Suspects in Killing of Marine Wife Due in Court for Preliminary Hearing

A preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin Monday for three people accused in the strangulation death last year of a 22-year-old Marine wife, whose body was found nude and mutilated in a roadside ditch near Lake Skinner in southwest Riverside County.

Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Louis Ray Perez, 46, Dorothy Grace Marie Maraglino, 37, and Jessica Lynn Lopez, 25, are charged with first-degree murder in the death last April of Brittany Killgore.

The defendants, who at one time lived together in Fallbrook, are also charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and torture. At the time of her death, Killgore also lived in Fallbrook, along with her estranged Camp Pendleton-based husband, who was on deployment in Afghanistan and was cleared of any involvement in the slaying.

All three defendants were involved in sexual behavior that included bondage, torture, and master, servant and slave role playing, and that Killgore was an “unwilling participant” in those activities, sheriff’s detective Susan Fiske wrote in the search warrant affidavits.

According to court documents, Perez said in online posts with a bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism community that he was planning to have a BDSM session the weekend of April 13, 2012. He allegedly invited Killgore to go on a dinner cruise in San Diego the night of April 13. She initially declined but agreed after Maraglino said it was OK and Perez promised Killgore she’d have help moving the following morning, authorities said.

Minutes after Killgore and Perez met up, she sent a text message to a friend
that read “Help,” according to authorities. Perez then allegedly took Killgore to his Fallbrook home—where authorities said there were ropes, whips, a stun baton, a nightstick, spiked gloves and a sex dungeon—before texting Lopez and Maraglino to join him.

At some point, Perez decided to kill Killgore and sent phony messages in her name to friends, authorities said.

The preliminary hearing—expected to last five days—will determine whether there’s enough evidence for the defendants to stand trial.

-City News Service