Photo Credit: Ashton Kutcher/Instagram
Ashton Kutcher found himself in court today on the stand against a man prosecutors call a “serial sexual-thrill killer.” Michael Gargiulo is accused of stabbing to death a woman he had planned to take on a date to a Grammys after party in 2001. The only problem is his date, Ashley Ellerin never showed. After speaking to her a few times that evening and running a little late, he arrived at her home, knocking on the door close to 11 pm, to receive no response. He looked through a side window and saw what he believed to have been red wine spilled all over the floor, and left. He assumed she was mad at him because he said he would show up at 10:00 but arrived around 10:45 instead. She was later found dead the following morning outside of her bathroom with over 47 stab wounds with authorities pinning Gargiulo as the murderer. He was cross examined the next day and was “freaking out” as he said because his fingerprints were on her door.
This murderer that Kutcher had to testify against is also accused of killing his 18 year old neighbor Tricia Pacaccio in ’93 when he lived in Illinois. He moved to L.A. in ’98 where he’s accused of killing Ellerin in ’01 and his neighbor Maria Bruno in ’05, who he stabbed 17 times. He allegedly attacked another neighbor, Michelle Murphy in 2008 in her Santa Monica home. Blood matching his was found in her home. He’s facing murder charges in California and Illinois. CBS Correspondent Maureen Maher, who’s been covering the story for 48 Hours told Inside Edition, “The friends of Ashley Ellerin describe him as the creepy guy who was always just hanging around. She was very nice to him, he was nice, but he was just kind of always there.”
This whole trial sounds like a reverse episode of Punk’d. We’ve never known Ashton Kutcher to hurt a grape. Anyway, we’ll be reporting on updates for this as they come.
