VISTAVISTA — Jessica Lynn Lopez said she did everything she was told. She wore a collar. She ate from a dog bowl. She helped cover up a murder. She wrote a seven-page confession letter, and then she tried to kill herself.
In the world of bondage, discipline, sadomasochism — BDSM — submissives don’t ask questions. They take orders.
That was 11 years ago. And she has been behind bars ever since, convicted of murder in the 2012 death of Brittany Killgore, the young wife of a deployed Marine.
But last week, Lopez took the stand in a Vista courtroom and testified in the case for the first time, saying that she had falsely confessed at the direction of the woman who controlled her. Lopez said she had agreed to take blame so “Mistress” and “Master” could walk free.
She has asked a Vista judge to vacate her murder conviction.
Lopez said she wasn’t even present when Killgore was kidnapped and killed, a victim of what prosecutors say was a BDSM fantasy that morphed into terror in a Fallbrook home. Killgore, 22, was not part of the lifestyle but was acquainted with Lopez and the two others convicted in the killing — Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Grace Marie Maraglino, who Lopez called Master and Mistress.
In 2015, the trio were found guilty in Vista Superior Court of murder, kidnapping, torture and attempted sexual battery by restraint. All three were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Under the law in place at the time, anyone who had a part in a dangerous felony in which someone died was criminally liable for murder. But in 2018, California law changed. Accomplices who were not the actual killers or who did not play a significant role in the killing or underlying felony no longer would face a murder charge.
The change was retroactive, clearing the way for hundreds of people in California to ask to have their murder conviction vacated.
Lopez has made that request, arguing that she had no role the killing or underlying felonies. The burden is on prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did.
Now 36 years old, Lopez last week testified to her version of what happened.
Her attorney, Sloan Ostbye, argued that Lopez was the patsy. She had no control over anything that happened in Maraglino’s house, where she lived as Maraglino’s willing “slave.”
“She was manipulated, used and told to take responsibility for the crime,” Ostbye said.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza argued Lopez “was a major participant and had a reckless disregard for human life.”
“What new evidence raises reasonable doubt? Our argument is none,” he said.
Vista Superior Court Judge Robert Kearney acknowledged that this is “a new area of law.” He said he will issue his decision Tuesday.
A cruise and a kidnapping
Killgore had filed for divorce — her husband was deployed in Afghanistan — and was days away from moving to live with her parents in Pennsylvania when she disappeared on April 13, 2012. Her nude body was found four days later, dumped near a lake several miles outside Temecula.
Authorities would soon home in on Perez, Maraglino and Lopez as suspects, accusing them of scheming to abduct Killgore. According to trial testimony, abduction was one of their BDSM fantasies.
On the night she disappeared, Killgore was packing for her move when Perez suddenly showed up and asked her to join him on a dinner cruise. She declined, but asked if he could help her move. Perez, a Camp Pendleton Marine, said he could have fellow Marines at her Ammunition Road apartment in the morning to help — if she went on the cruise.
Before she said yes, Killgore asked Maraglino if she was OK with it. Maraglino said yes, according to a friend of Killgore’s who overheard the call.
It was a ruse. There were no cruise tickets. Little more than 10 minutes after Killgore got in Perez’s car, she texted a friend: “Help.”
Killgore’s friends tried repeatedly through the night to reach her. Then they called law enforcement.
What Lopez says she saw
Around the time the “help” text was sent, Maraglino and Lopez were at a Fallbrook grocery store. At checkout, neither had their wallet, so Lopez quickly drove home to retrieve hers.
She said she walked in and unexpectedly found Perez, who was “distraught or distracted.” She spotted an unfamiliar pink cellphone nearby, and saw a light on behind the door of a nearby closet. Lopez soon grabbed her wallet and returned to the grocery store where Maraglino was waiting.
Perez texted Maraglino: “Come home.” The women did so. Lopez said she initially stayed in the car on orders from Maraglino, who went inside.
Lopez said she eventually grabbed the grocery bags and headed inside, entering the garage, which had been converted into Lopez’s bedroom. There she saw a woman on her knees, head on the floor, her face turned away, tape wrapped around her head, she said.
Lopez said Maraglino and Perez were also there, talking. They sent her to the kitchen upstairs, where she waited for further instructions. “Slaves,” she testified, “don’t ask questions.” According to her, Maraglino soon came up, grabbed handcuffs and headed back downstairs.
Lopez said she assumed they had been involved in BDSM play. After waiting for a while, Lopez said, she went to the nearby living room and rented a movie. She said she heard nothing from downstairs. It was her 25th birthday.
Later, she said, she was downstairs and asleep in her own bed when Perez woke her. He ordered her to follow him on a drive. “Slaves don’t ask questions. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true,” she repeated on the witness stand.
They made their way in separate vehicles to Lake Skinner. Lopez said she stayed in her car.
After the body dump, Lopez said, she learned the woman was Killgore. She said she helped Maraglino drive around North County and discard potentially incriminating evidence.
A (fake?) confession
Killgore’s suspicious disappearance led investigators to Perez, who they jailed on an unrelated charge. They also started looking for Maraglino and Lopez.
A few days later, on April 17, 2012, authorities found Maraglino’s truck at a motel in the Point Loma area. They forced their way into Maraglino’s room and found Lopez, who had attempted suicide in the bathroom. She was taken to a hospital.
They also found Lopez’s confession letter. The narrative she laid out in the letter was quite different from what she told the judge this week.
In the letter, she wrote that Killgore had suddenly barged into the Fallbrook home, demanding to see Perez. She wrote that she attacked Killgore because Killgore could cause a rift between Maraglino and Perez, who she said were upstairs asleep.
Lopez’s attorney argued hotel surveillance video indicates Maraglino was in the room when Lopez wrote the letter. Lopez testified that Maraglino guided her, including providing details of how Killgore died.
She said Maraglino — who was pregnant with Perez’s child — asked Lopez to kill herself and told Lopez she could become the soul of Maraglino’s unborn baby “because she loved me as a baby and we’d never be separated.”
Lopez went to the front desk and made copies of the letter. Maraglino took a copy with her and left to catch a plane to the East Coast.
“She was the only person who ever made me feel normal … If she didn’t love me anymore, I’d be better off dead anyway,” Lopez said Tuesday of the suicide attempt.
The confession letter directed authorities to Lake Skinner, where they found Killgore’s body.
The felony murder rule
In 2018, state law changed to throttle back what is known as the felony murder rule, which had allowed for anyone who took part in a felony that resulted in a killing to be charged with murder.
An example would be the case of a liquor store robbery that turns deadly. Under the felony murder rule, the robber who pulled the trigger, the lookout and the getaway driver are all liable for the clerk’s murder, no matter which of them fired the shot.
With the change in law, the theoretical getaway driver and the lookout can now petition to have their murder conviction vacated. Prosecutors would have to prove one of three theories to keep the murder conviction:
- the defendant was the actual killer;
- the defendant played a role and had the intent to kill — perhaps the driver knew or expected the clerk would be shot as part of the plan.
- the defendant was a major player in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life — perhaps the lookout supplied the gunman with the bullets.
The judge is now viewing Lopez’s case through the same lens.
Espinoza, the prosecutor, argued to the judge that Lopez acted with reckless indifference. He said her narrative of events after she returned from the grocery store — that she stayed upstairs, clueless — is not reasonable.
He argued that Lopez “knew what her co-defendants were all about. She was aware of the degree of violence her co-defendants inflicted on others.”
He noted that the jury convicted her of kidnapping and torture, and said the panel also “found she was a major participant” in the murder by finding true a special circumstance allegation (Lopez was not convicted at trial of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, as Perez and Maraglino were). He also pointed to her own writing about a violent abduction fantasy, a piece she wrote well before Killgore’s murder, as state-of-mind evidence.
“She is trying to avoid responsibility, blame others and point fingers at her co-defendants,” Espinoza said.
He also said there is a second theory — Lopez was the actual killer, given that she admitted as such in the detailed confession letter.
Defense attorney Ostbye said the confession letter was false on its face — some of it matched the facts, some was proved to be false.
“She was willing to be cut, tattooed, eat out of bowls, even willing to kill herself,” Ostbye said. “She was so controlled and brainwashed, she did whatever she was told to do.”
Espinoza conceded in court last week the case is circumstantial, and that prosecutors can’t say exactly what happened or who did what inside the home. But all three, he said, were major participants who acted with reckless disregard for life. That would make all three liable for murder.
In making his decision, Kearney will look at the entire case, including the trial transcript. To that, he will add the testimony from Tuesday and Wednesday.
If Lopez’s murder conviction is vacated, she still must serve a sentence for the other crimes for which she was found guilty — potentially up to eight years for kidnapping plus seven years to life in prison for the torture conviction. She’s already served 11 years in custody. It’s possible that she could be eligible for a parole hearing in the next few years.
On appeal, Maraglino’s convictions for torture and attempted sexual battery were overturned for insufficiency of evidence. Maraglino has also petitioned to vacate her murder conviction, but that hearing has not been set.
Perez has not filed a petition to vacate his murder conviction.
