happened to her. And many of her family members had to leave the courtroom, especially during the texts that were being read out loud, the vile things that were being said about the person they loved. The trial lasted three weeks and after four days of this jury deliberating, the prosecutor and Michelle's family, they were getting nervous. They were beginning to wonder, did the jury feel sympathy for Giselle because she's a pregnant mom? Even Mark Glass, he was stunned that the jury was taking so long to return a verdict because in a lot of people's minds, the evidence pointed straight to Giselle. By the fifth day, the jury of six men and six women finally reached a verdict.
Starting point is 01:04:20 Michelle's loved ones were holding hands in the front row as the jury entered that courtroom. The verdict? Jezelle Esteban was found guilty, a first-degree murder, and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. She is eligible for parole in 2029, which is coming up before we know it. The judge said that he had never seen a case with more compelling circumstantial evidence pointing straight to the killer. Another thing I thought was interesting was that Giselle's defense attorney said that Giselle finally told her, let it go, Andrea, pretty much acknowledging like she did it, like give it up it's not worth fighting for. Wow.
Starting point is 01:05:02 What an incredible story. I can honestly say I would have never pictured a friend or someone Michelle called a friend would turn on her in such a crazy way to actually murder her. Beware of frenemies. You never know who you're going to cross paths with in life. These girls met in high school. It frightens me. no wonder so many people have trust issues and i am so sorry to michel and her family and her loved ones they did
Starting point is 01:05:31 such an amazing job keeping michel's spirit alive and i hope that i've provided more help to keep her memory living on for as long as it can forever i want to thank you all so very much for being here and giving michel your time i will see you in my next video bye

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