Jury gets case in murder trial involving du Pont family

Jurors in a murder trial connected to the wealthy du Pont family will get a chance today to decide if Joseph Balignasa is guilty of first-degree murder, a lesser crime or nothing at all for his role in a slaying at a Las Vegas porn motel.

Closing arguments were scheduled for today in the trial that saw no opening statement by the defense attorney, no defense witnesses and little cross examination.

Balignasa did not take the witness stand, but the jury listened to his words for well over an hour Wednesday through a tape-recorded statement he gave to Metro Police after his arrest.

On the tape Balignasa downplayed his role in the slaying of 45-year-old Patricia Margello, the girlfriend of Dean MacGuigan, a junior heir to the Du Pont chemical fortune.

Balignasa admitted he was in the Del Mar Motel room, 1411 Las Vegas Blvd. South, with Diana Hironaga, 40, and Ricardo "Rico" Murillo, 37, when Margello was strangled to death. The defendant blamed Murillo but then admitted he surrendered his Calvin Klein belt to be used as the murder weapon.

The belt with the distinctive "CK" buckle was still around Margello's neck when her decomposing body was found three days later, wrapped in garbage bags and stuffed into the air conditioning vent in the motel room.

Under questioning by Metro homicide Detective David Mesinar and FBI Agent Brett Shields, Balignasa confessed that he had been the one who bought the garbage bags and tape used to secure the victim's body.

He told how he helped push the body into the vent and then joined the other two in wiping down the room to obliterate any fingerprints they might have left.

Balignasa said he didn't want to participate but felt pressure from Murillo, whom he said he feared. Yet he conceded that he continued to share a room at the Sahara hotel-casino with Murillo after the incident.

He denied receiving any payment for his role but told authorities that he knew Murillo was traveling somewhere to get payment for the job.

Under increasingly stiff questioning from the investigators, Balignasa told of a man named Christopher who was hiring Murillo as a bodyguard and paying him $5,000 or $10,000 "to do something for him."

A fourth defendant in the case is Christopher Moseley, the husband of MacGuigan's mother, Lisa Dean Moseley, a direct decendent of the founder of the Du Pont Co.

Moseley, Hironaga and Murillo are facing charges in federal court of interstate crimes.

Only Balignasa is being tried in state court because federal authorities could not allege he was part of any interstate activities.

If Balignasa is convicted of first-degree murder, the same jury would have to decide if he should be sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty.

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