Who Is The Hollywood Ripper?

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Michael Gargiulo, better known as 'The Hollywood Ripper', was found guilty of killing two women and attempting to murder a third. Prosecutors describe him as a serial killer and sexual psychopath who killed for pleasure. The man obsessively chased young women who lived near him and ended up stabbing to death two victims. The man pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. If his dementia argument is rejected, he could face the death penalty.

Gargiulo - who was involved in repairing air conditioners - was found guilty of the murder of Ashley Ellerin, 22, in 2001, and Maria Bruno, 32, in 2005. They stabbed them both to death in their homes in The Angels. He was also found guilty of trying to murder Michelle Murphy, whom he attacked at his Santa Monica home in 2008.

The man also faces murder charges in Illinois for the death of 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio, who was found stabbed outside her Glenview home in 1993. The prosecutor said all of their victims have in common that they were young, attractive, they looked happy with their lives and living near Gargiulo when they were killed.

"He attacked all of them with a knife," prosecutor Dan Akemon told the jury. Tricia, 18, had just graduated from high school and had been accepted into Purdue University when she was killed. Gargiulo was 17 at the time and was a friend and neighbor of the victim's brother. The killer then moved to Los Angeles. It was there, when he was 24 years old, that he met Ellerin, who asked him for help changing an airless tire.

Ellerin's friends told the police that Gargiulo appeared at Ellerin's house, his neighbor, without being invited. Another friend saw him parked in front of Ellerin's house watching her. The young woman was stabbed 47 times at her Hollywood home in February 2001. Ellerin was an acquaintance of actor Ashton Kutcher and had plans to date him the night she was killed. The actor testified at Gargiulo's trial that he came to Ellerin's house that night to look for her and when she did not open the door, he thought that he had left him standing, without suspecting that the young woman had been killed that same day.

In 2005, Gargiulo stabbed to death his neighbor Maria Bruno. In 2008 Michelle Murphy woke up when a man tried to stab her in the arm. Murphy managed to kick her attacker who was accidentally cut during the scuffle with Murphy and fled. Prosecutors found DNA samples from Gargiulo on Murphy's sheet and it was the same DNA they had found under Pacaccio's fingernails. The man was arrested on June 6, 2008 by the Santa Monica Police Department. His case is still ongoing.