How cellphone location sharing helped Los Angeles police solve double homicide, take serial rapist off the street

Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, started as a fun night in Los Angeles for architect Hilda Marcela Cabrales, 26, and her friend, 24-year-old model Christy Giles. The pair headed out to a nightclub in Hollywood and then to a warehouse party in East Los Angeles to see a DJ they both loved.

Christy's husband, Jan Cilliers, was in San Francisco that weekend visiting his father. He says Christy and Hilda, who was new to Los Angeles, were becoming "fast friends."

But what started as a happy girls' night out took a sinister turn, Cilliers says, when he woke up that Saturday morning in San Francisco to see his wife's phone location at a Los Angeles address he didn't recognize. He and Christy always shared locations, he says, for safety reasons.