LOS ANGELES (KNX) — Three men were in police custody Thursday on suspicion of killing a model and her friend last month.
Christy Giles, 24, a model and aspiring actress, and her friend, designer Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, were last seen at an apartment on West Olympic Boulevard near Beverly Hills before their bodies were dumped outside separate hospitals in Culver City and West Los Angeles on Nov. 13.
Giles had already died by the time she was found outside the hospital. Cabrales-Arzola was in critical condition for weeks before her family took her off life support a day before her 27th birthday on Nov. 27.
The men arrested, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, include Brandt Osborn, 42; David Pearce, 37; and Michael Ansbach, 47. Osborn, an actor, was reportedly arrested while working on the set of NCIS: Los Angeles, according to Jan Cilliers, Giles’ husband.
Acting colleagues of Osborn told The New York Post that the suspect had told them about a weekend he spent partying with Giles and Cabrales-Arzola, which ended in dumping their bodies at area hospitals.
Osborn told one he had just had “the craziest weekend of [his] life.” He allegedly explained how he met Giles and Cabrales-Arzola at a warehouse party in East L.A., and how the pair had come to his apartment in the early hours of Nov. 13 and “had a bunch of drugs.”
The actor claimed he left his apartment early on the morning of Nov. 14 to get a COVID-19 for a commercial shoot, and when he returned, his roommate (believed to be David Pearce) informed him that Giles had died.
“They didn’t know what to do, they didn’t want to call 911 and get in trouble, so they decided to drive and drop her body at [the] Culver City hospital,” he told the Post. Osborn, Pearce, and Ansbach then reportedly returned to the apartment, checked Cabrales-Arzola’s pulse, found it to be “very faint” and drove her to a second hospital so “they didn’t get caught.”
Ansbach worked as a camera operator on TV shows such as Vanderpump Rules and The Amazing Race. Pearce, sometimes known as “David Bryant,” worked as a club promoter and film producer, though his last verifiable producing credit was in 2007.
The family of Cabrales-Arzola said her toxicology report came back positive for heroin in her system. A toxicology report for Giles had not yet been released. The families of both women insisted they had no history of drug use and believed any substances found in their systems were forced on them at the apartment where Pearce and Osborn reside.
As of Thursday morning, Pearce was being held on $1 million bail; Osborn and Ansbach were being held on $100,000, according to the LASD. Pearce faces a charge of voluntary manslaughter, while Ansbach and Osborn were booked on suspicion of accessory to manslaughter.
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