Prosecution Hires Cipher Expert to Decode Message in Brittany Killgore BDSM Murder

Brittany Killgore, 22. Facebook photo.

It’s a strange case that keeps getting stranger. Three people involved in a master-slave BDSM relationship are accused of murdering a pretty young Marine wife in April of last year. Jessica Lopez, 25, slave to Dorothy Maraglino, 37, and then-Marine Louis Perez, 46,  took the fall for Brittany Killgore’s death in a rambling suicide note titled “PIGS READ THIS.” The note detailed how she murdered Killgore, tried to dismember her with power tools and dumped her body in Lake Skinner in Riverside County, Ca. Lopez’s plan to kill herself by cutting her wrists didn’t come to fruition: she was bleeding and weakened but alive when police entered her hotel room four days after Killgore’s murder. Lopez, along with Maraglino and Perez, was charged with killing Killgore. Although she explicitly took the blame for the murder, evidence police found, including blood and hair in Perez’s car, led authorities to believe all three were involved in the murder. The suspects all lived together and reportedly had a “sex dungeon” in the basement;  San Diego Sheriff’s homicide Detective Brian Patterson believes that the trio may have murdered Killgore to satisfy their fetishes. All three have pleaded not guilty to first degree murder. While in jail, Dorothy Maraglino reportedly gave birth to Perez’s daughter.

Now, another cryptic note may hold key evidence in the case. The San Diego Reader reports that a document, written in some kind of code, was found in the jail cell of one of the female defendants–either Lopez or Maraglino. That defendant’s attorney reportedly filed motions to prevent the prosecution from gaining access to the note, but was denied. According to an undisclosed source cited by the Reader, the District Attorney’s office has hired a cipher expert to decode the message.

Authorities believe Killgore, whose husband was deployed overseas, was planning to go on a dinner cruise with Perez when she was killed. A final text message to a friend from her phone read simply, “Help.” A homeless man later found her phone by his feet when he woke up after sleeping in the doorway of a hotel.

More on this case.