Diego Pillco and the Adrienne Shelly Murder Case

The Diego Pillco and Adrienne Shelly murder case began on November 1, 2006, when Pillco, a 19-year-old undocumented Ecuadorian construction worker, strangled the 40-year-old actress and filmmaker in her Greenwich Village apartment and staged the scene to look like a suicide. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in February 2008 and is serving 25 years in New York state prison with no possibility of parole.¹

What Happened in the Apartment

Shelly had just finished her film Waitress. On the afternoon she was killed, Pillco was working on a renovation on the floor directly below her fourth-floor apartment and office on Abingdon Square in the West Village. By his later courtroom account, he found her door ajar, went in intending to steal money to repay the people who had helped him enter the United States, and was caught going through her purse.² When Shelly threatened to call the police, he took her phone, covered her mouth, and choked her with a bed sheet.³

After she was dead, Pillco tied the sheet around her neck and hanged her body from the shower curtain rod in the bathroom to make the death look self-inflicted.⁴ He later told investigators he had learned the knot from tying pigs in Ecuador.² Shelly’s husband, Andy Ostroy, found her around 5:45 p.m. that evening.

The staging nearly worked. Police initially treated the death as a possible suicide, and it was Ostroy’s refusal to accept that ruling that kept the investigation moving.⁵

How Pillco Was Caught

Detectives from the Sixth Precinct found a sneaker print in the bathroom dust that matched none of Shelly’s shoes and none of the responders’. It came from a men’s size-eight Reebok Allen Iverson-style sneaker. Pillco had stood on the toilet while positioning the body.⁶

On November 5, 2006, canvassing the building, detectives found the same print on construction paper on the floor below Shelly’s apartment. The foreman on that job was Wilson Pillco. At his Brooklyn home, police found a backpack containing sneakers matching the print. They belonged to his 19-year-old brother, Diego.² Diego Pillco confessed within hours. A detective, Irma Rivera-Duffy, reportedly drew out the confession by appealing to his faith and his affection for his young niece.⁷

His first account to police differed from what he would eventually say in court. He initially claimed Shelly had come downstairs to complain about construction noise, slapped him, and threatened to call authorities, and that he had followed her upstairs and killed her in a panic over deportation. He later recanted that version and admitted the robbery motive.³

The Plea and the Sentence

Pillco was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court before Judge Brenda S. Soloff on a charge of second-degree murder, held without bail, and, at his lawyer’s request, placed on suicide watch.⁸ Assistant District Attorney Marit DeLozier told the court the cause of death was not in doubt: “This woman did not die from a strike to the head. The medical examiner has made it crystal clear that the victim died from compression to the neck.”⁹

On February 14, 2008, Pillco pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to first-degree manslaughter. The plea fixed his sentence at 25 years and spared him a possible 25-years-to-life sentence had a jury convicted him of murder.¹

Justice Carol Berkman formally imposed the sentence on March 13, 2008, with no possibility of parole and up to three and a half years of potential reduction for good behavior. She told Shelly’s family: “I hope that the task of raising that child and raising her as a healthy, wonderful person like her mother will at least comfort you.”¹⁰ Because Pillco was in the country illegally, the judge noted he would face immediate deportation on release.¹¹

Ostroy addressed Pillco at the hearing, telling him he had “sentenced that little girl to a lifetime of anguish and sadness and questions and feelings of what could’ve been,” and calling him “nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.” Pillco, speaking through an interpreter, said: “If there were a death penalty, I would take it. All I want to say is I know they’re not going to forgive me. This is what I deserve.”¹²

The Civil Suit Against Pillco’s Employer

Pillco had worked for Bradford General Contractors Co., owned by Jus (Luis) Hernandez and his brothers. Ostroy sued Bradford, Hernandez, and the building’s managers, alleging negligence, negligent hiring, and negligence per se under the Immigration Reform and Control Act for employing an undocumented worker.¹³

In July 2011, State Supreme Court Justice Louis York granted summary judgment to all defendants. He found no connection between Pillco’s immigration status and the crime, calling the theory that an undocumented worker’s fear of authorities made him more likely to attack rather than flee “simply not logical.”¹⁴ The court also found no evidence Bradford had any reason to consider Pillco dangerous; his employer described him as a “normal and happy young man who never displayed signs of anger or a bad mood.”¹⁵ The Appellate Division, First Department unanimously affirmed the dismissal, agreeing the murder fell outside the scope of Pillco’s employment.¹⁶

The Case in Immigration Debates

Because Pillco was undocumented, the killing became a recurring reference in political arguments about immigration and crime, over Ostroy’s objections. He said he received invitations from Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly at Fox News to appear on their programs in ways he felt would validate anti-immigrant sentiment, and declined.¹⁷

Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Ostroy published a New York Times op-ed titled “My Wife’s Killer Was Not an ‘Illegal Immigrant.'” He wrote: “Adrienne was not murdered by an illegal immigrant, per se. She fell victim to a depraved killer who simply happened to be an undocumented immigrant.”¹⁷ He criticized Donald Trump in particular for using such killings politically and called “demonizing those not born here” a dangerous path.¹⁸ When the Trump administration created the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office in 2017, Ostroy again objected, saying such programs would “fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric.”¹⁹

Where Pillco Is Now

Pillco is incarcerated at Coxsackie Correctional Facility in upstate New York.⁵ In 2011, Ostroy wrote him a letter, and Pillco responded with a lengthy apology.⁷

In 2019, Ostroy visited Pillco in prison for a filmed confrontation that appears in Adrienne, the documentary Ostroy directed and HBO premiered in 2021. Speaking through a Spanish translator, Pillco walked back through the steps of the killing and confirmed he had believed at the time he would get away with staging it as a suicide. Ostroy showed him photographs of Shelly and their daughter Sophie. Pillco was largely impassive and eventually murmured an apology in Spanish as he was led back to his cell.²⁰ Ostroy said afterward he did not intend to communicate with him again.⁵

In December 2022, Pillco spoke at a TEDx event held inside Coxsackie under the theme “Our Shared Humanity.” His talk was titled “The man I have become.”²¹

1
Chicago Tribune. Worker Sentenced in Actress Death
2
Oxygen. Waitress Actress Adrienne Shelly Death Movies
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6ABC. Construction Worker Admits Killing Actress Adrienne Shelly
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The New York Times. Actress’s Death Is Ruled Murder, and Worker in Building Is Charged
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The Guardian. Adrienne Shelly Waitress HBO Documentary
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Gothamist. Adrienne Shelly’s Murder Caused by Construction Noise Complaint
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New York Post. Adrienne Shelly’s Widower Confronts Her Killer in New Film
8
New York Post. Actress Set Off Illegal’s Killer Rage by Calling Him S.O.B.
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The New York Times. Actress Was Killed in Hanging Meant as Cover-Up, Officials Say
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The New York Times. Sentencing in the Adrienne Shelly Case
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The Hour. Illegal Immigrant Worker Sentenced
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New York Daily News. Adrienne Shelly’s Husband Slams Killer Before He’s Sentenced to 25 Years
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Courthouse News Service. Waitress Killer’s Boss Cleared of Negligence
14
New York Post. Slay Suit Nixed
15
New York Courts. Ostroy v Six Sq. LLC
16
New York Daily News. Husband of Murdered Actress Adrienne Shelly Loses Lawsuit Against Killer’s Boss
17
The New York Times. My Wife’s Killer Was Not an ‘Illegal Immigrant’
18
WBUR. Families Trump
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NBC Washington. Victims of Immigrant Crime Now Have Advocate in White House
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Oxygen. Adrienne Shelly’s Husband Confronts Diego Pillco
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Proximity for Justice. Coxsackie Correctional Facility