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MALOGENS
A CASE STUDY:
Evil
Influence & Evil Outcome
The
Dyleski “Goth Murder” Case
By
Jay B. Gaskill
On
Because Dan Horowitz was a Court TV celebrity,
his agony was displayed on the evening television news, along with helicopter
shots of the property. The Vitale-Horowitz trailer was a temporary dwelling on
the construction site of the couple’s dream home.
Daniel’s wife had been severely beaten and was
stabbed a number of times. An abdominal stab wound was inflicted and other stab
wounds in her back, probably inflicted post-mortem. Pot shards were found on
her head - apparently left when a pot was shattered with such force that her
outer skull was exposed. A “Satanic” symbol was carved into Pamela’s back by
her killer, a crudely formed “H”. The
coroner opined that Ms. Vitale was still alive during that carving.
The prime suspect, Scott Dyleski, a high school
student in Lafayette California (whose few friends and acquaintances were
shocked), was charged with Pamela’s killing, and was tried as an adult for the
crime of first degree, special circumstances murder. Scott Dyleski was found
guilty as charged by a jury and sentenced to prison.
I was drawn to this case partly because of the
agony I saw on Daniel Horowitz’s face on television (I knew Dan in the old
days) and because, it seemed to me that the WHY question would prove to be
paramount. That would be my task.
Shortly after the arrest, I made this
observation:
Dyleski’s case may well present us with the
poster child for what is dreadfully wrong with the current non-religious
culture, a milieu in which children are too rarely raised in authentic
reverence for the deep ethical traditions that have held up earlier
generations.
Think about it: In an earlier era, even the bare
suggestion that a homicidal minor was involved in some kind of satanic activity
would have been extraordinarily sensational.
Something in the general lurid category of “two headed
alien’s body found in ditch”. Sadly, the hints of a satanic connection
(that I assume to be true here for purposes of this discussion, only) produce a
different reaction: “Oh, one of those
again.”
So common has the cultural deterioration become
that we are no longer surprised by evil in high school.
After Dyleski’s conviction (I followed the trial
closely and my comments, posted on line and read about 40,000 times are
archived at )
Why Indeed?
Why did Scott Dyleski, a 16 year old suburban
male, brutally murder Pam Vitale and carve a double armed cross symbol in her
back? Then why did he attempt to eviscerate her abdomen?
Don’t tell me this was some ordinary crime.
Post conviction, we have good reason to believe
that Scott Dyleski was particularly receptive to the morbid and warped elements
in the local teen culture, and that he found in that stylistic darkness, an
“art” that contained the precursors and suggestions of evil.
You don’t have to believe in some medieval
version of Satan to understand the reality of evil in the modern world. In any
reasonable sense of the term, the language and images that Dyleski apparently
found so attractive -see my discussion below - suggested real evil. Far, far too many of the graphic and musical narratives
that enthralled Dyleski were explicit anti-life
urges.
Bleak calls to despair and meaninglessness are
as harmful to the teenage mind as a computer virus to your hard drive. And
these images and narratives were too often coupled with the symbols of murder
and mayhem. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were invitations to evil.
I grant that this kind of analysis, especially
the use of the “E” word, tends to make “modern” minds a little
uncomfortable. And the crime itself did
not?
Not every teenager is susceptible to this
crap. Why was Scott? And not every
neighborhood contains a cesspool of satanic followers. Did Scott’s? Are there others? The internet
seethes with this stuff. What was going on in
And why is any of this important?
No parent of a killer, mugger, burglar or robber
wants to feel responsible for the acts of his or her child. Yes, responsibility does shift; the new
generation gets to carry its own guilt. The sins of the children are not those
of the parents.
But…
All parents are at least minimally responsible
to prepare their children for the challenges of the world. As part of that preparation, the parent
generation needs to impart a robust moral code to those who follow.
And why is any of this important? That crucial
intergenerational moral transfer probably did not happen in Dyleski’s life. And
it is too often not happening in the modern family setting.
The
Mark of Satan?
The mark carved into Pamela Vitale’s body by her
killer has been variously described as an “H” or as a “double T”, but both
descriptions could easily depict the same thing. One correspondent has asked me whether the
killer carved the “Cross of Lorraine” onto Ms. Vitale’s back. That emblem represents two crosses sharing
the same center pole; and seen on edge, the symbol makes a credible “H”.
Only the killer knows what symbolism was
actually intended. But it is clear
enough that some symbolic meaning was meant – this mark was not the random
gibberish of a drooling idiot, but the calculated sign of someone who was
visiting the dark side.
Ancient alchemists used this symbol to denote a
powerful poison.
In Medieval France, certain conspirators against
the regime used the symbol, as the “Cross of Lorraine”, a heraldic motif that
depicted both the “arms of Christ” and the “arms of Satan”. Hence
the “Satanic” overtones.
Since it was the killer (and not some innocent
bystander) who inscribed this symbol, we can readily and reasonably conclude
that its intended meaning was malevolent.
Just what specific malevolent meaning did it hold for the fevered mind
of Pam’s killer? We can only speculate at this point. But given the macabre nature of the whole
event, it is hardly out of the ballpark to use the word “Satanic” at least in
the metaphoric sense.
Given the signature nature of the killing, it
should hardly come as a surprise that, at some point, the killer had adopted
the dress code of the “Goth” subculture.
Of course, most teenagers who dress like a character in an Anne Rice
vampire novel are not killers. And, yes,
there is a lot of understandable defensiveness about the topic, driven by the
prevailing multicultural ethos taught in school and the general observation
that teens have been dressing and acting out in rebellious ways ever since we
adults started keeping track of such things.
But there are extreme and very disturbing
examples, such as the 1996 murders committed by a “Goth” teenage male in
Kentucky who played Dungeons and Dragons, was upset by his mother’s divorces,
walked cemeteries at night pretending to be a 500 year old vampire. This eventually led him to found to a vampire
cult, commit two senseless murders and receive a death sentence handed down by
a New Orleans Judge.
I have no reason to suspect that Pam’s killer
was acting under the influence of some shadowy cult figure. But I do believe
that the dark imagery and symbolism of some anti-life subculture (however it
ends up being described) were operating in the web of this killer’s homicidal
motivation.
This event illuminates something much more
serious than one more Charlie Mason cult. In this early 21st century
cyber-culture, susceptible young men and women no longer have to fall into some
sinister cult, or join some criminal cohort to become infected with evil. All sorts of bizarre and ultimately
malevolent ideation, fantasies and dark power-ideologies are floating through
our culture, just below of the radar of most adults.
These ideas act like an odorless and colorless
toxic gas that primarily affects the emotionally, morally and intellectually
vulnerable among us. Regrettably, that
vulnerable population includes a disproportionate number of teenagers. And this presents the grave and growing
problem for modern parents: In the current culture, those whose moral compasses
have been damaged by the disempowerment of religious and other robust ethical
traditions include more young people than ever before. This social problem will not soon go away.
The
Address of Satan’s Followers?
In a Blair Witch Project moment, investigators
were startled to find a recently decapitated calf’s head and a hand saw (with
bits of fur) nailed to the shed wall.
Recall one of the pictures that Scott Dyleski made for art class: It
depicted a human or humanoid figure with an animal head holding two severed
human heads, one head in each hand.
His “morally neutral” art teacher gave him
excellent grades.
Prior to the gag order, Sheriff’s investigators
had disclosed some interest in the site because of its Satanic
implications, but indicated they had ruled out any connection to the Vitale
killing. We heard no more about this at trial.
Scott and His Fascinations
Recall the Cross Examination and Redirect of
Scott’s girlfriend:
Defense question: “Is a lot of Scott’s art
similar to Velvet Acid Christ art?” [Velvet Acid Christ is apparently SD’s
favorite Goth rock band.]
Answer: “Yes.”
Here’s what the DA was not allowed to do with
this.
Sample Lyrics from Velvet Acid Christ:
Pray For
Life
“do you pray for life do you kick and scream
…now i let go of the flow in my heads i see you die my vision make me want to cry forever lost in
time spinning twitching losing control the rage of existence shooting my soul
the crazy deeds of society batter my mind kill everything the edge of knife
splatters my life kicks me in the head and leaves me dead for reason’s unknown
the clock spins backwards reversing time and space no time is left to
contemplate pray for life pray for life when souls are tortured life is a mess
and everything is just your best as always lost in dreams and visions i let go of the flow in my head i
see you die goodbye goodbye goodbye
spinning twitching …”
Dead
Tomorrow
”Don’t you understand me? …All my life waiting
for the answers to these dreams alone of the knife that’s cutting from my life…
Dead Tomorrow, dead tomorrow, You’ll be dead tomorrow
Dead Tomorrow, You’ll be dead tomorrow, Dead
Tomorrow…”
Dead
(Death Wish Mix)
“… life for you is a broken dream and i’ll spout it out your sick dream has come to me now for
the end we’ll always pretend yeah where do you go what do you want it’s nothing
at all feel the machines implanted in your thoughts mangled nervs
twist and turn form new paths in your brain pull out all the wires and push
them into your heart yeah push it into your heart yeah push it into your
heart…so shoot it out your sick life has come to me your life ends you’ll never
cry or breath again.”
I do not presume the role of art critic
here. Whatever the poetic merit of these
lyrics, their impact on a loopy, mixed-up teenage male with “issues” was
gravely unhealthy, and -- given young Dyleski’s sufficiently receptive mind –
actually and actively malevolent.
Defense Question: “You ever see him fly into a
rage?”
Answer: “No” He is “calm and collected. He didn’t
lose his temper.”
As I recall, Jack the Ripper and other serial
killers were reportedly methodical and cool about their “craft”.
The DA asked Ms.. Reddy whether she had discussed God and the devil with Scott.
Yes, she answered. Scott apparently believed in both and saw good and evil in
each. That was manifestly not an
innocuous answer.
During her redirect examination by the
prosecution, Dyleski’s girlfriend looked at some of the defendant’s artwork,
and identified the two armed cross or “H” figure. It was Scott’s symbolic signature.
We don’t need to hire one of the characters in
Dan Brown’s “DaVinci Code” to uncover the secret
mysteries here. I doubt that young
Dyleski was aware of all the history associated with this particular
symbol. [For example, a simple form of
the character is used in botany to this day as a symbol of a very poisonous
plant.] But I am convinced that he inhabited an anti-moral universe in which
this symbol represented something dreadful. The key – as far as this killing
and the underlying mental state of the killer is concerned - is the confusion and
intermingling of good and evil in a single holy figure. This confers psychological permission to do
dreadful things.
Some Informed Speculation
Dyleski’s reported taste in music and his other
dark predilections make me strongly suspect that he was familiar with the
“industrial noise” musician Boyd Rice. His
acid icon, Mr. Rice, was made a High Priest in the
“The strong rule the weak,
and the clever rule the strong”.
This might be an accurate description of the
social climate in the nation’s capital, but it is not a moral sentiment. This is the nihilist’s creed. Moreover Mr. Rice and followers apparently
support human depopulation by any means necessary. Rice’s followers are told
that they transcend good and evil. That’s at least half true - the good has
certainly been “transcended” (in the left-behind sense).
Whether SD inhaled this noxious stuff directly,
he clearly sniffed something like it. The teen culture teems with this kind of
thing. These notions are actually evil
in my moral universe. They operate like
a moral virus, infecting those with the most compromised immune systems. Modern
teens, especially those raised in the New Age culture, have compromised moral
immune systems.
[A note: I’ll return to this theme again as the
full picture emerges. But I want to
stress that in my moral universe, people are not automatons, sleepwalkers at
the mercy of cultural forces. They are
accountable as moral agents.]
The key of all these half baked, anti-life ideas
is the tendency to blend good and evil, obscuring their differences. As Rice has written:
“Interestingly, the gods mentioned herein seem
to be viewed as co-equal, with the ruler of the underworld being called upon in
the same breath as he who created the Earth and heavens. In
this context, Jesus (the “demon of the dead”), although being conjured, seems
to be an intermediary between man and the gods.”
If you’re curious about this dark subculture
(and every parent should be), you can learn more about this twisted nonsense at
http://www.thevesselofgod.com/home.html .
Scott’s
Mother
Was she the Poster Mother of the New Age or just
another soft hearted Mom?
Someone here profoundly failed a deep obligation
shared by all parents. Mom and Dad may screw up parenting on a number of fronts
– we all are flawed in some way – but parents above all else must protect their
children from evil influences. You’d think that such an important task, at
least in broad outline, would be a no-brainer.
Let’s review what the admittedly sparse record
tells us about Mrs. Fielding’s attempts to protect
her son from the consequences of his actions:
1. Mrs. Fielding (Esther)
apparently discovered Pam Vitale’s information on a list of credit card numbers
kept by Scott in his backpack, but at the preliminary hearing, she recanted: “I
don’t think I saw Pamela’s number.” We’ll hear more about this.
2. Aware that suspicion for
the Vitale murder would fall on her son, Mrs. Fielding became concerned that he
might be keeping incriminating evidence. She told Scott: “I’m giving you one
chance to get everything out of your room.”
3. Mrs. Fielding originally
told authorities that Scott had placed the duffle bag, containing the suspect
clothes, in the abandoned family VW Van, but she backtracked: “I think he said
something about old clothes.” Right. Mom later spotted the bag (in the company
of a neighbor) in the van, but simply left it there.
4. Mrs. Fielding admitted
burning a book and some disposable gloves belonging to Scott. “It was a
panicked reaction.” No doubt the disposable gloves were for Scott’s charity
work. The box of unopened gloves and a journal were burned by Mom at the home
of her sister, Marjorie Fielding in Bolinas. Really, are we to think that no
one peeked first? At the same time, Sister Marjorie’s boyfriend, Robert, also
burned Scott’s book, “Mass Murder.” No doubt the DA can find a replacement copy
on Amazon. Sister Marjorie eventually persuaded Scott’s Mom to turn over Scott’s
knife, as well as some other belongings.
Because she warned her son to get away from the
police; and because she participated in burning or otherwise hiding, denying or
obfuscating incriminating evidence, we can reasonably conclude that Mrs.
Fielding was part of that “morally neutral” mindset that saw nothing particularly wrong with her son’s dark
predilections. I grant that she noticed
a change in Scott’s emotional outlook following his sister’s death (apparently
via a drunk driver); she contemplated but did not follow through on getting him
therapy – forgive me for dark humor here – an exorcism.
And I also must note that she apparently did
nothing serious to react to his extraordinary morbid fascinations. Did she
not notice?
Esther Fielding, was
reportedly a New Age “healer”. She claimed to activate the DNA in a patient via
remote viewing to overcome inherited problems. Is this bizarre enough for you?
Suspend disbelief and presume Mom’s sincerity; read one revealing testimonial:
“The day after I had my DNA Activation I had to
stop taking thyroid medication I had been on for fifteen years... Overnight it
was healed. All my life I have been afraid of heights. One day
after pulling inherited fears in a gene replacement workshop I realized I was
no longer afraid of heights. I didn’t pull ‘fear of heights’ so I wasn’t
expecting this. It was inherited. It wasn’t even mine. Later
I was able to help a friend re-roof her house.”
Scott probably wishes that Mom had done a better
job neutralizing the incriminating traces of Pam Vitale’s DNA on his ski mask.
Reputedly Mom also did removal of government and
alien implants. Too bad, Scott may now
think, that she couldn’t undo government search warrants.
Scott would have done far better, one suspects,
had Mom remained in the food industry.
Better still, she and Scott would have benefited
from more common sense and a stronger foundation in the fundamental moral
precepts and values that have sustained our civilization. But maybe I’m asking too much.
We can all accept normal human frailty; but when
we fall short of the mark, we usually try to do better, do we not? But something was gravely out of whack
here. “Mark? What mark?”
There are a number of persons not publicly
interviewed, especially in depth, who may shed light on Scott’s flirtation with
the dark side, among them:
Scott’s father.
He attended the trial. He was seen briefly talking to Daniel
Horowitz. You know he has essential
biographical information on Scott and may she light on what made this young killer
tick.
The Sheriff of
This crime took place in the Sheriff’s beat, the
un-incorporated area of the county where his county agency
(as opposed to city police) are “the only law in town”. Either on background or without attribution I
suspect there is a story here about what is really going on among some of the
teen and post teen set in
Scott’s other acquaintances:
We should learn much more from his peer group
who were not called as character witnesses.
Scott Dyleski hung out with or was seen hanging out with a number of
others who didn’t make the defense character list. This is a rich potential field for
information.
Mrs. Fielding.
Yes, Mom was and is protective about Scott. But she knows things about her son, things
noticed or suspected, things acted on and things not. If she is willing to talk candidly, it would
be an important public service.
Scott’s Hard Drive:
The computer exists. It could tell us much….
The “Malogens”
in Our Culture
For too many parents, evil is no longer
something devoutly to be resisted and from which children are to be fiercely
guarded. In part this is a result of a cultural sea change – from right and
wrong (including gray areas) to a morally neutral therapeutic model. For these parents, evil is irrelevant,
meaningless, or marginalized. Why? The ethics and morality that give meaning to
evil are themselves considered outmoded ideas. In this sub-culture, everything
that is really important has been subsumed in the narcissistic agenda of
self-healing. Without more it might be
unfair to peg Scott’s mother as a card carrying member of this sub-culture, but
the signs and suggestions are clearly there.
Even the more conventional parents, those who of
us who cling to the “antiquated” notion that morality is deeply relevant (“Yes,
Virginia, there may not be a Santa Clause, but good and evil are very, very
real”) have a sharply uphill course, given the gravely wounded state of our
culture. For traditional parents (dare I call them “normal”?) the job of
protecting the innocence and moral grounding of our children is vastly more
challenging than in earlier times.
Children and young “adults” are subjected to a
seductive torrent of bizarre, unfiltered material, both emotionally and morally
disturbing; it seethes through the culture and the adolescent sub-cultures like
a computer virus. This toxic material is relatively harmless to those who are
well rooted in the deep ethical traditions that have upheld humanity, but it is
highly contagious to New Age addled juvenile minds. These are the malogens, the information-carried
toxins (really they are moral pathogens); they saturate the internet; they are
carried by computers, cell phones and personal contact wherever “modern”
juveniles congregate.
Last year I was pleased to exchange some of these ideas with a political scientist, Maria H Chang. Professor Chang is author of “Falun Gong: The End of Days” - Yale 2004. She has written a paper, “Christology in Popular Culture: Christ Images as Antidotes to ‘Malogens’”.
“Transmitted via the media are
cultural pathogens, for which retired
“That the malogens are malevolent or evil can be seen in two ways. Gaskill identifies the first “telltale” sign to be “the celebration of violent, even homicidal imagery”; the second is “a nihilist, even anti-life ethos.” [Ibid.] Indeed, Gaskill’s conception of malogens as being malignant is consistent with a definition of evil among psychiatrists. Erich Fromm saw evil as “all that serves death” and “all that stifles life, narrows it down, cuts it into pieces.” [Fn. Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 47.] M. Scott Peck similarly observed that evil is “live” spelled backward. “Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force. It has, in short, to do with killing. Specifically, it has to do with murder.” [Fn. M. Scott Peck, M.D., People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (New York: Touchstone, 1983), p. 42.]
“The cultural pathogens of anti-life nihilism suffuse contemporary popular media—in the ubiquitous pornography on the Internet, in increasingly violent images in motion pictures and television, in macabre role-playing computer games, and in the death-obsessed music of alternative rock.”
Chistogens are, in professor Chang’s proposal, an effective antidote. As she puts it:
“The most remarkable of these antidotes are the “Christogens”—Christlike characters in wildly popular works of film and literature, most notably J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and the Superman mythos. The unmistakable draw of these stories suggests that, despite the efforts of those hostile to Western civilization, many in our contemporary society remain attached to its core values of good vs. evil, family, country, and private ownership, as well as personal virtues of charity, courage, loyalty, self-discipline, chivalry, honor, fidelity, and chastity. The stories’ enormous success signifies strong popular dissent from the Progressive worldview and agenda of moral relativism.”
[From Chang’s
“Christology in Popular Culture”.]
So we are entitled to ask: Why are these toxins
able to propagate so freely?
There is no effective resistance.
The New Age fog has disabled the faculty of
critical intelligence among thousands of
We inhabit a culture that is paralyzed by moral
ambivalence and remains apparently unable – like the characters in Harry Potter
who couldn’t utter the name of Harry’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort
– to actually recognize and name evil, even when it makes one of its blatant
appearances.
All parents have a unique and essentially
non-delegable responsibility to protect their children from evil
influences.
When I defended juvenile cases, I was soon able
to predict whether a particular miscreant minor would become a repeat customer. It usually took only a ten minute
conversation with the primary parent for the dreaded pattern to emerge. It was
all about the excuses for little Johnny or Jill, and evidenced a moral
hollowness that was palpable. Sometimes I would see the minor again, years
later, as a killer. See: http://www.jaygaskill.com/humancondition.htm .
As I intimated earlier, we may have in this case
the makings of a poster child for what is dreadfully wrong with our
culture. If any good comes of this sorry
episode, maybe it may be the realization that young people like Scott are the
canaries in our mine.
Evil (as I occasionally remind my naïve friends)
is one of the realities of modern life every bit as much as it was in ancient
times. Only now we just use the term
“sick”, as if by “medicalizing” a profound moral
mal-orientation, we can somehow create the comforting illusion that the world
consists entirely of good people, some of whom occasionally “catch” a case of
“badness” as if it were some kind of cold. Evil, in this faux-therapeutic
mindset, is a very bad flu.
These insights are hardly secret information,
but they are widely ignored. For an early speech of mine to a law enforcement
audience, see: http://www.jaygaskill.com/sheriff.html.htm .
Of course, I was just stating the obvious to the
receptive.
Guilty of First Degree Murder
Guilty of Special Circumstances
But for his age at the time of the offense (16),
this might have been a death penalty case.
Anything less than this verdict would have been
a surprise (as thosewho have followed by analysis
will readily understand). In SD’s case, we can detect the strong cultural link
between a permissive drug sub-culture and a “malogen” infested node that
rejoiced in lyrics like these:
Dead (Death Wish Mix)
“… life for you is a broken dream and i’ll spout it out your sick dream has come to me now for
the end we’ll always pretend yeah where do you go what do you want it’s nothing
at all feel the machines implanted in your thoughts mangled nervs
twist and turn form new paths in your brain pull out all the wires and push
them into your heart yeah push it into your heart yeah push it into your
heart…so shoot it out your sick life has come to me your life ends you’ll never
cry or breath again”
In all this and the other downward paths I’ve witnessed
over the years, character is the first casualty of a malogen infestation and
the capacity for true human fidelity is crippled or lost altogether: The early
character casualties include:
·
Honesty
(truth fidelity);
·
Loyalty
(personal fidelity);
·
Integrity
(self-fidelity).
These three virtues, when linked to life affirmation and the respect for the intact,
un-drugged, rational mind, can form an invincible firewall against life’s
malogens.
The jury’s verdict confirmed in the legal sense
that which many knew in the common sense: On October 15th, 2005, Scott Dyleski,
a 16 year old male from Lafayette, CA, who affected the so called “Goth” style,
brutally murdered an innocent woman, loved by many, named Pam Vitale, and left,
in her back, a bizarre signature…..
From all accounts we also learned that Scott
Dyleski was effectively disconnected from the great moral/ethical traditions
that have sustained civil society, yet was strongly connected to an amoral and
anti-moral subculture -- on the web and in elements of his surrounding
self-chosen community.
Goth as superficial dress and style, aping the
dark side like a group of teens on Halloween is not the issue. Dyleski’s version was the real thing, and
that is why we must all now pay attention to the free floating malogens in our culture.
Evil is alive and well in the 21st
Century…
JBG