Actor Ashton Kutcher was in court giving evidence at the trial of alleged serial killer Michael Gargiulo who has been given the name of the ‘Hollywood Ripper’
Kutcher, told the court that he had planned to go on a date with design student Ashley Ellerin on 22 February 2001, but when he turned up to her apartment to pick her up just a couple of hours later, he found the door was locked and the lights were on.
Looking through the window, Kutcher said he saw “what I thought was a red wine spilt on the carpet” but that “It wasn’t alarming because I went to her house party and it was like a college party,” he said. “I didn’t think much about it”.
He said: “I knocked on the door. There was no answer. Knocked again. And once again, no answer.”
“At this point, I pretty well assumed she had left for the night, and that I was late, and she was upset.”
The next day Ellerin was found dead at her home by a roommate. According to investigators, she had been stabbed at least 47 times.
He added: “I remember the next day after I heard about what happened, I went to the detectives and said ‘my fingerprints are on the door’. I was freaking out.”
Police reports claim that she was attacked and murdered not long after getting off the phone with Kutcher that night, and it was believed she had been attacked from behind after leaving the shower.
He has been charged with the murder of two women between 2001 and 2005, and prosecutors in Los Angeles are seeking the death penalty for Gargiulo, who was arrested in 2008 and has pleaded not guilty to his charges.
