Gavin Newsom has spared our daughter’s killer – and made a mockery of her life: Parents of woman butchered by depraved murderer detail unimaginable agony after governor commutes death row inmates

Michael and Cynthia Ellerin thought their daughter, Ashley, finally received justice when the man who butchered her in 2001 was put on death row five years ago.

Michael Gargiulo, who had stalked her for weeks, broke into the 22-year-old’s Hollywood Hills home on February 21, 2001, and stabbed her 47 times as she got ready for a date with actor Ashton Kutcher.

He was caught seven years later, when a botched attack on a neighbor in Santa Monica left a trail of his blood behind. DNA tied him to Ashley’s murder and two others and he became known as the ‘Hollywood Ripper.’

At sentencing, the judge called him ‘completely vicious and frightening’ as he rejected the defense’s push for him to be spared the death penalty.

Michael Ellerin told the court his wife let out ‘mournful screams and primal wailing’ when she learned her daughter had been murdered.

The family had been left with an ‘altered, diminished existence,’ he said, but took some solace knowing her killer would pay with his life.

Last Thursday, however, outgoing California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he was commuting the death sentences of all 548 inmates on the state’s death row to life without parole, including Ashley’s killer.

It is the largest mass commutation of death sentences in US history.

The Ellerins called it a ‘slap in the face’ to their family and to every relative of a murder victim in California.

‘Someone who kills multiple people like a serial killer or someone who kills first responders in the line of duty, there is no redeeming that person,’ Michael said.

‘The man who killed my daughter is a serial killer and he is in that category of evil that should be put down.’

He added: ‘If you’re talking about the concept of closure, it’s when you know that the person who killed your daughter was no longer alive and enjoying the privilege of thought, study or reflection.

‘It’s not about vengeance. My healing from this pain of losing my daughter would be enhanced knowing that Gargiulo has lost the privilege of breathing.’

Ashley’s mother, Cynthia, said: ‘I encourage Newsom to watch the trial of a serial killer and see the absolute proof that the jury got it right. That is the proof that some people do not deserve to live, have rights and have taxpayers put out money for them.

‘I could tell you if it was his daughter, he would change his tune.’

Prosecutors say Gargiulo’s first victim was Tricia Pacaccio, 18, a family friend and neighbor who was stabbed 12 times outside her home in Glenview, Illinois, on August 13, 1993.

He later moved to LA and by 2001 was living a short distance from Ashley’s Hollywood Hills bungalow. Prosecutors said he wormed his way into her life in the months before he killed her.

Kutcher, who had briefly dated Ashley, testified that he arrived late on the night of February 21 to take the dancer to a post-Grammy Awards party. She didn’t answer.

He peeked through a window and saw what he thought were red wine stains on the floor. Assuming he had ‘screwed up’ by turning up too late, he left her a message.

Ashley’s roommate found her the next day in a pool of blood. Gargiulo had slashed her throat so violently that he nearly decapitated her, prosecutors said.

‘We believe she had just exited the shower and was getting ready to go out with Mr. Kutcher when she was attacked from behind,’ LA County Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon told jurors.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Kutcher.

The murders earned Gargiulo a second nickname, the ‘boy-next-door killer.’

In December 2005, Gargiulo stabbed Maria Bruno, 32, 17 times and mutilated her body in her El Monte apartment, about 30 minutes from Ashley’s home.

Then in April 2008, he broke into the Santa Monica apartment of another neighbor, Michelle Murphy, 26, and tried to stab her to death.

She fought him off and survived, and he cut himself in the struggle, leaving a trail of blood which helped investigators connect the killings.

In his open letter, Newsom said state-sanctioned killing is ‘incompatible with California’s values’.

‘I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency,’ he wrote.

Because Gargiulo has multiple felony convictions, his commutation, like hundreds of others, needs the approval of the California Supreme Court under the state constitution.

‘What he is doing, in my opinion, is positioning himself for a presidential run,’ Michael Ellerin said of Newsom, who leaves office in January.

Newsom, widely tipped as a 2028 Democratic contender, has long opposed capital punishment, including backing a 2016 ballot measure to abolish it, which was rejected by Californians.

Former LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who oversaw several death row cases as the county’s top prosecutor from 2000 to 2012, also believes Newsom is driven by his presidential ambitions.

‘He just insulted thousands of prosecutors throughout California, and also judges and jurors who actually sat on all of these cases,’ Cooley told the Daily Mail.

‘What he is doing is phony posturing and was timed for his political ambition, but it’s a slap in the face to all the families of the victims of rapes and murders. It’s a slap in the face to California’s justice system.’

Newsom said the inmates would still serve life without the possibility of parole, but Cooley warned that could change.

‘[Newsom] is leaving office, but what will happen if the next governor or the state legislature makes more changes that would allow lifers to be eligible for parole?’ he said.

‘It’s a serious question given California’s history of reducing sentences through ill-conceived legislation.’

Michael Ellerin hopes to speak to incoming California governor Xavier Becerra about his concerns, saying victims’ families and survivors should have a say before any further changes are made.

‘There are evil people in this world who deserve nothing less than death,’ Cynthia Ellerin said.