Jury convicts man dubbed ‘Boy Next Door Killer’
LOS ANGELES » A jury on Thursday found an aspiring actor who prosecutors called “The Boy Next Door Killer” guilty of fatally stabbing two Los Angeles-area women, one of whom was killed the night she was planning to meet actor Ashton Kutcher for drinks.
The jury also found Michael Gargiulo guilty of the attempted murder of a woman who fought back and sent him fleeing, leading to his arrest in all three cases and a fourth for which he’s awaiting trial in Illinois.
Gargiulo, 43, was convicted in the murder of 22-year- old Ashley Ellerin in her Hollywood home in 2001 on a night when she was about to meet Kutcher, who testified at the trial. Her father was in court for the verdict.
Gargiulo also was convicted of the 2005 murder of 32-year old Maria Bruno in her El Monte home, and with the 2008 attempted murder of Michelle Murphy in a stabbing attack in her Santa Monica apartment.
Jurors who deliberated for three days also found Gargiulo guilty of several special- circumstance allegations, including lying in wait and multiple murders, which make him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison with no possibility of parole.
A final phase of the trial is set to start Tuesday, when jurors will determine whether Gargiulo was sane at the time of the killings.
Gargiulo sat in court in a lavender dress shirt and slacks with eight sheriff’s deputies standing behind him. He showed no reaction when the verdict was read.
His attorneys declined comment outside court. Prosecutors and victims’ family members did not speak to reporters.
A native of the Chicago area who moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Gargiulo had acting aspirations and worked as an air conditioning repairman and Hollywood nightclub bouncer at the time of the attacks.
With little physical evidence tying him to the scenes of two killings, prosecutors urged jurors to look at the cases connectively, citing uncannily similar patterns in home-invasion attacks that were all in places near his residence at the time. While some media outlets referred to him as “The Hollywood Ripper,” prosecutors dubbed him the “Boy Next Door Killer.”
Allowed to cite evidence from the Illinois case, they said all four attacks were the work of a skilled serial killer who studied the lives, homes and habits of victims that he stabbed quickly, powerfully and repeatedly with a knife that he knew how to use, and studied ways to cover his tracks.
“Those similarities point to one man, one killer: Michael Gargiulo,” Deputy District Attorney Garrett Dameron said during closing arguments.
The defense relied heavily on the lack of forensic or eyewitness evidence putting Gargiulo at the scenes of the killings. A shoe- covering bootie with Bruno’s blood and Gargiulo’s DNA was found near her apartment in a complex where they both lived.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that you can make a case against someone when you can’t even prove where they were,” defense attorney Dale Rubin said during closing arguments.