FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – For the first time, gruesome crime scene photos taken inside a Fort Lauderdale mansion where police said a woman stabbed and then fatally shot her millionaire boyfriend last summer have been released.
The pictures show the gun, bullet, knife and hammer that police said Catherine Pileggi used to kill her boyfriend, Ron Vinci, 70.
SLIDESHOW: Crime scene photos (WARNING: Graphic)
Vinci's body was found wrapped in a comforter, duct-taped with garbage bags. His blood was on the bedding, the floor and the dresser, while the bed itself was ripped to shreds.
Police said Vinci suffered multiple stab wounds, a gunshot to the head, blunt-force fractures to his skull and a large cut to his throat.
A video showed Pileggi buying a blue plastic 45-gallon container at Home Depot on the morning of Vinci's death, police said. An identical container appeared in the crime scene photos taken at the Fort Lauderdale mansion.
Vinci and Pileggi, who was his girlfriend for 20 years, lived in the mansion, where Vinci's body was found last June.
A 911 call first alerted police to the death. But an interview with the family handyman, Reynaldo Silva, put Pileggi in a position to be charged with murder.
After Silva said Pileggi opened up to him about Vinci's death, Silva said she took him to a bedroom to show him the body, which he said was already taped, wrapped and placed near a suitcase and the blue container. Silva said Pileggi asked him to get rid of it.
Pileggi remains behind bars without bond, charged with premeditated murder. She has pleaded not guilty and is due in court next month.