A man who pleaded guilty to raping a high school friend and then hiding her body in a wooded area of Springfield will spend the next seven decades in prison.
Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Jonathan Frieden sentenced Terence Bridgett Jr. today (Friday) to more than two life terms in prison today, suspending all but 70 years, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano announced.
Fayra Bonilla-Rubi, a 26-year-old Springfield resident, was reported missing by her family on June 10, 2024 after she didn’t return home following meeting Bridgett, a friend she knew from high school, two days earlier, according to Descano’s office.
Bonilla-Rubi was ultimately found on June 14 in a wooded area near the 7600 block of Highland Street, prompting a death investigation by the Fairfax County Police Department. By that time, her body had partially decomposed, and she was found “covered by a sheet” with most of her clothes removed, the CA’s office says.
Online court records show that an arrest warrant was issued for Bridgett on June 19, 2024.
More from Descano’s office:
When detectives arrested Bridgett, his phone had a video of Ms. Bonilla-Rubi in which she appeared unconscious in his minivan. Bridgett’s DNA was linked to Ms. Bonilla-Rubi’s body and clothing, and additional surveillance video footage and cell phone location data corroborated that the two had been together for hours on Saturday afternoon in multiple locations, undermining the defendant’s version of events.
Bridgett was indicted by a grand jury on Dec. 16, 2024 on charges of first-degree murder, rape, forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, concealing a dead body and unlawful filming.
A criminal trial had been scheduled first for April 28, 2025 and then postponed to Feb. 17, 2026. However, Bridgett instead pleaded guilty on that date to all of the charges except for murder.
According to Descano’s office, the murder charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement, because “an autopsy could not determine Ms. Bonilla-Rubi’s cause of death or that she died by homicide.”
Though Bridgett is only sentenced to serve 70 years, Frieden imposed two life sentences for the rape and sodomy charges, 20 years for sexual battery, five for concealing a dead body and one for unlawfully filming a nude person.
Bridgett’s sentencing today followed testimony from Bonilla-Rubi’s mother and sister, who described the impact of her death on their family, the comonwealth’s attorney’s office said.
In condolences shared on an obituary for Bonilla-Rubi, friends described her as a “beautiful soul” who could light up a room with her smile.
“Fayra’s death and disappearance devastated her family and community, and it is even more disturbing to know that she was violated and assaulted while unconscious by someone she trusted,” Descano said in a press release. “It is in our shared public safety interest that the man who did this to her will not be able to hurt anyone else.”
