Scandalous DuPont heiress Lisa Moseley has died aged 87, nearly 18 years after her third husband paid for the murder of her son's prostitute girlfriend
Scandalous DuPont heiress Lisa Moseley has died aged 87, nearly 18 years after her husband paid for the murder of her younger son's drug-addled prostitute girlfriend.
Mrs Moseley, who had homes in New York and Wilmington, Delaware, died on April 25.
She was most recently embroiled in scandal for allegedly loaning a politician millions of dollars in exchange for a permit to build a clubhouse at her exclusive golf resort.
But her name is perhaps most recognizable for her husband's role in the 1998 murder of Pati Margello, who was Mrs Moseley's son's girlfriend.
The chemical fortune heiress' third husband, Christopher Moseley, hired three assassins - including a porn star - to have Miss Margello killed off at a grotty Las Vegas motel in 1998 because, as a drug addict prostitute, she did not fit in with the family's high society standing.
Mrs Moseley married playboy raconteur E. Haring 'Red' Chandor in 1953 and had two sons with him, Peter and Dean.
Both boys were great-great-grandsons of a DuPont Chemical Company founder.
But Lisa later fell in love with her gynecologist Dr John MacGuigan, and she left Mr Chandor.
MacGuigan was also married at the time, but the doctor and patient moved in together to a new Park Avenue home.
Meanwhile in 1959 Chandor fled to France with young Peter in retaliation, and stayed on the run for four months
He was eventually caught and jailed, with Peter returning to his mother.
Mrs Moseley changed both of Dean and Peter's last names to MacGuigan to spite Chandor, according toVanity Fair's Dominic Dunne in a 1999 article on the case.
In Chandor's 2004 obituary, he says he had just one son - Peter.
After years of happy marriage, Dr MacGuigan died in 1985 - although his widow skipped the funeral.
Three years down the line, the wealthy woman - whose fortune was estimated to be somewhere near $25million in 1999 - hired Christopher Moseley as her gardener and chauffeur.
Mrs Moseley (pictured in younger years), who had homes in New York and Wilmington, Delaware, has died. Her life was repeatedly in the headlines - despite her desire to stay out them. She left her first husband to marry her gynecologist, and when he died she married a third time - to her gardener
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ShareWithin months they were together romantically and the pair married in 1989 - much to the disgust of her son Dean, who despised his new stepfather.
A friend told Vanity Fair that Dean even wanted to kill his stepfather.
After a failed career as a stock broker, Dean married a single mother named Linda 'Rags' MacGuigan at Serendip in 1992, a match his mother did not approve of.
Rags says her mother-in-law never spoke to her, but none the less the heiress rented out a duPont home to Dean and Rags.
Then in 1995, Peter died of a heroin overdose in Colorado after a long struggle with drugs that began when he was in high school.
Lisa skipped her son's funeral, as she had that of her second husband, and she kept details of his death out of the papers, Dunne wrote.
Dean, who was in and out of work, and was first arrested for drugs before graduating UVA, went to rehab - and that's where he met Miss Pati Margello.
In August 1998, Dean and Miss Margello were in Las Vegas as Dean had to spend six weeks living there so he could claim residency and quickly divorce his wife, 'Rags' MacGuigan.
Dean, 42, had left her two years earlier and moved into squalor in south Philadelphia with Miss Margello, who was a fellow drug addict, occasional prostitute and was rumored to have AIDS, as did Dean.
She also had a 20-something year old son named Eric.
Margello proved a far worse match for crack addict Dean in his mother Lisa's eyes than Rags.
Moseley tried to pay Miss Margello to leave their family alone. She accepted the money but blew it all on drugs and did not leave.
Murderer: Christopher Moseley, Lisa's third husband whom she met when she employed him as a gardener and then married in 1989, ordered the contract killing of his stepson's girlfriend Pati Margello in 1998
This led to a blazing row in the Las Vegas Hilton - where Moseley, Dean and Miss Margello were staying - and would end up becoming the straw that broke Moseley's back.
Days later, Moseley called in the help of Diana Hironaga, who was also known by her porn star stage name Kiane Lee.
He paid her $5,000 up front, with the promise of more money after she had dealt with Miss Margello.
Hironaga brought in two accomplices; drug dealer Ricardo Murillo, 40, and unemployed Filipino Joseph Balignasa, 28.
All three met Moseley and agreed to tempt Miss Margello out for a night on the town.
Miss Margello, 45, had once been a beautiful young woman, but years of drug abuse and fist fights with dealers had saw her lose her teeth and her looks, as well as half a finger on her left hand.
She had fallen into prostitution - but Dean would later insist that she was only ever paid to give oral sex.
So when Hironaga offered her $2,000 for a night out with two wealthy men, she agreed.
After a night out on the Strip taking crystal meth, the three hitmen and Margello headed back to the Del Mar Resort Motel.
Despite it being a shady, grimy establishment where $30 would buy you three hours and a range of adult movies. Miss Margello did not immediately question why two well-to-do men were taking her there.
However, at some point during the evening, that changed and she called Dean for help, however - despite being just a mile away at the Hilton - he told her he did not have enough money for a cab to come and get her.
Dean MacGuigan married Linda 'Rags' MacGuigan (pictured together during the brief years of marital happiness in the early 1990s), but split from her and moved in with Miss Margello two years later
Dean MacGuigan (pictured later in life, left) was in Las Vegas with his stepfather Moseley and Miss Margello when she was murdered by porn star Diana Hironaga (right) and two other hitmen
Lisa (right) married playboy raconteur E. Haring 'Red' Chandor (left) in 1953 and had two sons with him, but she moved on to her gynecologist and then married Christopher Moseley when she was widowed. Chandor died in 2004
After going to the bathroom, Miss Margello was ambushed by the three assassins, who choked her and beat her for 15 minutes as she fought for her life.
They tried to suffocate her with a pillow but that did not work, but Murillo eventually finished her off by pulling Balignasa's Calvin Klein belt tightly around her neck.
The blundering killers had not thought of how they would dispose of Miss Margello's body and had to drive to a nearby pharmacy to pick up garbage bags - where they were seen on CCTV.
Breaking nine of her ribs in the process, they folded her lifeless body into the bag and stuffed it through a 10-inch vent on the room's air conditioning unit.
Two days later, the stench of death filled the room, leading a maintenance worker to discover Miss Margello's crumpled and decomposing corpse.
After calling Moseley - who was back at his 9,000sq ft Serendip House estate in Wilmington, Delaware - to tell him know the woman was dead, Hironaga and Murillo flew to Philadelphia where they were given $15,000 by a chauffeur of Moseley's.
A day after Miss Margello's body was found, Dean realized the murdered woman in the motel was his girlfriend.
Dean worked with the police and recorded phone calls with his stepfather led police officers to suspect Moseley of organizing the contract killing.
Moseley was arrested at Fieldstone Golf Club, which he coincidentally was opening that day with a lavish ceremony attended by dozens of his high society friends.
Moseley admitted to paying for the murder and was jailed for 16 years in 2000. He was found dead in his prison cell in 2004, aged 63.
Lisa Moseley was questioned but not jailed.
Murillo was found guilty of murder and conspiracy and was jailed for two life terms. He remains behind bars.
Moseley was back at his Serendip estate in Delaware that he received the news that Miss Margello was dead. The Delaware estate was purchased by Lisa in 1974 and was he site of her third wedding in 1989 and her son Dean's failed 1992 marriage
Moseley was arrested at Fieldstone Golf Club (pictured), which he coincidentally was opening that day with a lavish ceremony attended by dozens of his high society friends.
However, Hironaga and Balignasa were both released from prison early, the Las Vegas World News reported.
The porn star insisted she only ever helped hide Miss Margello's body and was jailed for slightly less than 16 years. She was released in 2014, more than two years early.
Balignasa was jailed for 25 years but was freed on parole by 2014.
Lisa Moseley was embroiled in a federal corruption scandal just a day after her husband's death in prison.
She was accused of loaning $2.3million to an aide to a top county executive in Delaware, in exchange for permission to build a clubhouse at the Fieldstone Golf Club, the News Journal reported.
The case was dropped in 2007.
Lisa Moseley's mother Paulina du Pont Dean was the daughter of William K. du Pont, whose great-grandfather Éleuthère Irénée founded DuPont in 1802.
Mrs Moseley is survived by her sister Paulina, a niece and three nephews, having outlived all her three husbands - first husband Red died in 2004 - and both her sons.
Dean died of liver failure, waiting for but not getting an organ transplant, aged 56 in September 2013.
He had started a new life of sobriety in Virginia after the Vegas murder and had a longtime girlfriend who was by his side when he passed away.
He stopped speaking to his mother Lisa after Pati's murder.
THE DUPONT FAMILY'S WEALTH, BUSINESS... AND CRIMINAL HISTORY
Ancestor: Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours emigrated with his sons and their families to the United States from France during the French Revolution.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, Pierre's son, founded the DuPont company, which began as a gunpowder company and eventually grew into the chemicals giant that it is today.
Worth around $25billion, the company is behind some of the world's most important polymers, such as nylon, Teflon, Kevlar and Lycra.
It played a key role in the Allied war effort during the Second World War, creating the canvas needed for parachutes and tires.
The company - and therefore the family - went on to make vast amounts of money producing key components used by Nasa during the space race and body armor for Britain's Royal Air Force.
The family still sit on the company's board and are believed to be worth around $15billion.
Despite their success in the world of business, the DuPont family are not strangers to controversy and criminal trials.
John Eleuthère du Pont, who established a wrestling camp at his Foxcatcher Farm, shot and killed Olympic gold medalist wrestler Dave Schultz at his estate in 1996.
He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but this plea was thrown out and he was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 13 to 30 years in jail and died in prison in 2010, aged 72.
Fellow DuPont heir Robert H. Richards IV was charged with fourth-degree rape in 2009 after he admitted that he had raped his three-year-old daughter.
He escaped serving prison time after judge ruled he would ‘not fare well’.
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