A California woman captured her own murder on a voicemail that was used to convict her abusive boyfriend five years later.
Laura Sardinha, 25, was stabbed to death in her Huntington Beach apartment on September 2, 2020.
Her boyfriend, 39-year-old Craig Charron, was found guilty of her murder on Tuesday, reported the Los Angeles Times.
Prosecutors said Sardinha and Charron’s relationship had been fraught with abuse and she had just changed the locks on her doors when he broke in and killed her.
That afternoon, while on a three-way call with her best friend and her mother, Charron entered the apartment and Sardinha said, ‘Oh my God, he’s here.’
Her friend hung up and called 911, and Sardinha tried to call her back but was sent to voicemail.
On the message, Sardinha can be heard screaming, ‘He’s gonna kill me!’ and ‘Get away from me!’
‘If you listen to it carefully, you hear a woman narrating her own murder,’ Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Janine Madera told the jury.
The prosecution said Charron stabbed Sardinha twice in the chest, nearly sliced her nose off, and stabbed her in the head so hard it bent a pronged tomato knife he was using, the LA Times reported.
Police arrived to find Sardinha dead and Charron bleeding from wounds to his chest and neck, which the prosecution argued was self inflicted.
Charron, who is an Air Force veteran, claimed Sardinha had attacked him and he stabbed her in self defense.
However, the prosecution argued Charron stabbed himself and pointed to Sardinha’s voicemail claiming he took pleasure in killing her.
‘You don’t hear the defendant on it, and his silence is absolutely deafening,’ Madera said. ‘He’s enjoying taking his time killing her.’
Charron is six feet tall and 220 pounds, about nine inches tall and over 100 pounds heavier than Sardinha.
The prosecution also pointed out that Sardinha had been in a motorcycle accident in 2019 that left her unable to work in her job as a bartender’s assistant
‘She can’t cut lemons and limes reliably with a knife, let alone defend her life,’ Madera said. ‘He towered over her.’
In a settlement from the accident, she received $750,000, of which she gave Charron $100,000.
Prosecutors said Charron texted Sardinha about the money saying, ‘Thank you for showing me that you are all mine.’
Madera used other recordings Sardinha took to show the couple had been in an abusive relationship.
On the morning of her murder, Charron reportedly woke Sardinha up in the morning, demanding oral sex.
She recorded herself begging him to leave, according to the local newspaper. ‘You terrify me because you won’t leave,’ Sardinha said.
Two weeks before her murder, Sardinha recorded herself complaining to Charron that she couldn’t hear because of a busted eardrum.
‘You keep hitting me,’ she said. ‘Massage my calves or end this relationship,’ he replied.
Charron’s sentencing is scheduled for July 25. He faces the possibility of life in prison.