A couple of days ago, I mentioned the apparent suicide of Adrienne Shelly, who I knew slightly during the early nineties. As you may have heard, the story turns out to be even more terrible and tragic:
He told detectives that he had hit her in the face and had thought she was dead. So, the police said, he wrapped a sheet around her neck and hanged her from a shower curtain rod, figuring that the police would think suicide. But he was wrong on both counts.
It was the hanging that killed Adrienne Shelly, a Manhattan actress and a mother, the authorities said yesterday. And it was the ruse of a fake suicide that ultimately led detectives to the man charged with killing her.
Such was the courtroom revelation at the arraignment of Diego Pillco, 19, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Ms. Shelly, 40, last week. The case has given pause to even the most experienced police investigators, who call it one of the most macabre killings in memory.
Deepest condolences to her family. What a stupid, awful waste.