Police believe Esteban, a former high school friend of Le, killed the nursing student in a Hayward parking garage where Le disappeared on May 27. Le was apparently going to her car during a break in class at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. Her body has not been found, but police have classified the case as a homicide.
Le left the medical center around 7 p.m. on May 27, telling a classmate she was going to go to her car during a break, Lt. Roger Keener said, reports CBS station KPIX.
Le's car was then found the next morning around 9 a.m. parked about a half mile from the medical center, Keener said.
He said investigators found bloodstains in the vehicle and it was later determined that the blood was Le's.
Keener also said footage from security cameras at the Kaiser Permanente parking structure showed that Esteban was present around the time of Le's disappearance. He also said additional evidence found inside Le's car indicated that Esteban had been in the vehicle.
Le disappeared on May 27 from Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center in northern California as she was walking from her car to the garage, according to ABC News afilliate KGO. Police believe she was murdered.
Blood stains belonging to Le were found on the interior of Le's car and matched those found on the bottom of a pair of sneakers in Esteban's home, according to Keener.
Security video from the parking garage in which Le was last seen also showed Esteban in the garage before and after Le's arrival there and led police to believe that Le was assaulted while there, Keener said.
Hayward police and the FBI also tracked the cellphone movements of Le's phone and, later, Esteban's phone in the hours after her disappearance, and saw that both cellphones moved around Alameda County in about the same path and timeframe, he said.
Police said that though they believe they have solved one part of the crime against Le, they are still committed to finding Le and figuring out what happened to her.
"Today does not mark the end of the investigation," Keener said. "We will not consider this investigation complete until Michelle is found."
"Some of the questions about how [Le] met her demise may not be known until she is found," he added.
Keener would not elaborate on the relationship between the pair or speculate on a motive.
The Oakland Tribune previously reported that Esteban's former boyfriend, with whom she had a child, had a relationship with Le. The boyfriend filed a restraining order against Esteban just three days prior to Le's disappearance, citing Esteban's erratic behavior and threats of killing herself, according to the report.
Le's family made a statement following the arrest, saying that Esteban, who's been a suspect since May, "dragged this out longer than it had to go," and that their "primary concern was and is and always will be to find Michelle and bring her home with us.
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