people used to sit out in aluminum chairs. and that s where a young couple, wendy and michel, were trying to make a go of it. the rent was cheap. the window air-conditioning good enough. but if you ever thought beautiful people catch all the breaks, then listen to this story of 21-year-old wendy trapaga because she may be the most gorgeous doomed young woman to ever walk these streets. she was model pretty. i don t think that she thought of herself as anything spectacular. her much older sisters and brother ralph never use the qualifier step sister. they ll tell you she was a little bit of a daddy s girl, international airline pilot who died, sadly, in a crash when wendy was just 6. wendy s mother, miriam, raised her with big sister rita always pitching in. i guess i was like that other mother for her because i was always there by miriam s side, raising her. the love of animals was always a part of wendy. she was always rescuing some animal, dog, puppy, kitten, anything.
wendy called her mother to say they were going to a movie and dancing later at a club. her mother urged her pregnant daughter not to drink. then in the middle of the night, the wee hours of monday morning, wendy s mother got an unexpected call from her new son-in-law, michel, saying they ve had an argument. wendy had stormed off, saying she was going to her mother s house. since then, the bridegroom said he d repeatedly called wendy without success. right around then, in a bleak warehouse district miles and miles from the after-hours bars of miami, a sanitation worker was startled to see the body of a young woman in a blue dress slumped between two vehicles. it was the newlywed, wendy. news traveled fast. i get a phone call from my stepmother, screaming, crying. wendy s dead.
especially since he s pursuing the claim. so he has to testify. at this point police and prosecutors were happy to help the family s attorney prepare his case. sharing those statements michel had made to detectives after wendy s death. they call you and say take a look at what we ve got, is that right? we ask if we would be allowed to look at the statements he had given them. we were. michel escoto was videotaped as he gave a sworn deposition. we took his deposition and his story kept changing. so the story about a fight and she takes a hike it doesn t add up. he testified that wendy was it was her idea all of a sudden
question because you re here. you re alive. one thing escoto did reveal, wendy was not pregnant. he said that was the cause of their argument that night. he said wendy had lied to him about the whole thing. as the detective s questions got sharper that day, michel shut down. would you take a polygraph? no. can we photograph those bruises on your arm? no. take a dna swab? again, no. he didn t talk himself off your list of suspects? he did not. he did not. the working theory of the crime was as simple as it was brutal. he bashed in her skull with a million-dollar insurance payout. a tire iron was missing from her car, a likely weapon, but nowhere to be found. so you two go to the prosecutor, state attorney say we ve got it. let s go.
so what did you suggest? i suggested he use a towel to hold her down. yolanda said she even helped him whip up the drug-laced concoction to knock wendy out. he came over and he brought some percocet pills. and he and i started squishing them in i think it s a mortar and pestle thing. what was he going to do with the percocet pills that you ground? he was going to give it to her so she would be drugged. and then drowned, said yolanda. but she added the plan to kill wendy hit an unexpected snag. at the honeymoon hotel in key west wendy balked at the taste