Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [106]
Homicide detectives zeroed in on the teen just two days into their investigation after receiving a tip from a neighbor claiming that someone had obtained a credit card under his name and used it to purchase equipment often used to grow marijuana. In recent months, several of Vitale’s neighbors on Hunsaker Canyon Road had reported mail being stolen from a common mailbox area along the road at the base of a hill. An investigation into the thefts had yielded no suspects until one resident, Doug Schneider, reported that Horowitz’s remote hilltop address was provided as the shipping address for the hydroponics equipment that had been charged to his credit card on October 12.
Police got a second break on October 19 when a youth came forward to confess to a marijuana-growing scheme with his former classmate, Scott Dyleski. The youth, Robin Croen, told police they had been using fraudulently obtained credit cards to purchase the hydroponics lights used for growing marijuana. Croen, a student at Acalanes High School in Lafayette, told police that he and Dyleski, a classmate, intended to grow the plants in Dyleski’s closet.
According to Croen, the night before the murder Dyleski claimed that “there was some sort of problem with the orders” and assured him that he “just needed some more time to do something.” Police later learned that Dyleski and Croen, who was not implicated in the murder, allegedly conspired together in the mail thefts—including the one that lead to Vitale’s death.
Croen also told police that Dyleski had scratches on his face when he saw him on October 15—the day of the murder. Three days later, Dyleski showed up at Acalanes High School during lunch period and announced that he was going to tell his housemates about the credit card scam. “He said he was going to admit it because somehow this would separate him from the [Vitale] murder,” Croen told authorities. The comment concerned Croen, who could not understand how their credit card scheme could be linked to the woman’s murder. He asked Dyleski what he was talking about, and Dyleski “said he was afraid his DNA was on her because she had grabbed him at some point (while he was walking in the woods). I asked how or why, but I didn’t get an answer,” the youth told police.
Police subsequently alleged that Dyleski went to Vitale’s home that Saturday, October 15, to pick up the marijuana-growing equipment he ordered, but the package was not in the mailbox. Investigators suspected that Dyleski went inside the trailer to find out what happened to it, where he confronted Pamela Vitale and beat her to death. Dyleski had no way of knowing that the hydroponics equipment had never been shipped because the supplier suspected that something was amiss.
According to detectives, the gangly 55, 110-pound teenager was wearing gloves and a Balaclava mask (a mask which covers the entire face, with slits only for the eyes) when he entered the trailer home. Evidence collected at the scene indicated that he struck Vitale more than thirty times about the face and body with a broken piece of crown molding and other items before carving a “gothic signature” in the shape of an “H” into the small of her back.
After the murder, Scott Dyleski allegedly poured himself a glass of water, rinsed his hands in the sink and had a shower: a forensic examination of the bathroom faucets revealed traces of blood. Apparently unconcerned about the blood-stained crown molding he left, the teen used a little-traveled trail through the woods, arriving home sometime between 10:20 and 11:00 that morning. Croen wasn’t the only one who noticed Dyleski’s injuries that day. Several of his housemates later told police that they observed a gash on the boy’s face that morning. When asked about the wound,