The year is 2006.

We would see Disney doing what it does best, Buying its competition
with the purchase of Pixar Studios after their release of Cars. In another movie about Race cars
comedy fans would witness Will Ferrell and John C Reilly coming together for the first time in
Talladega nights giving birth to quotes that will live forever you know you’re saying “if you're not
first you're last right now”. Abigail Breslin would remind people to be themselves by dancing to
Super Freak in Little Miss Sunshine. Martin Scorscese would direct that year's Best picture film
The Departed. It climaxes with all of Matt Damon's lies being revealed. At this same time a man
named Diego Pilco was trying to cover up his crimes from the police and the world. This is the
story of Adrienne Shelly and how sometimes not everything is as it appears.

Shelly was born in Queens New York. She started acting at The Stagedoor Manor at just
10 years old. She would have her professional debut in a theater production of Annie when she
was still a still at Jericho High School. She then attended Boston University and majored in film
production but dropped out in her junior year and headed back to New York.

In 1989 she would link up with the indie filmmaker Hal Hartley and star in two of his films
back to back. Starting with "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Trust". ​Trust​ ​would be nominated for
the ​Grand Jury Prize​ at the ​Sundance Film Festival​, where Hartley's script tied for the ​Waldo Salt
Screenwriting Award. Over the next few years she would star in guest spots of Oz, Law and Order (
which has a surprising amount of characters from Oz buts a another story), and over two dozen off
broadway plays. Most of these were performed at Manhattan's workhouse theatre.

In 2002 she would marry Andy Ostroy. Andy is the chairman and Ceo of Belardi/Ostroy a
marketing firm in New York. Shelly was pregnant with their daughter when she started working
on what would become her hit indie film, Waitress.

She was worried about balancing her work with motherhood, which she wove into the
script. There’s a moment where Keri Russell finds out that she’s pregnant and she’s not happy.
The doctor even says, ‘Uncongratulations.’ That was pretty much what Adrienne had feared –
that would she lose her identity as a person and her ability to work her husband said later.
Waitress is about a woman who is afraid. It’s about a woman who has real challenges and fears
in life.
 But when Sophie was born in 2004, Shelly’s entire outlook changed. “Once she saw
Sophie, it was incredible. The love she had for that child was just monumental. Her fears
vanished. She just adored that little girl so much.” Ostroy said.

Shelly was able to meld motherhood and work perfectly, he says. When Sophie was
little she would go over to her to moms old apartment with her that Shelly kept as a writing and
editing studio. She’d crawl and play all around the apartment while her mom worked and was
able to play a bit herself. Sophie brought levity and patience to Shelly’s life and it showed in her
work.

The morning of November 1, 2006 Andy dropped Shelly off at her West Greenwich
apartment around 930 am. He watched her head into the building then headed towards his
office. She was working on another project at this time called Serious Moonlight. She was also
patiently to hear if Waitress would be accepted by the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Around 5 pm Andy had become worried that he hadn't heard from his wife all day so he
decided to head over to the apartment to check on her. When he arrived around 530 he asked
the doorman to accompany him upstairs to check on the apartment. When they approached
they noticed the door was unlocked and walked in calling her name. Her husband walking
around the apartment opened the bathroom door and immediately gasped at what he saw.

There was Shelly, They found her body hanging from a shower rod in the bathtub with a
bed sheet around her neck. The police would be notified and begin the investigation. Very
quickly Andy Ostroy was told despite the door not being locked and money reportedly missing
from her wallet, The New York Police Department believed Shelly had taken her own life.

The autopsy would seem to confirm the detectives conclusion showing that Shelly had
died from Neck Compression. Shelly’s entire family was flabbergasted. She wouldn’t have
committed suicide there was no way. She would never leave her 2 year old daughter
motherless. She was was waiting to hear if her film got into Sundance. Life was near perfect
wasn't it.
 Andy and Shelly's parents would continue to vehemently protest this conclusion and
would even hire renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who performed a second
autopsy on her Saturday at the funeral home, under the watch of two detectives. This would
lead detectives to more carefully re-examine the bathroom. This second look would lead
investigators to discover a shoe print in gypsum dust on the toilet beside where her body had
been found.

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This shoe print was a Reebok Allen Iverson-model. Police matched this print to other
sets of footprints found in a construction area that had been ongoing on the floor below Shelly’s
apartment. This would explain the gypsum dust found in her bathroom.

Investigators approached Louis Hernandez the construction supervisor who also

happened to own the apartment building. Louis would tell police about one of his employees
that would regularly wear sneakers to work. Louis would say but you are looking at the wrong
guy. He’s a good kid. This kids name was Diego Pillco.

Diego Pillco as it turns out is a 19 year old Ecuadorian undocumented immigrant. He

had found his way from Ecuador and into Mexico. There In Mexico he would hire a coyote to
help him cross the border into the United States. In July of 2006 he would cross the border and
head to Brooklyn where his cousin was living. It was there he shared his cousins basement
apartment in Brooklyn which was also owned by his employer.

Diego would work 6 days a week for Louis Hernandez on various construction jobs, His
day off he would work as a substitute superintendent of the apartment building he was living in.
Why was he working so much. Apparently the coyotes who help unducummented immigrants
cross the border charge a very high fee for this service. After being in New York for eight
months its reported that his debt to the Coyote had still not been cleared. He was said to have
agreed to pay 12,000 dollars for this service.

The investigators would go meet Diego and discover his sneakers were a match to the
shoe prints found in the apartment. On November 6th 2006 the police arrested Diego Pillco for
the murder of Adrienne Shelly.

In custody Diego would admit on tape to the investigators to killing Shelly. "I was having
a bad day,". "I didn't mean to kill her. But I did kill her."

He said while working on the empty apartment one floor below Shelly. She came down
to and was complaining about the noise level and asking if it could be toned down as she was
trying to work. It was at this time he threw the hammer that had been in his hand at her. Shelly
at this point walked away probably scared from the outburst of Diego. Diego immediately began
to worry that Shelly would no doubt go to his boss or maybe the police and file a complaint
against him. He was afraid he would be deported so he followed her back to her apartment. It's
here he said the petite Shelly hit him and was killed in a fall in the ensuing struggle. After seeing
she was unconscious and believing she was dead, Pillco then dragged Shelly into her
bathroom, wrapped a bed sheet around her neck and attached it to the shower rod in the to
make it appear she had hanged herself.

In a second confession his story changed. This time he said he noticed Shelly while he
was on break eating his lunch and decided to follow her and assault her. During the assault she
had became unconscious. Thinking he killed her he would go grab a bed sheet tie it around her
neck and stage the suicide. This rang more true to police because there was no evidence of
gypsum dust on Shelly’s clothes or shoes she wasn't even wearing them when found. There
should have been some if it had happened like his original story and she had came down to the
apartment he was working on to complain.

I kept saying thinking he killed her because when the medical examiner would later
release the autopsy reports would how Shelly did not die from a blow but from strangulation so
she was still alive when he tied that bed sheet around her neck and gravity and finished his
crime for him.

After The press released news of the arrest Ostroy said in a statement: "We are
incredibly grateful to the New York City Police Department for their dedication, professionalism
and tenacity in following up on every lead in this case.

Prosecutors with the two confessions in hand seemed to have a confession to murder
but for some reason they would offer Diego Pillco a plea deal if he plead guilty to first degree
manslaughter. Later Prosecutors would explain their decison by saying if they charged Pillco
with murder he might return to his original account and a jurty may have found him guilty of a
lesser charge such as involuntary or reckless manslaughter.

Diego Pillco would plead guilty to the lesser charge, first-degree manslaughter, and was
promised a fixed sentence of 25 years in a deal negotiated with the Manhattan district attorney.

As part of the agreement Diego would have to allocute his crimes for the courts. At
Pillco's sentencing on March 13, 2008, he changed his story once again during his allocution
"When I saw the lady I decided to rob her," he said.

He found her door ajar, grabbed her bag, took cash, and was putting the bag back when
Shelly came out of a room and saw him. She was calling the police when he attacked.
They struggled and when she passed out he tied a sheet around her neck to choke her and
then hoisted her diminutive frame off the floor and hung her from the shower rod. He said he did
not know she was still alive when he did this.

No sentence will be enough for you," ​Andy Ostroy​ raged, glaring at ​Diego Pillco​. "You
deserve the same fate you handed Adrienne. I want you to suffer like she suffered."

"You are nothing more than a cold-blooded killer, a murderous beast who in an intent to

rob, and then silence your innocent victim ... took the life of a beautiful, loving woman who,

unlike you, had so much to give to society," he said, stone faced.

 The heartbroken widower spoke during a charged Manhattan state Supreme Court
hearing that ended with Justice Carol Berkman sentencing Pillco. The judge said he'll be
deported after serving his time.

He also stated to Pillco "You stalked and brutally attacked my wife, silenced her
screams with your hand until you rendered her unconscious and then, in a brutal and gruesome
act of cowardice, took a bedsheet and strangled her to death​," ​Ostroy said. "You tied her up
and hung her the way you strung up pigs back in Ecuador."

In remembering Shelly, Ostroy said that "Adrienne was the kindest, warmest, most
loving, generous person I knew. She was incredibly smart, funny and talented, a bright light with
an infectious laugh and huge smile that radiated inner and outer beauty... she was my best
friend, and the person with whom I was supposed to grow old".

Shelly's husband sued contractor Bradford General Contractors, which had hired Pillco.
The complaint alleged that Shelly would still be alive if the contracting firm had not hired him.
Ostroy also sought to hold the owners and management of the building liable for Shelly's
murder. According to a ​New York Pos​t​ ​article, among other allegations, the complaint stated
that ​"​'Pillco was an undocumented immigrant...' as were his co-workers, and that "it was in
Bradford General Contractors' interest not to have 'police and immigration officials [called] to the
job site' because that would have ground their work to a halt".

On July 7, 2011, the lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Louis York. The court determined
that Ostroy had not established legal grounds to hold the contractor liable, writing "While this
court sympathizes with [Ostroy's] loss, plaintiffs have not presented sufficient legal grounds
upon which to hold Bradford ... liable for Pillco's vicious crime", and that there was likewise
insufficient evidence presented to find that either the building's management agents or its
owners "had reason to believe that Pillco was a dangerous person who should not have been
allowed to work at the premises" in order to find them ​vicariously liable​.

Her film The waitress did get accepted into Sundance and unfortunately she never got to
see her film be praised by the jury and audiences. It was purchased at Sundance by Fox
Searchlight for 4-5 million based on reports and made 19 million its wide release. It holds a (0%
fresh score rotten tomatoes which means universal claim. Shelly would receive the award for
Best Screenplay at the independent spirit awards.

Following his wife's death, Ostroy established the ​Adrienne Shelly Foundation,​ a non-profit
organization that awards scholarships, production grants, finishing funds and living stipends
through its partnerships with academic and filmmaking institutions NYU, Columbia University,
Women in Film, IFP, AFI, Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute and the Nantucket Film
Festival. One of its grant recipients, Cynthia Wade, won an Academy Award in 2008 for
Freeheld,​ a short-subject documentary which the Foundation helped fund. As part of its annual
awards, the Women Film Critics Circle gives the Adrienne Shelly Award to the film that "most
passionately opposes violence against women".

Ostroy also spearheaded a move to establish a memorial to his wife. On August 3, 2009, Adrienne
Shelly Garden was dedicated on the Southeast side of Abingdon Square Park in NYC at 8th Avenue
and West 12th Street. It faces 15 Abingdon Square, the building where Shelly died.

With the success of Waitress who knew what was next for Adrienne Shelly. She will be
missed by many…. Rip Adrienne

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Sources used for this episode are included in the show notes on the website. But
include wiki, The New York Post story written by Laura Italiano and a Times story by
Anemona Hartocollis.