A one-time porn actress is a key figure in a murder trial which involves the alleged plot of a DuPont heir's stepfather to rid the family of his stepson's girlfriend - a former prostitute.
Patricia Margello was found strangled and her body stuffed into trash bags in a Las Vegas motel air conditioning duct in 1998, the victim of two men. One of the men, Ricardo Murillo, is the boyfriend of former porn actress Diane Hironaga, who is cooperating with authorities and testified against Murillo Monday.
Prosecutors contend the killing began with a plot by Christopher Morley to squeeze Margello out of his stepson, Dean MacGuigan's life. Moseley has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and, like Hironaga, is cooperating with authorities in hopes for a lighter sentence.
MacGuigan is the great-great-grandson of a DuPont Chemical Company founder. Murillo faces life imprisonment if convicted; his case is expected to go to a federal jury here this week.
"This case is all about death, deceit and deals," Arthur Allen, the assistant public defender, said in his opening statement at the trial. Murillo faces conspiracy charges in the case.
The case began in 1998. MacGuigan, 42, had met Margello and gone to Las Vegas to divorce his wife after she drained his trust fund, angering his family. Margello followed MacGuigan to Las Vegas, but their relationship was just as unpopular with his family - enough so, APBNews says, that Moseley allegedly plotted to squeeze Margello out of MacGuigan's life; first by persuasion, then by murder.
Hironaga testified to meeting Moseley playing video poker in a Las Vegas hotel, and he asked her to spearhead the plot to kill Margello in July 1998. She testified he paid her $5,000 at first, hoping to persuade MacGuigan off a drug habit and out of his affair with Margello. When that failed, Hironaga testified, Moseley chose murder.
Moseley testified he gave a kill order while drunk. Hironaga, APBNews says, had to use a wheelchair to bring him to the airline gate for a flight to Philadelphia.
Hironaga testified to plans to trap Margello by luring her to the Del Mar Hotel Aug. 2, pre-dawn, telling her they'd be paid $2,000 each to escort two gamblers. Hironaga rented a room under her name for $10 an hour, she testified, but Margello smelled trouble at once and called MacGuigan at the Las Vegas Hilton.
After suggesting she catch a cab back to the Hilton, MacGuigan apparently heard nothing more from Margello for three days, after which a news report broke that her body had been found at the motel, with a belt wrapped around her neck and battery cables holding her body in a fetal position, APBNews says.
Before the body was found, Hironaga testified, Murillo and another man, Joseph Balignasa, waited in the motel room. They did methamphetamine and then the two men began choking Margello, Hironaga testified. They put her body into trash bags and hid it in the air conditioning duct, she said.
Hironaga herself was booked at the Hilton and returned there, she said on the stand, to telephone Moseley, leaving a message with his answering service. She and Murillo flew on to Philadelphia, where Moseley's limousine driver allegedly brought Hironaga $5,000 and Murillo $10,000. The three plus Balignasa were indicted in Sept. 1998 in Margello's death.
Hironaga faces December sentencing; Moseley faces sentencing in February, APBNews says. Murillo and Balignasa maintain their innocence; Balignasa is scheduled for re-trial in January, after his first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors turned to a phone book and dictionary rather than staying with the submitted evidence, APBNews says.
