Warning: The following article contains content that might be disturbing to some.
Social media platforms like TikTok may draw the ire of some for popularizing obnoxious viral dances, like the floss, but it’s hard to argue against the positive role that the internet-based technology played in bringing the killer of a young woman to justice.
That’s exactly what happened when Victor Sosa was finally sentenced in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Daisy De La O, after he was recognized as the prime suspect on the run thanks to a social media campaign on TikTok and Instagram launched by De La O’s friends, with the hashtag “Justice for Daisy.”
While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was tracking down every lead to locate Sosa, De La O’s friends flooded Instagram and Tiktok with images of him, urging anyone and everyone to bring him to justice, such as the one below uploaded by Rebecca Fuentes.
Sosa was finally spotted in Mexico, thanks to the social media campaign. As ABC13 reported,
“The tip that cracked the case? Someone recognized Sosa from the friends’ social media campaign and spotted him working at the Rosarito bar and nightclub Papas & Beer.”
Police arrested Sosa in Mexico on July 2, 2021, ABC7 reported. He was then expedited back to Los Angeles in order to face the charge of first-degree murder, for which he pleaded not guilty.
On May 4, 2022, Sosa was found guilty of first-degree murder and faces up to 26 years to life in prison.
About a month before her murder in February 2021, the 19-year-old De La O broke up with the then-25-year-old Sosa due to alleged physical abuse. However, Sosa was able to convince De La O to go outside via a text message. She never returned home. The last words she reportedly told her mother, Susana Salas, were, “I’ll be back, OK, I won’t take long, I promise,” Salas said, according to ABC13.
The family said surveillance video that was obtained by ABC7 showed Sosa dragging De La O’s body “into an alley after he stabbed her to death,” according to the report. The next morning, her lifeless body was discovered inside of a rolled-up rug.
Upon hearing Sosa’s guilty verdict read aloud in the courtroom, Salas said, “I’ve waited one year and almost three months to hear those words,” ABC7 reported. “But to hear them in court was something else, you know? Honestly, I see my daughter smiling in heaven. Finally, justice was served.”
When it came to the role that TikTok and Instagram played in bringing Sosa to justice, Salas told New York Magazine, “Thank God for social media, honestly.”