How Not to Get Rid of a Body S01E02 Sin City Secret
Las Vegas detectives embark on the hunt of their careers as they try to track down those responsible for the horrific murder of a young woman after her body turns up in a concrete and wooden box in the middle of the desert.
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00:00I knew something was wrong.
00:10Something happened to her.
00:12Her killer thought he was going to get away with it.
00:16He formulated that plan like some sort of Vegas magic act.
00:20He made the body disappear.
00:22It's like finding a needle in a haystack.
00:25There's such a vast expanse of where it could be.
00:31No one would have believed that anyone would have gone to such lengths to hide a body.
00:56On May 31st, 2019, Esmeralda Gonzalez was reported missing to the Las Vegas Metropolitan
01:08Police Department.
01:11Esmeralda was last seen by her family on May 26th, 2019.
01:18After two days, her brother responded to Esmeralda's address to check up on her.
01:25When he got there, he found her not there.
01:32Her brother called me and told me that she's missing.
01:35I was in denial.
01:40Esmeralda was a very driven young woman.
01:44She was born in Mexico and she came to Las Vegas at a very young age.
01:50She was able to finish up college.
01:53She bought her first house.
01:56She ended up buying a second house and turned it into a rental property.
02:01She became Instagram famous.
02:03She had thousands and thousands of followers.
02:08Why would this girl who is 100% independent go missing when I knew something was wrong?
02:19Her family told us Esmeralda was living in a pretty nice neighborhood and making pretty
02:29good money, but we found she suffered from mental health problems.
02:39When she was on her medication, she was fine.
02:43But if the medication stopped working for her, then she would have episodes.
02:50A week before she went missing, her brother called me and he told me that her mental disorder
02:56is acting up again and something's going on with her medicine.
03:05My news assignment editor said there's this report of a missing Latina.
03:14She was in a very, very fragile state of mind.
03:18To me, it hit home a little more for the simple fact that her parents had come to the United
03:25States for the same reason my parents came here.
03:31Her family just wanted a better life.
03:34It just makes you feel sick to your stomach.
03:42What was her mental state?
03:44Is that the reason why something happened to her?
03:47I didn't know how to react.
03:48It was all like a complete mystery.
03:53What really happened?
04:04For me, all cases are kind of like a puzzle.
04:09When the police detectives first came and spoke to us about the case, they described
04:14it as a missing persons case.
04:17But there's no indication really that anything criminal has happened to her.
04:26We went to Esmeralda's house to see if the disappearance was a result of something that
04:33happened there.
04:36There wasn't a lot of disturbance at her house, but she left her phone.
04:45Her car was there.
04:51We did find that she had video cameras on her door and within the house as well.
05:00We're able to obtain video footage from the cameras in Esmeralda's house.
05:11This video footage shows her behavior around her house in the days leading up to her disappearance.
05:18Hey babe, I'm really freaked out because I can feel my teeth, like they're all loose.
05:27She's acting erratic, strange.
05:32She's heard muttering nonsense phrases and jumping at nothing.
05:47You can see that Esmeralda is essentially not in her right mind during that period of
05:53time.
05:54Even though she's clearly having kind of a mental breakdown, nothing in the house ends
06:00up helping as far as where she went.
06:04The fact that she left items that could be tracked, her cell phone, her debit card, credit
06:12cards, and even her vehicle at her residence, questions also arise on whether or not she
06:20was trying to escape from someone.
06:27We conducted interviews with family members and other friends that showed that Esmeralda
06:32had a boyfriend, John.
06:38Last time that I seen her, six to eight weeks before she went missing, I went to her house
06:43and she instantly stopped me and she said, you cannot come in here.
06:46I have a new man.
06:48He's extremely jealous.
06:49He's controlling.
06:50He watches my cameras.
06:52He doesn't want you around here.
06:55I was like, this is very odd.
07:00We look into John to see what his criminal history was and discovered that there had
07:06been a report of a domestic dispute between Esmeralda and John on the 29th of May.
07:16She is ultimately reported as missing on the 31st.
07:22So we become concerned.
07:40John ends up being rather forthcoming with information in his own whereabouts.
07:48He turns over a cell phone.
07:52He allows detectives to essentially go through social media, stuff like that.
08:02We used cell phone records with location data to determine that John was not with Esmeralda
08:10since May 29th in the days leading up to her disappearance.
08:19At that point in time, we don't have enough to move on John.
08:32The missing persons unit then did a canvas of the neighborhood where Esmeralda lived.
08:38They contacted several neighbors.
08:41A lot of people have ring doorbells that capture video, not only at their front porch or sometimes
08:47even out in the front yard or the street.
08:50One of the neighbors says, oh, hey, I have video footage of a girl knocking on my door.
08:59We did retrieve that security footage.
09:02They're kind of taken aback.
09:05The video footage showed Esmeralda dressed in her lingerie and high heels.
09:14She appears very confused.
09:19When a person is reported missing and you know that they have a history of mental illness,
09:24then we do become concerned about their welfare.
09:31The fear would be that they could become a danger to themselves or a danger to someone
09:36else in the community.
09:39The longer a missing person goes missing, the colder the case gets, the harder it is
09:45to put things together.
09:51Now we have a question.
09:54What has happened to her?
10:07And you can see that 2.33 a.m. time frame is the last time she can be seen alive when
10:14she's walking down the street.
10:20Where did she go?
10:22She's leaving on her own volition from her house, but her behavior is very erratic, and
10:28she just disappears from that moment.
10:32We were concerned, will this missing persons investigation ultimately become a homicide
10:40investigation?
11:09When people are missing for us for a certain amount of time, we assume it's going to ultimately
11:17end in a homicide case.
11:24But we need a body.
11:27Without a body, you have trouble proving that someone's dead or that a crime has occurred.
11:39It's frustrating because you kind of know that Esmeralda's family must be suffering.
11:45I mean, this family wants some closure, and we can't give it because we can't definitively
11:53say what happened.
11:56We can't essentially tell that family to give up hope.
12:07The hardest part is just not knowing what really happened.
12:12I was afraid somebody was doing harm to her.
12:17And then you're just searching all over town, going everywhere that you know that she normally
12:22goes, where she gets her nails done, the gas station, all her friends and family.
12:33You're going everywhere you can think that she possibly went to, putting flyers up all
12:36over town.
12:54Then approximately six weeks later, on July 18th, 2019, Metro PD's Homicide Unit receives
13:04an anonymous tip via a phone call.
13:10The information in the anonymous tip was that a prostitute came to be in the company of
13:15a person called Christopher Prestapino, and that she had been held against her will for
13:24a couple of days and was ultimately murdered by Christopher Prestapino.
13:32We had doubted whether or not Esmeralda is the girl that was discussed in the tip.
13:39However, that gets me interested.
13:45This was the first real significant break in this investigation, and the investigation
13:53is turned upside down.
14:02There was investigation done into what was going on in Esmeralda's social life, given
14:08that she was a social media influencer.
14:18But we learned she had ties to quasi-adult entertainment.
14:27She worked as one of those showgirls on the strip where you wear the feathers and you
14:31take pictures with tourists.
14:33And I told her that it was not safe, like you don't have security, you're vulnerable.
14:38So she agreed that she would work at a gentleman's club.
14:45And she worked, worked, worked, and worked, and saved every penny she possibly could.
14:49And that's why she was able to be successful and invest in real estate.
14:56There were definitely adult entertainment aspects of her life, kind of loosely fitting
15:04what the anonymous tipster had said.
15:10So it seemed like a pretty valid tip, but for us as prosecutors, we need a crime scene
15:17or we need a body.
15:18I mean, we need something to go on if we're going to charge a homicide much more than
15:24this person is missing.
15:31The first thing done with this information is try to identify the person named in the
15:38tip.
15:39In this case, they were able to identify Christopher Prestapino because his last name is very unusual.
15:48We learned that Christopher worked here in Las Vegas.
15:53He dealt with production lighting.
15:56He was sort of a behind-the-scenes worker, and they were able to find out that around
16:04the time Esmeralda goes missing, he doesn't show up for work, which is unusual for him.
16:15He had a criminal history involving possession and sales of narcotics.
16:24But based on what I saw on social media, this guy was perverted.
16:29He had so many posts, inappropriate posts about women, things he would do to women.
16:39I remember seeing that he liked a lot of, like, nasty groups on Facebook.
16:46He was a sicko walking around in our community.
16:51He was a predator.
16:57I never met this guy.
17:00But there's so many thoughts going through your mind, you can't help but to think, like,
17:05Are these things connected?
17:12Was there some connection between Esmeralda Gonzalez and Christopher Prestapino?
17:36We map out Esmeralda's address and Christopher's address and find that they're less than one-tenth
17:43of a mile apart.
17:49The street that Prestapino's cul-de-sac empties out onto is a street that was once the home
17:56of a group of drug traffickers.
18:00The street that Prestapino's cul-de-sac empties out onto is, in fact, the same street that
18:07Esmeralda is seen walking towards when she leaves that neighbor's house at 2.30 a.m.
18:14on May 31st.
18:18Because of the proximity of Esmeralda Gonzalez's house and also kind of the description of
18:25her loosely fitting what the anonymous tipster had said, we were able to put together that
18:33she was likely the person in the anonymous tip.
18:39Up until this moment, there has been a bunch of dead ends in the Esmeralda Gonzalez investigation.
18:47Now it seems that there's been a huge break in the case.
18:54Christopher Prestapino ends up being the suspect.
18:57Prestapino is playing game the cat and mouse.
19:01If you don't have a body, one of the main elements of a human being being killed, you
19:08have to prove murder through at least circumstantial evidence.
19:20We subpoenaed Christopher's banking records and we could see where his card was used.
19:31We pulled the video surveillance.
19:33You see trips to the hardware store.
19:37The hardware purchases start occurring on June 2nd after Esmeralda went missing.
19:44All of the purchases were highly suspicious, like a rope and cement and wheelbarrow and
19:52all these things that you would need in order to move a body.
19:58But all of the little pieces of evidence is circumstantial evidence.
20:04So it was helpful, but not definitive that a crime has occurred.
20:11We also learn Christopher Prestapino does three different truck rentals from June 8th
20:18to June 10th.
20:23Esmeralda is reported missing on the 31st.
20:29If Christopher Prestapino did kill Esmeralda and did not dispose of the body until the
20:3510th, he had a long period of time to formulate and enact a plan to dispose of that body.
20:50There's like 200 miles put on the rental truck, but Las Vegas, there's a lot of desert surrounding
20:57it.
20:58There's such a vast expanse of where the remains of Esmeralda Gonzalez could be.
21:05But we needed to try to piece together where she was.
21:09So it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
21:20If he killed Esmeralda, I think Prestapino thinks he can outsmart detectives.
21:26If you don't have a body, we can't just go arrest him.
21:36If he's playing game of cat and mouse, you got to keep going.
21:50Now this is roughly in this August to September time period.
21:58We get the cell phone records of Prestapino and a number is called really frequently during
22:05this May 31st to let's say June 10th timeframe.
22:10And Cassandra Garrett is the name of the person who's using this other phone.
22:16So detectives start following up on that.
22:22Cassandra was kind of a drifter.
22:26She lived in various places in Las Vegas, sometimes not staying in one place too long.
22:35Cassandra's cell phone is tracked.
22:40Sometime in the evening of June 10th, Cassandra leaves Las Vegas.
22:47Cassandra ultimately ends up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
22:53We were really trying to get as much evidence as possible.
22:59There's a little bit of strategy to that.
23:02We don't want to talk to Christopher because then obviously he realizes that he is being
23:09looked at for a homicide.
23:12But we needed something.
23:15So the detectives traveled to Milwaukee to speak with Cassandra Garrett to see if she
23:22would talk about anything that happened in Las Vegas.
23:40Detectives respond to Milwaukee to interview Cassandra Garrett.
23:46We know that Cassandra and our suspect, Christopher Prestapino, were friends.
23:55So it's very important to speak with her to see what her involvement was.
24:10So my partner and I, we've been assigned to conduct a follow-up investigation into a missing
24:14person case out of Las Vegas.
24:22So where have you stayed in Vegas?
24:23I stayed with other guys in Vegas.
24:26I stayed with, hold on.
24:32Where did you, when did you stay with Chris?
24:33Which Chris are we talking about?
24:36Prestapino?
24:37Yeah.
24:38I guess I said Prestapino, yeah.
24:39Stuff like that.
24:40You stayed with Chris at his house?
24:41Uh-huh.
24:42So that's why I don't understand why you're here.
24:43He said something about someone missing, but I don't understand who's missing.
24:44What was going on with that?
24:45Okay.
24:46So when you were at Chris' house, did anything happen at Chris' house that was unique?
24:47Did Chris have to run a cartel?
24:48No, I don't think so.
24:49I don't think so.
24:50Okay.
24:51So he was involved in a murder.
24:52He was involved in a murder.
24:53Okay.
24:54So he was involved in a murder.
24:55Okay.
24:56So he was involved in a murder.
24:57Okay.
24:58So he was involved in a murder.
24:59Okay.
25:00So he was involved in a murder.
25:02Okay.
25:04So when you were at Chris' house, did anything happen at Chris' house that was unique?
25:11Did Chris have to run a cartel?
25:14I don't know.
25:16How would I know that?
25:21You were there.
25:22You stayed there.
25:23No, I wasn't.
25:24I rarely ever —
25:25I come, and then I go.
25:26Okay?
25:27You know, I don't know.
25:28That's the truth.
25:29You know, I don't know.
25:30She's not too forthcoming, so it's really challenging.
25:35I think Christopher Prestapino was clearly involved
25:38in Esmeralda's disappearance, but we didn't
25:42have anything else to go on.
25:54But we do become concerned if he and Cassandra
25:59begin discussing the case.
26:01They may start covering up their crime
26:04and disposing of the evidence.
26:07We had to figure out where the crime scene is,
26:10so we got search warrants served in Christopher Prestapino's
26:14house in order to find more evidence that
26:17would substantiate a homicide and help
26:21us find Esmeralda's body.
26:29This search was conducted on September 20th.
26:34The SWAT is used in these circumstances
26:37is because the subject matter of the investigation
26:40is a violent act, where someone is ultimately killed.
26:47When the detectives served the search warrant,
26:50Christopher Prestapino was home.
26:52When the detectives showed Mr. Prestapino
26:56a picture of Esmeralda Gonzalez, and he denied ever seeing her
27:02or ever meeting her.
27:05So we searched his residence, and we
27:10found a picture of Esmeralda Gonzalez.
27:13We found a picture of her in her bedroom.
27:17So we searched his residence.
27:26There wasn't a whole lot of evidence that indicated
27:32violence in the house.
27:37There wasn't an obvious weapon.
27:44There wasn't blood.
27:48But there were things that suggested that something
27:51could have happened in the house.
27:55The garage floor was redone.
28:00There were new carpets.
28:06Those things would be consistent with someone who's trying
28:10to hide evidence of a crime.
28:12But there's no way to say that something bad
28:15happened to her in the house.
28:28We were concerned, if we never find this body,
28:32are we going to be able to put a case on?
28:35Maybe Prestapino thinks he can outsmart everyone,
28:39but we didn't stop.
28:50Several months into the investigation,
28:53a witness comes forward, and it was pretty big.
28:57One of Cassandra Garrett's friends ends up talking to us.
29:03According to the friend, Cassandra
29:05had talked about this young woman being tied up
29:09in the house of Prestapino for several days,
29:16that she was drugged, and that she was
29:19provoked, and that she was trying to kill him.
29:21And so, because of that, we decided to take
29:26another run at Cassandra.
29:33We told her that if she did tell us what happened to Esmeralda,
29:39that her life was in danger.
29:42And that if she did tell us what happened to Esmeralda,
29:47that her liability would be lessened.
29:52If she could implicate someone else,
29:55versus having most of the responsibility
29:58laid at her doorstep.
30:02Cassandra decided that she would cooperate with the detective's
30:06investigation.
30:07And Cassandra agreed to come back to Las Vegas
30:11from Wisconsin in October.
30:14She admitted that she was with Christopher
30:17when they dumped the body.
30:20Then she led the detectives to a remote desert area,
30:24approximately 47 miles north of Las Vegas.
30:35And once they got out to that desert location,
30:39they were able to get a hold of her.
30:45What we found was really shocking.
31:08Early October, Pam and I are alerted,
31:11hey, the body's likely been found.
31:13It's a tomb.
31:14And Cassandra Garrett ends up being
31:17the person who shows us where the body is entombed
31:21and disposed of in the middle of the desert.
31:24It's so heavy.
31:27A tow truck with kind of a crane gets out
31:29in the middle of the desert.
31:32It picks up the tomb, and it's brought back to the CSI lab
31:36here in Las Vegas.
31:42They had to drill it open.
31:44And it was a really, really heavy structure.
31:49They're able to find portions of bones.
31:51And there is a watch that Esmeralda
31:53was wearing in some of her social media posts
31:56that is in that tomb that she was buried with.
31:59And so that's one of the initial ways that she's identified.
32:02But eventually, DNA confirms that's Esmeralda's body.
32:05It was shock, shock, but kind of awe in the sense of, hey,
32:12someone really built this thing.
32:16The amount of thought that it took to essentially
32:19enclose this into a tomb, no one would
32:22have believed that anyone would have gone to such lengths
32:25to hide a body.
32:27Prosecutors suspect that a body that was recently
32:30found in the desert is missing.
32:32Detectives located it in the desert,
32:34encased in a homemade concrete and a wooden structure.
32:42I just remember when her friend called me and told me
32:46they ended up killing her.
32:47I was actually mentally prepared for it when they did find her.
32:52The story was, it was all over the news.
32:54Like, you couldn't even get away from it.
32:56It was like, oh, my god.
32:58I'm going to die.
32:58I'm going to die.
32:59I'm going to die.
33:00I just remember when they did find her.
33:02It was all over the news.
33:03Like, you couldn't even get away from it.
33:06I try not to hear all the details.
33:09If I hear the details, like, I can imagine
33:12exactly how she would react.
33:14And that type of thought just kind of, like,
33:16sticks in your mind.
33:17So I just try not to hear the specifics.
33:20I was in complete shock.
33:23So that's the point in time when you can go forward
33:25with an arrest warrant for Christopher Prestapino.
33:31Detectives become aware that he is going to fly back
33:33from vacation on this flight.
33:35It's going to land here in McCarran Airport.
33:37I'm at the airport with the detectives.
33:41Detectives circle around him, hook him under each arm.
33:45We say, we found the body.
33:49Prestapino goes limp and kind of collapses
33:54into the arms of the detectives.
34:00He is arrested at that point.
34:02But he obtained counsel, and he refused to talk.
34:10It's then that Cassandra lays out, actually,
34:14what occurred on May 31st in those early hours
34:18in one voluntary statement under LVMPD event.
34:21Somebody had given a statement.
34:22It's Cassandra Garrett.
34:25All right, so my partner and I just go back.
34:27So we're still following up on the death of Esmerelda
34:29Gonzalez.
34:31And so now we're just here to talk to you
34:32a little bit more about that.
34:34OK, so now what do you remember about her
34:36coming over to Chris's house?
34:39He called me over to come over and drove over there.
34:43Cassandra.
34:44Cassandra said she and Christopher
34:48were at Christopher's house the night of May 30th
34:53into the morning of May 31st.
34:57Esmerelda is in lingerie, walking down the street.
35:02That street leads real close to Christopher Prestapino's house.
35:07She was walking around, knocking on people's doors.
35:11And this guy took advantage of this opportunity
35:13and this guy took advantage of the situation.
35:19Esmerelda was having a mental health episode,
35:22but I think he probably thought, we can party with her
35:25and have sex with her.
35:28They were like telling him it's fun or whatever.
35:32Something happened, right?
35:34Yeah, well, something happened.
35:35I don't know.
35:36I don't know.
36:07And I'm like, huh?
36:18Christopher appears to become kind of paranoid.
36:33So they make the determination to kill her.
36:37He starts beating on Esmerelda and chokes her out.
36:56It's not like a little heroin one.
37:07I don't know.
37:07I think he just like doing her, or I don't know.
37:11He just, I don't know if it was an arm or a leg.
37:15I don't know.
37:16He just shot it in her.
37:20Christopher then injects Esmerelda
37:23with muriatic acid, which is used in cleaning swimming
37:26pools, which ultimately kills Esmerelda.
37:30And he's trying to use that to throw the investigators off
37:33the scent in the disposal of the body.
37:39Christopher then built an entire tomb full of concrete
37:45with various screws and jacks.
37:50He actually entombs that body.
37:56Ultimately, Christopher and Cassandra
37:58drove their rented moving truck with the concrete in the back
38:01to an area approximately 47 miles north of Las Vegas.
38:05And were able to dump the complete structure,
38:09wood, concrete, and all out of the back of the truck
38:12into a remote desert area.
38:18There's like a point of really dehumanizing someone.
38:22But it's really shocking, I think,
38:25to know like literally what he had to do to accomplish this,
38:30like moving a young woman's body,
38:32just pouring cement on with the hopes
38:34that no one ever finds her.
38:37I think Crestopino does everything in his power
38:41to just kind of erase her.
38:50If not for how aggressive we were at continuing
38:53to follow up and the investigation,
38:56going through the various search warrants,
39:00the social media, and the cell phone mapping,
39:06this probably would never have been solved.
39:13For Cassandra Garrett, we felt like we
39:16had to give her some credit or some benefit
39:19for assisting with locating the body.
39:23And so she got a 20-year sentence with parole eligibility
39:28after eight years.
39:32Christopher Crestopino eventually pleads
39:34to second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping
39:39and receives a sentence of 10 to 25 years combined.
39:45It's really shocking, I think, to know like literally
39:48what he had to do to accomplish this
39:51with the hopes that no one ever finds her.
39:54That's pretty dark to be able to do that.
39:57I prosecuted homicides for 20 years.
40:01And the thing that I always think about in this case
40:05is how she's preyed upon when she's
40:09in this really vulnerable state.
40:11So that's always the part for me that it makes it really sad.
40:18Her brother called me to come get her dog, Bonita.
40:23As soon as I picked her up, she stayed by my side.
40:27She was my emotional support animal.
40:30So she traveled with me.
40:31I took care of her for quite a while.
40:34And she went to Esmeralda's funeral with me and everything.
40:41I put her down October of 2021.
40:50So and to this day, her ashes are next to her mom's ashes
40:53in her room.
40:56It doesn't make sense to me.
40:58Literally, you could have just let her go
41:00and said she's not mentally well.
41:04Why did you have to kill her?
41:13This case is Dracula meets the Sons of Anarchy.
41:18I've never seen anybody go to this length
41:21to dispose of a body.
41:23At that point, we'd got a ladder.
41:26And I went down.
41:27We were thinking, is Keith down there?