'I'm worthless': Woman sobs as she testifies about helping her boyfriend kill his then-wife in order to collect million-dollar insurance payout 12 years ago

A Florida man accused of murdering his new wife just days after they were married more than a decade ago is now representing himself in his long-anticipated first degree murder trial, and on Tuesday he cross-examined the prosecution's star witness: His former girlfriend who admits that she helped him murder his wife.
Authorities say Michel Escoto bludgeoned his 21-year-old bride Wendy Trapaga to death in October of 2002 - just four days after they were married - so he could collect on a million-dollar life insurance policy and run off with his girlfriend, Yolanda Cerrillo, who has admitted to helping Escoto plan the murder of her then-romantic rival in exchange for complete immunity from prosecution.
'Happy with yourself?' Miami-Dade County prosecutor Gail Levine asked Cerrillo of her involvement in the murder and the deal she reached with prosecutors.

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Tears: Yolanda Cerillo sobs as she admits her involvement in the murder of Wendy Trapaga

'I’m worthless,' Cerrillo sobbed. 'That’s how I feel right now.'
'But it’s not about you, is it?' Levine asked.

According to the Miami Herald, Cerrillo then broke down in tears.
'It’s about a mother who lost her daughter and I had something to do with it,' Cerrillo answered back in tears.
Escoto faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of Trapaga, who was found strangled, drugged and bludgeoned to death in warehouse parking lot in October of 2002.
Authorities say Escoto killed Trapaga on the couple's impromptu honeymoon in Key West, just four days after their 'rushed' wedding.
Prosecutors say that on the night of the murder, the couple went out partying and then checked into the Executive Airport Motel.
Escoto later told police that he and Trapaga had gotten into a fight and she left on her own.

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Tragic: Wendy Trapaga was allegedly murdered by her husband of four days and his ex-girlfriend in a scheme to cash in on an insurance policy

While married to Trapaga, he was still seeing his longtime girlfriend, Cerrillo, whom he had been living with prior to his marriage to Trapaga.
In 2002, Cerrillo says Escoto abruptly moved out of the apartment the two had shared.
Cerrillo admits that she was devastated after Escoto left her.
'It was downhill. He left me. I couldn’t handle it very well,' she told the court. 'All I could do was cry in my room.'
Escoto testified that after she'd discovered that Escoto had moved in with Trapaga, she had him meet her in a restaurant parking lot to confront him about it.

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'Killer': Authorities say Michel Escoto married Trapaga only to murder her for a life insurance payout

That, Cerrillo says, was when he told her about his plan to kill Trapaga for the insurance money and then run away with her.
Cerrillo testified that the original plan was to kill Trapaga during a trip to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Escoto decided to speed up the plan because 'he was running out of money,' according to Cerrillo, who added that 'Wendy needed to die sooner.'
The honeymoon in Key West was where Escoto decided he would kill Trapaga - Cerrillo says she even gave him the $80 to pay for the hotel.
After Trapaga was dead, Escoto was to send a page to Cerrillo's beeper - 'that would be the message that it would be done,' Cerrillo told the court.

Escoto then drove to Cerrillo's home, where - she told the court - she could see what appeared to be Trapaga's body reclined in the passenger seat of Escoto's car.

Cerrillo then followed Escoto in her own car to the warehouse parking lot where Trapaga's bludgeoned body was found by police days later Cerrillo said she had to drive around for a little while after they got to the warehouse to give Escoto more time to finsih killing Trapaga, who apparently was drugged while in Escoto's car.
Cerrillo says she found him he had abandoned the car he'd driven and was walking in the street covered in blood - and he was holding a tire iron.
Cerrillo and Escoto stopped on the way home to throw the tire iron into the ocean, at which point a police officer pulled up to their vehicle but simply shooed them away from the water.

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Tire iron: Authorities say Escoto drugged Trapaga, before strangling her and bludgeoning her with a tire iron

In the months following the murder, Escoto moved back in with Cerrillo - but the relationship was rocky.
During an argument, Cerrillo says Escoto choked her. She says she didn't want to call police because he'd reminded her of her involvement in Trapaga's murder.
'I had no way out,' Cerrillo said. 'He either kills me or I go to jail.'
Escoto wasn't charged in his wife's death until 2005 after he'd given inconsistent versions of what had happened to his wife in a lawsuit he filed to get his hands on the insurance money.
Cerrillo - now 40 - started cooperating with authorities in 2006.

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Civil penalties: A civil jury ordered Cerrillo pay Trapaga's mother a $44 million judgement for being responsible for the death of her daughter

In 2011, she admitted that she had not told investigators about the full extent of her involvement and came clean.
'The secret was too much,' she told jurors Tuesday. 'It was too stressful.'
While she may not go to prison for her role in Trapaga's death, Cerrillo was found responsible for Trapaga's death in civil court, where a jury awarded Trapaga's mother a $44 million judgment against Cerrillo for her daughter's death.


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