The killer, nicknamed “Hollywood Ripper”, has been sentenced to death for killing two women in the early 2000s.
He is also convicted of attempting to kill a third woman in 2008.
It reports several media, among them BBC.
The victims’ family members cried when Judge Larry Fidler in Los Angeles read out the sentence of 45-year-old Michael Gargiulo on Friday.
“Serial sex killer” apologized for stabbing Michelle (26)
“Everywhere Gargiulo went, death and destruction followed,” the judge said during the hearing The Guardian.
One of the murders that is the cause of Gargiulo’s nickname is the murder of Ashley Ellerin.
When she was killed in 2001, she had a fling with the American actor Ashton Kutcher.
The same night Ellerin was killed, the couple was to meet for dinner later in the evening.
The witness in court
Kutcher testified in court in late May.
During the trial, Kutcher said he became agitated when he knocked on the door of Ellerin’s home in Hollywood, the same night she was killed.
Man (43) killed Kutchers date
– I knocked on the door, and there was no answer. I knocked again, and again, no answer. At this point, I assumed she had already left, or that she was upset because I was late, Kutcher said in court, according to AP News.
When she did not come to open the door, Kutcher looked in the window. There he saw a large stain of blood on the floor, which at the time he thought was wine.
The next day, the body of 22-year-old Ellerin was found brutally stabbed by a roommate.
WITNESS: Ashton Kutcher testified in court at the end of May, after his girlfriend was killed by Gargiulo in 2001. Photo: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via AP / Pool / NTB
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When Kutcher found out, he went straight to the police.
– I went straight to the police and said: “My fingerprints are on the door”. I panicked, the actor recalled.
– Will never stop loving them
The prosecution stated in court that they believe that Gargiulo attacked Ellerin from behind when she went out of the shower that fateful night. What Kutcher thought were red wine stains, the prosecution believes were actually blood stains, writes CBS News.
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Woke up by stabbing
The second murder Gargiulo has been convicted of is the murder of 32-year-old Maria Bruno in 2005. She was Gargiulo’s neighbor, and was stabbed while she slept.
According to the prosecution, Gargiulo also tried to kill another of his neighbors, a woman who in 2008 was 26 years old.
She woke up one night when Gargiulo was stabbing her with a knife. She managed to push him away, and therefore survived the attack.
Star drove on teenage boy
Therefore, she could testify in court against Gargiulo, where she told that she is still living with the traumas.
– When I spend a night alone, the fear grows in me, she said in court.
However, it may take a while before Gargiulo is killed. The last execution in California was in 2006, and executions in the state have been banned since 2019 during the tenure of Democratic Govin Gavin Newsom.
Gargiulo is also charged with the murder of an 18-year-old woman in 1993 in Illinois. He is now expected to appear in court in Illinois.
Stabbed policeman eleven times
Gargiulo himself denies killing the women.
“I have been sentenced to death unjustly and unfairly,” Gargiulo told the court on Friday.
He showed no visible reaction to the verdict, according to The Guardian.
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