Although Marasigan denied his relationship with Le was sexual, Esteban sent him texts warning that if he didn't cut Le out of his life, "punishment would be swift," Ford told jurors. Esteban also told Marasigan that both he and Le deserved to die, said the prosecutor, who called Esteban a "sociopath. Esteban's attorney Andrea Auer acknowledged that her client had killed Le, but she urged jurors to convict her only of voluntary manslaughter. Le had provoked Esteban, she said, and Esteban committed the killing "in the heat of passion.
Marasigan filed for a temporary restraining order against Esteban three days before Le disappeared. Before the slaying, Esteban did a computer search for Le's home address, stole a security badge and class roster from staff at Samuel Merritt University, which Le was attending, and called employees in attempts to learn Le's schedule, Ford said. Esteban pleads not guilty to slaying of nursing student Michelle Le.
The case had been bogged down due to Esteban's pregnancy and repeated requests for continuations until prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment on Dec. Before Esteban entered her plea at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland, prosecutor Butch Ford and defense attorney Andrea Auer had a minute conversation with an animated Judge Carrie Panetta, who said at a previous hearing that she would not allow further delays without a compelling reason.
Ford said outside of court that he hopes to bring the matter to trial in August, while Auer said she has no idea how long it will take. Esteban, 27, was indicted after a three-day hearing that went over evidence including DNA matches, surveillance camera footage and increasingly threatening text messages sent from Esteban's phone to Scott Marasigan, the father of her first child. Testimony held that the Union City resident grew increasingly angry about Marasigan's continued friendship with Le, and portended severe repercussions if he did not break off all contact.
Those text message threats included statements that both Le and Marasigan had "dug their own graves" and that Le "would not be around much longer.
Ford told jurors that Esteban became "so enraged that she began essentially to hunt down Michelle," and on Friday said he does not believe the trial will take a particularly long time once a date is set. Le vanished May 27 while on a break from her clinical duties as a nursing student at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Hayward.
Her disappearance triggered an outpouring from the community, after family members and friends made numerous public appeals for help. After a summer of rallies, publicity events and search efforts, Le's remains were found by a search team in a rural area near the Pleasanton-Sunol border on Sept. Family members on both sides attended Friday's hearing.
Esteban's relatives declined to comment, and Le's family has been advised by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office not to talk about the case. Roger Keener. McGonigle and her dog, named Amber, were searching an area off a dirt path between Foothill Road and railroad tracks, west of Interstate and south of the Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton, when she came across the remains.
Amber disappeared in , and Chelsea vanished a year later. McGonigle declined to comment Tuesday, saying she would speak about the discovery today. The KlaasKids Foundation assisted in Saturday's search.
In a statement, Le's family said they are planning a memorial service to give her a "proper goodbye. Our family has greatly appreciated, and would be at a loss without, the help of so many people and volunteers," the statement said. She will return to court Sept. Esteban, who is pregnant, and Le attended high school together in San Diego. Cell phone records show that after Le disappeared from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center's garage in Hayward, both women's cell phones "traveled on a similar path" to the Niles and Sunol Canyon areas in Alameda County, police said.
Le was last seen May 27, when she went to her car during a break in a clinical nursing lesson at Kaiser. Police believe that Esteban attacked her in the hospital's garage. Le, who lived in San Mateo, was a student at Oakland's Samuel Merritt University and hoped to become a nurse practitioner like her mother, who died of cancer when Le was a teenager. Esteban told KGO-TV before she was arrested that she blamed Le for breaking up her relationship with a man with whom Esteban had a child.
She denied, however, that she had anything to do with Le's disappearance. Steve Clark, a former Santa Clara County prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, said the discovery of Le's body is "huge piece of the prosecution case, because it then establishes Michelle Le is dead. They get over that hurdle. But it may be also that there are forensic indications of how Michelle died. That's helpful to the defense.
Sunol -- Ten days after Hayward police arrested a woman on suspicion of murdering a nursing student whose body has not been found, a volunteer searcher discovered human remains Saturday in rural Alameda County.
The decomposed remains were found about a. The remains haven't been identified, and because investigators were unable to determine the gender, they can't say whether they believe the body is that of Michelle Le, who disappeared in May, said Hayward police Lt. But the remains were found in the same area where police believe Le's body had been dumped by the suspect, her former high school friend Giselle Esteban, who was arrested Sept. Cell phone records show that after Le disappeared from the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center's parking garage, both women's phones "traveled on a similar path" from the Hayward hospital to the Niles and Sunol Canyon areas in Alameda County, Keener said.
Hayward police and members of the Alameda County sheriff's crime lab and coroner's office were on the scene for most of the day Saturday. He testified that he had dated Miss Le several years ago, but that their relationship was never sexual in nature and they were just friends. However, Esteban claimed Miss Le had spoken with Mr Marisigan about being pregnant and seeking an abortion in Her attorney argued that this was clear evidence the pair had slept together, saying, 'What woman tells a man she's not intimate with that she's pregnant and is going to get an abortion?
Otherwise, be prepared to be held accountable for your bad actions and decisions. Miss Le was reported missing after she failed to return from a break during her shift at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centre in Hayward on May Her white Honda SUV was seen driving out of the garage by video surveillance later that evening and was found abandoned a few blocks away. Miss Le's skeletal remains were found in Sunol Canyon, near San Francisco, almost four months after she died, by the mother of a girl who was raped and killed in Grief: Miss Le's cousin and brother at a news conference in Hayward shortly before her remains were identified.
She and her Labrador - also called Amber - found the body after joining the search for Miss Le in Pleasanton. Searcher Marc Klaas said the find would be 'of great personal satisfaction to Carrie' and that Amber would be looking down on her mother with 'pride' and a 'big smile'. Esteban was named as a person of interest in June last year, when investigators questioned and searched her Union City apartment. She was arrested on suspicion of her murder after mobile phone signals from Le and the accused were picked up from the same area.
She also stole a security badge and class roster from staff at the aspiring nurse's university, Samuel Merritt, and called employees in attempts to learn her schedule, added Mr Ford. Esteban's attorney, Andrea Auer, acknowledged that her client killed Miss Le, but she argued it was voluntary manslaughter, with Miss Le provoking Esteban, who committed the killing 'in the heat of passion.
Horror: Unidentified relatives of Miss Le at the news conference before her remains were formally identified. Hidden: After an exhaustive, four-month-long search, Le's body was recovered, badly decomposed, in a California canyon.
But Mr Ford said that Esteban had planned Le's death months in advance. He had audio tapes of Esteban 'laughing and talking about killing people', her texts to her ex and evidence that she had gone to great lengths to hide the body.
Esteban had driven her corpse to Sunol Canyon in the victim's own car. The judge said he had never seen a case with more compelling circumstantial evidence pointing straight at the killer. Miss Auer said her client had told her, 'Let it go, Andrea,' in an apparent acknowledgment of her crime. Krystine Dinh, a cousin of Miss Le, told the judge that the killer could take 'her legacy, not her light.
Esteban did not testify during her three-week trial and was convicted in October. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. Argos AO.
Privacy Policy Feedback. Cold-blooded killer jailed for 25 years after murdering her former best friend in jealous rage about man Giselle Esteban dumped nursing student Michelle Le's body at a canyon She believed her old schoolmate was having a sexual relationship with the father of her child The judge said she had not shown 'any remorse' for her actions By Emma Reynolds Published: GMT, 11 December Updated: GMT, 11 December e-mail View comments.
Share this article Share. Read more: Nursing student's killer gets 25 years. Marasigan said that he was friends with Le, but he was unable to convince Esteban that he was no longer romantically involved with Le. Instead, she acknowledged that Esteban did kill her but argued that it was not first-degree murder and was instead voluntary manslaughter. At the time of the murder, Esteban was pregnant, and she gave birth to her child in prison.
Her first daughter was 6 years old at the time. Who Killed Him? By Beth Heyn. Updated Jul 10, at pm.
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