BEVERLY HILLS—On Wednesday, October 29, the Los Angeles County District’s Attorney’s Office announced that David Pearce, 43, was sentenced today to 146 years to life in state prison for seven sexual assaults and the fentanyl-induced murders of Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola and Christy Giles, whose bodies were left outside separate hospitals in November 2021. In addition, he was ordered to register as a lifetime sex offender.
Pearce was sentenced by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter in Department 109 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
Officials reported that on February 4, a jury found David Brian Pearce guilty in case BA498423 of all charges and allegations: two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola; three counts of forcible rape; two counts of sexual penetration by use of force; one count of sodomy by use of force; and one count of rape of an unconscious woman in the sexual assaults of seven different victims.
In February 2025, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict against Pearce’s co-defendant Brant Osborn, 46, for two counts of accessory to murder after the fact. A new trial for Osborn is expected to take place with a scheduled pretrial on November 18 in Department 109 at the Foltz Criminal Courthouse.
On November 13, 2021, at approximately 3 a.m., Pearce and Osborn met victims Giles and Cabrales-Arzola at a warehouse party in East Los Angeles. About two hours later, Giles and Cabrales-Arzola accompanied Pearce and Osborn back to Pearce’s Beverly Hills apartment. While at the apartment, Pearce provided Giles and Cabrales-Arzola gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and fentanyl, causing Giles and Cabrales-Arzola to fatally overdose.
Within about 35 minutes of arriving at the apartment, Cabrales-Arzola called a rideshare service to leave the location, but neither Cabrales-Arzola nor Giles left the residence until Pearce carried Giles out of the apartment about 11 hours later and carried Cabrales-Arzola out about an hour and a half afterwards.
Pearce dropped the victims off at two different local hospitals. Giles was dead when she was dropped off at the hospital. Cabrales-Arzola was resuscitated and died 11 days later, one day short of her 27th birthday.
Upon further investigation, it was discovered that Pearce committed numerous drug-facilitated sexual assaults against multiple women spanning from 2005 to 2021. All seven victims testified at trial to Pearce’s sexual depravity and violent tendencies.