48 Hours - 48 Hours: NCIS: A Date with Evil

Episode Date: June 6, 2018

The search for a young missing military wife takes NCIS agents into the dark world of master and slave role playing where they uncover the dual life of a Marine sergeant. Narrated by CBS' "NCIS" actor Rocky Carroll.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Police! Research! Being an NCIS case agent is a very personal commitment. You have to make sacrifices. It takes you away from your loved ones.

So it's just a singular focus on pursuing justice. This was a once-in-a-lifetime case. Some of the darkness and some of the, just the twisted motivations behind this case was overwhelming. this case was overwhelming. April 2012, NCS had assigned me to be a liaison to the San Diego Sheriff's Homicide Department. I was working cold case homicides and any active homicides that had some involvement

with the Navy Marine Corps. Over the course of this investigation, you lived the case. that had some involvement with the Navy Marine Corps. Over the course of this investigation, you lived the case. Brittany Kilgore was the wife of a Marine. Brittany was a very young, attractive girl. She was 22 years old. She was very naive, came from a very small town, and so she had very few friends, and she was alone in California, very far from home. Brittany lived in a town called

Fallbrook, California. It was about 40 minutes north of downtown San Diego, and it was just outside of Marine Base Camp Pendleton. Her husband was deployed. He was in Afghanistan, Her husband was deployed. He was in Afghanistan. And at the time, their relationship wasn't the best. And she had decided that she wanted a divorce and was going to move back home. She was packing. She gets this unexpected visitor who shows up at her door. Luis Perez. Someone who she knew was a casual acquaintance. Luis Perez was 47 years old.

He was a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps. And he was inviting her to go on a cruise, a dinner cruise called the Hornblower Cruise. And she just told him, no, I don't want to go. I'm moving. And then Luis Perez said, well, I'll help you move if you go on the dinner cruise with me. She said no multiple times to Perez. She told him she didn't want to go. She didn't feel comfortable with him. She obviously had that gut feeling. And he basically propositions her again, go on this cruise with me and I'll get you some Marines to come and help you move your things.

Perez had a girlfriend, Dorothy Maraglino. She did not want to go on what seemed like a dinner date with someone else's boyfriend. She was worried how that would look. Luis had Dorothy get in touch with Brittany and say, it's OK with me. I was going to go. I don't feel good.

You can go on this cruise. So after Brittany gets the approval of Dorothy, she agrees to go on the dinner cruise with Luis Perez. Brittany had no idea what she was getting into that night. At 7 40 p.m. on Friday night, April the 13th, Luis Perez drives into the apartment complex where Brittany lives. She comes down, gets inside his vehicle, he drives away, and within 10 minutes of getting into his vehicle she reaches out to her friend and says help Luis Perez had two lives going on he had

dual lives Luis Perez did have a dark past this was no Fifty Shades of Grey at all I will never understand why that she didn't listen to her gut evil doesn't look like evil Brittany was never to get on that cruise. They were never going to make that cruise. In fact, they never even left Fallbrook. The NCIS mission is global. We're on aircraft carriers, we're in foreign ports. We watch after each other, we take care of each other.

NCIS deal with every type of crime. Cyber, fraud, murder. General crimes, counterintelligence, counterterrorism. Every crime is a tragedy. It involves sisters, brothers, husbands. That's the only way to find the truth. We live in dangerous times. And we're never going to give up.

NCIS. The cases they can't forget. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye?

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And it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have urged it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse

and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It was a Friday night when 22-year-old Brittany Kilgore went out on a date. From that moment on, Brittany Kilgore was missing. There was a young Marine wife who'd gone missing right off the back of a Marine Corps base.

This was very impactful to this community. It became of concern to us as NCIS because she was the dependent spouse of a Marine, and secondly, the last person to see her alive was an active duty Marine. You saw pretty quick there was a lot of eyes on this. This case was interesting for a lot of reasons. You had this young woman who was at a transitional point in her life, you know, she was packing up

and getting ready to go home to her family, and she vanished. Brittany had become a Marine wife nearly two years earlier when she married Corey Kilgore in their hometown of Rolla, Missouri. Brittany was a huge part of our family. Very funny, very witty. There we go.

She probably had the best sense of humor out of anybody in our family. She was a great kid. She could light up a room easily by walking in and saying a few words. I'll break that camera. I met Brittany when we were 12 in the sixth grade in art class.

Throw in Brittany. I remember sitting on our porch, drinking Coke, staying up all night. She'd do my makeup, I'd do her makeup, I'd do her nails, she'd do my nails. She loved Hello Kitty. Like, anytime I see Hello Kitty, I automatically think of her.

She was like my sister that I never had. She was pretty introverted. She wasn't very confident in herself. It was very much surprising when she started dating Cory. Cory was the first person she had ever dated. We thought that's great you know she's starting to get out that that was fantastic. She was probably 18, 19 when they met. I think Brittany and Corey just kind of hit it off. They both have kind of a quirky sense of humor. About two months later, they were talking about getting married.

The couple tied the knot on July 17th, 2010. Her wedding was probably the happiest that I've seen her. She was glowing happy. She was just kind of amazing to watch her. I felt like she wanted that fairy tale happily ever after. Shortly after the couple married, they planned to move to Camp Pendleton near San Diego. Brittany's parents were not thrilled about the idea. She hadn't lived on her own really or anything and neither had Cory. One of the things that gave us comfort though is he was joining the Marines and it was boot camp at Camp

Pendleton. We felt she would be safe out there. She was excited to go and leave. She wanted to be away and on her own. I think she just wanted a fresh start. I think when they first got out there, I think they were enjoying their new married life and seeing the sights and going to the beach. She was learning to cook. I felt like she rushed into marriage.

I started sensing things weren't what they should be. They were both young, they were both immature. It was very clear shortly after they went to California that the relationship was in trouble. Brittany felt isolated and alone and the couple soon grew apart. She said she wanted to divorce him and she wasn't happy. So when he finally deployed, she wanted to be divorced and gone before he got back. Brittany found herself kind of between a rock and a hard place.

You know, she wasn't happy in her relationship, but she didn't want to come home to Mom and Dad. I felt like she was alone. I felt like she was trapped. Brittany filed for divorce and was set to fly home to mom and dad. I felt like she was alone. I felt like she was trapped. Brittany filed for divorce and was set to fly home on April 18th. But days before, she stopped calling home. I started calling and texting her phone,

and, you know, hey, where you at? And still didn't hear from her, which was getting weird. And my phone rang, and it was her phone. And I thought, well, thank goodness it was a man's voice. I was like, who is this? Because this is my daughter's phone, and why do you have it? And he said he found the phone down in San Diego. One of the key things about the phone is its location.

It's in downtown San Diego. Brittany lived in Fallbrook, which is a fair distance north of where the phone was found. The phone was actually discovered by a homeless man just outside of an area called the Gaslamp District of San Diego. And he actually turned that phone over to law enforcement. At that point, I knew something was wrong. turned that phone over to law enforcement. At that point, I knew something was wrong. Michelle urgently called Brittany's friends and learned Luis Perez was taking her on a dinner cruise

the night before. She got Perez's number. I was asking him, Brittany and you were supposed to be going down to this dinner cruise, and she didn't come home. Where is she? So he was telling me a story

that they didn't go to the dinner cruise. They ended up going downtown, and they were going to go into one of the bars. He pulled up and let her out, and he went to park the car. And he said he was gone 10, 15 minutes, come back, she's nowhere to be found. He told me that he figured she just hooked up with somebody and left. Brittany is 100% not the person to just go meet guys at a bar and go with them. It was numb at that point. It's a feeling I would not wish on anyone, cold all the way down to your core.

Something wasn't right in his story was baloney. And as soon as I hung up, I told Daryl, I said he did something to her. Meanwhile, Brittany's friends, worried when Brittany never made it home, called the sheriff to report Brittany missing. They said Perez was the last person to see her. The sheriff's deputies asked Perez to come in to talk.

Louis Perez had been in the Marines for, I believe, about 16 years. Perez was a, to put it kindly, a substandard Marine. NCIS Special Agent Jeff Kierman was embedded with the San Diego Sheriff's Department. Luis Perez came by and tried to explain his side of the story. He had picked her up, driven her to San Diego, dropped her off at a nightclub, and then had never seen her again. And I looked inside the glass trunk. I looked one side to the other side, and I didn't see her.

So I just assumed she hooked up with someone else. One of the deputies very astutely noticed that there was a rifle case in the back of Lewis' SUV. And he asked Mr. Perez what the rifle case was, and he told him

it contained an AR-15. They discovered that it had been reported stolen as a part of an unrelated NCIS investigation. So now he was found to be in possession of a stolen semi-automatic rifle, and he was taken into custody. Investigators referred to him as a, quote, person of interest in this case, but was not charged with anything specifically related to Brittany Kilgore's disappearance initially. With the discovery of an illegal weapon and a story that wasn't adding up,

homicide detectives were called in, even though Brittany was still a missing person. From that point on, things began to move pretty quickly. We were still hoping to find Brittany alive. When your child is missing, you can't give up that hope. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty?

Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access,

I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Brittany Kilgore was missing. Now we've gotten the media involved. They're sending out missing person reports. The DA's office actually has gotten involved very early in this case. And we've sat down and briefed them about it. And we begin actually actively searching for Brittany. And that's where NCIS comes into play. I showed up at the Fallbrook Sheriff's Department.

That was where the entire homicide team had decided to use as a command center. We were notified approximately 23 hours after Brittany had last been seen alive. And to my way of thinking, that means that if something bad did happen, if there are criminals involved, they've had a 23-hour head start, at least, on the police. The goal at that point is not about gathering evidence, but if she's still alive, the goal is to find her and keep her alive. This is maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try to do the right thing for this girl and her family. Brittany's father, Darryl Rest, rushed to San Diego.

I got there, and I remember her putting the posters up. I drove through canyons, calling out her name in the middle of the night as if I was going to find her, but she was just a kid just a kid she wasn't a wild kid she wasn't a party kid she was a kid early on NCIS caught a break NCIS agent Jeff Kierman was contacted by a woman who had a prior relationship with the suspect, Luis Perez.

And Jeff followed up on that, and what he learned was that Luis Perez did have a dark past. And that was Luis Perez's fetish life. His deep involvement in what is called bondage and domination or discipline and sadomasochism, referred to as BDSM. and domination or discipline and sadomasochism, referred to as BDSM. And she described some of Louis Pres's particular predilections that he had done with her. He would find women who were particularly vulnerable for any reason, trouble in a marriage, self-worth issues, and he would lavish these women with attention. And he would get them to try to push their boundaries into areas of BDSM that these women might have never thought of participating in before.

And she described situations where he would make her take off all of her clothes and get into the back of his car. And then he would drive to work in the middle of Camp Pendleton and basically leave her there as a prisoner in his car for four or five hours, knowing she couldn't just open the hatch and walk away because she had no clothes. And he would just leave her there. Luis Perez had two lives going on. He had his BDSM life, which his girlfriend was Dorothy Meriglino, and he would stay at the house with her in Fallbrook. And then he had his married life, where he had a wife and a 13-year-old daughter, and he would live in a house on the Marine Corps base.

Sheriff's deputies quickly got warrants to search both homes. Early Sunday morning, we searched Dorothy Maraglino's house, his girlfriend. When we walk into the house, there were some odd things, and they were BDSM-type photographs. There was a whipping post in the corner. There was eyelets in the ceiling. Jessica Lopez was a roommate of Dorothy Mariglino's at her house and lived down in what we would call

the basement, or some people have called it the dungeon, kind of lower garage area. Mr. Perez was an avid fetishist in the BDSM lifestyle. He and Mariglino and Lopez all lived in a contracted master and slave relationship with Perez as the overall master of a BDSM household, with Dorothy Maraglino as his alpha slave, and with Jessica Lopez as a slave underneath her. Now, it's important to understand that when I refer to their relationship as being a master

and slave relationship, Dorothea Maraglino and Jessica Lopez, this was not something they did as a sort of hobby. This was a lifestyle that they lived in very thoroughly and it involved bondage and the inflicting of pain and fear on each other and others as part of a sexual lifestyle. The disappearance of Brittany Kilgore was taking a very frightening turn. At this point, after we'd had Louis Perez in custody for the possession of the stolen firearm, we could see through his phones where he'd actually gone that night. By tracking his actual whereabouts was that he had gone to Brittany Kilgour's apartment, picked her up, taken her back to Dorothy Maraglino's house.

Once we started analyzing Brittany's phone on Sunday, we realized that she had never left Fallbrook after she was picked up. In fact, the phone didn't start heading down to San Diego until around 9.20, 9.15 that night. At which point, Lewis then actually drove to San Diego to sort of corroborate his own story. And he took his and Brittany's cell phones with him so that they would show up along this ride to San Diego. And then he disposed of her phone in downtown San Diego so that it could be found there, as if she'd been abducted from downtown San Diego. And then he disposed of her phone in downtown San Diego so that it could be found there as if she'd been abducted from downtown San Diego. And then he turned around and went back to

Fallbrook. Throughout the course of the next couple days, we, along with search and rescue units from the San Diego Sheriff's Department, a lot of volunteers, helicopter units, K-9 units, conducted a pretty wide area search hoping to find, and hopefully still alive, Brittany Kilgore. Everybody involved had already been up for seemingly days at this point, and just the tireless efforts to try to find this young girl alive. You feel helpless. So I started making phone calls to different places myself and asking, you know, hospitals and things. I had to do something.

I was contacted by the local sheriff's department. They could see that I was a completely broken down human being, and they kept me informed. I was with them morning, noon, and night while all this was happening. morning, noon, and night while all this was happening. We continued searching for evidence, and everything pointed back to something happening that night with Luis Perez. Very quickly, the San Diego sheriffs also got a search warrant to

thoroughly search and document items that were found in Luis Perez's car. What they found inside was basically an absolute treasure trove of very damning evidence. The key pieces of evidence that they found in the back of the white Ford Explorer were some gloves and plastic that had blood on it. That were ultimately determined to be, you know, blood stains from Brittany Kilgore. They also found something else that was very important.

What they found was a stun baton. I almost think of a cattle prod. And when they forensically examined that stun baton, they found Louis Perez's DNA on the handle and Brittany Kilgore's DNA on the electrified prongs, which indicates that at some point he used this stun gun to either hurt or subdue or inflict some kind of pain on Miss Kilgore. that at some point he used this stun gun to either hurt or subdue or inflict some kind of pain

on Miss Kilgore after she got into his vehicle that night. Once we find the bloody items and the stun baton, now we're pretty convinced that Luis Perez has a little more to do with this than just dropping her off at the Whiskey Girl. We have no way to know exactly what happened to Brittany after she got in Luis Perez's car. We do know that something caused Brittany to feel enough fear to text for help almost immediately. At some point, seemingly within the first 10 minutes, she realized she was not going to San Diego.

She was instead most likely taken back to Dorothy Maraglino's house. And Dorothy Maraglino's house was built on a hillside with a driveway that dipped deeply into the back and hid behind the house. So it would be very easy for Lewis to pull his SUV down the driveway behind Dorothy's house and get Brittany into the basement of the house where their dungeon existed without anyone seeing whatsoever. With Perez still in custody on the gun charge and Brittany still missing,

Detective Patterson brought in a forensic team for another search. When we arrived to do the second search warrant at Dorothy Mariglino's house in Fallbrook, Jessica Lopez and Dorothy Mariglino were gone. We collected computers, media, storage devices, some writings, some diaries. During some of the interviews on Sunday, we had interviewed some associates of Dorothea Mary Glyno. And one of those associates had told us

that they kept her in a closet downstairs and she defined that as the dungeon and wasn't allowed to leave. And now the whole BDSM thing is starting to come into play a little bit. So we're thinking, well, maybe Brittany's still alive. Maybe they have her somewhere. So we get our fugitive task force involved and they start looking for Dorothy Mariglino. On Tuesday morning, the police attention are directed to the Ramada Inn Hotel. Brittany Kilgore is still missing. They don't know if

she's alive, being kidnapped, or if she's dead somewhere. And so they determined that Mariglino has been in Hotel Room 105 of the Ramada Inn. They're outside the Ramada Inn door, and they listen inside, and they can hear the sounds of a muffled female voice. The thought is, is Brittany there? Is she alive? And so there's a sense of urgency to get inside. So they force their way inside, and they do find a woman who's in distress, who's on the ground, but they quickly learn that woman is not Brittany Kilgore. It's someone else. That's Jessica Lopez.

And they told me she's all cut up. It looked like she tried to kill herself, and she's being taken to the hospital. And then something else draws their attention inside that hotel room. Inside the bathroom, there is a vanity mirror. And on that vanity mirror, there's a hanger. And hanging on that hanger is a piece of paper.

And on that piece of paper are the words, Pigs, read this, pointing down below. And down below that letter are three envelopes and a seven-page letter. And it's the content of that seven-page letter that gave the investigation a radically different twist than what it was before. The contents of the letter are chilling.

Details of the last moments of Brittany's life. Jessica Lopez describes a pretty violent fight with Brittany, that she had to strangle her multiple times. She wouldn't die right away. She used a taser on her. And then she talks about dumping her body in the Lake Skinner area. The last update I had was there's

focus on Luis Perez as the prime suspect. and this is now a 180-degree shift. Jessica Lopez really was somewhat of no consequence to the investigation thus far. But now we have someone who looks like she's attempted to take her own life, and she wrote this letter taking full responsibility, trying to exonerate Maraglino and Perez and is directing law enforcement to exactly where the body is. So when we went out to the scene in Lake Skinner, ultimately they found the body of a dead woman. And what I saw is someone who looked very different. This was a body that had been there for a number of days.

Darrell called me and told me that they had indeed located a body and you know we of course had no positive identification. So there's an attempt at that point to try to get some determination, some identification. Is this the woman we're looking for? Is this the woman that's described in this letter? And we're all praying that it wasn't her because there were other people missing too in that location. So we're praying that it wasn't her. On her inner left wrist, she had a tattoo that she had gotten before she got married

that had her grandma Eileen's name. They go, the homicide detectives, and they examine her wrist, and sure enough, they see Eileen, the name of Brittany's grandmother. And we knew at that point this was Brittany. And at that point, there was no more hope that Brittany was still alive. It's a very sad and somber experience when you realize this is no longer a missing persons case.

This is now a full-on homicide investigation because we've just confirmed the identity of that dead body is Brittany Kilgore. The ME's office called me and told me that she was very confident based on the description that I had given that it was her and she assured me that they would take good care of her. I remember Michelle called me I think it was on my birthday she told me that it was a positive ID on Brittany. I don't like my birthdays anymore. Corey, who'd rushed back from Afghanistan during the search, was stunned.

During the first three days, we all were hoping to find Brittany. But when we find that note, then we know it's no longer trying to find her. That she's dead. It's really hit home to a lot of us. No one deserves what happened to Brittany. She didn't deserve what happened. I almost feel like sometimes, like, you know, screaming. The feeling you have as a father. You know, thinking about what she went through, what she was thinking.

So you just, you just can't imagine. You can't, you can't put it into words. But she was a kid. She was just a... She was just a kid. On May 8, 2012, Brittany finally made it home to Missouri. She rests near her beloved grandmother, Eileen. In 2012, Brittany finally made it home to Missouri. She rests near her beloved grandmother, Eileen. Brittany was an innocent girl that day.

I had a daughter the same age. And we have a saying in our unit that we speak for the victims, because they don't get a voice. At one point, every detective in our unit worked on this case. Over 100 people were involved. So it was personal for a lot of us. We started digging deeper and deeper into the case. I wanted to learn more about not just the BDSM lifestyle but more specifically I wanted to learn about how these three suspects were involved in that lifestyle. They were very controlled in how they

brought people into that lifestyle. They were known from Los Angeles down to San Diego as if you were looking to just get initiated this is a safe place. They made sure that anyone who played came in with a safe word. I think like any sort of adrenaline junkie knowing it wasn't real slowly became not enough for them. They saw an opportunity to live that out for real, to get that that real level of arousal back by actually kidnapping somebody, by actually hurting somebody and killing somebody, to give them that rush that they probably had not felt in years. April the 13th, it was Friday the 13th, that was Jessica Lopez's birthday.

It's our belief that they had planned this event for her birthday. They would kidnap Brittany and come over there and come to the house and then play out this fantasy of kidnap, murder, and whatever else they did that night. Jessica Lopez's injuries were not life-threatening, and she was arrested and charged with murder. We had Luis Perez and Jessica Lopez in custody with enough probable cause for the murder of Brittany Kilgore. All that remained at this point was trying to somehow tie

Dorothy Maraglino and see what her involvement in this murder was. Investigators began unraveling the dynamics of the group. Dorothy Maraglino was obviously the control freak in the house. She had writings or letters or stickers on where everything in the house went, above the toilet paper, how the toilet paper should be left, all over the house.

And she ruled Jessica Lopez. The Ramada surveillance video shows us that when Lopez wrote the seven-page letter, she was with Maraglino. They have her walking out of the hotel room, getting the writing instrument, going back, and that's when she wrote the letter. Jessica Lopez would truly,

she took pain for Dorothy Maraglino's pleasure, she took embarrassment, and she completely relinquished control of her entire life for Dorothy Maraglino. Based on the writings and other evidence found in searches, investigators now had a theory that Dorothy Maraglino was the mastermind behind Brittany's murder, and Lopez was her slave. It is not hard to believe that she would take the fall for this murder and kill herself, in a sense, fall on a sword, for Dorothy Maraglino and Luis Perez.

And that's what we believe happened. Our focus is on Dorothy, who had fled, and she was in Virginia now. So now we're trying to contact Dorothy and making phone calls to her. I'd like to talk to you and see what is going on. Okay. Was there any of you ever at the house that night? I did not see her at the house.

Are you sure about that? Yeah. How many times do you have to question? I'm not going to give you a change of my answer. She made herself unavailable. She refused to speak to the detectives who'd flown to Virginia to talk to her. At that point, she just sort of fell off the map. We lost touch with her.

She was sort of in the wind at that point. She was not getting on her phone. She was not using her normal means of communication. She wasn't using email. She wasn't even using credit cards. She was very difficult to track down. Finally, an NCIS informant led to Mariglino's whereabouts. Turns out that she was holed up in a weekly rental hotel not too far from the San Diego airport.

Using a false identity, I checked into that hotel and I sort of set up right across from a courtyard from her and I sat and watched her room for about a week straight just to make sure she wasn't going anywhere. I had surveillance teams from our headquarters were set up outside the hotel in case she got into a car, walked away, anything where I wasn't able to directly follow her myself. NCIS watched Maranglino while the sheriff's department built its case. Finally... We present the entire case to the DA's office,

and then they decide if they're going to issue it and what charges, and they ultimately charge Dorothy with the murder. I arrested her for the murder of Brittany Kilgore. At that point, all three suspects, Luis Perez, Jessica Lopez, and Dorothy Maraglino, were in custody. Each was set with bail at $3 million, so we didn't really suspect

they were likely to be set free until trial. All three defendants were charged with murder, torture, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, kidnapping, and attempted sexual battery. You know, this was a circumstantial evidence case. In circumstantial evidence cases, it's every little piece is important. In some ways, the BDSM evidence played a significant role. The jury had to understand the relationship of these parties

and their interest in sexual violence. On a case like this, with this type of evidence particularly, what we don't know is how much of it is going to be allowed in court. Because some of this stuff was so beyond the realm of everyday experience that a court could leave it out for being too prejudicial. This case was very complicated.

Three people accused in her death, it out for being too prejudicial. This case was very complicated. Three people accused in her death. They are engaged in this sexual lifestyle. Brittany was not a part of that. It was a very challenging prosecution because of the dynamics and the relationships of these individuals. There's a mystery. How do the pieces of this all fit together?

The defense strategy of each of the defendants seemed to be to point to the other guy. How do we put this case together to show that they're all responsible for Brittany's murder? I've never seen this much evidence having to be presented in court, ever. There were a million puzzle pieces here. be presented in court ever. There were a million puzzle pieces here. The Brittany Kilgore murder trial began in San Diego County in September of 2015.

All three defendants were tried together, one trial and one jury. Each defendant had their own attorney. I think what was most important was it became very clear to the jury that there was this attempt to get Brittany into that car, into that white Ford Explorer, when there was no plan at all to ever take her on the Hornblower cruise. And so all we had to prove was that there was a conspiracy,

that there was a plan to kidnap Brittany, and everyone who played a part in that kidnapping shared the responsibility for the murder that resulted. So it was very important to us to have us there and in the courtroom at all times so that we could show the jury. Brittany did have family that loved her. She was a human person, and people miss her.

There was the physical evidence that tied the DNA of the suspects, the DNA of the victim, and showed signs of violence. There was cell phone histories that showed holes in their stories and where people actually were that night. Abduction, torture, and murder. Prosecutors argued that was their fantasy. Just numerous witnesses who supported that this was a fantasy that these three all shared. The prosecution was saying that these folks took their fantasies way too far. They took them to a level that was not only dangerous, but in this case, was deadly. The prosecutor set out to prove

that the three conspired to lure Brittany to Mariglino's house, fulfilling their fantasy, where they killed her and then dumped her body near Lake Skinner. But the defense attorneys had their own version of events. The core of the defense was, Maraglino was sleeping when all this happened, Perez was out smoking when this happened, and Lopez's claim was, hey, I'm just a patsy,

and they made me write this letter, but I didn't do it. What the defense was arguing on behalf of Lopez was that she was the perfect pawn, the perfect victim, because she was doing whatever she could to protect master and mistress. My client, Mr. Luis Perez, had nothing to do with the homicide. The letter was a big challenge

for the prosecution of the case because the content of the letter, on the one hand it provided great leads but it also exonerated both perez and mariglino that note indicates very very clearly had nothing because the author jessica lopez took full responsibility of doing all the acts of doing the acts of torture the the tasering, and the strangling. How do you treat this letter? Is it all fiction?

Is it the truth? Or is it part truth and part fiction? So we had to present that letter in court and had someone read every word of that seven-page letter. And it really, it was jaw-dropping. And you look over and you see there's Brittany's mom and dad sitting there following the case and having to listen how their daughter was tortured. And it was almost like as though time stood still.

And it was almost like as though time stood still, and you just imagine the pain and the fear that Brittany had to suffer at the hands of these killers. Oh, it was... It was horrible. But it was something I felt like we had to do. The trial dragged on for five weeks. Perez was the only one who testified, pointing the finger at Lopez. Jurors heard from former House slaves about how the three fantasized about abduction, torture, and murder.

In my mind, in my heart, based on the evidence, I knew they were all equally guilty, and the concern I had was, what if the jury doesn't see it the same way? Deliberations took a full week, and we were worried when deliberations take that long a period of time. I was always at the edge of my seat saying, what exactly is the jury doing with this evidence? What are they talking about in deliberations? Will they hold all three responsible? Will they hold all three responsible? We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendants guilty of the crime of murder.

All three of them were convicted of murder, kidnapping, torture, and attempted sexual battery. Each of them received the punishment of life without the possibility of parole. Right now we have justice. You know, each of them received the punishment of life without the possibility of parole. Right now we have justice, you know, so-called justice. The three people who killed her are in prison for the rest of their lives. And I pray every day that they are miserable. No matter what, we were friends for life.

I wish she could have met my daughter. I wish that we didn't let all the time pass us by. I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget anything about her. If your gut is telling you something, listen to it. All it takes is that one time, that one mistake, and you won't get another chance. And you won't get to live your life. And if anybody could learn something from, you know, her death,

then at least it's not in vain. You never want to forget her. You always want to keep her in your mind and remember her. But then when you do, these things come up. So in a sense, it's kind of like this struggle with yourself. You don't want to forget her, but at times you do just to survive. Losing a child is just unthinkable. Especially to lose one in the way that they did so violently, so

horribly to absolute monsters. So to be able to help them find, I hope, some modicum, some small amount. out. By putting them away forever, I just hope that I was able to bring Brittany's parents some small amount of peace after what happened to them. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.