Killer Had Told Friends What He Did.
Temer Leary couldn’t believe his eyes.
He watched an episode of the television news show “48 Hours” last month, and there on the show was his former roommate, accused of being a serial killer in California.
Leary, a Lake Luzerne resident, thought back to the stories his roommate used to tell of killing people and how Leary and his buddy, former Glens Falls resident Anthony Dilorenzo, used to laugh them off.
Having learned that his former roommate, Michael Gargiulo, had been charged with killing two women in Los Angeles, attempting to kill a third and was a suspect in a killing in Illinois, Leary realized the tales Gargiulo told weren’t exaggerated.
“I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to tell somebody what I know,’” he said.
He left a comment on the television station’s website about the case and what Gargiulo had told him and, hours later, was contacted by detectives in Cook County, Ill.
The next day, he and Dilorenzo were on airplanes to Chicago to tell detectives what they knew about their former roommate and co-worker and the comments he had made about a young woman’s killing in Illinois.
It turned out the stories Leary dismissed as tall tales appeared to be based in fact.
“We never believed him,” Leary said Thursday. “But it turned out the things he told us were true. The detectives couldn’t believe how much we knew.”
Leary and Dilorenzo met Gargiulo in the mid-1990s, when the two Glens Falls men moved to California. Dilorenzo sought a life in Hollywood, and Leary tagged along. They got jobs as bouncers at the famous Rainbow Room bar in Hollywood, where Gargiulo was also a bouncer.
They had a common hobby. Gargiulo wanted to be a boxer, and Leary’s grandfather had operated a boxing gym in Glens Falls.
The three wound up as roommates.
One day, as the trio drove in a car, Gargiulo told of killing a young woman, Leary said.
Leary said detectives and prosecutors in Illinois asked him not to share details about what Gargiulo told him about the 1993 stabbing death of Tricia Pacaccio. Gargiulo and Pacaccio, then 18, were neighbors, and Gargiulo was long a suspect in the case, according to published reports.
The investigation had intensified in recent months, as detectives learned that Gargiulo’s DNA was found under Pacaccio’s fingernails. Gargiulo was later charged with murder and attempted murder in the stabbings of three women. He was dubbed “The Hollywood Ripper” by local media.
Then Leary came forward with evidence in a fourth case. His status as a witness was chronicled, earlier this month, in Chicago magazine, which has been closely following the Pacaccio murder investigation.
Leary said he testified before a grand jury, but no charges had been filed against Gargiulo as of Friday. A spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said she could not discuss the case Thursday because no one has been charged, while Cook County police did not return a call.
Dilorenzo couldn’t be reached this week. Leary said he is travelling out of the country.
Leary’s lawyers, the firm of Brennan & White, worked with police for his testimony. The firm confirmed its involvement in the matter but would not comment.
Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan confirmed her office was involved in the matter as well but said she could not discuss it Friday.
If only his buddies would have believed him.
Many times you read about people looking back over conversations, mood changes and other small things and they realize that the other person was killing at that time.
If bodies are showing up around town and your bud tells you he did it or has just started acting a bit off call the cops.
Real Life Monsters 