JASON DEAREN
Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Miami man who prosecutors say strangled a University of Florida student in a fit of jealousy over a woman choosing the victim over him was convicted Friday of first-degree murder.
After a two-week trial, the jury in Gainesville also convicted 20-year-old Pedro Bravo of six other counts in the death of 18-year-old Christian Aguilar. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Judge James Colaw sentenced Bravo to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Aguilar’s parents and family were silent as the verdicts were read. They left the courtroom hugging and began crying outside. Bravo watched the clerk read the verdict with no reaction. He appeared calm.
Aguilar’s farther, Carlos Aguilar, addressed the court before Bravo’s sentencing.
“I cannot tell you the quantity of pain that we have been going through,” he said.
Bravo had pleaded not guilty, saying he and Aguilar got into a fist fight the day the college student died but that he left Aguilar alive. Bravo remained defiant before his sentencing, rising and walking to the podium to speak.
“I know in my heart I did not do anything to hurt my friend that would cause him to die,” Bravo said to gasps in the courtroom.
“I know in my heart what I did, I know God knows what I did. I’ll take life or life without parole, and I’ll do it.”
Investigators found Aguilar’s blood in Bravo’s car and presented evidence that Bravo researched ways to drug people and dispose of bodies. Aguilar’s body was found in the woods.
Aguilar and Bravo knew each other from their days at Doral Academy, a high school in Miami. Bravo had dated Friman, who was also a student, while at Doral, but she and Aguilar had begun dating when the two moved to Gainesville for college.
Prosecutors presented reams of writings by Bravo that showed he was obsessed with Friman, so much so that he decided not to attend Florida International University so he could move to Gainesville and pursue her.
But when he arrived, Bravo learned Friman had begun seeing Aguilar.
Bravo bought what prosecutor’s called a “murderer’s starting pack” including a shovel, duct tape and enough sleeping drugs to knock someone out.
For days, Aguilar ducked Bravo’s attempts to meet with him. But after a mutual friend approached him on Bravo’s behalf, Aguilar reluctantly agreed in an effort to help with Bravo’s depression. On September 20, the two spent hours together eating and buying a CD at Best Buy.
Prosecutors say the two men were in Bravo’s SUV in a Wal-Mart parking lot when Bravo slipped into the backseat, grabbed a strap, and choked Aguilar to death.
Taking the stand in his own defense, Bravo said he and Aguilar fought, and that he left his friend lying injured on the ground. But Aguilar was still alive, Bravo said.
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