Teen slay lawyer's wife

[The*Empress]

Teen arrested in slaying of lawyer's wife
Source: Victim beaten with crown molding; cross carved in back
From Ted Rowlands
CNN


Friday, October 21, 2005; Posted: 6:10 a.m. EDT (10:10 GMT)

Horowitz: "I just told her, 'I love you, and you're beautiful.' "


MARTINEZ, California (CNN) -- Investigators have arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with the killing of Pamela Vitale, wife of high-profile attorney and television legal analyst Daniel Horowitz, a sheriff's spokesman said Thursday.

The suspect is from Lafayette, California, where the couple were building their dream house in the hills east of Oakland.

The teenager was arrested Wednesday night and was being held in the Contra Costa County juvenile detention facility, said Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators have not identified the boy, who has not yet been charged. Because he is a juvenile, CNN is also not identifying the suspect, who lived near the Horowitz estate.

Vitale was beaten with a piece of crown molding, and a cross was carved into her back, a law enforcement official with detailed knowledge of the case said.

According to the law enforcement official, investigators believe Vitale may have confronted the boy on her property -- and that confrontation may have led to the slaying.

"We are still trying to establish the exact motive," Lee said. Investigators would not name the youth, Lee said.

The teenager was arrested at a relative's home in the nearby town of Walnut Creek, the law enforcement official said.

Horowitz said he found Vitale, 52, when he returned from San Francisco to the mobile home where the couple lived for the past two years while building a 7,000-square-foot Italian-style mansion.

It was Vitale's dream house and she supervised the project down to the last detail, Horowitz told CNN.

Medical examiners have concluded that Vitale died from blunt trauma to the head, said a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department.

"I took it all in, and I knew she was dead," Horowitz told CNN's Nancy Grace in an exclusive interview.

Horowitz told CNN he had been in San Francisco preparing for the trial of Susan Polk, accused of stabbing her millionaire husband to death in 2002.

The judge declared a mistrial in the high-profile case because of Vitale's slaying.

Horowitz has represented high-profile defendants and appears frequently as a legal analyst on cable television networks, including CNN.

 

[The*Empress]

Scott Edgar Dyleski is a 16-year-old college student and the neighbor of Pamela Vitale, the wife of prominent attorney Daniel Horowitz. Dyleski has been accused of beating her to death in her Lafayette hills home. He is a former student of Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California, where he received good grades, but was widely regarded as an outcast. His school picture, which has been released in news reports, depicts him with long black hair and an almost malicious gaze which paints him in a very unfavorable light, especially at this point in time, where his involvement in the killing is in question. Over the summer he received his GED and started at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. Media reports speculate the killing may have also involved credit card fraud to finance Dyleski's budding marijuana cultivation operation.

 

[The*Empress]

Boy will be tried as adult in killing
Bail set at $1 million for teen charged in Lafayette slaying of lawyer's wife; plea expected next week
By Jason Dearen, STAFF WRITER



MARTINEZ — Just nine days before his 17th birthday, Scott Edgar Dyleski was charged with the bludgeoning murder of Pamela Vitale, a crime for which the district attorney will try the boy as an adult.

The slightly built Dyleski wore a powder-blue sweat shirt, and his hands were shackled in front of him. He stood Friday behind a partition in the Martinez courtroom, gazing sheepishly at the seating gallery packed with reporters and then back at the judge. Bail was set at $1 million, but Dyleski will not enter a plea until next week.

Dyleski is charged with one count of murder, with a special enhancement for using a bludgeon as his instrument of death. Vitale was found last Saturday by her husband, well-known Oakland defense attorney and television legal analyst Daniel Horowitz, at their home in Lafayette. Horowitz found her body around 6 p.m., clad only in a T-shirt and underwear, and he called 9-1-1.

A law enforcement source told the Tribune that Vitale was beaten to death with a piece of crown molding. Horowitz and Vitale were in the midst ofbuilding a four-story mansion, and their 12-acre plot in the canyons of Lafayette was littered with construction materials. The source also said a design had been carved into Vitale's back.

The killer may also have drunk a glass of water and taken a long shower, according to media reports based on sources familiar with the investigation.

If convicted of the crimes for which he is currently charged, Dyleski could receive a sentence of 26 years to life in prison. Because of his age, he is not eligible for the death penalty in California.

Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett, Contra Costa County's lead homicide prosecutor, indicated his office believes it has a strong murder case against the boy.

"When we file murder charges, we mean it, and we filed murder charges in this case," Jewett said outside the courthouse.


Dyleski, who was arrested Thursday, lived in a house with his mother, Esther Fielding, and at least two other families a mile down the hill from Horowitz's estate. He had attended Acalanes High School in Lafayette.
Neighbors said they noticed a change in his appearance once he turned 16. He started coloring his hair. He dressed all in black. Some attributed his change to the grief he experienced after half-sister Denika Dyleski died in a car accident in 2002.

Friends and neighbors said he was intelligent, quiet, a regular teenager.

In court Friday, Dyleski's hair was shorter than it was in the yearbook photo that graced the front pages of newspapers Friday.


Reached by phone briefly Friday, Horowitz said he did not wish to comment on Dyleski's arrest.

Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said investigators have yet to establish a motive.

Investigators are still interviewing people about a credit card fraud scheme that Dyleski was allegedly involved in, Jewett said. The prosecutor said media reports that Dyleski allegedly stole card information from neighbors and purchased marijuana-growing equipment was hindering their investigation.

According to interviews with a neighbor in the rural Lafayette area where Horowitz and Dyleski lived, a few residents had had credit card information taken from their mailboxes, and the charges were traced to Dyleski's mother.

Dyleski has hired Walnut Creek defense attorney Thomas McKenna, who was not able to appear in court Friday and was not available by phone for comment. The boy is scheduled to enter a plea to the charges Thursday.

 

[The*Empress]

I don't think he did those things. I think the teen is innocent...
Just because he wore strange clothes and black hair, doesn't mean
he is guilty.

I think the husband killed his wife.

 

[Steel X]

well the case isn't finished yet so they aren't even sure if the boy is found guilty yet.