100% Preventable

I actually had to search for a story that identified this confessed murderer as an illegal alien...no surprise that it was the New York Post that included that detail.

In a stunning turnaround, a construction worker yesterday confessed to killing indie actress Adrienne Shelly, whose death in a Greenwich Village apartment last week was first thought to be suicide, cops said.

"I was having a bad day," illegal immigrant Diego Pillco, 19, allegedly told cops. "I didn't mean to kill her. But I did kill her."

The New York Daily News also identifies Pillco as an illegal alien...

Diego Pillco, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant who had been renovating the apartment below Shelly's office, told cops in a chilling confession that he was afraid of getting arrested and deported, sources said.

But that detail is curiously omitted from all of these reports:

Pillco immigrated to the United States from Ecuador in July, police said. (AM New York)

Pillco, of New York, was expected to be arraigned Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office said. (ABC News)

Pillco, of Brooklyn, was being moved from the Manhattan precinct where he was arrested to Central Booking before going to Criminal Court, where he was expected to be arraigned on the second-degree murder charge, Czartoryski said. There was no home telephone listing for Pillco. (AP from The Day)

A whole string of papers picked up the AP story, of course, but the NY Times wins the Purposefully Vague Euphemism of the Day Award:

A native of Ecuador who arrived in the city in July, Mr. Pillco had been working in a third-floor apartment directly beneath the one Ms. Shelly used as her office at 15 Abingdon Square, in Greenwich Village, the authorities said.

Call me crazy, but "arrived" and willfully entered the country in violation of our immigration laws are not interchangeable terms.

And that makes this yet another case to be filed under 100% Preventable.

Technorati Tags
Illegal Immigration * Illegal Alien * Crime * Adrienne Shelly