UPDATE: Cops suspect this murderer may have killed 10 victims
They had the DNA match years ago but didn't charge this suspect till he murdered two more innocent victims in California...Now Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez is having a press conference like she is some kind of heroine for charging this murderer! If I was Anita Alvarez I would be holding my head down in shame for allowing this asswipe to kill again and again!
Even though there was a DNA match years ago, charges were not filed in the brutal 1993 stabbing death of a Glenview teen until witnesses stepped forward this year, authorities say.
Michael Gargiulo, 35, was charged in an arrest warrant late Wednesday with the murder of Tricia Pacaccio, a Glenbrook South High School graduate. He is currently facing trial in California for the murders of two women, including the girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher, and an attack on another woman in Santa Monica.
Pacaccio was repeatedly stabbed in the chest in the early hours of Aug. 14, 1993 as she was about to unlock the door to her family's home in Glenview. Her father found her body hours later.
Pacaccio was a well-liked Glenbrook South student who was killed a week before she was due at Purdue University, where she planned to study engineering and environmental issues. In her high-school yearbook she said she wanted "to save the world."
At the time, detectives said they believed the killer had been waiting for Pacaccio as she returned from a night out with friends. They called the slaying a crime of passion and said they were certain she knew her attacker.
In 2003, a small amount of DNA taken from Pacaccio's fingernails indicated they were from her and Gargiulo.
"What could not be determined, however, was whether that DNA had come from the casual contact he would have had by being in her home and around her," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said today, adding that "Gargiulo has been a suspect in the Pacaccio case for years."
No charges were filed against Gargiulo, who moved to California.
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said the DNA match just wasn't enough. "I have a duty as state's attorney to not bring charges that are insufficient," she said. "(DNA) is not the silver bullet."
Then in May of this year, two people -- identified as witnesses D and E in the arrest warrant -- came forward and said Gargiulo had admitted that he killed a girl in Chicago. Gargiulo made the admission while he was working with the two at a bar and grill in Los Angeles in the late 1990s, according to the warrant.
"Witness D," who came forward after watching a profile of the Pacaccio case on the “48 Hours” program, claimed Gargiulo told him he was wanted in Chicago, that he “had a body,” and that he stabbed a girl.
"Witness E" said Gargiulo told him he had buried the girl, but then said: “I’m only kidding. I actually left the bitch on the step for dead,” according to the warrant.
In a later conversation, "Witness E" asked Gargiulo if he had committed the murder in Chicago and Gargiulo replied, “I can’t tell you that,” according to the arrest warrant.
Reached this morning, a close high school friend of Pacaccio’s was stunned by news of the charge.
“Oh, my gosh, it’s amazing news,” Karen Isenberg Jones said from her home in Atlanta. “I’m happily surprised.”
Like others who knew Pacaccio, Jones said she had grown frustrated since DNA evidence linked Gargiulo to the incident. She had hoped recent publicity about the case would generate new leads. Although she knew Gargiulo from school, seeing him in the halls and at school events, she had never talked to him.
Jones said she was “very close” with Pacaccio in high school, recalling her friend as “vivacious and energetic.”
“She had a lot of spunk,” she said. “A very happy person. … Very smart.”
Gargiulo, an air conditioner repairman, is being held without bail in California, charged with the two murders and an attack on a woman.
He was arrested in 2008 on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with a Santa Monica attack in which a woman fought off an intruder who stabbed her repeatedly after breaking into her home late at night.
DNA collected at the scene linked Gargiulo to the crime through a national database that included the sample taken in the Glenview case, officials said.
Gargiulo was subsequently charged with the February 2001 stabbing death of 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin, who was the girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher. Her body was found in her Hollywood Hills home.
Kutcher, who starred in the television series "That '70s Show" and is now married to actress Demi Moore, told Los Angeles police detectives at the time that he went to pick up the model-actress for a post-Grammy Awards party, but she did not answer the door.
A friend found her the next day with multiple stab wounds in her rented home on Pinehurst Road, authorities said. Ellerin was raised in Los Altos, about 45 minutes outside San Francisco, and graduated from Los Altos High School in 1996.
Gargiulo also was charged in the December 2005 stabbing death of Maria Bruno in an El Monte apartment.
