Dateline: What happened to Michelle Le? Details of a 26-year-old nursing student's mysterious death explored

The disappearance and tragic killing of 26-year-old Michelle Le back in May of 2011 shook the San Francisco Bay Area to its core. At the time, she was studying to become a nurse at Samuel Merritt University. The heart-wrenching event unfolded when she went missing from the parking garage of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Hayward, California.

Months passed before the main suspect, Giselle Diwag Esteban, a person who had once been her friend, was finally apprehended. The ensuing legal battle became a well-known story with lots of people following every twist and turn. What came out in the trial was that Esteban had been consumed by envy and the erroneous belief that Michelle Le had been seeing her ex-boyfriend.

Driven by these emotions, she had meticulously mapped out a terrible crime. Despite the challenges, the search for Michelle Le did not stop, and eventually, on September 17, 2011, her body was found in a secluded spot, which was a devastating discovery for everyone who knew her.

It was a tragic end to a story that had begun as a friendship but was twisted into something unimaginably dark by jealousy and suspicion.

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Michelle Le case's investigation showed DNA, surveillance footage, and lies

From the very beginning, it seemed like something was off to the investigators. Michelle Le's white Honda SUV had been left behind, all by itself, about half a mile away from the medical center where she was last seen. This worried everyone and made them think something bad might have happened.

Esteban seemed to be helping, but it didn't take long for the police to realize she wasn't being completely honest. Inspector Fraser Ritchie, who works for the Hayward Police, remembered catching her stories didn't add up.

He noted:

“She actually said at one point – I asked, ‘Were you arguing with her?’ and she said, ‘I don’t remember.’ That told me she was speaking with her.”

DNA evidence played a huge part in making the case against Esteban very strong. Bloodstains in Michelle Le’s car matched her DNA, and some of Le’s blood was also found on Esteban’s shoe. This didn’t look good at all for Esteban. There was also some video that showed her in the area where the death happened, which didn’t match what she’d been saying before.

It turned out that Esteban had been following Michelle Le, calling her school and trying to figure out when she’d be there.

Krystine Dinh, Michelle Le’s cousin said:

“That amount of premeditation and conscious thinking behind her murder was really shocking.”

The police took Esteban into custody on September 7, 2011, which was before they even found Le’s body. When they finally found her, it just made everything that much more real and sad.

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The trial and sentencing toward justice for Michelle Le

Giselle Esteban’s journey to trial started in the month of September back in 2012, with the prosecution laying out a clear picture of a murder that was carefully thought out and driven by deep-seated anger. Throughout the whole process, Esteban, who was expecting a child, didn’t show any signs of regret or sorrow.

It was in October of that same year when the jury decided she was guilty of committing a murder of the first degree. Later, in December, she was given a sentence of 25 years to life behind bars.

As for the Le family, the time when Giselle was being sentenced was incredibly painful for them. They talked about their grief and how much it upset them.

Dinh, a family member, talked about the hardest part of watching the surveillance video of what happened to Michelle Le,

“We never found out the cause of death because it was out of camera view, but it’s hard.”

Even though they were going through a terrible time, the Le family didn’t let it crush them. They made it their mission to keep Michelle’s memory alive by helping other families who had gone through the same kind of pain.

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Michelle Le’s story was turned into a special episode on NBC’s Dateline. This two-hour show took a closer look at all the steps that led up to her death, the trial that followed, and the emotions her family had to go through.

Find it on NBC’s website or any of the official Dateline platforms.