Brittany Killgore, 22, was last seen April 13 in a borrowed purple evening gown, three days after she filed for divorce from Lance Cpl. Cory Killgore, who was serving in Afghanistan at the time. Her body was later found near a lake in Riverside County with neck injuries consistent with strangulation and marks on her wrist and leg that suggested someone tried to use a saw or other tool to dismember her, according to the warrants.
Investigators say the three lived together and kept a "sex dungeon" at their home in Fallbrook, north of San Diego. Investigators said they found "bondage type sex apparatuses, toys and tools" in the home. All three, two women and one man, have been charged with Killgore's murder.
Detectives believe Killgore may have been killed as a way to satisfy the suspects' fetishes.
One of them, 25-year-old Jessica Lopez, wrote in a seven-page letter that she believed Killgore was trying to come between her and the other two suspects, Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Maraglino. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
In the letter, Lopez said she had been burned before in a relationship and knew what she had to do when Killgore entered their home. Lopez said she shot the victim with a stun gun, wrapped a rope around her neck, buried her face in a pillow and strangled her.
"She barely moved but she just wouldn't die, the miserable whore," the letter said.
Lopez said she made "a few attempts to chop her up" with Perez's power tools and doused Killgore's body in bleach to get rid of evidence before dumping the nude body near Lake Skinner, near Riverside.
Investigators found the letter in a San Diego hotel where Lopez was discovered with self-inflicted cuts four days after Killgore disappeared.
The documents gave no indication that Killgore knew about the sex ring. Detectives said Killgore accepted Perez's invitation to a San Diego dinner cruise after he helped her move that afternoon. The warrants do not say how Killgore met the suspects.
All three defendants were being held on $3 million bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Aug. 21.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
