Michael Gargiulo brutally murdered at least three women, including one who was dating actor Ashton Kutcher, before he was eventually arrested in 2008.
Los Angeles Police DepartmentMichael Gargiulo, the “thrill killer” who murdered at least three women.
To those who lived near him, Michael Gargiulo appeared to be an ordinary neighbor. But behind the quiet exterior was a predator who stalked women living nearby, broke into their homes, and murdered them.
Dubbed the “Hollywood Ripper” and the “Boy Next Door Killer,” Gargiulo terrorized Southern California for years before his arrest in 2008. By the time investigators pieced together his crimes, he had brutally killed three women, and nearly killed a fourth victim who managed to escape.
This is the chilling story of Michael Gargiulo, the “Hollywood Ripper.”
The First Murder Of The ‘Boy Next Door Killer’
Michael Thomas Gargiulo was born on Feb. 15, 1976, in Glenview, Illinois, and it was there, in 1993, that he committed his first crime. That August, 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio, who lived one street over from Gargiulo, was brutally stabbed to death as she returned home from a late night party. As 48 Hours reported in 2019, Pacaccio was walking toward her house around 1 a.m., when her assailant grabbed her arm, broke it, and stabbed her 12 times.
Her father found her body the next morning.
“I was going out to my van, and when I saw it was her, I ran over there and — and saw what happened to her,” he recalled. “I tried to revive her… that is the worst feeling in your life, when you can’t do nothin’ to somebody you love.”
Cook County Sheriff’s OfficeTricia Pacaccio, the first victim of Michael Gargiulo.
Though police soon learned that Gargiulo and a friend had given Pacaccio a ride two days before her murder, they didn’t find any strong evidence to connect him to her murder. It wasn’t until a few years later, when he started acting strangely around Pacaccio’s family, that police began to wonder if he’d had something to do with her death. When they questioned him, however, Gargiulo suggested that one of his friends could have been involved instead.
But with few leads and no other viable suspects, the case eventually went cold. Though investigators found Gargiulo’s DNA under Pacaccio’s fingernails, it wasn’t enough to consider him a suspect — especially since he had given her a ride two days earlier. Then, in 1998, Gargiulo moved to Los Angeles.
Like many young people in the city, Gargiulo wanted to be an actor or a model, but took other jobs in the meantime. While chasing his Hollywood dreams, Gargiulo worked as an air conditioning technician and a bouncer — and even told his bouncer friends that he had “buried a bitch” and “left the bitch…for dead.” They thought he was just telling crazy stories.
But Michael Gargiulo would soon kill other victims. His murders would draw widespread attention, not only because of their brutality, but also because of one of his victim’s connections to a popular actor in Hollywood.
The Murder Of Ashley Ellerin, A Love Interest Of Ashton Kutcher
Almost a decade after killing his first victim, Michael Gargiulo killed his second: 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin. According to 48 Hours, Gargiulo lived just a few hundred feet from Ellerin in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood. After they crossed paths one day, he became obsessed with her.
Los Angeles Police DepartmentAshley Ellerin, right, was the second victim of Michael Gargiulo and a would-be love interest of the actor Ashton Kutcher.
Ellerin’s friends remembered that Gargiulo would call and show up uninvited to her house. He struck many of them as “creepy” but, according to LA Weekly in 2010, Ellerin brushed off concerns that he could be dangerous.
Then, on the night of Feb. 21, 2001, as Ellerin prepared for a date with actor Ashton Kutcher, Gargiulo snuck into Ellerin’s apartment. As she stepped out of the shower, he attacked her, stabbing her 47 times and leaving her body drenched in blood. One wound to her head punctured her skull, and she had deep knife wounds in her chest, stomach, and back.
Gargiulo then slipped out. Meanwhile, Kutcher called Ellerin to tell her he was on his way, but she didn’t answer the phone. By that point, Kutcher was significantly later than he’d intended and so, when he got to Ellerin’s apartment and she didn’t answer the door, he assumed that she’d left.
“I knocked on the door. There was no answer. Knocked again. And once again, no answer,” Kutcher later testified in court. “At this point I pretty well assumed she had left for the night, and that I was late, and she was upset.”
X/@RollingStoneAshton Kutcher testifying at Michael Gargiulo’s trial.
Peering through the windows, Kutcher caught a glimpse of what he thought were red wine stains on the carpet. Actually, it was Ashley Ellerin’s blood.
The next morning, Ellerin’s roommate returned home, found her body, and immediately called for help. But though police interrogated a number of people, including Kutcher, they had no idea who had killed Ellerin.
Then, a few years later, the “Hollywood Ripper” struck again.
Michael Gargiulo’s Pattern Of Violence
After murdering Ashley Ellerin, Michael Gargiulo lived his life as if nothing had happened. He dated other women, and even had a baby. But at the end of 2005, he killed again. And once again, Gargiulo targeted a neighbor.
On Dec. 1, 2005, Gargiulo snuck into the apartment of Maria Bruno, a 32-year-old mother of four who had moved into his apartment building in El Monte just 10 days earlier. According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times in 2014, Gargiulo lived on the other side of the apartment’s pool. On the night of her murder, snuck in through Bruno’s window, put on blue surgical booties to avoid leaving behind evidence, and stabbed her to death as she slept.
According to reporting from Oxygen in 2019, Bruno’s estranged husband discovered her body lying in a pool of blood. She had been horrifically mutilated, with her breasts cut off, and one of her nipples placed over her mouth. But though police found one of Gargiulo’s blue booties at the scene, they had few other clues about her killer, and the case went cold.
Indeed, it would take another violent attack before investigators finally began to piece things together.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s DepartmentMaria Bruno, the third victim of Michael Gargiulo.
A few years after Bruno’s murder, 26-year-old Michelle Murphy woke up on the night of April 28, 2008 to find a man straddling her in bed, stabbing her
“I woke up with someone on top of me, stabbing my arm,” Murphy testified. “I could tell it was a knife. I thought it was serrated. I grabbed at the knife… with both hands. I wrapped my hands around the blade… I was trying to hold the knife and get some leverage to stop him from stabbing me. I was still being stabbed. I was just trying to wiggle around to keep from getting hit.”
The two struggled, and as the knife slipped between them, Murphy’s attacker cut himself. She was able to kick him to the floor, and as he scrambled away, he bizarrely told her: “I’m sorry.”
Murphy did not recognize him that night, but it was her neighbor, Gargiulo.
Not only had he left behind a living witness, but Michael Gargiulo had also bled at the scene after cutting himself with his own knife, and left behind DNA evidence. His DNA was on file because of Tricia Pacaccio’s murder and so investigators were quickly able to identity him as Murphy’s attacker.
What’s more, Murphy’s case reminded detectives of Bruno’s murder. They soon learned that Gargiulo had also lived close to Bruno, and even found a blue bootie in his old apartment like the one they’d found near the crime scene. From there, they were also able to connect him to Ellerin’s murder.
After years of uncertainty, investigators finally had their suspect.
The Trial Of The ‘Hollywood Ripper’
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s DepartmentAfter killing three women, and badly wounding a fourth, Michael Gargiulo was identified as the serial killer known as the Hollywood Ripper.
Gargiulo was arrested in 2008, and became known as the “Hollywood Ripper,” the “Chiller Killer,” and the “Boy Next Door Killer.” But due to multiple factors, including Gargiulo switching attorneys, his case took almost a decade to go to trial. Once it began, in 2019, prosecutors argued that Gargiulo was a “serial, psychosexual, thrill killer” who targeted women living near him, stalked them, and then viciously murdered them.
One of the most widely publicized moments of the trial came when Ashton Kutcher took the witness stand. He described arriving at Ellerin’s home the night she was murdered and explained how he had initially believed the blood on the floor was spilled wine. His testimony helped prosecutors establish the timeline of Ellerin’s final hours.
Then, in August 2019, a Los Angeles jury found Gargiulo guilty of the murders of Ashley Ellerin and Maria Bruno, as well as the attempted murder of Michelle Murphy. He was later sentenced to death, and in 2024, he was extradited to Illinois, where he awaits trial for the murder of Tricia Pacaccio.
That said, investigators have long suspected that the Michael Gargiulo could have killed many other victims. As such, the harrowing full story of the Hollywood Ripper may never be known.
After reading about Michael Gargiulo, discover the chilling story of Dennis Rader the BTK serial killer. Then, learn more about 11 of America’s most terrifying serial killers.
