One of the many victims of Hollywood predator David Pearce was a hero police officer who died while helping car crash victims — just days before her rapist was sentenced to life in prison. Lauren Craven, 25, was among seven women raped by Hollywood producer Pearce before he went on to drug and kill model Christy Giles and her friend in 2021.
Pearce has since been sentenced to 146 years in prison for his horrific sex crimes — but Lauren never got to witness his punishment. The brave La Mesa police officer was tragically struck and killed last week while rushing to help people trapped in an overturned car on the highway.
Did Live to See Rapist Punished
County prosecutors revealed the heartbreaking news shortly after an LA Superior Court judge sentenced David Pearce for multiple sexual assaults and two murders. Lauren died on October 23 — less than a month after turning 25.
Her brave actions had already made headlines even before the public learned of her connection to Pearce's case.
Craven came upon a deadly rollover crash on Interstate 8, northeast of San Diego, just before 10:30 p.m. last Monday, according to officials.
After calling in the accident over her radio, she got out of her vehicle and walked toward the overturned car to help the victims. Unfortunately, another vehicle struck her, causing a chain reaction that crashed into the wrecked cars from the original accident.
The young officer was remembered as a hero — someone whose final act was one of courage, kindness, and compassion.
"Officer Craven's actions in her final moments exemplified her unwavering dedication to service and the safety of others — a reflection of how she lived every day," the La Mesa Police Department wrote on Facebook.
Wounded Long Back
Lauren was known in court only as "Jane Doe #5" during Pearce's trial — a case that exposed not only the fatal druggings of model Christy Giles, 24, and her friend Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, but also the horrific assaults of seven women who came forward after his arrest.
Prosecutors revealed that Pearce raped Craven in 2020 while she was unconscious. For that crime, he received six years in prison, along with additional sentences of 15 years to life for the other rapes.
Pearce had met Giles and Cabrales-Arzola at a rave in Los Angeles, lured them to his apartment, and gave them cocaine laced with fentanyl and other drugs.
When the women overdosed, he refused to call for help. One witness testified that Pearce chillingly said, "Dead girls don't talk." Instead of saving them, he loaded their bodies into his Toyota Prius and dumped them outside two separate hospitals.
Following his arrest for the killings, Craven and six other women came forward with their stories, revealing a pattern of abuse stretching back to 2007.
Despite everything she endured, Lauren refused to let her trauma define her. Determined to serve and protect others, she joined the La Mesa Police Department in February 2024 — achieving her lifelong dream after completing the police academy not once, but twice.
"It has always been my passion to serve others and there has never been a doubt in my mind being a law enforcement officer is what I was meant to do," Craven wrote during the hiring process with the LMPD.
"That's who Lauren was and that's how she served and how she will be remembered," La Mesa Chief of Police Ray Sweeney said at a news conference Tuesday.
