20/20 - Explosive Secrets

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

A loving father is killed when his car explodes. Could a fresh look at DNA change the case? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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what we know about the case? And all new 2020 starts right now. And they killed Gary. They killed Gary. I still can see it when I close my eyes. This windshield pops off the car and goes how many feet? 400 feet. I'm the killer. I got my gym bag, which fits in the country club scenario.

Open the door, put it down, close the door. I walk away. It is one of the most notorious murders in Tucson history. He was a wonderful father. He was a true gentleman and a true kind person. They rubbed shoulders with people in high society. Everybody thought car bombing has to be a mob hit. Very spectacular. We're sending a message.

Turns out, according to some, who didn't want him dead. A long list of persons of interest. An ex-girlfriend, an ex-wife, ex-business associates. It was pure obsession. His hatred was pure obsession. And we're going to reenact the bombing. Everybody's under? To see how it could have been done. Two, one.

Now we're starting to pick up some heavy components. That you can take what seems like a scene of classic chaos and create any kind of order out of it is remarkable to us. So what specifically did you find as you looked at all that evidence? And it was titled, To Kill. And right off the top of the list was Gary Trenow. Welcome to Tucson, Arizona,

or even on a sweet golf course like this one. The triple-digit temperatures and the blue skies above can transform in an instant. La Paloma Country Club is nestled in the Tucson foothills. It's absolutely beautiful. You can see the city, you can see the mountains. It's Jack Nicklaus Golf Course. A typical Friday, very busy golf day, Wednesdays and Fridays were gambler days. And so about 5.15, 5.20, I was standing at the bar and all of a sudden there was this thunderous boom.

I heard this huge bang and I rushed over there, tried to see if there's something I could do. Okay, what's going on there? Okay, there's some kind of an explosion in the country club parking lot. I'm not sure we have one of the victims. It says no pulse. They've begun CPR. I guess it's a massive fire.

There was some kind of an explosion. The building shook. I'd never felt anything like that. I immediately turned. I went out to the parking lot, and there was a car on fire, split open like a sardine can. I found a man still sitting in his seat, no pulse, pale, blood's gone out of him, just white. Dr. Sam Buttman had come up alongside the car towards me.

He looked at me and he said, damn, he's dead. Ken Halligan knew who the dead man behind the wheel of the destroyed car was. He was a long-time member of the country club named Gary Triano. There's a member and he was playing with Gary and he was sitting on the floor next to his locker and he was just sobbing. They killed Gary. They killed Gary. But the question was, who killed Gary? And why would they do it in such a spectacular way? The blast had stopped Gary's Gold Movado watch at 5.38 p.m. End of the line for a wheeler-dealer who was unafraid to gamble on the golf course, or

for that matter in the business world. And according to his lawyer Ron Lehman, a man always ready to bet big on himself. Gary was a tall person who would command a room when he walked in. Dark hair, always had a nice suntan, always had a smile. He was larger than light. Starting in the 1980s, this former car salesman, he'd sought to take advantage of the population boom in Tucson by getting into real estate and land development and gaming on the Native American reservation. One of Gary's most successful projects was Indian gaming. You're talking about a high volume slot machine operation.

Gary's personal take was $1 million a month. Gary Triano was not shy about spending that mega money on the finer things in life. You know, limos, Lear jets, even a yacht. He loved spending $25,000 a week on wine while he was cruising around the Adriatic Sea with his financing partners. Let's have a look at some of these. This one you were just telling us is very special to your heart. This picture is because it was on my birthday, 15, 16 days before he died.

He was very kind and gracious and generous. That too was Gary Triano, a valued role model and mentor for his niece, Melissa Triano. As her uncle and later her employer, he was a figure of warmth and encouragement for her after a childhood full of hardships. What was it like for you after all the experiences you've gone through to really get to know this man and to come to respect the way he

went through life? It changed my life. He was the only person that really believed in me and made me feel like I could, you know, be successful with anything. He'd had two children with his wife, Mary. Gary was a devoted father of his son and daughter, and the couple had become a fixture of Tucson society. That changed after Gary crossed paths with a top earning real estate go-getter. Her name was Pamela Phillips.

Pamela Phillips was very elegant. She played the part of a socialite. She always looked very put together. Gary told me that he met the love of his life and he was really taken aback by this beautiful, intelligent woman. And Gary, who is so smitten, the story goes that he calls his wife up, who's on vacation in Europe with their two children, and he just announces, you know, I'm leaving you. Pam was a figure of widespread fascination and could be every bit a life-altering sensation.

As much of a merger as a marriage, Gary and Pam were officially power-coupled at a black tie wedding on a yacht in San Diego. Did you hear that the vows they exchanged included the phrase, for richer or for richer, instead of for richer or poorer? I think I remember that now that you say that, yes. You did hear that? Yeah. Gary bought Pam a beautiful diamond ring which he claimed was worth $250,000. They had twin drag wires, they had this beautiful home at the base of the Catalina Mountains. Pam and Gary would have two kids of their own, while rubbing shoulders with some powerful peers.

Pam and Gary knew Donald Trump Marla Maples. Donald and Marla came to the University of Arizona basketball game with Gary and Pam. He invited Donald Trump out to be his partner at the member guest and of course he had to make sure that everybody in the club knew a month before. So on that fateful day of November 1st, 1996, Gary Triano was approaching his 53rd birthday with a note of optimism, unaware of the big surprise that awaited him as he stepped up the 18th green. In fact, this invite had gone out to all of Gary's friends, inviting them to a surprise birthday party that was to begin in just a few hours.

Around 4.30, Gary was in the bar with a couple of his buddies at a table. One of the members actually walked up to him and actually said, happy birthday. I had no idea it was his birthday. Gary is walking towards his Lincoln Town car, and he's sliding into the seat, and he sees a blue canvas bag on the passenger seat.

An early birthday gift left at his unlocked car by a friend perhaps? Gary leans over to unzip the bag and... The impact of the explosion was incredible. And... The impact of the explosion was incredible. The front windshield flew 200 feet into the air and landed in the swimming pool. I'm at home, it's after hours, and I get a call from my sergeant,

and basically he says there's been a car explosion at the La Paloma Country Club. Detective James Gamber was a newly minted detective with the Tucson Sheriff's Department and he was brand new to homicide. This was his second case. When he arrived on scene you could see the victim vehicle. It blew the car doors open, tore the roof off the car. Gary's body is still in the driver's seat. When Melissa Triano heard there had been some sort of incident with Gary, she immediately

rushes over to the country club. So what do you remember feeling as you were running towards the car? Just panicked, shocked. I didn't think it was real. The whole top of the car was gone. I still can see it when I close my eyes. Immediately cops were asking who could have wanted to kill Gary in such a spectacular fashion. They would quickly learn a lot of people. Was it to send the message don't ever mess with us? So in the movie Casino Robert De N's character, closely based on the real-life

mobster Frank, Lefty Rosenthal, climbs into his 1983 El Dorado, turns on the ignition, and is engulfed in a fireball. A bombing sort of has mafia written all over it. Who would want to detonate a bomb at a posh country club in broad daylight with, you know, over a hundred witnesses watching? Arizona has a past with the mob. In the mid-70s, newspaper reporter Don Bowles was investigating organized crime, getting national attention, covered by Walter Cronkite. Don Bowles is a 47-year-old investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic. He's been working on a series about the Mafia. And when Bowles returned to his car, a remote-controlled bomb exploded under the driver's seat. Bowles uttered the word mafia as he lay dying, but police were never able to pin his death

on organized crime. Strictly speaking, what killed Gary Triano was not a car bomb, it was a pipe bomb on the passenger seat, detonated by remote control. And as Detective James Gamber began looking into Gary's murder, the mob was top of mind. Everybody thought car bombing has to be a mob hit. Very spectacular. We're sending a message. Don't ever mess with us. Somebody sent a message and you don't know if they're coming for you next or if it's the whole family. You know, I didn't know if he was involved with something that might want to hurt us all. You were on guard all the time. I didn't know if he was involved with something that might want to hurt us all.

You were on guard all the time. But why would the mob, or anyone else, have it in for Gary Triano? Well, maybe because by the time he was leaving that country club on the first day of November 1996, he was no longer the high-flying millionaire everyone thought he was. In fact, Gary was flat broke.

He owed $4.5 million to four casinos in Las Vegas that were supposedly had mob ties. Gary had owned chunks of undeveloped real estate. He'd invested in a radio station, even financed this misbegotten movie, The Mafu Cage, starring Lee Grant, Carole Kane, Will Gere, and an orangutan. Isn't he too big for her to handle? No, no, he's not. Normally, yes, perhaps, but he's very gentle.

Have you ever seen your uncle's movie? Oh my gosh, yes. In fact, I had a horse once and I named it Mafu. And we joke about it still because that movie was just horrible. It was horrible. But it wasn't movies like that or real estate that was making Gary rich. It was Native American gambling. He was making millions until he wasn't. The Bureau of Indian Affairs threw him out of the administration of that contract. Gary personally lost $1 million,

approximately, in monthly income. So suddenly now he's at a zero income, but his expenses and his lifestyle, you know, continued. These things were happening during the real estate recession, so things hit the fan at once. Investigators set their sights on Gary Triano's financial dealings because he owed large sums of money to a lot of people. There were any number of suspects that the sheriff's department was looking at.

There were Chinese investors, there were Mexican investors, there were mafia investors, all of whom Gary purportedly owed money to. It was a house of cards that was crumbling fast. He was promising investors, you know, collateral on property that he didn't own. He was promising Mexican investors money that he didn't have. He had that gambler mentality, so he was quite a challenge to manage as a member.

I constantly chased him financially. He was very good at tipping, but not very good at paying his bills. And at one point, Pam got a phone call and picked up the phone and heard on the other line a threat from one of the investors saying, you know, we don't get paid, we're going to kill you. Gary became extremely paranoid and he starts to sleep with a loaded gun in his bed. By the 90s, Gary was on the hook for twenty seven million dollars. He'd run out of time, he'd run out of ideas and declared bankruptcy.

When Gary ran out of money, his marriage started to disintegrate. Pam had sort of had enough. She had married this man who was worth millions, and now he wasn't. So Pam's done, and she files for divorce, and she flees, and she heads off to Aspen with her children. A bitter divorce and financial ruin left Gary scrambling to stay afloat. Things were so bad in Gary's life that he went from living in the nicest houses wherever he was around the world to sleeping on a friend's couch.

One of Gary Triano's friends from high school met with Gary Triano the day before he died. Gary was trying to get him and his father to give him a $50,000 loan. His friend described him as anxious and desperate. That loan never happened and tomorrow never came. That summit-to-plummet journey meant it wasn't even his Lincoln Town car that Gary had driven to La Paloma that day. He borrowed it from a friend to keep up appearances. And before Gary was even buried, Detective Gamber already had a long list of persons

of interest. We monitored the funeral as morbid as that may sound. Who shows up, who didn't show up Who wasn't appropriate who was appropriate? It was a good way to see who should we go talk to and gamber noticed one particularly interesting absence Pamela Phillips wasn't at the funeral. She was conspicuously absent But based on the acrimony and the separation, that didn't really surprise us. But associates of an eccentric billionaire say he had reasons of his own to want Gary Triano

very dead. He had the capacity and the resources and the henchmen, if you will, to construct the kind of bomb that blew up Gary Triano. And this doctor claims he saw a kill list written in that man's daily plan. And it was titled to kill and it was numbered and right at the top of the list was Gary Triano. At the Pima County Sheriff's Office, way in the back corner of the impound lot after 28 years, is Gary Triano's last ride, that 1989 Lincoln Town Car. Detective James Gamber's showing up close just how devastating that pipe bomb was on

that huge mass of Detroit metal. Detective James Gamber showing up close just how devastating that pipe bomb was on that huge mass of Detroit metal. And this is Gary Triano. This is the car he was driving. And I know that there's been a lot that's been picked over this and it's changed over the many years since this crime happened, but you can still see the incredible destruction that took place. This roof is supposed to be flat, essentially, isn't it?

Essentially, right. It should lay right along this line. And if you get a look down here at the frame, you can see where the floorboards have been blown off of the side body panels by the force of that blast downwards. And the whole arc of this is the result of that bomb also. Yeah. If you looked at this, it almost looks like the result of that bomb also. Yeah, and this, you know, if you looked at this,

almost looks like the path of travel of a bullet. Well, technically it was. It's a projectile shrapnel. So everybody knew it was Gary's car. The one thing Gary never did was lock his car. Lock his car, lock his doors. So I'm the killer. I walk up here, I got my duffel bag, my gym bag, which fits in the country club scenario.

Right. Open the door, put it down, close the door. I walk away. So finding that killer became Detective Gamber's main goal. There was a monumental list of individuals to go through. But only a few on it were known to have explicit feelings of rage against Gary.

I mean, any time you have a crime scene this large and this many witnesses, you have to follow every possible lead. For Detective Jim Gamber, one person with hints of rage was an ex-girlfriend whom he'd broken up with while she was pregnant with his child. There's a lot of people that talk about how volatile Robin Gardner was. Robin Gardner was pregnant when Gary left her.

And according to investigators, Robin was so angry, she'd thrown a glass phase at his head. And this, of course, sent Detective Gamber down another path of like, okay, is somebody else who might have wanted, you know, Gary dead? But having met Robin and talked to her, it's like, nah. If it was gonna happen, it was gonna happen right there. It wasn't gonna be she was gonna come back in six months and blow his car up.

Even though she was angry at Gary, it was sort of an anger that had dissipated. You know, there wasn't really a reason to investigate her further. There were a lot of rumors going around about threats that Gary may have received. A lot of the early focus was on people that invested, then Gary lost the money. There was no shortage of them to check out.

When Gary went bust in May of 94, he left $27 million worth of creditors holding the bag. And that was including those Mexican and Chinese investors. Investigators were able to clear all of them. But there was a man who not only got stiffed by Gary Triano, he got humiliated by Gary too, a Tucson trust-a-farian named Neil McNeese. Neil McNeese was by all accounts a billionaire by inheritance. He was sort of a trust fund baby, if I could use that term, and he had a lot of money.

His own Learjet, I think it was, traveled a lot. Even at his own personal doctor, Lawrence D'Antonio, accompanying him on his travels. My job was to keep him alive. He was a terrible drug addict and an alcoholic. He became acquainted with Gary Triano. They probably frequented the same clubs or things of that nature.

And Neil McNeese was somebody who had a lot of money to invest or spend on people. According to investigators, Gary Triano had approached Neil for $ for 80 grand to invest. In him. Immediately. But McNeese wanted collateral for his $80,000 loan. And newly divorced Gary had just the answer.

So Gary Triano gave Neal McNeese Pam Phillips' supposed diamond ring that Gary represented was worth a quarter million dollars. About five days later, he goes to his jeweler who tells him, you're the proud owner of a ring worth about $7,000, it's a cubic zirconium. And Neil went crazy. Went crazy in the jeweler shop, went absolutely crazy. Went crazy in the jewelry shop. Went absolutely crazy. And so Neil McNeese did not want to be

taken as a fool. And so it was said that he had put Gary on a kill list. It was titled To Kill. Right at the top of the list, the day I originally saw it, was Gary Triano. And he

never stopped saying I'm going to kill Gary Triano from that day. And his former associates allege, along with his vast wealth, McNeese also knew the right people, people that had the capacity to make a bomb. The moment I heard on the newscast on my car radio that the victim was Gary Toronto,

I absolutely believed 100% that he was assassinated by Neil McNeese. What we could find out about Neil McNeese is that he was in a lot of loudmouth, but very little follow through. Nothing to connect McNeese to a device, and if he killed Gary, that didn't get him his money back. And he wasn't so financially hit that he was down to his last dime. So did he do it? Again, not a strong connection.

So little hard evidence pointing to anyone for detective gambling. But then out of the clear blue, Pima County receives a call from an out-of-state detective about an abandoned minivan some 500 miles away in California. It's crammed with stuff that has a name on it. That name is Gary Triano. But why? Everyone loves a good family mystery, especially one with as many twists and turns as June's

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and make your investing steps count. Plus enjoy 1% cash back. Conditions apply, offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI offer to learn more. 800 miles away from the Tucson, Arizona desert, atop the snowy mountains of Colorado. Two cases are about to collide, and there's a tantalizing new lead about to emerge thanks to a fraud investigation by Aspen detective James Crowley into a local named Ron Young. What I was hearing was he had a great line to get into your business.

He was going to do all these great things for you. I'm so awesome and I'm going to make you a ton of money. Ron Young was someone who was, even for the mid-90s, fairly adept at computers and establishing an online presence even back then. He comes to the attention of Detective Crowley after two local businessmen allege that Ron has stolen more than $100,000 and they both want to press charges. If Ron became your business manager, he would instantly want all the books, access to all the financials, which gave him an opportunity to transfer money out

of your bank account to his own bank account, get credit cards issued in his name on your account. So Crowley gets search and arrest warrants and sets out to pay Ron Young a visit at his place on Snowbunny Lane. So this is Snowbunny Lane where Ron Young lived at one point. On the corner with the carport was Ron's house. So we get there and he's gone. He's nowhere to be found. Ron Young is six foot six, maybe 300 pounds. But where is he gone?

Six months later, Detective Crowley gets a call from the cops in Yorba Linda, California. What happened was that police in California find an abandoned van. And it's a rental van out of Aspen. Authorities discovered that the abandoned Dodge Caravan was rented by Ron Young and was parked outside his parents' house. And it's an unlocked van. And so when police do come and they open the van, they discover some very unusual things inside. And as Detective Crowley learns,

more than one of those things has Gary Triano's name on it. There's divorce documents between Gary Triano and Pam Phillips. There are maps of Tucson. There are lists of names of associates with Gary Triano. And they discover something else that's sort of unusual. It's a sawed-off shotgun. I mean, fraud suspects, they're not usually violent. It was Crowley's first encounter with Gary Triano's name.

But he recognized the name Pamela Phillips because earlier that year, she had walked into the Aspen Police Department and accused Ron Young of stealing money from her bank accounts. In investigating Ron, there were two fraud cases initially, and then Pamela had come in to report the third fraud case. Detective Crowley had an outstanding warrant for Ron Young's arrest. So why did his still-at-large fraud suspect appear to be all up in the business of this Gary Triano from Tucson, Arizona. Then came November 1, 1996, and the morning after.

I was sitting at my desk in the investigations office and reading the paper and saw the headline. It was the shocking pipe bomb murder of Gary Triano. And kind of, you know, when you get an adrenaline dump and you get that kind of metal taste in your mouth, and that's kind of what it was. And so Detective Crowley calls Pima County Sheriff's Department, and I said, here's what I have. You might be interested in this. And when Pima County gets this call from Detective Crowley,

laying out the evidence retrieved from the van, especially those documents with Gary Triano's name on them, they finally have the connection they've been waiting for. So what was an Aspen fraud case now is firmly interwoven with our homicide case. Detective Crowley also hands over to detectives in Tucson a notebook from the van. Inside that notebook, a handwritten list of names,

including Gary Triano's niece, Melissa. They brought it to me, and in that notebook was Melissa Triano, license plate Missy. My license plate said Missy on a black Corvette. And that was my car. So he had been following me. It was terrifying. But now, no one can find where Ron Young is

or get any answers he might have. And so the investigation into the identity of Gary's killer, it stalls for nearly 10 years until an expert enters the case who's got decades of experience. And that helps investigators with the identity of Gary's killer from a painstaking reconstruction of the bomb itself. People think when the explosion occurs, everything goes away. Well, it doesn't.

Here we are in New Mexico, Anthony. Yes. A typical land of enchantment landscape around us here, right? Kind of desolation and... Mountain desert area. So a decade after the murder of Gary Triano, the case has gone stone cold. The Sheriff's Department decides to invite one of ATF's top bomb experts, Anthony May, into the investigation, just to see if he could help determine

who built that bomb that wound up in Gary's car. Anthony, when I think of blowing stuff up in New Mexico, I think of the movie Oppenheimer. Oh yes. Something like Los Alamos, right? Yeah, it's a little bit south here, but yes. You guys gotta hold on! Hold on! So if you go just outside Socorro, New Mexico, you'll find this 40 square mile field laboratory, and it's called the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, EMERTECH for short. It's a research and training division of New Mexico Tech and it's a place where highly

skilled bomb specialists do their work with explosives. So we're blowing something up today, aren't we? Yes we are. We're going to reenact a bombing that occurred in 1996 that ended up taking Gary Triano's life. Today, Anthony May is going to take us inside his field of explosive expertise and show us just how this kind of detective work can help authorities identify a killer. What kind of car is this that we're looking at right here?

It's a Ford Mercury Grand Marquis. It's not the exact vehicle, but it is similar in body style and chassis. Melaton Flores is a research engineer and assistant director here at EmmerTech. He and his team are the ones who found the car and put together a pipe bomb, all closely resembling Gary Triano's car and what was inside it on the evening of November 1, 1996. We'll be safely tucked away in the upper bunker. We have a flag that you'll see behind your shoulder there.

That flag is currently in the down position, which means that testing is imminent. The Emartec engineers have these high-speed cameras ready to film the explosion at 20,000 frames per second. Morning everybody. So today we got a recreation shot of a 1996 bombing in Arizona. It's going to be a pipe bomb. Once the bomb goes off, we're going to wait until for Merkel to, he'll give it the all clear.

It's the desert, it's hot, so you know, drink plenty of water. We got snakes, we got scorpions, we got spiders, so watch out for all that. Like with the Triano case, the pipe bomb is placed in a blue canvas bag and it's positioned on the passenger seat. The technician spools out the firing fuse. We take cover in a bunker some 2,000 feet away. Everybody's under cover? All right, we're all good here.

Casla, your range. Okay, ready to start. Two, one. That sound was amazing. I think it could have been the back window that was flying out. Oh, is that right? I'm starting to see some smoke now. It's, I think, smoldering a little bit.

Yeah, it looks that way. The car's on fire. Every bomb scene tells a story, and the debris scattered by this bomb is much like the debris that was scattered after the bomb that exploded in Tucson on November 1, 1996. Debris gathered up by law enforcement that Anthony May would go on to analyze. So after the all clear, we move in for a closer look. It would be up, most of it is going to be up over that ridge. Well, we're going to walk into the blast scene.

Now we're starting to pick up some heavy components and now we're going to decide is it from the car, is it from the bomb. What I'm seeing is car parts here, the door handle. As I can see already, the roof of the car is over here. Looking at the roof of the car, most of our fragments went straight up. Does it matter to you that it went straight up? It'll tell me the orientation of that pipe bomb. That you can take what seems like a scene of classic chaos and create any kind of order out of it is remarkable to us. That's the objective.

Take a look at what the crime scene is telling you, what the evidence tells you, and then go from there. It is one of the most notorious murders in Tucson history. Opening statements. Back in 2005, it was Anthony May taking the fragments of that 1996 bomb that killed Gary Triano and reassembling the device, hoping that the process would offer some leads in a case that had grown cold.

This is actually a picture of when Jim brought the evidence up to me. This is kind of like a puzzle now. I'm trying to match pieces. This is the pieces of the pipe. So what specifically did you find as you looked at all that evidence? People think when the explosion occurs, everything goes away. Well, it doesn't. There's 95 to 99% of the device still there. It's

in just different configurations. I was able to determine the size. It was about a 17 inch pipe bomb. So it took Tony May about a month to piece back together all the fragments of the bomb, and he showed us the reproduction he was able to construct. So somehow from all this material, you're able to recreate something that looks very much like what the actual bomb must have been. Yes. Is there any indication that Gary Triano would have seen that bag in the seat next to him? Well he in fact did see it. There was a witness that said that he saw Gary Triano get in the car and then lean over into the passenger seat, meaning that the bomber was also somewhere close by with the remote control device.

And when he saw him lean over the bag, that's when he initiated the device. And just like any puzzle, once the pieces start to fit together, there is a picture that emerges that would eliminate some suspects and start to fit together, there is a picture that emerges that would eliminate some suspects and start to bring others into sharper focus. We had found a piece in the debris here of parts that were soldered together. There were globs of solder. The globs instantly told you,

not somebody who does this on a regular basis. They're doing it on a regular basis. The question to me was, is this a professional hit? Are we dealing with a mafia? From the design, the construction, the soldering, the battery, I don't see that. Turns out the outdated six-volt battery used on the bomb

was also a clue about the bomber's age. That indicated to me that we're not dealing with some young individual who has experience with AA batteries or 9-volt batteries. That it might have been an amateur building their first bomb and that the choice of battery was suggesting an older suspect excluded organized crime and got authorities focusing on the man with the disorganized van, Ron Young. So the way the device was built fit Ron's profile.

So it's just another brick on the wall kind of thing. And as investigators continue to build that wall, they are intrigued by the enticing link between Ron Young and Gary's ex, Pam Phillips. Were they more than business partners? And will unearthed audio recordings reveal whether Pam was possibly an accomplice in the murder of her ex-husband Gary Triano, or a victim of Ron Young?

I don't even wanna talk about it right now. If I ever found out that you compromised me, you're a fried duck. It's a story about sex life as an audio tape and a sensational bombing. It was something that absolutely shook Tucson to its core. It was horrific, it was violent. I'm the killer.

I've got my gym bag, open the door, put it down, close the door. I walk away. The ex-wife, the business manager, the murder. How do they all fit together? Kamala Phillips was a socialite, a beautiful blonde bombshell. She was the quintessential trophy wife. Why would she have been so mad at him? beautiful blonde bombshell. She was the quintessential trophy wife.

Why would she have been so mad at him? Nothing went her way through that whole divorce and she was furious by it. So she's on the hunt for her next husband. She said, you know, I need to find a husband that is worth $20 million or more. Finding them would be the real problem. Is it okay to talk?

Yeah. Copy down what you need to copy in your own code and throw this away. To this day, I keep calling it the treasure trove of evidence. It was astounding what was there. If he was a real hitman, why is he not threatening her with her life or threatening her family or kids?

Makes a sensational trial complete with sex, money, and murder. It's summed up in one word, greed. ["The New York Times"] ["The New York Times"] Here in Tucson, Arizona, handsome, self-confident land developer Gary Triano was married to Pamela Phillips, herself a charismatic player in Tucson real estate. They were a power couple with expensive tastes and the assets to satisfy them.

It was almost like the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But after the real estate boom went bust, Gary went bankrupt. Pamela began to realize maybe Gary wasn't all that he was cracked up to be. Like maybe there were little cracks in this armor here. Because Gary started to let her in on some things like he's indebted to multiple people.

Following their divorce, Glam Pam and their two kids moved to Aspen. I saw Gary as being somewhat downtrodden, somewhat sad. Sad he was losing his family. Sad he had lost all his earthly riches. But ever the optimist, Gary felt confident he'd be on top once again soon. Until November 1st, 1996, when a car bomb blew his comeback and his car to smithereens in a parking lot just like this one. But who or what wanted Gary Triano dead.

Despite Pam and Gary's bitter divorce, investigators could see no immediate connection between Pam and Colorado and Gary's pipe bomb murder in Arizona, until cops stumbled across that minivan in California belonging to Ron Young, packed with documents with Gary and Pam's names on them. It was great because we had no association with Pam and the murder until then. Before we had Pam was in Aspen, the bomb went off in Tucson.

How could Pam have pushed the button? Okay, now we have that connection. We have Ron Young bridging that distance for us. Pima County investigators needed to understand the complex relationship between Pam Phillips and Ron Young. According to friends, that relationship had begun here on Aspen Snow Bunny Lane, where Ron Young lived. Pam was practically his next door neighbor.

And at the time, Snowbunny Lane in that area was where kind of working people, you know, doctors, lawyers, normal people in Aspen lived. It was not Pam Phillips' kind of neighborhood, a long way down from that mansion in Arizona. So she asked her neighbor Ron Young to help out on her business idea. It was an astrology website called Starbabies.com.

If your baby was born under at a certain time, you could get their zodiac and all that. It was that type of thing that Pam wanted to do and start up a little business like that. And he helped set that up. A new in town ski instructor who'd gotten a side gig as a live in manny for Pam's two kids, Kevin McDonald says he saw a lot of Ron Young. He would come over and spend time with Pam

and I was helping her with the star babies and then he would have dinners with her. And I could see that there was more than just me, the down-the-street neighbor. After the kids were asleep, Pam didn't want them to see them being intimate or being more than just friends. Kevin would recall Pam as a good and caring mother to

her kids but according to Pam's friends Starbabies.com and Ron Young were only part of her plan to return to the top of the mountain here in ski country. Pam was always out in the different private bars and private clubs in Aspen, trying to meet rich men. And because she said, you know, I need to find a husband that is worth $20 million or more. If it was Pam's long-term goal, it was fueled by her short-term needs. She was running out of money.

And for that, she blamed Gary Triano. Why would she have been so mad at him? Nothing went her way through that whole divorce. And she was furious by it. And she wanted money. She needed money to continue her lifestyle. Once Pam and Gary had cruised on luxury yachts and private planes. Now, Pam was steamed that Gary was making her pay to fly the kids back to Aspen after his visit with them. Pam told me one night after I put the kids to bed, she just said that she was down to her last $60,000.

So I knew that she was worried. She was bleeding money. She wasn't making any money. Pam was convinced that Gary was hiding assets, so allegedly she asked Ron Young to find them. Pam's chief complaint during this entire relationship is she's not receiving enough child support from Gary and he must be hiding assets. But Ron is still really pissed off that he's not being paid for his services. Because of their business relationship, Ron had access to her accounts,

and he allegedly started taking out money for himself. That's what led Pam to report Ron's alleged fraud in the first place. Yet it wasn't long after that Ron Young skipped town and vanished. He was one step ahead of an Aspen arrest warrant. After Pam came in the initial time, and I asked her to provide follow-up documentation, she never came back.

Ron Young is nowhere to be found, but Pima County sheriffs decide to talk with Pam. And then when you go to interview Pam, she minimizes Ron Young. Oh, he was not involved in my life. He gave me a little financial advice and things like that. Yet less than a year later, Pam is out of Snowbunny Lane and into a million dollar home. Why were authorities so interested in her change of fortune? Pam had two million reasons to kill Gary.

Pothole number three. Allegedly, that's how the twice-d the twice divorced Pam Phillips referred to Ron Young. Her sometime lover, neighbor, and business associate. And then note she wrote to her aunt. Ron was not her type. She was used to handsome, charismatic, wealthy men. And Ron was nothing like that. Ron was nothing like that. When Pam moved up to Aspen, she purported not to have any money. It was in financial hard times. There was, however, a $2 million life insurance policy on Gary Triano's life, set up to take care of his two kids with Pam. They were the beneficiaries.

With the proviso that if they were under the age of 18, then Pam was the one that would receive the money and appropriately apply it to the children's lives. Now, even with a friend's assistance, Pam's financial straits were affecting her ability to pay for that policy. And then we find out that when Pam learned of Gary's death, she was actually almost 30 days in a rear on her premium payment. Pamela Phillips became hysterical. Not hysterical over Gary's death, but hysterical over the fact that the premium had not been paid for the month of November. And they rushed a FedEx payment to the insurance company that got there too late.

The insurance company, though, honored it anyway. And 15 days later, Pamela makes a claim on Gary's life. So it took until January of 1997 before the insurance company paid. Pam got a little over two million dollars. Pam Phillips wastes no time. As soon as she gets this two million dollars life insurance proceeds, she goes out and she buys her dream mansion. And it's this this home in Meadowood. It has its own ski lift. It's buttressed against the mountains. It's got these massive wooden doors. It has marble all over the floor.

So as Pam was spending that life insurance money and climbing back into Aspen society, Gary's murder remained unsolved. It was a burden on the entire Triano clan, the notoriety, haunting their every move. If I said my name, I get a million questions or a million comments on the matter.

Are you related to Boom Boom Triano? Like, horrible things people would say. They would refer to your uncle as Boom Boom. Boom Boom Triano was one. There was all kinds of weird names, weird things that they said. So by 2005, this case had really become a cold case. So we had this one anomaly, Ron Young. And it was, where is Ron Young?

Where is Ron Young? Aspen PD had the arrest warrant, so he could be arrested anywhere within U.S. jurisdiction and just nothing was coming of it. He was like a puff of smoke. In hopes of teasing Ron Young out of hiding, Detective Gamber uses his network of undercover agents and investigators to approach the TV show, America's Most Wanted.

The manhunt for November 19th is now in progress. Then in 2005, a segment on Ron Young goes on the air. Could this accused con man also be a cold-blooded killer? Well, cops in Arizona want to find that out. Right after the America's Most Wanted episode airs, it happens to catch the eye of a chiropractor in Florida whose patient is none other than Ron Young. So this chiropractor out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida informs America's Most Wanted that not only is his patient Ron Young, but Ron has a scheduled appointment the very next day.

And that's a huge break in the case because now law enforcement, America's Most Wanted, they can all descend on Florida and make the capture. Sure enough, Ron Young shows up in time for his appointment. After his appointment, Ron is returning to his car when Broward County's fugitive unit makes the arrest, all of it captured on America's Most Wanted. Back behind your back. What's your name?

Hey, man. I asked you your name. Ron Young. Authorities hold Ron Young on fraud and weapons charges because when Ron's apprehended, he's got a loaded Colt 380 semi-automatic gun in his possession. So now, detectives race to Florida to see what Ron Young might have to say

about Pamela Phillips and Gary Triano. But when they touch down, they get a big surprise, one that will blow this case wide open. We walk over to this box and there's some micro cassettes sitting in there and it's like, anybody have a micro cassette recorder? And what was on there is I've to this day I keep calling it the treasure trove of evidence. It was astounding what was there. I want to talk about it right now. What I'm saying is if I ever found out that you compromised me for your benefit, it would be really unfortunate for you.

Clear your schedule for U-Time with a handcrafted espresso beverage from Starbucks. Savor the new small and mighty Cortado. Cozy up with the familiar flavors of pistachio or shake up your mood with an iced brown sugar oat shaken espresso. Whatever you choose, your espresso will be handcrafted with care at Starbucks. This is Brad Milke, host of the Start Here podcast

with ABC News. Families affected by the 2025 California wildfires urgently need support. This is Brad Milke, host of the Start Here podcast with ABC News. Families affected by the 2025 California wildfires urgently need support. Help the American Red Cross provide meals and shelter to these families. You can donate today to wildfire relief by going to redcross.org slash ABC or calling 1-800-RED-CROSS. After being featured on the show America's Most Wanted, Back behind you, back! Ron Young is arrested in Florida.

Hey, man. I asked you your name. Ron Young. Crowley, he calls us and says they got him. So they start talking to Ron Young and Ron says, sure you can search my apartment and yeah you can search the storage locker I have. He gives them kind of an extraordinary gift. It's like he's opening up his treasure trove of evidence for law enforcement. And what they discover is a major break in the case.

Among the physical evidence seized from Ron's properties, detectives find spreadsheets, FedEx receipts, thousands of email printouts, and letters that shockingly reveal Pam and Ron had been in contact the whole time Ron was a fugitive, even after Pam had accused Ron of fraud and minimized their relationship to police. I think the apparent connection between us is best kept at a minimum, she writes. I don't want to appear as too much of a helper, though you know I am.

I love you and count on you, Pamela. So there was obviously more of a relationship than she was letting on. But then, as far as evidence goes, the coup de grace. We walk over to this box, and there's some micro cassettes sitting in there. And it's like, anybody have a micro cassette recorder? And so we pop one of the tapes in.

We hit play. You sent my money out. My principal. I am not going to keep sending you more and more money unless I know it's been honored. I will bring it. And it's Ron Young's voice and Pam Phillips' voice. We immediately turn the tapes off.

We box those up immediately, and those go to the lab to be professionally transferred. It takes months just for detectives to listen and catalog the dozens of hours of telephone conversations that Ron has secretly recorded. And the contents are stunning. I'm really happy that you won.6 with tax free. Just say yes. I will pay for four.

It's like it's been coming and I'd like the balance of it as quick as possible. Yes. Yes, I want it all. I want it all. I want it all as soon as possible. We have no disagreement. You start to listen to the phone calls and the next thing you hear is, you got your two, I want my four. Well, you have a $2 million insurance policy, and you have Ron getting $400 and some odd thousand dollars in cash from Pam. Recovered emails and FedEx receipts detail how, at Ron Young's direction, Pam made regular

cash payments to him, choreographed, authorities believe, in a manner to avoid detection. You start following Ron telling Pam, this is how you hide taking the money from your accounts and sending it as cash to me. And he gives her a detailed process to follow. He was instructing her to take out certain amounts of money at different locations, use different accounts, don't mail from the same place twice, you know, vary your pattern so no one gets wise.

Is it okay to talk? Yeah. There's absolutely nothing that shows me having any contact since I left Aspen, you know, ever really. If you, for any reason, need to keep dates or numbers or anything else off, you can just transpose it into codes.

For investigators, this game of subterfuge and these under-the-radar payments from Pam Duran is starting to smell like a murder conspiracy. What he had on his computer was astounding. Pam was paying him on a monthly basis, and he had his own amortization table of the money Pam was paying him with the interest that was due and it totaled something like $440,000. Armed with this new evidence, police get a warrant to search Pam's place, the Aspen mansion her slice of the insurance money paid for. In September of 2006, Pima County Sheriff's Department joined forces with the Aspen Police

Department and it surrounded her house and they knock on the door and they say, we have a search warrant. Pamela answers the door and they tell her we have a warrant to search her house and she said no and closed the door in their face. Pamela Phillips is completely surprised by this. She tells the police, yeah, my lawyer's on the way, and the detective says, I have a search warrant, so they come in, and the way she describes it

is like they're scattering across her marble floors like rats. While we're excelling the search warrant, Pamela decides to leave, and we don't have an arrest warrant for her at that point, so she's free to leave. She gets into her little Mini Cooper and drives off. Meanwhile, after pleading guilty to firearms charges, Ron Young is sentenced to 10 months in prison in Florida.

After his jail term, he's sent back to Aspen. He gets extradited to Aspen to face the fraud charges. And it's there that the fraud charges get dismissed. After the charges are dismissed in Aspen, we don't have enough to charge him with the homicide yet. So he is free, but he's on parole from the federal prison. Ron Young moves to his parents' house in Yorba Linda, California. So there's all this stuff that's coming together. Ron Young moves to his parents' house in Yorba Linda, California.

So there's all this stuff that's coming together. There's the suspicions about the life insurance policy. Now we've got Ron Young, who's an associate of Pam Phillips, and all these things in the van in California. The names and a notepad of people associated with Gary Triano. Maps of Tucson. Receipts from a hotel in Tucson near where Gary was living at the time.

After nearly 12 years, the police finally obtained arrest warrants, hoping to bring long-awaited justice in the case of Gary Triano. We're going to do simultaneous arrests. We've already put surveillance teams in Aspen, surveillance teams in Yorba Linda. We hit Ron and we arrest him. We go to hit Pam and we do a records check on her and we find out she flew out of the

country to Destinations Unknown. She was gone. On Friday, October 17, 2008, cops mount a large-scale operation to simultaneously arrest Ron Young and Pam Phillips for the 1996 murder of her ex, Gary Triano. We have the arrest warrant. We've already put surveillance teams in Yorba Linda. We've coordinated with local law enforcement. We hit Ron and we arrest him. We extradite him back to Tucson. When it comes to arresting Pam,

they have a rude awakening. Pam Phillips, we have every reason to believe is still living at her house in Aspen. We go to hit Pam and we do a records check on her and we find out she flew out of the country, she was gone. Pima County investigators named Young and Triano's former wife, Pamela Phillips, as suspects in the case. They're still looking for Phillips and believe she may be out of the country. So we have to put out a notice with Interpol. So now the United States Marshals Service and the FBI become involved. Unbeknownst to police, Pam is in Europe and she's leaning into the Alpine lifestyle

in a swanky lakeside town in Switzerland called Lugano. She has just picked up where she left off. She's recreated her world over there. She's hobnobbing with the elite. She's off hunting again for a rich eligible bachelor. In fact, has been spotted with several. While out in Lugano, it's just not Pam's style to keep a low profile. And so sure enough, a local tipster hears news of Pam's murder indictment and picks up the phone. I'm sitting at my desk and I get a call. There's a gentleman who'd like to talk to you. He

thinks he knows where Pam is. So everybody's poised to go arrest Pam in Lugano, Switzerland. But there's a hitch. See, the Swiss government wants a guarantee that the U.S. won't invoke the death penalty. Gamber and his team are able to work out the details. But when the Swiss police went to arrest her, yeah, she wasn't there. Ultimately, there's a multinational effort that leads to Pam's arrest in Austria. And while she's sitting in a jail cell in Vienna

awaiting extradition, back in the States, Ron Young goes on trial. extradition. Back in the States, Ron Young goes on trial. The trial itself started in March of 2010. We had been doing pre-trial litigation for at least a year and a half leading up to that point. Some of the challenges that the prosecution faced in Ron's trial was that it was a circumstantial evidence case. They didn't have any direct evidence that linked Ron Young to the bomb. The prosecution acknowledges no one reported seeing Ron in Tucson on or around November 1, 1996. Nor did he have anything in his possession, specifically tying him to Arizona or to Gary Triano on the date of his murder.

However, prosecution does have Anthony May. My job was to determine what was used and build a reconstruction of the device. And then the device was used to present it in court for his prosecution. He was able to recreate the entire bomb all the way down to the battery purchased from Radio Shack, the remote-controlled air switch used to operate it, to detonate it, and even down to the duffel bag purchased from Walmart. That was an impressive display in front of the jury, I think.

And the prosecution also had those micro cassette tapes. The prosecution makes the case that in their conversations, Pam and Ron were talking about the murder of Gary Triano. I am not going to keep sending more and more money unless I know the harm I'll have raised. The prosecution points out to the jury an email that surfaced from Ron to Pam, referring to Gary as an 800-pound monster.

The communication between Ron and Pam was the to Gary as an 800 pound monster. The communication between Ron and Pam was the crux of the case. The defense countering that Ron was simply extorting money from Pam. What Ron did was blackmail Pam. Then there was also an out of the blue prison witness with a prosecution perfect account

to tell the jury. Andre Mims, a cellmate of Ron Young's when he was in prison for the 2005 gun charges. He looked me in the face and he said, Andre, I blew that **** up in this car. For the prosecution, Ron Young's one statement to Andre Mims, how he blew Gary Triano up, might as well have been a confession. But the defense claimed this testimony was made up and immediately called for a mistrial. Motion was denied. I think we felt confident.

As a prosecutor, even on a strong case, you're always concerned about the potential one outlier juror that could lead to a hung jury. After 13 hours, the jury reached a verdict. In front of the defendant, Ronald Kelly Young, guilty of the offense of first degree murder. Ron Young was found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Ron Young is sentenced to life in prison.

We can't tell you how many times we thought we would never see who killed my father. But for Gary Triano's family, the story is far from over and justice has not been served yet. We still need Pam and there's a long road still with that. That long road would lead to a fateful night in July 2010, a plane with Pam Phillips on board, making its way from Vienna to an airport in Arizona, where Melissa Triano and Detective Jim Gamber

were waiting. I think her flight came in at midnight and we stood outside of the airport and watched her come off the plane. Pam's comment to the US Marshals was, if Gamber's in the airport, I'm not getting off the plane. They walked her out of the jetway, turned her over to me, and they had to walk her all the way out to a patrol car. I wanted her to see our faces and to know that we were never giving up on bringing her to justice. As Pam prepares to go on trial, her public defender would mount an ambitious murder trial defense. This will not be a short trial when it starts. Phillips

Defense has listed about 100 witnesses. He's making these threats to embarrass her. He knows that she is in all these newspaper articles. Could he surprise everyone and get Pam a not guilty verdict? Gary Triano had left his first wife to pursue Pam Phillips. Then as a Tucson power couple, they lived high on the hog. Now, 17 years after he was killed, Pam Phillips was on trial for Gary's murder. For anyone who likes a sensational trial, complete with sex, money, and murder,

this one was worth the wait. It has it all. The trial began February 2014. There was a ton of attention and anticipation. All eyes were on Pamela Phillips. I think it was probably the biggest case we've ever had. The Aspen socialite on trial for killing her ex-husband with a car bomb. Pamela Phillips maintains her innocence, but prosecutors say they can prove she's a killer. For the Triano family this case represents the ultimate hope in finally bringing justice for Gary. How was that trial for you and your family? It was very difficult to sit through when photos or

evidence was going to be shown that would be hard and I would get up and walk out. What made it imperative that you be there then? It was knowing the truth. Prosecutors argued that the main reason that Pamela Phillips orchestrated this murder on her ex-husband was the $2 million life insurance policy. The bulk of our evidence came from Ron Young, the FedEx receipts, the phone calls,

the emails that Ron Young had saved. With records taken from that abandoned minivan in 1996, prosecutors argue how Ron Young closely surveilled Gary Triano's comings and goings, as well as those of Gary Triano's relatives, which included very specific details about Melissa Triano, who took the stand. The last line has your name on it again, correct? Yes.

Melissa Triano. Just above your name, what does it say there? Corvette Convertible Nice. The prosecution then brings out a key witness, Laura Chapman, a former friend of Pam's, who recalls a conversation she says she had with Pam before Gary's death. She said that she should just hire a hitman, have him taken out, and that the insurance policy was a $2 million insurance policy. She said it would just be really easy to do because he was so predictable because he played golf every day.

The defense claimed Laura's memory was faulty and that Pam was not desperate for the life insurance money because she'd lapsed on that last premium payment. If you're going to do a murder for hire for the insurance money, aren't you going to be sure that the insurance policy is in place and has been paid? But for the prosecution, big piece of the puzzle were those taped phone conversations between Ron and Pam, discussing Ron's alleged $400,000 cut of that life insurance policy,

where, in the view of the prosecution, Ron says the quiet part out loud. Right now, I wanna know that we're capping it for. I don't want this nebulous thing out there that we're supposedly supposed to. It's not nebulous. Listen to me, I am very serious about this. Well, I tell you, you're going to be very serious

when you sit in a women's prison for murder. Oh, yeah, that for the jury was our smoking gun. But defense attorneys assert Ron and Pam were not talking about the murder of Gary Triano. Instead, he was extorting Pam for money. I'm terrified of everything. I know. I mean, I'm living in total fear.

He's making these threats to embarrass her. He knows that she is in all these newspaper articles as a suspect in her ex-husband's bombing. He wants to threaten her reputation in the Asking community. If he was a real hitman, why is he not threatening her with her life or threatening her family or kids? That's what happens when you have a cold-blooded killer.

The defense doesn't just try to point out how neither Ron nor Pam could be tied directly to the bomb at the scene of the crime. The defense goes one step further and says the culprit is somebody else entirely. Hot-headed billionaire heir Neil McNeese, out that 80 grand to Triano and enraged by his lies and deceit. Neil McNeese. Neil McNeese. He lends Gary $80,000 and gets a ring for collateral.

He finds out the ring is only worth $8,000 and he's livid, he's furious. He threatens to kill Gary, hurt Dr. D'Antonio. Remember, Dr. D'Antonio had come forward after Gary died, claiming that Gary Triano was on Neil McNeese's alleged kill list and that he was responsible for Gary Triano's death. Lawrence D'Antonio was called to the stand,

and this was really the crutch of the defense's argument. I wouldn't describe Neil as a friend. I heard Neil say he was going to kill Gary Torano probably 10,000 times. It was pure obsession. His hatred was pure obsession. The defense argues that McNeese not only had motive, he also had the means, with a woodworker friend named Jerry Campuano, who they claim had a shop and the know-how to make a remote-controlled pipe bomb. The other things found at Mr. Campuano's shop, you saw that little red thing that was used to put together wires.

There was one of those at the Campuano's shop. There's an exact one of those in the bomb. The bomb parts that were found. It makes for an interesting story. They're saying, oh look at this, Neil McNeese was the real killer and Capuano was the person who made the bomb. All of them are deceased so we're not able to follow up on this. Authorities continue to assert there's no evidence tying McNeese or Capuano to the murder. The McNeese family issuing a statement in 2014, maintaining their belief in his innocence and relief that justice might prevail.

But I mean, the bottom line is we don't have any question whatsoever that Pam Phillips hired Ron Young to kill Gary. Kimmel Phillips never testified during the entire trial. We got glimpses of her personality, right? During the trial, she would look at the camera, she would smile at the camera, even mouthing the words at one point, I love you, to the camera during court proceedings. The camera had always loved Pam right back.

Now after two months of testimony, it was time to see what a jury would feel about Pam Phillips as they decided her fate. The lights flickered in the courtroom. My cousin Heather was sitting in front of me, and she turned and looked, and we just lost it. Coming to ABC in Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church.

And then she got diagnosed with cancer. A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved we thought she was God's gift but she was a liar why would somebody fake cancer from the number one smash hit podcast it was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down you're not gonna believe this Scamanda premieres Thursday night January 30th on ABC and stream on Hulu hello it's Robin Roberts here. Hey guys, it's George Stephanopoulos here.

Hey everybody, it's Michael Strahan here. Wake up with Good Morning America. Robin, George, Michael, GMA, America's favorite number one morning show. The morning's first breaking news, exclusive interviews, what everyone will be talking about that day. Put some good in your morning and start your day with GMA. Good morning America! Put the good in your morning.

GMA 7A on ABC. We're on verdict watch as jury deliberation continues in the Pamela Phillips murder for hire trial. The Aspen socialite is accused of hiring... After 26 days of testimony with 100 witnesses, 670 exhibits, the fate of Pam Phillips lies in the hands of the jury. Do you find the defendant Pamela Ann Phillips guilty of first degree murder. Quiet cries of joy and justice. Tarana's family says today's verdict has been a long time coming.

Seconds after the judge said guilty, the lights flickered in the courtroom. It was surreal. What did that tell you? Those lights flickered? That he was there. That he knows. Gary's family was relieved by all this. The murder was in 1996. Our trial was now 18 years later. I mean, I don't think they wanted it to be Pam, but they knew it was.

Pamela Phillips' attorney maintains his client is not responsible for her ex-husband's death. The fact that she's going to prison is going to eat away at me the rest of my life. Pamela Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without parole. After hearing her sentence, the once prominent socialite turns to address a packed courtroom, the only way she could do so without facing questions. I am innocent. I am innocent.

I am innocent. Okay? This is hard. It's so hard for me. It's a nightmare. She showed no remorse. She actually turned around to the gallery for the first time. At this point, she was just pandering to the camera.

And I don't understand how this can even happen, right? Never any mention as to the loss of life, but everything came back to the impact it had on her personally. Outside the courtroom, after losing their father almost two decades earlier, Gary's children expressing both gratitude and sadness at the outcome. We'd like to thank all our friends and everyone who supported us through this entire time. And we're sorry that it had to come to this because this woman was actually part of our family. Meanwhile, Pam's accomplice, Ron Young, also spending the rest of his life in prison, and

he's exhausted all of his appeals. Pam, however, is still fighting for post-conviction relief based on DNA evidence found back in 2014. We found DNA on threads of two screws that were embedded into the platform, which was wood for the pipe bomb. When that came in, we were able to exclude Ronald Young. Pam's appellate attorney, maintaining that new, more sophisticated DNA technology will prove that someone other than Ron Young and Pam Phillips murdered Gary Triano.

Well, the next step in the process, we did file our petition for post-conviction relief. I'm hopeful that we can do some genealogical testing if we can find the money to do that. They get better DNA that come back and tie to Jerry Capuano, then that might get her a chance for a new trial. Prosecutors stand by the verdict. They continue to say that neither billionaire Neil McNeese, nor his friend Jerry Capuano, were in any way responsible for Gary's murder. Where I find fault with this is that they, A, didn't submit Gary Triano as a reference sample. Whose DNA do you think is probably all over that scene?

How do you buy screws at a hardware store? You don't buy screws that have never been touched by another human being. So finding some lone DNA profile and a blast debris doesn't impress me. How do you like to remember your Uncle Gary? Every November 1st I would go to La Paloma Golf Course and put flowers in the 18th hole. At a local cemetery there is a bench inscribed with his name and Gary's favorite poem, Rudyard Kipling's If, the classic tribute to the same endurance

and optimism that Melissa always saw in her uncle who in the face of life's setbacks and defeats sought always to remain admirably strong. Would you mind reading part of it for us out loud? and lose and start again at your beginning and never breathe a word about your loss. And that's just how my uncle lived. The Triano family filed a $10 million wrongful death civil action against Pam Phillips. The judge ruled in the family's favor for that $10 million. That is our program for tonight.

Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night. She stole $6 million. From the award-winning podcast, I'm Lacey Mosley, a new true crime series. They call me Scam Goddess. I'm going on a journey across America to dive into small town swindles.

How can you not trust this local farm girl? And big city cons. He was him in the congregation. People say that would never happen to me. Never say never.