Voicemail captures fatal stabbing, CA officials say. ‘Narrating her own murder’

A man was found guilty in the fatal stabbing of his 25-year-old girlfriend, California officials said.

In July 2020, now-39-year-old Craig James Charron and his girlfriend, Laura Sardinha, moved into a Huntington Beach apartment together, officials told KTTV.

A month after moving in together, Sardinha began accusing Charron of abuse, officials told KTTV.

Eventually, Sardinha filed for a restraining order against Charron, KTLA reported.

In September 2020, she was on the phone when her call was interrupted after seeing Charron in the apartment, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She was heard on the phone screaming, “Get off me!,” The Orange County Register reported, citing court testimony.

Although the call ended, so her best friend on the other side of the phone could call 911, Sardinha called back and left a voicemail, officials told KTLA.

“If you listen to it carefully, you hear a woman narrating her own murder,” Orange County Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera told jurors during her closing argument at Charron’s trial, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Charron, an Air Force veteran, stabbed Sardinha in the chest, nearly cut off her nose and “stabbed her head so viciously that it bent the knife,” KTLA reported, citing prosecutors.

McClatchy News reached out to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for more information on April 30 and was awaiting a response.

Charron was found guilty April 29 of first-degree murder after less than a day of deliberations and is facing life in prison, according to media outlets, including People.

He is scheduled to reappear in court July 25 for sentencing.

Huntington Beach is about a 40-mile drive southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 1:11 PM with the headline "Voicemail captures fatal stabbing, CA officials say. ‘Narrating her own murder’."