Murder In The Neighborhood - Lafayette, California
76m 41s
In a shocking small town murder case from 2005 in Lafayette, California, defense attorney Daniel Horowitz discovers his wife Pamela Vitale dead in their home after finding blood on the front door. The crime scene shows severe blunt force trauma and a deliberate carved symbol on her back, suggesting a personal, violent attack. Investigation reveals that a 16-year-old neighbor, Scott Edgar, orchestrated a series of credit card frauds using stolen information from neighbors, including a credit card from John Halpin. These fraudulent orders, placed in the days before the murder, were traced through digital records, including Scott's computer and email activity. Scott, who had lived in poverty and struggled socially in an affluent community, denied involvement but later confessed under pressure when confronted by neighbors. Physical evidence—including bloodstained shoes, gloves, and a t-shirt—matches the crime scene and Scott’s known activities. The police found a duffel bag in Scott’s mother’s abandoned van containing blood-stained clothing and a symbol matching the carving on Pamela’s body. Though Scott was arrested, the case remains a chilling example of how digital footprints and personal trauma can intersect in a violent crime. The story underscores the dangers of isolation, financial insecurity, and social misfit in wealthy communities, where a young person with little support may turn to extreme acts. The case also highlights the role of technological evidence in solving crimes, and the complexity of connecting seemingly unrelated events—such as credit card fraud and a murder—to a single, desperate individual.
[music] Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and cho-choo! Hey indeed, Jimmy, yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo, I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder Express. And this one, oh boy, it fits the bill perfectly. It's nuts, it's wild. Ten pounds of murder in a two pound bag. We'll get into all that and more very quickly though. Top of the show here, shut up and give me murder.com. Oh yeah! Get all your tickets there. First of all, tons of new merch there too. So check that out. But tickets, tickets, tickets, September the 18th, papst, theater, Milwaukee, not a lot of tickets left for that. So if you want to go to that show, go ahead and get your tickets now. Then the next night, state theater and Minneapolis get your tickets for that. September 19th, get those now. Milwaukee's currently beating you Minneapolis and I know. So fascinating. I know you don't care for that. And then you don't want Wisconsin to beat you at anything. So let's up the game there. And then we have Dallas on October 3rd. And then later on in October, San Jose, Sacramento. And then November, Terry Town, Boston. So that's shut up and give me murder.com where you get all that stuff and more. Also, listen to our other two shows. Crime and sports. We have a long series going on about the Yahweh Ben Yahweh Colton. All there are many, many murders. And that's crazy. And then your stupid opinions. Come on, you got to hear that. You got to hear it's so funny. It's just hilarious. Then get yourself Patreon, everybody. Here we go. Do a favor for yourself. Patreon.com/CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. All you have to be is $5 a month. Or above, and you get every damn second of everything else. Every second. Every ounce. Yeah, we like to, we like to measure our output and weight. Is how we like to do it. So volume. Volume, pure volume. So do we do water displacement tests, really, to make it perfect? So Patreon.com/CrimeInSports. $5 a month are above. You get everything we put out, including as soon as you subscribe. Hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before. New ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all, baby. As well. As well. This week, what you get here is for crime in sports, we're going to do hostage situations. Part two. Because the first one was just so damn fun. We were like, okay, we need more. And we had another show's worth on our notes. So we said, let's do that. Then for small town murder, it's prisoner dating game time, everybody need we say more. It's prisoner dating game time. You know, you want to sign up for that. Four bachelors, four bachelors. I line them up for Jimmy. The only thing they have in common is they're all incarcerated violent felons. So very long time. He gets to pick it based on just what they say about themselves. And then he gets to find out what they did afterwards. And if you made a terrible choice, so it's a crazy, crazy show and good times. Patreon.com/CrimeInSports get every pound that we put out right there, right there. And also at the, you get a shout out at the end of the regular show and you get all the shows we put out, crime and sports, your stupid opinion, small town murder, all out free. Out. Free. Can't beat it. That said, I think it's time everybody. Let's do this. Let's all sit back. Clear the lungs here. What do you say? Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shout out and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. Yeah. We're going to California this week. Lovely. California. Northern California. Loved Northern California. Yeah. That's my favorite up there in the Bay Area and like Carmel and all that. It's real nice. This is Lafayette, California. Sure. Well, the Bay Area, North and West. You don't want to go Northeast. No, no. Then you end up in the North Coast. Yeah. North Coast. Fine. In the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Let's stay close to the water is what I'm saying. You don't want to do that. So Northern California, by where we will be, by the way, in October on the 16th and 17th in San Jose and Sacramento. Sure. Your tickets for that. It's shot up and give me murder.com. But Northern California, it's about 35 minutes to San Francisco, about three hours and 15 minutes over to Reno and four hours to Springville, California. Our last episode there, which is episode 667, the most interesting murderer in the world. Remember, he had always, that was a wild one, man, that guy was nuts. This is in Contra Costa County, which is very hard to, that's very Contra Costa County. Area code 925, population here, only 25,384. Oh? So it's small to be outside of the major cities, you know, that close to it, 35 minutes, mainly because it's expensive as we'll get into here. Of course it is. Wow. Indian household income here, 97,946, which is about 30 grand above the national average. But nowhere near what you need to deal with this house cost here, this is insane. median home cost here, $1,767,400, median, that's the one and three quarters, holy crap. That's. Wow. Now a little bit of history. History is about a million three short of that. So history, it was named after the Marquis de Lafayette, who was a French military officer of the American Revolutionary War, as they were on our side because they've been hating Britain since the beginning of time. So the name Lafayette came together with the community's first post office in 1857, the owner and manager of a hotel and general store applied for a post office for the community. At first he wanted to call it centerville, and then they told him there's already a centerville in California. You can't have that. Yeah. What do you think? You're the first one to thought of that. You're not even in the center. If anything, it makes no sense. Do you want to call it the street that goes right up the middle? Do you want to call that main street? Main street. Is this a outside the box idea that you have, this little theory? So he suggested Lafayette, and they said, yeah, right, fine, also he's in Louisiana, but all right. That's fine. Well, his wife was from Lafayette in Indiana, so there's one in Indiana, too. They went back and forth with the spelling. In 1857, it was Lafayette, but one word, but with a capital F. In 1864, it was Lafayette, one word lowercase F, then a little bit later, by 1890, it was Lafayette officially changed. Oh, I'm sorry. Before that, they made it two words, Lafayette. Then they changed it back to Lafayette. Then by 1905, it was back to two words again, and then finally in 1932, the post office was officially changed to one word, Lafayette, lowercase F, and that's what it's remained for the last 12 years or so. So, reviews of this town, it has 4.2 stars on niche, which not bad. That's pretty good. They have, there's nothing under three stars. It's all three, four, or five, so here's all wealthy people that are, yeah, it's, yeah, what are you complaining about? My neighbor's house is bigger than mine, my house cost me a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but yeah, other than that, with that comes some benefits. Yeah. Here's five stars. Lafayette is very good. I like every part of it. I love the schools and lifestyle of everything. Everything is great. No, we've never had that in a review before. Every leg of this. Yeah. Everything is wonderful. Everything is awesome. When you have a $1.8 million house, as I guess you go, everything is great. Yeah. You can all afford to live in a $1.8 million house. We're all paying for $1.8 million houses every day. We're doing great. We're doing fantastic. Here's three stars. We'll do this one quick here. I've never lived in Lafayette, but I went to school in that city since I was seven years old. Being Caucasian in such a white, rich community was tough at times. What? I'm sorry. The only reason I put this review in here is because I don't understand. Being white in a community of rich white people is tough at times. I know. Must have been brutal for you. Blending in. Blending in and all that lack of seasoning. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Diary. Just all of your very plain, boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Yes, I made a few friends in my grade school through high school years, but overall, people are not as welcoming and open to outsiders and newcomers, especially if you don't live there. That's how rich neighborhoods are. Oh, this guy was looking for some ethnicity. It looks like some culture is wanted something here. Academics are excellent, but extracurriculars have their flaws. A lot of favoritism, too much pressure within the children. Parents tend to be too competitive and hard on their children. Yeah. It's rich people. A lot of sailing clubs. Yeah. This person's like, you know, slums of Beverly Hills over here, just, you know, on the border of the school district to go to a good school and they know that he's not one of them. That's what it is. Things to do here. Okay. The Lafayette Wine and Arts Festival. Sure. And over in last year, 2025, over 75,000 people were there, fuck over the course of the few days that it goes on. Everybody's fascinated with how rich people live. I have. Yeah. I mean, we all want to see it.
And this is like, you know, local food and micro brews and wine and all that kind of shit. Like, that sounds like a fun day. So, when we put up with Robin Leach's horrible accent just to see how fucking Oprah grills stakes. Yeah, just, yeah. We put up with that. What is that Australian English? It's in between. It's a mess. I don't even know. It's like, it's an abrasive thing. Okay, man. Yeah. It's a very. Oh, I'm Robin Leach. She's like, "Fuck you." It was very throat. Yeah. Oh, I'm Robin Leach. She was. Yeah. This house costs $3 billion. This house should make you feel like a loser. You feel like a. You limp dick, fuck. Look at this house. That's a real man lives there. You're pumped. You fucking punk. Gargleson salt, Robin, calm down. Man. There's also music. You get Jimbo Scott and yesterday's biscuits. That's a band. It's nothing. It's a good name. It's a good name. It's a good music, I'm sure. I'm sure. The bell, brother's band. Yeah. It was really mad that Midnight Rider was already taken by the Almond Brothers, really upset. Or Midnight Oil. Or Midnight Oil. Yeah. Or Midnight Oil. Yeah. They're like, "Damn it. It's all taken." East Bay mud with 2D's. Charged particles. So. Okay. Ions, basically. Yeah. Free stone peaches. The big. The big jangle. Yeah. Okay. Maybe my favorite name of all time, Lonesome Eddie and the Saddle Soars. Soars. I'm the Saddle Soars. Soars. That's O-R-E-S. He's got Saddle Soars. Poor Eddie has fucking blistered ass. Oh, poor Eddie. Poor bastard. So that said, let's talk about some murder here. What do you say? Here we go. Okay. We got a wild case here. Let's start out in 1994 and then we'll work our way up because the whole murder thing happens a little bit later, 2005-ish. So let's start out with a man, an East Bay lawyer, Daniel Horowitz, his name, okay. East Bay criminal defense attorney and always on TV as a like talking head legal analyst. He's one of those guys. So he's like talking about the case and defending the person that's on track or like giving an analysis. Analysis. Yeah. Fnancy Grace is talking about Casey Anthony. Well, come on and talk about the legalities of all of it and how you defend it and that kind of shit. Talk about how sometimes if you hit a raccoon, it makes your trunk stink. That's right. So top. Henry Hill. I hit a raccoon. Karen, right? I hit a skunk. Karen, right? So it's not a raccoon, but he could have made it a raccoon. So he defended murderers, drug dealers, you know, criminal defense attorney. Isn't that what she said? She hit with that fucking sunfire? Yeah. She said she hit the raccoon. Yeah, I just brought it back to Henry Hill. I always did. I was just making sure I was on the raccoon. You don't know. You had it right. You had it right for her. Now, this, he became real big during the Scott Peterson trial because that happened in the Bay Area. Right there. He's a Bay Area defense attorney. Nancy Grace loves him. He's on the show all the time with her. Yeah. And he's also, I poor bastard. And he's also a regular with Dan Abrams, who actually think is pretty good. He does a good job. He's a little pompist, but he's good. But he's been doing a lot for like, you see old clips and you're like, is that fucking Dan Abrams? How long has he been around? Cause he looks like Sarah has the best nickname. Not young at all. No. That's an old man. And the way he dresses, Sarah calls him a haunted ventriloquism puppet. She calls him a haunted puppet and I'm like, that's exactly what he looks like, a haunted puppet. That's perfect. His face looks very plastic. It really does. It's smooth. Yeah. Like a ventriloquist dummy. So he is, he's very theatrical, very ego to, he's in defense attorney. The big time defense attorney, those guys happen, usually you have a little swagger to them. He always carries a gun too, because being a defense attorney and a high profile one, he's got some enemies, not, and also just people, not even if you don't win, if you do win, then there's a lot of people mad at you. I'm going to kill you for getting somebody off. In 1994, he's shopping a screenplay around, which is strange. This is before he was like on TV as a lawyer all the time. So. A story one? Yeah. I'm not sure. A screenplay. I just picture the, the, the warden from arrest a development. James Lipton there pitching a screenplay all the time. So, but that's what he's doing. And he's down in Hollywood trying to pitch his, his screenplay. And he meets a lady down there. Oh, yeah. A lady that it really likes about the same age as him here. This is Pamela Vitale, V-I-T-A-L-E. She is born about 1953. So when they meet, she's about 40 and so is he, you know, about the same age. She is a marketing executive for tech company type things in the bay area. What's that go? Oh no, she's, yeah, she's not a, she's not somebody, not a Hollywood girl, not a Hollywood party girl, not looking for some lawyer screenwriters, you need that shit. She's got her own shit. She even, she produces independent films as well. She's got like money and interest in that sort of thing and gets into a lot of projects. One of her friends said Pamela is just the sweetest, nicest, most selfless woman you'd ever want to know. How about it? And she's got two kids from a previous relationship. Marissa and Mario, something tells me she was married to an Italian guy, what's where Vitale came from? Yeah. Yeah. I know a couple of Vitale's growing up. Big fat kittens. Yeah. So that's, that's how it works. Mario Vitale does not sound anything bad. No, you're a bad or Marissa too, Marissa Vitale is like holy shit. So yeah, she has two previous kids, Daniel's fine with that. They're almost grown at this point anyway and they'll be out of the house soon. So they get together in 1994 and hook up and they think 93 they get together by 1994. They're both, they're married to each other. How about it? From the Bay Area? Why not? High-powered couple is what they are. She does her thing, he does his thing. By 2005, she is managing databases at his law practice and the, her main project and both of their main projects is a house that they're building. Hell yeah. A whole point. A nightmare. Oh, man. Yeah, just building it, not remodeling it. Re-do one room in your house and have a divorce. Re-war bathroom, unfuck, yeah, not even a kitchen. Re-do the half bath that's somewhere. Re-do that and you'll kill each other. It's horrible. Re-do the closet in the room that has no water. There's no plumbing. No plumbing. Re-do the closet and see if you don't want to strangle that bitch and see if that asshole doesn't make you want to put a 38 to his hand. Not even an outlet in the closet. No electricity. One overhead and that's it. How about they're building a 7,000 square foot house. That's so much house. 7,000 square foot house overlooking a canyon in Lafayette. They're too great. It's like an exclusive area of Lafayette like they are killing it money-wise. In the fall of 2005, here though, they were, I guess for a little while, they were living in a trailer on the property while it was being built. Right. They were living as like a manufactured home here and it was parked right there at the property. This is on Hunsaker, Hunsacker Canyon Road and it's big trees and rocks and it's beautiful. By fall of 2005, Daniel has a high profile trial. A woman named Susan Pock and he heard of her, P-O-L-K. No. She was in Arinda, California. She was a housewife, accused of stabbing her psychotherapist husband to death in 2002. Holy. Yeah. Which is interesting. I can't imagine that relationship goes very easily either. Well, it's the guy deserves something. Not saying he deserves to be stabbed, but they met when she was 14 years old and was sent to him as a patient because she had panic attacks. So I don't like that at all. A-14, even if they met in any other circumstance, not okay, and be a therapist should never go out with their patient ever, even 20 years later. You don't do that. It's not ethical at all. That feels very grooming. Yeah. You can't therapy. Oh, that's the most grooming relationship of all time. Totally. Especially since she was so young, she's 14 and completely under his care. You know what I mean? She's got a stabulator for that. You have to trust a therapist, you know? Yeah. Wow. And also, if she is like lashed out in a fit of psychosis, he should have known. That's your job, man. He didn't do a very good fucking job fixing her up. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible therapist. Terrible therapist. She was still there. So you're a pervert and a bad therapist. So I don't know. And now he's dead. He was stabbed 27 times. Fuck, that's a lot. He claims self-defense, the prosecution called it premeditated murder for the estate and it turned into a big giant mess, obviously. And Daniel Horowitz is the guy retained by Susan Pulk to defend her. It's a big, high profile case. So Saturday, October 15th, 2005, Daniel, he's been doing this for weeks. He's working in the middle of this case. He leaves the trailer that they're living in at 8 a.m. Pamela is still asleep. He gets up. He meets with his team. The legal team. He runs some errands. He goes to the gym. He picks up some groceries.
Yeah, as a day basically he keeps trying to call Pamela during the day, but she's not picking up the phone So he said who knows you know she's going to a ballet that evening. She's probably busy. I don't know They're both busy people so if they play phone tag not a big deal a lot of shit going on so 6 p.m. Daniel pulls into the driveway and You know long day. He's got groceries and his computer bag But the first thing he sees is Pamela's white Mercedes is still in the driveway And she's supposed to be at the ballet right now like definitely gone on the way to the ballet So he carries the groceries and the computer to the front door and it's closed and he sees smears on it Of what look like blood And he's like what the fuck Later on he described he said he knew in that instant that something was really wrong God if I see blood anywhere on the outside of my house. I'm smears of it. Yeah, I'm assuming some there's a problem You know I would think I called the police because there was blood droplets on my grandfather's patio Yeah, nobody was home the cops showed up and my uncle came home. He had a nosebleed I'm glad you're a co-cat. Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you're just a goddamn mess with horrible nasal passages So he said he opened the door Pam. He sees Pam lying just inside the entryway Yeah, and he said there's so much blood. He knew immediately she was dead and he says he claims he dropped everything collapse to the floor and screamed Now neighbors said they heard screaming around 6 p.m. So that lines up He calls 911 from the house and then he goes back to her body now This is one of the the things he said he said this to Dan Abrams on MSNBC. He said quote He said that he touched her temple. He said to see if she was alive even though he knew she was dead He said he told her a million things. He screamed. He cried and he told her he loved her And the problem is he didn't really call 911 properly. That's the issue. How do you do? He should have been telling them some shit and not her Well, he started the night. This is a weird thing. I don't know how true this is, but they're they say that by this is by some accounts So I don't even know if this is a fact or not He started the 911 call through the phone down and then shortly after dialed the Regular police phone number not the non non emergency No, not sure if that's true or not or what we don't know That's just been brought up later later and everything now police respond counter-cost a share of deputies respond here There's spokesman said yes a woman's body was found in the entryway. It was a homicide and there's no suspects in custody basically is what they tell the world inside the house Pamela No sexual assault number one No robbery anybody could identify nothing missing nothing rifle nothing like that The autopsy is Insane with this poor woman went through this is horrific. She died of blunt force trauma to the head Beating well among other things. I know they counted at least eight distinct injuries on the right side of her head 11 on the back and seven on the left side of her head This is obliterated Yeah, and he said the count was probably low because a lot of the wounds overlapped and it's probably less than that I'm gonna hit in the same spot from time to time. Totally also a broken nose two teeth not loose from her upper jaw Defensive fractures to her left hand the so bad that the bone is exposed So we just yeah, that's that's wild bruising on her right foot consistent with trying to kick or trying to kick somebody away They believe the weapon was a smaller irregular hard object like a rock Now what in hunsecker Canyon where they are it's the site of an old quarry and it's nothing but rocks outside So it fits perfectly with a rock which is a not a real great plan murder weapon to you. No, especially if you grab a rock Nothing else nothing was to the she's clearly the target was to kill her And yeah, if your idea is to show up to a house and kill a woman and you brought nothing you just brought a rock with you You picked up a rock as I walked in that'll do put it in your pocket. Yeah. No problem. It's a terrible hitman or whatever That's a bad murder. Yeah, yeah, and now her back is the really disturbing shit There are three intersecting superficial incisions. So someone carved in her back essentially see I mean not a Zorro here, but two horizontal cuts about four inches long crossed by a four and a half inch vertical cut forming an H shape Hey, okay, now they said this was made while she was alive Yikes, yeah, there's also a deep stab wound to the abdomen that penetrated her stomach and bowel inflicted right around the time of death Oh, my yeah, now they called the the the the the H or whatever the signal was They the press called it a satanic symbol calling it a cross of Lorraine That's what they call it. It's a gothic carving. Yeah, so that's what they called it Now physical evidence there's blood fucking everywhere as you can imagine walls floor everywhere There's an overturned plastic storage bin lid by the front door and on top of that a shoe print in blood Okay, a fabric print on the bin is consistent with a gloved hand I think someone where I was wearing gloves blood smears on the inside of the door consistent with someone in a long-sleeved garment But Pam had a short panel had a short sleeve t-shirt on Meaning the long sleeves must have belonged to whoever killed it somebody covered themselves up in long sleeves and gloves Some yeah absolute look like they're landscaping or murdering one of the two. Yeah Finger marks in blood all over the room with fine linear striations fabric not fingerprints consistent with gloves worn throughout a heavy flashlight near the entryway covered in blood Pieces of molding with blood on them possibly used to to beat her with but not the murder weapon just other fans In the kitchen. There's an open water bottle and a bowl both with blood on them. There's a mug with blood on it in the sink In the bathroom. There's a hand swipe of blood on the far wall Contact transfers on the cow a shower curtain and hot water knob But no sign that anybody ran the shower because the smears would have washed away Right. So this is a lot. This is a scene, man. I mean there's fucking what they went in the bathroom to do something But their hands were the gloves had too much blood and they couldn't operate the knob or something Would they do it or they maybe that or they can't figure that out quite of what's going on Maybe they went in there and thought about it and then said I should probably get out of here first before I started I should probably just leave. Yeah, maybe one of those And now there is a police consultant that NBC uses and he said this beating implies something very personal Yeah, they're mad. Oh boy, are they pissed doing a lot of shit and the carving in the back would be What to throw somebody off the center made something like that now so they go, okay, what did Pam do this day? So they go back and it's 2005 so you can forensically look at a lot of digital footprints here And she was doing real boring shit. She went on her laptop. She's at 807 She got on her laptop and she's just dicking around. She served genealogy websites Oh, check out if I got a new cousin that popped up on an ancestry News sites, you know, current events just shit like that Yeah, also even just normal shit. She used her computer. Just basically was on it for about two hours and the last keystroke is logged at 1012 a.m Okay, now first thing the cops think is Exactly what you said. What do you think in here? Yeah, somebody showed up to do something really terrible, but they are very But they brought a knife. Yeah, but she's a target for sure. Yeah. Well, the first thing everybody says cops and everybody else is The husband. Yeah, let's look at it because that's just more likely That's just sad dunk. Yeah So he basically the first place you look is there So problem is he's got I was stone cold alibi's all day. Yeah, he's been gone all day He friends co-workers. He's been with people working the case since eight o'clock in the morning So there's no I mean besides going to the gym and going to get groceries which he's accounted for in both of those places He didn't go to the gym and he did get groceries. So it's he's pretty, you know, booked up that day So Sunday, October 16th there is an association meeting of all the people who live on this road This is the day after the murder, okay? Yeah, two in meeting sort of yet unofficial HOA now There's a woman named Karen Schneider who called the meeting She had reported the day before Pamela died She had reported some credit card fraud to the Lafayette police and called the meeting of the association so she could warn the neighbors about the fraud You think they go, we are
I have bigger shit to worry about now. Fuck fraud. - Yeah, but somebody went to target on me. - This is crazy. Yeah, somebody's ordering a makeup re-up on me. This isn't right. And I like it. So there are multiple people there. There are Fred and Kim Curiel, who will come up in this, and also a woman named Esther Fielding. They all live in the same house, and we'll talk about that. Now, the neighbors talked about the murder. They're like, fuck your fraud. - Yeah. - This is a murder that happened on this little street, and they're speculating about who did it. Now, near the end, Esther Fielding yells at Karen Schneider for not taking responsibility for running over a dog. - All right. - Okay, so she had ran over a dog recently. It was Esther Fielding Sun's dog, as we'll talk about. Okay, now they said what she did, she Schneider pulls out faxed order forms. This is where the fraud came from. She pointed out that the orders use the Horowitz's address, used Hamill and Daniel's address, and appeared to have been placed by somebody else, but had it delivered there and then picked it up. So Esther Fielding and Fred Curiel looked, and they were trying to figure out, basically on the papers of the order forms, Esther Fielding's name is on them. On Karen Schneider's credit card thing, and ordered to-- - That's a Horowitz house. - Yes, and ordered it to the Horowitz house. So she said that the orders use the Horowitz's address and appeared to have been placed by Esther Fielding, but they said, no, that's crazy. Now, Fred Curiel is a computer consultant by trade. So he gets home and he said, I'm inspecting every computer in the fucking house if it came from here. Okay, including Esther Fielding 16-year-old son, Scott's computer as well. - The kid with the dead dog. Him, Scott, and his mom, Esther have been living with the Curiel's 'cause they're gonna have some hard times. So they've been living for a couple of years with the Curiel's. Now that's a wrap. - Hard times living in Paris. - Yeah, well before that it was shitty. I'd never leave either. - Yeah, well, the hard times before they got there. - Yeah, but the browser history on Scott's computer had been cleaned, wiped out. But this guy's a computer guy. He knows how to find it anyway. So they find files that show Scott's computer had been used to access a specialty lighting website where the fraudulent orders were placed. - Uh-oh. - So they're like, oh, that's why Scott's the one who did it. He's scamming. So let's find out who Scott is here. Scott Edgar, Edgar as your middle name, dialesci. D-Y-L-E-S-K-I. He's born October 30th, 1988 from San Francisco. His parents are Kenneth and Esther. Kenneth, dialesci and Esther, fielding. They split up when he was two, and Scott was basically only raised by his mother here. Basically they'd run down his parents. Esther's like a, kind of a one. I mean, she's way late for it, but she was like a wanna be hate ashberry hippie type. - Oh. - Wanna be like real hippie type, but well after that was done. - She showed up around 82. - That's what I mean, yeah, that was strange. Ken was a draft dodger and had a masters in psychology who believed that the government kept a file on him and liked to tell people that he personally helped stop the Vietnam war. Good job, good job Ken. He should've done it earlier, you fuck. - It's crazy. He's a real obsessive crazy guy. Like he did a lot of weird shit according to his ex-wife anyway. The repetitive weird rituals, strange things with food, like he was a weird guy. He paid $400 a month for child support and basically wanted nothing to do with Scott, as what the mother said. So they moved to Lafayette here around 1999 when they moved in with their old friends, Fred and Kim Curiel. And yeah, so that's how it went here. And they live on the same street as Pamela and Daniel. And they did the same thing too. They moved in, lived in a trailer, where the house was built and all that shit. Now the school Scott goes to here is a big affluent school, obviously, in this area. - He's gonna be one of those kids in the white community that does not fit in. - The Caucasian that doesn't fit into the white community. - Yeah, he is Caucasian, not white. He's Caucasian, the guy said, yeah, he's not white. So he doesn't fit in well with, there's not a lot of kids that are like poor who live in somebody's guest rooms. Like that's not really how it works. - It is a late teen ward. - Yeah, like he came from like basic, he did normal kid shitty played little league. He was in Boy Scouts, he's big into animal rights. He went out and hung animal rights flyers at the mall with a girl from school. Don't know if he was into animal rights or he was just like this chick asked him. He was like, sure, I'll do it. - This hot chick's into animal rights. - If you're 14, you will be into any cause some hot chick is into. You do not get, what is it, animal rights? Get great, fine, we'll go for a stake afterwards. Sounds good. - Let's register him to vote. That's how I, that's how hard I believe it. - That's yeah, I want him to have the right. And so August 2002, Scott's half sister was killed in a car accident. Jesus. - A passenger in a crash, she was a passenger in a crash, it also killed the driver. - Wow. - Now that was his dad's daughter. He only saw her when he visited his dad. So they weren't close close, but it was still his half sister and- - Still blood. - If freaked him out too. - Yeah. - When you're young and someone your age dies it freaks you out, 'cause you don't think it's possible. - Yeah, especially when they die of things. Like, I mean. - Sudden. - Yeah, the sickness thing where they like, hang around a while and they die. - Yeah, for years or something. - Yeah, that's fucked up and everybody feels bad for them, but the blank where you saw them on Friday and Monday they don't come to school, that's fucked up. - That's fucked up. So at her funeral, after the funeral, Scott basically turned into a goth kid, started wearing all black and weird, you know, the goth look, fucking makeup and black nail polish and black lipstick and, you know, weird hats and shit. He had good grades before then all of a sudden he's got D's and F's and his mother said that he was quite sullen, is what he said, or I'm sorry, Kim Curiel said that. He's also a little guy in high school which doesn't help either, he's five, six and 110 pounds. - Couldn't be more seen. - And he's also poor in a rich town. So he is, imagine if you like pluck Damian Eccles out of white trash arc and saw it and put him in an affluent area, that's what we have here, basically. - He's dirt head at some expensive school in New York City. - Yep, and he's a smart kid, he's very artistic but that doesn't really get you anything in the rich crowd like that. He became a vegan during this time too. He got real into 9/11 conspiracies, 'cause it's 2005. So I mean, that's people that was hot at that time. He said that, you know, obviously he thought the government attacked the buildings himself and yeah, so people didn't like that. So they were, you know, they people were not, they weren't real drawn to him in high school, let's just say. - Not a big fan club. - Yeah, people said that he was just kind of, you know, just trying to get attention, people thought maybe 'cause he couldn't get attention in the traditional high school ways of being like athletic or popular or handsome or he was just kind of, so he's gotta try to get, and that's what you do. You come up with a thing. - Right, the popular kid at school is the guy that has everything. And here to have everything, you have to have everything. - That's what I mean, you could live in a, you know, one and a half million dollar house and people still think you're a loser here. - Still think you're a poor kid. - Or a piece of shit. - Yeah, and people said he was a nice guy, but they were, some of the like, uppity kids were pretty freaked out about him, you know. He had a lot of artwork, as we'll talk about some of it. One was titled, "Live for the Kill" with the words style, gothic, and hate underneath it. There were drawings of a man holding a severed head and a bloody knife. There was a face with a mouth stitch shut with X's. Just creepy, weird kid shit. - I mean, you give a kid a 16-year-old a pencil and tell him draw things and don't stop. Just draw all day. - Just draw the shit. - Just draw that exact same thing. - Weird shit. A razor blade, a swastika and a knife. I wouldn't don't think I'd draw the swastika. I don't think I'd draw the line there. And it's, one said, "Guns don't kill people, I kill people." And then another one, he, it's like a picture of serial killers and it said, "Before Manson, before Bundy, there was Gain." There was Gain, sorry, so that's true. - He's sure. - He's got it right, at least he's got his timeline down. So. - He knows chronology. - He knows the chronology of murders, excellent work. - So 2002, 2003 is when Fred and Kim Curiel build a new house in this neighborhood. - Yeah. - And until it was finished in April 2003, Scott and Esther lived in a plywood lean too. - Fuck. - Just they put up literally like a, like, shantytown, Hooverville shit. - They used the scraps in, made a place. - It just made a shelter of some kind here. - Shit. - They built it, quote, to keep the weather off them. Right, there's no electricity in there.
there's no plumbing. They use a porta potty full time. Um, that's crazy. No, anything else here. Scott may be showered once a week, usually at his friends house in Concord. So now he's small, skinny, poor and stinky. Well, all the ladies are going to swarm to him at school here. So he'd get up at 4 a.m. to work at a deli before school for a couple hours. And then, yeah. And then he'd go to work. This is not a good life for a kid. His father called child protective services twice once in 1994 for General neglect years ago when he was six. And then in 1995 for emotional abuse, according to the probation report that happened with the CPS never even came out to investigate either claim. So we don't know what's going on. Now, summer of 2005, he's got a best friend since the eighth grade. And his name is Robin toward the end of summer, 2005, they decided they're going to grow weed in Scott's closet. So Scott is basically him and his mom are living rent free in their friends house in a beautiful area. And he's going to try to fuck it up anyway possible. Let's get us kicked out of here so we can live in a fucking trailer and reno. What do you say? They'll never see it. Don't worry about it. It's in the closet. Yeah. They'll never smell it. It's fine. You're not going to smell that two ounces. Oh, Jesus, man. So now it's Robin's job to do to figure out what lighting to get hydroponic stuff, you know, websites at cell. He's going to gather all the info. That's what the lighting's for. The gross shit. Yeah. It's got job to find the money to buy this. That's it. Okay. And so he decides after failing to come up with some money, he's going to steal his neighbor's credit card information out of the mailbox and use it to order the equipment. Holy shit. That's stupid. That is very dumb. And these are people who, it's a small street in a remote canyon area like this. It's going to be found. So I'm going to steal my computer scientist roommates credit card. No, no, no, they're neighbors. Yeah. They're neighbors credit card. They steal cars. And use it in the computer guy's house and have it delivered to a lawyer's house. So on September, September 17th, Scott ordered $267 vaporizer from a site called vapor wears using a credit card stolen from a neighbor named John Halpin, who was out of state for over a month that had no idea what was going on. The invoice build Halpin, but shipped to Esther Fielding at their address. He's shipped it to his own house, idiot. Okay. So Robin, they have emails back and forth. And Robin tells Scott to, he says, quote, keep each car a charge small to avoid detective detective detection. And so Scott wrote back, quote, stealthiness is my number one priority. Okay. Still nothing doesn't that means now. So October 1st, 2005, Karen Schneider is the one who hit the dog. This is Scott's dog. His name was jazz. The dog had to be put down two days after Pamela was murdered. So it lived another two weeks. Now Karen Schneider lives right next door to Harowitz and Vitale Vitale here. She didn't really know Scott, but she knew the curials. Thursday October 13th at 12 15 a.m. An order is placed online with specialty lighting. A grow light system is ordered shipped to Esther Fielding, 1050 hunsacker Canyon Road with the family's real phone number attached. The billing is to Karen Schneider, who's the dog killing neighbor. But the billing address is listed at 19, is listed at the Harowitz Vitale home. So he's using one card to order it in one person's name over here. And then so the address for the shipping and credit card billing are different. Okay. So that's interesting. Now four minutes later, a second order for more lighting, eight minutes after that, a third order for cooling gear. Same email, same shipping, same billing. A fourth order that day used Fielding's the mom's email, but build the neighbor John Halpin. And then later on, they'd find another unauthorized charge for a liquid earth starter kit, hydro buckets and pumps. Okay. Stealthiness number one priority. October 13th, 2005, two days before the murder, Karen Schneider sits down and looks at her bank and credit cards accounts online and finds three charges she never approved from specialty lighting. So she emails the company the next morning, the owner of the company, email Schneider back and faxes are the copies of the orders and all of this. So they see it's fraud here. So then the company, apparently they, the company says we won't ship the merchandise that and sends like an email saying it's canceled order. Then the company gets a phone call from a mail quarter, a caller asking about problems with the orders. Yeah. And they said that that was bizarre because in this lady's experience, people who place fraudulent orders don't call about them. They just try something. Yeah, exactly. And he said they sounded young and the person sounded like they were trying to disguise their voice as an older person. Hello, I ordered some lighting for my wife and family where we're growing some herbs and are, you know, this is a bill. Hello, I'm Bill Curtis. I'm Robin Lach. I ordered some lighting equipment to this big fucking house. Can you deliver it? Please? There's a hot tub. It's wonderful. I mean, I'd Japan next to a two million dollar house, two million dollar house, seven thousand square feet. God, that guy's a douche. So anyway, they said she said, you know, just a weird interaction. Friday, October 14, 2005, day before the murder, 3.54 p.m. The caller calls the company back and asks, can you ship to the billing address on the orders? Uh-huh. And the owner says the car, the credit car company has declined the charges and you got to take it up with them. So he says, okay, fine. Both calls, by the way, came from the curials home phone. Right. This is when everyone's still a little online. The same Friday after school, Scott calls his buddy Rob and tells him that quote, some of it hadn't gone through and then he was trying to find a way to make it work. Yeah. I'm trying to call the company. Yeah. Fix rectifying this because stealth. The stealth is my number one option. Number one priority. So now back to the current time line. Monday, October 17, the day after the community meeting about the fraud, the curials and Esther confronts Scott about the fraud. So his mom and those two, he denies it and said, someone must have broken into the house and used his computer. Okay. Here we go. Wow. They use the, they're the ones for the porn. This is, yeah. Oh, yeah. They like big tits too. Yeah. That's what they're going to beat off all over the place and all over. Yeah. If there's anything on there with girls with huge asses, someone must have broken and looked at that. I can't guarantee they like thick latinas. I'm not into it. Zestie, Latina, Mama, seed is that's not me. I didn't, I don't look at that. I didn't do it. So he denies it and Esther is like, she doesn't want to get thrown out like this is a sweet gig for her. It's nice deal. So she's tell Scott, he gets one chance to get rid of anything connected to this credit card fraud and never do it again. Yeah. She said she had not even thought about, you know, anything else, just trying to, you know, help his, her son. So that's a Monday, Kim Curiel tell Scott how sad she was about Pamela's death and, you know, the neighbor and Scott replied, quote, well, these things happen. They too, but they just happened. You're 16. They don't happen to you. No. And that made her go. That was weird. So then let's go back to Saturday, the murder day and go through what Scott was up to. Okay. Saturday, October 15, 2005, 1045 AM. This is last key stroke for Pamela was 1012. Remember, okay? Scott walks through the Curiel's front door, walks in and everybody says he looks strange. He said he was walking with an exaggerated step and he was smiling broadly. And he announced I had the most beautiful walk this morning to everybody in the house. Kim notices, Kim Curiel notices his hands are shaking a little bit. She also notices scratches on his nose that are actively bleeding and three or four small scratches on his cheek are also bleeding. He's bleeding right now, bleeding, currently bleeding. Well, yeah, he said that he was walking home from this whole thing and from his the best walk he's ever had. And he got whacked by a bush, the bush caught him in the face. He says he was looking for a waterfall that the family had mentioned. And Kim says there's no water in October. And he says, yeah, I found that out. Okay. So they get some ointment on his nose. Kim grades a paper because she's doing teaching stuff and leaves with her husband and kids to shop for Halloween costumes at the spirit store. Another person that lives there, Michael Sikama, he's downstairs making oatmeal for
his kids. How many people live in this fucking house? Another family lives here. And this is about 10, 20 a.m. He saw Scott come in. He said close to no later than 11 o'clock is what he says downstairs. He says there was fresh gouge marks on his face that hadn't been there the night before. Scott told the same water stall fall story. Then Scott's mother gets home. Esther, she notices the scratches and at a red palm that he has too. And now he says he slipped climbing rocks and grabbed for a branch and hit his hand. That's how that happened. So early afternoon of that day, Saturday, October 15th, Scott talks on the phone to Kim Curiel's brother, complaining his hand in wrist or swollen and asking what he should do. He tells the waterfall story. But now he says he fell into a ravine and landed on his wrist. So the story is a beautiful. This walk kicked your ass, Scott. Yeah. And his girlfriend, yes, he has a girlfriend. Wow. That's the thing. In high school, there's levels of your, you know, not doing well or whatever. If you have a girlfriend of any stripe, you're immediately in this tier. You're above that tier. Like boy who's actively real attempting to get sexual touch. Yeah. Is doing much better than boy who's not. And she has a car. She picked them up at 2 p.m. Do come on. They spend the afternoon together. She notices the scratches, the swollen wrist and all that. He tells the same story. Then at 6 p.m. Daniel Harowitz came home, discovers the Pamela, then at 8 p.m. Scott, Scott and Jenna, whose his girlfriend arrived at Robin's house, Scott hands Robin $40 to buy weed from him. And he had never bought weed from him before. Now he has $40. Then his mom calls Jenna's cell looking for Scott. She tells him there's a rumor someone in the canyon has been killed in the police and blocked the road. So we should try it. Don't try to come home. Just stay at Jenna's just 16 year old. Just stay at your girlfriend's house. Stay out all night. Great parenting. And then Scott starts saying he says that if Jenna takes him home, he said, no, they have, there's, there's been a murder and there's, you know, he says, if Jenna takes me home, I'll have to be questioned by the police. And it'll be too much of a hassle. So I'll just stay here. So the three of them start guessing who got killed. And Scott says it was most likely at the Horowitz house because he says, Scott, Horowitz is a prominent attorney. And he mentions that he saw someone on his walk that morning and wonders allowed it. Maybe that was the killer. Okay. He also recites a Lizzie Borden ride. Oh, the wax thing. Yeah. He says, if you wanted to kill someone, the most painless way would be to shoot them. But if you wanted to cause pain, you would bludge in the person 36 or 39 times. He says after that. All right. Pamela had been struck in the head somewhere in that range by the way. But the number none of that was public yet. They didn't even know how the public didn't even know how she was murdered yet. Okay. Then Scott and Jenna went back to her place, watched a show and drank absent because they're douchebags. And so Tuesday, October 18. Okay. This is interesting. The curials are talking to him about the fraud again, pressing him. He's denying it. The Fred Curiel told him it didn't look like anyone broke into the computer and asked whether Scott understood that using the Vitaly's phone number and address could tie him to the murder, even use her phone number and address. Then she got murdered. That doesn't look good for you. So Scott said he understood and then he started pacing. And then at some point, Fred said, I'm not saying they're going to think you murdered her. But I'm just saying it's going to cause a questioning. It looks bad. It looks bad. So Scott said, well, what do you mean? And Fred said, I was just thinking out loud. He said, well, Pamela had struggled with her attacker the way Horowitz told the press that she had. Then it was pretty guaranteed there's going to be DNA under her fingernails and, you know, things like that. Hair, footprint, stuff like that. So I mean, you don't have to worry about it because the physical evidence is what matters. Scott just got quiet and didn't respond. He said, oh, yeah. Then Kim said, where were you Saturday morning? Uh-oh. They're like a Parahomicide detective. They're terrific. He said out for a walk. They said, did you see your talk for anyone? And he thought for a while. And then he said, oh, yes, I did. He said a woman driving a four door sedan white with long, straight brown hair and big glasses. She rolled down her window, stopped the car, reached across and grabbed his arm and said, you've got to believe. Okay. That's, by the way, an exact dead-on description of Pamela Vitale that he gave. Okay. Um, they said, did you know Pamela? Or did you know the woman that stopped? And he said, no. And then he said, well, she grabbed me. She grabbed my arm. So she might have my DNA under her fingernails. And then he showed them fingernail marks on his right arm and said she even left marks. Like the fucking seahag and widow's bay over here is going to follow you home. Then he said, first he said the woman was driving down the canyon and Kim pointed out that if he was walking up toward the barn, she'd have had to reach all the way across the passenger seat to grab him. So he said, oh, no, no, I, I met her coming home. I was heading uphill. I, I had a backwards. All right. Then Fred said, well, Pamela was found in a t-shirt and her underwear. She hadn't been out of the house that day. She hasn't left. Is it the kids that are saying this to him? No, no, this is Fred and Kim, the curials the people they live with. So they said she didn't leave the house that day. So you didn't see her out there. And then Scott said, quote, what if my DNA is there? Fred was like, what? So Fred said, if you weren't there, your DNA won't be there. And he said, but what if it is there? Scott said Fred said, well, that would mean you were there. And that would mean you're going to do a lot of time. And then Scott started getting real nervous and shaky. Over the next day, the woman on the road story would move around a bit. Now next day, it's a man and a woman in a car. The woman reaching over the man to grab his arm. He told his mother, quote, I can't believe this is happening. And he told one of the housemates that the whole thing is just a big hallucination. And then he told the housemates wife, quote, my DNA is on Pamela Vitali. Oh my god. Okay. So finally, he admitted that he did do the credit card scheme. And he lied and he started crying. Now he's like, if I admit to this, maybe that'll, everything will go away. So he said he wants to get it fixed. He wants to get it over with. So he told Robin, he's going to confess to the fraud partly to clear Robin's name and partly because he was afraid of them thinking he was a murderer. And he said that he thought owning up the fraud would quote, separate him from that. Meanwhile, makes it worse. He's so bad at this. He's such an idiot. It's almost like he's 16. Right. When Robin asked what the connection between the fraud and the murder even was, Scott just didn't give a coherent answer. Robin said, so Wednesday, October 19th, here, Robin's father had been told about the fraud. He confronted Robin and got the whole story, hired a lawyer and went to the police. Nice move. Robin was granted immunity in exchange for information. On Wednesday, evening, October 19th, he reported, it's reported that basically Scott gets arrested here. Now they also talked to the curials who tell them all the shit about the DNA and all that stuff. Okay. So they're like, hmm, a sheriff's detective clocks the walk from the vitally horror with its residents to the an abandoned van on the curial property where bloody clothing would be found a little bit later. They say it's about 10 minutes, which gives him plenty of time. Now the, the double cross T there, the cross of Lorraine as the press was calling it, the prosecution, the cops are going to tie this to a bumper sticker found in Scott's room saying it's the same symbol. Then Scott's mother flees to her sister's place and Jenna and her mother drove Scott's backpack and belongings up to Scott just or just Scott's mother. Esther went through the belongings found scraps of paper with credit card numbers and names, Schneiders, the Halpins, a date book, a box of gloves, clothes, a pair of Scott shoes, a knife, a book on mass murderers and cult leaders and empty absent bottles. So he carries around plural. Yeah. So Esther fielding throws the papers, the gloves and the journal and will wood stove and burns them. Why'd she do that? She's an idiot. And by the way, that will get her arrested for as an accessory after the fact and have her on $500,000 bail. Fuck yeah. But the charge will later be dropped in exchange for her agreement to testify against her own son. Okay. But in Scott's backpack, what she didn't burn was a t-shirt with blood on it. A pair of lands and slip on shoes, the same shoes he'd worn to a Renaissance fair with Jenna, the day of the murder. And the general tread pattern of the lands and shoes matches the bloody shoe print on the storage bin lid at the scene. A criminal criminalist will later say that Scott shoes or another shoe within the identical pattern made the print. And then and then there's the dolphin.
bag. On October 20th, deputy search, Esther's abandoned Toyota van, a vehicle that's out of the property for years. And behind the driver's seat, they found a duffle bag. And they said, it stood out because it looked newer than everything around it. Everything else has been sitting there for years. This thing looks brand new. Inside it, there's a dark pullover, a blue head mask, a long costume style black evening glove. Each of them turned inside out and apparently bloodstained. Also an overcoat identified as scots with safety pins on the cuff, the way Scott wore them, all the goth kids did that. The bag had a 2003 airline tag with scots name on it from a trip to Hawaii. The lab work here found Pamela Vitale's blood on the duffle bag, the glove, the mask, and the shoes. And on the mask, four of six tested areas matched Pamela's blood. On the spot corresponding with the wearer's mouth, there's no blood there, but a single source of DNA matched Scott. So he was wearing the mask. So they said that the profile expected in roughly one in seven hundred eighty trillion Caucasians trillion. No. There's never been a trillion people that have ever lived on the planet all put together. Never mind seven hundred eighty. And they said it's rare or still in other populations. Then there's a swab from the bottom of Pamela's right foot, a mix primarily of Pamela with a minor contributor. That's a male, not minor, meaning young minor, meaning smaller a partial profile match Scott, but not a full one on that. So they said to confirm the male component from one man they sent out for chromosomal testing and all that kind of shit. And across 17 markers, they said that the male component was indistinguishable from Scott's DNA. So there's a lot now. At this point, it's were in January 2006. They're cleaning up for a party at the Kiriel House and Fred's brother David, who now has moved into Scott's old room. They need to have a million people living there found five loose sheets of paper. Four had account names, numbers, access codes, addresses and birth dates, including John Halpins, credit card security code and online passwords, all in Scott's handwriting. Wow. Two of the five sheets carried Scott's fingerprint. And in the fifth in Scott's handwriting, there was a vertical list of five points. One was knock out slash kidnap, then question, question, then keep captive to confirm pins, then dirty work, then dispose of evidence spelled with an S instead of a C, by the way, followed by the words cut up Barry in parentheses. Good. Christ. Okay. Now there's a lot of there's differing views, by the way, on this kid. People, a lot of people think he's the prosecution is saying he's a monster. They talk about invaders, Zim, which was a cartoon on Nickelodeon in the early 2000s, about an alien who's incompetent and trying to conquer earth here. And they talk about that a lot. The prosecution zeroed in on his reaction to an episode dark harvest in which the alien Zim harvest human organs to look more human. They say that's his favorite episode. That must mean he's a killer. Scott talked about being curious, according to his girlfriend, about how the human body would work without certain organs. It wouldn't, Scott, that's how. Yeah. And he also talked about beating and breaking the necks of children, which we've all fantasized about that. Let's be honest. There's a few. So we'll ever go to a Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah, across your mind. We're going to fucking fifth grade class. Yeah. I mean, as an adult though. So the defense said they were jokes. Just kid talking shit, you know, being silly. By the way, the Susan Polk case because Daniel had trouble with that. The judge declared a mistrial, citing in the avalanche of news that the killing had triggered. And Susan fired Horowitz and represented herself. How'd that go? That's crazy. Then publicly blamed Daniel Horowitz for murdering his wife. You can't do that. She said I'm concerned that Dan was involved in her murder. She also told the jury when she represented herself that she had psychic powers and could have stopped 9/11 if her husband would have let her. Why didn't she stop the killing of her husband then? Yeah, right. Her own son got on the witness stand and called her quote, "ku-ku" for Coco Puffs, which is great. She was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 16 years to life. Scott's trial, by the way, his first lawyer had to step aside for a conflict of interest because he represented the driver who killed Scott's half sister in 2002. What are the fucking odds of that? There's a million public defendants. The guy that defended the guy that killed his sister? Yes. So he had to pull out. Jesus. So then it went to a Ellen Leonita for another public defender. And that's a big deal. They try to get a change of venue. There is a million newspaper articles, broadcasts, web, I mean, this is a big deal in this area, as you might imagine here. Roughly half of the jurors they got in there had heard of the satanic symbol carved and were back. The judge denies the change of venue. Okay. So the prosecution opening said that, you know, basically he steeped in death. God thought work. He loves to. He's obsessed with Jack the Ripper. That's a big deal. He knows who had keenness, James. He knows that gain as a smog. This is pre-tru crime boom of everybody knowing it. The organ harvesting cartoon, the live for the kill poem, the bullet point list. You know, they said he was he was humiliated by a neighbor over a dead dog. The address sitting in his own fraudulent billing field and mask and gloves and a rock and a knife going over everything. Scott's own writing they read to the jury, you raised me to hate and hate I will because now I live live for the kill. Sounds like a song lyric. That just sounds like a slayer song, doesn't it? Yeah, I think it's like a metal song. Or he should write metal or something. Yeah. About the symbol, they said sees from Scott's bedroom was a bumper sticker reading, I'm for the separation of church and hate and the H and hate. He was drawn in the exact double crossed form of the symbol carved into Pamela's back. So they said that was like his own sign. That's his Zoro, you know. Then they said, maybe Scott was there to confront or kill Karen Schneider, the dog killer, but got the wrong house because they're next door. Okay. Because he didn't know either one of those people really. Because the billing address on the fraud was to that house, not her house. So they said this, that is ladies and gentlemen that Scott Dilesky thought Karen Schneider lived at 1901 Hunsack or road, there's just no other way to interpret that. So they said, even if it is a mistaken identity, it doesn't matter because it's still the same. It's still the same intent to kill. He said he's guilty. There's no reasonable interpretation of the evidence other than Scott murdered Pam. Okay. Now the defense, they call him a gentle, small bullied artsy kid who valued human and animal rights and could never have done this. All right. His own mom testifies against him. So they have to do that. It's, yeah. They ask her also about burning the shit and all that kind of thing. It's devastating, especially the case when mom says she found shit with her with the victims blood on it. And yeah, throughout the burdened a bunch of your shit that's incriminating. She also in the middle of testifying sees Pamela's daughter Marissa in the courtroom and says, "Oh my God, she looks so much like Pamela." And then Marissa started crying more. And she said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." You want to just talk to people from the, the defense case is character witnesses. A teacher who coached him in ultimate frisbee and made him team captain. A graphic design teacher who called his artwork exceptional and noted that roughly a fifth of her students made gruesome art and none of them killed anyone. Friends of a friend's mother who'd never seen him be violent or angry. Scott didn't testify. And basically, the prosecution did a four-week case. The defense ran an eight-hour case consisting of character witnesses and then rested. All right. No experts, no alibi. In the opening, she promised an alibi for Scott and never delivered that. The defense closing, they picked a showed pictures of him playing frisbee and said that someone else's DNA was on items attributed to her client. The blood on Pamela's foot was contaminated, she says. And the case was entirely circumstantial, built by a demonized, by demonizing a kid over his drawings. Zero plus zero equals zero. You can't take a bunch of innocent interpretations and mash them together with the volume of your voice. Okay, 18 hours of deliberation. That's a while. They find him guilty of everything. Yeah. First-degree murder, special circumstances that it was committed during a robbery, first-degree residential burglary, and a weapon use enhancement for the bludgeoning.
burglary special circumstance has made it a potential life without parole. No death penalty because he's only 16 Victim impact Pamela's family her sister spoke called him a monster from the depths of hell He said he he no longer deserves to be called human. He has lifeless shark eyes. He was there at her last moment of life All this I mean their pissed obviously for mitigation They bring back the same people they brought in for For you know for the the character witnesses They bring in his stepmother who painted a bleak portrait of his parents Talking about emotional neglect and abuse and all that kind of thing his former scout master said I don't believe I could miss judge his character to such an extent that I could say he did it. I don't believe he did it Scott's mom is not allowed to testify for him here because she already testified against him the judge Wow the judge said she acknowledged that two jurors actually wrote letters asking for mercy Because he seemed polite and intelligent and artistic which she said I've seen the autopsy photos She described the deliberate no deliberate planning. She told him the only time she he showed any emotion was when the autopsy photographs were displayed And the pathologist described Pamela's injuries. He leaned forward mouth open absolutely fascinated by your handy work You serve you young man may fuck off maximum sentence life in prison without the possibility of parole plus a year for the weapon with the four-year burglary term to 342 days credit for time served and no good time conduct And it's yeah, no fun on his 18th birthday. He's transferred to San Quentin becoming the youngest inmate in the California prison system at that time Because they do youth authority till 21 usually. Jesus Christ The public defender's office three days later resigns the public defender or defendant him to quote move on Now there's a bunch of appeals here in 2011. He becomes a wicken in prison, which I don't know if you get any special meals or anything like that 2006 2009's the appeal 2016's a federal habeas appeal 2018. There's a new law enacted by California Senate bill 394 that gives juveniles tries try to as adults sentenced to life without parole an opportunity for eventual release He's currently scheduled to become eligible eligible for parole in 2030. It was reduced to 25 years of sentence. Oh, that's too early. So that's his first. Yeah, I don't think they're gonna let him out Now there's a guy named Ralph Fernandez an investigator former Miami-Dade homicide detective who thinks he's innocent and has been pushing it for over 10 years Go into the city council saying the DNA on Pamela's foot a partial match is not a cold hit They argue it should be retested by an examiner with no ties to the county They also said the broken bloody mug reportedly found in the kitchen carried saliva DNA matching horowitz Which he could have been drinking it and it got knocked out. That's silly. It's in his house Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of shit The shoe print described by the prosecution's own expert is similar, but not a definitive match They said that the the lands and shoe tread carried plan Pamela's blood in a way the defense argued was inconsistent with someone who'd worn the shoes through a fair the next day The glove in the duffel bag. Basically, he said it's very He's trying to say he didn't do it. Um, he is putting it. He's saying it's the husband Really? He said the husband They said that quote it's very clear he killed her then walked around the house and moved a bunch of stuff They didn't want to go after the husband at all is what they said Okay, um So they say it's a third party this goes on and on and on there are they also claim juror misconduct, which that sounds pretty on point, but He is scots currently incarcerated at Corcoran state prison, which is not nice And they there is a huge group of people that say he's innocent based on a spot of blood on Pamela's foot What about all the other blood? How do you get that on him? Why does he have her blood if he never met her? Why don't care about anything on the scene? Her blood is with him. That's unexplainable Unexplainable, so they're saying he was framed unless you're saying he was framed exactly So in Daniel Harwoods didn't even know him to frame him so how the hell would he do that or anybody else? And why is he he was weird? Why is he telling everybody my my DNA is on her? That's the other thing So there you go we ran a little long apologies for that, but this is a crazy case Could have gone even longer so look it up though if you look up stop a scot Dialulosic is innocent you'll come up with a bunch of shit that that people believe that especially go down a reddit rabbit hole my fucking god Wow, so yeah people want to compare it to like West Memphis three, but it's not even close to the same It's not the same. They got him because he said my DNA is there not because he's weird So because he's got scratches all over all over him So shut up and give me murder.com is where the website is where you get all the tickets to live shows September 18th Papsd theater in Milwaukee September 19th miniapolis get in their state theater in Minneapolis So do that then we're Dallas San Jose Sacramento Terry town Boston get your tickets right now shut up and give me murder.com Definitely do that. Listen to crime in sports. 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Podcast Summary
Key Points:
In 2005, Daniel Horowitz, a prominent Bay Area defense attorney, discovers his wife Pamela Vitale dead in their home after finding blood smears on the door, leading to a homicide investigation.
The murder scene reveals severe blunt force trauma and a disturbing carved "cross of Lorraine" symbol on Pamela’s back, along with signs of a struggle, implicating a personal, violent motive.
A 16-year-old neighbor, Scott Edgar, is connected to the crime through a series of credit card fraud schemes using stolen information and fake billing addresses, linked to the murder through DNA, digital footprints, and physical evidence.
Summary:
In a shocking small town murder case from 2005 in Lafayette, California, defense attorney Daniel Horowitz discovers his wife Pamela Vitale dead in their home after finding blood on the front door. The crime scene shows severe blunt force trauma and a deliberate carved symbol on her back, suggesting a personal, violent attack. Investigation reveals that a 16-year-old neighbor, Scott Edgar, orchestrated a series of credit card frauds using stolen information from neighbors, including a credit card from John Halpin.
These fraudulent orders, placed in the days before the murder, were traced through digital records, including Scott's computer and email activity. Scott, who had lived in poverty and struggled socially in an affluent community, denied involvement but later confessed under pressure when confronted by neighbors. Physical evidence—including bloodstained shoes, gloves, and a t-shirt—matches the crime scene and Scott’s known activities.
The police found a duffel bag in Scott’s mother’s abandoned van containing blood-stained clothing and a symbol matching the carving on Pamela’s body. Though Scott was arrested, the case remains a chilling example of how digital footprints and personal trauma can intersect in a violent crime. The story underscores the dangers of isolation, financial insecurity, and social misfit in wealthy communities, where a young person with little support may turn to extreme acts.
The case also highlights the role of technological evidence in solving crimes, and the complexity of connecting seemingly unrelated events—such as credit card fraud and a murder—to a single, desperate individual.
FAQs
The show is traveling to Northern California, specifically San Jose and Sacramento, in October.
The median home cost in Lafayette, California is $1,767,400, which is extremely high for the area.
The 'cross of Lorraine' was a carving found on Pamela Vitale's back, believed to be a symbolic mark made during her murder, which the prosecution linked to the suspect.
The victim was Pamela Vitale, a marketing executive living in Lafayette, who was found dead in her home with multiple blunt force injuries and a series of carved marks on her body.
Scott Edgar was linked to the case through credit card fraud, using stolen information to order grow lights and other equipment, and later through physical evidence like bloodstained clothing and shoes matching the crime scene.
Neighbors reported credit card fraud and discussed the murder in a community meeting, which led to the discovery of suspicious orders and eventually uncovered evidence tied to Scott Edgar.
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