Three people charged with kidnapping the wife of a Camp Pendleton Marine, torturing her during sadomasochistic sex and then killing her should find out this week whether they will stand trial.
A preliminary hearing, which starts Monday and is expected to last five days, will end with a San Diego County judge determining whether there is enough evidence to order a trial for Marine Sgt. Louis Ray Perez, Jessica Lopez and Dorothy Maraglino.
The three have pleaded not guilty to killing Brittany Killgore, 22, of Fallbrook, who vanished last year while her estranged husband was serving in Afghanistan. They also are charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and torture.
Prosecutors contend that Killgore met the trio when she and a friend went to a home in Fallbrook, north of San Diego, to buy an item being sold online, according to the North County Times.
Investigators said she later accepted Perez’s invitation to a San Diego dinner cruise after he agreed to help her move.
Killgore was last seen April 13 in a borrowed purple evening gown, three days after she filed for divorce from Lance Cpl. Cory Killgore. Authorities have cleared him of any involvement in her death.
Authorities contend that Killgore was kidnaped and made an unwilling participant in bondage and torture before she was strangled and her nude body left in a ditch near Lake Skinner in Riverside County.
San Diego County sheriff’s detectives said they found “bondage-type sex apparatuses, toys and tools” in the Fallbrook home where the trio lived. Investigators said they believe all three were with Killgore at the home shortly after she apparently sent a desperate text message to a friend that simply said, “Help.”
In an affidavit filed in court last year, a detective said the trio may have targeted Killgore for “unusual sexual fetishes.”
Perez was arrested on April 15 on suspicion of possessing a stolen assault rifle and was later charged with murder.
Lopez was arrested on April 17 at a San Diego hotel where she was discovered with self-inflicted cuts. They also found a letter in which Lopez allegedly claimed that she killed Killgore out of fear that the woman would steal away Perez, whom she described as her “master.”
Lopez said she tried to chop up Killgore’s body with power tools before dumping it near the lake, but the body was found hours later.
The letter also contended that Perez and Maraglino weren’t responsible for the killing. However, prosecutors said both were involved.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News