Michael Thomas Gargiulo also known as Hollywood Ripper (February 15, 1976) is a convicted serial murderer as well as a rapist in the United States. In the 1990s, he relocated to Southern California and earned the moniker “Hollywood Ripper.” On July 16, 2021, he was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and condemned to death.
Gargiulo is from Glenview, Illinois, and he is suspected of stabbing his neighbour, 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio, to death from her front porch. On August 14, 1993, her father discovered her dead the next morning. Gargiulo relocated to Los Angeles in 1998, purportedly to avoid police investigation in Illinois, and between 2001 and 2008, he perpetrated two murders as well as attempted murder in Southern California.
He stabbed 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin 47 times to death in her Hollywood home on February 21, 2001. Ellerin suffered serious puncture wounds to the breast, stomach, as well as back, as well as a neck wound that nearly decapitated her skull. They were four to 6 inches deep in certain cases. One knife wound “really pierced the skull as well as ripped off a bit of skull-like just a puzzle piece,” according to investigator Tom Small. Ellerin had scheduled a dinner as well as drinks date alongside actor Ashton Kutcher the night she was slain.
Gargiulo attacked his neighbour Maria Bruno, 32, to death at her house in El Monte, California, on December 1, 2005. She had 17 stab wounds. On April 28, 2008, Gargiulo tried to murder a fellow neighbour, Michelle Murphy, 26, inside her Santa Monica home. She was reportedly able to repel the attack, although blood that matched Gargiulo’s DNA was discovered at the location.
The Santa Monica Police Department detained Gargiulo on June 6, 2008. Gargiulo was charged with the first-degree murder of Tricia Pacaccio by the Cook County State’s Attorney on July 7, 2011. Despite the fact that Gargiulo is accused of the two California killings and also the Pacaccio murder for Illinois, no additional murders have been connected to them.
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