Prosecutor: Murder suspect was ‘boy next door killer’
LOS ANGELES — An air conditioning repairman charged with murdering a Chicago-area teenager and two California women, one the ex-girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher, would “watch, shadow, stalk and hunt down” his victims before fatally stabbing them for sexual pleasure, a Los Angeles prosecutor said during opening statements Thursday.
Michael Gargiulo’s trial began with a prosecutor outlining the California murders for jurors, calling the defendant “the boy next door killer” and his crimes “the methodical and systematic slaughter of women.”
“What you will hear is that Michael Gargiulo for almost 15 years was watching, always watching,” prosecutor Daniel Akemon said. “And his hobby was plotting the perfect opportunity to attack women with a knife in and around their homes.”
Gargiulo, 43, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and an attempted-murder charge stemming from attacks in the Los Angeles area between 2001 and 2008, including the death of Kutcher’s former girlfriend, 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin.