December 11, 2024 • 24 mins
When nursing student Michelle left her position at the hospital and did not return, everyone knew something must be wrong. CCTV showed her car leaving, but when police found a trail of blood in her parking spot, the investigation took a quick and dark turn.
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(00:00):
Today we are going to be talking about the case of Michelle Lo. Where could this nursing student
(00:04):
be after when she just ran out to her car one day before the end of her shift? Michelle was a great
student in her nursing school and she wanted to finish this to make her mother proud of her.
Michelle was from a big family living with her parents, her brother Michael and cousin Christine.
Here we are in Santa Barbara Beach. We're having lots of fun and here's my brother.
(00:25):
With 15 other cousins and lots of aunts and uncles, their home was always lively. Michelle's
mom had worked as a nurse which inspired the young Michelle to follow in her footsteps
and when her mom sadly passed away, Michelle knew she had to finish what she started and make her proud.
Her brother Michael said Michelle stepped up in such a way when they lost their mom.
She became more of a maternal figure to everyone. Michelle taught them to drive,
(00:48):
to cook, took them shopping and was always there to give advice. Michelle had patiently waited five
years to get onto her nursing course and was finally accepted onto an accelerated one-year
nursing program. By May 2011 she was just six months away from graduating from the Samuel Merritt
Nursing School, getting straight A's all the way and was doing a placement at Kaiser Permanente
(01:11):
Hayward Medical Center in the maternity ward. Studious, selfless and always smiling, Michelle
never shied away from hard work and had a positive outlook no matter the situation.
On the 20th of May 2011, Michelle was on a rotation shift at the hospital. It had been a long day but
nothing out of the ordinary. It was Friday and the weekend was almost here. It was also the
(01:32):
students last day at the hospital so there was a buzz of excitement about the place.
Everybody was more than ready for a well-deserved break.
Michelle even made plans over the weekend to visit some friends in Reno.
At 6.55pm, Michelle told her supervisor she was going to quickly grab something out of her car.
It would only take a couple of minutes. She entered the third floor parking lot and headed
(01:55):
to her car parked in the corner. She paused for a second before walking away from her car.
She then said she was going to take a quick break and then head back to her car.
She then stood still for a moment and changed direction again.
(02:22):
17 minutes later, her white Honda SUV sped out of the building.
It was now nearing the end of everyone's shift. Around 9pm, the supervisors wanted to get all of
the students together to wrap up. But Michelle was still missing. Her person
of hope was sat in the staff room. She hadn't signed out and her phone was just ringing out.
(02:42):
Concerned, her instructor grabbed someone from security and they went out into the parking lot
to Michelle's usual space. But it was silent and empty.
A few minutes later, Michelle's car screeched back into the building and back up into the parking lot.
(03:06):
Her instructor started waving and the car briefly stopped before reversing back, driving past them and going back out of the building again.
It went without saying this was not like Michelle. Her instructor was not only alarmed but frankly unconvinced that it was even Michelle in that car.
She wasted no time and called the police.
(03:28):
The following morning, there was still nothing from the 26 year old. It had now been about 10 hours since anyone had last seen her.
About 15 of her friends and colleagues had turned up at the police station. They could not stress enough how odd this was for Michelle.
Something was seriously wrong and they weren't leaving until an investigation was underway.
Officers were still waiting for Michelle to return to the car.
(03:52):
Something was seriously wrong and they weren't leaving until an investigation was underway.
Officers got it loud and clear and detectives started over in the hospital's parking lot.
Her ex-boyfriend, whom she was still friendly with, started calling around her family to let them know.
Over at the parking lot, they found blood on the ground where her Honda had been.
(04:20):
And just an hour later at 9am, they located her car.
It was locked and neatly parked in a visitor's bay outside an apartment, just half a mile from the hospital.
Inside it was her laptop and a random ID card for Samuel Merritt University on the back seat.
Michelle had no link to this person, nor would she have any business having this on her.
(04:44):
The ID card had actually been reported stolen a couple of days before she went missing.
They felt confident they could rule out a stranger being involved.
Someone knew her schedule, had stolen an ID to gain entry and potentially lured her outside and took off in the car with Michelle in it.
A random person just hanging around a car park waiting for an opportunity to attack or kidnap someone was just not what this was going to be.
(05:09):
Hospital records showed that 30 minutes after Michelle walked to her car, the emergency ward in the hospital got a call from Michelle Lay.
Or at least someone saying they were Michelle.
They asked to be put through to their instructor, but this wasn't the right ward.
The woman then asked the receptionist to pass a message on for her, saying that her father had had a heart attack.
(05:32):
As they towed her car away for more analysis, Michelle's brother Michael suddenly got a message from his sister's phone, simply saying, I'm fine.
Another message followed.
I'm not missing. My phone has been acting crazy. It deleted everything. All these texts have killed my battery.
All her friends then started receiving texts on mass, one after the other.
(05:57):
Every message was a different story. Everything from she had a flat tyre to she was back in Reno.
She needed a social media break. She was sick and wanted a rest.
Her ex-boyfriend, knowing there was now activity on her phone, texted her right away.
The message she got back. Who is this?
By May 31st, the reward was set at $20,000 and just a few days later it had jumped to almost 50.
(06:24):
The Lay family had hired a private investigator as well.
Over 100 volunteers joined in the search, forming 14 teams, spreading out over miles and miles.
The reward was going up day by day and was now sitting at $100,000.
As they dug into Michelle's relationship a bit more, one name started coming up.
(06:48):
Michelle had been having issues with an old school friend, Giselle Esteban.
The pair had been close for years, even moving together to go to college.
Giselle had had a relationship with a man named Scott and they shared a six-year-old daughter.
But things had ended on not-so-great terms and this was when the problems for Michelle and Giselle began.
(07:09):
Before Giselle and Scott ever became an item, Michelle and Scott had gone on a couple of dates.
But they both knew pretty quickly that their relationship was meant to be just friendly.
Nothing was ever romantic or intimate between them and it was after this that Giselle and Scott got together.
Despite the timeline, Giselle became fixated with this non-existent relationship.
(07:30):
As Giselle's behaviour started to change, she and Michelle had started to drift.
Michelle and Scott were good friends, she was not going to stop talking to him just because Giselle wanted her to,
nor was she going to give any attention or validity to her strange and obsessive claims.
Michelle had been dating someone else for ages, Scott was just living his life as well.
(07:51):
Whatever Giselle had convinced herself of could not have been further from the truth.
Detectives went to speak to 27-year-old Giselle and it was obvious there was no love lost there.
She didn't even try to pretend otherwise.
(08:31):
They then tracked down Scott.
He was upfront and detectives said he seemed really honest and genuinely upset.
(08:51):
He had been a regular face amongst the many individuals for Michelle and had also been part of the searches.
Scott told them all about his problems with Giselle and how she had not only been tormenting him, but his family as well.
In one particularly rough patch, Giselle moved back to live with her family, taking their daughter with her.
Scott was desperate to make sure his daughter had the best life,
(09:13):
and said this meant he would occasionally attempt to give things another go, but it never worked out.
He showed them a string of messages from Giselle, a lot of them pertaining to Michelle.
Another message read.
(09:36):
Another said.
They were incessant and getting more and more vicious.
(09:58):
More of them read.
FYI, she won't pass her midterms.
Giselle also sent messages to Michelle, one of which read.
(10:27):
He then shared something with the police that he hadn't shared with anyone else.
A recording he had taken of one of Giselle's outbursts as she was sat in the car with her daughter in the back.
(11:01):
Scott said Giselle was briefly held in mental health care,
(11:30):
briefly held in mental health facilities, being diagnosed with manic depression and bipolar disorder.
She would frequently just turn up at his house where he was living with his mum, sometimes even letting herself in,
and just sitting quietly in a room until they found her.
Scott eventually got full custody of their daughter, which further angered Giselle,
and meant she moved back to Hayward to be closer to everyone.
(11:51):
But it seemed that the final straw had come when a judge issued a restraining order against her,
barring her from coming within 100 feet of Scott or his immediate family.
Interestingly for this case, it was just three days before Michelle went missing.
Almost a week has passed and still no sign of Michelle Leigh, a 26-year-old California nurse
who seems to have vanished after going to her car at a hospital.
(12:14):
The car later found on this street.
The search now by leaflet.
Meanwhile, police in Hayward, California are talking to police in Fairfield
about an unsolved murder last year of nurse Fong Leigh.
They have the same last name, that they are both nursing students, that they both disappeared mysteriously.
(12:36):
But in Fairfield, the car was unlocked.
In our case, the vehicle was secured. It was locked up as if the last person to drive that vehicle
wanted to make sure that the interior was protected.
Meanwhile, police in Hayward are examining more surveillance footage, hoping one camera got a good look
at Michelle Leigh's car. Her brother says it is not like his sister to lose contact.
(12:58):
She always calls me.
But it's Mother's Day and I should call my grandma.
Now a reward for information about missing Michelle with word going out one poster at a time.
Hayward police said they wanted to remain hopeful that Michelle was still alive,
(13:21):
but based on all of the evidence they had to face the grim possibility that they should prepare for the worst.
The police's fears would be amplified when her car tested positive for her blood.
They called Michelle's family in and told them they were no longer dealing with a missing person.
This was a homicide investigation now.
They couldn't actually reveal what they had found in her car and Michelle's family, understandably frustrated,
(13:46):
said until they heard something concrete they were going to carry on searching as they had been.
They would be bringing her home safe and well.
The only person police kept hearing anything about was Giselle, so they asked her to come in for a proper interview.
Giselle was now a couple of months pregnant with her second baby and actually admitted to being at the hospital
on the night Michelle went missing. She was just there for a checkup, she said.
(14:09):
At one point you and Michelle were close friends, is that right?
I considered her my sister.
And then what happened?
She made a mistake, Scott made a mistake.
And then was that when you were with Scott or if you guys broken up or?
No, we were still together. They made the mistake twice.
Were you surprised to see Michelle there?
(14:32):
Yes.
How did it make you feel when you saw her?
I was very surprised.
I remember not hitting her and I thought okay.
You could have pulled pressure down, otherwise you would have lost this baby.
She was let go but the police were still watching her very carefully and placed a tracker on her car.
(14:55):
They knew that she had to have something to do with Michelle's disappearance, but had she worked alone, they still weren't sure.
Giselle was pregnant and a petite 5 foot 2.
Physically, could she have pulled this off, they wondered.
Well police investigating the disappearance of a California nursing student now have a person of interest they tell us.
(15:17):
Authorities are focusing on a former friend.
Giselle Esteban. According to witnesses who live near Esteban, police were at her apartment in recent days with a crime lab team to go over her car.
Everything from that to the trash were told from neighbours.
So far no charges against Esteban and she's told local media she had nothing to do with Michelle Lee's disappearance.
(15:38):
Now in the search for Michelle, her dad has arrived from Vietnam.
There is the tip line, if you live in that area of Northern California and can help.
510-293-7000.
Scott then made a call to police saying he believed he had found Michelle's phone.
It was in the backseat of his own car.
When the tracker on Giselle's car showed her making repeated trips down his street and parking up outside his house, it seemed obvious that she had planted it there.
(16:05):
The security team at the nursing school had been going through all of the data to find out where the stolen ID had been scanned before it ended up in the back of Michelle's Honda.
And on May 26th, just a day before she went missing, the card had been swiped around the building.
It was Giselle.
She had obtained the card early on May 26th, pretending to be a student looking to join.
(16:29):
After she got the ID she started sneaking around, trying some of the locked doors and going into one of the classrooms.
She then left and waited until the building closed and most people had gone home.
She came in again via the back exit, put on a white lab coat and roamed around the same classroom, checking computers and files.
(16:58):
She went up to the teacher's desk where she picked up the student's schedules, one of which would have been Michelle's.
After an hour and a half, Giselle left now knowing exactly when Michelle would be in the next day and on her break.
Analysis of the phones showed that both Giselle and Michelle's cell phones had been together at the same time after she went missing.
(17:20):
And the day after Michelle walked into the parking lot, Giselle walked into an Apple store asking to unlock an iPhone.
She told the technician her daughter had locked it by accident.
They managed to unlock the phone and Giselle left with it, going into a Chuck E Cheese.
At this point, Michelle's friends had started getting the odd and clearly fake messages.
(17:43):
The cell phone towers confirmed that this was Michelle's iPhone and the cameras in the Chuck E Cheese even showed Giselle texting everyone.
Even though they had no body, they definitely had enough for an arrest.
27-year-old Giselle Esteban was arrested at her house and charged with first degree murder.
A pair of shoes by the door had Michelle's blood on the bottom of them.
(18:05):
A strand of hair in the back of Michelle's car was also a match to Giselle and her DNA was also on the steering wheel.
Police in Northern California have arrested a high school friend of a nursing student missing for more than three months.
Jail records indicate that Giselle Esteban is being held on suspicion of murder.
Our primary concern was, is and will always be to find Michelle and bring her home with us.
(18:32):
At this point, she is still missing and we will fight to bring her home every day until we have her with our family again.
The reality is, we don't have Michelle.
That's a piece we're not going to close out on until we find her, until her location is known.
A search of her computer showed that in the days leading up to her disappearance, Giselle had looked up
(18:56):
inducing heart attack without leaving a trace, following someone without being caught, how to break locks
and highly toxic gases such as potassium chloride and carbon monoxide.
And after she went missing, she had searched Michelle's name over 300 times.
On September 17th, 10 days after Giselle was arrested, the day her family were hoping would not come, did.
(19:20):
Michelle Leigh's remains were found in a shallow grave in a remote and rugged area.
Three months had now passed and it was a skeleton, so her cause of death could not be determined.
She was found about 12 miles away from Giselle's house.
Authorities in California say human remains found in a San Francisco Bay Area canyon on Saturday
are those of the missing nursing student who disappeared in May.
(19:43):
Police declined to release any further information, saying only that the remains were identified after tests by the Alameda County Coroner.
In September 2012, after pleading not guilty, Giselle Esteban went on trial.
She now admitted to killing her, but claimed it was an accident, a heat of the moment attack and that she was provoked by Michelle.
Her attorney said this made it voluntary mounslaughter and not first degree murder.
(20:07):
Giselle did not testify, but she showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever.
She just sat staring blankly. No emotion, no care, nothing.
There was obviously things missing in terms of how Michelle ended up in the parking lot with Giselle.
Had Giselle just been stood around waiting for her, knowing her schedule?
Had she sent her a message to lure her outside?
(20:29):
The prosecution could not say that for sure, but they theorised that Giselle snuck up on her and attacked her with a sharp object.
This explained the blood and how she then would have easily been able to get her into the back of the car and take off.
The district attorney said,
Sociopath, that's what we have here. She's laughing as she is talking about killing people.
This is a planned assault, a strategic assault on someone who never saw it coming.
(20:54):
Giselle was found guilty of first degree murder and much the same as she had been throughout the trial,
she did not react at all and left the courtroom without saying a word.
She did however later say that if she had been on the jury she probably would have convicted herself too.
The judge said he had never seen a case with more condemning evidence in all his career.
Giselle was later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(21:17):
Local families torn apart by a murder sparked by a jealous rage.
Today a judge sentenced Giselle Esteban to 25 years to life in prison for killing nursing student Michelle Lay.
Giselle Esteban never apologised for killing San Diego nursing student Michelle Lay, convicted in October for her murder.
Today an Alameda judge says she never showed a hint of remorse.
(21:41):
He made a really great observation and we always felt sitting in trial that she felt no remorse.
Just stared directly at our family with a blank stare.
Lay's uncle, Amira Mesa, is disappointed.
He says the family had hoped for a mandatory life sentence without parole.
We might have to go back up there and who knows when anytime she's up for a parole hearing then it all comes up again.
(22:11):
In court, Michelle's only brother Michael broke down as he talked about his sister's plan to follow in their late mother's footsteps to become a nurse.
Those dreams ended when Esteban killed Lay in a Bay Area hospital parking garage.
Prosecutors say she snapped in a jealous rage when she mistakenly thought Lay was moving in on her boyfriend.
Lay's brother is now hoping his sister will be remembered many years from now in 2029 when her killer could be up for parole.
(22:40):
We just want them to know after 25 years to know how unique this case was and to give a face to Michelle's case.
At this point it's up to the Department of Corrections if Esteban will in fact be paroled.
The judge says in order for that to happen Esteban would have to develop a serious sense of remorse.
(23:02):
Giselle later gave birth to a baby boy who went into the custody of the father.
There were rumours that Scott was the father but he said this was not true and the father's name has never been disclosed.
Michelle's cousin Christine said by committing the crime that she did, she only revealed her own ugliness and revealed Michelle's beauty.
It is a case that is as cold-blooded as they come, driven by jealousy, obsession and an all-consuming hatred for two people that did absolutely nothing wrong.
(23:31):
Michelle's family continue to volunteer to help with other missing persons cases and raise awareness.
Her brother Michael said he knows his sister is with their mum now and whenever his time may be he'll get to see them again which makes everything a little less sad and scary.
When Michelle was first missing, Michelle's dad spent Father's Day searching for her.
He said he was always so proud of how hard she had worked and how busy her life was but said that he had never asked his daughter to spend a single Father's Day with him but he wished he could turn back the clock.
(24:01):
Join us again next time for another deep dive into yet another case. Please comment and let us know your thoughts. Thanks!
Today we are going to be talking about the case of Michelle Lo. Where could this nursing student
(00:04):
be after when she just ran out to her car one day before the end of her shift? Michelle was a great
student in her nursing school and she wanted to finish this to make her mother proud of her.
Michelle was from a big family living with her parents, her brother Michael and cousin Christine.
Here we are in Santa Barbara Beach. We're having lots of fun and here's my brother.
(00:25):
With 15 other cousins and lots of aunts and uncles, their home was always lively. Michelle's
mom had worked as a nurse which inspired the young Michelle to follow in her footsteps
and when her mom sadly passed away, Michelle knew she had to finish what she started and make her proud.
Her brother Michael said Michelle stepped up in such a way when they lost their mom.
She became more of a maternal figure to everyone. Michelle taught them to drive,
(00:48):
to cook, took them shopping and was always there to give advice. Michelle had patiently waited five
years to get onto her nursing course and was finally accepted onto an accelerated one-year
nursing program. By May 2011 she was just six months away from graduating from the Samuel Merritt
Nursing School, getting straight A's all the way and was doing a placement at Kaiser Permanente
(01:11):
Hayward Medical Center in the maternity ward. Studious, selfless and always smiling, Michelle
never shied away from hard work and had a positive outlook no matter the situation.
On the 20th of May 2011, Michelle was on a rotation shift at the hospital. It had been a long day but
nothing out of the ordinary. It was Friday and the weekend was almost here. It was also the
(01:32):
students last day at the hospital so there was a buzz of excitement about the place.
Everybody was more than ready for a well-deserved break.
Michelle even made plans over the weekend to visit some friends in Reno.
At 6.55pm, Michelle told her supervisor she was going to quickly grab something out of her car.
It would only take a couple of minutes. She entered the third floor parking lot and headed
(01:55):
to her car parked in the corner. She paused for a second before walking away from her car.
She then said she was going to take a quick break and then head back to her car.
She then stood still for a moment and changed direction again.
(02:22):
17 minutes later, her white Honda SUV sped out of the building.
It was now nearing the end of everyone's shift. Around 9pm, the supervisors wanted to get all of
the students together to wrap up. But Michelle was still missing. Her person
of hope was sat in the staff room. She hadn't signed out and her phone was just ringing out.
(02:42):
Concerned, her instructor grabbed someone from security and they went out into the parking lot
to Michelle's usual space. But it was silent and empty.
A few minutes later, Michelle's car screeched back into the building and back up into the parking lot.
(03:06):
Her instructor started waving and the car briefly stopped before reversing back, driving past them and going back out of the building again.
It went without saying this was not like Michelle. Her instructor was not only alarmed but frankly unconvinced that it was even Michelle in that car.
She wasted no time and called the police.
(03:28):
The following morning, there was still nothing from the 26 year old. It had now been about 10 hours since anyone had last seen her.
About 15 of her friends and colleagues had turned up at the police station. They could not stress enough how odd this was for Michelle.
Something was seriously wrong and they weren't leaving until an investigation was underway.
Officers were still waiting for Michelle to return to the car.
(03:52):
Something was seriously wrong and they weren't leaving until an investigation was underway.
Officers got it loud and clear and detectives started over in the hospital's parking lot.
Her ex-boyfriend, whom she was still friendly with, started calling around her family to let them know.
Over at the parking lot, they found blood on the ground where her Honda had been.
(04:20):
And just an hour later at 9am, they located her car.
It was locked and neatly parked in a visitor's bay outside an apartment, just half a mile from the hospital.
Inside it was her laptop and a random ID card for Samuel Merritt University on the back seat.
Michelle had no link to this person, nor would she have any business having this on her.
(04:44):
The ID card had actually been reported stolen a couple of days before she went missing.
They felt confident they could rule out a stranger being involved.
Someone knew her schedule, had stolen an ID to gain entry and potentially lured her outside and took off in the car with Michelle in it.
A random person just hanging around a car park waiting for an opportunity to attack or kidnap someone was just not what this was going to be.
(05:09):
Hospital records showed that 30 minutes after Michelle walked to her car, the emergency ward in the hospital got a call from Michelle Lay.
Or at least someone saying they were Michelle.
They asked to be put through to their instructor, but this wasn't the right ward.
The woman then asked the receptionist to pass a message on for her, saying that her father had had a heart attack.
(05:32):
As they towed her car away for more analysis, Michelle's brother Michael suddenly got a message from his sister's phone, simply saying, I'm fine.
Another message followed.
I'm not missing. My phone has been acting crazy. It deleted everything. All these texts have killed my battery.
All her friends then started receiving texts on mass, one after the other.
(05:57):
Every message was a different story. Everything from she had a flat tyre to she was back in Reno.
She needed a social media break. She was sick and wanted a rest.
Her ex-boyfriend, knowing there was now activity on her phone, texted her right away.
The message she got back. Who is this?
By May 31st, the reward was set at $20,000 and just a few days later it had jumped to almost 50.
(06:24):
The Lay family had hired a private investigator as well.
Over 100 volunteers joined in the search, forming 14 teams, spreading out over miles and miles.
The reward was going up day by day and was now sitting at $100,000.
As they dug into Michelle's relationship a bit more, one name started coming up.
(06:48):
Michelle had been having issues with an old school friend, Giselle Esteban.
The pair had been close for years, even moving together to go to college.
Giselle had had a relationship with a man named Scott and they shared a six-year-old daughter.
But things had ended on not-so-great terms and this was when the problems for Michelle and Giselle began.
(07:09):
Before Giselle and Scott ever became an item, Michelle and Scott had gone on a couple of dates.
But they both knew pretty quickly that their relationship was meant to be just friendly.
Nothing was ever romantic or intimate between them and it was after this that Giselle and Scott got together.
Despite the timeline, Giselle became fixated with this non-existent relationship.
(07:30):
As Giselle's behaviour started to change, she and Michelle had started to drift.
Michelle and Scott were good friends, she was not going to stop talking to him just because Giselle wanted her to,
nor was she going to give any attention or validity to her strange and obsessive claims.
Michelle had been dating someone else for ages, Scott was just living his life as well.
(07:51):
Whatever Giselle had convinced herself of could not have been further from the truth.
Detectives went to speak to 27-year-old Giselle and it was obvious there was no love lost there.
She didn't even try to pretend otherwise.
(08:31):
They then tracked down Scott.
He was upfront and detectives said he seemed really honest and genuinely upset.
(08:51):
He had been a regular face amongst the many individuals for Michelle and had also been part of the searches.
Scott told them all about his problems with Giselle and how she had not only been tormenting him, but his family as well.
In one particularly rough patch, Giselle moved back to live with her family, taking their daughter with her.
Scott was desperate to make sure his daughter had the best life,
(09:13):
and said this meant he would occasionally attempt to give things another go, but it never worked out.
He showed them a string of messages from Giselle, a lot of them pertaining to Michelle.
Another message read.
(09:36):
Another said.
They were incessant and getting more and more vicious.
(09:58):
More of them read.
FYI, she won't pass her midterms.
Giselle also sent messages to Michelle, one of which read.
(10:27):
He then shared something with the police that he hadn't shared with anyone else.
A recording he had taken of one of Giselle's outbursts as she was sat in the car with her daughter in the back.
(11:01):
Scott said Giselle was briefly held in mental health care,
(11:30):
briefly held in mental health facilities, being diagnosed with manic depression and bipolar disorder.
She would frequently just turn up at his house where he was living with his mum, sometimes even letting herself in,
and just sitting quietly in a room until they found her.
Scott eventually got full custody of their daughter, which further angered Giselle,
and meant she moved back to Hayward to be closer to everyone.
(11:51):
But it seemed that the final straw had come when a judge issued a restraining order against her,
barring her from coming within 100 feet of Scott or his immediate family.
Interestingly for this case, it was just three days before Michelle went missing.
Almost a week has passed and still no sign of Michelle Leigh, a 26-year-old California nurse
who seems to have vanished after going to her car at a hospital.
(12:14):
The car later found on this street.
The search now by leaflet.
Meanwhile, police in Hayward, California are talking to police in Fairfield
about an unsolved murder last year of nurse Fong Leigh.
They have the same last name, that they are both nursing students, that they both disappeared mysteriously.
(12:36):
But in Fairfield, the car was unlocked.
In our case, the vehicle was secured. It was locked up as if the last person to drive that vehicle
wanted to make sure that the interior was protected.
Meanwhile, police in Hayward are examining more surveillance footage, hoping one camera got a good look
at Michelle Leigh's car. Her brother says it is not like his sister to lose contact.
(12:58):
She always calls me.
But it's Mother's Day and I should call my grandma.
Now a reward for information about missing Michelle with word going out one poster at a time.
Hayward police said they wanted to remain hopeful that Michelle was still alive,
(13:21):
but based on all of the evidence they had to face the grim possibility that they should prepare for the worst.
The police's fears would be amplified when her car tested positive for her blood.
They called Michelle's family in and told them they were no longer dealing with a missing person.
This was a homicide investigation now.
They couldn't actually reveal what they had found in her car and Michelle's family, understandably frustrated,
(13:46):
said until they heard something concrete they were going to carry on searching as they had been.
They would be bringing her home safe and well.
The only person police kept hearing anything about was Giselle, so they asked her to come in for a proper interview.
Giselle was now a couple of months pregnant with her second baby and actually admitted to being at the hospital
on the night Michelle went missing. She was just there for a checkup, she said.
(14:09):
At one point you and Michelle were close friends, is that right?
I considered her my sister.
And then what happened?
She made a mistake, Scott made a mistake.
And then was that when you were with Scott or if you guys broken up or?
No, we were still together. They made the mistake twice.
Were you surprised to see Michelle there?
(14:32):
Yes.
How did it make you feel when you saw her?
I was very surprised.
I remember not hitting her and I thought okay.
You could have pulled pressure down, otherwise you would have lost this baby.
She was let go but the police were still watching her very carefully and placed a tracker on her car.
(14:55):
They knew that she had to have something to do with Michelle's disappearance, but had she worked alone, they still weren't sure.
Giselle was pregnant and a petite 5 foot 2.
Physically, could she have pulled this off, they wondered.
Well police investigating the disappearance of a California nursing student now have a person of interest they tell us.
(15:17):
Authorities are focusing on a former friend.
Giselle Esteban. According to witnesses who live near Esteban, police were at her apartment in recent days with a crime lab team to go over her car.
Everything from that to the trash were told from neighbours.
So far no charges against Esteban and she's told local media she had nothing to do with Michelle Lee's disappearance.
(15:38):
Now in the search for Michelle, her dad has arrived from Vietnam.
There is the tip line, if you live in that area of Northern California and can help.
510-293-7000.
Scott then made a call to police saying he believed he had found Michelle's phone.
It was in the backseat of his own car.
When the tracker on Giselle's car showed her making repeated trips down his street and parking up outside his house, it seemed obvious that she had planted it there.
(16:05):
The security team at the nursing school had been going through all of the data to find out where the stolen ID had been scanned before it ended up in the back of Michelle's Honda.
And on May 26th, just a day before she went missing, the card had been swiped around the building.
It was Giselle.
She had obtained the card early on May 26th, pretending to be a student looking to join.
(16:29):
After she got the ID she started sneaking around, trying some of the locked doors and going into one of the classrooms.
She then left and waited until the building closed and most people had gone home.
She came in again via the back exit, put on a white lab coat and roamed around the same classroom, checking computers and files.
(16:58):
She went up to the teacher's desk where she picked up the student's schedules, one of which would have been Michelle's.
After an hour and a half, Giselle left now knowing exactly when Michelle would be in the next day and on her break.
Analysis of the phones showed that both Giselle and Michelle's cell phones had been together at the same time after she went missing.
(17:20):
And the day after Michelle walked into the parking lot, Giselle walked into an Apple store asking to unlock an iPhone.
She told the technician her daughter had locked it by accident.
They managed to unlock the phone and Giselle left with it, going into a Chuck E Cheese.
At this point, Michelle's friends had started getting the odd and clearly fake messages.
(17:43):
The cell phone towers confirmed that this was Michelle's iPhone and the cameras in the Chuck E Cheese even showed Giselle texting everyone.
Even though they had no body, they definitely had enough for an arrest.
27-year-old Giselle Esteban was arrested at her house and charged with first degree murder.
A pair of shoes by the door had Michelle's blood on the bottom of them.
(18:05):
A strand of hair in the back of Michelle's car was also a match to Giselle and her DNA was also on the steering wheel.
Police in Northern California have arrested a high school friend of a nursing student missing for more than three months.
Jail records indicate that Giselle Esteban is being held on suspicion of murder.
Our primary concern was, is and will always be to find Michelle and bring her home with us.
(18:32):
At this point, she is still missing and we will fight to bring her home every day until we have her with our family again.
The reality is, we don't have Michelle.
That's a piece we're not going to close out on until we find her, until her location is known.
A search of her computer showed that in the days leading up to her disappearance, Giselle had looked up
(18:56):
inducing heart attack without leaving a trace, following someone without being caught, how to break locks
and highly toxic gases such as potassium chloride and carbon monoxide.
And after she went missing, she had searched Michelle's name over 300 times.
On September 17th, 10 days after Giselle was arrested, the day her family were hoping would not come, did.
(19:20):
Michelle Leigh's remains were found in a shallow grave in a remote and rugged area.
Three months had now passed and it was a skeleton, so her cause of death could not be determined.
She was found about 12 miles away from Giselle's house.
Authorities in California say human remains found in a San Francisco Bay Area canyon on Saturday
are those of the missing nursing student who disappeared in May.
(19:43):
Police declined to release any further information, saying only that the remains were identified after tests by the Alameda County Coroner.
In September 2012, after pleading not guilty, Giselle Esteban went on trial.
She now admitted to killing her, but claimed it was an accident, a heat of the moment attack and that she was provoked by Michelle.
Her attorney said this made it voluntary mounslaughter and not first degree murder.
(20:07):
Giselle did not testify, but she showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever.
She just sat staring blankly. No emotion, no care, nothing.
There was obviously things missing in terms of how Michelle ended up in the parking lot with Giselle.
Had Giselle just been stood around waiting for her, knowing her schedule?
Had she sent her a message to lure her outside?
(20:29):
The prosecution could not say that for sure, but they theorised that Giselle snuck up on her and attacked her with a sharp object.
This explained the blood and how she then would have easily been able to get her into the back of the car and take off.
The district attorney said,
Sociopath, that's what we have here. She's laughing as she is talking about killing people.
This is a planned assault, a strategic assault on someone who never saw it coming.
(20:54):
Giselle was found guilty of first degree murder and much the same as she had been throughout the trial,
she did not react at all and left the courtroom without saying a word.
She did however later say that if she had been on the jury she probably would have convicted herself too.
The judge said he had never seen a case with more condemning evidence in all his career.
Giselle was later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(21:17):
Local families torn apart by a murder sparked by a jealous rage.
Today a judge sentenced Giselle Esteban to 25 years to life in prison for killing nursing student Michelle Lay.
Giselle Esteban never apologised for killing San Diego nursing student Michelle Lay, convicted in October for her murder.
Today an Alameda judge says she never showed a hint of remorse.
(21:41):
He made a really great observation and we always felt sitting in trial that she felt no remorse.
Just stared directly at our family with a blank stare.
Lay's uncle, Amira Mesa, is disappointed.
He says the family had hoped for a mandatory life sentence without parole.
We might have to go back up there and who knows when anytime she's up for a parole hearing then it all comes up again.
(22:11):
In court, Michelle's only brother Michael broke down as he talked about his sister's plan to follow in their late mother's footsteps to become a nurse.
Those dreams ended when Esteban killed Lay in a Bay Area hospital parking garage.
Prosecutors say she snapped in a jealous rage when she mistakenly thought Lay was moving in on her boyfriend.
Lay's brother is now hoping his sister will be remembered many years from now in 2029 when her killer could be up for parole.
(22:40):
We just want them to know after 25 years to know how unique this case was and to give a face to Michelle's case.
At this point it's up to the Department of Corrections if Esteban will in fact be paroled.
The judge says in order for that to happen Esteban would have to develop a serious sense of remorse.
(23:02):
Giselle later gave birth to a baby boy who went into the custody of the father.
There were rumours that Scott was the father but he said this was not true and the father's name has never been disclosed.
Michelle's cousin Christine said by committing the crime that she did, she only revealed her own ugliness and revealed Michelle's beauty.
It is a case that is as cold-blooded as they come, driven by jealousy, obsession and an all-consuming hatred for two people that did absolutely nothing wrong.
(23:31):
Michelle's family continue to volunteer to help with other missing persons cases and raise awareness.
Her brother Michael said he knows his sister is with their mum now and whenever his time may be he'll get to see them again which makes everything a little less sad and scary.
When Michelle was first missing, Michelle's dad spent Father's Day searching for her.
He said he was always so proud of how hard she had worked and how busy her life was but said that he had never asked his daughter to spend a single Father's Day with him but he wished he could turn back the clock.
(24:01):
Join us again next time for another deep dive into yet another case. Please comment and let us know your thoughts. Thanks!
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