All language subtitles for How It Really Happened s07e06 The Hollywood Ripper

All I know is I was killed in the
homicide and my DNA isn't the one where

I should be.

There's many cases of a different type
of stabbing.

Don't you think it's very personal to do
the same thing in that world?

and welcome.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

It was the night of the Grammy Awards in
Los Angeles in 2001 when a beautiful

fashion student was murdered inside her
Hollywood home.

Ashley Ellerin was a vivacious and
talented free spirit with a bright

future. At first, there were no
suspects, but detectives worked

tirelessly to catch her killer, only to
discover Ashley might not have been his

first murder.

This is how it really happened.

Ashley was 22 years old.

She was a student at the Fashion
Institute of Design and Merchandising.

She came to Los Angeles like many young
people. You know, she was here to follow

her dream.

I met Ashley at a party in the hills and
she and I just clicked automatically.

She was a fashion student too.

She and I became very good friends.

She had a big social circle and was...
having parties at her home, and meeting

a lot of up-and-comers in Hollywood.

She was just a person who a lot of
people gravitated towards.

She was living only a few blocks away
from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was

just really enjoying herself in
Hollywood.

It was around 9.15 a.m. on February
22nd.

Ashley's roommate came home.

And she noticed that the lights were on.

And she was kind of surprised about that
because Ashley usually slept late and

then just opened the door and saw Ashley
dead on the landing.

I mean, walking in on that, I can't
imagine.

It's always going to haunt her, I think.

It's always going to haunt her. Poor
girl.

The Los Angeles detective described the
killer as this modern-day Jack the

Ripper. It was just a horrific scene.

So when police arrived, Ashley was found
right next to her bedroom and the

bathroom.

She had 47 stab wounds on her body and
her neck and head and various

areas in her chest.

She had been nearly decapitated.

She was in a bathrobe and she was in her
shorts and tank top.

Ashley's body had been posed. She was
not sexually assaulted.

But there was kind of a sexual element
to it.

There wasn't any signs of anything
stolen.

There was $300 in cash they found in the
bathroom. She still had jewelry on.

So there wasn't just this robbery gone
bad.

It didn't look like any of the doors had
been broken into.

So they kind of wondered whether, you
know, Ashley may have let in her

intruder.

Somehow this person got in without
having to break in.

They also thought, too, because of the
frenziness of the attack and the

violence of the attack, that it was
actually somebody that she knew, and

they pretty much thought of that
instantly.

The last person to ever speak to Ashley
Allerin was actually Ashton Kutcher.

So Ashton Kutcher was a 23-year-old
actor.

He was an up-and-coming Hollywood star.

He was on that 70s show.

They met at this big party. It was right
around New Year's. It just took complete

attraction to Ashley.

She was like a cute little magnet.

Pretty, sweet, heart, everything.

What do you think about these, huh?

February 21st was actually Grammy night
in Hollywood.

So she spoke to Ashton Kutcher. They
made plans to go out for dinner and

drinks. It was supposed to be their
first date. She was, oh my gosh, so

excited. I went over there three days
before.

I brought her over some stuff from the
showroom.

And she's like, what outfit do I wear?
What do I wear?

At one point, though, Ashton's plans
changed, and he decided to go over to a

friend's house to watch the Grammys. And
so he ended up speaking to Ashley around

8.24 p.m. that night.

And Ashley had told him that she had
just gotten out of the shower.

And he said, I'm going to be running a
little bit late. I'm going to go to a

friend's house, but let's get drinks
afterwards.

Ashton Kutcher couldn't reach her.

He shows up at 10.45 p.m. Her car is
there.

The lights are on.

But she's not answering the door.

And then he tried the door because he
thought, well, maybe she just couldn't

hear him. It was locked.

And so then he went to a side window.

All he said he saw was it looked like
red wine was spilled all over the floor.

And it wasn't.

He didn't really think anything of it
because Ashley had a party a few weeks

before and thought maybe it was just
kind of remnants of the party. He pretty

much just deduced that Ashley was kind
of tired of waiting for him and she

ended up just going out with friends.

The following day, Ashton finds out from
mutual friends what happened to Ashley.

And so he ends up calling the police to
give them basically a timeline of when

he went over there.

He was a little freaked out because he
knew his fingerprints were going to be

on the door handle.

But there was another potential clue
about what time this all happened.

The police end up talking to a dog
walker who was out the night of Ashley's

murder. He was taking his dog to this
dog park that was actually across the

street from Ashley's home.

And he heard a scream.

And he said that his dog immediately
looked up.

towards Ashley's bungalow. He said this
was around 8.30.

So that is when police ended up kind of
pinpointing that was when the murder

happened. It was just after she got off
the phone with Kutcher.

Ashley Kutcher was with friends,
watching the Grammys, until he went to

her house.

That was pretty easy to rule him out.

Authority still had another man who had
seen Ashley that night. They had what he

considered a blossoming relationship.

He was the last person that had seen
Ashley alive.

22-year-old Ashley Ellerin was supposed
to go on a date with Hollywood A-lister

Ashton Kutcher.

She'd been stabbed 47 times.

My husband said Ashley was murder,
murder, murder.

I felt my feet on the floor, and I
started crawling around the bedroom on

my hands and knees like an animal.

I was like, I don't understand.

I don't understand.

Stop 47 times.

I can't imagine.

And she was a fighter.

You didn't want to mess with Ashley.

The police did not find much physical
evidence at Ashley Ellerin's murder

scene.

They found footprints, and then they
also had fingerprints.

But unfortunately, nothing came back to,
you know, any suspect.

She had a number of fatal wounds, one of
which was a throat wound.

And it appeared that she was...

Attacked from behind, and the wound went
from right to left, which led

investigators to believe that they were
looking for a left-handed assailant.

Police were focused on a timeline of
events that happened that night.

On the night of the attack, Ashley had
contacted her landlord, Mark Durbin, and

asked him if he would come over to help
her install this track lighting.

She was renovating her home.

And so he went over to Ashley's bungalow
around 7 p.m.

So Mark Durbin had gone over to
Ellerin's house to help her with some

repairs, and shortly afterwards, they
had actually had sex.

He left around 8.15 because he had plans
with his girlfriend, and he was

supposed to meet her around 8.30.

Theories were floating around, for sure.

Maybe he was jealous. Maybe Mark Durbin
was hoping to date Ashley, and maybe he

found out that she was going on this
date with Ashton Kutcher.

Police were looking at Mark Durbin
because he was one of the last people to

see Ashley alive, and he also admitted
that he had slept with her just

minutes almost before she actually was
murdered.

So clearly they did a thorough
investigation into Durbin.

He was very cooperative. He allowed
police to search his car and his

home.

Eventually they realized that he was not
the person that did this.

The detectives cast a wide net. You
know, they were trying to talk to

everybody that knew Ashley.

She had a very wide circle of friends.

So they spent many months, you know,
trying to track down people. They spoke

to, you know, her family, her friends.

So Ashley's friends told police various
stories about a guy named Mike that they

knew to be a furnace air conditioner
repairman.

He was this air conditioning guy she met
in the fall of 2000 outside her house.

when her and a friend were fixing a
tire.

He lived in the neighborhood, young guy,
good-looking guy.

From that moment forward, he started
inviting himself into her house at these

big parties that she would have all the
time.

She threw me that big birthday party.

There was like, I don't know, like 100
people there. He was like aloof. He was

like in the back, dark corner.

I didn't know who he was.

Mike was known by her friends to tell
all these tall tales.

At one point he said that he was this
Olympic boxer and he was going to go to

the Olympics, but he got electrocuted
working on an air conditioning job.

The friends only knew him as this guy
Mike. They didn't have his last name.

A couple of weeks before Ashley's
murder, she had a party and one of her

friends saw Mike sitting on the couch
and so he started talking to him and he

said that... Every time that Ashley
walked into the room, Mike completely

fixated on her.

It freaked him out so bad that, you
know, towards the end of the night, like

everybody was leaving, but Mike wasn't
leaving.

And so he said that he got so nervous
about Ashley that he actually stayed

over that night. He got such bad vibes
from this guy, Mike.

Ashley's former roommate, Justin
Peterson, told police that he was coming

home from a party one night.

It was around like 2 o'clock in the
evening, and he sees Mike sitting

outside in this green pickup truck
staring at the bungalow.

And he said he called Ashley to let her
know.

And he said the following day, he
actually confronted him. And Mike gave

him this bizarre tale about how the FBI
was looking for him.

were a little more concerned about this
Mike guy than Ashley was. She was just a

very open person, and she wasn't very
judgy. She had a lot of guys that liked

her. She just had so much going on all
the time.

The fact that none of her friends
actually knew Mike's last name posed a

huge problem for detectives. It took,
like, a year to identify who that Mike

was.

Chris Picaccio was an 18-year-old
graduate of Glenview High School.

A very bright, talented young woman with
a great future. She came from a great

family.

She was set to take an engineering
scholarship from Purdue University.

It was her last summer to hang out with
all her friends. You know, all her

friends were going off to college, and
so this was her summer of fun.

That night, she went out with friends.

And they went on the scavenger hunt, and
then they all ended up meeting up at

around 11.30 at TGI Fridays.

She dropped off her last friend around 1
a.m. and was walking into her home with

her key in her hand, and she never made
it inside.

Next morning, Trish was found tragically
by her father on the back porch of the

home. The summer of 1993.

The killer had snapped her arm and then
stabbed her 12 times in the

arm, chest, and breast area.

The attacker must have been lying in
wait. This is somebody who knew she was

out, who knew her routine, and knew
exactly where to hide in this area.

Her death devastated the town. Not only
did it... affect her family and friends.

The whole community rallied around the
family.

In 1993, the Cook County, Illinois
Sheriff's homicide detectives had

gathered all the evidence they could.

In 1993, DNA technology just wasn't
really there.

So they sadly didn't have that to go on,
and the case ultimately kind of went

into the cold case file for many years.

In 2000, a new set of detectives took
over Tricia Picaccio's case, and they

actually looked and analyzed the
fingernail clippings.

By then, DNA had been an accepted
investigative tool, and a cold case

homicide detective named Lou Sala
realized that he had offender DNA on the

fingernails of Tricia Picaccio and
started going out and collecting DNA

from potential suspects.

So they started in Chicago trying to
rule people out.

Back in Hollywood, Ashley Ellerin's
friends had quite a lot to say about

this guy, Mike the Repairman, this kind
of strange man who would show up at her

house unexpectedly.

Investigator Tom Small knew Mike, the
furnace guy, the HVAC guy, lived in the

area. But they didn't have a last name.

One of Ashley's friends told Detective
Small that Mike had said to him that

he had been in an accident and he was
going to sue the builders of Hollywood

and Highland in Hollywood.

And it was going to make him rich.

Small contacted the corporation to see
if there was any lawsuit.

And the counsel said no. So a very
enterprising Tom Small.

He said, well, you know what, let me
pull all the accident reports anyway in

this area.

And he found a report in 1999 where a
guy named Michael Gargiulo had an

incident with a motorist, and Michael
Gargiulo filed a police report.

So once they were able to find this
license of this guy, Michael Gargiulo,

They then showed that to Ellerin's
friends, and they confirmed that, oh,

yeah, that's Mike the repair guy.

Gargiulo was living just a few blocks
south of Ashley Ellerin at the time of

the killing.

Actually, if you go up on his roof, he
had this perfect view of her window, so

he could actually see her comings and
goings.

But by the time they had his address, he
no longer lived there.

He had gotten evicted, like, months
before.

and so had already fled the area.

It was fall of 2002.

The LAPD gets a call from Chicago
detectives. They've come out to Los

Angeles because they want to talk to
Michael Gargiulo because he was one of

the original people detectives spoke to
back when Tricia Pocaccia was murdered

back in 1993, and they wanted to rule
him out through DNA.

Michael Gargiulo was a close friend of
her brother, Douglas.

At the time of the murder, Michael would
have been 17 and Tricia was 18.

So not only was he really good friends
with Doug Picaccio, but he lived just

around the corner.

Detective Sala had determined that
Gargiulo had moved out to Southern

California relatively quickly after the
1993 murder of Tricia Picaccio.

But they couldn't track him down, so
they ended up...

contacting the LAPD, and so they ended
up speaking to Detective Tom Small and

his partner, and Tom Small actually
showed them the driver's license photo

and said, hey, is this the guy you're
looking for?

And they were like, yeah, how do you
know this guy? And then Tom Small was

like, well, we're actually looking at
him for a murder in Hollywood.

It was like that moment of, oh, my God.

The two of them compared notes, and it
was very eerily similar cases. Both

young women, both of them stabbed
multiple times.

Both of them knew Michael Gargiulo. Both
of them lived close to Michael Gargiulo.

Mike Gargiulo was hard to find because
he didn't rent places in his own name.

He didn't have utilities in his own
name. He was always with a woman, and

the places were always their names.

So the detectives actually found an
address for Michael Gargiulo. Four

detectives went over there, and then he
tried to actually run right through

them. It took four of them to actually
pin him down.

And they ended up taking him to a nearby
hospital where they actually swabbed him

for his DNA.

In 2003, the Illinois authorities
confirmed that the DNA found on Trish

Picassio's fingernails was in fact DNA
that came from Michael Gargiulo.

When they get the DNA results back, the
Cook County State's Attorney's Office

decides that there's not enough evidence
to arrest Michael Gargiulo.

They said that basically he had been in
the Picaccio's house before, and also

the day before Trisha Picaccio was
murdered, Trisha Picaccio was in Michael

Gargiulo's van.

He gave her a ride to her friend's
house. So the prosecutors are basically

saying... that could have been how his
DNA got on her fingernails.

Trisha had gone out with, you know,
40-plus friends that evening, and the

only DNA that was on her was Michael
Gargiulo's. And so the detectives were

very upset.

That left him essentially a free man.

The admin chart with the murderer of
Trish Picaccio or the murderer of Ashley

Ellerin. That decision not to go after
Gargiulo as soon as they matched the DNA

basically had fatal consequences.

Investigators from Los Angeles and Cook
County, Illinois, believe that the same

man murdered Ashley Ellerin and Trisha
Picaccio. His name was Michael Gargiulo.

DNA found on the fingernails of Trisha
Picaccio matched Gargiulo's, but the

Cook County State's Attorney's Office
decided that evidence alone wasn't

enough to prosecute him.

Michael Gargiulo is a free man.

Maria Bruno was a early 30-ish Hispanic
woman who had got married young, had

four children with Irving Bruno.

And after about 10 years, the merit
started to somewhat dissolve.

Maria Bruno had recently split from her
husband and had moved to this gated

apartment complex.

She was trying to start a new life. She
chose that apartment complex because it

was safe.

The night of November 30th, Maria Bruno
went out with her estranged husband.

They'd gone out to dinner, and they were
drinking at a karaoke bar.

They were there pretty late. They closed
the restaurant around 1 o'clock in the

morning. Maria had been drinking a
little bit too much to drive, so her

husband drove her to her apartment.

They hung out for a little bit longer
together, and they actually ended up

having sex.

And then around 2.45 a.m. was when
Irving left the apartment.

And the plan was that he would come back
early the next morning and drive her to

where they left her car.

He said he came back around 7.40 a.m. He
said he knocked on her door and there

was no answer. He, you know, knocked on
it a few times. And then he said he

turned around to leave when he actually
saw her kitchen window screen on the

ground.

So he actually climbed through the
window and that's when he finds...

His estranged wife, Maria Bruno,
butchered in the other room.

I was

the

first person from the Los Angeles
Sheriff's Department to arrive on scene.

Maria had over a dozen stab wounds all
over her abdomen, her chest.

and her throat.

She had been sexually mutilated.

It appeared as if her body had been
somewhat posed.

This is very personal. This is rage.

This is an absolutely horrendous crime
scene.

There was a blue cotton booty, like a
shoe covering, that was found just

outside of Maria's front door.

Not unlike a medical booty or what a
repair person would wear on their feet

coming into your home.

There was a small drop of blood on the
interior portion of that blue booty.

It was Maria Bruno's blood. Could it be
that her assailant wore that booty?

Hearing Bruno was the one that was the
last to see her alive and the first one

to discover her deceased, he was
definitely somebody that, you know, we

wanted to query thoroughly.

They found Maria's blood actually in
Irving Bruno's car.

We questioned him that morning at
length.

They had had a domestic violence
incident between them previously.

At one point in time, they'd both been
drinking. They got involved in a pretty

heated argument, and Mr. Bruno admitted
that he had actually struck Maria.

He felt terrible about it. Law
enforcement was never called. She never

really shared that with anybody.

and really it was an anomaly in the
marriage.

We were able to explain her blood to
this car relatively easily.

That night, while she was in the
restroom, she had pinched her hand in

the door and had cut it.

The timeline there was pretty easy to
put together regarding his activities,

and he was very cooperative and very
helpful with us.

So he was excluded as being a suspect
relatively quickly.

The coroner gave an expert opinion that
the knife wound injuries were to the

right side of Maria's body, and that's
indicative of a left-handed attacker.

There was no foreign DNA collected from
the crime scene. There were no

fingerprints, no hair or fibers or other
forensic material.

We thought perhaps the offender was
somebody who was familiar with their

surroundings. The crime itself was high
risk.

There were about 80 units in that one
building, and then there were two

buildings attached to it that each
contained 80 units.

So you're talking about hundreds of
people coming and going at all hours.

It kind of struck me right away. It's
not their first rodeo.

After we were able to essentially
eliminate the estranged husband, we went

back to doing what cops have been doing
for about 200 years, knocking on doors.

looking for eyewitnesses, and one of the
witnesses was an older gentleman that

lived directly across the courtyard from
Maria, and he had witnessed some

activity a couple of days prior to the
murder.

Maria was walking down towards her
apartment. She was carrying groceries,

and the neighbor saw this man following
Maria, and then Maria getting into the

house, and then the man actually
stepping in, and then...

going back like this, like Maria, like
shutting the door on him and his hands

like in the air, like, okay, you know,
type thing and backing off.

And he had seen that man in the
apartment building before on a number of

occasions, just standing by the laundry
room, kind of looking overall at the

courtyard. That witness described a man
that was white, but perhaps of Italian

descent. And he was able to describe his
height and his weight and his hairstyle.

Marie's case went cold and it remained
cold for pretty much three years until

2008. We got a call from the Santa
Monica California Police Department.

At that point, we'd start putting
together some of the pieces to this

puzzle. We realized that we had a serial
killer.

He was a husband and a father.

What no one knew for many years,
however...

was that Michael Gargiulo was leading a
double life.

Michelle Murphy was a 26-year-old young
lady living with a roommate in the

central district of Santa Monica. Middle
class, neighborhood, college students,

aspiring actors and actresses.

The area itself is fairly safe. Younger
professionals, not a high crime area

at all.

I would call it a typical or
unremarkable evening.

Michelle worked out in the early evening
hours, did some laundry, watched a

movie. She ended up going to bed around
10.45.

She had her second floor balcony window
open, you know, because it was a warm

night.

I believe it was about 11.30 when she
was awakened to this unknown person on

her bed, straddling her, stabbing her.

It went from zero to 20 instantly.

He began stabbing her. Nothing said, no
reason, just began to stab her. Michelle

had no idea what was going on.

At one point during the struggle, she
actually grabbed the knife to stop him

with, like, two of her hands. Like, she
put her hands around the knife.

The odds were definitely against her.
She's tiny. She was able to get her feet

underneath him and kick him off.

And in the course of their struggle, he
cuts himself on his right wrist.

and starts bleeding pretty badly.

He says, I'm sorry, and runs out of her
apartment.

Michelle, what happened?

Where is that person now?

How long ago?

I was approximately two blocks away when
the radio call came

out, standing outside her living room
window.

I saw a large amount of blood that was
smeared all over the window.

I also saw that the screen leading into
the apartment had been cut. I could see

blood drops leading down the staircase.

We ended up making our way up to the
front door, and I escorted her from her

apartment. She was in shock.

She was badly cut, bleeding profusely.

She was able to provide a very basic
description to the first responding

officer. She estimated about 5'11 and
muscular built.

She really didn't get a good look
because it was dark in her room.

Within weeks of the attack on Michelle
Murphy, the droplets of blood were

identified as belonging to Mike
Gargiulo.

His DNA was already in the system.

So at the point Mr. Gargiulo was
identified by his DNA, we understood

that he was a person of interest in a
homicide from the Chicago area from many

years prior.

Once I got more of the details, I
realized we were dealing with a monster

and that it was very important for us to
ensure that we got this individual off

the street.

We realized that Mr. Gargiulo lived a
stone's throw away from Michelle Murphy,

and you could look from his window.

into Michelle Murphy's apartment.

So Michael Gargiulo was arrested for the
attempted murder of Michelle Murphy.

Several years after Maria's murder, in
May of 2008, we got a call from the

detectives that were handling the attack
on Michelle Murphy, and the very

perceptive detectives in Santa Monica
remembered the Maria Bruno murder. So

when they were doing a background
investigation of Mr. Gargiulo...

They saw that he lived at one time in El
Monte. And sure enough, he lived in the

same exact apartment building where
Maria Bruno had been murdered. He lived

across the courtyard and one level up
from Maria's apartment.

He had like this incredibly perfect view
of her home.

I knew right away he was unequivocally,
absolutely the strongest suspect in this

case.

Once the connections were made, The
investigators from multiple

jurisdictions all started meeting to
compare notes because it was at that

point we realized that we had a serial
killer.

Once we'd identified Michael Gargiulo,
we went back and wound up searching the

apartment that he lived in when Maria
Bruno was killed.

Three or four tenants had occupied that
same apartment since his departure, and

when we looked at the apartment, it was
actually empty. And my partner at the

time, Sergeant Joe Purcell, had the
brilliant idea that we should go up and

look in the attic.

Sure enough, in the attic was a white
plastic shopping bag, and in that bag

was a Father's Day card written to Mr.
Gargiulo from his then-girlfriend.

And a blue cotton booty that was the
same make and model manufacturer that

the blue cotton booty we had recovered
two years earlier at the murder scene.

It was a great piece of forensic
evidence to tie Gargiulo to the crime.

Years later, they end up finding his DNA
or DNA of a male relative on

the elastic of that booty that had Maria
Bruno's blood on it.

Several months after the Santa Monica
Police Department had arrested and

charged Mr. Gargiulo with attempted
murder on Michelle Murphy, we had

presented enough evidence to
additionally charge Mr. Gargiulo with

the murder of Maria Bruno, and the Los
Angeles Police Department was able to

charge another count of murder for the
murder of Ashley Ellerin.

Some of Ashley's friends are going
through pictures, and there in the

background is Mike Gargiulo.

I mean, I was taking a picture. Ashley
was leaning back on everybody.

You can see him lurking around in the
background.

So after Gargiulo starts making
headlines, a show actually comes out

about him, an episode of 48 Hours.

I tried to revive her.

That is the worst feeling in your life,
when you can't do nothing for somebody

you love.

Two men actually end up being the show.

And these two men had worked with
Gargiulo at the Rainbow Bar and Grill as

bouncers when Gargiulo started kind of
bragging about killing somebody back in

Chicago.

And that's when they know that they have
a pretty important piece of information.

And so with that, they ended up speaking
to the state attorney's office. And so

in 2011...

Michael Gargiulo was charged with the
murder of Trisha Pachaccio.

When you put all of these cases
together, you're like, wait a second,

this is the guy who docked these women.
He lived near them.

He waited for an opportune time to
pounce.

Michael Gargiulo, for almost 15 years,
was watching.

Always watching.

The details of this case are horrifying.

Michael Gargiulo accused of brutally
murdering three young, beautiful women.

The media dubbed him the Hollywood
Ripper. However, his crimes are beyond

Hollywood. It took about 11 years for
the case to go to trial.

Mike Gargiulo kept firing lawyers and
representing himself.

It was pretty obvious that he was using
that to manipulate the system as best he

could, which he was able to do.

The methodical and systematic slaughter
of women by Michael Gargiulo,

the boy next door killer.

That's what this case is about.

Mr. Gargiulo was charged in California
for the California crimes.

He was not charged with any of the
offenses that he committed in the state

of Illinois.

Trish Picaccia's murder was allowed in
to show this pattern of Mike Gargiulo's.

The people of the state of California
were seeking death against Mr. Garger,

though. They called him a serial
psychosexual thrill killer.

He didn't sexual assault any of them.
They believe that he got his sexual

thrill out of the actual act of killing.

Ashton Kutcher in the spotlight today,
not as an actor, but as a witness in

court. Sounds like he has a pretty
important role here. Yes, he's a

timeline witness.

He will narrow down that period during
which she was killed. He was planning to

see Ashley Ellerin the night she was
murdered.

Kutcher, you know, just his name really
brought a ton of publicity to the case.

Ashton Kutcher was why it kind of got so
much coverage.

He saw something that looked like
evidence of a crime.

Gargiulo timed these attacks.

very perfectly because in two of the
cases, he came in right as another man

was leaving. So he must have known that
the focus would be on those people as

the last people to have seen her alive
and not him.

A 26-year-old woman had the strength and
courage to fight off a killer

that took investigators to answers that
they had been seeking for 15 years.

The greatest thing is that Michelle
lived. She was able to fight him off. As

he's stabbing with his left hand and
fighting with Ms. Murphy, that's when he

got himself on the right wrist.

Michelle Murphy was like a heroic figure
in this case to be able to go up there

and testify to what happened.

With her testimony on the stand, she
remains probably one of the strongest

people I've ever known.

I think it had a great impact on the
jury.

I mean, the defense attorneys had no
choice but to concede that, in fact, Mr.

Gargiulo was the one that attacked
Michelle Murphy.

They tried to paint that in the best
light possible, that he was in some

fugue state or that he was sleepwalking
or that he wasn't conscious of his

conduct. The jury, I think, saw through
all of that.

During the trial, jurors actually were
taken out to each crime scene to see

just how close Mike Gargiulo lived to
his victims.

This was a very unique part of the trial
that I had never seen before in my

career covering court. It was all pretty
powerful to see that.

At the end of the day, the murders were
just so similar. He had such a

clear blueprint on not only that, but
the DNA evidence and his

location in regard to the murders. It
was just undoubtable that it was him.

We start with breaking news from Los
Angeles, where a verdict has been

reached in the Hollywood Ripper trial.

We have a jury in the above entitled
action. Find the defendant, Michael

Gargiulo, guilty of the crime of
attempted murder, Michelle Murphy,

guilty of the crime of first-degree
murder, Maria Bruno, guilty of the crime

of first-degree murder, Ashley Ellerin.

So there you have it, guilty on all
counts. The courtroom was full for the

verdict, and all the family members were
there, and you could just feel this

gigantic sense of relief.

I ache to hold her. I ache to hear her
voice, to hug her.

The images that we have to see, I can
not unsee them.

Children gave me their mother, and I was
taken from them.

Our top story this morning, serial
killer dubbed the Hollywood Ripper has

been sentenced to death for the murder
of two women and attempted murder of a

third.

Right now in California, there's a
moratorium on death penalty cases, and

so it's unclear if he'll ever face the
death penalty.

I do believe that there are other
unidentified victims of Mr. Gargiulo

somewhere. At one point in time, Mr.
Gargiulo made an admission.

that he was responsible for up to 10
murders.

And I believe that was a truthful
admission.

If there are people that watch this, if
they think there's a murder or an

assault of some type, and they have
information that it may be some way

connected to Mr. Garzullo, they should
call local law enforcement, or they

should call the Los Angeles Police
Department or the Los Angeles County

Sheriff's.

Justice needs to be served and this guy
has to pay.

He's got to go.

It's owed to him for all these women and
my good friend Ashley.

It's time to go.

Because I lost my best friend.

For what?

Michael Gargiulo currently sits on death
row in California.

He's expected to face trial in Illinois
for the 1993 murder of Tricia Picaccio.

In August 2023, her family will have
waited 30 years for justice in her case.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Thank you for watching.

Good night.