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Reading the Defense:
The killing of Pamela Vitale - Horowitz
By
Jay B. Gaskill
Attorney at Law
Life
without parole.
Today the
court did what the law and the facts required, and sentenced Scott Dyleski
to the term prescribed by the
As
Yes, there
will be an appeal.
On the face
of it, I have seen no reason for the prosecution, the victim’s family and all
the others concerned with the administration of justice to worry about this
conviction being overturned. In all
likelihood, both conviction and sentence will be affirmed by the
But the
implications for the rest of us will linger long after, like the smoke and dust
I smelled in
Because
this was no ordinary crime.
Scott
Dyleski was the canary in our mine….
Tomorrow, Scott Dyleski will undoubtedly
and deservedly be sentenced to life in prison (without parole eligibility) for
the special circumstances murder of Pamela Vitale. [I will recap the sentencing
and appeal issues that day and following.]
I wish I could say with confidence that
this kind of savage, sick killing was so unique that it is unlikely to recur.
All the evidence suggests to the
contrary.
This was the “first blood” of young
serial killer “wannabe”.
I believe that the dark cultural milieu
that generated SD’s malevolent mindset continues to attract – and warp – other
susceptible minds.
Hence: My last postings on the Dyleski
Case will complete my discussion of the “WHY?” question.
That “WHY?” discussion began with My Almost Last
Posting (Saturday,
My NEXT observations immediately follow below.
[1 of 2]
Dyleski’s
Capture and Your Child’s Rescue
If
you need a primer about why Scott Dyleski’s savage murder of Pamela Vitale on
If there is any lesson for parents from
Scott Dyleski’s case, it is this: The corruption-risks that life outside the
home presents to our children are not limited to “drugs and thugs”.
The lesson of SD’s case is that there are
malevolent ideas, images, and themes out there that are as dangerous to the
developing mind as biological pathogens are to the developing body. These “malogens” (my
term) are propagated in music, on the internet and by personal contact. Often, they behave as opportunistic
infectious pathogens seeking fertile breeding grounds. Sometimes they form up
in nodes, attacking and overtaking whole subcultures, most often the teen
subcultures (as they are among the most under-protected targets in our
society).
We can recognize these cultural nodes by
certain telltale signs: look for the celebration of violent, even homicidal
imagery, and by a nihilist, even anti-life ethos.
It looks very much like the
How
can this happen? What are the risk factors? What are the defenses? Can this
bizarre suburban killing be dismissed or marginalized as just another kind of
trouble that those crazy kids get into when they do drugs?
Let me take up the last question
first. Drugs (meaning all the illicit,
addictive controlled substances from marijuana to brain-damaging crystal meth.) can become the “loss leader” entry-lure into a
criminal sub-community or (worse still) into one of the “malogenic” social nodes I’ve just
described.
I’ve heard credible reports of a well
embedded drug sub-culture in the
Here is the significance to Dyleski’s
situation: Drugs weaken the moral immune system. Of course by “drugs”, I’m
referring to the common illegal addictive psychoactive chemicals. There are no “smart guy” exceptions to this
rule. Lawyers and other well educated
professionals are equally susceptible to the moral corruption effect. It’s just that many well healed drug users
are better able to conceal the character degrading effects of long term
addiction.
But addictive drugs, as such, are not
really the core threat. The deeper
problem raised by young Dysleki’s fall into actual
evil is the prevalence of the anti-life ethos, the “malogens” if you will, that
operate much as a moral virus, propagating within certain vulnerable
sub-cultures.
Software engineers construct firewalls to
protect our computers for viruses.
Here is the problem facing the current
generation of parents:
How
do we help maintain a robust moral firewall from the torrent of “malogens” that will inevitably confront them the moment
they surf the internet or venture outside the protective envelope of the home?
No firewall is perfect, but any firewall
trumps sending the new generation into the storm naked where bad ideas and bad
“vibes” are seductively wrapped and promoted.
All anti-life, anti-meaning,
anti-intelligence content, however communicated is a potentially lethal soul
poison. Some young developing minds are
more vulnerable than others.
In a nutshell this is the firewall: A
robust, life affirming, intelligence affirming moral ethos.
You
just can’t pretend it into existence. It
needs to be installed. That project normally
takes a parent or mentor about 12 years.
A cautionary note: even a well constructed
firewall can be temporarily hacked through by drug addition. Watch for my
Appendix, at the end of my Last Dyleski Posting on 9-26.
You
can’t install the firewall into your children (or students):
(a) If
you, yourself don’t have one;
(b) If
you permit your child (or student) to live a long time in effective isolation
from a supporting community of “firewall sharers”.
If
you are firewall deficient, get busy fixing that deficiency.
So
how do you find and install your own firewall?
Remember
the two primary touchstones of a legitimate moral tradition:
Affirmation
of Life and
Respect
for Reason (i.e., the faculties of Conscious Intelligence).
Start
with a strong ethical tradition (a religious one works, but there are others as
well) that honors both of these core values.
Find
the niche within that tradition that best fits your nascent “better self”;
locate a supporting community and join in a mutually supporting dialogue with
them.
As
you become grounded in morality, a number of things will begin to snap into
alignment. Your children (or students) will notice.
In
this way, our children are like the dogs that can smell fear: our children’s
moral olfactory organs can smell hypocrisy and moral ambivalence a mile
away. However they might complain about
“rules, our children respect and thrive in an authentically moral environment,
especially one in which the adults (even as we may appear to be flawed and
imperfect) still love our ideals enough to measure ourselves by them and strive
to instill them in our children.
As I write this, Scott D awaits a sentence to prison, and
my wife, just home from a long, scary stay in the hospital, is resting nearby.
[Prayer works.]
One must never forget those who were taken away by
evil, as Pam V. was, and we must not forget that what we do here and now will
affect the fates of others like her in the future.
As we arrive at the day of
Scott Dyleski’s sentencing; my discussion of the implications and lessons continues
…
[2 of 2]
It
appears that the 2005 murder rate in the
There are limits to the
medical-epidemiological analogy where murders are concerned. People choose to
kill other people; the propensity to do that is primarily a moral disorder, not
an involuntary response to a disease, like a fever.
If murder were a real epidemic, we might expect to see an increase among the clergy and college professors.
But the increase is limited to certain other sub-groups in the population, the violence prone among us.
While it is certainly possible that the thug population, as a percentage of the general population, might have increased, another explanation is more likely: Some of the thugs and other “V-prone” types who were deterred in 2004, were less deterred in 2005 and 2006.
One dirty little secret that I’ve discussed in the press and elsewhere on “The Policy Think Site”: The occasional use of the ultimate punishment for murder, the death penalty, does in fact operate to deter some thugs, some of the time, and this deterrent effect can be measured. In March, 2005, the US Supreme Court in Roper vs. Simmons, outlawed the death penalty for all persons under the age of 18, no matter how heinous the crime. The other dirty little secret: drug dealers and other criminal businesses prefer using minors as the assassins of choice because these little killers can’t get the death penalty. By now, I am reasonably certain that a careful review of the numbers will show a significant increase in murders committed by minors in the US, post Simmons, especially in those jurisdictions (like Texas) where execution was a possibility, now ruled out of bounds.
Caveat one: I’m not suggesting that a jury would have likely meted out the death penalty for Dyleski (nor even that it should have), but I am suggesting that the possibility of imposing that penalty (say for sophisticated killers 16 and over) will save some innocent lives.
Caveat Two: Nor am I suggesting that
Scott Dyleski would necessarily have been deterred by a more severe possible
penalty (though a greater appreciation of the risk of getting caught might have
stayed his hand). And to be fair,
Dyleski’s motivation is interesting because it suggests strongly that he had in fact switched sides, not just in the classic criminal sense, but in the larger sense that involves embracing an authentically evil ethos. This sort of thing is much more dangerous because it is much less easily deterred. Real serial killers tend to continue until they are caught.
I am personally convinced that the general culture (with laudable exceptions) is uniquely vulnerable to the “malogenic” forces I’ve described above. Unless society does a better job of erecting, installing and maintaining a robust moral firewall, we are in for some frightening times.
As a Judeo Christian, with other friends well rooted in the firmer parts of the Buddhist tradition whose moral grounding I deeply respect, I find the post-modern New Age tendency towards “spiritual hedonism” without a firm grasp of bedrock moral principles, to be an invitation to social disaster.
Mrs. Fielding, you will recall, was holding herself out as a kind of psychic who could perform long distance “DNA repair”. Naturally, I don’t know SD’s Mom, and I stand ready to be corrected about her, but the scraps of biographic information (or misinformation) that have so far leaked into the public square about her paint a disturbing picture of family life. Frankly, her New Age moral orientation sounds much more “woo-woo” ethereal than Torah based.
It is self evident that the moral firewall installation failed where her son was concerned, or was never systematically attempted in the first place.
The firewall every child desperately needs is a robust, life affirming, intelligence affirming moral ethos, preferably well rooted in deep human tradition. How is it best transmitted between the generations?
The answer is deceptively simple: We install and maintain the moral firewall against evil by doing three things (as parents, teachers, mentors, exemplars) as well as we possibly can. We strive to:
Note, I did not say, “we do exhortation”. To merely exhort -- “do as I say” -- is an appeal to brute authority, yes, often necessary with a small child (as in “Get away from there!”), but mere exhortation is far from sufficient as an effective moral training program.
How is the moral firewall against evil
nurtured and sustained?
Honoring the Touchstones
Recall the two touchstones of the great ethical traditions:
(1) Affirmation of Life;
(2) Respect for Reason (i.e., for the faculties of human conscious intelligence).
As parents, mentors, teachers and neighbors we are called to pick (or reconnect with) our moral tradition carefully; then to honor, cherish and teach it forever….
Take this away
If
Scott Dyleski’s crime and Pamela Vitale’s courageous and valiant fight for life
(ultimately leaving the evidence trail that stopped this serial killer in the
making) are to have meaning for us, these are the lessons.
Take
heed that Pam did not die in vain….
JBG
ONE SHORT
APPENDIX:
Why Drugs Are More Dangerous Now Than Ever
This is a pet topic of mine. Addictive drugs are more harmful in the current morally bankrupt popular culture than ever before. For the case against rampant drug legalization, go to my article at http://www.jaygaskill.com/narc.htm .
From a parental point of view, the takeaway point is that addictive, illegal drugs are character poison, some more toxic than others. For the addict, there are essentially only three paths, all downhill:
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 three downward paths I’ve just sketched, character is the first casualty of addiction – even mild addiction. Fidelity is transferred to a chemically induced state.
The capacity for true fidelity is crippled or lost altogether: The early character casualties include:
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.
JBG
Why I Followed THIS
Murder Case:
On
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 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.
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.
In October
2005, I promised to deal with the “why” issues in later postings. That time is now. My reasons for
following this case are your reasons for studying it.
We now know 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
know 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….
FOR
Wednesday,
Why? (a)
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 is some ordinary crime.
Post conviction, we have 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 suggested real evil. Too many of the graphic and musical narratives
that enthralled him were 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.
Why? (b)
Friday, September 1 and
Something went gravely
wrong in
There will be a Why (c).
So watch this space
for updates.
It’s never just one…
To
aid us in untangling the “Why” discussion it now becomes critically important
for the reporters assigned to this case to talk to those best positioned to
shed light on the influences, Satanic and otherwise, that formed the disturbed,
malevolent mind that created a “To Do”
list that included killing innocent victims, chopping up their bodies and
burying their remains.
A Quick Case Review – In Case You Missed It
The
Prominent Bay Area criminal defense attorney, Daniel Horowitz, and his wife,
Pamela Vitale, bought land in Lafayette, CA, a bedroom community in Contra Costa
County, just inside the band of coastal hills that form the geological edge of
the San Francisco Bay. They would live
on site while a large home was constructed for them.
For the most
part, the
I met Danny
on a number of occasions over the years.
As a lawyer, he earned the affectionately bestowed “Hurricane Horowitz”
title early on in his career. You could
always count on Danny to inject an amazing torrent of litigation energy into a
case.
When Pam’s
brutally murdered body was discovered on
The prime suspect,
Scott Dyleski, sixteen years old, was arrested a few days later and was charged
as an adult with Pamela’s killing.
Biographical
information and crime details began to surface early. Dyleski was implicated in
utilizing stolen credit cards to buy grow lights for marijuana cultivation; the
scheme linked him to the Horowitz Vitale site through his use of the stolen
credit card numbers and unauthorized delivery addresses..
He stands
convicted of beating and stabbing Pam Vitale to death, using a rock, a flower
pot and a knife he brought with him. He
carved a strange symbol on the victim’s back then cut open her abdomen.
The
coroner’s report revealed the chilling details: Pot shards were found on
Pamela’s head, left when a pot was shattered with such force that her outer
skull was exposed; she was repeatedly beaten on the head by a hard object like
a rock, not quite enough to crack the skull, but cumulatively enough to kill,
various stab wounds were located in Pamela’s back, but (as distinguished from
the savage “H” wound) were probably inflicted post-mortem.
Pamela was
not yet dead when the H symbol was carved, though it is anyone’s guess whether
she could still have been conscious.
Only the
Scott Dyleski knows what symbolism was actually intended by that horrible
carving. 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 into the dark side.
Witness
David Curiel testified that he had moved into
Dyleski’s room after police arrested Scott.
[Curiel’s brother was the
owner of the home where Scott had lived with his mother, Esther Fielding.] David called the police after he discovered
Scott’s chilling “to-do” list as he cleaned out a dresser drawer Dyleski had
used. The list included the names of people, with their personal
information. The list read in part:
“Knock out/kidnap , question, keep captive to confirm
PIN, dirty work, dispose of evidence (cut up and bury)”.
Mom was not
a willing witness against her son. I
believe that Mrs. Fielding (Esther) 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. 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.”
Mrs.
Fielding originally told authorities that Scott had placed the duffle bag,
containing the suspect clothes, in her abandoned Van, but she backtracked: “I
think he said something about old
clothes.” Mom later spotted the bag (in the company of a neighbor) in the van,
but simply left it there.
Mrs.
Fielding admitted burning a book and some disposable gloves belonging to Scott.
“It was a panicked reaction.”. The box of unopened
gloves and a journal were burned by
Mom at the home of her sister,
Marjorie Fielding in Bolinas. At the same time, Sister Marjorie’s boyfriend,
Robert, also burned Scott’s book, “Mass Murder.”
Sister
Marjorie eventually persuaded Scott’s Mom to turn over Scott’s knife, as well as some other
belongings.
Scott’s
recovered duffle bag was subjected to a detailed forensic examination. It
contained a bloody shirt, a black raincoat, a glove and a ski mask. The DA’s forensic
expert linked blood stains on the ski mask found in the duffle bag in Mrs. Fielding’s abandoned family van both to Scott and the
murder Victim, Pamela Vitale.
There was
other evidence:: (a) The cross symbol carved in Ms. Vitale’s back resembles
drawings among Scotts personal effects and a CD album cover; (b) Scott’s
computer was used to order a “HawkBlade” knife; and
he apparently depicted himself online with dark imagery (e.g., “Android
Messiah” and a skull icon, among others); (c) artwork and poetry signed by
Scott with heartwarming sentiments like “live to kill”.
The jury has
found Scott Dyleski guilty on all counts, burglary and special circumstances
murder. His sentencing hearing (with a probable life in prison without parole
outcome) is currently scheduled for September 24th.
THE CLUES TO THE LARGE “WHY?”
As of the jury verdict, the Gag Order no longer applies.
Questions and clues dribbled out over the course of the media coverage, staring with SD’s October 2005 arrest.
I have identified many them as they surfaced.
A Partial Review:
About the Scene:
When Dan Horowitz and Pam Vitale
bought land in
About Scott:
We heard no early suggestion that
Dyleski’s mother was herself not a law abiding person. But it is clear that
Scott had some negative role models to follow.
What were they?
Established drug dealers tend to
even scores and settle disputes by deadly means. But they tend not to carve Gothic or satanic
symbols in their victim’s backs. No, Scott Dyleski betrayed no such ordinary
motivation. This killer was in the thrall of something much darker and more
malevolent than ordinary greed.
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