Serial Killer Michael Giargiulo #truecrime

Michael Gargiulo

From 1993 to 2005 3 women lost their lives this vicious monster. Michael Gargiulo started in his hometown, Glenview Illinois, near Chicago in 1993. The 17 Year old ambushed his friends older sister just after midnight as she opened the front door.

He went berserk, stabbing her at least a dozen times. While dna was found, the technology of the day was not able to match it to Gargiulo at the time. He moved to LA a few years later to pursue a career as an actor and model. But the rage and hate continued to build in Gargiulo and he would commit 2 more homicides including that of Ashton Kutchers girlfriend before police were able to obtain critical evidence from a surviving victim. His DNA would also eventually link him to the 1993 slaying in Illinois. The savagery and evil of the attacks would lead Michael Gargiulo to be given the ominous nickname, The Hollywood Ripper.

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Michael Gargiulo was born on February 15 1976 and grew up in Glenview Illinois. He had 6 siblings and from an early age Michael had a temper and was known as a bully in his neighborhood. Perhaps this was in part due to the physical mistreatment he reports suffering at the hands of his father.

One of his friends, Doug Pacaccio lived 3 doors down and in 1993 when Michael was 17 there was a horrific crime at their home. On August 13, Tricia Pacaccio was enjoying the last nights with her friends before heading off to college at Purdue university.

The 18 year old was just getting home after dropping off her friends a little after midnight. But she would never get into the house. The next morning her dad was taking their dog for a walks when he found her in a bloody heap just outside the door. At the time it was unknown who her attacker was, but the assault had been brutal.

Tricia’s left arm had been twisted back to the point it broke and a knife had been plunged into her at least a dozen times. Several vital organs had been damaged and the scene was drenched in blood. There was one clue to the identity of her attacker- an autopsy found skin under Tricia’s fingernails though at the time there was no one to test it against.

Police questioned anyone who might be inlvolved or know something about the case so naturally they brought in Michael. He had given Tricia a ride home a few days before and come to see the crime scene with other neighbors gawking at the swarming police. Suspicions intensified when Michael began bringing gift to the Pacaccios.

They knew him well as he had spent a lot of time with their son. Not long after they lost their daughter he started stopping by to see them, first with flowers then a gift certificate and clothes. All this made police look closer at him. But Michael knew how to throw them off his trail.

He pointed them at another boy in the neighborhood. Michael fed police a story about how a boy named Eric Agazim asked him to help hide a duffel bag and inferred that there was a bloody knife inside. When authorities approached Eric he refused to give an interview which effectively ended the investigation into Michael.

The case went cold as the perpetrator continued committing crimes in the area. He had run ins with the law over theft after he was caught rooting through unlocked cars.

In 1998, Michael again visited the Pacaccios, this time it seemed he had something important to tell them. But before he could say anything his dad and sister came and pulled him away. But this experience was enough for Tricia’s dad to call police and tell them that he believed muchael was behind the heinous crime.

But the Gargiulos were not going to wait around for investigators to find more evidence against Michael and he moved to California with dreams of becoming a celebrity. He got some small acting parts as an actor, but those who knew him remeber strange and worrying statements. While working as a bouncer at the Rainbow bar and grill he asked his coworkers if they had ever taken a life, and said he had, but they wrote this off as a lie to make him seem tougher than he actually was.

Michael would lose this job as a bouncer after punching a customer. After this he found work as a HVAC repairman givin him access to a huge number of peoples homes. In this capacity, he met several people who moved in celebrity circles. One such person was Ashley Ellerin. She was a promising fashion student who dated Ashton Kutcher.

Friends would report seeing Muchael outside her home at odd hours, but assumed he was just strange and harmless. This would change on February 21 2001. Ashley had plans to attend a Grammy party with Ashton, but when he arrived to pick her up just after 11 pm she did not answer the door. Through the window he saw a pool of what he assumed was spilled wine and for whatever reason he did not investigate further.

The next morning one of Ashley’s roommates got home and found a horrific scene. The young woman had been stabbed almost 50 times and her head had nearly been severed from the ferocity of the attack. Friends would tell police about the strange man who had been hanging around who they called Mike the furnace repairman.

Meanwhile in Illinois police were retesting the DNA evidence found under Tricia’s fingernails. They wanted to get samples from all their suspects and so they flew out to California to track Michael down. They met with local police and the 2 agencies realized they were both hunting for the same person for a murder in their respective cities.

When they found Gargiulo, he tried to fight the officers but eventually was forced to give a dna sample from a hospital emergency room. This is where things get a little sketchy,

the results were a positive match to that found under Tricia’s fingernails, but the DA did not press charges as they said the dna could have been transferred through normal contact from the ride he had given her and did not necessarily mean that he committed the crime.

The californai police did not have a dna from the ellerin crime scene to compare michaels against and so the investigation hit a wall. As the years went on, Michael was accused of staklking other women but in 2005 he would once again commit a homicide. 32 year old Maria Bruno lived in the same apartment complex as Muchael and his girlfriend. The mother of 4 had moved in just 10 days before Gargiulo targeted her.

On December 1 2005, he broke in through her kitchen window and committed yet another horrifically savage attack. She was found the next morning with her throat slashed and numerous stab wounds. He went a step further in this case and cut flesh from Maria’s chest and placed it over her mouth. The only clue in the crime was a surgical shoe slipper found just outside the apartment.

Gargiulo used these in his capacity as a heating and air conditioner repairmen when going into customers homes and it apparently used them when committing crime to minimize the evidence he left behind.

With no clear suspect in the case, the homicide of Bruno would go unsolved. But there would be a break in the cases,

despite a history of being very close to multiple homicides, Gargiulo was still free to roam in search of victims. He had moved from the apartment next to where he had taken Bruno’s life and into Santa Monica.

One of his neighbors soon caught his eye. Michelle Murphy was a 27 year old lived across the alley from Michael and it was found that he had a direct line of sight into bedroom. On April 28 2008, Murphy woke to find a hooded man witha knife rushing at her. She put up a ferocious fight despite her short stature. She was successful in fighting off her attacker after he cut himself with his own knife leaving behind his dna. On his at out of the room, she heard her assailant mutter “I’m sorry.”

The blood sample left at the scene came back as a match to Gargiulo and he was soon apprehended. In his car they found more of the shoe slippers like we’re found near the bruno crime scene. He as charged with the attack on Murphy, and the homicides of bruno and ellerin. Despite this it was 3 years before Illinois authorities thought to charge him in the Pacaccio case.

While incarcerated, Gargiulo did not help himself when a escape plan was exposed. The creature had told other inmates he would throat punch a guard and escape. Needless to say this plan was fouled and gave further evidence of the willingness of Gargiulo to commit violence to get what he wanted.

The California case started in mAy of 2019. Among the witnesses that testified in the case was Ashton Kutcher and Michelle Murphy. The only defense Gargiulos lawyers could come up with was that he had a mental defect and did not recall attacking Murphy. This was not successful and in the fall of 2019, he was convicted and sentenced to get the needle in 2021 after attempting to appeal the conviction.

However, Governor Newsom stopped all executions and so this sentence was unlikely to be carried out. But this is just one of many terrible decisions made by Newsom who now is trying to run for president which absolutely should not be a possibility after how California has fared under his leadership. It is expected that Gargiulo will be ctradited to Illinois to stand trial in the Pacaccio case, but with the lackadaisical efforts of the prosecutors so far, this will likely not happen any time soon.

Crime
Evil
Serial killer
Hollywood