Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Maraglino, two of the three people who tortured and killed a Marine wife as part of a sadomasochistic fantasy sex ring, were sentenced Thursday to life without the possibility of parole.
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Sentencing is set for Thursday for two people convicted of first-degree murder in the torture-death of a 22-year-old military wife at a home in Fallbrook, where she was caught up in a bondage and sadomasochistic fantasy sex ring.
Louis Ray Perez, 49, and Dorothy Maraglino, 40, each faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for the April 13, 2012, killing of Brittany Killgore. Jurors found true a special circumstance allegation that the murder happened during a kidnapping.
A third defendant, Jessica Lynn Lopez, was also convicted of murder but is expected to be sentenced later.
Killgore had just filed for divorce from her Marine husband, who was deployed to Afghanistan, when she was killed. Prosecutors said Killgore was lured to a meeting with Perez, and her body was found four days later in Riverside County.
According to Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza, a stun baton found in the back of Perez's SUV had the victim's DNA on it. A plastic sheet in the back of Perez's car also had the victim's blood on it.
Lopez's attorney, Sloan Ostbye, told jurors that her client was a victim to a "slave" contract she entered into with Maraglino in the bondage and sadomasochistic world. Ostbye presented Lopez as a patsy, an abused servant forced to take the blame for a crime she did not commit.
Perez's attorney, Brad Patton, told the jury that Lopez committed the murder.
In 2011, he said, Lopez was heartbroken when another woman came between Perez and Maraglino, who were in an open relationship at the time.
Maraglino's attorney, Jane Kinsey, told the jury that her client had abandoned her BD/SM lifestyle while she was pregnant with Perez's child and that her only mistake was to participate in the cover-up.
