Erika Friman claims she never believed Pedro Bravo got capable of kill.
Student’s Journal Trick Research in Test For Killing Friend
The ex-girlfriend of Pedro Bravo, the Florida university student who had been located accountable the other day of eliminating the woman latest really love in the so-called Gainesville like Triangle test, said she never believed the smart, charismatic pupil she when outdated was actually with the capacity of murder.
“the guy particular tricked all of us, considering, you understand, this guy that’s scared and then he wouldn’t damage a fly,” Erika Friman advised ABC’s Matt Gutman in a job interview for “20/20.” “we don’t believe people within correct attention would go as far as they have.”
Bravo, 20, was actually found guilty of first-degree kill and six different matters into the death of 18-year-old institution of Fl college student Christian Aguilar. He had been sentenced alive in jail.
For the demo, prosecutors alleged that Bravo was therefore distraught over determining their ex-girlfriend, Friman, got dating his pal, Aguilar, he concocted an idea to destroy your very the guy and Friman could be along once more.
“This ended up being individuals we knew. This is deliberate,” Friman stated. “It helps it be all a whole lot bad. it is just like the blade just turns within center variety of thing.”
They came out throughout the trial that Bravo held a really intricate journal, whereby he professed his fascination with Friman repeatedly, writing obsessively about winning the lady straight back, immediately after which, how however pull off murdering the friend he’d understood since middle school — all of these surprised Friman, just who affirmed against Bravo and read the diary for the first time whenever she had been on the stay.
“It sounds like your mind of a sociopath, or an ill individual,” she stated. “A large amount of it absolutely was his obsession personally, and just how the guy desired me personally as well as just how he wished to become beside me.”
Friman stated she started dating Bravo after two comprise sophomores in high-school in Miami.
She remembered in the beginning becoming drawn to him because he produced their make fun of, but by their particular senior 12 months, he began to use on her behalf. She stated she advised him she wished to bring some slack using their commitment, but Bravo wouldn’t accept they and appeared depressed.
“I decided he around controlled me personally at that point inside my lifestyle, where he had been kind of like, ‘if we create these things, we’ll not be exactly the same,’” she said. “I found myself truly stressed that, I don’t see, things poor would take place when we grabbed a break.”
Therefore Friman stored matchmaking your through summer 2012, until she had to create for Santa Fe Community university in Gainesville, Florida. That’s whenever she mentioned she informed Bravo, “we don’t discover a future to you, and I also don’t might like to do cross country, and this doesn’t render me personally happy today.”
“I tried become since obvious as I could, but I mean, evidently the guy didn’t understand it,” she stated.
When they broke up, Friman stated Bravo ended up being “very emotional” and cried, but she noticed “free,” like a “weight got just been raised.” Following the break-up, she started watching their buddy Christian Aguilar, who she said generated their feel special.
“Christian forced me to truly delighted and in addition we have plenty things in accordance,” she mentioned.
But after she reached college or university, Friman mentioned she read from a friend that Bravo got furthermore signed up at Santa Fe Community school and was still distressed over dropping the girl, actually suicidal. Friman mentioned she checked up on him, but stored this lady union with Aguilar a secret.
“i recently decided [Bravo] recommended additional time before reading they,” she stated. “whenever I talked to [Bravo], after all, I lied to him. I informed your, ‘no [Aguilar and that I tend to be] not, we’re not dating, we’re just hanging out and I also don’t discover many people here’. It was because I got currently recognized he had been suicidal and that I performedn’t need put him on top of the advantage.”
After that, in Sep 2012, Friman said Bravo known as Aguilar, claiming he had been experiencing down and need help. Prosecutors claimed that Aguilar came across with Bravo and got into his automobile, in which Bravo afterwards poisoned your, strangled him with his strip, subsequently dumped their body. Aguilar’s looks is located 22 era afterwards in a wooded place 60 kilometers beyond Gainesville.
Friman stated she initial realized Aguilar is lost several hours after he went to satisfy Bravo when he wouldn’t respond to their cellphone. She started initially to stress and kept trying to contact both of all of them before the morning hours time. Aguilar’s cellphone stored gonna voicemail, but ultimately, Bravo 
found.
“[Bravo] responses as well as the first thing we ask him had been like, ‘Where’s Christian?’” And he’s just like, ‘oh, you are sure that, I was falling your off, you are aware, we found myself in an argument, you know, a verbal debate,’” she said.
In police interrogation tapes played in courtroom, Bravo acknowledge to police he have found with Aguilar regarding night of his death, and two experienced a quarrel, but that Aguilar had gotten out of the car and Bravo drove off without him.
When she couldn’t come across Aguilar, Friman made Bravo opt for this lady to document your missing out on to police.
She stated she thought Bravo’s story he and Aguilar had fought and Bravo got kept him someplace, but that Aguilar got harmed or missing. But as opportunity proceeded, and Aguilar didn’t come home, she stated the lady uncertainty of Bravo expanded.
“It is like nudging in the rear of my head, Pedro must have been engaging,” Friman proceeded. “It was actually sickening, about, just because we know him for so long, and Christian ended up being his pal.”
Friman refused that getting in advance with Bravo about the girl commitment with Aguilar will have ended Bravo from killing your, and does not regret testifying against him.
“People let me know all the time, ‘oh you’re thus strong, you’re therefore courageous,’ and I look at them, and I’m kind of just like, ‘well, if perhaps you were in my boots, you’d do the same thing, you’ll testify,’” she said. “If it had been the passion for your lifetime you forgotten, and this refers to the thing you can certainly do for your, for his parents, for his storage, you’d discover a way to pull it all together.”
Friman mentioned there is not each and every day that goes by that she doesn’t think of Aguilar. She thinks if the guy had been alive today, they might have actually gotten married.
“i do believe we had been soul mates,” she said. “You don’t expect to drop the really love that younger, and not this kind of a distressing ways… [but] at the conclusion of a single day, whenever I think about these unknowns, I think of just how much Christian appreciated myself, which’s method of just what becomes my personal through it.”
