Trial witness calls socialite's murder conviction injustice

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Earlier this year, a jury convicted former Tucson socialite Pam Phillips of murdering her husband Gary Triano in a 1996 car bombing, effectively solving a haunting cold case mystery after 18 years. But a San Diego car dealer and trial witness who claims to have inside knowledge in the case insists Phillips is innocent and the real killers got away.

Five days before his 53rd birthday, colorful entrepreneur and Las Vegas gambler Triano finished a round of golf at the exclusive La Paloma Country Club in Tucson. As he got into his car on that November afternoon 18 years ago, it exploded.

He died instantly.

The spectacular car bomb murder had all the markings of a signature mob hit, but police ultimately focused their attention on Triano's ex-wife, Pam Phillips, the mother of their two children and stepmother to Triano's two children from an earlier marriage.

In her first television interview, Phillips spoke to "48 Hours" to proclaim her innocence and answer questions about her role in Tucson's most sensational cold case.

"I immediately thought, 'Who is it that he hadn't paid?'" Phillips told "48 Hours." "Gary was totally in fear, going around with a gun... our lives were threatened... He had life threats. I had life threats."

She insisted that her husband was living fast and loose, failing to pay back money to dangerous people.

Car dealer Tom Billick told CBS News he believes the mob hit theory - in large part, he says, because he believes Triano was targeted by the same men who he says extorted him over a debt.

Billick told CBS News that in 1995 he learned that both he and Triano were on a hit list compiled by Billick's one-time best friend, millionaire Neil McNeice of Tucson. "He had put together a list of people that owed him money and he was going to have them killed if they didn't pay him this money... I was on the list," Billick told CBS News.

During an eight week trial last March and April, Phillips' defense argued Triano's 18-year-old cold case murder was a mob hit orchestrated by McNeice.

Billick testified for the defense, but the jury rejected the mob hit theory.

Instead, after only 13 hours of deliberation, the jury sided with the prosecution, which argued Phillips conspired with a boyfriend who executed the bombing to cash in on a $2 million life insurance policy. In addition, the state offered a witness who said Phillips once contemplated having her husband "taken out" for the insurance, along with incriminating audio tapes recorded after the bombing by her accomplice and supposed boyfriend.

In separate trials, two different Tucson juries found Phillips and her accomplice Ron Young guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Last May, Phillips was sentenced to life in prison. She turned to the gallery and repeated three times that she was innocent.

Billick agrees.

"I feel 100 percent sure after looking at all the facts and knowing what I know that [McNeice] was the one responsible for killing Gary Triano," said Billick.

Defense witnesses testified that Triano had borrowed $80,000 from millionaire McNeice and offered a $250,000 wedding ring as collateral. But, defense witnesses said, Triano switched it with a fake worth less than $10,000.

McNeice was enraged when he learned he had been scammed, the defense argued.

"There were times that Neil and I had conversations that the hatred towards Gary Triano came up... He was involved in Neil's life and apparently had ripped him off," Billick said. "And I knew that Neil-- did not like this guy and despised him."

Although it did not convince the jury, Billick believes Phillips' defense theory that McNeice called upon his bodyguard, Ernie Avalos, an associate of organized crime, to punish Triano over that $80,000 debt and the phony wedding ring. Billick's belief is based upon personal experience with the alleged bad guys over his own debt.

Crimesider examined archived federal court records which reveal that in 1995, less than a year before Triano's murder, McNeice's bodyguard Avalos showed up at Billick's San Diego-area car dealership to threaten him over a $60,000 debt Billick owed to his childhood friend, McNeice.

Court records allege McNeice's bodyguard employed his underworld connections to engineer an extortion plot against Billick in an attempt to collect the debt - arriving unannounced at Cardiff Classics dealership with two gangsters at his side who said Billick needed to pay up, "or else."

Billick tried hiring a lawyer, filing a police report, even writing McNeice a letter pleading for understanding, but according to court records, that only inflamed the tempers of the extortion crew. Then, Billick got a very different surprise when federal agents paid Billick a visit at work.

"If the FBI would not have gotten involved in this case, I feel that I very likely would have been killed," says Billick.

In the 1990s, the FBI was investigating organized crime in Southern California including the self-proclaimed "Armenian Mafia godfather," Havsep "Joe" Mikaelian, who was unknowingly on an FBI wiretap. The FBI heard the godfather and associates discussing collection of a debt which San Diego car dealer Billick owed to Tucson businessman McNeice.

According to those archived Federal Court records unearthed by Crimesider, "Armenian Mafia godfather" Mikaelian and McNeice's bodyguard Avalos were exuberant about how scared the car dealer was after that unannounced visit they had paid to his business.

"[Billick] is gonna[sic] pay. Tom is so f---in scared, he can't even go to work anymore... this guy's scared like a f---in chicken," they chuckled on the FBI wiretap.

The two men had also allegedly brought along Ronald "Big Man" Rushing, Mikaelian's personal bodyguard. Billick described Avalos and Rushing as being "as big as door frames," the size of "professional football players." Rushing was prepared to return and harm Billick if he did not pay up, according to the FBI tapes.

"I'm gonna sneak in there and catch him, and beat the f--- out that white boy... He gonna make me ... whoop his ass... He gonna make me sneak down there and f--- him up," Rushing told Mikaelian on the tapes.

In 2000, McNeice and Avalos were arrested and indicted for extortion and conspiracy relating to threatening Billick. In 2001, McNeice pleaded guilty to receiving the proceeds of extortion. In 2003, Avalos was convicted of extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion.

While Tucson police and prosecutors discount the possibility that Avalos or McNeice were involved in the Triano murder, Billick is convinced Triano was targeted by these same two men who extorted him.

"When I heard that [Phillips] was convicted, it was really sad for me to see [Triano's] kids stand up and point the finger at her as being the one that murdered their father when in fact it is not the case," Billick said. "There is no way that Pam Phillips orchestrated the murder of her husband."

Greg Fisher is a "48 Hours" producer. "48 Hours" investigated Gary Triano's murder in "The Hit." Watch the full investigation online.