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Background: The Huntington Beach, Calif., neighborhood where Craig Charron murdered Laura Sardinha in 2020 (Google Maps). Inset left: Laura Sardinha (Dignity Memorial). Inset right: Craig Charron (Huntington Beach Police Department).
A California man accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death while she was on the phone has been found guilty of murder.
Craig Charron, 39, was convicted by a jury on Tuesday of the 2020 murder of his girlfriend, Laura Sardinha, 25, whom he stabbed in the apartment they previously shared. Prosecutors said that after several violent interactions with Charron, Sardinha had the locks changed and got a restraining order against him. But he still made it into her apartment, where he attacked her with several different knives, stabbing her in the chest and face.
During the attack, Sardinha was on the phone, recording a 37-second voicemail that prosecutors said sounded like “a woman narrating her own murder.”
During the trial, which was covered by the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors said that Sardinha was just one of several women who had taken out a restraining order against Charron. Three of those women testified for the prosecution, and all of them described being either slapped, choked or abused by Charron while in a relationship with him.
According to the prosecution, Sardinha had been documenting Charron’s behavior, including the morning of the day he killed her. Upon waking on the morning of Sept. 2, 2020, Sardinha recorded a conversation between herself and Charron in which she was begging for him to leave her alone, asking him repeatedly, “Can you please leave?” and “Please get away from me.” Charron was heard responding, “All I want is to be with you.” Sardinha then said, “You terrify me, because you don’t leave.”
Prosecutors said that Sardinha told a friend that Sharron had demanded oral sex from her.
Charron also tried to paint himself as the victim, apparently filming himself in the apartment saying, “Oh my God, don’t hit me … Laura, why are you hitting me?” while Sardinha was on another side of the room.
The same morning, Sardinha went to the leasing office to ask if she could get her apartment locks changed. Charron was seen by the apartment manager and allowed Sardinha to hide in the office before he escorted her back to the apartment. The locks were changed that morning.
After he was locked out, Charron continued to try to contact Sardinha by phone, and she ignored him.
At about 1:15 p.m. that day, Sardinha placed a call to her mother and best friend. But at some point, Charron got inside the apartment. When he took the stand, he said he entered through the unlocked door.
While she was on the phone, Sardinha could be heard saying, “Oh my God, he’s here!” They ended the call, and the friend called 911. Sardinha then placed another call that went to voicemail in which she can be heard screaming, “He’s gonna kill me!” and “Get away from me!”
According to prosecutors, the attack was recorded. Charron never said a word, and prosecutors said, “You don’t hear the defendant on it, and his silence is absolutely deafening. He’s enjoying taking his time killing her.”
Charron then apparently stabbed himself to make it appear that he had been attacked and was acting in self-defense. When Charron, a military veteran, took the stand, he testified that he had a 100% disability rating and had undergone psychiatric treatment. The attack, he told the court, was “hazy,” and “I didn’t quite comprehend what was happening in the moment. It’s taking me a second to understand I’m being cut up.”
Prosecutors called Charron’s knife wounds self-inflicted, saying that at 6 feet tall and 220 pounds, he “towered over” Sardinha. After citing an injury Sardinha had suffered in a motorcycle accident in 2019, which rendered her unable to cut lemons with a knife — something that meant the loss of her bartending job — prosecutors said it was unlikely that she stabbed Charron.
But even if she had, Charron “was the aggressor 100% of the time.”
Jurors deliberated for less than a day before finding Charron guilty of first-degree murder. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 25.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential, and available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
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