NEW YORK (November 7, 2006) — A construction worker was jailed Tuesday after he confessed to murdering an actress who was found hanging from a shower rod in an apartment she was having renovated. Diego Pillco, 19, made written and videotaped statements implicating himself in the slaying of Adrienne Shelly, Assistant District Attorney Marit Delozier said Tuesday at Pillco’s arraignment.
“He said he fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck and dragged her to the bathroom and hung her from the shower rod,” Delozier said at the brief court hearing. “This is an exceptionally egregious case.”
Pillco was ordered held without bail pending a Thursday hearing.
Shelly, who appeared in the movie “Factotum” with Matt Dillon last year, was renovating the Greenwich Village apartment she used as her office. Pillco, one of the workers, was one of the last people seen going into the apartment, police said.
Shelly, whose birth name was Adrienne Levine, was found last Wednesday. Police were hesitant to label the case a suicide, observing that no note was found and that sneaker prints that did not match her shoes were found in the bathtub.
Shelly was raising a 3-year-old daughter, Sophie, with her husband, Andy Ostroy.
Shelly, 40, was best known for her roles in “The Unbelievable Truth,” in which she played Audry Hugo in 1989, and “Trust,” in which she starred as Maria Coughlin in 1990.
She worked steadily during her career in film, theater and television but later turned to writing and directing, making her directorial debut with “Sudden Manhattan” in 1996. She recently wrote and directed the film “Waitress,” starring Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion.
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