Jury chosen for alleged Killgore killers

A jury of nine women and three men was seated this morning, September 10, for the trial of three people accused of murdering Brittany Dawn Killgore in April of 2012. Jury selection began with a questionnaire given to hundreds of prospective jurors a week ago.

A panel of five alternate jurors (four men and one woman) will also hear evidence for the duration of the trial, expected to last two months and conclude sometime before Thanksgiving. San Diego Superior Court judge K. Michael Kirkman has instructed all his jurors to “stay healthy” and “take vitamins.”

Louis Ray Perez (49), Jessica Lynn Lopez (28), and Dorothy Grace Marie Maraglino (40) have all pleaded not guilty to charges of torture, murder, and conspiracy. Each defendant has been held in custody for more than three years, in lieu of $3 million bail.

The body of 22-year-old Killgore was found dumped by the side of a road in Riverside County four days after she went missing. The victim was married to a Marine who was deployed to Afghanistan at the time of her murder.

Prosecutor Patrick Espinoza has alleged that Britany Killgore was last seen getting into a car with Louis Perez the night of April 13, 2012. Thirteen minutes later, the doomed woman sent a one-word text message to a friend stating “HELP,” according to evidence presented during a preliminary hearing in March of 2013. Perez was a staff sergeant with the Marines at the time of his arrest.

The prosecutor is asserting that the night of the murder, Perez drove the victim to the home of Maraglino, located one mile from Killgore’s apartment in Fallbrook.

Investigators have declared that a downstairs room of that home was “set up as some type of sex dungeon,” according to sworn statements found in warrant requests. The prosecutor has asserted that all three defendants were part of a “Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) community” and that Killgore was kidnapped, abused, and killed as part of a sadomasochistic fantasy.

A plastic bag and gloves recovered from Perez’s car tested positive for blood, and that blood was DNA-matched to Killgore, according to evidence presented at a previous hearing.

San Diego County district attorney Bonnie Dumanis removed the possibility of the death penalty from the case last December; the maximum possible sentence is now life in prison without parole if any defendant is convicted of the charges.

Four months after she was taken into custody, Maraglino, then 37, gave birth to a baby who was fathered by her Perez, then 46. At that time, in August of 2012, Perez was married to different woman, with whom he had lived on the Camp Pendleton military base, with their daughter.

Opening statements for the trial are expected on September 14 in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse in Vista.