In 2018, a teenager was stabbed and left to bleed out on the side of a road. She managed to identify her killers with her last breath.
Just before dawn, 19-year-old Lizette Andrea Cuesta was found by UPS delivery drivers on a remote roadside in a town 50 miles from San Francisco, California.
She was covered in blood, and her injuries were so severe that the drivers initially thought she was missing an arm. Her throat appeared to have been cut or stabbed.
She had crawled nearly 100 yards from where she was stabbed so that passing motorists would be able to see her. Investigators were able to measure the distance from the trail of blood she left behind.
The first driver to see Cuesta did not stop because she was afraid for her own safety. Instead, she continued through the foothills until her cellphone reception returned and called the police.
The UPS drivers were the next people to spot her. They stopped and cared for Cuesta as the life seeped out of her. One of them covered her with a blanket.
Cuesta used her final words to tell them who had attacked her in such a brutal manner. Police used her dying account to arrest her two friends and coworkers, 19-year-old Daniel Lee Benjamin Gross and 25-year-old Melissa Jill Leonardo.
Search warrants were executed on their home and car, which uncovered plenty of evidence pointing them to the murder of Cuesta. They were each charged with one count of murder in connection with Cuesta’s death.
It is believed that Cuesta had willingly gotten into the car with Gross and Leonardo. She was stabbed outside of the vehicle.
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When she was found, she was airlifted to the hospital, where she died shortly after. At the time of her death, she was living in the nearby city of Tracy with her father, Ray Cuesta. He was proud of his daughter’s strength and fortitude, even in the face of death.
“She was always a fighter, she was always brave, strong, a leader. If she wanted to do something, she would get it done,” he said.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
