Ashley Ellerin’s Murder: Gargiulo’s Trial, Verdict, and Death Sentence

Ashley Ellerin, a 22-year-old fashion student, was stabbed to death in her Hollywood Hills home on the night of February 21, 2001. Her killer was Michael Gargiulo, a neighbor who lived roughly a block away and had once fixed a heater at her residence. The murder went unsolved for more than seven years until DNA from a separate attack identified him. Gargiulo, later dubbed the “Hollywood Ripper,” was convicted of Ellerin’s murder in 2019 and sentenced to death in 2021.¹

What Happened the Night Ashley Ellerin Was Killed

February 21, 2001 was the night of the Grammy Awards. Ellerin had plans to attend an after-party with actor Ashton Kutcher, whom she had met at a friend’s birthday party about two months earlier. The two spoke by phone several times that evening. At around 8:24 p.m., Ellerin told Kutcher she had just finished showering and was drying her hair.²

Kutcher was running late. He called again around 10:00 p.m. and reached her answering machine, leaving a message about skipping dinner for drinks.³ He arrived at her Pinehurst Road bungalow around 10:45 p.m. The gate was open. The lights were on. No one answered his knocks. Looking through a window, he saw the place looked messy and noticed a dark stain on the carpet, which he assumed was spilled red wine from a housewarming party the week before. He left, thinking she was angry that he was so late. Prosecutors later established that the stain was Ellerin’s blood.²

Ellerin’s roommate, Jennifer Disisto, came home around 9:00 a.m. the next morning and found her body just outside the bathroom. Paramedics pronounced her dead at 9:28 a.m.⁴ She had been stabbed 47 times. Twelve of the wounds were fatal. Defensive cuts on her hands and forearm showed she had fought her attacker. A blow dryer sat on the toilet seat, consistent with an attack that came while she was getting ready for her date.

Why the Case Went Cold

Detectives canvassing the neighborhood identified Michael Gargiulo as a person of interest early. He lived a block or two away, had done a heater repair at Ellerin’s home, and friends had seen him parked outside on more than one occasion, apparently watching the house.⁵⁴ What investigators did not have was physical evidence tying him to the inside of her house. The case stalled.

How Michael Gargiulo Was Caught

The break came from a different attack. On April 28, 2008, a 26-year-old woman named Michelle Murphy was stabbed in her Santa Monica apartment by an intruder who came in through a second-story window. She fought back, gripping the serrated blade with her hands and kicking him off the bed. As he ran, he said, “I’m sorry.”⁶ He cut himself in the struggle and left a blood trail from her apartment to a nearby unit. Testing matched the blood to Gargiulo, whose DNA profile was already in a law enforcement database from an earlier investigation into a 1993 murder in Illinois.⁵

Gargiulo was arrested in the summer of 2008 for the attempted murder of Murphy. On September 4, 2008, while he was in custody, prosecutors indicted him for the murders of Ellerin and Maria Bruno, a 32-year-old mother of four killed in her El Monte apartment in December 2005.⁵

A Series of Attacks

Prosecutors portrayed Ellerin’s killing as one in a series. In each case, Gargiulo lived near the victim, watched or knew her from the neighborhood, and attacked with a knife inside her home.

Tricia Pacaccio, 1993: An 18-year-old stabbed 12 times and found on the doorstep of her family’s home in Glenview, Illinois. Gargiulo was then 17 and a friend of her younger brother.⁷
Ashley Ellerin, 2001: Stabbed 47 times in her Hollywood home.
Maria Bruno, 2005: Stabbed 17 times and mutilated as she slept in her apartment. Gargiulo lived in the same complex. A blue surgical bootie at the scene held her blood and his DNA; a matching bootie later turned up in the attic of his former apartment.⁸
Michelle Murphy, 2008: Survived and produced the DNA that identified him.

How the Trial Proved Ellerin’s Murder

The case of People v. Michael Thomas Gargiulo was tried in Los Angeles Superior Court before Judge Larry Paul Fidler, with Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon leading the prosecution.⁸ Prosecutors called Gargiulo a “serial, psychosexual thrill killer.”³

Ellerin’s case posed a particular problem. Unlike the Bruno and Murphy attacks, there was no DNA or other physical evidence placing Gargiulo inside her home.⁹ Prosecutors built the Ellerin count on the pattern: his proximity, the surveillance neighbors had seen, and the shared method across the other attacks. Michelle Murphy was the first witness, describing waking to a man straddling her and stabbing her, and the fight that left him bleeding.¹⁰ Ashton Kutcher took the stand to walk the jury through the night, saying he was “freaking out” the next day when he learned of the murder and that he called police to tell them his fingerprints would be on the front door.²

Defense attorney Daniel Nardoni told the jury the prosecution had the wrong man and stressed the missing forensic link at the Ellerin and Bruno scenes.¹¹ After conviction, the defense argued in a separate sanity phase that Gargiulo suffered from dissociative identity disorder from childhood abuse. The prosecution’s expert, clinical psychologist Robert Schug, testified that he had antisocial personality disorder but understood his actions were wrong.¹²

The Verdict and Death Sentence

On August 15, 2019, after four days of deliberation, the jury found Gargiulo guilty of the first-degree murders of Ashley Ellerin and Maria Bruno and the attempted murder of Michelle Murphy. The murder counts carried special-circumstance findings for multiple murder and lying in wait. The jury also found him sane at the time of the crimes.¹³

In the penalty phase, prosecutors argued that Gargiulo had targeted at least 11 women over his life.¹⁴ Ellerin’s mother, Cynthia Ellerin, gave a victim impact statement. Murphy told jurors she had barely slept for weeks after the attack and kept her lights on for a long time.¹⁵ Gargiulo’s 16-year-old son asked the jury to spare his father’s life. On October 18, 2019, after about four hours, the jury unanimously recommended death.¹⁶

Judge Fidler formally imposed the death sentence on July 16, 2021, denying a defense motion for a new trial. He said the attacks were “completely vicious and frightening” and that “everywhere that Mr. Gargiulo went, death and destruction followed.”¹ California has kept a moratorium on executions in place since 2019 under Governor Gavin Newsom.¹⁷

The Outstanding Illinois Case

Gargiulo still faces a first-degree murder charge in Cook County, Illinois, for the 1993 stabbing of Tricia Pacaccio. DNA under Pacaccio’s fingernails matched him in 2003, but prosecutors initially declined to charge because he had been in a car with her the day before the killing, giving an innocent explanation for the transfer.⁷ After a 2011 CBS “48 Hours” broadcast about Gargiulo, two former Hollywood coworkers, Temer Leary and Anthony DiLorenzo, told authorities he had bragged in the late 1990s about killing a girl in Chicago. He was indicted on July 7, 2011.⁵ On September 5, 2024, he was extradited from California to Illinois, and a judge in Skokie ordered him detained the next day, calling him a “real and present threat.”¹⁸

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CNN. Hollywood Ripper Death Sentence
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CBS News. Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Michael Gargiulo
16
Courthouse News Service. Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Hollywood Ripper
17
BBC News. Hollywood Ripper Sentenced to Death
18
Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Convicted California Serial Killer Returned to Cook County