Alleged Unlicensed ‘Vampire Facelift’ Provider Arrested After Customer’s Death at Beauty Salon
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Sandra Perez Gonzalez, 45, was arrested after the death of a salon customer who received an unlicensed ‘Vampire Facelift.’ Credit: Long Beach Police Department(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — Sandra Perez Gonzalez, 45, a recently licensed massage therapist, is being held in Long Beach City Jail on $10,000 bail after the death of one of her customers, which is being treated as suspicious by authorities.
According to the Long Beach Police Department, Gonzalez provides massages for her customers; however, she also advertises that she provides Vampire Facelifts, butt augmentation and lip augmentation procedures. Perez was renting a treatment room within the beauty salon, and is not licensed to conduct these procedures or administer any of the controlled substances that were found at the facility, police said.
Beverly Hills plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Stuart A. Linder told ABC News the Vampire Facelift became popular over the past three years and it is used to “rejuvenate the face, using filler substance,” in this case, the patient’s own blood, hence its name.
Kim Kardashian uploaded a blood-splattered selfie of her face onto her Instagram account back in March of 2013 with the hashtag “Vampire Facial.”
“Anytime you’re injecting something into the body, anything, be it derm filler, or fat, it can form a clot, an embolus or emboli, and it can be absolutely fatal,” Linder said.
“If you’re not trained, a lot of doctors who are pretending to be plastic surgeons can lead to complications,” Linder said. It is “so rare for somebody to see a death like this,” he added.
The Long Beach Police Department said that Hamilet Suarez, 36, was receiving an augmentation to a certain part of her body. At about 12:20 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12, Long Beach Police responded to assist the Long Beach Fire Department with a patient who was in cardiac arrest, under suspicious circumstances, police said.
Officers arrived on the scene to find LBFD personnel performing CPR on Suarez. Suarez was transported to a local hospital, where she was later pronounced deceased, according to a police report.
Officials conducting the investigation said they were initially told Suarez went to the salon for a massage, but before the session even began, Suarez allegedly went into medical distress. Due to conflicting information, homicide detectives were called to the scene, police said.
On Feb. 13, at 12:30 p.m., Gonzalez was arrested for possession of controlled substances.
Looking at the evidence they have collected so far, police have concluded that Gonzalez appears to have been conducting these medical procedures from the Long Beach location for about a month now.
For other customers who may have seen Gonzalez for massages or any type of augmentation, the LBPD “strongly encourages those individuals to contact their physician to be evaluated to ensure they do not suffer any future medical issues as a result of the procedures illegally provided to them by Gonzalez,” Chief of Police, Jim McDonnell, said in a police report.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office is also conducting an investigation to determine the cause of Suarez’s death, according to police.
Gonzalez does not have a lawyer yet, according to the Long Beach District Attorney’s Office.
Areli’s Beauty Salon was unavailable for comment.
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