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Michael Gargiulo listens to Defense Advisor Daniel Nardoni's opening statement Thursday in the Los Angeles Superior Court. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times / Pool / AP)
It was the night of the Grammy Awards in Hollywood and Ashley Ellerin, 22, had an appointment with Ashton Kutcher.
The fashion student and part-time stripper lived in a charming yellow bungalow in an area just behind the famous Grauman Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. That evening, on February 21, 2001, she and Kutcher, then at the "That's 70s Show" poster, had planned to go to a post-Grammy party. But Ellerin did not pick up.
Kutcher thought that he might have had a bad reception, as he would later say to Los Angeles police detectives, LA Weekly reported, so he started driving home anyway. His lights were on and his blue BMW was parked in the driveway when he parked. He knocked on the door and continued to knock on the door, but there was still no answer. He thought perhaps that she was angry at him, that she had "swept him away," the police will later say.
But, as he was starting to leave, he looked out a window and he noticed something odd: a trail of red spots on the carpet leading to his room. He thought it was spilled wine.
As the prosecutor will tell a jury this week, prosecutors have instead been victims of the stabbing attack and the work of Michael Gargiulo, a suspected serial killer whose alleged murders lasted two years. and fifteen. In Los Angeles, he is known as "Hollywood Ripper."
Now, more than 18 years after prosecutors said Gargiulo had stabbed Ellerin 47 times in his bedroom, he is finally on trial in his death this week. Gargiulo is charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder during the attack of a third woman in 2008, which, according to police, would have managed to repel him. Thousands of miles away, in Cook County, Chicago, Gargiulo, 43, is also expected to be tried in the case of the 1993 dead-end, an 18-year-old woman, who would be his first victim.
Between 1993 and 2008, Gargiulo is suspected of attacking young women and, in some cases, using his work of air conditioning repairman to enter their home and their lives, only to track them down and wait for the opportunity to ambush them in the center. of the night at home. At the opening hearing Thursday, prosecutors described it as "the methodical and systematic killing of women," reported the Associated Press.
Prosecutors say business all have one thing in common: he lived in the same neighborhood as his victims, sometimes on the other side of the street. They called him "the murderer next door," AP reported.
"What you will hear is that Michael Gargiulo, for nearly 15 years, was watching, watching all the time," said prosecutor Daniel Akemon, according to the AP. "And her hobby was to prepare an ideal opportunity to attack women with a knife at their homes."
The trial is expected to last six months and Kutcher could be called to testify, the Los Angeles Times reported. Gargiulo's defense lawyer, Daniel Nardoni, told the jury that there was "no material evidence" linking Gargiulo to Ellerin's death, KABC reported. Gargiulo insisted that it had nothing to do with knife attacks.
"I am 100% innocent," he said at "48 hours" in prison in 2011.
The frightening saga began on August 14, 1993 in the morning, when Tricia Pacaccio's father came out with a cup of coffee and saw two white tennis shoes break the place where they did not belong, as he did. had told in the "48 hours". He collapsed. when he saw the rest of the picture: his daughter lying dead and bleeding on the porch of the side door, still holding the keys of the house.
For years, police struggled to find material evidence or promising suspects. But a name has ceased to appear: Michael Gargiulo, who was 17 years old at the time and lived on the street.
Known for his short-lived fuse, he frequented Pacaccio's brother and went home several times. But after Pacaccio's death, his behavior seemed strange to the family, as they had said "48 hours". Although he was not a close friend of the family, he started buying his gifts to parents: flowers for Pacaccio's mother, Diane, a shirt for his father, Rick, tried to Associate the murder to a friend during his interrogation, but then retracted when he was asked to present it in front of a grand jury, Chicago magazine reported.
The only real breakthrough in the case finally took place ten years later, in 2003, when the DNA detected on Pacaccio's nails turned out to be identical to Gargiulo.
By that time, Ellerin had already been dead for a long time.
Police said at "48 hours" that they thought Gargiulo had fled to Los Angeles around 1999 when he realized that the authorities were watching him more closely at the death of Pacaccio. He moved to the same Hollywood district as Ellerin and, one day in the fall of 2000, introduced himself to her while she was trying to repair a flat tire. He offered help, adding that he was also a repairer of air conditioning systems and heaters if she and her roommate needed a helping hand. It turns out that they did it.
More Gargiulo was going for the interview, the friendliest that he had with Ellerin, to such an extent that he came for an evening that she also organized, LA Weekly reported. Described as a "boastful artist and bull" by a detective, Gargiulo loved to thrill her and her roommate, Justin Peterson, with stories invented for most of her glamorous life as a professional boxer. stars he had met, the weather he was electrocuted on the job.
Even the one about how the Chicago authorities were investigating him for a murder.
He saved this one for Peterson, revealing it the next day after Peterson saw him sitting in his car in front of their house at 3am. When Gargiulo came to do other heating repair work, Peterson confronted him.
"I said, what the hell did you do in front of my house at 3 am?", Told Peterson at "48 hours". "He stated that he could not go home because the FBI was waiting to take DNA samples – some of Chicago's murder." The girlfriend of his best friend was murdered or killed. something else, and I said, "Well, what should you hide?"
Peterson and others immediately identified "Mike the Furnace" as a suspicious acquaintance of Ellerin's life when the police began investigating his death. Kutcher, whom she had just seen, was quickly dismissed as a suspect.
While Los Angeles police were investigating Gargiulo, something odd happened: the Chicago police called. They wanted to know if the police of the Hollywood division could get a DNA sample of a local man, Michael Gargiulo, a person of interest in the murder of Tricia Pacaccio. At that time, the Hollywood homicide detective, Tom Small, told Chicago magazine: "Bells and whistles sounded.
"The type of attack was similar," Small told the magazine. "The type of victim was similar – the type of weapon, the manner and method of attack – everything is so similar that we all thought that he should be our type."
However, even when the DNA sample that the Los Angeles police had taken from Gargiulo was compared to the DNA found on Pacaccio's nails, the Chicago authorities did not feel they had enough evidence to accuse Gargiulo. And since there was no physical evidence at Ellerin's crime scene, Small could not accuse him so quickly. Explaining his reasoning to many news outlets, the Cook County Attorney's Office stated that it was still possible that Gargiulo's DNA could be found on Pacaccio's fingertips because of "casual contacts".
Little – not to mention Pacaccio's parents – was furious.
"Stupid me, I thought that they [were] will stop him, confront him with evidence and see what he has to say, "he told Chicago magazine. "That's what I thought, but it did not work like that."
According to California prosecutors, Gargiulo went on to brutally attack two other women, killing Maria Bruno, 32, in El Monte, California, in 2005, and seriously injuring Michelle Murphy, 27, in Santa Monica in 2008. Both were ambushed asleep in their own bed in the middle of the night.
And both lived directly in front of the Gargiulo, who could look through their windows when the blinds were open, the authorities said.
"It troubles me a lot," said a former Chicago detective at Chicago magazine. "These young women in California are dead because we dropped the ball."
Bruno, a mother of four, was stabbed 17 times in the middle of the night in December 2005. A blue medical bootie was found just outside the sidewalk – although three years will have passed before the police do not find each other.
This is only after Michelle Murphy, the only survivor, went on a fight for her life one night in April 2008.
She woke up with a knife plunging into her chest, said Santa Monica inspector Richard Lewis "48 hours". She began to grab hold of it, the knife slicing her hands. She was bleeding injuries to the right arm, shoulder and torso. But in the middle of the fight, his attacker is cut off. Murphy seizes the moment. She raised her knees to her chest and then used her feet to catapult the abuser out of bed, said Lewis. He fell back and stumbled.
Turning to leave, he says, "I'm sorry."
The trail of blood that Gargiulo left behind would identify him as the alleged killer, Lewis said. He was arrested for attempted murder in June 2008. The police of El Monte, recognizing the similarities with Bruno's attack, proceeded to a new investigation and discovered that quite well, Gargiulo lived in front of Bruno. They said they found the second blue boot in the attic of his apartment, which had been released since. In September 2008, the police accused him of the murder of Bruno and Ellerin.
However, it will take another three years before Cook County attorneys blame Gargiulo for killing Pacaccio all those years ago. Two of Gargiulo's former friends attended the "48 Hours" episode, prompting them to appear before the prosecutors as key witnesses. They remembered the news station.
Like many of the great stories he told, the two men did not believe him.
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