The closing time Jan Cilliers had a dialog together with his spouse, Christy Giles, she used to be taking a stroll outdoor their Marina del Rey, California, condominium with their cat, Loki — a Russian Blue, whose favourite factor to do used to be run out at the seashore and roll within the sand. She despatched him a video of Loki taking part in within the sand.
Christy Giles/Instagram/Jan Cilliers 
It used to be Friday night time, Nov. 12, 2021. Cilliers used to be in San Francisco visiting his father. Giles, 24, a haute couture fashion, used to be in Los Angeles making plans a ladies night time out along with her buddy, Hilda Marcela Cabrales, 26, an architect and internal fashion designer.
“I knew she used to be going out that night time. I believe she had a couple of other plans. She did not know the place she used to be going to head but after which I went to sleep quite early that night time and she or he despatched me a few textual content messages,” Cilliers, informed “48 Hours” contributor Jonathan Vigliotti in an interview for “Christy and Hilda’s Last Dance,” now streaming on Paramount+.
Day after today, round 7a.m., Cilliers despatched his spouse a textual content message to test in, however did not pay attention anything else again. He concept she’d been out past due and used to be snoozing in. He remembers feeling one thing wasn’t proper. The couple shared their places on their telephones through the use of their “Proportion My Location,” function on their iPhones. “We percentage our telephone places with every different simply as a security function,” stated Cilliers. He spotted that Giles’ telephone used to be pinging at an unfamiliar deal with, an condominium on 8641 West Olympic Street in West Los Angeles.
Frightened, however no longer but panicked, Cilliers says he persevered to take a look at and succeed in her. Hours went through and nonetheless no phrase from Giles. “I nonetheless hadn’t heard again from her, and I noticed her location had all at once moved to an emergency room sanatorium … and at that time, like, I am in actual panic.”
Jan Cilliers 
Inside of mins, Cillers’ lifestyles modified enormously when Giles’s telephone pinged on the Southern California Clinical Heart at Culver Town, Los Angeles. He known as Christy’s oldsters with the tips, and a little while later they known as him again and discovered that his spouse of simply two years had died after being dropped outdoor the sanatorium through two masked males in a automobile with out license plates. Health center group of workers informed investigators the lads claimed to be “just right Samaritans.” She had died from a drug overdose.
“While you had been informed that the reason for dying used to be an overdose, did that upload as much as you?” Vigliotti requested. “Completely no longer … certainly no longer one thing that she would have completed to herself ever,” stated Cilliers.
His function as loving husband would all at once flip to grieving investigator.
“In lower than 24 hours, your international used to be grew to become the wrong way up?” requested Vigliotti. “Shattered,” Cilliers spoke back.
Cilliers wasted no time seeking to get solutions about what came about to Giles. Armed with the virtual path Giles had left in the back of, he got to work. He gave investigators a screenshot of the positioning on West Olympic Street the place Christy’s telephone were pinging that morning.
Cilliers discovered from the buddy who were out with the ladies that night time that she shared telephone places with Cabrales. She informed Cilliers that Cabrales’ telephone used to be pinging on the precise location the place Giles were, that mysterious deal with in West Misplaced Angeles.
She known as Cabrales’ telephone. A person responded and hung up. Afterwards, it simply went to voicemail. They later discovered that Hilda had additionally been left at a sanatorium, Kaiser Permanente, about two miles clear of the place Christy used to be taken. She had additionally suffered a drug overdose and used to be demise.
“Clearly, all our alarm bells are going off in our heads when each ladies are dropped off at two other hospitals, two hours aside,” stated Cilliers. “One thing horrible came about that night time.”
He took the closing identified location of each ladies on West Olympic Blvd and blasted it on social media.
Jan Cilliers 
“I posted her deal with on Instagram asking if any one knew and that she had kicked the bucket. And I suppose the tale went like all over the place. Numerous other people shared it,” stated Cilliers.
He in an instant were given leads. “Folks were given again to me with announcing that this man lives at this deal with and he is a much like suspicious individual, that there is a number of issues out at the Web about him, that he is no longer an excessively savory personality. … Numerous in point of fact horrible issues had been written about him on-line,” stated Cilliers.
“Clearly at this level, I do know she’s kicked the bucket, that she used to be at this individual’s deal with all night time, all afternoon,” stated Cilliers. “I knew one thing just like the worst of the worst had came about.”
Investigators say it used to be the house of David Pearce, 39, a self-proclaimed “Hollywood manufacturer.”
Cilliers checked Giles’ computer: he may see her historical past of textual content messages. One, with a wide-eyed emoji, stuck his consideration: it used to be in an change between Christy and Hilda, the place the 2 ladies deliberate to depart the positioning they might been taken to and catch an Uber. However that experience by no means came about.
Jan Cilliers
Cilliers equipped detectives with that textual content, which might quickly develop into a key piece of proof. “I give as a lot knowledge as I will to the detectives … and … I consider that that night time, they knocked on his door for the primary time to speak to him.”
The hunt to resolve what brought about his spouse’s dying persevered. After combing via social media posts and connecting the dots via conversations with pals, he made a timeline. The ladies began their night time on the Soho Area in West Hollywood previous on Friday night. Simply after middle of the night, they persevered to celebration. They went to look one in all their favourite DJs at a warehouse celebration in East Los Angeles.
“I contacted everyone I may on the occasions that she went to that night time and located those footage of those guys placing out with them,” Cilliers tells “48 Hours.” The footage proved that Pearce used to be on the similar warehouse celebration, within the VIP segment, with Christy and Hilda.
Cilliers persevered to place the items of the puzzle in combination. He got surveillance video from outdoor the warehouse location the place the ladies had been closing noticed alive. At 4:51 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021, Pearce and his pals are noticed leaving the warehouse with Giles and Cabrales. Surveillance pictures captured them entering a automobile that may later be connected to the similar location the place the ladies’s telephones were pinging all day.
“I imply it is simply confirming my worst fears once more that they had been there at that position towards their will,” Cilliers tells “48 Hours.” “We would have liked to assemble as a lot proof as lets about precisely what came about … precisely what brought about their dying. At that time, we already knew who used to be accountable.”
Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales each died from a poisonous combine of substances, together with cocaine and fentanyl. In Giles’s case, GHB – referred to as the date rape drug – used to be present in her gadget.
Pearce used to be charged with two counts of first-degree prison homicide for the rape and deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales. He used to be additionally charged with seven counts of sexual attack involving seven other ladies.
On Feb. 4, 2025, Pearce used to be discovered guilty of first-degree murder. within the deaths of Giles and Cabrales.
Jurors additionally discovered Pearce in charge of 7 counts of sexual attack for the prior fees.
