Three indicted in murder case linked to du Ponts

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1998 | 2:09 a.m.

In a case connected to the wealthy du Pont family, three men have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges in the murder-for-hire death of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a Las Vegas motel air conditioning vent.

The three already have been in custody for several days in connection with the slaying of 45-year-old Patricia Margello on Aug. 2 in the Del Mar Motel, 1141 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Christopher Moseley, 58, Diana Hironaga, 40, and Ricardo Murillo, 37, were named in the indictment alleging they conspired to travel in interstate commerce and use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a contract murder.

Moseley, a former gardener at the du Pont family estate in Delaware, is the husband of Lisa Dean Moseley, a direct descendant of the founder of the DuPont Co. The family's wealth is estimated at more than $10 billion.

Margello was the girlfriend of Dean MacGuigan, Christopher Moseley's stepson, who had come to Las Vegas apparently to get a divorce from his estranged wife. Metro Police said MacGuigan provided key information about who his girlfriend was with before she disappeared.

Moseley is alleged to have called Gironaga in July and asked her to kill Margello, according to a complaint filed in a Delaware federal court. The interstate call put the case into federal jurisdiction.

Hironaga, Murillo and Joseph Balignasa are charged with luring Margello to the motel where she was beaten and strangled, stuffed into a plastic bag and hidden in the air conditioning vent. Her body wasn't found for more than two days.

archive