Posted on 10/21/2005 7:34:48 AM PDT by smartin
MARTINEZ, California (CNN) -- The teenage suspect in the beating death of a prominent lawyer's wife was described by classmates as a "gothic" loner who followed the occult and dressed in black from the polish on his fingernails to his trench coat.
The young man is being held as a juvenile in the slaying of Pamela Vitale, wife of lawyer and television pundit Daniel Horowitz. Police say he apparently acted alone.
Horowitz found Vitale's body when he returned to a trailer the couple shared while they built a dream estate on a hilltop in affluent Lafayette, east of Oakland.
Authorities said Vitale, 52, was bludgeoned by a strip of crown molding and fought with her killer. (See video about the arrest -- 4:35)
A gothic cross was carved into her back. That symbol may be a key link to the suspect.
"He was just really a gothic kid, and everyone knew who he was just because of his apparel. When you heard the name, you were just like, 'Oh, that kid,' " a classmate told CNN.
"He just definitely stood out in front of anybody in the school," the classmate added. "When he walked by, everybody talked about him -- like, he definitely didn't blend in."
Authorities would not identify the 16-year-old, and CNN is not naming him because of his age. But news outlets in the San Francisco Bay area widely publicized his name after his arrest late Wednesday.
Former classmates told The Associated Press that the teenager drew a pentagram on the ground at school, telling other students he was reading from the book of Satan.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I can tell you this. Kids need the protection of the law. And if I were in charge the law would be this: 1. married but childless can divorce. 2. married with children cannot divorce until the youngest child reaches age of majority. 3. adultry is horrible, working on a punishment for that. In summary, those with kids better find a way to make the marriage work.
I came from a broken home. A broken home implies sick children. I turned out ok. But it was a long nasty journey to ok. The lousy things lousy parents do messes with the minds of children at the deepest levels that can't even be talked about. Crazy children are made that way by their parents. Chemical or physical problems notwithstanding.
Yeah and his Shop teacher is Fred Krueger and his homeroom teacher is Mike Myers....
ohh yeah and the lunch lady's name is Carrie
LOL
I'm just saying that she doesn't appear to be the town hippie.
I think that your view of family is too rigid. Good families can consist of different family memebers. It doesn't necessarily have to be a husband and wife especially if they are dysfunctional together.
Some people I've known come from a typical family structure and are not law-abiding citizens. And their parents are.
He lived with his mother and another family. Maybe she was doing the best she could under the circumstances.
May the Lord have mercy.
What about spousal abuse? The victim has to take it until the kids are 18?
Thanks for the stories from Friday; I couldn't keep up with all the things I wanted to read today.
Just a few comments, since I had done a lot of background digging on all of this at the start.
I never found any evidence that Esther ever married Ken Dyleski. She has used Fielding, her maiden name, most of the time, but did use Hirschberger's name when she was married to him--which is why I'm not so sure she was ever married to Dyleski--but she did name Scott with that last name, instead of hers.
Ken Dyleski is his father and is "around," as you can read in the articles, but Scott "didn't like him" and since Esther, Scott's mother, is "his best friend," I assume it follows that she may not care much for the ex-whatever he is, either.
When I first found her info while sleuthing all the neighbors and my hinky meter went off, with the "DNA Activation" website (which I misremembered as "DNA Extraction," lol--always the crime buff), and saw articles on the "Amish-style" barn-raising they held publicly for the straw-bale house, I really wondered what kind of place Hunsaker Canyon was!
Horowitz himself had testified in court on neighbor Joe Lynch's behalf in a DUI, that "we're all a little 'different' in the canyon, myself included." Then Dyleski was arrested and I found in his birth record that his mom's maiden name was Fielding and "bingo," he must be related to the DNA lady, because they said he lived close to the resort on the same road. DNA Lady lived one door down.
But I thought she would be his aunt, since his last name was Dyleski and hers was still Fielding. OK. Well, then I found a lot of documents in CoCoCo for some Dyleski's and one appeared to be his father, but no mention of the mother.
We found out about the sister's death in a traffic accident, with her best friend at the wheel and another friend a passenger, who was also killed. They had all been roommates with a 4th person who wasn't in the car, ages 17, 18, 19 and 22, IIRC.
But the court papers about the accident showed that Denika Dyleski's father was married to Lyn Dyleski. Denika's mother's name was Deena. So, evidently Ken and Deena had divorced prior to that.
So, Esther Fielding wasn't Denika's mother, meaning Denika wasn't Scott's full sister. It doesn't appear they ever lived together at all. There is supposed to be another sister to Scott, but I don't know which set of parents belong to that girl or how old she is. I didn't find any Fielding-Dyleski siblings for Scott.
As far as the hay-bale house, it's not a lean-to. Did y'all see the pix of it? You'd never know by looking at it that the construction is what it is. In fact, it surprised me, because usually those are finished out to look like stucco, very SW'ern, but this one isn't.
In some of the stories from yesterday, the reporter referred to "Marcus," who is Scott's mentor, and a person who has tried to be a stabilizing influence in his life. I found that Marcus is Marcus Hogg, who is the brother of Kimberly Hogg Curiel, the female half of the couple who own the property and built the house for Esther and Scott to come live in (they were living in the lean-to on the property at the time).
Kimberly was also Esther's partner in the cafe. Some locals said that they sold it to a bagel shop which is there now. (But I didn't find any RE transfers for that.)
What we don't know yet is who Scott Dyleski's partner in crime was for the MJ-raising and credit card fraud scheme--not the murder. And I never did find any connection with Horowitz as far as legal aid among the civil cases (I don't have access to criminal or other) of *any* of these families, although he said he had given it for free and that means his name wouldn't show up on anything.
The fatal car accident seemed to be the biggest piece of legal action they were involved in--with the parents of the driver. They apppeared to be Iranian, named Mahmood Bagher, Ghazal Bagher and Asfaneh Amin, and owned a dry cleaners and pizza place. I believe the girl's parents divorced between the time of the accident and the time the litigation started. And I could never find any sentencing info on her.
I'm totally perplexed as to how the reported "checking Vitale's house for his mail" scenario could've escalated to murder by this kid. It's just so senseless and mystifying, even taking the Satan bible and weirdness into consideration. Surely there is more to it. Surely.
Excellent work, Rte66.
I knew that Denika was his half-sister. Did you know that his father and step-mother (who are Denika's parents) filed for divorce on Oct. 12 after 10 years?
I didn't know until I read it in a story and forgot to work it in. I found that there are at least two teenage Curiel daughters living there and one younger, also. That's one family--not sure about the other Curiel family. Too many things going on today and I wanted to concentrate on just this and hurricane, but I have to keep jumping around.
Wait a minute, I just re-read your post and that's not quite right. Lyn Dyleski was not the mother of Denika--the previous wife, Deena, was the mother of Denika. They were already divorced at the time of the accident, but she is named throughout the civil suit as Denika's mother, though Lyn is Ken's wife in those papers.
Very impressive work. I agree there is far more to this story. Too many things do not make sense.
Regarding the bakery - first it was a bagel shop, then Cafe Esperanza. Today when I drove by, it had a temporary sign on it, called "Flipper's." Don't know if it's a name change only, or a change in ownership.
It really doesn't make sense. Murder? How does a kid get that in him? It's still so shocking.
But, even though his own friends are making something of his sister's death changing him, I'm really wondering how close they could've been or if they were even around each other much. It seems like more of an excuse than a reason or explanation for his change.
I forgot one other part of Esther's background. I haven't had time to really put it all together. Obviously, since Scott Edgar Dyleski was born in 1988 (the day before Halloween, no less!), then Esther and Ken were coupling at that time.
He and Deena were married ... well, I don't know when they were married, it wasn't in California. She was Deena Granger and Denika was the Dyleski child born in October, 1983, who didn't have a first name when the birth record was documented. The mother's maiden name was Granger, so that was Deena.
Denika would have turned 22 on the 1st of this month. Esther Marion Fielding had been married to Mark W. Delepine in 1974 in San Mateo Co. It appears they split sometime around 1979, when RE docs in Alameda Co. showed that she got the deed to the house and he went into some other transactions with 3 other people, Esther never appearing with him again. She had kept the name Fielding in that marriage. The ex's next liaisons and marriage partners all kept their maiden names, too.
So, Deena & Ken had Denika in fall 1983. In fall 1988, Scott was born to Esther & Ken. In 1995, Ken married Lyn, but they have no children together. In 1997, Esther married Glen Hirschberger and they have no children together. They divorced in 2001; Ken & Lyn filed for a divorce on 10-12, 3 days before the murder.
Scott is said to have another sister, but I still can't find her. There is a mysterious database listing for someone named "Bush Dyleski" connected somehow to Deena, but I can't find that name anywhere else besides two databases that used different sources.
Esther filed some RE docs in Alameda County in 1982 and 1987, among several others, with someone named Marjorie Fielding. Her mother's name was Margaret Lopez Fielding, who died in 1996, so I don't know who Marjorie is. She also has a sister named Margaret, but I don't know her married name or where she is.
I guess that's it for now, just trying to piece together Scott's history.
Oh, one other interesting thing I found ... at a dedication in August 2003, at John Muir Amphitheater, there was a list of people who were thanked for their help in planting 2000 flowers. If you do some googling on Scott's dad, Ken, he leads nature walks all the time in the area and is really in to that. Well, Ken Dyleski's name is on the "thank you" list and so is a listing for "Esther & Scott Fielding."
Could be that Scott sometimes goes by that name or his mother presents him as that. Hmmm.
Thanks--that's right someone on the CoCoTimes forum posted about that. I remember seeing it in a reverse search but forgot about it. One of the owner's names was similar to the Bagher girl's parents' name and I did a double-take, but nothing connected.
Yesterday on Fox News, an anchor stated that Pamela was into kick-boxing. I still have trouble imagining the kid getting the better of her unless it was the surprise element combined with him being on meth. I presume they did a drug test on him.
Ok, I trust your work. Good to know.
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