Murillo guilty in du Pont murder trial

After nearly 11 1/2 hours of deliberations over three days, jurors in the du Pont murder trial determined today that Ricardo Murillo was a hired killer.

The eight-woman, four-man jury in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas found Murillo guilty of the federal charges of conspiracy to use interstate commerce in the commission of a murder for hire and using interstate commerce facilities to commit murder for hire.

Essentially the jury, which began its deliberations late Wednesday afternoon, found that Murillo used the telephone and faxes to plot the murder of Patricia Margello and traveled back East to obtain his fee for the murder.

Murillo's convictions ends just one chapter in a tale of money, sex, drugs and alcohol. The final chapter is expected to end next year with the murder trial of Joseph Balignasa, another defendant in the case.

A trio of assistant U.S. attorneys spent seven days trying to persuade the jurors that Murillo was one of three people hired by Delaware resident Christopher Moseley to kill Margello, 45.

According to court testimony, Margello was a drug addict and sometime prostitute who was dating Dean MacGuigan, Moseley's stepson and apparent heir to the Du Pont chemical corporation fortune.

Moseley, a retired career military man, ordered Margello murdered when she interfered with his plans to rescue MacGuigan from an unwanted wife, drugs and seedy lifestyle. Margello followed MacGuigan to Las Vegas from Philadelphia shortly after MacGuigan came here for a quickie divorce.

Margello's body was found Aug. 5, 1998, crammed inside an air-conditioning vent inside Room 6 of the Del Mar Resort Motel on Las Vegas Boulevard South. She had been strangled with a belt and wrapped up with bed linens, trash bags, panty hose, coaxial cables and jumper cables.

Authorities' big break in the case came when MacGuigan told police Margello had been with Diana Hironaga and Murillo on the night of the murder and Hironaga's name was found on the motel's registry.

Hironaga eventually told police she and Murillo received $15,000 from Moseley to kill Margello and Balignasa assisted them. The former pornography star and prostitute said she met Moseley while playing video poker at a local hotel.

Defense attorneys argued the government had nothing to tie their client to the murder aside from the testimony of Hironaga and Moseley, admitted substance abusers with motive to lie.

Hironaga and Moseley entered plea agreements and both testified at the trial in the hopes they can get something other than the life sentence that normally comes with murder-for-hire cases. Balignasa is awaiting trial.

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