Ashley | Ep.3

Summary

Mind of a Monster: The Hollywood Ripper – Episode 3: “Ashley”

Podcast: Mind of a Monster
Host: Dr. Michelle Ward
Episode Title: Ashley | Ep.3
Air Date: March 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This chilling episode centers on the brutal 2001 murder of Ashley Ellerin—a case that encapsulates the horrors perpetrated by Michael Gargiulo, known as the Hollywood Ripper. Dr. Michelle Ward reconstructs Ashley’s final hours via interviews with friends, eyewitnesses, law enforcement, and expert psychologists. The episode delves into the aftermath of the crime, the details of the investigation, and takes a probing look at Gargiulo’s childhood, raising questions about the roots of evil. Sensitive content warnings: graphic depictions of violence, trauma, and discussions of abuse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Night of the Murder

• Ashley Ellerin’s Last Hours:

  • Ashton Kutcher arrives at Ashley’s house to pick her up for a Grammys afterparty, but gets no answer at the door. Peering inside, he sees what he thinks is red wine spilled on the floor (02:50).
  • Jen Desisto, Ashley’s housemate, also fails to get a response at the door that night. She assumes nothing is wrong and leaves (03:37).
  • The next morning, Jen discovers Ashley’s body: "She is on the landing, like, covered in blood and blue in the face" (04:30).

• Jen Desisto’s Reaction:

  • Initially in shock, Jen tries to rationalize—considering it a prank (04:57).
  • Upon confirming Ashley is dead, a wave of terror hits, fearing the killer is still present: "I was like sweating and I thought maybe the person was there. And so I just threw the phone against the wall. I ran out and I locked the doors in the car." (06:26)

• Discovery and Police Arrival:

  • Jen calls a friend, Justin, who comes over, then the police are notified. The site becomes a crime scene (07:02-07:12).
  • “You just, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I really did. I'm in such a state of shock and trauma.” – Jen Desisto (07:12)

The Crime Scene & Forensic Details

• Detective Tom Small Arrives:

  • Recalls entering a heavily secured house: "There was every single window and door was barred or steel...So I was trying to figure out how somebody got in there." (09:57)
  • The scene is described as chaotic, with renovation supplies scattered and signs of a struggle. Blood spatter reached up to five feet on the walls, and closet handles were torn out (10:34-11:32).

• Ashley’s Injuries:

  • Detective Small describes Ashley’s wounds in clinical yet grim detail:
    "Her head was...kind of tilted toward her left shoulder. And she had a gaping wound that went from her mid throat all the way to the back." (12:19) "She was virtually decapitated...47 stab wounds and slash wounds." (13:29) "She was hit in the back, up and down her back, center back, shoulders, neck, back of her head...then she's turned, now she's being hit in the front and even on her legs and her hands." (13:29)

• Memorable Quote:

  • "I've seen some bad ones, but this one, this one, I still smell it to this day." – Det. Tom Small (14:30)

• Forensic Oddities:

  • No sign of robbery; valuables and cash untouched.
  • The killer carefully left no blood trail outside: “He must have stowed that knife where it couldn’t drip. And he probably took his shoes off because there should have been blood stains from the shoe print, but there were none.” (20:53-22:18)

• Nature of the Killing:

  • Dr. Ward considers the apparent contradiction: the scene shows both meticulous planning and a frenzied, impulsive attack—a "bizarre hybrid of cold calculation and emotional overkill." (22:18-24:22)

The Aftermath & Impact

• Immediate Trauma:

  • Jen Desisto is deeply scarred, experiencing intense fear and altering her entire life—she never returned to the house. "I was just in a complete...it was really, really bad...I don't think I left the apartment for, like, six months." (26:50-27:15)

• Family Devastation:

  • Ashley’s mother, Cynthia Ellerin, recalls being told of Ashley’s death:
    “He sat me down on the bed and he said, ‘Ashley was mur...mur...murdered.’ And I...I fell to my knees on the floor, screamed...Take it back, take it back, take it back.” (15:17-15:46, 27:48-28:05)

Investigation & Early Suspicions

• Detective Small’s Theory:

  • Early suspicion that the killer might be a serial offender due to the level of overkill:
    "In the back of my mind there was a thought of, well, could this guy might have done it before, maybe he’s a serial killer." (25:19)

• Primary Leads:

  • Detectives painstakingly reconstruct Ashley’s last day and track everyone in her social circle (25:05).
  • They canvass for evidence but no murder weapon is ever found (20:53).

• Michael Gargiulo (“Mike the furnace guy”):

  • At this stage, neither Jen nor Justin suspect Michael Gargiulo.

Psychological Analysis & Gargiulo’s Background

• Why Such Brutality?

  • Dr. Ward explains that such “overkill” usually signals a personal rage or conflicted relationship, which doesn’t quite fit here (17:45-18:38).

• Examining Gargiulo’s Childhood (with Dr. Joan Kaufman):

  • The entire discussion is heavily caveated; all details are from a single psychological assessment for Gargiulo’s defense in 2019, with no external corroboration (29:00-30:51).
  • Allegations include severe abuse such as being hogtied, locked in a closet, denied food, burned, and forced to witness extreme animal torture and sexual violence. These claims are unsubstantiated (both Dr. Ward and Dr. Kaufman repeatedly warn listeners about the lack of evidence) (31:20-46:30).

• Notable Analysis:

  • Dr. Kaufman draws on her own research to explain that child abuse, even at its worst, does not deterministically cause someone to become violent or a killer:
    “There are millions of substantiated cases of abuse every year...and a handful of people end up on that cycle.” (39:31) “The vast majority of people who experience abuse go on to be normal, pro-social members of our society.” – Dr. Michelle Ward (40:16)

Nature vs. Nurture — Can Evil Be Explained?

• Complex Causes:

  • Genetics, environment, trauma, and opportunity all interact; neither an abuse history nor mental illness guarantees a violent outcome.
  • “You’ll never be able to predict it.” – Dr. Joan Kaufman (39:59)

• Clinical Observations:

  • Gargiulo reportedly had no real bond with any family member, which is a risk, but not a guarantee of violence (36:43).
  • Claims of mental illness in the family are again only cited by the defense and not independently confirmed (41:45-42:31).

Unanswered Questions & Series Continuation

• Dr. Ward closes the episode raising critical unknowns: Did Ashley recognize her killer? What accounts for Gargiulo’s uniquely cold yet frenzied MO?
• The investigation proceeds with the killer still at large and detectives struggling to crack the case.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Discovery of the Body:

  • “She is on the landing, like, covered in blood and blue in the face.” – Jen Desisto (04:30)

• On the Site of the Murder:

  • “I still smell it to this day.” – Detective Tom Small (14:30)

• On Parental Grief:

  • "He sat me down on the bed and he said, 'Ashley was mur...murdered.' And I...I fell to my knees on the floor, screamed...Take it back." – Cynthia Ellerin (15:17, 27:48)

• On Trauma Response:

  • “I'm in such a state of shock and trauma. I don't. Yeah, I just. I don't. It's really a blackout for me at that point.” – Jen Desisto (07:12)

• On Abuse and Becoming a Killer:

  • “Do abused children become abusive parents? ...Only 1 in 3. Two out of three break the cycle.” – Dr. Joan Kaufman (38:26)

• On the Limits of Explaining Evil:

  • “You’ll never be able to predict it.” – Dr. Joan Kaufman (39:59)
  • “The vast majority of people who experience abuse go on to be normal, pro-social members of our society.” – Dr. Michelle Ward (40:16)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------| | 02:50 | Ashton Kutcher arrives at Ashley’s house | | 03:37 | Jen Desisto recounts her return that night | | 04:30 | Jen discovers Ashley’s body | | 05:18-06:26 | Jen’s emotional, physical shock and flight | | 09:06 | Det. Tom Small describes arriving at the scene | | 10:31-11:32 | Detailed forensic scene & struggle indicators | | 12:19-13:29 | Ashley’s wounds and forensic insights | | 14:30 | Det. Small: “I still smell it to this day.” | | 15:17 | Ashley’s mother recalls hearing the news | | 17:45-18:38 | Dr. Ward unpacks the idea of overkill | | 22:18-24:22 | Forensic evidence vs. killer’s psychology | | 25:19 | Serial killer suspicions arise | | 26:50-27:15 | Jen Desisto’s long-term trauma | | 27:48 | Cynthia Ellerin on child loss | | 29:58-46:30 | Discussion of Gargiulo’s childhood & psychology (with caveats) | | 39:31-40:16 | Breaking the cycle of abuse—statistics and reality | | 41:45-42:31 | On genetics, family risk, and unpredictability | | 44:08-47:14 | Dissociation/neurological episode in childhood | | 45:52-46:30 | Allegations of animal torture & forced exposure to violence| | 47:14 | Next episode preview—Gargiulo’s behavior patterns |

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Episode Tone & Language

The storytelling is clinical yet empathetic, blending psychological expertise with firsthand recollections and raw emotion. Dr. Ward provides thoughtful context, underscores evidence gaps, and treats both the victim and the question of evil with sensitivity. The tone oscillates between forensic detachment and heartfelt compassion, maintaining respect for both investigative rigor and the families’ suffering.

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Summary

This gripping episode immerses the listener in the horror and aftermath of Ashley Ellerin’s murder by the Hollywood Ripper. Through survivor testimony, forensic detail, and psychological analysis, the podcast illuminates the profound trauma left behind, the painstaking challenges faced by investigators, and the daunting complexity of deciphering what breeds monstrous acts. The episode refuses easy answers, urging caution against simplistic explanations and underscoring the enduring mysteries at the heart of evil.

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If you need a breakdown of a specific segment or wish to focus on any particular thread (the investigation, victim perspective, or forensic psychology), just ask!

Transcript

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[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Hollywood Ripper I think his impulsivity and his rage was starting to peak around that age.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

From ID and Aeromedia I'm criminal psychologist Dr. Michelle Ward, and this is Mind of a Monster the Hollywood Ripper Chapter

[Detective Tom Small]

3 Ashley these killings in Los Angeles wouldn't have happened if he was in prison in Illinois.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I had never, ever felt that type of energy before.

[Detective Tom Small]

It was cold.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

It's 10:45pm on February 21, 2001. Ashton Kutcher is outside Ashley Ellerin's house on Pinehurst Road in Hollywood. The doorbell's broken, so he's knocking hard on the Door. There's no reply. Ashton called Ashley a couple of hours earlier to let her know he was running late. He's taking her to the Grammys after party, but now there's no one home. All of the lights are on inside and peering through the window, he sees the usual mess and what looks like red wine spilled on the floor. He assumes Ashley's annoyed with him for being late and has gone out, so he leaves and goes to the party without her. Earlier that evening, Ashley's housemate Jen Desisto had come home without her keys.

[Jen Desisto]

I went to the door, knocked and knocked and knocked. I really didn't think anything of it. I didn't. I thought she was getting ready or she stepped out and she's coming back or. I just didn't really care because I was like extremely tired from the day and I just wanted to, like, go to sleep really. So I just. I gave up. I knocked for a couple minutes. I didn't really think anything was suspect. I didn't, obviously. Again, in hindsight I wish I had given that more thought, but again, it wasn't striking to me that anything was wrong.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

No, of course not. You knock on a door, somebody doesn't answer. And this is not a period in time when we were all attached to cell phones. We didn't have smartphones.

[Jen Desisto]

1000% so. Exactly.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

So you've left your keys at your boyfriend's house and then the next morning you wake up, you have your keys. What happens?

[Jen Desisto]

Yes, I wake up, I have the keys, everything's, you know, good. So I go to the house and I remember I was wearing gray pants. I'll never forget it. The gate was open. So I go up the stairs and I open the door and she is on the landing, like, covered in blood and blue in the face.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Jen's brain can't compute what her eyes are seeing.

[Jen Desisto]

I don't know. For some reason I thought that she was like, joking. I don't know why. Ashley was very much a prankster and she always was joking. And our house was a mess. We had been painting and so stupidly I like, went up to her and I touched her and she was like, you know, ice cold. And then everything was like, just. That's when the shock set in.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Yeah, yeah, I understand the phenomenon of walking in and not recognizing, registering what you're seeing is absolutely normal too. And I've talked to a lot of people about that. It takes a couple minutes for it to sink in what you're looking at. And that's just. We go through Our day on. And there's neurological ways to explain this, but we go through our day a lot of time on autopilot, and that's how our brains can function without having to memorize constantly. This is where I put my hand. This is where my car goes when I'm driving. So when something changes, it takes you a minute to process it.

[Jen Desisto]

I did see the scene and I was like, wait, what? That was it? And then like when I saw how truly violent and how many times she was stabbed and everything, I don't. That part to me, and the vulgarity of all that and the terrible, terrible physicality of it. I don't. I really don't remember. Thank God I don't.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Good. I'm glad. And I don't think you should be reminded of it, honestly. If your brain is protecting you, let it. Jen talks me through the next moments which still haunt her nearly 25 years later. Did you ever think that the perpetrator could still be in the house?

[Jen Desisto]

Yes, 1,000%. I did definitely think that. There was just like, unfortunately too, there was like a feeling that came over me at that point. And it's that feeling that I have not been able to shake. I don't remember exactly what I even saw with her there. I remember how it felt. I went to the kitchen to get the phone and all of a sudden, like a wave of fear just came over me and I was like sweating and I thought maybe the person was there. And so I just threw the phone against the wall. I ran out and I locked the doors in the car. And I called Justin first and I, you know, I said, you have to come here immediately because he lived close by.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Justin, who's a mutual friend of both Jen and Ashley, dashes over to the house while Jen's sitting outside in her car, petrified, with the doors locked.

[Jen Desisto]

So he came and then I called the police. And then we were just sitting on the stoop outside and a police car and a fire truck came and they wrapped up the house with the crime scene tape. Now we've stepped into thinking we're in an episode of Law and Order. I mean, I feel like you've watched so much tv, the whole thing becomes completely, completely surreal. Someone goes into the house and comes out and they say, you know, your roommate is deceased. I'm in a complete state of shock. I'm not crying, I'm not anything. Justin and I were just sitting on the stoop holding hands. I felt I was having an out of body experience. I really did. I just, I'M in such a state of shock and trauma. I don't. Yeah, I just. I don't. It's really a blackout for me at that point, so.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

So can I tell you. Yeah, it's a blackout for everybody in that situation. You have so much adrenaline and cortisol running through your body, and one of the things that it does do is wipe out your memory. Makes it very hard to think the next day, too. You can't. Simple math. Simple words. In court in 2019, prosecutor Dan Aikman recounts Michael's movements on the night of Ashley's murder.

[Detective Tom Small]

Within weeks of Gargiulo fixating on Ashley entering her home without permission, surveilling her home at odd hours, flashing a knife, Ashley Ellerin was found stabbed to death in the hallway just outside her bathroom.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

At this moment, Jen and Justin have no idea that Mike the furnace guy, is the person who has slaughtered their beautiful friend that morning. LAPD Homicide Detective Tom Small is in the office with his partner. So how long had you been working homicide when you got the call to go to Ashley's house?

[Detective Tom Small]

So I had only been six years as a homicide detective at that time. I worked murders for 21 years, but I was, I think, relatively new. We just, you know, finished our first cup of coffee. It was about 9, 9:15 or in the morning. We got a phone call from a couple of cops out at a crime scene. Says, we're out at Pinehurst, and there appears to be a 187 there. 187 is penal code section for murder. So we got some real quick details, and then we got in the car, went over there. So I probably got there about maybe 9:25, 9:30, and just got a rundown on the case, and then we walked in.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Describe for me what you walked into, what you saw.

[Detective Tom Small]

The location was a single family home, a bungalow, and it looked like Fort Knox, really. There was every single window and door was barred or steel. Had steel doors. So I was trying to figure out how somebody got in there. She must have either known somebody or, you know, maybe she let him in. We were told that her roommate found Ashley dead on a landing.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

So you walk in, and what did you see?

[Detective Tom Small]

I walked in, and Ashley had been doing some renovation, so the place was a mess.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Okay.

[Detective Tom Small]

She had ladders and paint cans and brushes and boxes. And we had the side step through off the porch into the house. There's four steps up from the living room to where the bathroom and the bedrooms are. And there was Ashley's body. And I noticed that There was definitely a struggle because there's closets on either side of where she was laying. And both closets had the kind of a acrylic door handle yanked out, and they were scattered on the floor, full of blood. And there was blood spatter all up and down the doors and the walls. So the blood spatter, if you're looking from the carpet going up, it's about five feet.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Oh, gosh. What was she wearing when you saw her?

[Detective Tom Small]

So Ashley was dressed. We later discovered she was getting ready for a day date.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Yeah.

[Detective Tom Small]

And she had apparently just taken a shower not too long before she was killed. But she was obviously getting ready. Her hair dryer was sitting on the toilet. She had her clothing out. Her shoes and things she was going to wear set out. She was dressed in a terry cloth robe, kind of an aqua color, and she had a camisole and some, like, pajama shorts on underneath the robe.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Could you describe the scene, what injuries there were and how she was positioned?

[Detective Tom Small]

She was on her back, and her head was. Her eyes were open, her mouth was open, and head kind of tilted toward her left shoulder. And she had a gaping wound that went from her mid throat all the way to the back.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

God, horrible.

[Detective Tom Small]

So it wasn't just a cut. It was, you know, that type of movement. And she had what they referred to as an atlanto occipital dislocation. In simple terms, decapitated. With the force employed in her attack, it jarred her head right off the spinal column. These are kinds of injuries that you see with very forceful trauma or car accident or maybe a fall from a high object. But it can also happen if you're attacked with a big knife or something like that.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

And she's a little girl, she's not big. That must have been so jarring for you.

[Detective Tom Small]

Later on, we Learned it was 47 stab wounds and slash wounds. There may have been more, but I think they stopped counting. She was hit in the back, up and down her back, center back, shoulders, neck, back of her head. There were, I think, three or four stab wounds in the back of her skull. One of them was so forceful that it actually fractured a piece of her skull. She's hit in the back a number of times, and then she's turned, and now she's being hit in the front and even on her legs and her hands. And you can sort of tell on fresh wounds which ones come first, because as people pass and the heart stops pumping, the color of the wounds change. So we could tell that. And based on her injuries. This person spent some time and was really going at it.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Tom, this must have been one of the most gruesome scenes you've come across.

[Detective Tom Small]

I've seen some bad ones, but this one, this one, I still smell it to this day.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Describe that.

[Detective Tom Small]

Well, there was so much blood, and all that blood has a certain metallic type of smell to it. And she was hit so hard. I mean, back, front leg. She tried to fight. I have a daughter. I don't. She wasn't as old as Ashley was at that time. She was just a young kid. But I can't imagine suffering through that. If. If I'm a parent, you know, it's. It was just evil.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Eighteen years later in court, Cynthia Ellerin relives the moment her husband revealed that Ashley, their only daughter, had been murdered.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

He sat me down on the bed and he said, ashley was mur. Mur. Murdered. And I. I fell to my knees

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

on the floor, screamed,

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

and I was,

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

like, trying to tell my husband to

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

get away from me. Like, stay away from me.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Take it back. Take it back. Take it back.

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[Dr. Michelle Ward]

All right, I need to take a beat here. This is really disturbing and difficult to fathom, but I need to understand it. Michael attacks Ashley with such force that she's virtually decapitated. Her skull is fractured, and it's impossible to actually count all of her injuries because there's so many that they merge into each other. I don't like to think about how terrifying her final moments must have been. Here she is coming out of the shower, getting ready for an exciting date at the Grammys after party with Ashton Kutcher, but instead, she's met with this knife wielding maniac. And how frightening. I mean, that's. That's the stuff horror movies are made of. Was he masked? Did she recognize him as Mike the furnace guy? Did he want her to know it was him? These are things that we can only guess. And how utterly traumatic for her housemate, Chinta Sisto, to find her friend like that, to see a body like that, period. I mean, I see it all the time, and I don't know those people, and it's traumatic. But to walk in unexpected, expected, see her friend like that, and then for her parents, for Ashley's parents to have to hear those details. But why did Michael have to use such brutality to kill Ashley? From a forensic point of view, this is clear overkill. The type of homicide where the number of inflicted injuries vastly outweighs the number of fatal ones. Michael stabbed and slashed at Ashley ellerin at least 47 times. And often once is enough to kill someone. And this is where it's confusing, because this kind of overkill is usually seen when there's some sort of conflicted relationship between the two people. There's revenge, there's hate. It's usually not people who don't know each other. So it kind of makes me wonder, is there something else going on here? Detective Sudden Small gets an early read on the scene. He rules out robbery as a motive. Ashley's jewelry hasn't been touched, and there's $300 in cash on the Bathroom sink. So what are you guys thinking?

[Detective Tom Small]

I'm sure that this thing started at the. Right at the front door, because that's. There was also some of her blood there. So I think she may have heard something when she was in the bathroom and walked that way. And then the attack. And she ran up the steps, but didn't make it to any safety place.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

So you have to go in there and stomach not only the visual of this young, beautiful woman, not just dead, but mutilated. And then you have to smell this. So, you know, I know you've seen a lot of bodies at that point, but does one ever get used to that?

[Detective Tom Small]

I don't know if you get used to it. I mean, especially in those years, because I was going out to homicides every week. The initial shock, I think, would shock the conscience of any moral person.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Forensic teams seal off the house and start combing the area for clues, like a murder weapon, which may have the killer's DNA on it.

[Detective Tom Small]

We couldn't find a knife the size that would have been used. We canvassed that whole area. We had officers sweeping through all those areas to look if there was anything in the shrub. We had metal detectors and all kinds of stuff, and we came up with nothing. There was a bloody. Series of bloody shoe prints, and those bloody shoe prints were all heading out toward the front door. And because they were partial prints, in other words, there was a couple that were the heel of a shoe and then a couple that were the. The toe area, but they weren't all together, so I couldn't get a righteous size. And then the other telling thing was when you. You see all the blood on the floor and the dripping of what we believed was either from his hand or from a weapon, it stopped right at the front door. Not a single drop of blood on that porch or walkway or anywhere outside. So when he egressed the crime scene and got outside, he must have stowed that knife where it couldn't. Where it couldn't drip. And he must. He probably took his shoes off because there should have been blood drops or blood stains from the shoe print, but there were none, which. That really was a baffling thing.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

No wonder detectives are baffled. Michael is this strange dichotomy of killers. He's meticulous. He doesn't leave a drop of blood or a single hair at the scene. He's the presence of mind to take off his shoes and stow the knife again before fleeing the house. And all of that looks like, you know, our predatory type of killers are Cold blooded psychopathic serial killers who plan things well in advance. They're not encumbered by emotion. And, you know, they, everything's, you know, kind of harder to, to catch and to, to understand. But the killing itself, that's frenzied overkill, blitz type attacks. That looks a lot more like your impulsive type of a killer. Your killer who is in a fit of rage has lost all control over their actions and their emotions and they behave in a way that they hadn't planned to. And that's more of like a second degree type of killing versus a first degree type of killing. And by the way, biologically, those look very different impulsive type types of killers either they're born impulsive, but impulsivity begets more impulsivity because injuries to the prefrontal cortex, the area behind your forehead, that makes you more impulsive. So if you're already impulsive and then you, I don't know, become a boxer or you ride a motorcycle and you injure that part of your head, you become more impulsive. Now, we don't see that in these cold blooded, predatory type of killers. Those are more likely to have differences in their limbic system, particularly their amygdalas. So they have kind of urges to do things and they often don't care about stopping themselves. They're biologically different. The way they behave is different, the way that they look, their crime scenes, everything about them is different. And yet Michael seems to be both. Take us back to that time. Like the further issues you have when investigating a case then versus now. Because there's also no ring camera or CCTV footage anywhere.

[Detective Tom Small]

Correct.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

What is your initial thought?

[Detective Tom Small]

Well, that particular area, there's a certain transient population that hangs around. I'm thinking this is a pretty vicious murder and I have to look at, you know, people that are coming out of prison. We had other homicides and rapes in that neighborhood, a series of them. We've got parole houses. When guys come out of parole, they go to houses and kind of sprinkled around different areas of Hollywood. So I thought, well, you know, I got a lot to look at here. Plus I had to track everybody within her circle and work outward.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

That's right. And it's a huge circle. Detective Small starts building a timeline of Ashley's movements that night and drawing up a list of suspects. He's keeping an open mind, but one thought is eating away at him.

[Detective Tom Small]

In the back of my mind there was a thought of, well, could this guy might have done it before, Maybe he's A serial killer.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

What made you think that?

[Detective Tom Small]

I look at cases like that where there's extreme overkill. And the thing that occurred to me was whoever did this must be getting off on killing. You don't want to get any confirmation bias, but you also want to. You want to make sure you have a decent working theory.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

I asked Gendecisto what she remembers. Okay, these are tough questions. When was the last time you saw Ashley alive? And do you remember what you talked about or what your interactions were?

[Jen Desisto]

So I had actually seen her the day before, and I had had a conversation with her in the kitchen where we liked to talk and chit chat. We were having snacks. She was telling me about the landlord guy and that she was hooking up with and how he had a girlfriend and this and that. Again, I know all this sounds like this is when you're very young. We all make these, like, dumb mistakes, so.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Of course. So she was actually dating that guy? That's Mark Durbin. Yes.

[Jen Desisto]

They had. They had been seeing each other. That's what she was explaining to me. She was like, you know, it started out, like, casual, but now I think I like him. I remember thinking, God damn, this kitchen is a mess. We had never merged, like, my stuff with her stuff. So the kitchen was just, like, full of all this different crap. We're just, like, sitting there like, you know, nothing matters, shooting the shit.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

24 hours after chatting in that messy kitchen, Ashley Ellerin is dead. And the lives of Ashley's family and friends changed forever.

[Jen Desisto]

My boyfriend picked me up at the station. That's when it started to set in. And I was just like, oh, my God. Like, holy shit. Like, what the f. Like, I was

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

just in a complete.

[Jen Desisto]

It was really, really bad. And then I went home. That's when I started to cry and get very scared. I never went back there. My boyfriend went and got my belongings. It was very much a rough time. And I lost my job.

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[Jen Desisto]

Yeah. I ended up moving into, like, a doorman secure building that my mom helped me with so I could figure things out. And I just remember, I don't think I left the apartment for like, six months. It was, you know, the glory days were done at that time.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

It's no surprise Jen Desisto is scarred by what she saw that day. It was an act of such uncertainty, unspeakable, extreme violence. In court, Cynthia Ellerin tries to put the loss of her daughter Ashley into words.

[Jen Desisto]

The day of her death is heartbreaking. You'll just stare at a door and

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

you go, she could Only she could only come through that door. I'd give anything I. I ache for her. I ache to hold her. I ache to hear her voice, to hug her.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

The pain and heartbreak that Michael has inflicted on his victims and their families is unimaginable. Everyone wants to know, how could someone possibly become so evil? I need to dig deeper into Michael Gargiulo's childhood back in sleepy Glenview, Illinois, to see if there are any hints of the monstrous adult to come. Dr. Joan Kaufman is a clinical psychologist who specializes in child abuse and neglect cases. She's the perfect person to help me unravel the complexities of Michael's early years and try to get to the truth.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I got my PhD in clinical psychology from Yale University, where I was on faculty in the Department of psychiatry for 18 years. Throughout my career, I worked as a clinician, a researcher, and a child advocate. Most of my work was with children involved in the child welfare system, understanding risks, resilience, using tools from neuroscience, genetics, psychology.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

All of the information about Michael's childhood that Dr. Kaufman and I are about to discuss comes from another psychologist, Dr. Vianne Castellano. She's the psychologist brought in by Michael's defense team when he was on trial for murder and attempted murder in 2019. Dr. Vian Castellano wrote a psychological assessment of Michael after interviewing his immediate family and spending 1,000 hours talking to Michael in prison. She testified on behalf of the defense, the prosecution, and no other parties found any of these details. These assessments are Dr. Castellano's and hers alone. We've contacted Dr. Castellano and Michael's family members, but we didn't receive a response. We have not been able to independently verify the information in her report. The account given by Vianne Castellano about Michael's childhood is traumatic. I don't know how much of it is accurate, but it's certainly traumatic. Let's go through it a little bit. And your thoughts?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Yeah, I'm going to start with just the two caveats that the prosecution raised. Okay. Caveat number one is nothing is substantiated. So there was never a call to Child Protective Services. Police never investigated. So there's no substantiation. And then the other caveat that prosecution raised is that the family may have had kind of a reason to want to kind of tell this story or, you know, truth or not truth, he knew he was facing the death penalty. And so if there was a history of child abuse that might have, you know, decreased the likelihood of getting the death penalty.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

In other Words the family may have invented or exaggerated childhood abuse with the aim of helping Michael escape the death penalty. To reiterate, we have not been able to independently substantiate the account of Michael's childhood that you're about to hear. These allegations are so solely based on Dr. Castellano's account, which was prepared for the defense and used in court during Michael's murder trial in 2019.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

What was reported was very heinous. So a number of different types of acts of child abuse and neglect were reported by multiple family members. First, between the ages of 2 and 8, Michael was. And we don't know how often, but he would be hogtied, put in a dark closet, and allegedly left there for days, not fed food. And sometimes his older siblings would do things to try to scare him, Put masks on and, you know, open the closet door.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Did some of these reports from these siblings, Were they admitted that they themselves had done that, or were they saying other siblings had done it?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I believe the mother, who was no longer living at the times of the interview, was also involved as well. And some of the other siblings as

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

well, hogtied, left for long periods of time in a closet without food and water. Have you seen that before?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I actually was just recently testifying in a similar sort of a case with a horrible situation, children. But again, this came to the attention of authorities. This kid was coming to school and saying they were hungry. And ultimately that's how it came out. What was happening in his family. A little red flag for me is, you know, I've worked with children who are denied food when it comes to school. They are letting everybody know they're hungry. We don't have any documentation that he was underweight. We don't know that he was coming to school saying he was hungry. But it's extreme. It's not a common thing.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Okay.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

You know, these are definitely extreme things that they talk about.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Tell. Yeah, tell us what happens next. What did they say?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

They also talked about when he got older, to punish him, they would hold his hands over a flame and burn. Burn his hands. So, again, my thinking is, okay, are there any scars?

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

But we don't know that first level of torture, which I assume started with the locking him in a closet. How did Michael react to that torture? Allegedly?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I mean, we don't have much. I mean, what they talk about is peeing and defecating himself. And when you're locked in a room, I don't know what else you can do. And being terrified when they would, you know, present him with masks and the like. So we don't know if it's true. We don't know. But they certainly are, you know, heinous acts that are described.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

According to Vianne, he was also labeled a sissy boy, very whiny and needy.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I know, but you're talking about a two year old when this started. So hello, welcome to having children. And you know, I mean, right? He was fifth out of seven children and evidently he was the target.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Is that common to have a family target one particular child and not the others?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I mean, sometimes, sometimes a child has special needs and, you know, so there can be different reasons why one child may be targeted in a family.

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[Dr. Michelle Ward]

As far as we know, Michael didn't have special needs. This is not unusual in a family. But in court, Dr. Castellano claims that Michael's father is quite absent, working several jobs and handed over discipline to his wife. Dr. Castellano's allegations were not substantiated by the prosecution. And she further claims that there was no bonding between Michael and his mom who died in 2006. Do you make anything out of the report that he had no bond to his mother? His mother was a disciplinarian. Abuse aside, does that mean anything to you as a clinician?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Well, I guess we didn't hear that he had a bond to anybody.

[Jen Desisto]

Right.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

So you know, a bond is a protective factor. The absence of a bond is a risk factor, but again, not deterministic.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

The abuse Michael suffered as a child, if true, is horrendous and traumatizing. As we've heard. Michael did tell a teenage friend that he was bullied by a sibling and that his parents didn't intervene to help him. It wouldn't surprise me if his rage was aimed at them. During the secret recordings made of Michael while he's in jail, his cellmate asks about his mom and dad. You said your mom and dad are still back in Chicago? My dad. My mom passed away. Does he know about all this shit yet? Oh, he's known about other shit for a long time. And I used to harass him, bombarded him, knocked down my parents door to rush through their house and I didn't find nothing. Your mom was around for all that shit?

[Detective Tom Small]

Yeah, that's why she died.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

She had an aneurysm because she was so stressed out all the time. High blood pressure from all the detectives. That's a revealing snapshot. Michael shows no animosity at all toward his parents. It's all aimed at the police. He even blames them for his mother's death. Back to those claims of child abuse made in court by psychologists for the defense. Dr. Castellano, her claims were not corroborated by the prosecution and we haven't been able to substantiate them ourselves. Let's talk about the effects of this level of torture and, you know, not to minimize it if it's true. We're talking about, you know, multiple years of this.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I mean, if we talk about the effects, the bottom line is there's not one, you know, outcome from having had horrible things happen to you. And I guess I wanted to just share a story. The very first paper I ever wrote was do abused children become absolutely abuse of parents? And our paper basically said, based on all the literature, it's actually about only 1 in 3, 2 out of 3 break the cycle. But what I want to share is after I published that, I had a woman who was 70 years old write me a letter saying she felt vindicated when she read our article. She had a horrible history of abuse, went to therapy when she was in college, and was advised never to have children because it was inevitable that she would repeat the cycle.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

That's such limited thinking.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Right. And the point is she followed that advice. She never had children. But, you know, reading this as a 70 year old, she felt, I knew that wasn't, you know, and so that's. I mean, the reality is a lot of people say, you know, horrible things happen to me. I never want anyone else, you know, and so we know, you know, and again, becoming a serial killer is rare.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

You know, that's right.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

You know, there are millions of substantiated cases of abuse every single year. Countless others, like if this happened to Michael, that never come to the attention of authorities and, you know, a handful of people end up on that cycle.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

That's something that's very important to point out is that we look at this. You have somebody who's committing heinous crimes. The tendency, thank you, Freud. Is to dig into their past and find a reason for. It's oversimplified.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

And you'll never be able to predict it.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

No.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

So I think part of my take home message is there's an inevitable gap in hindsight. Does it say, oh, yeah, of course. No. Many other people who went through the same thing would say, I never want to hurt, you know, harm someone the way I was hurt.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Absolutely. And can it trigger things? Absolutely. Can a bad environment trigger a predisposition? You betcha. But it's also difficult because you can't isolate the abuse. Often more often than not, this child is genetically related to a violent abuser. So the fact that it's only one out of three is somewhat miraculous. You know, it's not an inevitability. The vast majority of people who experience abuse go on to be normal, pro social members of our society. As far as I can tell by looking through the Glenview Police Department records, no one else in Michael's immediate family Was in any serious trouble with the law. In court, Dr. Castellano alleges there's a long history of mental illness in the Gargiulo family. She goes as far as to say that Michael is the only one out of his six siblings who hadn't been diagnosed with a mental illness. This is what Dr. Castellano claims during Michael's trial. But remember, she is hired by the defense. This information was not verified. And we have not been able to corroborate these details ourselves. So let's talk a little bit about the fact that he's genetically related to complicated people. Obviously, we know he's violent. If the abuse is true, that means his other family members are violent. But also if there's some mental disorders happening in the house. What do you make of all of that? What does that mean for him?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

I think, again, it's imperfect. We talk about, well, it's his genetics. You know, our understanding of the genetics of aggression. We can't make predictions based on anybody's genes. And what we also know is that a lot of the genetics and the biology of aggression Are similar to the biology and genetics of suicide. So when people talk about turning the aggression against yourself.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Yeah.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

For decades, everybody's sort of been hopeful we're going to identify these genes. And what we've realized is that the genes are not so specific for any one particular outcome. We used to think of genetic effects as fixed and deterministic. And we now know environment. You were talking about omega 3s. Food intake can affect gene expression, and it also varies in every single cell.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

At this young of an age, nothing's set in stone for Michael. Unverified claims are made in court about his family history of mental illness and troubled upbringing. But that doesn't turn him into. Into a killer. With intervention, could the course have his life been changed, saving the lives of the women he killed? Defense psychologist Dr. Castellano claims in court that there was a missed opportunity. Again, something no one else has verified. So something happens to Michael at age 10. Can we talk about that a little bit? According to Vianne, he has a trip to a narrator.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Yeah. So he actually gets hospitalized. He did have. I think it was fluctuating between 103, 105, fever. But he had bouts where he didn't recognize his family, didn't recognize his parents. He was hospitalized. They also did Tests of his, you know, nerves, everything.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

At first, doctors suspect encephalitis, a life threatening inflammation of the brain. But Michael's temperature drops and he comes back around. The pediatric neurologist thinks his condition isn't neurological at all, but psychological, an emotional disturbance.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Neurologically, he proved 100% fine. So Dr. Castellanos is saying this is our first episode of a dissociative disorder. The prosecution is saying, well, we don't know if it was fever induced, we don't know what it was, but he clearly had a bout where he didn't know where he was, didn't know his family members, was cognitively intact and then neurologically intact based on, you know, the assessments that were done.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Let's say for the sake of argument that this was an episode of dissociation. Could abuse cause that?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Sure. Abuse causes dissociation. Children we know with histories of significant trauma will have dissociative symptoms. So it could be like trance, like this. Episodes not recognizing your family is a little bit more extreme. But what is more common is inconsistent knowledge of things.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

The neurologist recommends Michael as psychotherapy. Dr. Castellano claims in court that the Gargiulos take Michael home and there's never any follow up. Could Michael have been fixed?

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Well, certainly if he was subject to that type of adversity throughout, a golden would have been, you know, those would have been grounds for removal from home. And in many, many cases when children are removed from home, we have added things that we didn't hear about in this family. We did not hear about drug addiction or alcohol abuse in this family. Who knows? He, I think was someone who was, had strengths, he was an athlete. So there could have been a different trajectory both in terms of if he really had a safe and had some real stable continuity in terms of relationships and some therapy. But you know, again, it's an experiment that will never be done right.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

The reported sadistic abuse of Michael at the hands of his family doesn't stop when he's 10. The defense psychologist, Dr. Castellano claims in court that there were two other types of torture inflicted on Michael. As I've mentioned, Dr. Castellano's account was not substantiated by the prosecution and we haven't been able to corroborate it. According to her, Michael's abuse gets darker as he gets older.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Another way of terrorizing him again, they would tie him in the backyard and they would torture and kill animals. Very bizarre, but gunpowder, so mice, gerbils, put it in the animal's anus and blow the animal up. So really bizarre. Certainly not a common form of child abuse, torture, what have you. And then the other thing they talked about also, when he was older, as a teen again, they would tie him up and have him watch Grindr movies and movies where women were assaulted and killed and raped and the like.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

So according to what is said in court by the defense psychologist, when he's about 13, Michael is tied to a chair and forced to watch graphic videos of women being violently, sexually tortured to, quote, teach him how to be a man. If this is true, it's beyond horrifying. But Michael is on a terrifying trajectory that could not have come from being forced to watch videos, no matter how grisly. He stabbed Ashley to death with a ferocity that is so completely off the charts, yet somehow manages to leave no trace behind. He's several steps ahead of detectives and is free to kill again. Next time on Mind of a Monster, the Hollywood Ripper.

[Detective Tom Small]

This guy's a freak and he freaks all the ladies out. He rarely spent time in any apartment he was in. He would sleep in his truck or he would walk the streets at night.

[Dr. Joan Kaufman]

Well, I don't think he's necessarily aroused by by the women. I think he's aroused by the kill

[Detective Tom Small]

and all of a sudden he holds a knife up to her throat.

[Dr. Michelle Ward]

Mind of a Monster the Hollywood Ripper is produced by Arrow Media, a Freemantle Company for ID. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Ward. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts and we'd love it if you could take a second to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast.

[Jen Desisto]

Par le tu francais hablas espanol parl italiano?

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