Death penalty for 'women's serial killer' in Hollywood
Michael Gargiulo, nicknamed "The Hollywood Ripper", was sentenced to death for the murders of two women in the early 2000s, one of whom was to meet American actor Ashton Kutcher on the night of the crime.
The two victims were stabbed several times, especially in the chest, and one of them was found nearly decapitated.
"In this case, wherever Michael Gargiulo went, death and destruction came with him," a Los Angeles judge said.
Gargiulo, 45, will now escape the death penalty, as California has suspended executions since 2019. No prisoner has been sentenced in the state since 2006.
Ashton Kutcher knew the first victim, a 22-year-old fashion design student named Ashley Ellerin who had a date with the actor on the night of her death in late 2001. Kutcher had told the court that he was late to pick her up from her Hollywood home, but no one opened the door for him .
Then Ashton Kutcher looked out the apartment window but only saw what he thought was red wine on the floor.
And the actor left, thinking that the young woman had already gone out without waiting for him.
Ashley Ellerin died after receiving 47 stab wounds in the hallway leading to her bathroom.
The second victim, Maria Bruno, 32, who is Gargiulo's neighbour, was stabbed in her sleep 17 times in December 2005.
Prosecutor Dan Akemon previously asserted that Gargiulo was attacking women who lived near him and was waiting for a knock on the door, usually at night near the house, to carry out carefully planned murders.
In court, Michael Gargiulo again pleaded not guilty on Friday.
The accused was arrested in 2008 in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles, after accidentally cutting himself in an attack on a third victim who survived.
He is also on trial in Illinois for the 1993 murder of a woman in that state.
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