Hollywood Ripper victims Ashley Ellerin, Tricia Pacaccio and Maria Bruno.Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriff and LAPD
In the early morning hours of August 1993, the body of 18-year-oldTricia Pacacciowas discovered on the stoop of her home in Glenview, Ill. The fun-loving teen was stabbed repeatedly in the breast, chest and arm.
Earlier that evening, Pacaccio had attended a road rally scavenger hunt with her friends. It was a last get-together before they all headed off to college. Pacaccio was bound for Purdue University to study engineering.
Police investigated the grisly murder, but eventually the case went cold.
Kutcher told police that when he showed up at her house between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m., nobody answered when he knocked and the door was locked, despite the fact that the lights inside were on. He assumed she had gone out with friends.
Kutcher told police that before he left, he peered through a front window and saw what he believed were red wine stains on the floor. Those stains were later determined to be blood.
There were no signs of a break-in, which led authorities to believe she most likely knew her killer. Police determined the killer was left-handed — and the investigation into the case is explored onPeople Magazine Investigates: The Hollywood Ripper, airing Monday, April 26, at 10 ET/9 CT on Investigation Discovery and streaming on discovery+. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)
Then, on Dec. 1, 2005, 32-year-old mother of fourMaria Brunowas fatally stabbed in her home, just 10 days after she moved into a gated apartment complex in El Monte, Calif.
Her killer had put on surgical booties, pried a screen loose from her ground-floor kitchen window and then slashed her throat and neck as she slept. After he fled, her killer accidentally left one of the surgical booties behind outside the apartment. A neighbor told police he saw a man wearing a baseball hat and a hoodie who’d been watching Bruno inside her apartment. The man had tried to open her door days before the slaying.
Ashton Kutcher testifies at trial.GENARO MOLINA/AFP/Getty
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Another attack, on April 28, 2008, stunned the city of Santa Monica.Michelle Murphy, 26, woke up to a man stabbing her in the arms and chest as she was sleeping inside her Santa Monica second-floor apartment. Her attacker had climbed onto a railing and then a ledge below her living room window and sliced through the screen with a knife before climbing inside. Murphy, who was stabbed eight times, was able to kick off her attacker, who cut himself during the confrontation and fled, apologizing before he ran out of the apartment.
All four women shared similar traits. They were young, outgoing and had everything going for them.
But, authorities later said, they also shared one deadly thing in common. All four women lived near a man who, authorities would later deem a serial killer. In the intervening years, the man would gain infamy and a chilling nickname: The Hollywood Ripper.
For more on how police connected a series of brutal attack to a serial killer, watch the episode of People Magazine Investigates: The Hollywood Ripper, airing Monday, April 26, at 10 ET/9 CT on Investigation Discovery and streaming on discovery+.
source: people.com
