Pedro Bravo was 18 years old when he was arrested and charged with the murder of his friend Christian Aguilar, also 18, who went missing from Gainesville, Florida, after the two hung out on September 20, 2012. At the time, Aguilar’s body had not been found but authorities found blood inside Bravo’s vehicle and the missing man’s backpack in his apartment, News4Jax reported.
Twenty-two days after Aguilar’s disappearance, his body was found by hunters in Levy County and on October 15, 2012, Gainesville police revealed that dental records confirmed that the remains found were Aguilar’s, CNN reported at the time.
According to authorities, Bravo murdered his friend Aguilar on September 20, 2012, by poisoning and strangling him. They argued that Bravo had been upset at finding out that Aguilar had begun dating Bravo’s ex-girlfriend Erika Friman, who he’d been trying to win back. After murdering Aguilar, authorities said Bravo dumped the University of Florida freshman’s body in the woods about an hour away, the Miami Herald reported.
Where is Pedro Bravo today?
He Was Found Guilty of Aguilar’s Murder & Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
Florida Department of CorrectionsTaylor Correctional Institution
Bravo was found guilty of first-degree murder and received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his friend, public records show. The judge also gave Bravo an additional 40 years in prison following Bravo’s convictions of false imprisonment, poisoning, providing false information to law enforcement officers and more.
After his sentencing on August 15, 2014, Bravo was transferred to the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections and is now serving his sentence at the Taylor Correctional Institution. The facility is located near Perry, south of Tallahassee, and is a prison for male inmates with a capacity of 1,301. The convicted murderer is now 27 years old. His attorneys filed an appeal in 2016 which was denied by the state of Florida.
At his sentencing hearing, Bravo did not accept responsibility for the crime and said, “It doesn’t matter what anyone says. I know in my heart what I did. I did not kill my friend,” the Miami Herald reported.
Bravo’s Journal in Which He Detailed His Torment Over His Breakup With Friman Was Read at His Trial
The Inner Thoughts of a Teen Killer: Inside Pedro Bravo’s Journal http://t.co/6diNnGLlkJ – Tomorrow on #ABC2020 http://t.co/PxtbF7IiKz
Photos of Bravo’s journal have been shared by ABC News as it featured heavily in his trial, with pages and pages detailing his plans to get his girlfriend Friman back, writing one day, “You’re the most amazing girl I have ever met in my life.”
It appeared that he didn’t take their breakup well, writing, “When you left, you shattered my heart into a trillion pieces. At first it hurt real bad. But using the banach-tarski paradox, I rearranged these pieces into two hearts, each the same size as the first? Now I am a time lord. And I am way out of your league.”
With some entries showing the date, Bravo’s journal showed that as the summer of 2012 went on, he began despairing about how to approach and talk to Friman and revealed that she’d ignored him. On July 29, 2012, he wrote that she removed him from Facebook: “I feel a piece of my world ending already. Though now begins my journey to win her back,” Bravo wrote.
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