On May 27, 2011, Michelle Hoang Thi Le (October 12, 1984 – May 27, 2011) a 26-year-old American nursing student from the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, was murdered in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

city of

Hayward, California Hayward () is a city located in Alameda County, California in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 162,954 as of 2020, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda Coun ...

by 27-year old Giselle Diwag Esteban.

Biography

Le grew up in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

with her younger brother, Michael. She graduated from Mt. Carmel High School in 2002. Le attended San Jose State and later transferred to San Francisco State University and studied nursing at Samuel Merritt University in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Investigation

On May 27, 2011 Le's white Honda SUV was found the morning after her disappearance around 9am parked on Ponderosa Court, about half a mile from the medical center. Her family put up billboards and offered a reward for information about her whereabouts."Family keeps hope for missing California student"
UPI, June 20, 2011. Over the next four months, at least eight volunteer search efforts were undertaken, some organized by the Klaas Kids Foundation. A variety of missing persons organizations joined in the searches. The eighth search found decomposed human remains in a remote canyon area on September 17. On September 19, 2011, the Alameda County coroner's office positively identified the remains to be those of Michelle Le. Police suspected from the beginning that Le had been killed by someone she knew. Giselle Diwag Esteban (born February 4, 1984) of Union City, California, a former friend of Le, was arrested on September 7 and charged with her murder, although a body had not yet been found at that time. Authorities said there was enough DNA evidence in the form of blood stains found in Le's car and on Esteban's shoe, and that security video footage confirmed Esteban's presence in the area at the time Le disappeared. Esteban allegedly blamed Le for ruining her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, with whom she had a child, but denied any involvement in Le's disappearance. Esteban was indicted on a murder charge December 14, 2011.

Trial

Esteban entered a not guilty plea. A trial date was set for September 17, 2012. On October 29, 2012, a jury convicted Esteban of

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the c ...

. At the December 10 sentencing, Esteban was given 25 years to life in prison. At the time of Le's murder, Esteban was pregnant. Esteban gave birth in prison and the child is in the custody of the father.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le, Michelle 2011 murders in the United States Murder in the San Francisco Bay Area History of Hayward, California 2011 in California People murdered in California Murdered American students Vietnamese people murdered abroad American people of Vietnamese descent 1984 births 2011 deaths History of women in California May 2011 crimes in the United States