THE case of a newlywed bride who was found beaten to death with a tire iron was solved after crucial evidence was uncovered.
Wendy Trapaga, 21, was murdered just four days after she married Michel Escoto, 30, in 2002.
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Escoto faced a first-degree murder charge after Trapaga was found "strangled, drugged and bludgeoned to death in a warehouse parking lot," according to the Daily Mail.
His motive was to collect Trapaga's million-dollar life insurance policy and then run off with his secret girlfriend, Yolanda Cerrillo, prosecutors said.
However, he did not get away with the crime thanks to Cerrillo's testimony in court.
Cerrillo admitted to being an accomplice in Escoto's crime in exchange for complete immunity from prosecution.
She told the jury: “The secret was too much. It was too stressful.”
The convicted killer reportedly told his longtime live-in girlfriend, Cerrillo, of the plan to murder his new wife so that he could take her money and then run away with Cerrillo.
After Escoto's plan was in motion, he drove to Cerrillo's home, where she could see what appeared to be Trapaga's drugged body reclined in the passenger seat of Escoto's vehicle.
Cerrillo then followed Escoto in her own car to the warehouse parking lot, where she drove around for a little while to give Escoto more time to finish killing his bride.
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When she found Escoto afterward, Cerrillo said he had abandoned his car and was walking in the street covered in blood, holding a tire iron.
Trapaga's body was left in the warehouse and wasn't found until days later.
In the following months, Escoto moved back in with Cerrillo, but the abuse she claims he inflicted on her was too much to bear.
"I had no way out," Cerrillo said.
"He either kills me or I go to jail."
Escoto was sentenced to life in prison without parole during his second trial in 2014.
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Although Cerrillo can't be charged criminally, she was found responsible for Trapaga's death in civil court, where a jury awarded Trapaga's mother $44million.
Dateline aired an episode on the murder case titled: "Mystery in South Beach."
