"On November 6, 2006, the press reported the arrest of Diego Pillco, a 19-year-old construction worker from Ecuador, who according to police had confessed on tape to attacking Shelly, and then staging the fake suicide by hanging her.
Pillco's original version of what happened was that when Shelly asked if the noise could be kept down, he threw a hammer and shoved her out of the room where he said she slapped him in retaliation. Afraid she would make a complaint that might result in his deportation, he followed her back to her apartment, when the petite 40-year-old reportedly enraged Pillco by calling him a "son of a bitch", where Pillco said that he then punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground where she hit her head and fell unconscious.
Believing that he had killed Shelly, he said he then hung Shelly to make it appear as a suicide. This original version of events by Pillco were not supported due to the lack of severe head trauma and neck compression being ruled the cause of Shelly's death.
Subsequently, Pillco gave a completely different account during trial in 2008, which he said while returning to work after a lunch break, he noticed Shelly returning to her apartment in an elevator and decided to follow and rob her. Pillco then said he waited on the upstairs landing of Shelly's apartment floor as she entered her apartment and left the door open which he then intruded to steal from her purse.
Pillco then said that after Shelly caught him and threaten to call police, he grabbed the phone and covered her mouth to quiet Shelly's screaming when she saw him reaching after her. After rendering Shelly unconscious during the ensuing struggle, Pillco then proceeded to bind a nearby bed sheet around Shelly's neck and begin strangling her. He then dragged her body to the apartment bathroom where he hung her body from the shower rod to make her death look like a suicide.
The second version was consistent with the lack of dust on Shelly's shoes (which she was not wearing when found) and seemed to be a confession to murder, but prosecutors reportedly thought if charged with murder Pillco might return to his original account and a jury trial could find him guilty of a lesser charge. Police disclosed that Pillco had obtained noticeable scratch marks on his face that he received from Shelly during the struggle. Conclusively, The medical examiner determined that Shelly was still alive when hanged. Pillco pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole.
At Pillco's sentencing on March 13, 2008, Shelly's husband, along with family members, said that they would never forgive him. Andy Ostroy said of Pillco "...you are nothing more than a cold-blooded killer" and that he hoped he would "rot in jail."
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."
