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The Boy Next Door Killer

July 29, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the deaths of four women all from one killer notoriously named The Boy Next Door Killer.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

I'm the husband

Thank you for being here, thank you for listening. We love this community, we love you guys. We love true crime. Well, I do. Garrett obviously still hates it.

I hate it, but I'm here with you guys, supporting it, listening to it, understanding it, not understanding it, reacting to it. I'm here.

You guys, if you are watching on YouTube, can you please give this video a thumbs up and drop a comment? It helps the algorithm. And if you are listening on a podcast and can leave us a review, that would be absolutely wonderful. If not, we are just happy you are here, and we are going to start this episode off by getting into Garrett's 10 seconds. So, Garrett, take it away.

As well, if you are on Spotify or Apple, please follow. There should be like a follow button somewhere. Please follow us on those channels, it makes a big difference too.

In 10 seconds, I guess it's kind of a... it could be a controversial 10 seconds. Um, I feel like I missed my hot takes a little bit. I feel like those have been away for a second, so I got a hot take for everybody, and it might ruffle some feathers.

Again, these are Garrett's opinions, no one else's.

Mine only. They should be everyone's opinions, but I'm trying to figure out how to explain this in a way that makes sense, and I'm probably going to mess up a little bit. So take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt.

I don't understand how you can go... gosh, I can't even say it because it's coming out of my mouth and I already know people are fuming. I don't understand how you can go out to a restaurant. I'm not talking about Chipotle, I'm not talking about Wendy's, I'm not talking about McDonald's. I'm talking about we go out to, um, let's say Texas Roadhouse, we go out to Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory. Okay, Cheesecake Factory, that's a good one. We go to Cheesecake Factory, and you don't tip, man. And you don't tip.

Look, I get it. I'm not a tipper at the coffee stores. So I'm not—okay, that's not true. I guess Dutch Bros doesn't really count because we have automatic tipping on, it's like a buck. But I figure, you know what, I can afford to pay that buck, so I'm going to do it. But overall, no, I'm not tipping at Chipotle, I'm not tipping at Wendy's, I'm not tipping at McDonald's. I'm talking about at a restaurant where a server is serving you, where they are helping you, where they're filling your waters, they're bringing you things you're asking for. There are a lot of people I've come to find out that just don't tip.

And overall, my hot take is this: be as mad as you want. Don't go out to Cheesecake Factory or a restaurant if you can't tip them. Just don't. It's part of the process.

Payton's real quiet over here, so it's making me really nervous.

And that's how I feel about that. I just—maybe it's a personal opinion. I just know that also those people are working hard, they need to be paid too, they need to make their money because they don't make a ton of money from hourly. They count on their tips. And I think I enjoy tipping. I like tipping people if I can financially afford it and things are going well.

That's my hot take. I love you all. If you don't tip, it's okay. I'm not mad at you. I am not a server, so I will never be mad at you.

What? No, you stand with servers. Those are my thoughts. I love you all. We'll take that as my 10 seconds this week. Let me know in the comments, let me know on YouTube, let me know on Instagram. Go ahead and send me a DM, pissed off at me if you want. It doesn't mean you need to stop listening to the show. It's just a little bit of opinion, and let's hop into today's case.

Our sources for this episode are the US Sun, AP News, Fox News, All That's Interesting, BBC, CBS News, Oxygen, and USA Today.

Alright you guys, today's case is a true Hollywood story because the thing about Los Angeles is that it's a huge city full of all kinds of people. You could honestly meet just about anyone there: celebrities, tourists, multi-generational residents, newcomers with big dreams, bitter people whose hearts have been broken, and of course, serial killers.

So I'm going to start by telling you about a young woman named Ashley Ellerin. She grew up in New Jersey, but she was a California girl at heart. In fact, her family was from Northern California, and that's where she was born. But then they all moved when she was young. Well, even though Ashley was the new girl in school in New Jersey, she was effortlessly cool. She was a lot of fun, she was easygoing, and she got along with everyone.

When they all eventually moved back to California again midway through high school, Ashley honestly rolled with the punches. It's not easy to start over in a new place when you're 15, but Ashley had a knack for knowing where the big parties and get-togethers were and showing up wherever things were happening. So even though she moved and she's the new girl, she came in hot. She was a popular party girl in California who dreamed of becoming a fashion designer one day.

When she actually got accepted into a fashion design program in Los Angeles, she moved there to try and make her big dreams come true. By this time, Ashley was now 22 years old and still a very social person. She enjoyed going out to bars, hooking up with guys, and having fun. She also dabbled with different drugs and talked about it openly with her friends. But I want to be clear: the people who knew Ashley didn't think she was partying to excess. I'm describing her personality, but it's not like everyone thought she had a problem. She wasn't doing anything especially dangerous or worrisome. She just was in her 20s and liked to have a good time. She wasn't doing anything that everyone else around her wasn't already doing, and she seemed healthy and happy. I mean, in a way, she was kind of living her best life.

So one night around Christmas of 2000—I mean, to be in the 2000s, living in LA, fashion designing, partying—I mean, that kind of is the life, right? Iconic. So Ashley meets a man at a party, and she's only been in LA for a few months at this point. But Ashley was really good at meeting new people and striking up conversations with strangers. This new man was a 23-year-old aspiring actor. You're going to run into these everywhere in LA, and even though he hadn't been cast in any major film roles yet...

He had big dreams about becoming a movie star, and he introduced himself as Ashton Kutcher.

Yes, what the freak, that Ashton Kutcher. So Ashley, in 2000, meets Ashton Kutcher before Ashton Kutcher is Ashton Kutcher. Dude, Ashton Kutcher has some good movies, man. I mean, he'd eventually go on to star in Dude, Where's My Car, The Butterfly Effect, That 70s Show, but at that time, Ashton hadn't got his big break yet. He was starring in a sitcom called That 70s Show, but it was actually going to take a while to transition from being regarded as a TV actor to an A-list celebrity. So he is right at the beginning of his career, and he and Ashley were just two dreamers who met that night with a lot of aspirations.

They had a lot of other things in common too, and right off the bat, Ashton and Ashley clicked. They just got each other. However, Ashton Kutcher had a girlfriend at the time, and he actually offered to set Ashley up with one of his friends. Ashley actually ends up dating that guy for a while before they break up, and Ashton also broke up with his girlfriend not too long after this party.

So through those short-lived relationships, Ashley and Ashton actually stay in touch with one another. They're friends, they like each other, and finally, in early February of 2001, Ashley and Ashton Kutcher officially begin dating.

Okay, so by the 21st of February, Ashley and Ashton had been together for a little under one month, and that evening, Ashton had promised to take Ashley to a Grammy's afterparty. So they made plans for him to pick her up at her house at a specific time, but it sounds like Ashton overestimated how quickly he'd be able to get to her place. By 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., he was running late, so he called Ashley to tell her that he was still on his way and he'd be there soon. She was like, "Don't worry, it's been a busy day for me too." Her father had actually come down to LA from Northern California earlier that day, and she'd been playing hostess and taking care of other things, and now she's running late to this Grammy's afterparty as well. So Ashley assured Ashton that she had just gotten out of the shower and still had to put the finishing touches on her hair and makeup. There was no need for him to rush.

Everything seemed good between them, at least for the moment, except as it turned out, Ashton wasn't just running a little late. It actually was going to take him two more hours to get to Ashley's house.

What?

So at around 10:15 p.m., he called her again to say he was so sorry, he was still on his way, and he'd be there soon.

Wait, how do you...? Ask Ashton, not me. How do you underestimate that much, man? I mean, I'm sure he was just out doing whatever he wanted. It was late. If you know Payton and I, we do not like being late to things. I don't think Mr. Kutcher cared, obviously. Come on, Mr. Kutcher.

So two hours later, he tries to call Ashley to say, "Hey, I'm sorry. I'm coming, I promise." At least that's what he wanted to say to her, but Ashley doesn't pick up the phone. When he went to her voicemail, Ashton just hung up and tried calling her back again. And then again, because they have plans. But it seemed like she was, I guess, screening his calls. She didn't want to talk to him because she was so mad that he literally stood her up for two hours.

So when he finally gets to her house at 10:45, he goes to her front door, he knocks, and he waits. But Ashley didn’t come to answer. Her car was still in the driveway, so it’s not like she made other plans or went to the party without him. Ashton figured she had to be inside the house; she must just be too angry to come out and see him. But he didn’t want to just leave if she was really that upset. I mean, this is his girlfriend, and they’ve only been dating for a month. So he tries turning the doorknob to Ashley’s house, and it’s locked.

So he couldn’t reach Ashley on the phone, he couldn’t get her to answer the door, and now he didn’t know what to do to make this right. He even peered through a window to see if he could spot her and get her attention, but he didn’t see Ashley. All he saw was a big red stain on the floor in Ashley’s home.

I can’t believe I have not heard of this before. I’m sure you already know what the red stain is based on what the title of this podcast is: Kool-Aid. Ashton assumed it’s wine, and he knew Ashley had thrown a party at her home a few days before. It wasn’t unusual for these things to get rowdy, so he’s like, okay, someone just spilled wine on the floor. Like, he doesn’t even give it a second thought.

Yeah, because, I mean, in all reality, you’re not thinking that.

Exactly. The last thing you’re thinking is, oh, that’s a pool of blood, and my girlfriend is dead. Right. So he assumed that if Ashley was really that committed to avoiding him, there wasn’t anything else he could do. He told himself, okay, I just screwed up tonight; there’s no point in sticking around and making her angrier by bothering her. So Ashton Kutcher goes home.

Okay, now Ashton didn’t talk to Ashley again for the rest of the night, and neither did Ashley’s roommate, a girl named Jennifer Disisto, who was out and about until early the next morning. So she was already out; she wasn’t there for any of this, and then she comes home the next morning. When she got home, she headed straight toward the bathroom, and that’s when she saw her roommate Ashley lying on the ground. She was on the floor in the hallway right in front of the bathroom door.

Now Ashley didn’t move or react to Jennifer at all when she walked in, and at first Jennifer was like, okay, she’s got to be playing a joke, like she’s playing dead or passed out or whatever. She thinks that her roommate Ashley is just lying motionless on the ground to scare her. But when Jennifer gets closer, she sees the way that there’s blood caking Ashley’s hair and the top of her head. This is when Jennifer is like, oh wait, yeah, this is bad; Ashley is dead.

So right away, Jennifer called the police, who came over to examine the scene. They noted from the way Ashley was positioned, it didn’t seem likely that she’d fallen that way in front of the bathroom door. Instead, the police immediately think that she has been murdered and that her killer murdered her as she was stepping out of the shower in the bathroom.

Oh my gosh. And then posed her body outside of the bathroom like that? There are so many details to this that I want to ask, but I’m going to save some of it.

And I have to say, police aren’t just like, oh, it’s because she’s posed; that’s why we think this is this way. It’s because Ashley died in a pretty gruesome way.

This murder seemed very sadistic. It wasn't enough to kill Ashley; they also wanted to traumatize whoever found her remains because Ashley had been stabbed 47 times. Oh my gosh. She had defensive wounds suggesting that she had tried to fight her killer off, unsuccessfully, obviously.

I'm curious if anyone else has heard of this because did you? Have you heard of this before you started researching it? Which is insane because Ashton Kutcher is Ashton Kutcher. It's not like it's... no, like it's Garrett Moreland up there.

But he's known for more than just having a girlfriend who was murdered, which is probably why you know of him for other things.

True. But I'm surprised it didn't derail his career. Right. And keep him off "That 70s Show" and stuff. I'm sure we'll get into it a little bit, but that's really surprising.

Um, it was also clear that Ashley had been tortured in her final minutes, like it was a very brutal attack. Her murderer did not just want Ashley to die; they wanted her to suffer. Even the homicide detectives were deeply disturbed by the state of her body. It was one of the goriest crimes they'd ever investigated. There was no indication of sexual assault, but the murder was still unusually brutal. The detectives could only conclude that the killer had really hated Ashley; like, this was personal. This was no random crime. She had been targeted.

So from there, it was only a matter of time until Ashley's murder was all over the news in Los Angeles. In fact, that's how Ashton Kutcher learned that Ashley was dead. Okay. Nobody had called him to explain what was going on. He had just turned on the TV or the radio and heard a report on how this woman that he'd been seeing had been killed in her house the night he was supposed to pick her up for a party.

So this was also the first time he realized that she wasn't just ignoring him. Because remember, he thought she was in there ignoring him, and now dead, killed. This had to be devastating news to him. And it also doesn't take long for Ashton to start to panic a little because he remembers trying, touching the doorknob to see if he could get in the house. He's like, my fingerprints are on that door. He's worried he might be blamed for what had happened. So right away, before he did anything else, Ashton Kutcher voluntarily goes to the police station. He walks in; he's like, listen, I was dating that girl. I went there to pick her up that night. This is what I saw. This is what I touched. Um, he's like, listen, I'm innocent, but I was also a part of her life.

Now, the good news for Ashton was that the police weren't even considering him as a suspect. They had actually already talked to Ashley's other friends and family members. I was going to ask that. They had managed to rule out quite a few suspects pretty early on. In fact, it's probably good he never went inside the house.

Yeah, one because he would have been a suspect instantly, and two, he probably would have been all over the news to the point that his career could have gotten derailed. But I mean, that's not to say honestly that it matters when someone killed Ashley. Just kind of side note thoughts.

So, there were no signs of forced entry in Ashley's house. So, the police initially thought it was either someone who knew Ashley or someone who had a copy of her key. They questioned her landlord extensively, then decided he wasn't the killer. But a bunch of Ashley's friends mentioned a strange new man who had come into her life recently, and it wasn't Ashton, which is why they don't really suspect him. They immediately suspect this other person. He'd given a lot of people a pretty bad vibe even before Ashley's murder.

The problem was nobody knew him very well, and nobody knew his last name. They could only tell the police that there was this guy named Mike and that he worked as an air conditioner and heater repairman and that he had kind of been around Ashley and given her a bad vibe. Now, since Mike is such a common name, this didn't really narrow down the suspect list.

But here's what the police did know: there was one day that Ashley got a flat tire and she was parked right in front of her house. She was trying to change it when Mike pulled up to help her, and in the moment she thought he was just a Good Samaritan who was offering a hand during her time of need. But once the tire was changed out, Mike didn't move on the way that you'd expect. Now that he knew where Ashley lived, he kind of started dropping by all the time, like just for unplanned visits. Sometimes he seemed like he was just trying to be helpful, asking her if she needed anything, if there was anything that needed fixing, or if she needed him to check her appliances. Other times he was like, do you just want to hang out? Maybe go on a date?

Ashley actually would let him in her house. Okay. A lot of her friends thought this whole dynamic was very, very weird because Ashley was 22 and Mike was 32, so he was 10 years older than her. They really didn't seem to have anything in common. There was no reason for this older man to take such an interest in her. But Ashley brushed off their concerns. She wasn't really the sort of person to feel suspicious. Like she was like, okay, yeah, he kind of keeps coming around, but she was just kind of friendly with everybody. Yeah, she was just a friendly girl. She thought Mike was a bit of an oddball but honestly harmless. A few people even told Ashley that it seemed like Mike might be stalking her. He kept showing up at her house, and neighbors had noticed him parked outside just sitting in his car for periods of time, like he was waiting to see if she was coming or going. He also frequently took his dog to a dog park that just happened to be across the street from Ashley's house. On its own, this wouldn't be that weird, but along with all the other strange behavior, it felt like Mike was only going to that dog park so he would have an excuse to be near Ashley.

Plus, Ashley had recently thrown a party for her 22nd birthday, and Mike showed up even though she hadn't invited him. All through the event, he just never took his eyes off her, which obviously struck her friends as strange. It was obvious enough that multiple people noticed how he was acting and would later talk to the police about it. They mentioned how they didn't really know Mike but noticed his strange behavior at the party. However, Ashley still wasn't worried. She thought Mike was just a friend, and that was that.

Except now, Ashley was dead, and Mike was no longer dropping around the house. He was no longer walking his dog at the dog park. All these witnesses who were talking to the police were pretty sure that he lived somewhere nearby because he was always around. But they didn't know his exact address or anything that would help investigators figure out who he was. He'd often been spotted out and about, but as soon as Ashley turned up dead, he was no longer around. Nobody had seen any trace of him.

Needless to say, Mike was coming across as extremely suspicious. With all this witness testimony, the police had a pretty good idea of how the murder may have played out. Mike might have come over to Ashley's house early that evening, and if he knocked on her door, Ashley would have let him in because she knew him. He dropped by all the time, and she didn't think she had any reason to be afraid of him. As for what happened next, the detectives had two theories: One, Mike told Ashley that he had feelings for her, she rejected him, and he flew into a rage and murdered her. This isn't that rare of a possibility. Two, Mike killed Ashley because he was jealous when he overheard her talking to Ashton on the phone.

There was a bit of evidence to support the second theory. At around 8:30 p.m. on the night of February 21st, one of Ashley's neighbors was out walking his dog and heard two screams coming from the direction of Ashley's house right around that time. Assuming those screams were Ashley being murdered, that would put the crime roughly just 5 minutes after Ashton called the first time to tell her he was running late. During that call, Ashley had sounded normal and fine, so clearly something had to have gone wrong rather quickly right after she hung up. A sudden jealous rage could fit the timeline.

The police had a pretty good idea of the killer's motives if Mike was the killer, but they still didn't really know who Mike was other than his first name, job title, and the rumors that maybe he lived somewhere nearby. They didn't have any real way of finding him. And to make matters worse, the killer hadn't left any physical evidence at the crime scene. There were no fingerprints, no hairs, no DNA. So even with all of this witness testimony about Mike, the police were essentially at a dead end. They wouldn't be able to identify the murderer until he struck again.

Years later, in 2008, on the night of April 28th, Michelle Murphy was sleeping peacefully in her bed when she suddenly woke up to a sharp pain in her chest, shoulder, and right arm. She opened her eyes to find a man on top of her in the middle of the night, and he was stabbing her. Amazingly, even though she'd been fully asleep just seconds earlier, Michelle managed to fight off her attacker. While they were wrestling, the man got injured and started bleeding all over Michelle's bed. He immediately took off, but not before Michelle managed to kick him off the bed, sending him flying. The man ran out of Michelle's bedroom, leaving a trail of his blood behind him that led all the way to her front porch.

Even though she was injured and very shaken, Michelle ran after the man. He kept shouting, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as he sprinted away. Once the man got out the front door, Michelle decided not to pursue him any further. Instead, she called her boyfriend to tell him what had happened. In her shock and panic, she wasn't thinking clearly and didn't call the police right away. Her boyfriend urged her to call 911, which she did.

When the police arrived, they saw that one of the windows in Michelle's home had been pried open from the outside—this was how the man had gotten in. They gathered the blood evidence and tested the DNA, which came up as a hit. The man who'd stabbed Michelle had been a suspect in other serious violent crimes before, and his name was Michael Gargiulo.

Before he broke into Michelle's home and tried to stab her to death, he had been stalking her, just like how Mike had been stalking Ashley before her murder. The difference was that Michelle had no idea who Michael was. It seems at this point he was very good at following her around and covering his trail. She hadn't even realized he was there. Michelle didn't recognize him at all during the violent knife attack, but now she'd never forget the face of the man who stabbed her. Between her testimony and the DNA evidence, the police were ready to charge Michael Gargiulo with the attempted murder of Michelle Murphy.

But before I move on, I do want to touch on that other violent crime that Michael had been a suspect in because it wasn't Ashley's murder. They haven't put the two together. It was another open case from four and a half years after Ashley's death.

So, back in 2005, in the fall of that year, Maria Bruno was 32 years old and she had four children. She'd recently moved to the Los Angeles area, specifically to the city of Santa Monica, after separating from her husband. She had some concerns about safety and she specifically picked out her apartment building because it seemed pretty secure. Unfortunately, it was the same building where Michael lived. Literally, their front doors faced each other from opposite sides of the courtyard.

In a pattern that should be becoming clear now, he quickly became fixated on her. Even her neighbors and friends noticed the way he always seemed to be watching when she came and went. We have like a literal Joe from You. Did he have a type, or was it just any girl he would just become fixated on? Okay, and that's who he would stalk. Like, I'm literally saying Joe from You. So, he was keeping tabs on her, and I think it's worth noting that this obsession grew very rapidly because Maria only lived in that apartment for 10 days before he killed her.

On the night of December 1st, someone broke into Maria's apartment. They climbed in through her kitchen window, crept into her bedroom, and stabbed her to death in her sleep and then eventually slit her throat.

In total, she was slashed 17 times. And like Ashley, Maria was also tortured after her death. Her body was mutilated. Her murderer actually cut out her breast implants.

What the freak, dude?

So, he cut her breast implants out of her body. I probably should have given a trigger warning there because that was a pretty gruesome detail. Luckily, her children weren't home with her that night. They were staying with their father, who found Maria's remains the next time he came over.

Oh my gosh, that's again... The killer had left almost no physical evidence, but investigators did find a blue plastic booty. It was a surgical slipper, which medical professionals wear in sterile environments. Lots of people in Maria's neighborhood had seen Michael wearing those exact surgical slippers before. But on its own, it wasn't enough to prove that Michael had done it.

In fact, the police found a drop of blood on the slipper, but it was Maria's, not Michael's. So, the detectives considered Michael a suspect right away, but they couldn't act because all of the evidence was circumstantial. That's one reason that it was such a big deal later on when Michelle survived and was able to injure and then identify Michael.

Now, the police could identify a clear pattern. They also knew that Michael lived near Ashley before she was killed, just one block away from her. At the time, he was the air conditioner and heater repairman who all of her friends thought was stalking her. This was the man they knew as Mike. He also lived near Maria and stalked her before her murder. And then the same was true for Michelle; they were neighbors, and like I mentioned before, he'd been stalking her in the lead-up to the attack.

So, he has a clear pattern: a serial killer. They know who he is, they know what he looks like, they know what he's doing, and so on and so forth. Plus, all three of those crimes involved getting into the victim's home late at night and stabbing them. In fact, the police could tell from their injuries that they'd all been stabbed by someone who was left-handed. For the record, Michael is left-handed.

It's also brutal that he does it by just stabbing them over and over again. Yes, again, so intimate. So even though the police couldn't find any DNA or fingerprints to put Michael at the scene of Maria or Ashley's murders, they had a lot of circumstantial evidence that implicated him. I mean, he lived near both women, he was a stalker, and the investigation didn't end there. Once they began looking into Michael, they discovered he was linked to another murder.

We're on number four, but this one is the earliest one. This was from back in 1993 when he lived in Illinois. Okay, so there are some gaps between this one. Allegedly, during that time, 17-year-old Michael became obsessed with an 18-year-old girl named Trisha Picachio. He reportedly stalked her and showed up at her house uninvited to give her little gifts that she hadn't asked for. So, I mean, he's a teenager at this time.

Then, on the night of August 13th, Trisha went out with some friends. She was well-liked and known for being driven, ambitious, and outgoing. That night, she stayed out very late, hitting a party and then going on a scavenger hunt before getting a very early morning dinner just before the sun came up. It was the summer after her high school graduation and probably her last hurrah before she moved on to the next stage of her life. She was going to begin her freshman year of college just a few days later. At least, that was the plan.

But her life was sadly very, very short and she never got to attend a single class at university because when she got home early the next morning, she didn't even make it inside her house. She was on the front porch when someone stabbed her to death and the killer just left her there.

So, I was going to say, did he sexually assault any of these girls or did he just kill them? Just killed them. That's really weird. So, that means he was getting off by just stabbing these girls and that's what the violence was? Yes, that's what intrigued him, which is disturbing. Very disturbing. I mean, it's disturbing either way. Disturbing either way, but it's just interesting in its own way, I guess. The psychology behind that.

So, her father actually found her body when he was going out to his van later that morning. Coming out of their house, their family home, he comes across his daughter, who is stabbed to death. He tries to perform CPR. She's long gone. She's been dead. Once the family called 911, the police quickly declared her dead and began investigating her murder. But at first, they didn't give Michael a second look, not until his strange behavior caught their attention.

At some point after the murder, he invited himself over to Trisha's house like he had so many times before. But this time, he told Trisha's father he had something to tell him. He sat down at the kitchen table and he sat there just silent, like he couldn't bring himself to say whatever he wanted to tell her dad. Eventually, Trisha's father couldn't wait anymore, so he told Michael to leave. Like, goodbye, go about your business. And it was the last time he ever spoke to Michael.

He skipped town right afterward, moving to Los Angeles. As for the police investigation, they determined that Trisha might have tried to fight her killer off. While genetic technology wasn't very reliable in 1993, years later the police were able to test some DNA they found under Trisha's fingernails, and it was Michael's.

Which you then have to think about her father, sitting there with him after all that. I can't imagine.

So the police learned this in 2003, but as you recall, Michael keeps murdering up until 2008. So, what happens here? Michael wasn't charged with Trisha's murder for eight more years. The reason for that was that even though the DNA was under Trisha's fingernails, they couldn't prove that it was related to the murder. They had no other evidence. They said it could be a coincidence; they knew each other, and she might have accidentally scratched Michael during that scavenger hunt the night of her murder. He was a classmate, and he may have been hanging out with her. The DNA evidence just wasn't strong enough to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But after Michael was linked to the other attacks in LA, the Illinois prosecutors felt much better about charging him with Trisha's murder too.

It's also worth mentioning that Michael had one other potential victim whose identity hasn't been made public. This woman briefly dated Michael, and when they broke up, he stalked her. She filed a restraining order, and thankfully he left her alone. But unlike the others, Michael never made any attempts on her life, or at least none that was reported in the news. Again, you can see the pattern of behavior here. Even one that he dated, he ended up stalking. All four of those women who have been identified—Trisha, Ashley, Maria, and Michelle—lived really close to him, often on the same block, which is part of why Michael became known as "The Boy Next Door Killer." That became his serial killer name.

With all of this evidence, the Los Angeles police arrested him on June 6th, 2018, and they charged him with two counts of murder for Ashley and Maria and one count of attempted murder for Michelle. Since Trisha was killed in a different state, that trial would obviously be separate. Just to be clear, there are four known victims of Michael.

So his California hearing hit a lot of delays and bumps, but it finally began in the summer of 2019. I'm sure this isn't a surprise at all, but Michael tried to argue he was innocent. He said he had nothing to do with Ashley and Maria's murders. It was just a complete coincidence that he was stalking them before they were killed in the exact same way. As for his attack on Michelle, he couldn't as easily say, "I didn't do that." She had seen his face; there was blood. According to Michael, that night he claimed that he slipped into a weird mental state, and he didn't remember the evening at all. He had no control over his actions and accidentally stabbed her while he was in that state.

So according to him, it wasn't his fault. The jury doesn't buy it. They find Michael guilty of both the murders and the attempted murder. Usually, after a conviction, the sentencing hearing happens pretty soon. But let me lay out the timeline here: Michael's trial was in the summer of 2019. He was supposed to be sentenced in early 2020. COVID hits, throws a wrench in these plans. COVID really messed up a lot of legal obligations that were supposed to happen but never did, especially with crimes, and that sucks. It took two more years until 2021 for Michael to find out what his punishment would be. That's when he learned he was sentenced to death.

That wasn't the end of his legal troubles. As of this recording, Michael's trial for Trisha's murder is still pending. Sometime in the future, he will get extradited back to Illinois to face those charges as well. Of all of Michael's victims, Ashley's murder seemed to dominate the news coverage in a way none of the others did. It's not hard to see why: she was dating Ashton Kutcher at the time of her murder. There was a Hollywood celebrity connection that made Ashley's death feel more newsworthy.

And yeah, media runs with it, that's what happens. But there are at least three other victims—two confirmed, one alleged. Could there be more? Probably. We have no idea. Ashley had a life and dreams of her own, and she probably wouldn't want to be defined by who she dated for one month before her death. She had plenty of friends and family members who loved her and who knew her for years and who are still mourning her passing. Trisha and Maria deserve to have their stories told too. Plus, even though Michelle survived, she is a victim as well. The trauma of her attack has followed her.

During Michael's sentencing hearing in 2021, she testified that all these years later, she still cannot sleep through the night if she is home alone. She is too terrified that something will happen to her again. She, Maria, and Trisha were all full people with a lot to offer the world. They weren't just footnotes in Ashley's story, but some of the coverage has kind of treated them that way.

Which brings me back to the theme that opened up this episode: when you're in a big city like Los Angeles, you never know what kinds of people you're going to meet. You don't know how you'll be perceived either. Maybe you'll make it big and become a star, or you'll spend your days as a faceless part of the crowd. But no matter what you do, other people will make assumptions about you, pin their hopes and dreams on you, and try to fit you into a narrative that may or may not be true.

So that is the story of Ashley, Maria, Michelle, and Trisha.

Like you said, because of how high-profile Ashton Kutcher is, I'm surprised that I've never heard about this before. Also, four people—there are just so many serial killers in LA. Can we stop killing people, please?

Well, one survived, but she would have died. It's true, but come on, man. Like I said, I think it's weird that he just killed them and got off on killing them and then that was it. He got off obviously on stalking and killing them since he was 17 years old. So sad, messed up, and horrible.

All right, you guys, that is our episode for today. We will see you next time with another one. I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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