Vitale Murder Suspect's Dark Life

Newly-released court documents suggest that the slain wife of celebrity defense attorney Daniel Horowitz, Pamela Vitale, had violent attack wounds all over her body.

16-year-old Scott Dyleski, who's accused of killing Vitale, will be tried as an adult.

Hattie Kauffman visited Dyleski's hometown and learned some there think a difficult family life may have driven the suspect to the edge.

She describes Lafayette, Calif., as a beautiful, affluent suburb east of San Francisco, and says there's disbelief there that the homegrown Dyleski could be a brutal murderer.

"I was really shocked," says a former classmate of Dyleski's whose first name is Jennifer, "because this kind thing doesn't happen in Lafayette. It's just kinda like crazy, because people think we live in a bubble."

"The bubble popped," added another former classmate, whose first name is Roya.

Lafayette is the kind of place where kids know each other.

Former middle school classmate Ian Charles remembers Dyleski as a "completely normal" kid when they spent a year in Spanish class together.

"He was just like any other kid," says Jennifer.

Jennifer and Roya agreed that Dyleski wasn't like an outcast, and wasn't picked on.

By all accounts, says Kauffman, Scott Edgar Dyleski grew up a normal kid in Lafayette. He was in the Boy Scouts. He played Little League.

But, according to his classmates, that normalcy evaporated two years ago in a fatal car accident.

His 18-year-old sister was killed in the crash.

The sudden loss of his sibling, Kauffman observes, was a further deterioration of Dyleski's family. His mother had twice divorced, his father remarried.

With the accident, classmates say, Scott changed immediately.

"It was pretty sudden," Charles says. "It was very pronounced in his daily activities."

"He started wearing like dark clothes and eyeliner and stuff," Jennifer says.

"He became Goth. Satanic," Charles adds. "He wore a black trench coat to school every day, until the school told him he couldn't anymore. … He was just dark. That's the only word for him."

The darkness continued in high school where, as a freshman, Dyleski wrote in the yearbook about what he liked to wear: "I don't expect everyone to go out and make themselves look unique. I just want everyone to understand that the ones that do are just being themselves, and your judgments will never stop them."

A student whose first name is Rob tells Kauffman Dyleski was in his math class in Dyleski's sophomore year, and Dyleski "probably wasn't the most popular guy, but he was nice."

Jeff Norman came to know Dyleski in the high school's Gay-Straight Alliance club and says Dyleski "was incredibly smart for his age."

This fall, Norman has been attending the same community college where Dyleski has been studying art.

But, on October 12th, Dyleski's family disintegrated yet again. His father and stepmother filed for divorce.

Three days later, Dyleski allegedly committed murder, killing Vitale.

"This is a brutal homicide," said Contra Costa County, Calif. Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett, "and, because he is very close to his to his 17th birthday, we believe that it is a situation where he is not entitled to the protections afforded him under the juvenile law, and it is appropriate to prosecute him as an adult."

Jennifer says what shocks her most is "how he (Dyleski allegedly) killed her. And that he's going to get tried as an adult."

Those who know him debate whether the 5-foot-5 Dyleski would have the strength to bludgeon someone to death.

"He couldn't be capable of this without an accomplice, or something like the use of drugs," suggests Norman. "We suspect methamphetamines, but it's all guesswork."

"Small guys do big things sometimes. Look at Napoleon," remarks Charles.

The kids in Lafayette may differ on the likelihood that their schoolmate could be a murderer, Kauffman concludes, but they're united in feeling a sudden loss of safety the community had once give them.