1. The Pronoun "I"
2. The Past Tense Verb "did not"
3. The specific allegation answered.
When a denial has more than 3, it is no longer deemed reliable.
We sometimes come across a case like this:
"I did not kill Christian Aguilar," Bravo told the court. "I did not do anything to hurt my friend
beyond that point that caused him to die. I know in my heart what I did and God know what I
did. I'll take whatever sentence is given to me ... and I will do it."
A jury Friday found Pedro Bravo guilty of killing his longtime friend Christian Aguilar in a 2012 fit of jealous rage after learning his best friend was seeing his ex-girlfriend.
It took only hours after both sides finished arguing the case for the jury to come back with a guilty verdict on all seven charges, which included murder and kidnapping.
One hour after the verdict, a judge sentenced Bravo to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder conviction. A shackled Bravo denied he killed his friend before the sentence was handed down.
"I did not kill Christian Aguilar," Bravo told the court. "I did not do anything to hurt my friend beyonf that point that caused him to die. I know in my heart what I did and God know what I did. I'll take whatever sentence is given to me ... and I will do it."
Bravo, 20, purchased a shovel, sleeping pills, duct tape and a knife before Aguilar's 2012 killing in Gainesville, where the two were attending the University of Florida.
"He literally bought the murderer's starter pack," prosecutor Bill Ezzell told the court earlier Friday during closing arguments.
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Testifying in his own defense Thursday, Bravo said he bought the items because he intended to kill himself, but couldn't go through with it.
Bravo and Aguilar had been friends for years, but authorities say the two fell out over a girl, Erika Friman, who used to date Bravo. Then she began seeing the 18-year-old Aguilar.
Friman was in court Friday.
All three had attended the Doral Academy and then ended up in Gainesville to attend college.
Ezzell told jurors that Bravo had used cellphone apps to find a remote location to bury Aguilar's body, and argued that Bravo's statements to police kept changing about what happened the night of Aguilar's death, WFOR-TV reported.
Initially, Bravo said he and Aguilar had been riding in his car when the two argued over Friman. But on the witness stand Thursday, Bravo admitted he had physically attacked Aguilar and the two got into a fistfight.
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