Dateline NBC - Mystery on Sunrise Drive

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

In this Dateline classic, a Tucson, Arizona native, Gary Triano was a successful real estate developer and entrepreneur. He was known around town for his big spending ways and the elite company he kept. And then came the day that changed everything. Gary’s car was blown to pieces, with him inside, just days before his 53rd birthday. Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on June 20, 2014.

It's probably one of the hardest times of my life, ever. I was just numb. My heart breaks. My heart breaks. Casinos, charisma, connections. He was Mr. Big. He was very flamboyant. Extremely charming.

Very brilliant. And his death was big, too. A car explosion at a posh resort. Somebody wanted to make a statement. Who would want him dead? You might ask, who wouldn't? A string of angry investors, even whispers about the mob. Everybody went, oh, this is mob connected.

So why would police focus on her, the beautiful socialite, ex-wife number two? She's very intoxicating. I think she was cold and calculating. Maybe her former husband was worth more dead than alive. It's easy to blame the rich, beautiful woman. She's the person everybody loves to hate, but she is completely innocent. Or maybe it was someone else entirely. He's obsessed with Gary Trano. Obsessed with him.

It's a case we've investigated for more than five years. Now, a stunning new end. Here we go back on the roller coaster. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Mystery on Sunrise Drive. Spend a little time in Tucson, Arizona. And here, in the shadows of the majestic Saguaro's, you'll find a thriving metropolis of a million people

with a surprising small-town feel. It's the kind of place where everyone seems to know everyone. And if you ask anyone from Tucson where they were on November 1st, 1996, they'll tell you it was the day of a murder. So dramatic. So horrific. They'll never forget it. It was the story that everybody talked about. The explosive end of a man who'd been larger than life. Gary had a presence.

Gary had charisma. And the beginning of a mystery that would span nearly two decades. Never, ever felt that it wouldn't be solved. A Tucson native, Gary Triano, was a successful real estate developer and entrepreneur. He was known around Tucson for his big spending ways, his chauffeured limousines, and for rubbing elbows with folks like Donald Trump. Like the song made famous by Sinatra, the forceful and determined Gary liked doing things his way. He was very, very brilliant. Gary's niece, Melissa Triano.

He had a wonderful personality that was sort of charismatic, and people were sort of drawn to him. Melissa says her uncle made her see the value in herself. My father moved away when I was 17. I was, you know, sort of a lost child, if you will. And my uncle kind of helped me realize, you know, a lot of my skills and taught me a lot about the real estate industry. He was kind of a father figure. Sort of, yes. And Gary was a loving father to five children, four of them from his first two marriages, and a daughter with a woman he dated named Robin Gardner. Gary was full of life.

He was probably more full of life than anybody that I have ever, ever known. When I met Gary, he was 21 years older than I. And we would go dancing, and we would go to the movies. And he was caring and fun. And charming. Extremely charming. Robin moved to Tucson in her 20s from a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. Gary, she says, opened her eyes to a new way of life.

Well, I'd never eaten at a five-star restaurant. I had never drank fine wine. I had never been on a private jet. And Robin says Gary was generous with the money he'd made. Gary was a big giver. He was a big giver. I remember we were at a restaurant, and there was a waitress that really seemed like she was struggling.

He did an origami flower out of a $100 bill, and he gave it to that waitress. And he did that not to showboat. He did it to be nice. He did it to be kind. And then came the day that changed everything. A nightmare come to life. It was late afternoon, November 1st, 1996. Gary had just played a round of golf at a top-tier Tucson country club called La Paloma.

He climbed into the Lincoln Town car he'd borrowed from a friend and was then instantly killed by a bomb that literally blew him to pieces right there in the parking lot. Gary was just a few days shy of his 53rd birthday. Some of his friends were already at his home preparing for a surprise party. And my cousin Heather kept paging me over and over again, 911, 911. And I thought that it was because I was running late, and she was trying to figure out where I was. Melissa called her Aunt Mary, Gary's first wife. My Aunt Mary answered the phone and then told me that they believed that my uncle had been killed and that they knew this because they were watching it on TV and that

was his car. And I thought she was kidding. I completely, I got angry and said, what are you talking about? This joke? This is not funny. She said, no, it's not a joke. Melissa knew her uncle had planned to meet up with some friends at a local restaurant after his golf game. She called the bartender there. He answered the phone and I said, is my uncle there? Please tell me he's there. And he said, Missy, I'm so sorry. We've got it on TV. I'm so sorry. He just kept saying, I'm so sorry. That's a hell of a way to find out by watching on television. Yeah, we found out. Well, they found out by seeing it on the news. It was a very powerful bomb, a very powerful explosion.

Melissa raced down Sunrise Drive to the scene. I got out of the car and I started running towards my uncle's car and Detective Gamber actually came running up and grabbed me and stopped me from getting closer. Detective James Gamber was one of the first at the scene. It was his second homicide case ever. I was doing dishes after dinner and I got a call, there's been a car bombing at La Paloma and you need to go up there. What he saw might have rattled a far more seasoned detective. The roof had been peeled off the car, was laying behind the car. The

windshield was gone. We found that, I think, the next day in the swimming pool of the country club. How far away? I would estimate it was probably 70 feet away, and it had to go over some trees that were probably 20 feet tall. I'm guessing that from sort of the get-go, it was pretty clear that this wasn't any accident. This wasn't something wrong with Gary Triano's car. Correct. He was dead, what, instantly? Yes. The gold watch around Gary Triano's wrist froze in time at 5.38 p.m. His family and friends didn't know what to think. Who could have done this? And why? The questions were just beginning. When we come back,

clues start to surface about the country club killer. The person who set off the bomb was watching Gary Triano get in his car? Someone's watching and they're going, he's on to it. And the motive?

What might that be? Follow the money. You always follow the money and you look at who benefited from the death. Gary Triano, the businessman, the father, the philanthropist. None of it made sense. He had just played a round of golf, and then the man who loved living large died a spectacular death.

I just was so in shock, like the rest of my family, that this could happen at all. You don't want to believe it, And you don't want to accept it. No one that I know was killed with a bomb. It was like something that was on television. It was a crime scene no one will soon forget. I just thought, oh my goodness, I can't believe this is happening in Tucson, Arizona. Lupita Murillo has covered Tucson for NBC affiliate KVLA for more than 40 years. She reported from La Paloma on the night of the bombing. People kill each other for all kinds of reasons. You've probably covered dozens of these. Exactly, but a car explosion at a posh resort,

obviously somebody wanted to make a statement. So this is a pretty powerful bomb. Yes. Pima County Sheriff's Detective James Gamber and an alphabet soup of investigative agencies, including the FBI and ATF, started looking closely at the homemade bomb that had somehow found its way to Gary Triano's passenger seat. We were able to determine the device was a 17-inch piece of pipe, about an inch and a half in diameter.

The pipe was filled with explosive powder and detonated by remote control. Using something that's normally meant to control boats, planes, that kind of thing? Correct. Remote control planes. Those little handheld planes? Yes. Investigators determined that whoever operated that remote control was probably right there in the parking lot. So the person who set off the bomb was watching Gary Triano get in his car?

We have every reason to believe that. And from the injury patterns, it's consistent that he was actually picking up the bag the device was in when it detonated. That would make me believe someone's watching and they're going, he's onto it. You know, we got to detonate it now before he realizes what it is and has a chance to escape. Clearly, the killer had to know something about Triano's daily routine. But Gamber soon discovered a lot of people did. He had virtually no sense of personal security, never lock his car, wouldn't lock his house. So someone with intel or information on Gary's lifestyle could easily have set him up. And it appeared someone had checked on Gary's

whereabouts that day. And what was interesting is the day of the murder, someone called and asked if he was playing golf. Man or woman? Man. Never identified. The very public spectacle of a car bombing at a posh resort made an impact on then-Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Gamber's boss. I've never seen an assassination of this kind. If, in fact, it was a hit, it probably was a professional hit.

Could the sheriff be right? If so, who hired the hitman? Who wanted Triano dead? He was very flamboyant. He was very outgoing and engaging, and he ran in the real big circles. I mean, he's running around with Donald Trump and people like that. And he was throwing money around. Yes. And so when a flamboyant guy dies in a flamboyant way, people start thinking... You know, you tie him with big money, casinos,

flamboyant lifestyle, then he's killed in a car bombing. Everybody makes this automatic assumption that that has to be some mob-related hit. And as investigators looked more closely into Gary's finances, they saw only red ink. By the late 80s, the Tucson real estate market had crashed, and Gary's bottom line took hit after hit. Investigators learned that in 1994, saddled with more than $26 million in debts he couldn't pay, Gary Triano had filed for bankruptcy. He had rolled the dice and lost. He owed money to casinos, banks, and the IRS. And just a day before the bombing, a friend said an extremely anxious Gary had come to him, desperate for a $50,000 loan. He was tapped out. When he died, I understand that he had holes on the bottom of his soles and his shoes. Any indication that any of the people to whom he owed money, and there were a lot,

were angry enough at him to do him any harm? No. There were people that openly said, he cost me money, he owed me money, but was it enough for me to kill him? No. Well, not so fast. Detective Gamber didn't know it at the time,

but FBI agents following the same trail had heard the name Neil McNeese. The Bureau received a tip that McNeese had experience with high explosives, and that he had access to them, and that he had a foul temper, and that he had a lot of money. But that wasn't the end of it. The Bureau was also told that Neil McNeese carried a profound hatred of Gary Triano. Detective Gamber's supervisor back then was Keith St. John. And you had Neil McNeese's name from two different sources, one of them which was the FBI. Yes. And you never talked to him? No. It would be years before investigators realized how significant an omission that was. But there's no disputing that the Neil

McNeese tip was never followed up. And so investigators changed their focus and looked away from Gary Triano's business relationships. You do two things. You go, let's follow the evidence, and you say, follow the money. You always follow the money in a homicide. And then you look at who benefited from the death. Investigators were now examining Gary Triano's closest personal ties. Was there someone closer to home to whom Gary might have been worth more dead than alive?

I remember asking him, why would anybody want to follow you? And he said, because of a life insurance policy. Coming up, the women in Gary Triano's life, an ex-wife's club and an angry former girlfriend. Well, in fact, we're pretty unhappy at the breakup between she and Gary Triano. When Dateline continues. Tucson real estate developer Gary Triano's gruesome death by car bomb had a lot of people wondering just who his enemies really were. Investigators had been looking at Gary's business dealings, but started hitting one dead end after another.

So they began scouring his personal life. Gary had lived large, and it turned out he loved that way as well. And he was no angel. By the time of his death, Gary's name was already attached to two divorces and a trail of broken hearts. He'd left his first wife, Mary, after two children and more than 20 years of marriage, to wed a younger woman, Pam Phillips. Gary had two more children with her. After that marriage ended, Gary dated Robin Gardner for two years, and that union produced a daughter, Elliot. But Gary and Robin never married, and had an angry breakup while Robin was still pregnant. Gary even called 911 a year before his death to report that Robin showed up uninvited to his home

and threw a vase at him during an argument. Robin told the investigators she'd thrown the vase at the ground after Gary pushed her. And so investigators came knocking on Robin's door. Robin Gardner was pretty unhappy at the breakup between she and Gary Triano. And we looked into Robin, and I think her current husband put it best, is that when Robin's mad, you're going to know it, and whatever's going to happen is going to happen right now. You know, he said she's basically, it's going to be a street fight. And you were convinced that, well, although she was angry at Gary Triano, she wanted him alive. Yes. And I don't think she would have done that to their child. So investigators looked

away from Robin as a person of interest and moved on to some of the other women in Gary's life. He'd maintained a good relationship with his first wife, Mary, after they divorced, and investigators eliminated her. That left his second ex-wife, Pam Phillips. Like Gary, Pam had also been married once before. The stunning blonde had a business degree from the University of Arizona and was one of few women to find success working in commercial real estate in Tucson in the late 80s. Pam and Gary seemed off to a good start back in 1986 with an expensive black tie wedding on a yacht at sunset off the coast of San Diego. I know Gary was mad about her. I was positive that he was madly in love with her. The wedding photographer,

Gary's friend, David Bean. They looked like they really did love each other and cared about each other. But reporter Lupita Murillo says behind Pam's back, Tucson was whispering. What did you hear about her? That she was a gold digger, that she married Gary for his money, and that she broke up his marriage. It's common for people on the outside to talk about the new wife that way. Remember, Gary had left his first wife for Pam, and that alone sparked some anger in the Triano family. Brian and Heather are Gary's kids from his first marriage. And initially, they were less than thrilled about their father remarrying. Well, I mean, she was a stepmom. Let's be honest, we were teenagers at the time. Not happy about our parents getting divorced.

But it was hard to deny that the marriage was working. When we saw them together, they were happy and he seemed happy. We would sing love songs. Gary and Pam had some very good years, says Gary's niece, Melissa. Oh, they were running around with, you know, Donald Trump, Marla Maples. They were friends with Lee Majors and just taking really extravagant trips. Money flowing like water. Yeah.

Gary helped Pam launch an astrology website, StarBabies.com. The site was designed to give parents an astrological reading about their children. It was a business Pam started after her children, Trevor and Lois, were born. What'd you say, Trev? Cow. Cow? Heather and Brian say those new babies brought them closer to their new stepmother. We grew to like her and love her as a stepmom and mother of our brother and sister. She was great. Like I said, she was very sweet.

And I think also being a girl, you know, she'd help me fix my hair or get some clothes or new, you know, purses, shoes, things like that. Girly stuff. But by the early 90s, Gary's fortunes had faded, and with them, his marriage to Pam. They were done after just seven years. He said that once, you know, I can understand, I just don't have the money that she was used to us having. Pam moved to Aspen after the divorce,

and the once happy couple started fighting over just about everything. There was an ongoing legal battle over, you know, the child support, and she wanted it increased, and she was convinced that he was hiding assets and he used the bankruptcy to shield himself from having to pay increased child support. Which to some was ironic. I was basically Mr. Mom. Pam's former nanny, Kevin McDonald. And I was taking care of Trevor and Lois for seven days a week and day and night. And according to him, Pam was too busy shopping to take care of her kids. Shopping, that is, for a new husband. She wasn't apologetic about all of her expenses.

She was getting worried because she said, Kevin, I'm down to my last $60,000. And what should I do? And I said, get a job. But Kevin says she was focused on finding a man with a job, a good one. She wanted to find a husband that was worth at least $20 million. That's what she told me. Worth $20 million. So the Pam that people say married Gary Triano for his money

hadn't changed except zip codes. Yes. Zip code and weather. But while Pam was looking for the right deal in Aspen, back in Tucson, Gary Triano was feeling uneasy. Gary said, I think we're being followed. I just thought, you're starting to scare me, dude. Taylor Schoberg, his girlfriend at the time, says Gary was convinced someone was tailing them in the car.

I remember asking him, why would anybody want to follow you? And he said, because of a life insurance policy. Turns out Gary was insured for $2 million. His children, Trevor and Lois, were the beneficiaries. But until they turned 18, the money was controlled by their mother, Pam. They'd gone through a nasty divorce. Yes, there was child custody battles, visitation battles. So it'd be natural that you'd be looking at her.

Yes. But Gamber's investigation showed Pam was in Aspen, not Tucson, on the day of the murder. And Pam the socialite certainly seemed more bombshell than bomb maker. And I'm guessing Pam Phillips probably is not somebody that you thought was tinkering around on her workbench building a pipe bomb. No. Gamber and his team seemed to be at another dead end until an alert detective 800 miles away happened to catch a news report about the bombing and some bells went off. Coming up.

I found a note in the car, you know, by toothpaste, and then down the list a little further was saw off shotgun. What could that have to do with the murder of Gary Triano? Aspen, Colorado. A year-round playground for the rich and famous. and sometimes for the people who prey on them. That's the kind of case that then Aspen police detective Jim Crowley caught back in 1996. Two local businesses said they'd been defrauded by a man named Ron Young. What the scam was is that he would become your business manager, help you grow the company, and he actually did that part of it. But at some point, you know, he'd have all your credit information, so he would apply for credit cards in your name, add himself as a signer, use those credit cards to pay off his personal bills.

As far as you could tell, he'd stolen how much money? Probably between $80,000 and $120,000. But before Detective Crowley could get an arrest warrant ron young disappeared he knew you were on his trail right and he skipped town yes young fled in a rented minivan that later turned up in southern california young himself was nowhere to be found but what was found in the minivan was very curious note in the car that was kind of like a laundry list, you know, buy toothpaste, and then down the list a little further was saw off shotgun. Ron Young was not known as a violent criminal, but when police found a shotgun and a taser in the van,

it made Detective Crowley aware that a man wanted for white collar crimes might possibly be more dangerous than he thought. In Ron Young's minivan, investigators found something else peculiar. Paperwork related to the divorce of Pamela Phillips and Gary Triano. And at the time, the name Gary Triano meant what to you? Nothing. But Pam Phillips, that was a name Crowley had heard before. He knew her as another Aspen resident who claimed she'd been ripped off by Ron Young.

Pam said Ron had stolen money from her business, Starbabies.com. Did she have a case? We don't know because she never came back, and she refused to answer my calls after that. So she originally, she came to you and made a complaint, and then... Backed off, yes. And never told you why? No. Pam's former nanny, Kevin McDonald, remembers that for a while at least, Pam and Ron seemed close.

And Ron would come over at least two or three times a week. And on some of those nights, Pam would cook for him, have romantic dinners with full-on candlelight and music. Although, Kevin says, Ron didn't seem to be Pam's type. Ron didn't have any money. He was not a socialite. And, you know, that's what she generally went for. So what exactly was Pam's relationship with Ron Young? And why wouldn't Pam cooperate with police? Did she want to protect Ron? Or was she afraid of him? Crowley didn't know what to make of it all. And then, about a month after Ron Young's van was found, the detective happened to read about the car bombing death of Gary Triano. I was aware that Gary was Pam's ex-husband.

And I was also aware that Pam had some kind of relationship with Ron Young and that Ron Young had fled the area. So that's what prompted me to call down to Tucson. Detectives Gamber and St. John were there when the call came into the Pima County Sheriff's Department in Tucson. It certainly got investigators' attention, especially when they learned more about what was found in that van. There was a map of Tucson and handwritten notes with the names and types of cars driven by some of Gary Triano's business associates, family,

and friends, including his niece Melissa and his one-time girlfriend Taylor. And there was more. And then we found a receipt for a hotel here in Tucson where Ron Young stayed in this hotel for 18 days during the summer of 1996. Which would be, what, a few months before Gary Triano was killed. Yeah. And what was interesting about his choice of hotels, it was geographically almost halfway between where Gary Triano lived and the La Paloma Country Club. Where he played golf every day. Yes. And even more suspicious, Ron Young stayed under a phony name, the name of one of the people he was accused of defrauding in Aspen. But that was well before the murder, and there was no evidence Ron Young was in Tucson when the bomb went off.

Anything in Ron Young's record or possession that suggested that he either knew how to or was involved in building a remote control bomb? No. And he's got no history of working with explosives? That's correct. Still, Gamber and his team desperately wanted to talk with Ron Young. Aspen police was looking for him. They had an active fugitive case going on him because they had a fraud warrant. But he basically just fell off the face of the earth.

Who was Ron Young? And what was his relationship with Pam Phillips? Nine days after the murder of her ex-husband, Pam Phillips agreed to come down to the sheriff's department for an interview. And that conversation was recorded. I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Ron Young. Yeah. Coming up...

She knew she was going to be scrutinized. Pam Phillips' date with detectives. Two million reasons to be suspicious? We have this issue of this life insurance policy. Gary's the one that took this out. When Dateline Continues.

Gary Triano's violent death by car bomb had set the Tucson rumor mill on overdrive. But according to local NBC reporter Lupita Murillo, an awful lot of fingers were pointed in the same direction. Within 24 hours after the dust settled, the word that I was getting was that it was his former wife and it was because of this insurance policy. Pam Phillips, Gary's ex, was someone investigators wanted to talk with,

especially after word came from Aspen that Pam had been connected in some way to a fugitive on the run from fraud charges named Ron Young. Nine days after the murder, investigators got their chance. Pam Phillips, voluntarily, came in for questioning. I didn't give Pam a lot of what I knew. I let her talk, and I let her give me what she wanted to give me. Detective Keith St. John spoke with Pam three times,

twice in person. For the record, would you tell me your full name? Pamela Ann Phillips. He asked Pam to talk about her relationship with Gary, starting with how they met. Was he already divorced? No. He was married. I've been married.

Tell me about Pam's demeanor during those meetings. She knew she was going to be scrutinized. I made it clear right from the beginning that we had to deal with the $2 million life insurance policy. We have this issue of this life insurance policy. She talked to me about how the payments were being made, when the policy was taken out. She seemed like she was up front. Gary's the one that took this out, and he also insisted that it be in my name.

They discussed who out there might be angry at Gary. To St. John, nothing really stood out about those interviews. Until, that is, he asked Pam about Ron Young. Something that's come up that I wanted to ask you about is your relationship with Ron Young. Yeah. I don't really have a relationship with Ron Young. Okay. Tell me what it is then. He's a guy from Aspen. God, how did his name come up? St. John felt he might have thrown Pam off her game. We're trying to get out and do our best on this.

Wow. He's a guy from Aspen that did some financial stuff for me. Are you aware that there's an arrest warrant out for him? No. And when was the last time you had any dealings with him? Well, it's been a long time. I mean, since basically, since he was doing work for me. And Pam denied ever having a romantic relationship with Ron.

And you never were boyfriend, girlfriend, or had an affair? No, no. In my opinion, she minimized it. Oh, he's just a person that did some work for me. I haven't seen him in months. Not a guy that I was involved with. No. Not a guy that I accused of defrauding me,

but when the cops came to me, I refused to sign the complaint. Correct. But despite Pam's startled reaction to the Ron Young question, Detective St. John had nothing else on her. Nothing placing her, or Ron Young for that matter, in Tucson on the day of the murder. And nothing connecting either one of them to the bomb that killed Gary Triana. After three interviews, other than this thing with Ron Young, and we didn't have him to talk to, there really wasn't anything that I thought that made her rise to a level of a suspect. And Ron Young was still somewhere in the wind.

So safe to say this goes cold? Yes. In January of 1997, Pam Phillips received her life insurance payment, $2 million plus interest. Did that insurance money give Pam back the lifestyle that she'd lost when Gary Triano went bankrupt? For a short while, yes. Two million dollars doesn't go very far in Aspen. Pam bought herself a house, a million dollar fixer-upper. And with her exquisite taste, turn it into a beautiful house. In fact, her deck was featured in the glossy Aspen Sojourner magazine. Pam was dabbling in Aspen real estate and trying to make StarBabies.com a success. To help with the website, she invited Gary's daughter, Heather Triana, to come live with her in Aspen.

It was a company my father purchased for her when they were married, so I felt like, oh, this is great. This is something my father started. I'll come and restart it because it sort of wasn't developed. During the time Heather lived with Pam, she took care of her younger half-siblings. But she never once had a discussion with Pam about Gary's unsolved murder. We didn't talk about it, really. She was basically a member of your family,

at least for a while, and clearly felt very close to the two of you. And she never once said, here's what I think happened. No. No, I don't think so. Through the years, Heather and Brian maintained their relationship with Pam,

even as they had families of their own. She was at my wedding. Yeah, she was at my wedding, and we were friends. But Gary's niece, Melissa, couldn't help but suspect that Pam had something to do with her uncle's murder. In my mind, the only person that had anything to gain from him dying was Pam. There was really a rift in your family, wasn't there? There were some people who believed that Pam could never have done anything

like this, and there were other people who suspected her. Yeah. Yeah. Gary's ex-girlfriend Robin moved back to Virginia in 2000 to raise their daughter, Elliot. He was a great father to all four of his other children, and Elliot missed that experience. My daughter was a victim. For nearly a decade, Gary Triano's friends and family waited and hoped for an answer. As time went by and there weren't any arrests, what did you think? Maybe I'm wrong about Pam? Maybe this will never be solved? No. I think part of me thought that in time,

it would all be found out, and that it just wasn't time yet. And detectives waited, too, until one day in 2005, when a tip came in from 2,000 miles away. Coming up. I helped you on something that was, you know, beyond what anybody else in the world would probably do. Secret tapes are about to turn a cold case piping hot.

The tapes turned out to be the gold mine. Nine years had passed since Gary Triana was killed by a car bomb. Police had investigated his business partners, and then his ex-wife Pam, and they'd come up empty. They had deep suspicions about Ron Young, an accused conman with a murky connection to Pam. But investigators couldn't even find him. It looked as if the case might might stay cold forever. And then, in 2005, the TV show America's Most Wanted featured the Triano case and focused on the fugitive Ron Young. If you've seen him, please, call our hotline right now. And that works.

Took about 19 hours. After nine years on the lam, Ron Young was fingered in Florida by a most unlikely tipster. His chiropractor recognized him, called America's Most Wanted, and Broward County Fugitive Team went out and picked him up. He had a scheduled appointment, so they waited for him to show up at his chiropractor's office. Betrayed by a bad back, Ron Young was now in the hands of authorities. America's Most Wanted was there when Ron was arrested on the old fraud charges and

illegal possession of a handgun. An ATF officer sat down with him for an interview. Do you have anything to do with that bombing? No, I had no reason to blow up anybody or kill anybody. But the big advantage to catching Ron Young wasn't what he said in that interview, was it? No. The big advantage to catching Ron Young is he collected all our evidence for us. Inside Ron Young's apartment and storage locker, investigators found a computer with saved emails, FedEx tracking receipts from Aspen, and a stash of audio-taped conversations that Young had apparently recorded in secret in the years following the murder. Conversations with none other than Pam Phillips. The computer and the tapes turned out to be the gold mine.

Investigators began to play tape after tape. Our original understanding was... Looking for anything that would shed light on their investigation. And on those tapes, they heard Ron Young threatening Pam. There's just plenty of stuff that I could literally dig out of the ground. And you're, you you're a fried duck. Tense, mysterious conversations about banks and money. I can't deal with this. I can't. I'd rather die.

Then what? Then sit here and deal with it. Going to the bank, which is totally illegal, every single week, I'm not going to do it. What do you mean it's illegal? I am giving money to somebody. I am not spending it. I'm giving money, and I am not declaring it. And you're getting money, and are you declaring it? No, you're completely confused on that. And talk of some kind of pre-existing deal between the two of them.

It all started to add up, especially when they looked on Ron's computer and found a detailed schedule of payments from Pam. Payments that were made carefully and surreptitiously, using a cryptic code that the two had devised. I'm really happy that your 1.6 was tax-free. He talks about, you got your 1.6, I want my 4, which conveniently adds up to 2 million, which matches the insurance payout. There's nothing on those tapes in which Ron Young says, you hired me for X amount of money to put a bomb in your husband's car.

It's not said directly, but when you piece all the conversations together, that is said. I helped you on something that was, you know, beyond what anybody else in the world would probably do. And perhaps the most damning piece of evidence? When you sit in a women's prison for murdering, when you sit in a women's prison for murder... And as far as I know, the only murder in Pam Phillips' life was the murder of Gary Triano. When you listened to the tapes and you looked at the documents that you found in Ron Young's possession, what arrangement did that spell out? Basically, that he was entitled to $400,000 of the $2 million life insurance policy, and he was using Pam as his bank. He was earning 4% interest on his $400,000. Why would somebody who had committed a murder, a murder for hire,

keep detailed records that would essentially prove their own involvement and that of the person that hired them? I think for two reasons. One, if your ego is that big that you think you're not going to get caught, you're too smart to get caught. And two, you're saving it as evidence or as a threat, something to hold over your co-conspirator's head. In case she stops paying. Yes.

Ron Young was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison on gun possession charges. The fraud charges were eventually dismissed. Detectives still didn't have enough to charge Young with Gary's murder, but they did have enough to turn up the heat on Pam. We went up to Aspen and filed for a search warrant and ultimately searched Pam's house. But in Pam's home, they didn't find anything related to Ron Young

or to the bomb. Absolutely nothing related to the murder. So once again, despite their suspicions, they couldn't charge Pam Phillips with any crime. And before long, the woman who loved the good life would find herself in the ultimate lap of luxury, a world away from both Aspen and Tucsonucson coming up a brand new mystery where was pam phillips pam's disappeared we don't know where she is anymore she could be anywhere in the world

they're asking me to pull a rabbit out of my hat i don't think i have any more rabbits when dateline continues. He was famous for living big, and for years his death was one of Arizona's biggest mysteries, the notorious country club murder of businessman Gary Triano. Now, investigators are looking at his ex-wife, the beautiful socialite Pamela Phillips. Could she somehow be involved? Here again, Josh Mankiewicz. For Gary Triano's children, Heather and Brian, it was impossible to believe that their former stepmother could have anything to do with their father's murder. I was her friend. I was her friend. I lived with her.

So no, I didn't think she was a suspect at all. Then they read the search warrant affidavit, which detailed the audio-taped conversations between Pam Phillips and Ron Young. When you sit in a women's prison for murdering, when you sit in a women's prison for murdering, when you sit in a women's prison for murder... And it's at that point that we realized something was wrong, that the whole thing wasn't right. What was it like for you to read that this woman who had been your stepmother and then later your friend... Yeah, very good friend. ...was implicated in your father's murder?

I wanted to throw up. In November of 2007, 11 years after the murder, Heather and Brian, along with Gary's youngest daughter, Elliot, filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Pam Phillips and Ron Young. Robin Gardner, Elliot's mom. The point of that wrongful death suit was not to recover any actual money from Pam. The idea was what, to serve some subpoenas and maybe get the investigation going. It had came to just a slow halt, and it just seemed as if it was as cold as cold could be. So the children got together, and as you said, not for revenue, but to simply get the ball rolling.

Despite all the evidence investigators had uncovered in Ron Young's possession, prosecutors in Tucson still didn't feel there was enough to charge either Ron Young or Pam Phillips with murder. Why do you think prosecutors didn't want to bring a case? I don't know if there was an official reason or if it was a reluctance on just the sheer size of the case, how big this case was, would it be a career-ender case. So no one ever gave me a solid answer. Frustrating. A little bit, yes.

But the civil suit changed things. Prosecutors decided it was time to move. You think the wrongful death suit sort of what guilted prosecutors into going forward? Or it showed them just how valid the case was. Nearly a year after the civil suit was filed, in October 2008, Ron Young, who was out of prison after serving 10 months on the gun possession charges, was re-arrested in California, this time for the murder of Gary Trejano. Young was flown back to Tucson. Lupita Murillo is one of those people who like to greet visitors at the airport. So, Mr. Young, how does it feel to be back in Tucson, sir? Well, not so good.

Absolutely not. Did you kill Gary Triano, sir? Did you place that bomb? No, of course not. Where's Pamela Phillips? Did she accomplish? Where was Pam Phillips? It turns out she may have outsmarted everyone

by leaving the United States just a month before authorities filed arrest warrants for her and Ron. She took what we believe was an innocent trip to Switzerland to visit her daughter. And she just decided, what, I'm not coming back? I think when the news broke, she probably made a conscious decision it'd be best for her to stay in Europe. However, if you think

she was living a rough life as a fugitive, think again. We saw it firsthand when Dateline tracked her down in February 2009. We found Pam living in the beautiful lakeside town of Lugano, Switzerland, the area is known as Switzerland's version of Monte Carlo. Pam and Gary's daughter Lois, just a little girl when Gary died, was now a college student there. And we discovered Pam living in a $5,000 a month apartment. And she'd made a new friend, a well-heeled widower with whom she'd often dine overlooking the lake at a five-star hotel. Maybe all of it is proof that if you do enough shopping, sometimes you'll find exactly what you're looking for. Just basically living a very affluent lifestyle. She didn't need to work,

apparently. Back in Pam Phillips' former country of residence in November 2009, three of Gary Triano's children won their wrongful death lawsuit against Pam. A judge ordered her to pay them $10 million. But Gary's family and friends wondered, would they ever see Pam return to the United States to face charges? Because by then, Detective Gamber had learned Pam was no longer in Switzerland. And it's like I told Heather, I said, Pam's disappeared. We don't know where she is anymore. She could be anywhere in the world. And I said, the sheriff told me to find her.

And I said, you know, so they're asking me to pull a rabbit out of my hat. I said, I don't think I have any more rabbits. You were feeling defeated. Yes. And what'd you think? You're never going to see Pam Phillips again. Yes. Coming up.

I think she was cold and calculating. So calculating she could elude the cops? The worldwide hunt for the socialite suspect is on. She had thought that she'd gotten away with this. In Tucson, Arizona, a warrant was out for the arrest of socialite Pam Phillips, accused of masterminding the car bombing death of her ex-husband Gary Triano. There was only one problem. Pam wasn't in Arizona. Or the United States.

Or Switzerland, where she'd been living. Like a femme fatale in an old movie, she had left town with no forwarding address. And that was one of the frustrations, is she was in the European Union, where there's basically no borders. You know, it's not like she has to go through immigration and customs. She just, she can move. But investigators in Europe were cooperating with the U.S. authorities, and they started tracking Pam's cell phone. So even though you didn't know where she was,

the authorities over there were still hot on the case. Yes. They kept checking the records and looking for Pam, and in December 2009, more than a year after she went on the lam, they found her in Austria. Detective Gamber received the news from overseas and realized he wasn't out of rabbits after all. A coded message that said, she's in custody in Vienna, and do you want to extradite her? It was like a one-word response, yes. But Pam would spend some time waiting in an Austrian jail first, while her accused co-conspirator Ron Young stood trial.

In February 2010, prosecutors presented their case against Young to a jury. They argued that Young planted the bomb that killed Gary Triano and that Ann Phillips paid him to do it. Everything you've said, everything you've heard, reeks of conspiracy. It reeks of two people who are so cold and so greedy that they believe that nothing else matters. Gary's niece Melissa testified and learned for the first time that her name had been on a list found in Ron Young's abandoned van.

It was alarming. It was horrifying. The defense argued that Pam's payments to Ron were just extortion, blackmail, and that there was no evidence tying Ron Young to a bomb or placing him in Tucson on the day of the murder. You have a laundry list of alternative suspects in this case that make just as much sense as blaming Ron Young. The jury, however, didn't buy it. In March of 2010, Ron Young was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. And just two months later, Pam Phillips was extradited back to the United States.

You can guess who was there to welcome her back. What do you say to the Triano family? What do you say to Gary's adult children? What do you say to your own children who don't have a father whose mother's going to be in the Beamer County Jail? But Lupita's wasn't the only face Pam saw at the airport. What was that like to see Pam come back to Tucson to face trial? It was gratifying. When she got off the plane about 10 o'clock at night, she wasn't happy to see me. Also present, Melissa Triano. Why was it important for you to be there? I think because she had thought that she'd gotten away with this.

And I think that we wanted her to see that we knew that she hadn't. There she was on full display. The former socialite's chauffeured limo was now a Pima County Sheriff's car. Gary's youngest child, Elliot, was just seven months old when her father was killed. By now, she was beginning to understand more about how her father died and who might have done it and why. When you heard that Pam was accused of having your father murdered for a two million dollar insurance policy, what'd you think? I don't know what it's like to live the kind of life that she was living, but I know what it's like to grow up without having my dad around,

like my biological dad. Arizona versus Pamela Ann Phillips. This is your arraignment. Those are your charges. Pam Phillips pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Veteran Pima County attorney Rick Unclesbay was assigned to prosecute the case. She married Gary for his money, we believe. She divorced him for the same reason. He was bankrupt at the time. You think she also killed him for his money. Right. The sense one gets of Pam from you guys is of somebody who's kind of a human calculator. I think calculator is an apt description. I think she was cold and calculating that she used men for her benefit. And ultimately, she used Gary for her benefit. But it would take years before prosecutors would actually get to try the case,

as it meandered through the legal system, motion after motion. For a time, Pam was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial. She told at least one doctor someone had been watching and listening to her for years. And she believed she had tracking devices placed in her passport and her head. But by late 2012, the judge said she was fit to proceed. I think that the police got tunnel vision with regard to this investigation. The woman who'd lived the good life now had a court-appointed attorney. Her name is Alicia Kata. Pam Phillips has been variously described as a narcissist,

gold digger, and ultimately ruthless, cold-blooded murderer. You're shaking your head. No. How do you describe her? I would describe her as a mother of two who worked hard, who tried to make a life for herself. Did Pam Phillips want Gary Triano dead? No, absolutely not. No, he was the father of her children, and she wanted him to be involved in the children's lives. It's not crazy that police looked at Pam. No, no, absolutely not. You know, they'd had this contentious relationship. Pam got some serious money out of that insurance settlement. Pam later was found to be associating with a guy who police believe was actually

responsible for planting the bomb. There is absolutely no physical evidence linking Ronald Young to that murder or to that bomb. Nothing whatsoever. And yet he was convicted. Exactly. And it's a statement of how powerful an accusation can be. People now have to prove their innocence. People are presumed guilty because the press puts it out there. So this is our fault. Well, partly, partly, yes. People are now presumed guilty, and that's the hurdle that the defense has to try to overcome. And so Alicia Katah and her team set about overcoming that hurdle, preparing a vigorous defense for Pam Phillips, as their client readied to face a jury more than 17 years after the murder. Coming up. So many years of suspicion, but where was the evidence?

Wasn't Ron Young's DNA. It was not. And it wasn't Ron Young's DNA. It was not. And it wasn't Pam Phillips' DNA. It was not. The only thing they had were those tapes and that was it. And Pam Phillips had an answer for that too. I'm living in total fear. When Dateline continues. February 2014. More than 17 years had passed since Gary Triano's shocking death by car bomb outside a Tucson country club. His ex-wife, Pam Phillips, was now on trial, charged with his murder. And right from the start, Pam's defense team insisted that police rush to judgment. It's a lot easier to go after the ex-wife who collected two million

dollars. It's easy. That's the low-hanging fruit. In his opening statement, attorney Paul Eckerstrom defended not just Pam, but her alleged co-conspirator as well. The evidence you're going to hear is going to convince you not only my client is innocent, but that Ron Young is innocent. The defense insisted there was nothing placing Ron Young or Pam Phillips in Tucson on the day of the murder. If you're going to do a bombing, you've got to come in and do the bombing. And they have no evidence whatsoever of that. And, says Pam's

attorney Alicia Kata, there was no proof Ron even knew how to build a bomb. There's no evidence he had the ability. There's no evidence he had the knowledge. There's nothing in his van or any of the stuff he found on his computer. It's not like he had a workshop in his garage and tinkered on the weekends. And he had a slight tremor in his hands. He didn't have the ability to do this, not at all. And this defense expert analyzed some trace DNA found on the bomb parts. My conclusion is that Ronald Young's markers aren't present. It wasn't Ron Young's DNA.

It was not. And it wasn't Pam Phillips' DNA. It was not. And it wasn't Pam Phillips doing that? It was not. That's correct. But there was all that evidence police discovered in his abandoned van a month before the murder. Maps of Tucson, paperwork related to Pam and Gary's divorce, a notepad with names of some of Gary's friends and family, and a receipt showing Ron spent 18 mysterious days in Tucson the summer before the murder under a fake name. What was all that about? He was looking to help Pam get more child support by investigating the hidden assets of Gary Triano. That's why he was here. There was a notebook containing a few

names of people associated with Gary? You know why? Because he was thinking Gary might have put his vehicle in his niece's name. Gary might have put his vehicle in his girlfriend's name. But why use an assumed name during his Tucson visit? He was already on the run from the police in Aspen, Colorado. He was hiding at that point. And as for the theory that Pam killed Gary for the $2 million in life insurance? Nonsense, says her attorney. Pam had wanted to let go of the insurance policy about a year prior. A friend of Pam's testified that she took over the payments on the policy because Pam was short on money. The judge would not allow us to show the friend's face.

It was about $600 a month, and she felt that that was one piece that she could be rid of and stop doing. And I said, absolutely not. And if you can't pay for it now, I will, but you need to have the security for the kids. And the friend told the jury she actually forgot to make the last two payments on the insurance policy before Gary was killed. Which you think is significant. Why? Well, because she testified at trial that Pam never asked her again about the insurance policy. It never came up in any conversation with her. She just let it go.

So if Pam was killing Gary for the insurance money, she would have said something to her friend like, you made those last payments, right? But then, how to explain those recorded phone calls between Pam and Ron? The discussion of payments. I'm really happy that your 1.6 was tax-free. The threats. There's just plenty of stuff that I literally dig out of the ground. And talk of prison time. When you sit in a women's prison for murdering,

when you sit in a women's prison for murder... The defense argued Ron was extorting Pam with threats of ruining her reputation in Aspen. I mean, I'm living in total fear. Well, because it would get in the paper and that would be an embarrassment to you. No, just I'm living in total fear. I think he was trying to threaten her by saying, look, you see all these things that are in the paper and that would be an embarrassment to you. I understand. I'm living in total fear. I think he was trying to threaten her by saying,

look, you see all these things that are in the press right now with regard to, you know, you being a suspect in this murder? I'm going to make sure that it goes into the front page of the Aspen Times. So he's blackmailing her even though she didn't do anything wrong. She did not do anything wrong. She was concerned about her reputation because reputation is everything in the business that she did. Okay, let's follow that out. And even though she hadn't committed

any crime, even though she didn't hire Ron Young or anybody else to kill her husband, what, she couldn't go to the police when she got extorted? Do you know how many people don't go to the police when they're being extorted? Somebody threatens to frame me for a murder that I had absolutely nothing to do with and wreck my reputation, the police is the first phone call I'm making. There are many, many people who get extorted, who get blackmailed, and they basically just want to make the problem go away. And so rather than go to the police, Pam continued making payments to Ron Young. The only thing they had were those tapes, and that was it. And those were the words of a person trying to get money from another person. That's it.

That's not a criminal conspiracy in the wake of Pam having hired Ron to kill Gary. That was after the fact, after the murder, not before. They don't have a single thing, a single shred of evidence of conspiracy before the fact. But if Pam and Ron did not conspire to kill Gary Triano, did not carry it out, well then who did? You are about to hear one wild story of a man police never checked out. A man who had the means, the motive, and apparently the desire to kill Gary Triano. Coming up. He was coked out of his mind and he was about as evil as they come. Could he be the real killer? On the eighth floor of the Pima County Courthouse,

Pam Phillips' attorneys were pleading her case. Prosecutors, they said, had it all wrong. Not only was Pam not guilty, but there was real evidence someone else committed this crime. And the man the defense pointed at has a name you might recall. A lead that came up early in the murder investigation. One that was never pursued. Neil McNeese. Well, he was coked out of his mind and he was about as evil as they come. This is Lawrence Patrick D'Antonio, a doctor of osteopathic medicine. He sat down with us to share the extraordinary tale he told the jury about Neil McNeese.

A man D'Antonio says suffered from a couple of maladies. One serious drug addiction and the other one was exceeding wealth. Dr. D'Antonio says he first met McNeese around 1989 and says Neil's mother paid him to block off his schedule and look after her son, who was at the time addicted to heroin and cocaine. He had a very sweet type of humble personality when he wasn't on drugs. But then when he would use? 180 degree change. Very paranoid, blamed all of his problems on select people, and then went after them with a vengeance. And there was his storage locker full of weapons.

It was all military weapons. It was all M-16s, militarized shotguns, and you could see hand grenades laying on the ground. And his use of dynamite for sport. And he throws dynamite like firecrackers. And then there was the company he kept. Dr. D'Antonio says that in the early 90s, Neal was hanging around with anti-government militia types in Montana. And then right after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Neal's girlfriend showed up at D'Antonio's house. And she swore up and down that she felt he was involved in this financially. So at this point...

Wait, so Neal's girlfriend told you that she thought Neal had bankrolled the Oklahoma City bombing? Yes. Dr. D'Antonio even called an FBI hotline to report Neal. There's no indication the Bureau found any link between Neal and the bombing, but the FBI did eventually contact Antonio when they were investigating McNeese for something else. McNeese found himself a defendant in a federal wiretapping case, accused of extorting money from a man who'd been his friend. McNeese ultimately pleaded guilty to receiving the proceeds of extortion and was sentenced to two years probation. And why was any of this relevant in the murder trial of Pam Phillips?

Because, says Dr. D'Antonio, his frightening acquaintance, Neil McNeese, had a history of bad blood with none other than Gary Triano. It started, the doctor says, after McNeese and Triano agreed to purchase an item together at a charity auction. Gary didn't have any money to pay, so Neil paid, and he was supposed to pay Neil 50 percent later, and of course he didn't pay him. And then, some years later, around 1991, Gary tried to get Neal to go into business with a high-flying real estate mogul. And their meetings were held not in a boardroom, but in a series of limousines. Because they could keep Neal's captive audience in the limousine. D'Antonio says Gary Triano wanted a finder's fee for the arrangement.

But in the meantime... Gary Triano had to pay for all the for the arrangement. But in the meantime... Gary Triano had to pay for all the whining and dining, and it was very costly. And there, in the limousine, D'Antonio says Gary asked Neil for a loan, using Pam Phillips' wedding ring as collateral. And this was a magnificent ring. It had two appraisals that I remember, one about $235,000, the other close to $250,000. And he wanted an $80,000 cash loan. The doctor says Neil agreed, but he ended up with a cubic zirconium worth about $7,000 to $8,000. Gary Triano switched the ring on it? At some point, that's when Neal lost it

towards Gary Triano. He went berserk. And he was so obsessed with Gary, he immediately started to declare he was going to kill him. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You heard him say that? Oh, yeah, many times. Many, many, many times. Neal said he was going to kill Gary Triano. Oh, in the hundreds to maybe thousands of times. He's obsessed with Gary Trejo. Obsessed with him. And that was the case the defense made to the jury. They argued Neil McNeese had the means and the motive and the stated desire to kill Gary Trejo. Any evidence that investigators ever looked at this guy as a possible suspect? No. No. They ignored this whole line of investigation completely. Completely. The defense even connected Neal to a potential bomb maker. His close friend, Jerry Capuano, happened to be a master woodworker and handyman.

One of Jerry's hobbies was he was an avid radio control airplane operator, and he would build his planes from scratch. He would do it using the same types of components found in the bomb that killed Gary Triano. Before the trial, the defense inspected Jerry Capuano's former wood shop. The new owner allowed us to go into the shop and we found items in that shop that all everything there was could have been used to build a bomb. Cut pipe, wires, servo units for the for the model planes. I mean and this is something they could have found in 1997. There's just one problem with this defense theory. It's pretty hard to check out. Where's Mr. Capuano now? He died.

And Neil McNeese is dead. Right. So these guys are kind of the perfect third-party defense for you guys. That's true. They're dead. They can't stand up and call you a liar. But the evidence is what it is. The evidence is there. And the defense argued Dr. D'Antonio was not the only person to mention Neal McNeese as a potential suspect in the case. Gregory Seifert. This friend of Gary Triano's told Detective Keith St. John about Neal McNeese not long after the murder. But did you tell them about a person by the name of Neal McNeese? Yes. But they asked you about Leeds and you gave them Le a person by the name of Neil McNeese? Yes.

But they asked you about leads and you gave them a lead. Is that correct? Yeah, from what a friend of mine, just something he had said. So why didn't the detective at least go talk with Neil McNeese? Because it's just one of those things that falls through the cracks? Or because you guys were so focused on Pam Phillips? That's what the defense would have you believe that we were focused on Pam Phillips. I would say that there were eight to ten what I felt were viable leads in addition to Pam Phillips. And Neil McNeese wasn't one of them.

No. In hindsight, you wish you'd dragged Neil McNeese into a little tiny room and asked him some questions? Of course. And if you'd done that, what do you think you would have found? Based on the evidence that I've seen, both from our investigation and from the defense investigation, is we would have cleared him in some way. It would not have risen to any kind of a level where he would have been a suspect. There was nothing to the McNee story, said investigators and prosecutors. The true killer, they said, was the person sitting in that courtroom.

And if there were any doubts, the prosecution had a star witness who was about to share the secret she'd kept for nearly two decades. Coming up. I just didn't feel safe. A former friend turns powerful foe. She started talking about how easy it would be to just hire a hitman. When Dateline continues. It had taken nearly two decades to bring Pam Phillips to trial. And according to prosecutors, there was no doubt she was guilty of murder. Look, there's one reason that Gary Triano was murdered. One reason. He was murdered because his death benefited Pamela Phillips in a big, big way.

And while there was no physical evidence tying Pam Phillips or Ron Young to the car bomb that killed Gary Triano, and nothing placing either one of them in Tucson at the time of the murder, prosecutors urged the jury to listen carefully to those phone calls between Ron and Pam that were recorded after the murder. There is talk of an agreement. I am not going to keep sending you more and more and more money unless I know that you can honor our agreement. And doing something for Pam no one else would do. You know, and I also helped you on something that was, you know,

beyond what anybody else in the world would probably do. Neither Pam nor Ron ever explicitly says those payments were for a murder. The defense argument was that he was extorting her. Right. What was it that Ron Young could have on her that she had to pay him $400,000 if it wasn't the murder? And if those tapes didn't persuade the jury, prosecutors had one more star witness,

a woman who was about to share publicly the secret she had kept for a very long time. Pam's husband, Gary, and the gentleman that I dated played golf together. Her name is Laura Chapman, and she first met Pam back in the late 80s. She was really sweet, really nice. The two became good friends, and Laura had a front-row seat to Pam and Gary's upscale lifestyle. They had a dining room table that actually came up out of the floor,

which I thought was a little bit over the top, but it was interesting. It was a lifestyle that Laura says Pam wasn't pleased to part with when Gary's finances started to crumble. To Pam, that was more significant than thinking to yourself, well, okay, but he's a wonderful guy and I I love him, and he's the father of my children. I have to wonder if she really truly ever did love him, or if it was just the lifestyle that they had that she was in love with. And when Pam and Gary separated, Pam told Laura about the problems they were having.

She started talking about how easy it would be to hire somebody, that she should just hire a hitman and have him taken out and how easy it would be because he had such a predictable schedule that he played golf every day. And then she started talking about their insurance policy, the life insurance policy. And of course, you know, at the time that you think it's just somebody who's venting, you know, angry. You don't think she's actually plotting the murder of her husband? Of course not. You just thought this was Pam Luttenhoff's team?

Yeah. And so Laura brushed the conversation aside. This, of course, was three years before Gary Triano's murder. Pam and Laura stayed friends, even after Pam moved to Aspen. And then, November 1, 1996, Laura heard the news about the car bombing at La Paloma. I remember once I heard who it was, that it was Gary, I remember saying to my husband,

oh my gosh, she really did it. But Laura chose not to go to the authorities. His body parts were blown all over Sunrise Drive, and it was gruesome. And knowing that somebody could do that and take a father away from five children, I just didn't feel safe. And so, for years, Laura kept that secret.

Until one evening in 2011, while dining at a local restaurant, she saw Gary's daughter, Heather, and something told her it was time. I said, Heather, I think that there's something that I need to tell you. And I told her what Pam had shared with me that night at her house. And the very next day, Laura shared her story with Detective St. John. What made you decide to come forward? Seeing Heather and knowing how much she loved her father and knowing that what I knew could possibly help them convict the person who was responsible

for his murder. On the stand, the defense attacked Laura, saying she must not have been remembering things clearly because of a brain tumor she'd been diagnosed with back in 2005, which Laura says is nonsense. You sure you're remembering that conversation with Pam accurately? Absolutely. Have your health problems, have the brain tumor that you survived in any way impacted your memory of things like that? Absolutely not. How important a witness was Laura? Oh, I think she was very important. I think she was critical.

And this was Pam Phillips saying that I could hire somebody to take him out. I have insurance on him. His golf game is pretty predictable. I could do it. And that's exactly what happened. Of course, Gary's niece Melissa had never wavered from her belief that Pam was guilty. She's the only person that could gain anything from his death, monetarily. As the trial headed toward its close, Uncles Bay and his co-counsel Nicole Green felt confident. But one never knows which way a jury will go.

We both firmly believed that we had the right person on trial. We both firmly believed that the evidence showed that she was guilty. And the question was, given the circumstantial nature of the case, did we produce enough? Coming up, a 17-year investigation comes down to a single moment. It was overwhelming. My heart breaks. My heart breaks. The verdict. April 2nd, 2014.

It had been 17 years, 5 months, and 1 day since Gary Triano and the life he'd lived had parted company. Now each side had one last chance. The defense insisted that investigators had blinders on when they went after Pam Phillips, carelessly ignoring other possible leads like Neal McNeese, who had openly wished Gary Triano dead. There's plenty of proof that we have shown them that there's a reasonable doubt. And the state

went after the easy marks, the woman who got a $2 million insurance policy and the guy that was extorting her. But, said the prosecutor, the idea that anyone else was responsible for this murder, other than Pam and her co-conspirator Ron Young, was just pure fantasy. It makes for a good story that Neil McNeese didn't like Gary Triano, it must have been him. Makes for a good story that he's got a friend who does model airplanes and has gizmos that are similar to those used in the bomb mix for a good story. It is time to hold Pamela Phillips responsible for her crimes. It is time to find Pamela Phillips guilty. Ladies and gentlemen, you're excused to deliberate.

And so the jury retired and everyone else waited. You feel confident as the jury went out? I've been doing it long enough to never be confident about anything. After two and a half days of deliberations, the jury had a verdict and the story that had been the talk of Tucson for so many years entered its final chapter. Pam Phillips defended Pamela M. Phillips, guilty of... Pam Phillips, guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. For the now-retired sheriff's detective James Gamber,

it was finally over. That was the end of a long road for you guys. Yes. Went from my second homicide to my last homicide. But when word spread among Gary's friends and family, there were few, if any, cheers. It was overwhelming. It was surreal. This is a sad, sad story in every aspect of it. The day that she was convicted was a very bittersweet day.

Why bittersweet? I'm a mom. And I was extremely saddened for all the children that was involved. Because for his kids with Pam, their mom's just been convicted of killing their dad. And I can't imagine. And my heart breaks. My heart breaks. The next month, Pam was back in court with her jail-issued jumpsuit and gray hair, looking nothing like the moneyed socialite she had wanted so badly to remain.

No longer was she the stepmother Gary's oldest kids, Heather and Brian, had grown to love. The woman who'd been their friend. They each made an emotional statement. My father's death was sudden and violent. His life was taken as a result of greed, hate, and malice. Heather spoke about the woman she had once defended. To think I actually stood up for this woman. When others suggested she might have been involved in the murder,

I told her that she could keep her head held high because she had nothing to do with this murder. Oh boy, was I wrong. And then, Pam Phillips had the floor. She turned toward the gallery and spoke out for the first time. I just want everybody to know that I am innocent. I am innocent. I am innocent. Okay?

And I'm really, really... This is hard. So hard for me. It's a nightmare. This is a nightmare. Okay? This happens a nightmare. And Gary was my husband. Okay? Gary was my husband, and he was the father of my children. And I am innocent, and I want everybody to know that. This has been a travesty and a nightmare for me, okay?

And I don't understand how this can even happen, right? But I want you all to know that. All right, Ann, let's give me a sec. Thank you. The judge issued his sentence. The woman who'd once lived the jet-setting high life would now spend the rest of her natural life in a prison cell. It's fair to say that if Ron Young hadn't kept such careful records and hadn't been such a pack rat,

that maybe neither he nor Pam would be behind bars right now. I think there's a good chance of that. If it sounds like a victory, the Triano family will assure you it isn't. My uncle's not coming back. No conviction or life sentence is going to change that. All I did was, you know, make a murderer out of my cousin's mother. Nothing else has changed.

That's all for this edition of Dateline. We're off next Friday for a Meredith Vieira special at 8, 7 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.