Posted on 08/14/2006 9:02:32 PM PDT by SmithL
MARTINEZ - Jurors in Scott Dyleski's murder trial for the first time Monday saw a photograph depicting a symbol that had been cut into the back of Pamela Vitale.
Prosecutor Harold Jewett projected an autopsy picture of Vitale's back showing a T with a line intersecting the middle that had been cut into Vitale's skin -- a design similar to one Dyleski's family and friends testified that he used along with his name to sign his artwork.
Dyleski, 17, is charged with murder and burglary in the Oct. 15, 2005, killing of Lafayette resident Pamela Vitale. Prosecutors say he killed her in connection with a plan to steal the financial information from neighbors and purchase marijuana-growing equipment.
Dyleski's attorney has said he was home at the time of the attack.
Dyleski's housemates, a friend, his girlfriend and his mother have examined his drawings and paintings in court, identifying a symbol next to his signed name as one he often used.
The symbol is a T with a circle at the top and smaller protruding lines that create a sort of human stick figure.
The T in the signature symbol is similar to that found on Vitale's back.
"The mark on Pamela's back may have been a work in progress interrupted by fear, or possibly second thoughts about applying what amounts to a signature on a murder victim," Jewett wrote in court documents.
During his testimony, Contra Costa County Sheriff's criminalist Eric Collins held up the shirt Vitale wore at the time of the attack, showing to the jury what was once a white now almost totally discolored with blood stains browned over time.
Collins also held up a blood-stained shard of pottery taken from Vitale's hair. It came from a vase which Vitale's husband, Daniel Horowitz, had testified the couple received as a wedding gift.
FYI
Thanks for the ping - I'll be back to this later tonight, got my hands full right now and didn't read up on this today.
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