The grieving mother of a student who was brutally murdered by being stabbed 19 times before having her body burned had a chilling premonition prior to the crime.
When Andrea decided to attend the University of California Los Angeles in 2015 as opposed to the University of Chicago, Leslie DelVesco was disappointed.
She claimed to have a strong intuition that things would go awry.
Leslie didn’t express these feelings to Andrea, though, because she had no reason to question Andrea’s judgement or the school she had chosen.
“I started bawling my eyes out,” she said.
As it turned out, the mother’s intuition was spot-on.
“She was my best friend,” Leslie said of her daughter.
“She was very popular, but never cared about that,” the mother said. “She was very self-sacrificing.”
Many of Andrea’s neighbours in her apartment building were other Pi Beta Phi sorority girls.
Leslie was informed by one of the sorority sisters that Andrea, a psychology student, frequently stayed up late to assist her with homework even though she had her own class to attend in the morning.
Both assassins of Andrea were college students.
At the age of 22, Alberto Medina enrolled at Fresno State University. According to the Los Angeles Times, he was found guilty in 2018 of crimes like murder, arson, and burglary and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Before getting into Andrea’s apartment, he broke into another one in the same building, but Leslie thinks he was after her because she was a woman. She claimed that most burglars do not knife their victims 19 times.
Leslie remarked that Medina “appeared bored to be there” throughout his trial.
His accomplice, 22-year-old UCLA student Eric Marquez, was initially accused of murder as well.
But after pleading guilty to lesser charges of burglary and being an accessory after the fact, he was only imprisoned for less than three years.
Because Marquez wasn’t truthful with police the day after the crime was done, Leslie thinks Marquez was more guilty than the evidence indicated.
“Why would he choose to protect Medina?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t you just be in shock and want to do the right thing?”
Before getting into Andrea’s apartment, he broke into another one in the same building, but Leslie thinks he was after her because she was a woman. She claimed that most burglars do not knife their victims 19 times.
Leslie remarked that Medina “appeared bored to be there” throughout his trial.
His accomplice, 22-year-old UCLA student Eric Marquez, was initially accused of murder as well.
But after pleading guilty to lesser charges of burglary and being an accessory after the fact, he was only imprisoned for less than three years.
Because Marquez wasn’t truthful with police the day after the crime was done, Leslie thinks Marquez was more guilty than the evidence indicated.
In the end, this resulted in the firing of the two senior commanders.
Leslie has no animosity against the policemen who are still in training. She claimed that one even questioned the choice to leave the area at the time without conducting additional investigation.
The mother went on to say that she thought the LAPD did a good job with their investigation and appreciated their efforts to find the offenders as soon as possible.
Leslie said she’s been trying to move on even though it’s been difficult since that’s what Andrea would want.
In Texas, where Andrea was raised, she now serves as a volunteer grief counsellor at the Austin Center for Grief and Loss.
