GUILTY FL - Wendy Trapaga, 21, found murdered in Miami dumpster, 14 Oct 2002

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Woman Killed Hours After Honeymoon; Husband Arrested

Newlywed's Body Found By Dumpster Three Years Ago

MIAMI -- Police have arrested the husband of a woman who was found three years ago beaten to death and tossed behind a trash bin just hours after the couple returned from their honeymoon.

A sanitation worker found the body of Wendy Trapaga, 21, early in the morning on Monday, Oct. 14, 2002. The body was next to a Dumpster along the 7200 block of Northwest 70th Street. Her face was badly beaten, according to police.

She and her husband, Michael Escoto, 35, had come back from her honeymoon late Sunday, Oct. 13, 2002. The couple had eloped, according to family members.

According to an attorney for the Trapaga family, the couple took out a life insurance policy worth $1 million just before their Oct. 10, 2002 wedding. Escoto was the beneficiary.

http://www.local10.com/news/4857768/detail.html
 
He promised to love and protect his wife till death do them part.

Four days later, Michel Escoto's wife was found bludgeoned to death near a Dumpster in Medley.

That was nearly three years ago, on Oct. 14, 2002.

Early Tuesday, Escoto, 33, was charged with the murder of his bride, Wendy Marie Trapaga, 21, of Miami Beach.

Escoto was taken into custody at the home of his girlfriend, Yolanda Cerrillo, in the Fontainebleau area. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiheral...?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_breaking_news
 
Ex-girlfriend says she took part in love triangle murder plot

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...ngle-20111211,0,595717.story?page=1&track=rss

Yolanda Cerrillo, jilted lover, begged her ex-boyfriend to return — and then helped him plan the murder of his new bride.

Cerrillo helped him crush up Percocet pills into a powder to knock her out. She allowed him to dunk her head into a bathtub, to practice how to drown the young woman. And when the murder was done, Cerrillo ferried him to the bay to dump the bloody tire iron he ultimately used to beat her to death.

Her version of events, recounted in a recently released statement to authorities, provide a chilling blow-by-blow account of how authorities say Michel Escoto, 40, plotted the demise of his new bride, Wendy Trapaga, in a scheme to collect a $1 million insurance policy in 2002.

"So, it didn't matter to you that she was killed or not," Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine asked Cerrillo during the August sworn statement.

"No ... it didn't matter," Cerrillo responded.

"As long as you were going to get him, you were happy?"

"Yes," she replied.

Cerrillo's statement offers vivid and damning details, bolstering a high-profile first-degree murder case that had been mostly circumstantial. Her testimony, however, is risky: prosecutors had no choice but to grant her immunity for murder, which could open her up to credibility attacks at trial.

Much more at link....
 
Dang!!! She was in on all of it. And the motive was money. I never saw that coming, though I never really saw a motive on this one other than maybe rage/anger/abuse.

She thought he would be a good father figure for her daughter. And she doesn't even seem to notice the contradiction on that and the discussion of planning the woman's murder with him.
 
Wow! We missed this whole trial. They're having closing arguments today.

I guess the def acted as his own attorney, however today he wants his asst (attorney) to do the closing statement.

fwiw,
fran


Closing arguments in trial of Miami man accused of killing new bride

Jurors will soon be deliberating the fate of a Miami man accused of murdering his new wife for a $1 million life insurance policy.

Closing arguments are set Monday morning in the trial of Michel Escoto, 42, for the October 2002 killing of 21-year-old Wendy Trapaga. Prosecutors say he drugged Trapaga, then beat and strangled her, dumping her body near a trash bin outside a Northwest Miami-Dade warehouse.

Escoto, who is representing himself, is charged with first-degree murder and faces life in prison if he is convicted.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/21/4071453/closing-arguments-in-trial-of.html#storylink=cpy
 
Interesting, apparently he threatened a witness against him in open court. When court reconvened the pros asked the judge to move the courtroom around. They didn't want to be pinned up against a wall if the defendant got violent again.

Four days married and he murdered her.
:(
fran


Michel Escoto found guilty of killing wife days after marriage

It only took jurors a few hours to convict Michel Escoto of first-degree murder after about listening to about a month of testimony during the trial.

read more ...... http://www.local10.com/news/michel-escoto-guilty-verdict/25596764
 
Good article that pretty well sums up the case.

JMHO
fran



'Controlling, manipulative schemer', 42, 'beat wife, 21, to death after trying to drown her in a jacuzzi so he could get his hands on her $1MILLION life insurance policy'

A Miami man's plan to drown his 21-year-old wife in a jacuzzi in order to collect her life insurance policy failed when he couldn't keep her head under the water, a court heard on Monday.

Prosecutors labelled Michel Escoto a 'controlling, manipulative schemer' who plotted to murder his spouse, Wendy Trapaga, in October 2002 in order to claim $1 million from her death.

In the closing arguments of Escoto's murder trial in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, prosector Gail Levine told jurors that, after his plan failed, Escoto choked and beat Trapaga to death with a tire iron outside a Northwest Miami-Dade warehouse.

The closing arguments brought to an end a month of testimony that included more than 20 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence, The Miami Herald reported.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...LION-life-insurance-policy.html#ixzz2zfNJcUwB
 
I just saw this case on Snapped recently. Tragic. And the bride was so young and pretty. He premeditated it probably the whole time he was dating her, and waiting to go back to Yolanda. Yolanda did the right thing by testifying against him, but she is pretty screwed up too if she let him practice drowning her!!!
 
I just stumbled across this thread and I happened to know these people. Small world knowing both the victim's family and the killers. They attempted to kill before that murder and were never charged. Had the police pursued that previous case, maybe he would never have committed this murder. What ifs will never bring her back and the previous victims are still alive. I thank God everyday he's behind bars. Meeting him the first time, I knew he was evil.
 

Not sure if there's anything new in this but just came across it, dated 16th July 2022
PRemeditated murder for financial gain, ... .makes you wonder what you have to do to get the death penalty (nominal only at the moment) in FL. Given that Sievers got the death penalty it is surprising to me that this Escoto did not. There are a lot of similarities in the cases. KG. Perhaps it was because that one of the potential defendants was a state witness for lack of other evidence. Death penalty juries are nervous about that.
 

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