Who was UCLA student Andrea DelVesco and what happened to her?

Posted by Noelle Montes on Friday, May 3, 2024

TRAGEDY struck the UCLA campus in 2015 after a 21-year-old student was found dead.

A man is now serving life in prison for the murder and true crime enthusiasts want to know more about the tragic case.

Who was UCLA student Andrea DelVesco?

Andrea "Andy" DelVesco was a UCLA college student born on June 29, 1994, in Austin, Texas.

She was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority and would often be seen around campus with her sorority sisters.

On the academic side, she was studying for a double major in Spanish and psychology.

What happened to Andrea DelVesco?

UCLA student Sarah Muhr had just returned to her apartment after dropping her boyfriend off at LAX on September 21, 2015.

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It was around 5.30am when she saw a strange man dressed in a red and blue tank top, dark jeans, and a baseball cap run down the stairwell.

At first, she thought nothing of it and decided to go back to sleep, but less than an hour later, she was woken up by the sound of a woman’s screams and barking.

She quickly called 911 to report the screams and the suspicious man she saw before, according to CNN.

Police arrived at the complex and searched DelVesco's apartment but there was "no evidence of a crime," according to Officer Rhoadell Sudduth.

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Police left shortly after arriving but Muhr was still shaken up and was unable to fall back asleep. Less than an hour later, she then heard another loud noise coming from the apartment and looked out her window to see the same man jumping from DelVesco's balcony.

This time, she also saw smoke and quickly called 911 again.

“I just called the cops about a girl screaming and I just saw the guy who was in there run out of her room and it looks like her room is on fire,” Muhr told the operator, according to a transcript of the call obtained by CNN.

Again, authorities rushed to the scene but this time, they found DelVesco's body badly burned on her bed.

Police documents showed that she was initially labeled a "Jane Doe" before dental records positively IDed her, according to CNN.

Her autopsy later revealed low levels of carbon monoxide in her blood and the absence of soot in her lungs, meaning that DelVesco “was most likely deceased prior to ignition of the residential fire."

Who killed Andrea DelVesco?

After DelVesco's body was discovered police launched an investigation to try and find her killer.

The investigation eventually led to the arrests of two college students, Alberto Medina and Eric Marquez.

Medina, a Fresno State University student, was later found guilty of murder, arson, burglary, and animal cruelty in connection with DelVesco’s death, according to the Los Angeles Times. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Marquez, a UCLA student who lived across the street from DelVesco, also pleaded guilty to one burglary count and a count of being an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison in 2018.

The LAPD also faced backlash from DelVesco's murder because of their response to the initial 911 call. As a result, veteran officers Rhoadell Sudduth and Alisha Williams were fired, according to CBS News.

“If they had gone into the apartment, maybe Andrea would be alive today,” DelVesco's mother, Leslie, said in a statement, via CBS News.

“It astounds me and horrifies me that the police could have left and not made sure that all the girls in the apartment were OK.

“We’ll never know if when they responded to the initial 911 call if Andrea was alive or not. But we do know that the fire hadn’t been set then. So no matter what, we could have seen Andrea as we remembered her before her body was so badly burned,” she added.

The LAPD also released a statement saying: "The facts and circumstances surrounding the murder of Andrea DelVesco earlier this year was a devastating and unspeakable tragedy for her family, friends, the community, and the men and women of the LAPD.

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"We cannot fully comprehend the grief her parents and other loved ones have suffered from their loss and the senior detectives from LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division worked tirelessly to identify and arrest Andrea’s suspected murderers so that they may face justice.

"As additional details were discovered about the circumstances of the incident, the LAPD took swift action to hold Department personnel accountable for mistakes made in the initial stages of the investigation."

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