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ABC will revisit the 2012 disappearance and murder of Christian Aguilar in a two-hour 20/20 special. The episode titled They Know Everything is scheduled to air Friday, June 20, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT and stream on Hulu the next day.
The program traces how the 18-year-old University of Florida freshman vanished after meeting former high-school friend Pedro Bravo in Gainesville, triggering a three-week volunteer search that ended when hunters located Christian Aguilar’s remains in a shallow Levy County grave on October 12, 2012.
Investigators later recovered Bravo’s receipt for a shovel, surveillance images of him washing his vehicle, and computer searches on burial methods. Christian Aguilar was strangled to death by Pedro Bravo for dating his former girlfriend, Erika Friman. Evidence that prosecutors said demonstrated premeditation was found, as per a CBS Miami report dated August 15, 2014.
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A jury convicted Bravo of first-degree murder and six related counts in 2014, and he received life without parole, as per a NBC Miami report dated August 16, 2014. Bravo died by suicide in March 2025 while facing new racketeering and perjury charges linked to a failed bid to overturn his conviction
Christian Aguilar's disappearance and murder: What happened to him in detail
Christian Aguilar left his Gainesville campus on September 20, 2012, to meet former classmate Pedro Bravo. Hours later, he stopped answering calls. Aguilar’s girlfriend Erika Friman filed a missing-persons report that night, and his parents drove up from Miami to lead a volunteer search that would stretch across woods, swamps, and back roads for 22 days.
Hunters eventually discovered Christian Aguilar’s shallow grave in rural Levy County on October 12, 2012. Investigators traced dirt on Bravo’s SUV and a shovel receipt back to the burial site, then uncovered surveillance video of Bravo cleaning his vehicle at 1 a.m. and purchasing duct tape and sleep aids in the days before the meeting.
As per the ABC news report dated June 20, 2025, Detectives also found online searches on Bravo’s laptop.
“Where can I bury a body?... How many sleeping pills will it take to kill someone?” it read suggesting premeditation.
Forensic tests linked Aguilar’s blood to Bravo’s floor mat, while torn duct-tape edges on Aguilar’s ankles matched tape still stuck to Bravo’s windshield. Motive soon focused on jealousy: Friman had begun dating Christian Aguilar weeks after ending her relationship with Bravo.
The evidence trail that led to Pedro Bravo’s conviction
The trial opened in August 2014. Prosecutor Bill Ezzell called Bravo’s shopping list a murderer’s starter pack, showing the jury receipts for the shovel, pills, and knife. Cell-tower data and GPS logs placed Bravo near the grave site the night Aguilar vanished.
A jailhouse informant, Michael Angelo, testified that Bravo described strangling Aguilar with a moving strap in a Walmart lot, then wrapping the body in duct tape before driving west. Judges instructed jurors on first-degree and felony-murder standards; deliberations lasted just over three hours. The panel returned guilty verdicts on all seven counts, and Judge James Colaw imposed life without parole.
As per the CBS Miami report dated August 15, 2014, Judge Colaw stated, underscoring the court’s view of the crime:
"You took his past, everything he had been, you took his present, everything he was and you took his future, everything he would have been."
Where the case stands ahead of the 20/20 broadcast
Nearly a decade later, 20/20 revisited the case in March 2024, featuring Bravo’s first on-camera denial from Okeechobee Correctional Institution. As cited in the ABC News report dated March 1, 2024, while conceding that a fistfight occurred, he insisted:
“No, I did not kill Christian.”
Shortly afterwards, Bravo enlisted fellow inmate Brandon Campbell to recruit outside witness Kelcie Edwards and persuade Angelo to recant. The scheme unravelled when phone logs and Cash App transfers tied Edwards to Bravo.
Facing new racketeering and perjury charges, Bravo died by suicide on March 12, 2025. Edwards later received five years’ probation; Angelo drew a seven-year sentence. As per the ABC News report dated June 20, 2025, prosecutor Brian Kramer remarked about the conspiracy, noting the original conviction remains intact:
“The amount of subterfuge, lies and creation of false evidence, is beyond what we would ever see.”
The upcoming two-hour 20/20 special, airing June 20, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET, compiles the investigation, trial, and prison-plot fallout, offering Christian Aguilar’s family and viewers an updated look at a case that still resonates more than twelve years after the freshman’s disappearance.
