It isn’t so much that the former A list actor/supporter of serial rapists killed his ex-girlfriend it is that after he walked in and saw her dead, he went back outside and talked to his manager for an hour before reporting anything.

He was supposed to have taken her out that night, but just liked using her for hookups so told her he would be over later for that.

Ashton Kutcher
supporting: Danny Masterson

Ashley Ellerin

Ashley Ellerin, a 22-year-old fashion student from North California, was tragically murdered 18 years ago on February 21, 2001, just before her scheduled date with Ashton Kutcher. She was brutally stabbed 47 times in her Los Angeles apartment, where Kutcher was supposed to pick her up for a post-Grammys party.

It was suspected that Ashley had a stalker, as her alleged killer, Michael Gargiulo, had been showing up unannounced at her apartment and offering to fix things around the house.

Ashley had encountered Gargiulo when she sought assistance with a flat tire. Gargiulo, also known as the “Hollywood Ripper,” was later sentenced to death for the murders of two women, one of whom was Ashton Kutcher’s then-girlfriend, Ashley Ellerin.

Kutcher arrived late for a date in 2001, unaware she lay dead in her home. The actor told an LA courtroom that there was no answer when he knocked Ashley Ellerin’s door, only to learn she was dead inside.

Ellerin’s body, lying just outside the entrance to the bathroom, wasn’t found until about 9 a.m. the next day, when her roommate, Jennifer Disisto, returned to the rented bungalow they shared on Pinehurst Road in Hollywood.

Michael Gargiulo is currently serving time on death row in California’s San Quentin State Prison. The death penalty was delivered after a Los Angeles jury convicted Gargiulo in August 2019 of murdering Maria Bruno and Ashley Ellerin.

During the trial, the actor testified that when he arrived at Ashley’s home for their date, she didn’t respond when he knocked on the door. He assumed she had left for the night and was upset due to his lateness. Before leaving, he glanced through the windows and noticed a stain on the floor, which he initially thought was red wine, not finding it alarming since he had attended a party at her house days earlier.


Gargiulo is a native of the Chicago suburb of Glenview, Illinois, where he may have stabbed his neighbor, 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio, to death on her back doorstep. Her father found her body the next morning on August 14, 1993. Gargiulo moved to Los Angeles in 1998, allegedly to escape the scrutiny of the police in Illinois, and committed two murders and an attempted murder in Southern California between 2001 and 2008.

On February 21, 2001, he murdered 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin, stabbing her 47 times in her home in Hollywood. Ellerin’s injuries included a neck wound that nearly severed her head and deep punctures to the chest, stomach, and back. Some of her wounds were up to six inches deep. According to detective Tom Small, one stab wound “actually penetrated the skull and took out a chunk of skull like a puzzle piece.” On the night she was murdered, Ellerin had planned a date including dinner and drinks with actor Ashton Kutcher.

On December 1, 2005, Gargiulo stabbed 32-year-old Maria Bruno, his neighbor, to death at her home in El Monte, California. She was stabbed 17 times.

Gargiulo attempted to murder another neighbor, 26-year-old Michelle Murphy, in her home in Santa Monica on April 28, 2008. She fought off the attack, and blood matching Gargiulo’s DNA was found at the scene. – Source