The Senseless Killing Of UCLA Student Andrea DelVesco
The UCLA psychology student was brutally murdered in her apartment in September 2015.
Andrea “Andy” DelVesco had just begun her fourth year of classes at UCLA in 2015. The 21-year-old Texas native and sorority sister lived with her dog and her roommates in a first-floor apartment just steps from the UCLA campus. On Sept. 21, 2015, the psychology student was found murdered and charred on her bed.
DelVesco’s upstairs neighbor, Sarah Muhr, made the initial 911 call at 6:15 a.m. to report she heard screaming from the apartment below her. Muhr had reportedly just returned home from taking her boyfriend to the airport and saw a strange man leaving the building. The man combined with the screams was enough to send LAPD officers flying to the scene with their lights and sirens blaring.
According to CNN, all was quiet at the off-campus apartment complex when officers arrived. They conducted an exterior search of the complex, shined a flashlight into DelVesco’s bedroom and into the living room, “but observed no one” and found “no evidence of a crime.”
30 minutes later, a panicked Muhr summoned officers again — the apartment below her was on fire.
At the scene, DelVesco’s roommates were calling her name outside her room. When the fire was out, authorities found the woman on her bed with deep wounds to her carotid arteries and a total of 19 stab wounds. Her burned and dying dog was with her on the bed. He was later euthanized at a nearby animal hospital.
An arson investigator testified at trial that the suspect had dumped a trash can on top of DelVesco’s body and lit the contents on fire.
Authorities reportedly identified the killers by linking them to a burglary in the building. Eric Marquez was a fellow UCLA student. Alberto Hinojosa Medina was studying at Fresno State when he came to visit Marquez. The pair was accused of stealing a pair of speakers. When the speakers were connected to the internet under a new name, authorities were able to connect the dots and arrest the two. There was no apparent connection to DelVesco or motive in the crime.
The murder investigation revealed that Medina killed Delvesco while Marquez was in the getaway car. In May 2018, Medina was found guilty of murder, arson, animal cruelty, and burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is currently housed at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California. According to Newsweek, Eric Marquez confessed to burglary and accessory after the fact and was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison.
As for the officers who responded to the first 911 call and reported nothing amiss, they were both fired after an internal affairs investigation. According to CNN, DelVesco’s parents were vocal about what they perceived as negligence on the part of the responding officers for not looking harder for the source of the screams.
