They were Beautiful People. In miamis sizzling south beach, singles who became lovers. And then, newlyweds. They were still on their honeymoon only married four days when this young bride was murdered. I get a phone call, screaming, crying. No Murder Weapon. No dna. But no shortage of suspects. We have to prove it. Did the redhot miami lifestyle have something to do with her death. It has been going on in this club scene. He did admit to having other countries with couples there. Or was it simple jealousy . Threats. Say that again. Objection. Betrayal. He said he did not love, her and he loved me. And finally, a verdict. Eight years of waiting. Years of mourning her. We needed justice. Hello and welcome to dateline. An older man with a string of admiring girlfriends, that wendy was a surprise catch. The couple quickly married. Then, just days later, the young bride was found dead in a parking lot. The mystery of her murder would haunt investigators for years. But the truth would prove more coldblooded than even they could imagine. Heres Dennis Murphy with mystery in south beach. If you spent any time down here, you probably sense there are really two miami beaches. You know this one by reputation anyway. South beach. A Pulsating Playground with energy that surges out of the ocean and exhausts itself in the allnight clubs. And then theres the old miami beach. Here are the sunburned back streets of apartment blocks, where decades past the old people used to sit out in aluminum chairs. And thats where a young couple, wendy and michel, were trying to make a go of it. The rent was cheap. The window airconditioning good enough. But if you ever thought Beautiful People catch all the breaks, then listen to this story of 21yearold Wendy Trapaga because she may be the most gorgeous doomed young woman to ever walk these streets. She was model pretty. I dont think that she thought of herself as anything spectacular. Her much older sisters and Brother Ralph never use the qualifier step sister. Theyll tell you she was a little bit of a daddys girl, her father, an International Airline pilot who died, sadly, in a crash when wendy was just 6. Wendys mother, miriam, raised her with big sister rita always pitching in. I guess i was like that other mother for her because i was always there by miriams side, raising her. The love of animals was always a part of wendy. She was always rescuing some animal, dog, puppy, kitten, anything. But allergies would end her ambitions to become a vet. I kept telling her, dont give up your passion. Dont give it up. But wendy did have another passion. It was for fashion and makeovers. Pretty girl. At easter, she memorably dolled up her nieces for a living room fashion show. Here is the director of the entire operation. How nice a kid was this churchgoing, slightly sheltered girl . Theres this story of the classmate without a dress. One girl couldnt afford to go to the prom and wendy got this girl prettied up, got her a dress, everything. That was the heart she had. After graduation, two cousins who owned their own salons urged wendy to follow in their footsteps. She had a flare for it and you can do very well in that field . Yes, she did. So at 21 after a brief marriage she enrolled in beauty school, and in 2002 thats where she first saw Michel Escoto rumble up on his red ducati motorcycle. Michel was a selftaught web designer and sometime teacher of computing. By his early 30s he was looking for a career change. He thought he would try hairstyling. So he enrolled, as fate would have it, in the same Cosmetology School as wendy. Michels friend ramon santa cruz. When i met wendy, he was on a motorcycle with her. I told myself its a beautiful girl. I dont know what he did to get this girl. Whatever he did, it worked. The pair falling quickly and deeply. Within six months they were living together on south beach. Wendy gave michel a makeover, dyeing his hair blond. Perfect for the club scene. They lived for the day and then came unexpected news for these two butterflies. Wendy was pregnant. Her mother miriam had mixed feelings. How did she feel about the fact that her baby was having a baby . Delighted with the fact of being a grandmother, but not delighted with the circumstances. Wendy had had the Big Church Wedding for her first marriage. This time around, she and michel got hitched at miami beach city hall. You may kiss the bride. Congratulations. The next day, wendy and Michel Set Out for a brief weekend honeymoon, a drive down the florida keys to key west where the road ran out. Sunset drinks, dinner and a hotel. Three days after the wedding, they were back in miami beach, sunday evening. Wendy called her mother to say they were going to a movie and dancing later at a club. Her mother urged her pregnant daughter not to drink. Then in the middle of the night, the wee hours of Monday Morning, wendys mother got an unexpected call from her new soninlaw, michel, saying theyd had an argument. Wendy had stormed off, saying she was going to her mothers house. Since then, the bridegroom said hed repeatedly called wendy without success. Right around then, in a bleak Warehouse District miles and miles from the afterhours bars of miami, a Sanitation Worker was startled to see the body of a young woman in a blue dress slumped between two vehicles. It was the newlywed, wendy. News traveled fast. I get a phone call from my stepmother, screaming, crying. Wendys dead. They took her from me. She told me its on the news. I went looking and theres my sweet little sister being put on a gurney. And its just so surreal. This desolate warehouse place. All i kept thinking about was her being alone there, by herself, and praying to god that she didnt suffer. The killer, who bludgeoned her to death, also erased the beauty of her young face. A Honeymoon Weekend for the new bride had ended behind Yellow Police tape. Coming up, who killed wendy and why . Did it have something to do with miamis Wild Night Life . He did admit to having encounters with other couples there. When dateline continues. When dateline continues. Enough was enough. I talked to an Asthma Specialist and found out my severe asthma is driven by eosinophils, a type of asthma nucala can help control. Now, fewer Asthma Attacks and less oral steroids thats my nunormal with nucala. Nucala is a oncemonthly addon injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. Nucala is not for sudden breathing problems. Allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Infections that can cause shingles have occurred. Dont stop steroids unless told by your doctor. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. May cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. Talk to your Asthma Specialist to see if oncemonthly nucala may be right for you. And learn about savings at nucala. Com theres more to your life than asthma. Find your nunormal with nucala. Theres more to your life every day, businesses everywhere are asking is it possible . With comcast business. It is. Is it possible to help keep our Online Platform safe from cyberthreats . Absolutely. Can we provide health care virtually anywhere . We can help with that. Is it possible to use predictive monitoring to address Operations Issues . We can help with that, too. With the advanced connectivity and intelligence of global secure networking from comcast business. Miamidade Police Detectives its not just possible. Its happening. Maria medaros and gus tobias had barely clocked in for their Monday Morning shift when word came down of a homicide in a bleak Warehouse District. Its where they found in a parking lot the body of Wendy Trapaga. Lying between a car and a van. We could see the spatter of the blood on the van. Whoever did it to her, did it right there. So this body hadnt been disposed of there. This was the place where she was killed . Correct. Her head had been bashed in. But there was no weapon to be found. What type of a crime is this, a robbery . A drug deal that went bad . Tell me what youre taking in about the victim. This is a young girl. She doesnt have her shoes on which was unusual. Why is this young girl in an industrial parking lot no reason to be in this forlorn part of the county . No. Unless she met up with someone. So the detectives headed out to do the part of the job that never gets easier. So youre delivering terrible news . Horrible news. Amid the shock and tears, they piece together from the mother a sense of who their victim was and what her final hours and days had been about. Sunday evening, the phone call, wendy sounded okay, the detectives were told, but that next call at 5 48 am, the one from michel asking if she was at her moms, was worrisome. A few hours later, he was waiting for wendys mother at the school where she worked. He met her at her job. She tells me he was very disheveled and very worried about where she could be. Michel escoto, it turned out, was about to get an official answer to his where is she question. And while were talking the phone rings and its Michel Escoto calling. Again asking his motherinlaw if she had heard from wendy. Detectives grabbed the phone and asked where he was. They headed over to michels apartment to deliver the news of his girlfriend of eight months, his bride of four days. We walked into his apartment when he blurted out is she dead . And we explained were investigating the death of wendy, et cetera. He started balling up. Doubled over, crying. Police gave him a few minutes to compose himself before asking him to come down to headquarters to answer some more questions. There he recounted the brief honeymoon. Michel told the Detectives Wendy had the idea of adding a little more spice before rejoining their workweek lives. Well, we havent had much of a honeymoon this weekend. Lets extend our honeymoon. So as Michel Escoto told it, around midnight they checked into a miami hotel that features Fantasy Suites with a private pool and jacuzzi. He says they had sex, slept a little and wendy dozed off in the jacuzzi. Around 4 00 am, michel says, they checked out and headed home. Thats when, he said, the newlyweds had their first argument. Michel says he walked into the apartment, leaving wendy in the car. Three minutes later he comes out. He says when he comes out the car is gone. Wendy is gone. Michel escoto spoke with detectives for 14 hours. They asked him repeatedly if he could identify anyone with a motive. He said he couldnt. After leaving police headquarters, he saw his friend ramon santa cruz. He was looking depressed. He looked down, maybe tired. Five days after her murder, wendy was laid to rest. And then Friends And Family gathered at her parentshome. Detective baez was there as well as and he learned something about the couple that would send the investigation down another path. A thread of this investigation takes you into the swinger lifestyle. Whats been going on with michel and wendy and this club scene . After im informed of this, that wendy was part of a Swingers Club, a place called the miami velvet down here in south miami, the first thing i did wasii called michel. He did admit to having encounters with other couples there. Now you got to wonder did somebody had a thing they developed about wendy and is that person the killer . It turns out the club was within a mile and a half of the scene. So i wanted to explore that. The Swingers Club was cooperative and detectives took dna samples from a few employees and members. They would have to wait for the results. In the meantime the investigation was turning up a new lead, a former girlfriend of michels. Her name, yolanda cerrillo. Yolanda cerrillo is a person that had had a relationship with michel before he met the victim. According to her, michel left her for wendy. She loved Michel Escoto. She was very much in love with him. Yolanda a single mother. Was she also a woman scorned . He left her six months earlier and to add insult to injury, asked her to watch his dog while he was on his honeymoon with wendy. To go to the extent of taking care of somebodys dog during their honeymoon, its just as a woman very strange to me. Does yolanda become a suspect . A woman who feels she was cashiered, fired because of this younger woman and nobody gets away with that and im going to kill you . Theres a lot to yolanda. Theres a lot to yolanda. A lot of bad if you ask ramon santa cruz. I didnt like her from the beginning because she was very evasive. The apartment was always dirty. She was never a good person to begin with. Detectives met with yolanda cerrillo, who freely admitted that shed been devastated when michel dumped her. But she had no idea who beat his wife to death. She said she didnt know anything about it. But the detectives noted Something Else about yolanda. She lived just a few minutes from the parking lot where theyd found wendy. When you started adding up all the Little Things together, then her proximity to the crime scene, im very interested in yolanda cerrillo. No one knew what yolanda was hiding. That would come later. And so would the revelation of a motive that seemed to explain every violent little thing. Coming up, a million reasons why someone wanted wendy dead. I asked him, how much is the Life Insurance policy . When dateline continues. Who would want to murder pretty Wendy Trapaga . Did the killer meet her at the Sexual Swapping Club that her y things. Gross. Janice, when you bundle your home or renters with your auto, progressive provides 24 7 protection for almost everything you own. But do you really need. My weighted hoop . Its for my snatched waist. Thats my dog chaise lounger. Foot treadmill. Thats my tuesday chalice. Purse that says purse. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. I cant live without oxygen. Solid gold coffee machine. Lake making kit. Really . Can progressive cover that too . Yes, but hi its janice. Ill take 5. Is my voice on tv right now . michael copd is harder on the folks around you, i think. My wife smoked, and she quit. Because she needs to be here for to take care of me. announcer the people you love are worth quitting for. You can quit. Call 1800quitnow for help getting free medication. Ever notice how stiff clothes can feel rough on your skin . For softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free gentle. Downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. The towel washed with downy is softer, and gentler on your skin. Try downy free gentle. Who would want to murder pretty Wendy Trapaga . Did the killer meet her at the Sexual Swapping Club that her boyfriend Michel Escoto took her to . The cops ran down those leads, and the Swingers Club theory went nowhere. What about yolanda, the husbands exgirlfriend, enraged perhaps to be traded in for wendy, the younger model . The detectivesguts told them yolanda knew way more than she was saying. But if so, how to crack her . And then there was the husband himself. They kept going back over their notes from the 14hour interview with him. At times it had been pulling teeth. Once we asked him over and over again, is there anybody with a motive, anything, anything at all, anything you can tell us . I bring up a point, dont you have a Life Insurance policy . He says, yeah, we do. A hefty one, it would seem, for a healthy 21yearold woman he wasnt even married to at the time of purchase. I asked him, how much is the Life Insurance policy . And he said a Million Dollars. And i said a Million Dollars . And you dont think thats a motive . You dont think thats important to tell us . And he said no, i dont, because i have a Million DollarLife Insurance policy on myself, too. I said, well, thats not in question because youre here. Youre alive. One thing escoto did reveal, wendy was not pregnant. He said that was the cause of their argument that night. He said wendy had lied to him about the whole thing. As the detectives questions got sharper that day, michel shut down. Would you take a polygraph . No. Can we photograph those bruises on your arm . No. Take a dna swab . Again, no. He didnt talk himself off your list of suspects . He did not. He did not. The Working Theory of the crime was as simple as it was brutal. He bashed in her skull with a milliondollar insurance payout. A tire iron was missing from her car, a likely weapon, but nowhere to be found. So you two go to the prosecutor, State Attorney say weve got it. Lets go. Grand jury. No. Its not that easy. Were done . No. Why not . You have to prove it. Youve got to prove it. So the police let their person of interest go. In the meantime, wendys family had huge suspicions about michel. Sister rita wasnt crazy about him from the moment she first met him. Call it bad energy. I shook that mans hand and i was wiping my hand right after i let it go. The revelation he bought a milliondollar Life Insurance policy on wendy only