Hollywood Reaper sentenced to death for killing and mutilating women

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LOS ANGELES – For crimes he described as “evil and frightening,” a judge Friday sentenced a man named “The Boy Next Door Killer” to death for the murders of two women in a home break-in and attempted murder of a third.

Family members of the victims cried when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry B. Fiedler sentencing 45-year-old Michael Thomas Jargilo.

“Wherever Mr. Gargolo went, death and destruction followed,” Fiedler said at the all-day hearing.

Gargiulo’s case received additional attention because one of his victims was about to go on a date with actor Ashton Kutcher, who testified at the trial.

The verdict, which was delayed due to procedural issues and epidemic, came nearly two years after a jury had convicted Gargiulo and recommended his execution.

Gargiulo was convicted of killing 22-year-old fashion design student Ashley Ellerin in 2001 at her Hollywood home while she was preparing to go out with Kutcher. At the trial, Kutcher said he was late picking up Irene, who didn’t answer her door.

He looked inside to see blood stains that he thought were spilled wine. Prosecutors used it in their closing arguments, suggesting Eileen was murdered by another man who was jealous of Kutcher.

Ellerin was found with 47 stab wounds.

Her father, Michael Ellerin, who was visiting his daughter from Northern California hours before her murder, was a relative of the victims who spoke at the hearing about their suffering as they waited years for justice.

He said he tended to imitate the “sad cry and primal wailing of his wife Cynthia after discovering that Ashley had been murdered”.

“It was the beginning of a changing, waning, heartbreaking life,” he said.

Gargiulo was also convicted of killing 32-year-old Maria Bruno, a mother of four, at her home in El Monte, east Los Angeles, in 2005. Bruno’s breasts were cut and her implants removed.

He was convicted of trying to kill Michelle Murphy in 2008, who resisted him in her Santa Monica apartment, forcing him to flee and leaving traces of blood that also led to his eventual arrest for the two other murders. Murphy was the main witness at the trial.

“To this day, spending the night alone creates in me a world of fear,” Murphy said in court before sentencing.

She cried as she spoke of the families of the two women who did not survive their attack meeting.

“How is it fair that the actions of one person can destroy the lives of so many people?” She said.

Gargiulo is a former air conditioner and heater repairman, bouncer and aspiring actor whose nicknames from the media include “The Chiller Killer” and “The Hollywood Ripper” but has been dubbed “The Boy Next Door Killer” by prosecutors because he lived near the victims. They chased and then attacked in their homes.

Speaking before the sentence was pronounced, he complained angrily that his lawyers had prevented him from taking a stand on his defence.

“I will unjustly and unjustly sentence the condemned to death,” said Gargiulo, who sat in court in an orange prison uniform and face mask and showed no apparent reaction to his sentence. “I wanted to testify and my primary choice was blocked.”

It is not likely that he will be executed anytime soon. California has not executed anyone since 2006, and Governor Gavin Newsom has halted executions throughout his time in office. But the courts have continued to assume that executions may one day resume.

Gargiulo is now expected to be extradited to Illinois for the 1993 murder of Tricia Pacacchio in his hometown of Illinois. Prosecutors at his California trial were allowed to present extensive evidence from that case as they sought to establish a pattern and present Gargiulo as a serial killer.

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