First verdict in du Pont case could indicate fate for three other murder defendants

A verdict for the first of four defendants in an alleged murder-for-hire plot connected to the du Pont family could be a barometer for the remaining cases.

The District Court jury in Joseph Balignasa's murder trial continued deliberations today after listening to defense and prosecution attorneys during closing arguments spin the evidence presented over two days.

The testimony indicated Balignasa was the least culpable of the defendants who are all facing the possibility of life prison sentences if convicted in the August strangulation of Patricia Margello, 45, at a Las Vegas Boulevard motel near downtown.

Margello was the girlfriend of Dean MacGuigan, a junior heir to the Du Pont chemical fortune, who was in Las Vegas establishing residency in order to obtain a divorce.

Charged in federal court with commissioning the murder is MacGuigan's stepfather, Christopher Moseley, a former grounds keeper at the du Pont family estate in Delaware who is now married to Lisa Dean Moseley, a direct descendent of the founder of the Du Pont Co.

Balignasa's attorney, Deputy Special Public Defender Laurel Duffy, told the jury Thursday that the unemployed kitchen worker was merely tagging along with one of those hired for the murder and should not be convicted.

But Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot countered that Balignasa played a criminally active role in the slaying by providing his Calvin Klein belt to wrap around Margello's neck at the Del Mar Motel, 1411 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Balignasa admitted that in a statement to Metro Police and the FBI, but adamantly maintained he was unaware the murder was to occur until Ricardo Murillo, 37, suddenly grabbed the victim around the neck.

In the statement, Balignasa told how the last defendant, Diana Hironaga, 40, pushed a pillow against Margello's face to help suffocate her.

After the murder, Balignasa said, he and Murillo bought garbage bags and tape and wrapped the body in plastic before stuffing it into an air conditioning vent in the motel room.

Although Balignasa claimed he only participated because he feared Murillo, Koot said the defendant is just one of "three cockroaches ... out for a quick buck."

Koot said that under Nevada law, a person who assists in a murder is equally guilty as the person who actually commits it.

He said it would be "blasphemous" not to convict Balignasa of murder.

But Duffy portrayed Balignasa as an "unsophisticated, unemployed kitchen worker with a drug problem" who played along with the others to keep from being a victim himself.

"I don't think he's all that dumb," Koot countered.

Duffy said that a person who is merely present at a crime is not guilty under the law and argued that Balignasa should be acquitted.

Duffy described Balignasa as a "good time guy who thought he was going somewhere to have some fun ... and was shocked by what happened in front of him."

Balignasa admitted he and the others smoked methamphetamine before the deadly events unfolded at the motel that specializes in showing porno videos in rooms that rent in three-hour blocks.

Margello's decomposing body was found three days later and it wasn't long before the defendants were tracked down and arrested.

The room had been rented in Hironaga's name, and Margello made telephone calls to her boyfriend naming the people she was with and complaining she felt unsafe. Yet she believed she could leave the motel and take a taxi back to her hotel room, according to MacGuigan's testimony.

After Murillo, Hironaga and Balignasa were apprehended, 58-year-old Christopher Moseley also was charged.

MacGuigan had come to Las Vegas apparently to get a divorce from his estranged wife and, perhaps, marry Margello.

Moseley is alleged to have called Hironaga in July and asked her to kill Margello, according to a complaint filed in a Delaware federal court.

MacGuigan testified Tuesday that his mother and Mosley disapproved of his relationship with Margello, whom he admitted was a drug user like him but also was his "soul mate."

The interstate call between Hironaga in Las Vegas and Moseley in Delaware put the case into federal jurisdiction, but Balignasa was not alleged to have been involved at that point and could not be included in the federal case.

Murillo is charged in federal court because of allegations he traveled to Delaware to collect the cash for Margello's murder.

Moseley, Hironaga and Murillo are scheduled to stand trial Oct. 18 in U.S. District Judge Philip Pro's courtroom.

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