The Killer Was RIGHT In Front Of Them…

The footage on screen right now was recorded at a New Year's Eve party in December of 2002. As you can see, the house is packed with young people drinking, dancing, and just generally having a good time. The video was never intended to be anything serious, just a small keepsake to remember a night of fun and celebration with friends.

However, within just hours of this being filmed, it had become something far more disturbing. You see, not only had this tape captured some of the final moments of one of the people in attendance that night, there was another small but important secret on it still waiting to be uncovered. In fact, this case would become all about these seemingly tiny clues, many of which were hidden in plain sight, that when added together told a deeply horrifying story.

And if that doesn't sound unsettling enough, well, this story also features one of the darkest coincidences I think I've ever come across in a case like this. As always, my name is Nigel. I run this channel with my good friend Luke.

And welcome, or welcome back to Crime Zone. A reminder, if you do find today's video interesting and informative, be sure to like and subscribe for more true crime stories told with a mysterious and suspenseful vibe. With that out of the way, let's dive in.

On New Year's Eve of 2002, Valerie Zavala Wilson had a lot to celebrate. She had a large and loving circle of family and friends. She was doing well in school, and at just 19 years old, she was well on her way to achieving her dreams in life.

Valerie was originally from Filillmore, California, a small agricultural city of less than 20,000 people. She and her three siblings had all been born and raised there. And by all accounts, she had a happy childhood.

Growing up, Valerie always made friends easily. She had this bubbly, vibrant personality that really drew people in, and it was one of the reasons that at a young age, she'd gotten into cheerleading. Valerie joined her first cheerleading squad when she was still in middle school.

And she'd been a cheerleader for the football team during all four years she was in high school. Because Filillmore is one of those classic small cities where everyone goes out to watch the high school football games. It was how a lot of people in the area knew Valerie.

It was also how she'd made a ton of her closest friendships. More than anything, though, Valerie had a reputation for being kind and thoughtful. She was known for putting others before herself.

And while she liked having fun just as much as anyone else, as the eldest child in the family, she tried to set a good example and be a role model for her two younger sisters and her brother. and this was definitely something she had succeeded at. After finishing high school, Valerie decided that she wanted to become a teacher.

She'd spent some time taking classes locally, but recently she'd managed to get into San Jose State University. She transferred that past fall and had just finished her first semester there. Now, this was a big deal for Valerie.

Not only was she the first person in her family to attend university, things were going really well. Valerie was enjoying her courses. She'd found a part-time job at a local grocery store to help support herself, and she'd even joined a sorority.

In typical fashion, Valerie had already made a ton of friends there, and she'd also taken on additional responsibilities as the sorority's fundraising chairwoman. Of course, being away from home also had its challenges. Valerie was very close with her family and her friends back in Filillmore.

So being halfway across the state wasn't easy. But Valerie was determined to follow her dreams. And actually, that's also part of what made this holiday season so special.

It was really the first time that Valerie had been able to come home for an extended visit. For most of Christmas, Valerie had been hanging out with family, spending time going back and forth between her mom and dad's places. From the sounds of it, the two of them were no longer together.

But Valerie and her siblings were doing their best to split their time between both parents. That night though, New Year's Eve, Valerie was planning to do something more for herself. She was going to head out to a party and finally catch up with some of her friends.

This was a party that was thrown every year, and most of those in attendance were people Valerie knew from high school cheerleading and football. So, when she left her dad's house that evening, she was very excited. She couldn't wait to hear what everyone had been up to, and she was looking forward to celebrating the start of the new year, surrounded by all of the people she had been missing.

So, yeah, 2003 had all of the makings of another amazing year for Valerie, and that's exactly what it should have been. [clears throat] Sadly, though, instead, that night would end in a way that none of Valerie's loved ones could have ever imagined. Hey, Nigel from the future here again.

And today I've got a different sort of crime story for you. About 15 years ago, when I was still in university, my parents were going through our family's mail one day when they came across a weird bill. It was addressed to my mom and it was from the phone company.

Or at least it was from a phone company. You see, we did not have an account with this provider. We also didn't have a phone with the number on this bill.

It wasn't a mistake, though. This is how we found out that my mom's identity had been stolen. Now, thankfully, this person didn't manage to get access to her social insurance number.

Just FYI, that's the Canadian version of a social security number for those of you in the US. But even so, the next few weeks were pretty scary. My mom had to contact the police, her bank, and put in a report with all the credit bureaus.

She even ended up getting a new driver's license. The thing is though that even after all of this, there was never really a point where it was over. You know, the person responsible was never caught.

And this awful invasion of privacy and security was something my mom just kind of had to learn to live with. Unfortunately, not only is this not a unique story, Identity theft and other related crimes have only become more of an issue since then. And in today's increasingly online world, it's not just the criminals you need to watch out for.

There's also the countless businesses known as data brokers that thrive on the totally legal process of collecting and selling our personal information. Thankfully though, there is a way to fight back. And that's where the sponsor of today's video, Aura, comes in.

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To get started, head on over to aura. com/crimezone or check out the link in the description below. That's orura.

com/crimezone to start taking back control of your digital privacy today. At around 10:00 a. m.

the following morning, so January 1st, 2003, a 15-year-old boy was out for a run in an isolated part of Ventura County. He was jogging along a section of two-lane highway called South Mountain Road when suddenly a truck came speeding up behind him. This was technically a main road, but because it was only two lanes and it was in a fairly rural area, there was no sidewalk and the roadway wasn't very wide.

The teen could tell the truck was taking up quite a bit of space and it didn't look like the driver could see him. The vehicle was actually close enough that at the last second he had to jump out of the way onto one of the dirt shoulders of the road to avoid being hit. Now, obviously, this was pretty frightening, but it was nothing compared to what happened next.

As the boy was catching his breath, he happened to look over into a concrete culvert just a few feet away from where he had jumped. That's when he spotted what appeared to be a human body. When officers for the Ventura County Sheriff's Office were alerted and arrived at the scene, they quickly confirmed the awful discovery, wedged at the bottom of the drainage pipe were remains of a young woman.

Sadly, there was nothing anyone could do. She was dead. What was clear that the young woman had not been here for very long.

What was also obvious is that what had happened to her wasn't an accident. For starters, it seemed that someone had tried to cover her with branches from a cypress tree, and her injuries were not consistent with a hit and run. Instead, it looked like she'd been viciously attacked.

The female victim had blood coming out of her left ear, some of which wasn't even dry yetad. It would later be determined that she had suffered multiple blunt force injuries to her head, at least one of which was powerful enough to rupture her eardrum. While this indicated she'd been savagely beaten, her actual cause of death was asphixxiation resulting from compression to the neck.

And sadly, that still wasn't the worst part. At the time that she was found, the young woman was only partially clothed. Her shirt was pulled up and some of her clothing, including her underwear, was missing altogether.

To detectives, it suggested that she may have been sexually assaulted. Despite all of this, there wasn't much obvious physical evidence at the crime scene. The one exception was a single shoe impression that had been left in the dirt close to the culvert.

The impression was quite large, and authorities estimated it had been left by a men's tennis shoe between the sizes of 11 and 13. Investigators took photos of the shoe print, but on its own, it wasn't a lot. Police concluded that a possible explanation for the lack of evidence was that this is not where the female victim had been killed.

It turned out her clothing wasn't the only thing missing either. No phone, purse, or any form of ID were found, and one of her earrings was also gone. Authorities soon discovered other details supporting this.

The female victim had additional abrasions and bruising to her body, marks that appeared to show she'd been dragged by both her arms and legs at some point. Also, those cypress branches I mentioned a second ago that had been used to cover the body, there were none of those trees in this area. So, the branches had to have come from somewhere else.

Of course, as disturbing as all of this was, the top priority for investigators was figuring out who this woman was. Given the circumstances, they were worried this might be difficult. But when they began contacting other law enforcement in the area, very quickly, they received a heartbreaking lead.

It came from the Filillmore Police Department, who said that they had received a 911 call that morning from a worried family who hadn't been able to get a hold of one of their loved ones. The woman who made that call was named Michelle Wilson. And when investigators heard the details, they realized that they now had to deliver some gut-wrenching news.

>> My daughter went to a party last night and um she disappeared this morning. Who saw her that? >> Um her friend did.

And this is just not like her. She just be gone. >> Okay.

And what is her name? >> Valerie. Been trying to call her cell phone all morning.

>> Yes, that's she was supposed to meet us. and um she didn't show up. And so then I called and called and called and I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

What do I do? >> When Valerie's family were notified about the terrible discovery on South Mountain Road, it didn't take them long to positively identify her remains. As I told you before, it was estimated she'd only been in the place where she was found for a few hours at most.

And the process was made even easier by a distinctive star tattoo on Valerie's wrist. Valerie had always been fascinated by stars, and as soon as her loved ones saw the photos, they knew it was her. Now, understandably, this was totally devastating.

But what hit Valerie's family particularly hard was how quickly all of this had happened. Obviously, they'd been worried enough to report her missing, but they said that they just spoken to her earlier that same morning. The family explained that Valerie went to a New Year's Eve party the previous night hosted by her friend Denise Herertado.

They knew that she'd gotten there and everything was going well because she'd called Michelle around 12:40 a. m. to wish her a happy new year.

Valerie's loved ones said that they had no idea who could have done something like this to her. She didn't have any enemies. She wasn't involved in any risky or illegal activities.

And she wasn't even drinking that night. In fact, Valerie had offered to be a designated driver. During that same phone call with her mom, she said that she was actually going to be leaving the party soon, but that before she went back to her dad's place, she had agreed to drive a couple of friends home first.

Initially, when Valerie didn't arrive, the family thought her plans might have just changed. You know, maybe she ended up crashing at one of her friends houses or something. But when she failed to show up for a brunch they'd planned at Michelle's house for New Year's Day and they started calling around, they realized that no one else knew where she was either.

After hearing all of this, detectives went to speak with Denise Herertado, who was able to give them some useful information. In addition to telling them that Valerie had left her party around 1:30 a. m.

, she also provided a list of people who had attended. Denise said that a bunch of these people had actually come back to her house that morning after everyone learned that Valerie was missing. A group of them had even gone out searching at one point, including the two people Valerie dropped off at home right before she disappeared.

Their names were Anna Hinahosa and Sammy Puebla. Anna was the first one of the pair the detectives interviewed, and she was in rough shape. She said that she'd had way too much to drink the night before, but she was able to fill in some crucial additional details for them.

Anna explained that she had gone to Denise's party with Valerie and her cousin, and that originally Valerie hadn't planned on driving, so they had taken Anna's car. But when Anna got sick and started throwing up shortly after 1:00 a. m.

, Valerie took care of her and said that she would take her back to her cousin's place. As they were getting ready to head out, Sammy asked for a ride home, too. Valerie didn't really know Sammy that well, but she knew he was a senior at Filillmore High School and was friends with her younger sister, Jessica, so she agreed to take him as well.

As for the actual ride home, Anna stated that was mostly a blur. She was throwing up even as they were driving, so Valerie dropped her off first. She did know one thing, though.

Whatever had happened to Valerie, it had likely taken place soon after because she had never been able to return Anna's car. her black 1993 Toyota Corolla. Anna still had no idea where it was.

When authorities spoke to Sammy, he basically gave the same rundown of events that Anna had. He said he'd asked for a ride home and that he was dropped off second, but he said that everything seemed totally fine when he last saw Valerie. He thanked her, they wished each other a happy new year, and they both went their separate ways.

Of course, given that Anna and Sammy had both admitted to being among the last people to see Valerie before she was killed, detectives had to consider the possibility that one or both of them could have been involved. However, there were also good reasons to think that this was not the case. Anna was pretty easy to write off because almost everyone at the party had seen how sick she was when she left.

As for Sammy, he just didn't seem like the type. Sammy was 17 years old, so one of the younger people in attendance that night. He was there mainly because he was on the current Filillmore High football team and so he had played with people who had previously graduated.

Sammy kind of had a reputation as a jokester, a guy who made people laugh and who got along with pretty much everyone. He was popular enough that a couple of months earlier he'd actually been voted the school's homecoming king. There was one other reason the detectives weren't ready to jump to any conclusions about Anna and Sammy, though, and that's because of something else they had heard from them and from several other people who were at the party.

It turned out dropping Sammy off was not Valerie's last stop before heading home that night. She had also planned to see her ex-boyfriend, a guy named Isaac Flores. Isaac was also a former high school football player.

In fact, that's how he and Valerie had first met. Isaac was a couple of years older, though, and he had not attended Denise's New Year's Eve party. Valerie and Isaac had dated for about 2 years while she was in high school.

And while they'd eventually broken up, they stayed in touch. Valerie always had a soft spot for Isaac, and multiple people who spoke with police said they'd seen her on the phone with him that night more than once. When detectives went to Isaac's house and interviewed him, he admitted that he and Valerie had made plans that night.

She had called to wish him a happy new year and he said that she was supposed to stop by after dropping off her friends. According to Isaac though, she never arrived. He claimed he tried calling her again several times that morning, but after that she never picked up.

When investigators asked what Isaac had been doing for New Year's Eve, he said that he had some friends over at his place. He denied having anything to do with Valerie's murder, but investigators weren't so sure, especially because by this point, they had learned that Isaac had a history of jealousy during his relationship with Valerie. While this wasn't much on its own, it was a potential motive.

And pretty soon, it wouldn't be the only thing making Isaac Flores look suspicious. Early the next morning, so January 2nd, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department were notified about an important development. A black car had been found abandoned at a local business in Filillmore, and officers who had been called there were pretty sure it was Anahin Hosa's missing Toyota Corolla.

The business in question was a market called La Plaza, and it was located right off one of the main roads that travels through the city. This was actually kind of strange because the car had just been left there out in the open in the parking lot. But sure enough, when detectives arrived, they confirmed that yeah, this was the vehicle they'd been searching for.

And when they looked inside, what they found was important. While the majority of the stuff in the car was Anna's, several items belonged to Valerie. This included her purse as well as a jean jacket and a blue and white blouse she had been wearing at the New Year's Eve party.

Investigators recognized the clothes because they'd seen them in pictures and videos they'd managed to obtain from some of the people who had attended that night. Arguably the most disturbing evidence, though, were marks on the interior driver's side door and the car's center console. To detectives, they seem to indicate that some sort of a struggle had taken place inside the car.

Unfortunately, there were no surveillance cameras either in or near the parking lot, so authorities couldn't say for sure who had dumped the vehicle there. However, they had an idea who it could have been. And that brings us back to Isaac Flores.

You see, the spot where Anna's vehicle was found, it was like a fiveminute walk from his house. So, yeah, understandably, that was pretty sketchy. In fact, it was enough that police decided to reinter Isaac and collect a sample of his DNA.

But that wasn't all that seemed to be pointing in his direction. By now, news of Valerie's murder had spread all over Filillmore and the surrounding area, leading to several tips from potential witnesses. Three of these accounts in particular stood out.

And while the descriptions these witnesses provided were vague, they all involved an unknown Hispanic male who'd been spotted at key times and in key areas connected to the crime. The first witness was a cashier who said that she was pretty sure she'd seen Valerie with a young man at the gas station where she worked. Shortly after Valerie left Denise's party, she said a woman matching Valerie's description had stopped to fill up the car she was driving, a black Toyota, and that she'd also briefly come in to use the bathroom.

The man never came inside, but the cashier said she remembered him lingering around the gas pumps and poking his head around, almost like he wanted to see if someone was watching. This gas station was directly across the street from where the abandoned car was later found. The second witness told police that they'd been driving home at around 3:30 a.

m. on New Year's Day when they passed the La Plaza Market and saw this man standing near what they now realized was Anna's car. They couldn't tell much about him other than that he was wearing a jacket that was light at the top and dark at the bottom, but he appeared to be in his early 20s.

The third witness gave a nearly identical description, but said that they had seen this man several hours later. The witness said that she was driving and that the man caught her attention because he was standing next to an older model teal minivan that was parked at the side of the road. The door was open as she passed by.

But that wasn't what she remembered most about the encounter. You see, the area she was driving, it was right near the concrete culvert on South Mountain Road. And this had happened at 900 a.

m. , so just an hour before Valerie's body was found there. The three witness accounts helped to significantly fill in the timeline of the case.

Police theorized that sometime after leaving the gas station, the suspect had killed Valerie before driving to the market where they'd abandoned Anna's car. They then loaded Valerie's body into a second vehicle, taking her out to the culvert where they tried to hide her remains. So, with this information, authorities had everything they needed to arrest Isaac, right?

I mean, Valerie was on her way to see him when she was murdered. Anna's car was found at 5 minutes from his house. And then there were those witness descriptions.

Well, not exactly. I mentioned that the descriptions the witnesses gave were not the most detailed, but when they sat down with police sketch artists, a composite was able to be made. The problem was the suspect looked nothing like Isaac Flores.

And that wasn't the only issue. Isaac did not own a teal minivan. And his alibi about being with his friends on New Year's Eve, it checked out.

So, what was going on here? Well, as it turned out, there was a vital piece of information detectives were missing. And when they got this piece of information, not only would it turn the case entirely on its head, it would also lead to that deeply chilling coincidence I hinted at at the beginning of this video.

On January 7th, 2003, so 6 days after Valerie Zavala Wilson's murder, a funeral was held for her at the St. Francis of Aisi Church in Filillmore, more than 400 people came out to mourn her loss. And it was clear just how big of an impact Valerie had on the people around her.

Among those in attendance were her sorority sisters from at least five different cities and several of Valerie's co-workers at the grocery store in San Jose. People she had met only months earlier. They drove all night just to be there.

The service was heartbreaking for a lot of reasons, but some of the most impactful words were shared by Valerie's mother, Michelle. She spoke about how she hadn't just lost her daughter, she'd lost her best friend. remembering, quote, "On Girls Night Out, we watched Julia Roberts movies and ate Doritos and avocados.

" She also talked about Valerie's love of stars, saying, quote, "Valow is with the stars now. Every time I look at them, I will see her as a star. " Sadly though, what no one knew is that the most devastating part of that day was yet to come.

Because just as Valerie's family finished the burial, police descended on that same church. Authorities were there to search the parking lot, specifically the area around a dumpster right at the back of the property. And almost immediately, it was obvious they were in the right place.

While scouring the scene, officers found a bunch of the missing items they've been looking for since the very start of the investigation. Valerie's second earring was lying on the asphalt. Her phone was found in a drainage ditch running along the side of the property.

And disturbingly, her underwear was also recovered. That wasn't all the police discovered, though. In addition to more of those cypress clippings they'd found covering Valerie's body, investigators noticed two sets of muddy shoe prints in the church parking lot.

The first set belonged to a smaller person, while the second were much larger and had a much longer stride. And when police compared the sizing of this second set to the shoe impressions they found near the culvert, they felt that they were a match. The muddy shoe prints revealed something else, too.

something extremely unsettling. The pattern of the two different tracks suggested that both of these people had been running and that the larger person had been chasing the smaller one. Based on these new clues, detectives were confident that they had now finally found the place where Valerie was actually murdered.

Shockingly, it was just over 100 yards from where her funeral service had been held only hours earlier. And from the sounds of it, at the time, no one had any idea this was the case. Well, actually, I shouldn't say no one, because there was someone who knew exactly what was going on here.

Someone who had been hiding in plain sight since the beginning of all of this. In order to understand what I'm talking about, though, first, I have to explain something else, and that's why police decided to look for evidence at the church in the first place. So, because Valerie's murder took place over the Christmas holidays, not everyone who would normally be working at the Filillmore Police Department and the Ventura County Sheriff's Office was on duty.

A number of people had taken some time off to spend Christmas with their families, including one detective who, as it happened, was able to make a very important connection. When this detective returned from vacation and was brought up to speed on Valerie's case, he recognized a name that had come up during the investigation. It wasn't Isaac Flores, though.

It was Sammy Puebla. It turned out that less than a month before Valerie's murder, Sammy had been arrested in connection with a local burglary. The details of that burglary were interesting enough on their own.

It was a hot prowl, meaning that the victims were home at the time of the break-in. But what really caught the attention of authorities was a confession that Sammy had made at the time that he was caught and taken into custody. He told officers that he had disposed of some of the items he stole during the burglary in that same dumpster behind the St.

Francis of a CC church. After learning this, detectives had decided on a hunch to check out the dumpster again. And sure enough, that's when they had discovered all of those additional clues connected to Valerie's murder.

Now, you might be thinking, "Sure, that looks pretty bad, but what about the fact that Anna's car was found 5 minutes from Isaac's house? " Well, hold on, because there's something else I haven't told you. You see, Sammy lived even closer to the church and the market where the Toyota was recovered.

Here's the neighborhood where he lived, which, as you can see, directly borders the church parking lot. There were other clues, too. Sammy much more closely resembled those descriptions witnesses had given to police and he also had access to a teal minivan.

With that, detectives decided it was time to pay Sammy another visit. During a second taped interview at Sammy's house, detectives again asked him to describe what had happened when Valerie dropped him off on the morning of the murder. >> Could you tell me what happened in the car?

[snorts] >> And I was like, "Hey, happy new year. " I reached over, gave her a hug, you know. Hey, take care.

Did you guys make out or anything or >> So, you end up getting out of the car. >> Did you start walking away or did she wait? >> I closed the door and she just drove off.

>> Everything you've told me so far is the truth. [clears throat] >> Initially, Sammy stuck to his story. However, when he was pressed on the details, it began to change.

>> Sam, again, I'm going to ask you, did it go any further than just a hug? I made a move. I put my lips on her and she's like, "Well, why'd you do that?

" Felt dumb. Can't believe I just made a move and she just rejected me. >> So, yeah, that was version two.

But it wasn't long before Sammy's story changed for a third time after investigators revealed they recovered several items of Valerie's clothing and had now sent them off for DNA testing. I just want to make absolutely sure that what you're telling me is the truth. >> We need to know, Sam.

>> We're going to find out. You know it. >> And if I did have sex with it, then so what?

>> Did you guys get it on? >> They honestly did. >> Understandably, police weren't buying any of this.

However, it was clear at this point that Sammy wasn't going to tell them the truth. But that's when something pretty wild happened. During the conversation, Sammy said that he was getting cold.

So, one of the detectives offered to get a jacket for him from his room. As they pulled one out from a pile of clothes, they couldn't believe what they were looking at. The image you're seeing on screen right now is a photo of the jacket that was captured after it was taken into evidence.

You might notice that it matches the description of the unknown man one of the witnesses gave police, but authorities actually recognized it from somewhere else. I told you before that investigators knew what Valerie was wearing at the New Year's Eve party thanks to photos and videos that had been captured there. Well, a bunch of this footage also included Sammy, and it revealed that this is the jacket he was wearing that night.

In other words, much like Sammy himself, here was another clue that had been kind of eerily hiding in plain sight the whole time. If you thought things couldn't get any worse, sadly, you'd be wrong because authorities had also managed to obtain a warrant to search Sammy's house. And when they started going through the rest of his room, what they found was incredibly creepy.

Hidden in the bedroom were multiple stashes of women's underwear along with several other items he had clearly stolen from young women. This included cell phones, house keys, a driver's license, even a diary. So yeah, that burglary Sammy was arrested for, it was far from his first.

This was a pattern of escalating behavior targeting women, and Sammy was keeping their belongings as trophies. Disturbingly, when police started tracking down some of these victims, they learned that many of these items had been stolen from their bedrooms during the middle of the night. There was one final clue that investigators found in Sammy's room, and it was another big one.

a pair of men's tennis shoes. Not only were these the same size as the prints they'd found at two of the crime scenes, the pattern on the sole appeared to match the impression in the dirt right by the culvert. At this point, detectives were convinced that they'd found Valerie's killer.

But they were still worried about proving their case in court. You know, considering that even they thought that Isaac Flores might be responsible at one time, they didn't want to rush things and end up in a situation where a good defense team could create doubt. They needed an indisputable piece of evidence.

Well, their patience was rewarded when several months after Valerie's murder, analysis came back on a bunch of evidence that authorities had sent off for testing. Saliva samples on Valerie's body and on some of her clothing came back as a match to Sammy Pueblo's DNA. But Sammy's jacket ended up being the real smoking gun.

It turned out that there was a small amount of blood on it when it was recovered, and that blood belonged to Valerie. Sammy Pledo was arrested on June 3rd, 2003, almost exactly 6 months after Valerie's murder. It also happened to be just days before Sammy was set to graduate from high school.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, though, Sammy refused to take responsibility for what he had done, and he had plenty of supporters. When he was arrested, a lot of people in Filillmore were shocked. In news interviews, they said that there was no way this charming, popular homecoming king football player who had everything going for him would have ever done something like this.

Many insisted police had made a mistake. This had to have been someone from outside the community. This is precisely what Sammy's defense team argued a year later when the case went to trial.

They claimed that authorities were feeling the pressure due to the publicity surrounding Valerie's murder and accused them of rushing to arrest and charge Sammy while ignoring other suspects. Of course, as we now know, this couldn't have been further from the truth. And prosecutors were able to demonstrate that.

They laid out all of the evidence they had collected and argued that it all led to an awful but very straightforward sequence of events. After asking for a ride home on January 1st, 2003, Sammy waited until Anna was dropped off at her cousin's place so that he and Valerie would be alone. At some point, he tried to make advances towards her, and when she rejected him, he flew into a rage.

Prosecutors theorized that during some kind of initial struggle, Sammy had strangled Valerie until she passed out, allowing him to take control of Anna's car. He then drove Valerie to the church where he planned on sexually assaulting her. At some point, Valerie woke up and she started running to try and get help.

Sadly, Sammy caught up with her though and during a second attack, he brutally beat and strangled her again, this time ending in her death. Following the murder, Sammy disposed of some of Valerie's possessions in the church dumpster, a place he had used to discard evidence of crimes previously. He then drove Anna's car to the parking lot of the market, which was just across the street, abandoning it there and walking back to his house.

After getting his van, he collected Valerie's body and tried to cover up what had happened by hiding her remains in the concrete culvert along South Mountain Road. In the end, it took the jury less than 6 hours to find Sammy guilty of the crime. He was convicted of first-degree murder and murder committed during an attempted sexual assault.

Well, this meant that Sammy was sentenced to life without parole. In 2012, the state of California changed its laws around the sentencing of minors. This applied retroactively as well.

So, because Sammy was 17 at the time of the murder, it meant that he had to one day at least be eligible for parole. Of course, eligibility is not the same thing as guaranteed release. And there's a good chance that given the nature of his crime, Sammy Puebla could still spend the rest of his life behind bars, especially if he continues to not take accountability for his actions.

Only time will tell how the situation will play out, but at the time of this recording, his earliest possible parole date is in the summer of 2028. I don't think there are too many loose ends to wrap up with this one, so I'll keep it short. But one thing I did briefly want to touch on was something that made me both incredibly sad and incredibly angry about this case.

In interviews we came across during our research for this story. One of the things that Valerie's family talked about was how hard it was watching a lot of the community take Sammy's side following his arrest. Of course, they were initially just as shocked as everyone else, particularly Valerie's sister, Jessica, who felt especially betrayed because, remember, she was friends with Sammy.

But even after some of the details started to come out, there were still plenty of people who just refused to believe that Sammy was responsible. In fact, according to Jessica, some went as far as to suggest that it was unfair Sammy had to miss his high school graduation. Meanwhile, her sister was in the ground.

Sadly, this is an all too familiar story. Something horrifying happens in a town where sports are a big deal, and no one wants to admit that a beloved athlete could be responsible. As though your ability to throw a ball says anything about your capacity for evil.

It's not just athletics. This happens everywhere where people are in positions of authority or prestige. And in some ways, it's very human.

People don't want to believe that those we idolize and aspire to be like could be monsters. While it may be understandable though, I think sadly it can also cause us to overlook the real role models around us. People like Valerie.

Though her achievements might never have gotten her as much attention as the athlete she grew up around on the football team, I think we can all learn more from the way she chose to live her life. And we can from Sammy Puebla. It's clear from the interviews that we saw that Valerie's family is haunted by what happened even more than 20 years later.

And I have to say I don't blame them at all. To finish, I want to leave you with some words Valerie's mother, Michelle, said at the sentencing hearing, which I found not only crushing, but felt were a real window into the grief she and Valerie's other loved ones have been going through ever since that tragic New Year's Day in 2003. Quote, "Sammy, you have truly destroyed my life.

I'm afraid to love, sleep, laugh, cry. Basically afraid to live. I do not know how to hate you.

I only know how to hate that my daughter is gone. Hey there. Before you take off, we just like to take a second and say that we really appreciate you sticking around to the end of the video.

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