Sex-cult trio tortured and killed victim in their dungeon
Brittany Killgore was ready to change her life – but it was about to end...
The text only said Help but it was all Brittany Killgore could write in her final moments. It was a desperate plea from a young woman who knew that she was in the darkest of dangers, but it wasn’t enough to save her.
Four days later her abused and battered body was found dumped in a ditch.
Brittany had just made the decision to divorce her husband but he was on the other side of the world and had nothing to do with her death.
Instead, a chance meeting with her twisted killers sealed her fate.
Brittany and Lance Corporal Cory Killgore had been married two years when they filed for divorce in April 2002.
Marine, Cory, had been deployed to Afghanistan while Brittany, 22, was back at their home in Fallbrook, California.
With her marriage coming to an end, Brittany started packing to move back home to her family who lived in Missouri.
Facing a new life alone, she sent a text to a friend asking for some help with the move.
Brittany had met Marine staff sergeant Louis Ray
Perez by chance when she was with a friend who was buying something from Louis’s girlfriend.
He’d been a Marine for
16 years – someone Brittany thought that she could trust.
When she asked if Louis knew anyone who could help with the move he replied; Party with me tonight & you’ll have five guys there in the morning.
At first, she declined to go but then changed her mind.
He was a friend and she needed the help.
What was wrong with an innocent night out?
On April 13, Brittany borrowed a purple evening gown from a friend and said she was heading to downtown San Diego.
She was never seen again. The next day, a friend reported Brittany missing. They said they’d received a text from Brittany’s phone around 8pm that read; Help.
The friend text her back;
R U okay? and received the reply; ‘Yes I love this party.
It set off alarm bells as Brittany always used the word ‘yeah.’
A homeless man found Brittany’s phone in a doorway and terrified loved ones posted missing flyers around town fearing the worst.
The police immediately called Louis in for questioning.
He had no criminal record and turned up without resistance. Louis said that he’d dropped Brittany in front of a club while he looked for somewhere to park.
He claimed that when he had returned, Brittany was gone.
After looking for 30 minutes, he returned home.
Louis lived with his pregnant girlfriend Dorothy Grace Marie Maraglino, 36, and her friend, Jessica Lynn Lopez, 25.
But as police would soon discover, there was far more to the trio’s relationship.
Police searched Louis’s white Ford Explorer car which was muddy and so were his boots.
They found a plastic bag containing blood-stained blue latex gloves, a stun gun with a human hair on and a stolen assault rifle.
Later it would be revealed that the DNA on the gloves and stun gun matched Brittany’s.
Louis was arrested for the theft of the rifle and named a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance of Brittany Killgore.
He was held on a $500,000 bail. Texts sent from Louis’s mobile to Brittany’s phone suggested he was concerned about her the night she went missing.
Your friends are calling me worried read one.
Later he sent another, Now I am worried too.
It was all just an act. Police
searched his home and the truth started to surface.
One room was set up as a sex dungeon, full of equipment including handcuffs, many sex toys and shackles.
Dorothy and Jessica explained that they were both in a bizarre relationship with Louis – he was their master, Dorothy was the mistress and Jessica was the slave.
The next day, Jessica was found in a hotel with superficial selfinflicted knife wounds to her wrists. She’d written a seven-page handwritten confession where she admitted to strangling Brittany because she was worried that Louis was attracted to her.
Jessica claimed she’d tried to chop up the body before dumping it near Lake Skinner.
Jessica said she acted alone. That afternoon, police found Brittany’s naked remains on the roadside near Lake Skinner.
An examination revealed she’d been strangled – there were cuts on one leg down to the bone and one on her wrist in a failed attempt to dismember her with a saw.
Jessica was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
But investigators didn’t believe that Jessica was solely responsible.
She was the slave in the sex cult and was often made to act like a dog on a lead.
Had she simply taken the blame? Police charged Louis and Dorothy with murder too and all three were held on a $3milion bond. Further investigation revealed that sex-trio Louis, Dorothy and Jessica openly discussed their lifestyle and told people Louis was their master.
Dorothy ran the house and would dominate Louis in their sex games – but Louis was in control.
He had previously spoken online about his violent fantasies.
It’s thought they approached Brittany about joining in with their sex games and she flatly refused.
Her DNA was found in the dungeon – had they ignored her pleas and forced her to take part against her will in a sadomasochistic thrill kill?
While waiting to face the jury, Dorothy gave birth to a baby boy. The graphic trial in
They’d written up a contract
2015 was avidly followed by the public. All three pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, kidnapping and murder. Prosecution said that Brittany was kidnapped and forced as an unwilling participant in a sexual bondage and torture session, before she was strangled and dumped in a ditch. There were handcuff marks on her wrist and the force used proved it wasn’t consensual. There was so much evidence taken from the home.
There was nylon rope with Brittany’s hair on, duct tape, saws and a list of ‘slave rules’ with a ‘slave contract’ which showed their bizarre setup. Prosecutors insisted all three were at the house and the jury were told of Brittany’s heartbreaking text for help. Dorothy’s lawyer insisted she’d left behind her sexual behaviour when she fell pregnant – her only crime was lying to save the people she loved.
Louis’s lawyer blamed Jessica by claiming Louis had dropped Brittany off at the house and when he returned she was already dead.
His only crime was covering it up for Jessica.
While Jessica’s lawyer said the ‘slave’ was simply a scapegoat.
The jury decided that all three had killed Brittany for their own sadistic pleasure.
They were found guilty of murder, kidnapping, torture and sexual battery.
In November, Louis Perez and Dorothy Maraglino were sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.
In 2016 Jessica Lopez, 28, was sentenced to life without the chance of parole.
Brittany’s mum, Michelle Wrest has said: ‘Our daughter was a beautiful young woman, inside and out.
‘Unfortunately, she ran across people that were not good… were monsters, and took her life.
‘She is going to be missed for the rest of our lives.’
It was a tragic and sickening end to the life of a woman who had innocently asked for help moving home – and had begged for help in her final moments.
It never came.
One room was set up as a sex dungeon