Case Of 'Hollywood Ripper', Glenview Native Featured On TV Show

GLENVIEW, IL —Nearly two years after a jury recommended he be put to death for the slaying of two women in California, former Glenview resident Michael Gargiulo will be the subject of an hour-long television documentary on Monday night.

“People Magazine Investigates” will feature the story of Gargiulo at 9 p.m. Monday on the Investigation Discovery channel. Gargiulo was sentenced to death in the summer of 2019 for the stabbing deaths of two California women and for the attempted murder of a third women.

The episode will delve into the murders of the two women, which took place in 2001 and 2005 before the third attack took place in 2008. Gargiulo, who has been tabbed “The Hollywood Ripper” has not been formally sentenced after a jury recommended that he be put to death in connection with the fatal stabbings of the two women.

Gargiulo, 45, is also charged with first-degree murder in the 1993 death of Tricia Pacaccio, who was a Glenbrook South graduate was stabbed outside of her Glenview home. Gargiulo was 17 at the time, according to reports, and was said to have been a family friend of the Pacaccio’s and had been inside their home.

Gargiulo is scheduled to appear in court in July for a hearing.

The Cook County State’s Attorney Office told the Chicago Tribune that the office is seeking to have Gargiulo extradited back to Illinois to face “further hearings” at the conclusion of the California case.

Jurors in Gargiulo's Los Angeles trial heard about the Glenview killing, with her mother and two brothers testifying during the trial's penalty phase, Patch previously reported.

Gargiulo grew up in Glenview and attended Glenbrook South with Pacaccio, although the two were barely acquainted, according to a 2011 feature in Chicago Magazine. Pacaccio's brother, Doug, remembers being friends with Gargiulo, who lived nearby, Patch reported in 2019.

"I have joy in my heart that Michael has been held accountable for his actions. The bitter part about it is that I don't feel like it's done yet," Doug Pacaccio told WLS. He testified in the California trial and said he is ready to do so again.

Prosecutors linked Gargiulo's DNA to Pacaccio's murder in 2003 but said it was not enough to bring charges, according to former Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. He was arrested in Santa Monica, California. in 2008 and charged in Illinois in 2011.

"I'm very angry. I'm very angry that all of this went on and I'm very angry that this has gone for 26 years," Tricia's mother, Diane, told WBBM in 2019. "And I'm very angry that Cook County knew that his DNA should have never been on my daughter."