A California man has been found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend. Police say her final moments were recorded on a chilling voicemail.
The true crime tragedy began on Sept. 2, 2020, when 25-year-old Laura Sardinha changed her locks at her apartment because she was in fear of her ex-boyfriend — 39-year-old Craig J. Charron. Sardinha also had a restraining order placed against him, which several other women reportedly had done as well.
‘Cold-hearted murder.’
That same day, Sardinha was on a three-way phone call with her mother and her best friend around 1:15 p.m.
However, the call was interrupted for a horrific reason.
Despite all of her precautions, Charron allegedly broke into Sardinha’s apartment unit.
She allegedly screamed, “Oh my God, he’s here!”
Sardinha’s friend hung up the phone call and contacted 911.
Soon, Sardinha reportedly called her friend back and left a chilling 37-second voicemail message that would record her final tragic moments.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Sardinha was heard screaming, “He’s gonna kill me!”
The woman also allegedly yelled, “Get away from me!”
Police arrived at the crime scene to find Sardinha dead and Charron bleeding from wounds to his chest and neck.
‘He was the aggressor 100% of the time.’
Charron’s attorney, Michael Guisti, argued during the trial that his client acted in self-defense.
However, prosecutors asserted that Charron inflicted the stab wounds on himself with a serrated steak knife to make it appear as a self-defense case.
“It doesn’t matter if he self-inflicted wounds, or if she defended herself,” Orange County Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera stated. “He was the aggressor 100% of the time.”
At about 6-feet tall and weighing 220 pounds, Charron stood about nine inches taller and weighed over 100 pounds more than Sardinha, prosecutors noted.
“She can’t cut lemons and limes reliably with a knife, let alone defend her life,” Madera claimed. “He towered over her.”
Madera described Sardinha’s death as “cold-hearted murder” and said of the voicemail recording, “You don’t hear the defendant on it, and his silence is absolutely deafening. He’s enjoying taking his time killing her.”
Madera noted in her closing statements at Charron’s Tuesday trial in Santa Ana that “if you listen to it carefully, you hear a woman narrating her own murder.”
Charron claimed during the trial that he could not recall much of the encounter with Sardinha but described it as “hazy.”
However, Charron insisted that Sardinha had threatened him with a knife and that he stabbed his ex-girlfriend only in self-defense.
During the trial, Charron reportedly described himself as a former combat medic with a 100% disability rating who had received psychiatric treatment at a United States Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.
“I didn’t quite comprehend what was happening in the moment,” Charron claimed. “It’s taking me a second to understand I’m being cut up.”
During the trial, three of Charron’s ex-girlfriends testified that they had taken out restraining orders against him.
“One woman said he choked her and hit her in the head with a wine bottle,” according to the Times. “Another said he slapped her and poured vodka on her head. A third said he pinned her to a wall and punched a man who was in her company.”
After less than one day of deliberations, a jury found Charron guilty of first-degree murder. He faces a maximum punishment of life in prison.
Charron is scheduled to be sentenced on July 25.
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Murder, True crime, True crime news, Homicide, California crime, Crime, Guilty verdict
