March 15, 2024 • 48 mins
With no suspects in Maria Bruno's murder, L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy Detective Mark Lillienfeld continues the search. Michael Gargiulo marries, then moves to Santa Monica, California, with his wife. Across the alleyway, 26-year-old Michelle Murphy lived in an apartment nearby. One night, Murphy woke up with a man on top of her, stabbing her repeatedly with a knife. She manages to kick off the attacker, who cuts himself in the struggle and flees the apartment. When police arrive, they find blood at the crime scene that matches Michael Gargiulo, and he's eventually arrested for the attack. When L.A. County Sheriff's detectives who were investigating Maria Bruno's murder find out, they search Gargiulo's old apartment in El Monte and find a key piece of evidence. With Gargiulo now in custody, CBS 48 Hours airs a special about Tricia Pacaccio's murder in Cook County, which leads to a break in the case. We speak with CBS correspondent Maureen Maher about the special, plus former Santa Monica Police lieutenant Darrell Lowe about the attack on Michelle Murphy, and Mark Lillienfeld details the search of Gargiulo's El Monte apartment and a controversial undercover operation conducted while Gargiulo was in custody.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
In two thousand and eight, twoand a half years after Maria Bruno was
stabbed to death in Almonte, California, investigators were no closer to solving the
murder. Michael Garjulo was now livingwith his wife in Santa Monica, California.
He was a freeman after being connectedto three separate murders between nineteen ninety
(00:32):
three and two thousand and five.Just across the alleyway from his apartment,
twenty six year old Michelle Murphy livedin a second floor apartment at one two
two nine Twelfth Street. Murphy waspetite, standing five foot one, but
she was athletic, worked out regularly, and would often jump rope and sprint
(00:56):
in the alley behind her apartment.She had a roommate, but on the
night of April twentieth, two thousandand eight, her roommate was out of
the country. After getting home fromwork, Murphy finished doing laundry and went
to sleep around eight pm. Itwas a warm night, so Michelle left
the window open. Just before midnight. Michelle woke up with a man on
(01:21):
top of her, stabbing her repeatedlyin the chest. She tried to protect
herself, suffering multiple stab wounds toher arms and her hands as she tried
to grab the blade. Michelle kickedand fought, screaming why are you doing
this? And the blood coupled withthe struggle made it hard for the attacker
to control her. During the frenzy, he somehow managed to cut his own
(01:45):
wrist with the knife, giving Murphythe opportunity to pull her legs to her
chest and kick the attacker off ofher. The man turned to leave,
but told Murphy I'm sorry before hefled the scene. Michelle, Murph,
you ran to the door, slammedit and locked it. She called her
boyfriend, Vincent. You know who? Called nine one one nine one emergency
(02:08):
Calderon. Hi, my friend andTana Monka just reported her break and she
called me and I want to makesure that she called the police. Okay,
what's the location of the emergency.It's twelve twenty nine Twelfth Street,
twelve twenty nine twelfth Street. Okay, here's apartment ten. Okay. If
she do you have her phone number? It's in my phone. Yeah,
(02:30):
Okay, because I'm gonna I'm gonnahave to give her a call because I
might have to seek to her directly. Okay, let me get out of
my phone. Holdo on frigus.Okay, actually we actually we already had
the calling on for just one second. Do you know what the circumstances are
in regards to it? Or sir, do you know what the circumstances are
(02:52):
in regards to this? She toldme that she woke up and there was
someone on top of her and sheforced them off and they ran out.
Okay, we are on our way. Thanks for callingcerts, Thank you all
right, bye bye. April twentyeight, two thousand and eight, The
time eleven forty six pm. Hi, this is the San Monica Police Department.
(03:16):
Are you from? Are you callingfrom twelve twenty nine twelve Street?
Yes? Okay, what is yourname? Michelle? What happened? Where
is that person? Now? Itwas how long ago? Not with a
(03:37):
seven or eight minutes ago? Idon't know. The fire department is already
on the way and we're on ourway. What did this person look like?
It was? Paul? I don'tI've been going. I do you
know woody white black Hispanic occasion?I don't know. Do you ever what
(03:57):
his clothing was? What he waswearing on damps and like a long sleeve
like sweatshirt kind of thing. Doyou remember what color of sweatshirt was?
Okay? Do you remember what coloredpants? No? Okay? Did he
decide stabbing you? Did he hurtyou in any other way? No?
(04:17):
No, okay. The fire departmentis on our way and we are already
there. We're looking for the guy. Now we'll be making contact with him
just a second. Do you rememberhow big this guy was, how poll
he was? He was probably themost I don't know, like five eleven
or something thin, medium or heavy. And do you remember his hair?
Window? He broke into your windowhere? Okay? Do you remember his
(04:48):
hair color? Michelle? No?No, Do you remember he's wearing any
type of head gear like a hator anything like that? No? No,
I remember any stars marks or tattoosor anything like that. No,
okay, do with the arms?Was just the night, Michelle. I'm
(05:14):
sorry. I'm here with you,and can can you? Can you walk
to the door? Are you ableto walk to the door? Are you
able to walk to the door,Michelle, because the police are there,
We're here with you. Okay,Yes, we're here with you now,
so go open the door for me, okay. Santa Monica Police department were
(05:42):
on the scene shortly. Let's bringin Darryl Lowe, Chief of Police Redmond
Police Department, former lieutenant with theSanta Monica Police Department who investigated the Michelle
Murphy attack. Chief Flow, canyou describe the scene at Michelle Murphy's apartment.
Yeah, So by the time Igot there, Uh, the scene
(06:05):
pretty much you know, been containedby the responding of patrol officers. Uh.
The first patrol officer to arrive onscene arrived and you know, made
his way into the apartment saw I'llsay, the apartment in disarray and indicative
of some type of struggle. Hedid notice that there was a blood trail
(06:29):
leading from the apartment, uh,you know, down the stairs, along
the walkway out towards the alley.When Michelle Murphy was interviewed, did she
indicate there might be someone who wantedto hurt her. No. Uh,
she seemed just you know, like, you know, like you're all American,
you know, you know, ayoung adult, uh, you know,
(06:50):
carefree, didn't have you know,enemies or anything like that. So
it wasn't you know, like readilyapparent you know, who might be responsible
for this. Uh, you know, this a vicious attack. How did
the attacker gain access to the apartment? So, the first responding officer noticed
a footprint on the in the duston the handrail leading up to Michelle Murphy's
(07:15):
apartment. Uh, so we wereable to conclude that the suspect stood on
the handrail, cut the screen,and opened up the window prior to going
in and assaulting miss Murphy. Uh. The investigation also indicated that the suspect
prestaged his getaway by opening the frontdoor. Uh. The suspect then went
(07:36):
into Michelle Murphy's bedroom, straddled her, and began to stab her, which
obviously caused her to wake up,and she put up one hell of a
fight. And in that struggle,the suspect cut himself, which you know
led to the blood trailer provided theblood trail that we were oltimately able to
(07:58):
use to identify the suspect. Howdoes the process work for obtaining blood samples.
Yeah, So with the crime scene, uh, you know, it
was critically important to uh limit youknow, angress negress. Obviously we needed
to get paramedics and to uh youknow, provide aid, you know,
to the victim. But once shewas transported, Uh, the scene was
(08:20):
locked down. And then our forensictechnicians came out UH and took samples of
the blood since we did have youknow, blood samples. Then it was
put into uh the the CODA databaseUH and with the hopes that we would
actually you know, get a hitand that would help us to identify our
suspect, which it ultimately did.So the process is essentially the blood is
(08:45):
collected, UH, it's submitted tothe La County Sheriff's Apartment's crime lab,
UH to their sorology unit. Theydo their scientific work, and then they
get it. UH. They getthat DNA profile uploaded into codis, which
is the offender database, and itgoes through the you know, hundreds of
thousands or millions of records that ithas in there, and then lo and
(09:09):
behold, it identified our suspect.It would take another month for the test
results to come back, but eventuallySanta Monica police got a match. The
blood left at the scene of MichelleMurphy's apartment was Michael Garjulo, the same
(09:30):
DNA that was found under the fingernailsof Tricia Boccaccio after she was murdered in
nineteen ninety three. Chief Flow,what were the next steps of the investigation.
So once we got the CODIS confirmation, you know, we had a
named suspect at that point, andthen it was through i'll call it this
(09:54):
good old fashioned networking and collaboration wherewe spoke with our our colleagues are the
lead detective, Rich Lewis, spokewith his fellow detectives both from the Los
Angeles Police Department and then also fromthe La County Sheriff's Department, since we
at that point knew that they toohad had contact with Michael Garzulo, and
(10:18):
we begin the process of trying toyou know, to locate him. On
June sixth, two thousand and eight, Santa Monica Police arrested Michael Guardulo in
a right aid parking lot. ChiefLow. How did the Santa Monica Police
track Guardulo down? So at thepoint we you know, we had put
(10:39):
the public pieces together. We knewhe was a h VAC handyman. We
had got information about the van thathe had used, and so we put
our surveillance you know team on him. They made you know, i'll say,
positive confirmation of him, and theywaited for or you know, the
(11:00):
appropriate opportunity. Uh, he happenedto pull into a pharmacy parking lot a
few blocks away from their apartment.Uh. And once he did uh that,
the two units basically swooped in.Officers jumped out, identified themselves,
uh, and placed him under arrest. Uh. You know when he was
(11:20):
arrested, there wasn't a huge fightor struggle. Yeah. I think he
was somewhat you know, caught bysurprise. Uh. He did have a
background as a boxer and had aprevious history of assaults on police officers,
but a couple of the officers thatwere on the unit at that time were
(11:41):
uh i'll say formidable in size aswell. So I think he thought twice
or better of it. Once hewas taken into custody. He basically he
he asked a question that in inthe law enforcement world we would we would
call uh in dish of guilt inthe sense of the asked, Uh,
you know which agency is this orwhat organization? Uh you know is this
(12:05):
about, which suggests that he knewthat uh, you know, he was
wanted by multiple law enforcement agencies,which uh, you know that obviously has
become you know clear now that allthe dots have been connected. Can you
tell us about the interaction between Guarzuloand Santa Monica Police after he was arrested.
(12:26):
Once he was in custody, Uh, the lead investigator, uh you
know, attempted to interview him.Uh because at this point we we knew
we had a U, you know, serial killer. Uh, you know,
in custody, we were familiar.You know, we knew about both
the L A p D case Uhin Hollywood, we knew about uh the
Sheriff's department case. Then we knowabout the original case uh back in Illinois.
(12:48):
Uh you know where his h youknow, I'll call it his murders
free you know first started. Iknow that, like I said, the
lead investigator did attempt to interview himonce we had him for our particular case,
but I'm not sure if there weremultiple attempts. I know at some
point he did kind of change histune and you know, tried to control
(13:11):
more of the narrative around you know, his arrest and his pleas and whatnot.
But I couldn't speak any further detailwith Guarjulu in custody. Sergeant rich
Lewis of the Santa Monica Police Departmentthen recalled a conversation he had with Detective
Mark Lillianfeld about another murder which Lilianfeldwas looking into for a possible connection to
(13:37):
Maria Bruno's murder. Let's bring backMark Lillianfeld, retired La County Sheriff's detective
who investigated Maria Bruno's death. Mark. What did Sergeant Lewis tell you when
you spoke again? Initially several Iwant to say it was perhaps a year
or even several years prior to theattempt at murder of Michelle Murphy, Santa
(14:01):
Monica Plice Department was investigating another murder, unrelated, of a young woman who
was pretty viciously killed inside of herapartment. Her name was Julie Redman,
I believe, and there were somesimilarities to the Julie Redman murder to the
Maria Bruno murder, and I woundup contacting Santa Monica Police Department Sergeant Rich
(14:22):
Lewis. Rich is really the heroin a lot of this story here,
for sure, And we kind ofcompared notes to the two different murders,
mine being the murder of Maria Brunoand his being the murder of Julie Redman,
and we kind of determined relatively quicklythat in fact, besides they were
pretty horrendous murders of young women insideof their homes. There were too many
(14:45):
dissimilarities to kind of count them asbeing related to each other. And really
that was the end of my conversationand my contact with Rich Lewis. Fast
forward now to the attempted murder ofMission Murphy, and Rich, because he's
a good policeman, saw similarities betweenthe Michelle Murphy attempted murder and the Maria
(15:09):
Bruno murder that had happened earlier inDecember two thousand and five. And when
Rich started doing a background on MichaelThomas Gardulo, he realized that he used
to live in an address in Elmonty, though Rich immediately actually had his partner,
Karen Thompson give me a call,and it turned out that the address
in Elmonty was the same apartment buildingwhere Maria Bruno had been murdered. And
(15:33):
in fact, I had attempted tocontact Mike Grdula like three separate times during
a witness canvas of the building's occupants, but had never been able to reach
him or to contact him. SoRich really kind of, you know,
put two and two together that MikeGarzulo used to live in a same building
where my murder had happened, thathad very striking similarities to the attempted murder
(15:56):
of Michelle Murphy. So that's that'sreally how Rich and I wound up kind
of hooking up to work this investigationtogether. I say that tongue in cheek
because again, Rich really deserves allthe uh uh uh, you know,
kudos and credit for making this thinghappen and coming together and identifying Gardula as
being responsible for the attack on MichelleMurphy. Did you ever speak to Gardulo?
(16:22):
How close was his apartment to Maria's. She lived in an apartment twenty,
which was on the ground floor onthe north side of the building,
and on the south side of thebuilding, on the second story in a
different apartment was Mike Gardulo, andI believe it was apartment number ten.
And from Gardula's apartment, he couldeasily go to his front window, to
(16:44):
his kitchen window look down. Hecould see the whole interior courtyard of the
building, and he could see ofcourse all of the all the apartments in
their front doors and the windows ofof you know, most of the apartments
that were in this this you know, eighty unit building. I believe there's
like thirty five or forty on theground floor, another thirty five or forty
apartments on the second floor, andringing the second floor was an outdoor kind
(17:08):
of like a catwalk, you know, a balcony, so that's you know,
you'd walk up a flight of stairsto go from ground floor to second
floor. So Garzulo, who turnedout to be the suspect in this case,
he could look at his kitchen windowas living a window, and look
right into Maria's apartment. There wasa bit of distance between them. They
were separated by this big cement courtyard. There was a barbecue area kind of
(17:30):
like a picnic you know, tabletype area, and there was a swimming
pool. But he had a clear, unobstructed view. I know at one
time we measured it and it wasprobably maybe one hundred and twenty one hundred
and thirty feet from his apartment doorto Maria's apartment door. Ultimately, we
had actually knocked on his door likethree times and left the business guard and
(17:53):
I had made a note, youknow, hey, you know, knocked
on the door of apartment sell andsell he's not here. And we simply
never were contacted by him and nevercontacted him. Once you had a name,
how did you connect Michael Garzulo asa potential suspect in Mario Bruno's murder?
(18:15):
When Rich notified me about the DNAcoming back on the attempted murderer of
Michelle Murphy, and they had belongedto mister Gardulo and the Garzula used to
live in Elmonte at the Maria Brunomurder scene, Rich had given me a
bit of background about him, andincluded amongst that background was the fact that
his DNA had been entered into theKodas DNA database by the Cook County,
(18:40):
Illinois Sheriff's Police. And that's aterm that they used back their Shriff's police
for the investigative arm of the CookCounty Sheriff's Department. That said, Rich
knew that Gardula was a potential suspectin an August nineteen ninety three murder that
had occurred in unincorporated Cook County,the Illinois, and so he had actually
(19:02):
been in contact with the unsolved thecold case homicide detective from Coke County,
Illinois Sheriff's named Lou Salah, andso Rich had provided me with that information
when he had given me the identificationof Guardulo. So one of the first
things that I did was actually communicatewith lou sella Coke County, Illinois Sheriffs,
(19:25):
and we kind of compared notes,and it was pretty obvious pretty quickly
that you know, we had whatappeared on the surface of being very similar
murders in in m o and invictimology and location and the type of attack,
and there were there were just untoldnumbers of similarities between the two murders,
between the Coke County, Illinois murderand the Elmanti, California murders.
(19:48):
So looped into that conversation was DetectiveTom Small, who was an l A
p D homicide detective that I didnot know, uh, but wound up
meeting and becoming very friendly with.And Tom had the then unsolved murder of
a young woman, maybe Ashley Ellerant, and Tom's murder occurred. I'd leave
(20:11):
in February of two thousand and one. So myself, Louis Alla from Cook
County, Illinois Sheriff's Tommy Small fromLAPD Hollywood Division, and Rich Lewis from
Santa Monica, California Police Department.We all we were all able to kind
of communicate with each other, whichwas great. Quite often, especially like
TV and movies and books, youknow, you see cops not getting along
(20:33):
or cops you know, hogging informationor they don't want to share, and
and nothing could be really further fromthe truth. That may be true of
their idiot bosses, but in reallife cops are more than happy to share
with each other. That being said, the four of us all got along
very very well. We're able toshare information and really pretty pretty quickly come
(20:53):
up with with, you know,identification that hey, we're we're all looking
at the same very much similar thesame m and the same type of suspect
in all four of our separate incidents, three of them being murders, one
of them being in a tent murder. So that's that's kind of how all
(21:15):
of that came together. And againI'd love to flex my big muscles and
take credit for it, and sadly, the truth is I was nothing but
a lucky hanger on had I hadnothing to do with that coordination, and
it was all it was all,uh, you know, Rich and Tom
and Lou. Well, that's wherethat's at. You then search Gargiulo's apartment
(21:37):
which he had since moved out of. What did you find of interest?
After my partner and I, JoePurcell, had been advised that Gargulo was
potentially, you know, a suspectin the Elmonte murder of Maria Bruno,
we want to looking at things ina different light because now we're armed with
information and identification of a potential suspect. So we wound up going back to
(22:03):
the murder scene months after it hadoccurred, actually years after it occurred,
and speaking with the apartment building management. It turned out that the Guardulo apartment
had been rented, abandoned, rented, abandoned, rented, abandoned. There
have been three or four other rentersthat had moved into and moved out of
the apartment since the time that MikeGrdulo had abandoned the apartment and moved on.
(22:26):
So we wanted to take a lookat it, and it happened to
be empty, so that worked outperfect. So the management allowed us to
go into that apartment and it waslike many of the apartments in the building.
It was freshly painted, it hadnew carpet, It was really really
immaculately cleaned apartment. And I willalways remember the day because it was hotter
(22:47):
than heck out as it as itgets here in southern California, in Los
Angeles, and of course we learnedsuits and ties, and I remember at
one point in time, we're standingin the apartment and there was an attic,
which is pretty unusual for apartment buildinghere in southern California, especially one
that's not all that old that wasbuilt like in the seventies or eighties.
And this is a two story apartmentbuilding, but the apartment itself had an
(23:08):
attic, which was it was prettyrare. So Joe and I are both
looking at the attic door, andagain I'd like to take credit, and
I can't. Joe's a little bitolder and just a little bit bigger than
me, and the younger, skinnierguy has to go up on a ladder
into the attic, which I didnot want to do with my suit and
tie, so Joe convinced me itwas the right thing to do, and
(23:30):
lo and behold, we got aladder from the maintenance people and caught up
in the attic, which I thoughtwas going to be a complete and total
and utter waste of time. Andthey're just inside the opening to the attic
was a plastic bag, and thennext to that bag was a couple of
other items, And inside the plasticbag was a number of things, including
(23:51):
a Christmas card addressed to Mike Gartulo. See that's interesting. And also inside
the plastic bag was a matching bluecotton tissue booty exactly the same make and
model and manufacture as the one thatwe founded the crime scene with the blood
of victim Maria Bruno on it.Also inside that bag, I believe was
(24:12):
a embroidered towel, and it hada bunch of Korean language and design on
it. And I ultimately learned,because I didn't know then, it is
not uncommon in the Korean culture toactually embroider almost like an obituary or memorial
(24:33):
to a loved one who's passed onin that form on a towel or blanket.
And this towel was actually that itwas like a memorial to a deceased
to love one from the Korean culture. Well, when Mike Garzulo lived in
the apartment building during the time ofthe murder of Maria Bruno, he lived
with a very nice woman whose namewas Grace Quawk, and Grace was first
(25:00):
generation Korean American and came from avery large, loving Korean family. And
the towel that we found in thebag, along with the booty, along
with the Christmas card addressed to MikeGardulo, belonged to Grace Quack, And
it was pretty easy to make theassumption that at some point in time Mike
(25:22):
Garzulo had placed the towel, thebag, the card, and the blue
matching booty to the booty recovered atthe murder scene up there in the attic
and had quite frankly forgotten about itwhen he moved months later. And so
it was really a stroke of luckthat we were able to recover that that
(25:42):
particular booty. I off the topof my head, I don't recall that
we actually obtained any DNA off ofthat booty, but circumstantially that evidence was
really powerful to compare that item thebooty found it the attic to the same
booty that was found at the crimescene. Unlike our poor friends at l
(26:07):
APD and the OJ Simpson case whohad issues with the glove of a similar
nature, we got lucky, andyou know, maybe we learned from that
that prior incident, and we didn'thave the issues they had in getting it
admitted and getting the jury to understandthe significance of that evidence and the power
(26:29):
behind it and what it meant.Was there any evidence that Garzoula had warned
either of the medical booties. Yeah, there, I mean the crime scene,
like I said earlier, it wasreally Christine. It was clean.
This apartment had been repainted and recarpeted, and it was it was clean,
and this woman, Maria, hadonly lived in the apartment for ten days
prior to having gotten killed inside ofit. So sadly, we did not
(26:53):
recover any fingerprints, We did notrecover any DNA from the actual apartment itself
or the crime scene at self.We didn't recover any DNA or hairs or
fibers from Rhea's body that were instrumentalin leading to the identification of the actual
suspect. The one critical piece wasthe blue medical cloth booty that was recovered
(27:15):
about ten feet outside of the frontdoor of the apartment that ultimately was determined
to have several drops of blood onit, and they were Maria's blood,
And later quite a bit later inthe investigation, we were able to get
a DNA profile from the elastic bandaround the opening of this booty, and
that DNA ultimately was determined to havecome from Garzulo or a very close male
(27:41):
relative of Garzulos. It wasn't thenumbers weren't so definitive as to rule out,
you know, Garzulo to the exclusionof everybody else on earth, but
pretty close. It's like it waseither Garzulo or his dad or his brother.
The numbers were kind of in thatrange without going signed typically crazy on
you and we were clearly able toprove that it was Garjulo because we eliminated
(28:06):
I mean, his dad was aninety year old man living in a rest
home in Illinois, and his brother, you know, was a guy that
you know, we were able toexclude him as being the contributor to the
DNA on this on this booty,and you know, it was able to
again to draw a conclusion by excludingother people. So that was that was
really the only DNA that was available, you know, in this particular murder
(28:30):
case. And it's kind of ironic, I guess is the best word for
it, because it's ironic in asense that that here the suspect, this
serial killer, Mike Garzulo took extraordinaryeffort to protect himself from being identified,
and the very item that he usedto act as a prophylactic in that manner
(28:52):
is what helped convict him and sendhim to death row. I mean,
I think it's ironic. I don'tknow if your listeners will, but it
kind of kind of makes me.He kind of makes me chuckle a little
bit. In September of two thousandand eight, armed with a DNA evidence
in Maria Bruno and Tricia Piccaccio's caseplus the attack on Michelle Murphy, Lillian
(29:15):
Felt and LAPD detective Tom Small filedcharges against Garzulo with the La District Attorney's
Office for the murders of Ashley Ellernand Maria Bruno. While no DNA evidence
was found at the scene of AshleyEllren's murder, the circumstantial evidence was mounting
(29:36):
against Garzulo given his proximity to eachmurder, as well as the way they
were attacked. Mark Lillian Felt weredetectives able to interview Garzulo after he was
arrested. At some point in time, relatively briefly after Garzula was arrested by
the Santa Monica Police Department and chargedwith the attempted murder of Michelle Murphy and
(29:59):
Santa MANI like I had an opportunityto meet with him and to attempt to
interview him. He was somewhat polite. He listened to the introduction my partner
and I kind of had with him. We tried to, as we always
do, somewhat you know, treathim with respect and dignity and kind of,
(30:21):
you know, be humane about it. But we really wanted to talk
to the guy and hear his sideof the story. Of course, he
had a series of constitutional rights thatwe had to advise him of, and
he chose to invoke his right notonly to remain silent, but to not
speak without an attorney present. Thatsaid, it was a very brief interaction
(30:44):
that we had with him, maybemaybe like ten or fifteen minutes at the
most. He really didn't want totalk about about anything. I mean,
he was pretty turned off to us. I believe we interviewed him, my
partner and I from Los Angeles CountySheriff Joe Purcell interviewed him. I believe
we were second in line, andhe had already been interviewed and already invoked
(31:07):
with the Santa Monica Police Department aday or two earlier regarding that offense.
So it wasn't a surprise that heinvoked his right to remain silent and chose
not to speak with us. Thatbeing said, at some point in time
after that, the environment was createdwhere rister Guarjula wound up having a series
(31:32):
of very long conversations that were capturedelectronically, and in them he alluded repeatedly
to not only the the murder ofMaria Bruno, but to the murders both
in Chicago and the murder of AshleyYeller and being vefeated by Tom Small that
(31:52):
occurred in LAPD Hollywood Divisions area.So that that audio that was captured while
he was in custody talking about thosethings, all of that was admissible.
There is a a great deal oflaw regarding you know, statements and evidence
(32:12):
and when they're admissible and when they'renot. In its very nuanced, there's
a lot to it. But wewere able to, you know, obtain
that lawfully, and ultimately the statementswere used in trial against mister Garjulo.
In the statements, one could onecould assume from the statements that were obtained
(32:35):
for mister Gardulo that in fact,he was possibly responsible for ten murders in
addition to the three murders I previouslyspoke of, that being Ashley Eller and
Maria Bruno and then of course TrishaPicaccio in Cook County, Illinois. He
basically alluded that he was responsible foranother seven. So to this day,
(32:59):
and that's one of the reasons I'meven speaking on this program. To this
day, we've never really been ableto identify or locate those other seven murders.
Mister Garzulo was born and raised inGlen View, Illinois. When he
was about eighteen, he traveled acrossthe country to Los Angeles, California.
He made a number of trips backand forth across the country that two thousand
(33:21):
miles, both by car, byair, by bus, by train.
We really don't know. Those recordsdon't exist anymore. But you know,
if one of your listeners there,anybody out there, has any kind of
a connection to or any information about, potentially the murder of a young attractive
female who most likely was murdered inwhat appeared to be a frenzy detect and
(33:43):
the weapon was a knife or somekind of sharp force injuries. Certainly Los
Angeles Sheriff's Los Angeles PD, CookCounty, Illinois Sheriffs Santa Monica Police Department,
they'd all be interested in knowing thedetails about that, perhaps eliminating mister
Garzhu was a suspect in it.But I and the other detectives, I
think we're all in agreement that potentiallythose statements obtained for mister Garzula are legitimate
(34:07):
and real. And for all weknow, there's some poor family in Omaha,
Nebraska, or you know, Lubbock, Texas or Puerre, Illinois,
that lost a loved one in themanner in which I'm describing, and we
just haven't been able to identify ortie him into that murder. Garzula's recorded
(34:27):
interactions were part of a Perkins operation. Two undercover detectives were placed in Garzula's
jail cell while he was being heldin a Elmonte Police Department jail. Let's
bring back Joshua Ritter, criminal defenseattorney, former La County Deputy District attorney,
(34:49):
josh can you explain how a Perkinsoperation works and how the information obtained
from it would be admissible in court? A Perkin operation is a very valuable
tool for law enforcement because it takesadvantage of when a suspect in custody is
(35:16):
most likely to want to start sharinginformation, but they don't want to share
that information directly with law enforcement.And this is a bit of subterfuge or
trickery, however you want to classifyit used by law enforcement, where they
(35:40):
will essentially put an undercover officer inthe same holding cell as a usually recently
arrested suspect to just kind of chatwith him casually. And it's amazing how
many times these officers don't even haveto bring up what it is that's going
(36:04):
on, what the person is infor. People just when first arrested can't
help themselves oftentimes from sharing information,and that's exactly what happened in this case.
The detectives, being very savvy,put Garjulo in a holding cell while
(36:25):
at the same time they were bringinghim in and out of the cell to
interrogate him. So they would bringhim out, talk to him a little
bit about what he was under arrestfor, and then also ask him some
questions about other crimes, other murders, and then put him back into the
(36:46):
holding cell. And when he waswith the officers, he didn't have much
information to share and mainly said hedoesn't know what they're talking about. But
then when he got back into theholding cell, he couldn't help but share
some of that information with his cellpartners, who he believed to be also
recent arrestees, but were in factundercover officers, and during the course of
(37:08):
that they learned some very valuable information. Though it didn't come down to what
I would call a full on confession, it was close enough for it to
be very valuable, up until thepoint of Garjulo almost demonstrating how he had
stabbed one of these victims, becausehe was trying to play out in his
(37:31):
mind the stab wounds and the patternand how you know whether or not it
was a left handed or right handedperson, and in doing so wanted to
demonstrate with one of his cellmates thatgave them very valuable information. So Pergin's
operations are employed by law enforcement.They're done sparingly because it is a dangerous
(38:00):
situation. You're putting an officer inthe same cell as someone who has committed
murder. You're asking an officer toput themselves at risk to some extent,
and you have to conduct them verycarefully to make sure that it's not coercive,
that you're not violating any kind ofconstitutional protections that the suspect may have,
(38:25):
because you may get incredibly valuable information, but if you run a foul
of their constitutional rights, all ofthat may be thrown out. So they're
conducted in a very careful manner tomake sure that that evidence is preserved and
available to the prosecutors at trial.Three years later, in June twenty eleven,
(38:49):
CBS forty eight Hours aired a storyabout Garjulo titled the Boy next Door.
Let's Bring In Maureen maher former correspondentfor forty eight Hours. Maureen tell
us about the special on how itcame together. Late summer two thousand and
eight, we got a call fromone of the jurisdictions in California who had
(39:16):
worked with our investigative producer, DougLonghiney on a previous case, and they
asked us if we could go andspeak with the Piccaccios because they were having
a really hard time connecting with thePicaccios through Cook County, and because myself
and this producer, Doug Longhiney,we both live close to the Piccaccios.
(39:37):
It was easy for us to goin and start talking to them and create
a relationship where every couple of monthswe would go talk to them. But
I'll be honest with you, afterthe very first time we met them,
we both walked out and said,there's no way those two people can ever
get on television. They're they're soheartbroken, it's like it happened yesterday.
(40:02):
And I had just not witnessed thatkind of palpable pain and suffering, except
when you met up with family membersin the first few days or weeks,
or in the middle of the courtwhen it was all brought up again.
But this was years decades later,and it was still so raw for the
(40:23):
Piccaccios. It took us another twoand a half years of talking to them
and convincing them that by going publicwith us, maybe we could get more
information that Cook County just had notbeen able to put their hands on,
and if they would cooperate with LAArea officers to give any information they could
(40:50):
about the circumstances surrounding Trisha's death andwhy they thought guard Julia might be involved.
There just wasn't enough information in Ashley'scase at the time, they needed
more and California has that law thatsays prior bad acts can be included,
and I think they were hoping thatthe case of Chrisha's murder might help out
the other cases and solidify evidence.I mean, he was arrested, he
(41:13):
was charged, and he was incounty jail in LA. But they didn't
have a lot, at least inAshley's case at that time. What can
you tell us about your interaction withthe Pacaccio family over the years. You
know, came out at least inthe first meeting with them, and then
every other meeting. With every meetingsince then, I saw that Piccaccio is
(41:37):
not too long ago. I stillsee them on a fairly regular basis,
from the very first time we metwith them and every subsequent meeting. There
is so much heartbreak and pain andanger and frustration over how long it is
taking for this case to go tocourt, how long it took to get
(42:00):
charges filed against Michael Guardulo, howlong it took to get people to listen
to them, how long it's takennow to get through the trials in California.
Every single meeting I've ever had withthem in person or on the phone.
It isn't just the pain and sufferingof the parents of a murdered child.
(42:23):
It is the anger and the frustrationthat they have had to wait so
long for movement in their case,and the pain was so real. And
you've seen in the forty eight Hourspiece. I believe that Diane said that
at one point in the early twothousands, she was still going into see
(42:46):
investigators every week to remind them we'restill here, but Tricia's not, and
that at one point someone said toher one of the investigators, there's something
wrong with you and you need toseek how I just can't imagine you're going
through the loss of your child.You found your child in this horrible state,
(43:07):
and you're now being told by thepeople who are tasked with helping you
find justice that we're just not surethis case will ever be solved and you
should probably seek additional counseling. Sothat's something that comes up every single time
I speak with her. It isstill very real for her thirty years later.
(43:27):
What happened after the special aired,so the piece finally airs. I
mean, it wasn't just Cook Countythat was reluctant to work with us.
We had a hard time getting oursenior staff on board with this case because
there was no clear outcome for itthere. They didn't know if there were
ever going to be charges in theTrisha Occaccio case, and we didn't know
(43:51):
when he would go to court inCalifornia on the three cases there, So
we all had this is a case. It took a herculean effort on every
possible level to get it moving forward. So it finally airs three years,
almost three years after we first metthe Piccaccios, and we pitched Doug and
I pitched the story to our seniorstaff at forty eight hours. It airs
(44:13):
in May of twenty eleven, andone minute after the show ended, I
got an email from AOL patch whichI had done an interview with earlier in
the week, that there was somebodywho had responded and said, Hey,
we're going to forward you a viewercomment, a reader comment, and we
think it's important, but we're handingit off to you. And it was
(44:37):
from a gentleman who said that hehad pertinent information that Guardjulo had confessed to
him and he couldn't get anyone incook Counting or anywhere else to listen and
he was also he seemed grief strickenthrough the email that he and I then
started emailing back and forth later thatevening that he didn't realize there were these
(44:59):
other cases hanging out there. SoI got on the phone with Tim or
Leary the next morning. We hada long conversation about how we knew Michael
when he first heard what Michael hadsaid to him when he first heard it,
who he had told who else wasin the car with him, and
that was Anthony di Lorenzo, andhow many times Garjulo had said something to
(45:22):
this effect to him. I hungup the phone called my producer, Doug,
and I said, so, Iknow what we normally would do would
be to jump up and down andsay, hey, we got to get
this guy on TV. But becausewe knew how long the Picaccios had waited,
the two of us decided that journalistically, ethically, the right thing to
(45:45):
do was to go to a sourcethat Doug had within Cook County Sheriff's Department
and say, we want to connectyou with somebody. We'll do our interview,
but it's important that you know thisperson is out there, and also
we want to know did you knowthis person was out there. So immediately
we put Teamer in connection with CookCounty Sheriff's Department, which is different than
(46:07):
the Cook County State's Attorney's office.These are two separate entities, and our
connection and our belief that Cook CountySheriff's Department would do something with the information,
we felt better about going to them, And then they brought Teamer,
and I don't know when Anthony camein, but I know Teamer was brought
into Chicago within a few days andthen sat down with investigators and eventually a
(46:32):
grand jury was brought in, andmaybe it was six weeks later that the
charges were filed. On July seventh, twenty eleven, then Cook County State
Attorney Anita Alvarez announced the new evidencethat emerged after the forty eight hour episode,
coupled with the DNA, gave themsufficient evidence to finally charge Michael Garzulo
(46:58):
with Tricia Paccaccio murder. This isalmost twenty years since Tricia Boccaccio was killed
in nineteen ninety three and seven yearssince Cook County decided not to prosecute him
with the DNA evidence in two thousandand three. In the US, there
(47:20):
is no statue of limitations on murder, so if someone kills someone and thirty
years go by, someone can stillbe charged with the crime. Tricia Boccaccio's
family waited almost twenty years for MichaelGuardulo to be charged with the crime.
(47:45):
Can you imagine being a family andnot knowing for almost twenty years who did
this to your own child? Butnow they would potentially get some sense of
justice. In our final two episodes, we revisit the trial of the murder
(48:06):
of Ashley Elrend Maria Bruno and theattempted murder of Michelle Murphy, where Michael
Garjula would face a possible death penaltyand finally come face to face with the
victims' families. I'm Kelly Hymen,and this is once upon a crime in
Hollywood, the Hollywood Ripper.
In two thousand and eight, twoand a half years after Maria Bruno was
stabbed to death in Almonte, California, investigators were no closer to solving the
murder. Michael Garjulo was now livingwith his wife in Santa Monica, California.
He was a freeman after being connectedto three separate murders between nineteen ninety
(00:32):
three and two thousand and five.Just across the alleyway from his apartment,
twenty six year old Michelle Murphy livedin a second floor apartment at one two
two nine Twelfth Street. Murphy waspetite, standing five foot one, but
she was athletic, worked out regularly, and would often jump rope and sprint
(00:56):
in the alley behind her apartment.She had a roommate, but on the
night of April twentieth, two thousandand eight, her roommate was out of
the country. After getting home fromwork, Murphy finished doing laundry and went
to sleep around eight pm. Itwas a warm night, so Michelle left
the window open. Just before midnight. Michelle woke up with a man on
(01:21):
top of her, stabbing her repeatedlyin the chest. She tried to protect
herself, suffering multiple stab wounds toher arms and her hands as she tried
to grab the blade. Michelle kickedand fought, screaming why are you doing
this? And the blood coupled withthe struggle made it hard for the attacker
to control her. During the frenzy, he somehow managed to cut his own
(01:45):
wrist with the knife, giving Murphythe opportunity to pull her legs to her
chest and kick the attacker off ofher. The man turned to leave,
but told Murphy I'm sorry before hefled the scene. Michelle, Murph,
you ran to the door, slammedit and locked it. She called her
boyfriend, Vincent. You know who? Called nine one one nine one emergency
(02:08):
Calderon. Hi, my friend andTana Monka just reported her break and she
called me and I want to makesure that she called the police. Okay,
what's the location of the emergency.It's twelve twenty nine Twelfth Street,
twelve twenty nine twelfth Street. Okay, here's apartment ten. Okay. If
she do you have her phone number? It's in my phone. Yeah,
(02:30):
Okay, because I'm gonna I'm gonnahave to give her a call because I
might have to seek to her directly. Okay, let me get out of
my phone. Holdo on frigus.Okay, actually we actually we already had
the calling on for just one second. Do you know what the circumstances are
in regards to it? Or sir, do you know what the circumstances are
(02:52):
in regards to this? She toldme that she woke up and there was
someone on top of her and sheforced them off and they ran out.
Okay, we are on our way. Thanks for callingcerts, Thank you all
right, bye bye. April twentyeight, two thousand and eight, The
time eleven forty six pm. Hi, this is the San Monica Police Department.
(03:16):
Are you from? Are you callingfrom twelve twenty nine twelve Street?
Yes? Okay, what is yourname? Michelle? What happened? Where
is that person? Now? Itwas how long ago? Not with a
(03:37):
seven or eight minutes ago? Idon't know. The fire department is already
on the way and we're on ourway. What did this person look like?
It was? Paul? I don'tI've been going. I do you
know woody white black Hispanic occasion?I don't know. Do you ever what
(03:57):
his clothing was? What he waswearing on damps and like a long sleeve
like sweatshirt kind of thing. Doyou remember what color of sweatshirt was?
Okay? Do you remember what coloredpants? No? Okay? Did he
decide stabbing you? Did he hurtyou in any other way? No?
(04:17):
No, okay. The fire departmentis on our way and we are already
there. We're looking for the guy. Now we'll be making contact with him
just a second. Do you rememberhow big this guy was, how poll
he was? He was probably themost I don't know, like five eleven
or something thin, medium or heavy. And do you remember his hair?
Window? He broke into your windowhere? Okay? Do you remember his
(04:48):
hair color? Michelle? No?No, Do you remember he's wearing any
type of head gear like a hator anything like that? No? No,
I remember any stars marks or tattoosor anything like that. No,
okay, do with the arms?Was just the night, Michelle. I'm
(05:14):
sorry. I'm here with you,and can can you? Can you walk
to the door? Are you ableto walk to the door? Are you
able to walk to the door,Michelle, because the police are there,
We're here with you. Okay,Yes, we're here with you now,
so go open the door for me, okay. Santa Monica Police department were
(05:42):
on the scene shortly. Let's bringin Darryl Lowe, Chief of Police Redmond
Police Department, former lieutenant with theSanta Monica Police Department who investigated the Michelle
Murphy attack. Chief Flow, canyou describe the scene at Michelle Murphy's apartment.
Yeah, So by the time Igot there, Uh, the scene
(06:05):
pretty much you know, been containedby the responding of patrol officers. Uh.
The first patrol officer to arrive onscene arrived and you know, made
his way into the apartment saw I'llsay, the apartment in disarray and indicative
of some type of struggle. Hedid notice that there was a blood trail
(06:29):
leading from the apartment, uh,you know, down the stairs, along
the walkway out towards the alley.When Michelle Murphy was interviewed, did she
indicate there might be someone who wantedto hurt her. No. Uh,
she seemed just you know, like, you know, like you're all American,
you know, you know, ayoung adult, uh, you know,
(06:50):
carefree, didn't have you know,enemies or anything like that. So
it wasn't you know, like readilyapparent you know, who might be responsible
for this. Uh, you know, this a vicious attack. How did
the attacker gain access to the apartment? So, the first responding officer noticed
a footprint on the in the duston the handrail leading up to Michelle Murphy's
(07:15):
apartment. Uh, so we wereable to conclude that the suspect stood on
the handrail, cut the screen,and opened up the window prior to going
in and assaulting miss Murphy. Uh. The investigation also indicated that the suspect
prestaged his getaway by opening the frontdoor. Uh. The suspect then went
(07:36):
into Michelle Murphy's bedroom, straddled her, and began to stab her, which
obviously caused her to wake up,and she put up one hell of a
fight. And in that struggle,the suspect cut himself, which you know
led to the blood trailer provided theblood trail that we were oltimately able to
(07:58):
use to identify the suspect. Howdoes the process work for obtaining blood samples.
Yeah, So with the crime scene, uh, you know, it
was critically important to uh limit youknow, angress negress. Obviously we needed
to get paramedics and to uh youknow, provide aid, you know,
to the victim. But once shewas transported, Uh, the scene was
(08:20):
locked down. And then our forensictechnicians came out UH and took samples of
the blood since we did have youknow, blood samples. Then it was
put into uh the the CODA databaseUH and with the hopes that we would
actually you know, get a hitand that would help us to identify our
suspect, which it ultimately did.So the process is essentially the blood is
(08:45):
collected, UH, it's submitted tothe La County Sheriff's Apartment's crime lab,
UH to their sorology unit. Theydo their scientific work, and then they
get it. UH. They getthat DNA profile uploaded into codis, which
is the offender database, and itgoes through the you know, hundreds of
thousands or millions of records that ithas in there, and then lo and
(09:09):
behold, it identified our suspect.It would take another month for the test
results to come back, but eventuallySanta Monica police got a match. The
blood left at the scene of MichelleMurphy's apartment was Michael Garjulo, the same
(09:30):
DNA that was found under the fingernailsof Tricia Boccaccio after she was murdered in
nineteen ninety three. Chief Flow,what were the next steps of the investigation.
So once we got the CODIS confirmation, you know, we had a
named suspect at that point, andthen it was through i'll call it this
(09:54):
good old fashioned networking and collaboration wherewe spoke with our our colleagues are the
lead detective, Rich Lewis, spokewith his fellow detectives both from the Los
Angeles Police Department and then also fromthe La County Sheriff's Department, since we
at that point knew that they toohad had contact with Michael Garzulo, and
(10:18):
we begin the process of trying toyou know, to locate him. On
June sixth, two thousand and eight, Santa Monica Police arrested Michael Guardulo in
a right aid parking lot. ChiefLow. How did the Santa Monica Police
track Guardulo down? So at thepoint we you know, we had put
(10:39):
the public pieces together. We knewhe was a h VAC handyman. We
had got information about the van thathe had used, and so we put
our surveillance you know team on him. They made you know, i'll say,
positive confirmation of him, and theywaited for or you know, the
(11:00):
appropriate opportunity. Uh, he happenedto pull into a pharmacy parking lot a
few blocks away from their apartment.Uh. And once he did uh that,
the two units basically swooped in.Officers jumped out, identified themselves,
uh, and placed him under arrest. Uh. You know when he was
(11:20):
arrested, there wasn't a huge fightor struggle. Yeah. I think he
was somewhat you know, caught bysurprise. Uh. He did have a
background as a boxer and had aprevious history of assaults on police officers,
but a couple of the officers thatwere on the unit at that time were
(11:41):
uh i'll say formidable in size aswell. So I think he thought twice
or better of it. Once hewas taken into custody. He basically he
he asked a question that in inthe law enforcement world we would we would
call uh in dish of guilt inthe sense of the asked, Uh,
you know which agency is this orwhat organization? Uh you know is this
(12:05):
about, which suggests that he knewthat uh, you know, he was
wanted by multiple law enforcement agencies,which uh, you know that obviously has
become you know clear now that allthe dots have been connected. Can you
tell us about the interaction between Guarzuloand Santa Monica Police after he was arrested.
(12:26):
Once he was in custody, Uh, the lead investigator, uh you
know, attempted to interview him.Uh because at this point we we knew
we had a U, you know, serial killer. Uh, you know,
in custody, we were familiar.You know, we knew about both
the L A p D case Uhin Hollywood, we knew about uh the
Sheriff's department case. Then we knowabout the original case uh back in Illinois.
(12:48):
Uh you know where his h youknow, I'll call it his murders
free you know first started. Iknow that, like I said, the
lead investigator did attempt to interview himonce we had him for our particular case,
but I'm not sure if there weremultiple attempts. I know at some
point he did kind of change histune and you know, tried to control
(13:11):
more of the narrative around you know, his arrest and his pleas and whatnot.
But I couldn't speak any further detailwith Guarjulu in custody. Sergeant rich
Lewis of the Santa Monica Police Departmentthen recalled a conversation he had with Detective
Mark Lillianfeld about another murder which Lilianfeldwas looking into for a possible connection to
(13:37):
Maria Bruno's murder. Let's bring backMark Lillianfeld, retired La County Sheriff's detective
who investigated Maria Bruno's death. Mark. What did Sergeant Lewis tell you when
you spoke again? Initially several Iwant to say it was perhaps a year
or even several years prior to theattempt at murder of Michelle Murphy, Santa
(14:01):
Monica Plice Department was investigating another murder, unrelated, of a young woman who
was pretty viciously killed inside of herapartment. Her name was Julie Redman,
I believe, and there were somesimilarities to the Julie Redman murder to the
Maria Bruno murder, and I woundup contacting Santa Monica Police Department Sergeant Rich
(14:22):
Lewis. Rich is really the heroin a lot of this story here,
for sure, And we kind ofcompared notes to the two different murders,
mine being the murder of Maria Brunoand his being the murder of Julie Redman,
and we kind of determined relatively quicklythat in fact, besides they were
pretty horrendous murders of young women insideof their homes. There were too many
(14:45):
dissimilarities to kind of count them asbeing related to each other. And really
that was the end of my conversationand my contact with Rich Lewis. Fast
forward now to the attempted murder ofMission Murphy, and Rich, because he's
a good policeman, saw similarities betweenthe Michelle Murphy attempted murder and the Maria
(15:09):
Bruno murder that had happened earlier inDecember two thousand and five. And when
Rich started doing a background on MichaelThomas Gardulo, he realized that he used
to live in an address in Elmonty, though Rich immediately actually had his partner,
Karen Thompson give me a call,and it turned out that the address
in Elmonty was the same apartment buildingwhere Maria Bruno had been murdered. And
(15:33):
in fact, I had attempted tocontact Mike Grdula like three separate times during
a witness canvas of the building's occupants, but had never been able to reach
him or to contact him. SoRich really kind of, you know,
put two and two together that MikeGarzulo used to live in a same building
where my murder had happened, thathad very striking similarities to the attempted murder
(15:56):
of Michelle Murphy. So that's that'sreally how Rich and I wound up kind
of hooking up to work this investigationtogether. I say that tongue in cheek
because again, Rich really deserves allthe uh uh uh, you know,
kudos and credit for making this thinghappen and coming together and identifying Gardula as
being responsible for the attack on MichelleMurphy. Did you ever speak to Gardulo?
(16:22):
How close was his apartment to Maria's. She lived in an apartment twenty,
which was on the ground floor onthe north side of the building,
and on the south side of thebuilding, on the second story in a
different apartment was Mike Gardulo, andI believe it was apartment number ten.
And from Gardula's apartment, he couldeasily go to his front window, to
(16:44):
his kitchen window look down. Hecould see the whole interior courtyard of the
building, and he could see ofcourse all of the all the apartments in
their front doors and the windows ofof you know, most of the apartments
that were in this this you know, eighty unit building. I believe there's
like thirty five or forty on theground floor, another thirty five or forty
apartments on the second floor, andringing the second floor was an outdoor kind
(17:08):
of like a catwalk, you know, a balcony, so that's you know,
you'd walk up a flight of stairsto go from ground floor to second
floor. So Garzulo, who turnedout to be the suspect in this case,
he could look at his kitchen windowas living a window, and look
right into Maria's apartment. There wasa bit of distance between them. They
were separated by this big cement courtyard. There was a barbecue area kind of
(17:30):
like a picnic you know, tabletype area, and there was a swimming
pool. But he had a clear, unobstructed view. I know at one
time we measured it and it wasprobably maybe one hundred and twenty one hundred
and thirty feet from his apartment doorto Maria's apartment door. Ultimately, we
had actually knocked on his door likethree times and left the business guard and
(17:53):
I had made a note, youknow, hey, you know, knocked
on the door of apartment sell andsell he's not here. And we simply
never were contacted by him and nevercontacted him. Once you had a name,
how did you connect Michael Garzulo asa potential suspect in Mario Bruno's murder?
(18:15):
When Rich notified me about the DNAcoming back on the attempted murderer of
Michelle Murphy, and they had belongedto mister Gardulo and the Garzula used to
live in Elmonte at the Maria Brunomurder scene, Rich had given me a
bit of background about him, andincluded amongst that background was the fact that
his DNA had been entered into theKodas DNA database by the Cook County,
(18:40):
Illinois Sheriff's Police. And that's aterm that they used back their Shriff's police
for the investigative arm of the CookCounty Sheriff's Department. That said, Rich
knew that Gardula was a potential suspectin an August nineteen ninety three murder that
had occurred in unincorporated Cook County,the Illinois, and so he had actually
(19:02):
been in contact with the unsolved thecold case homicide detective from Coke County,
Illinois Sheriff's named Lou Salah, andso Rich had provided me with that information
when he had given me the identificationof Guardulo. So one of the first
things that I did was actually communicatewith lou sella Coke County, Illinois Sheriffs,
(19:25):
and we kind of compared notes,and it was pretty obvious pretty quickly
that you know, we had whatappeared on the surface of being very similar
murders in in m o and invictimology and location and the type of attack,
and there were there were just untoldnumbers of similarities between the two murders,
between the Coke County, Illinois murderand the Elmanti, California murders.
(19:48):
So looped into that conversation was DetectiveTom Small, who was an l A
p D homicide detective that I didnot know, uh, but wound up
meeting and becoming very friendly with.And Tom had the then unsolved murder of
a young woman, maybe Ashley Ellerant, and Tom's murder occurred. I'd leave
(20:11):
in February of two thousand and one. So myself, Louis Alla from Cook
County, Illinois Sheriff's Tommy Small fromLAPD Hollywood Division, and Rich Lewis from
Santa Monica, California Police Department.We all we were all able to kind
of communicate with each other, whichwas great. Quite often, especially like
TV and movies and books, youknow, you see cops not getting along
(20:33):
or cops you know, hogging informationor they don't want to share, and
and nothing could be really further fromthe truth. That may be true of
their idiot bosses, but in reallife cops are more than happy to share
with each other. That being said, the four of us all got along
very very well. We're able toshare information and really pretty pretty quickly come
(20:53):
up with with, you know,identification that hey, we're we're all looking
at the same very much similar thesame m and the same type of suspect
in all four of our separate incidents, three of them being murders, one
of them being in a tent murder. So that's that's kind of how all
(21:15):
of that came together. And againI'd love to flex my big muscles and
take credit for it, and sadly, the truth is I was nothing but
a lucky hanger on had I hadnothing to do with that coordination, and
it was all it was all,uh, you know, Rich and Tom
and Lou. Well, that's wherethat's at. You then search Gargiulo's apartment
(21:37):
which he had since moved out of. What did you find of interest?
After my partner and I, JoePurcell, had been advised that Gargulo was
potentially, you know, a suspectin the Elmonte murder of Maria Bruno,
we want to looking at things ina different light because now we're armed with
information and identification of a potential suspect. So we wound up going back to
(22:03):
the murder scene months after it hadoccurred, actually years after it occurred,
and speaking with the apartment building management. It turned out that the Guardulo apartment
had been rented, abandoned, rented, abandoned, rented, abandoned. There
have been three or four other rentersthat had moved into and moved out of
the apartment since the time that MikeGrdulo had abandoned the apartment and moved on.
(22:26):
So we wanted to take a lookat it, and it happened to
be empty, so that worked outperfect. So the management allowed us to
go into that apartment and it waslike many of the apartments in the building.
It was freshly painted, it hadnew carpet, It was really really
immaculately cleaned apartment. And I willalways remember the day because it was hotter
(22:47):
than heck out as it as itgets here in southern California, in Los
Angeles, and of course we learnedsuits and ties, and I remember at
one point in time, we're standingin the apartment and there was an attic,
which is pretty unusual for apartment buildinghere in southern California, especially one
that's not all that old that wasbuilt like in the seventies or eighties.
And this is a two story apartmentbuilding, but the apartment itself had an
(23:08):
attic, which was it was prettyrare. So Joe and I are both
looking at the attic door, andagain I'd like to take credit, and
I can't. Joe's a little bitolder and just a little bit bigger than
me, and the younger, skinnierguy has to go up on a ladder
into the attic, which I didnot want to do with my suit and
tie, so Joe convinced me itwas the right thing to do, and
(23:30):
lo and behold, we got aladder from the maintenance people and caught up
in the attic, which I thoughtwas going to be a complete and total
and utter waste of time. Andthey're just inside the opening to the attic
was a plastic bag, and thennext to that bag was a couple of
other items, And inside the plasticbag was a number of things, including
(23:51):
a Christmas card addressed to Mike Gartulo. See that's interesting. And also inside
the plastic bag was a matching bluecotton tissue booty exactly the same make and
model and manufacture as the one thatwe founded the crime scene with the blood
of victim Maria Bruno on it.Also inside that bag, I believe was
(24:12):
a embroidered towel, and it hada bunch of Korean language and design on
it. And I ultimately learned,because I didn't know then, it is
not uncommon in the Korean culture toactually embroider almost like an obituary or memorial
(24:33):
to a loved one who's passed onin that form on a towel or blanket.
And this towel was actually that itwas like a memorial to a deceased
to love one from the Korean culture. Well, when Mike Garzulo lived in
the apartment building during the time ofthe murder of Maria Bruno, he lived
with a very nice woman whose namewas Grace Quawk, and Grace was first
(25:00):
generation Korean American and came from avery large, loving Korean family. And
the towel that we found in thebag, along with the booty, along
with the Christmas card addressed to MikeGardulo, belonged to Grace Quack, And
it was pretty easy to make theassumption that at some point in time Mike
(25:22):
Garzulo had placed the towel, thebag, the card, and the blue
matching booty to the booty recovered atthe murder scene up there in the attic
and had quite frankly forgotten about itwhen he moved months later. And so
it was really a stroke of luckthat we were able to recover that that
(25:42):
particular booty. I off the topof my head, I don't recall that
we actually obtained any DNA off ofthat booty, but circumstantially that evidence was
really powerful to compare that item thebooty found it the attic to the same
booty that was found at the crimescene. Unlike our poor friends at l
(26:07):
APD and the OJ Simpson case whohad issues with the glove of a similar
nature, we got lucky, andyou know, maybe we learned from that
that prior incident, and we didn'thave the issues they had in getting it
admitted and getting the jury to understandthe significance of that evidence and the power
(26:29):
behind it and what it meant.Was there any evidence that Garzoula had warned
either of the medical booties. Yeah, there, I mean the crime scene,
like I said earlier, it wasreally Christine. It was clean.
This apartment had been repainted and recarpeted, and it was it was clean,
and this woman, Maria, hadonly lived in the apartment for ten days
prior to having gotten killed inside ofit. So sadly, we did not
(26:53):
recover any fingerprints, We did notrecover any DNA from the actual apartment itself
or the crime scene at self.We didn't recover any DNA or hairs or
fibers from Rhea's body that were instrumentalin leading to the identification of the actual
suspect. The one critical piece wasthe blue medical cloth booty that was recovered
(27:15):
about ten feet outside of the frontdoor of the apartment that ultimately was determined
to have several drops of blood onit, and they were Maria's blood,
And later quite a bit later inthe investigation, we were able to get
a DNA profile from the elastic bandaround the opening of this booty, and
that DNA ultimately was determined to havecome from Garzulo or a very close male
(27:41):
relative of Garzulos. It wasn't thenumbers weren't so definitive as to rule out,
you know, Garzulo to the exclusionof everybody else on earth, but
pretty close. It's like it waseither Garzulo or his dad or his brother.
The numbers were kind of in thatrange without going signed typically crazy on
you and we were clearly able toprove that it was Garjulo because we eliminated
(28:06):
I mean, his dad was aninety year old man living in a rest
home in Illinois, and his brother, you know, was a guy that
you know, we were able toexclude him as being the contributor to the
DNA on this on this booty,and you know, it was able to
again to draw a conclusion by excludingother people. So that was that was
really the only DNA that was available, you know, in this particular murder
(28:30):
case. And it's kind of ironic, I guess is the best word for
it, because it's ironic in asense that that here the suspect, this
serial killer, Mike Garzulo took extraordinaryeffort to protect himself from being identified,
and the very item that he usedto act as a prophylactic in that manner
(28:52):
is what helped convict him and sendhim to death row. I mean,
I think it's ironic. I don'tknow if your listeners will, but it
kind of kind of makes me.He kind of makes me chuckle a little
bit. In September of two thousandand eight, armed with a DNA evidence
in Maria Bruno and Tricia Piccaccio's caseplus the attack on Michelle Murphy, Lillian
(29:15):
Felt and LAPD detective Tom Small filedcharges against Garzulo with the La District Attorney's
Office for the murders of Ashley Ellernand Maria Bruno. While no DNA evidence
was found at the scene of AshleyEllren's murder, the circumstantial evidence was mounting
(29:36):
against Garzulo given his proximity to eachmurder, as well as the way they
were attacked. Mark Lillian Felt weredetectives able to interview Garzulo after he was
arrested. At some point in time, relatively briefly after Garzula was arrested by
the Santa Monica Police Department and chargedwith the attempted murder of Michelle Murphy and
(29:59):
Santa MANI like I had an opportunityto meet with him and to attempt to
interview him. He was somewhat polite. He listened to the introduction my partner
and I kind of had with him. We tried to, as we always
do, somewhat you know, treathim with respect and dignity and kind of,
(30:21):
you know, be humane about it. But we really wanted to talk
to the guy and hear his sideof the story. Of course, he
had a series of constitutional rights thatwe had to advise him of, and
he chose to invoke his right notonly to remain silent, but to not
speak without an attorney present. Thatsaid, it was a very brief interaction
(30:44):
that we had with him, maybemaybe like ten or fifteen minutes at the
most. He really didn't want totalk about about anything. I mean,
he was pretty turned off to us. I believe we interviewed him, my
partner and I from Los Angeles CountySheriff Joe Purcell interviewed him. I believe
we were second in line, andhe had already been interviewed and already invoked
(31:07):
with the Santa Monica Police Department aday or two earlier regarding that offense.
So it wasn't a surprise that heinvoked his right to remain silent and chose
not to speak with us. Thatbeing said, at some point in time
after that, the environment was createdwhere rister Guarjula wound up having a series
(31:32):
of very long conversations that were capturedelectronically, and in them he alluded repeatedly
to not only the the murder ofMaria Bruno, but to the murders both
in Chicago and the murder of AshleyYeller and being vefeated by Tom Small that
(31:52):
occurred in LAPD Hollywood Divisions area.So that that audio that was captured while
he was in custody talking about thosethings, all of that was admissible.
There is a a great deal oflaw regarding you know, statements and evidence
(32:12):
and when they're admissible and when they'renot. In its very nuanced, there's
a lot to it. But wewere able to, you know, obtain
that lawfully, and ultimately the statementswere used in trial against mister Garjulo.
In the statements, one could onecould assume from the statements that were obtained
(32:35):
for mister Gardulo that in fact,he was possibly responsible for ten murders in
addition to the three murders I previouslyspoke of, that being Ashley Eller and
Maria Bruno and then of course TrishaPicaccio in Cook County, Illinois. He
basically alluded that he was responsible foranother seven. So to this day,
(32:59):
and that's one of the reasons I'meven speaking on this program. To this
day, we've never really been ableto identify or locate those other seven murders.
Mister Garzulo was born and raised inGlen View, Illinois. When he
was about eighteen, he traveled acrossthe country to Los Angeles, California.
He made a number of trips backand forth across the country that two thousand
(33:21):
miles, both by car, byair, by bus, by train.
We really don't know. Those recordsdon't exist anymore. But you know,
if one of your listeners there,anybody out there, has any kind of
a connection to or any information about, potentially the murder of a young attractive
female who most likely was murdered inwhat appeared to be a frenzy detect and
(33:43):
the weapon was a knife or somekind of sharp force injuries. Certainly Los
Angeles Sheriff's Los Angeles PD, CookCounty, Illinois Sheriffs Santa Monica Police Department,
they'd all be interested in knowing thedetails about that, perhaps eliminating mister
Garzhu was a suspect in it.But I and the other detectives, I
think we're all in agreement that potentiallythose statements obtained for mister Garzula are legitimate
(34:07):
and real. And for all weknow, there's some poor family in Omaha,
Nebraska, or you know, Lubbock, Texas or Puerre, Illinois,
that lost a loved one in themanner in which I'm describing, and we
just haven't been able to identify ortie him into that murder. Garzula's recorded
(34:27):
interactions were part of a Perkins operation. Two undercover detectives were placed in Garzula's
jail cell while he was being heldin a Elmonte Police Department jail. Let's
bring back Joshua Ritter, criminal defenseattorney, former La County Deputy District attorney,
(34:49):
josh can you explain how a Perkinsoperation works and how the information obtained
from it would be admissible in court? A Perkin operation is a very valuable
tool for law enforcement because it takesadvantage of when a suspect in custody is
(35:16):
most likely to want to start sharinginformation, but they don't want to share
that information directly with law enforcement.And this is a bit of subterfuge or
trickery, however you want to classifyit used by law enforcement, where they
(35:40):
will essentially put an undercover officer inthe same holding cell as a usually recently
arrested suspect to just kind of chatwith him casually. And it's amazing how
many times these officers don't even haveto bring up what it is that's going
(36:04):
on, what the person is infor. People just when first arrested can't
help themselves oftentimes from sharing information,and that's exactly what happened in this case.
The detectives, being very savvy,put Garjulo in a holding cell while
(36:25):
at the same time they were bringinghim in and out of the cell to
interrogate him. So they would bringhim out, talk to him a little
bit about what he was under arrestfor, and then also ask him some
questions about other crimes, other murders, and then put him back into the
(36:46):
holding cell. And when he waswith the officers, he didn't have much
information to share and mainly said hedoesn't know what they're talking about. But
then when he got back into theholding cell, he couldn't help but share
some of that information with his cellpartners, who he believed to be also
recent arrestees, but were in factundercover officers, and during the course of
(37:08):
that they learned some very valuable information. Though it didn't come down to what
I would call a full on confession, it was close enough for it to
be very valuable, up until thepoint of Garjulo almost demonstrating how he had
stabbed one of these victims, becausehe was trying to play out in his
(37:31):
mind the stab wounds and the patternand how you know whether or not it
was a left handed or right handedperson, and in doing so wanted to
demonstrate with one of his cellmates thatgave them very valuable information. So Pergin's
operations are employed by law enforcement.They're done sparingly because it is a dangerous
(38:00):
situation. You're putting an officer inthe same cell as someone who has committed
murder. You're asking an officer toput themselves at risk to some extent,
and you have to conduct them verycarefully to make sure that it's not coercive,
that you're not violating any kind ofconstitutional protections that the suspect may have,
(38:25):
because you may get incredibly valuable information, but if you run a foul
of their constitutional rights, all ofthat may be thrown out. So they're
conducted in a very careful manner tomake sure that that evidence is preserved and
available to the prosecutors at trial.Three years later, in June twenty eleven,
(38:49):
CBS forty eight Hours aired a storyabout Garjulo titled the Boy next Door.
Let's Bring In Maureen maher former correspondentfor forty eight Hours. Maureen tell
us about the special on how itcame together. Late summer two thousand and
eight, we got a call fromone of the jurisdictions in California who had
(39:16):
worked with our investigative producer, DougLonghiney on a previous case, and they
asked us if we could go andspeak with the Piccaccios because they were having
a really hard time connecting with thePicaccios through Cook County, and because myself
and this producer, Doug Longhiney,we both live close to the Piccaccios.
(39:37):
It was easy for us to goin and start talking to them and create
a relationship where every couple of monthswe would go talk to them. But
I'll be honest with you, afterthe very first time we met them,
we both walked out and said,there's no way those two people can ever
get on television. They're they're soheartbroken, it's like it happened yesterday.
(40:02):
And I had just not witnessed thatkind of palpable pain and suffering, except
when you met up with family membersin the first few days or weeks,
or in the middle of the courtwhen it was all brought up again.
But this was years decades later,and it was still so raw for the
(40:23):
Piccaccios. It took us another twoand a half years of talking to them
and convincing them that by going publicwith us, maybe we could get more
information that Cook County just had notbeen able to put their hands on,
and if they would cooperate with LAArea officers to give any information they could
(40:50):
about the circumstances surrounding Trisha's death andwhy they thought guard Julia might be involved.
There just wasn't enough information in Ashley'scase at the time, they needed
more and California has that law thatsays prior bad acts can be included,
and I think they were hoping thatthe case of Chrisha's murder might help out
the other cases and solidify evidence.I mean, he was arrested, he
(41:13):
was charged, and he was incounty jail in LA. But they didn't
have a lot, at least inAshley's case at that time. What can
you tell us about your interaction withthe Pacaccio family over the years. You
know, came out at least inthe first meeting with them, and then
every other meeting. With every meetingsince then, I saw that Piccaccio is
(41:37):
not too long ago. I stillsee them on a fairly regular basis,
from the very first time we metwith them and every subsequent meeting. There
is so much heartbreak and pain andanger and frustration over how long it is
taking for this case to go tocourt, how long it took to get
(42:00):
charges filed against Michael Guardulo, howlong it took to get people to listen
to them, how long it's takennow to get through the trials in California.
Every single meeting I've ever had withthem in person or on the phone.
It isn't just the pain and sufferingof the parents of a murdered child.
(42:23):
It is the anger and the frustrationthat they have had to wait so
long for movement in their case,and the pain was so real. And
you've seen in the forty eight Hourspiece. I believe that Diane said that
at one point in the early twothousands, she was still going into see
(42:46):
investigators every week to remind them we'restill here, but Tricia's not, and
that at one point someone said toher one of the investigators, there's something
wrong with you and you need toseek how I just can't imagine you're going
through the loss of your child.You found your child in this horrible state,
(43:07):
and you're now being told by thepeople who are tasked with helping you
find justice that we're just not surethis case will ever be solved and you
should probably seek additional counseling. Sothat's something that comes up every single time
I speak with her. It isstill very real for her thirty years later.
(43:27):
What happened after the special aired,so the piece finally airs. I
mean, it wasn't just Cook Countythat was reluctant to work with us.
We had a hard time getting oursenior staff on board with this case because
there was no clear outcome for itthere. They didn't know if there were
ever going to be charges in theTrisha Occaccio case, and we didn't know
(43:51):
when he would go to court inCalifornia on the three cases there, So
we all had this is a case. It took a herculean effort on every
possible level to get it moving forward. So it finally airs three years,
almost three years after we first metthe Piccaccios, and we pitched Doug and
I pitched the story to our seniorstaff at forty eight hours. It airs
(44:13):
in May of twenty eleven, andone minute after the show ended, I
got an email from AOL patch whichI had done an interview with earlier in
the week, that there was somebodywho had responded and said, Hey,
we're going to forward you a viewercomment, a reader comment, and we
think it's important, but we're handingit off to you. And it was
(44:37):
from a gentleman who said that hehad pertinent information that Guardjulo had confessed to
him and he couldn't get anyone incook Counting or anywhere else to listen and
he was also he seemed grief strickenthrough the email that he and I then
started emailing back and forth later thatevening that he didn't realize there were these
(44:59):
other cases hanging out there. SoI got on the phone with Tim or
Leary the next morning. We hada long conversation about how we knew Michael
when he first heard what Michael hadsaid to him when he first heard it,
who he had told who else wasin the car with him, and
that was Anthony di Lorenzo, andhow many times Garjulo had said something to
(45:22):
this effect to him. I hungup the phone called my producer, Doug,
and I said, so, Iknow what we normally would do would
be to jump up and down andsay, hey, we got to get
this guy on TV. But becausewe knew how long the Picaccios had waited,
the two of us decided that journalistically, ethically, the right thing to
(45:45):
do was to go to a sourcethat Doug had within Cook County Sheriff's Department
and say, we want to connectyou with somebody. We'll do our interview,
but it's important that you know thisperson is out there, and also
we want to know did you knowthis person was out there. So immediately
we put Teamer in connection with CookCounty Sheriff's Department, which is different than
(46:07):
the Cook County State's Attorney's office.These are two separate entities, and our
connection and our belief that Cook CountySheriff's Department would do something with the information,
we felt better about going to them, And then they brought Teamer,
and I don't know when Anthony camein, but I know Teamer was brought
into Chicago within a few days andthen sat down with investigators and eventually a
(46:32):
grand jury was brought in, andmaybe it was six weeks later that the
charges were filed. On July seventh, twenty eleven, then Cook County State
Attorney Anita Alvarez announced the new evidencethat emerged after the forty eight hour episode,
coupled with the DNA, gave themsufficient evidence to finally charge Michael Garzulo
(46:58):
with Tricia Paccaccio murder. This isalmost twenty years since Tricia Boccaccio was killed
in nineteen ninety three and seven yearssince Cook County decided not to prosecute him
with the DNA evidence in two thousandand three. In the US, there
(47:20):
is no statue of limitations on murder, so if someone kills someone and thirty
years go by, someone can stillbe charged with the crime. Tricia Boccaccio's
family waited almost twenty years for MichaelGuardulo to be charged with the crime.
(47:45):
Can you imagine being a family andnot knowing for almost twenty years who did
this to your own child? Butnow they would potentially get some sense of
justice. In our final two episodes, we revisit the trial of the murder
(48:06):
of Ashley Elrend Maria Bruno and theattempted murder of Michelle Murphy, where Michael
Garjula would face a possible death penaltyand finally come face to face with the
victims' families. I'm Kelly Hymen,and this is once upon a crime in
Hollywood, the Hollywood Ripper.
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