Going West: True Crime - Pamela Vitale // 437

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

In October of 2005, a 52-year-old woman was brutally murdered in her home in suburban San Francisco, bludgeoned and disemboweled. As police investigated the case, an unsuspecting person of interest entered their frame of view: her 16-year-old neighbor. This is the murder of Pamela Vitale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. Happy Friday the 13th. Today's episode was recommended by Madison.

This is truly one of the most senseless, unbelievable crimes that we have covered on this show. And I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before Madison sent it over, so thank you. And if you're like us before and haven't heard of this case, you are in for a shocking story. and it actually has some unrelated true crime elements due to Pamela's husband's job and the killer's interest it's there's so much to this story yeah it's very unusual how many connections there are to the true

crime community in general yeah just outside of the murder itself so yeah so thank you guys for tuning in and do you have anything to add? I don't have anything to add. Happy Friday the 13th. But this is episode 437 of going west. So let's get into it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this. In October of 2005, a 52-year-old woman was brutally murdered in her home outside of San Francisco, bludgeoned and disemboweled. As police investigated the case, an unsuspecting person of interest entered their frame of

view, her 16-year-old neighbor. This is the story of Pamela Jean Ludke was born on January 11th, 1953 in Wichita Falls, Texas at the Shepherd Field Air Force Base to her mother Carol and her father Vern, who was actually a sergeant in the Air Force at this time. She grew up alongside a little sister named Tamara in a very musical family. Her dad was a talented pianist, and her mom was an accomplished singer and artist. At a young age, Pamela and her family moved to New Hope, Minnesota, which is outside of Minneapolis, and there, her musical talents really flourished, and she studied flute, piano, piccolo, and oboe. Pamela even competed in statewide piano competitions

as young as seven years old and joined her school's marching band and concert band. But she was also a very gifted student and wound up graduating from Cooper Senior High School a year early before moving on to Mankato State College in Mankato, Minnesota, deciding to study pre-med. But instead of pursuing that track, she ultimately chose to do some traveling,

working in London, where she was based as a flight attendant. During this time, Pamela studied flamenco dancing and learned how to skydive, so she was such an adventurous person who was always trying new things, and she was also described by those who knew her as gentle and kind. A friend named Carolyn remembered, quote, Everybody loved her. She was so warm and at ease.

In her twenties, Pamela met and married a man named Mario Vitale, and the pair had two children, son Mario Jr. and daughter Marisa. But when things weren't working out between the couple, Pamela moved herself and her two young children from Minnesota to Southern California, filing for divorce from Mario Sr. So at just 25, Pamela was starting over as a single mom in Redondo Beach, which is just south of Los Angeles. Now, she originally secured a job as a bookkeeper, but at the insistence of her friend, neighbor, and fellow single mom Jan, she was hired by technology company Hewlett Packard or HP.

Jan remembered proudly, quote, In those days she was really struggling, but Pam was always adventurous. But she was eventually laid off from HP, though in typical Pamela fashion, she made the best of it. She put her severance package to good use and invested in studying film at UCLA. Then she got an internship at a production studio and eventually worked as an independent movie producer. So like Daphne said, she was always trying new things and she was always pursuing her interests.

A few years later at the suggestion of her sister Tamara, Pamela and her two kids moved to Northern California where Tamara lived. And once she was settled in the Bay Area, Tamara told her that she had a friend who was interested in shopping around a screenplay, and asked if Pamela would be willing to meet with him and read the script, and she agreed. So in 1993, Pamela met noted defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Now Daniel rose to public prominence actually as a friend of Nancy Grace's, and also a commentator for both the Lacey Peterson murder trial, as well as the Michael Jackson trial.

So, because of his background in such crimes, he had written a screenplay and was starting to share it with the connections that he had in the film industry. As Daniel tells it, quote, she was interested in reading my script, but once I met her, I felt completely in love and no longer cared about the script. Pamela and Daniel married and settled into life together, with Pamela eventually shifting careers again and getting a job at Pacific Bell, then taking a job at a software development company before going to work for her husband's law firm, maintaining their databases.

Then in 2005, they were working on a brand new dream of theirs, building a house. Daniel explained, quote, Me and Pam, for the 10 years that we were married, lived in a little modular home, a manufactured home, 1100 square feet on a 13 acre parcel, a beautiful parcel and we really didn't care about fancy anythings, we liked living there. Then for whatever reason we said, well, you know, her kids are grown, we have the ability to do it, let's build a nice house." So the couple set about building their dream Italian style home on a hilltop in Lafayette, California, which is a city full of lush green landscapes about a half hour east of San

Francisco. They remained in their temporary house while their new house was being built, and Daniel added that they loved their home, their sprawling property, and their community saying, quote, We never locked our door. None of our neighbors did. Pamela and Daniel spent the night before Pamela's murder watching television coverage of the case that he was currently defending.

A woman named Susan Polk, and she was actually accused of killing her psychiatrist turned husband. And that night, Nancy Grace called the couple to congratulate Daniel on his progress on this case. The next morning, October 15th, 2005, while 52-year-old Pamela lay sleeping, Daniel awoke and prepared for another day working on Susan's case, slipping out just before 8 a.m.

He called his wife a few times throughout the day and she didn't answer but he wasn't immediately concerned, just assuming that she was out or busy. But after leaving his office late in the afternoon, he ran a few errands, went to the gym, and then stopped at the grocery store before finally heading home. When he arrived at the house, he noticed that Pamela's car was still in the driveway, which he found kind of surprising because she was supposed to be headed to the ballet that night. You know, he also hasn't heard from her all day. So he's like, why is her car still here? What is she doing? What has she been doing? You know, before he's even going into the house, he's having

some questions. But as he approached the door, he noticed smears of something on it. When he pushed it open, he spotted his wife crumpled on the floor in a large pool of blood, badly beaten and unmoving. Daniel claims that he checked her temple to be sure, but he could tell that she was deceased. His shrieks upon finding her were actually so loud that they were heard by the neighbors, but still, he called 911 around 6 p.m. that night after discovering her, and detectives came immediately to survey the scene and begin their investigation.

Now, this crime, like I kind of hinted at earlier in the beginning of this episode, was unthinkably gruesome. But ultimately, Pamela's cause of death was blunt force trauma with a piece of molding from the house. So essentially a piece of wood from the house that they're working on building. But her injuries were, for lack of a better word, overkill, because the medical examiner claimed that he couldn't be exactly sure how many times Pamela had been struck with this molding, but it has been estimated to be as many as 39 times.

Well, as Daphne mentioned, this really was one of the most brutal attacks we've seen on this show, so please feel free to skip 15 seconds or so if you don't want to hear about the details of what happened to Pamela. So alongside hitting her with the molding nearly 40 times, Pamela's attacker stabbed her in the stomach, which struck both her stomach and her small bowel. There was a distinctive letter carved into her back that looked like a double-crossed T. Pamela also suffered a broken nose, some broken teeth, and at least two broken fingers. And on top of this, the bleeding was present over nearly every surface of her brain, and

in parts, her scalp had been separated from her skull. There were abrasions on her neck, knees, upper torso, breasts, and feet, some of which were believed to be the result of fighting back against her attacker. Mercifully, the medical examiner concluded that she would have died within minutes of sustaining her injuries. Now after carrying out her murder, Pamela's attacker drank a glass of water and took a shower disposing of some clothing on another part of the property.

And there was clothing recovered that had been washed and oxy clean to get rid of its blood stains. So this is kind of strange because it feels like this attacker is not worried about somebody coming home and potentially catching him in the act. He's taking his leisure time, he's taking a shower, he's cleaning his clothes, he's getting a glass of water. So, it's very weird how casual and comfortable this attacker really is during this whole ordeal.

Also signs of a massive struggle were left behind. The TV had been toppled over and there were bloody smears and handprints on both sides of the front door. Now Daniel claims that he could see where Pamela tried to like shove her assailant out the front door and almost succeeded. But he said that sadly she was so inherently kind and empathetic that he doesn't believe that she could have killed someone even in self-defense. Daniel explained quote, she was not a violent person, she was a very gentle person and you can't win a fight against someone with more energy than you without striking a fatal blow. She could push, she could hit, she could defend, but she didn't have the cruelty to kill.

So even if she had the advantage over him, which I think at times she did, she couldn't capitalize on it. The day following Pamela's murder, Daniel told the San Francisco Chronicle that he couldn't speak about the case, saying simply quote, I can't. It's beyond words. Nancy Gray said in the aftermath quote, he's doing horribly, horribly. He told me all along that he thought it was one of his neighbors. When asked by investigators if he had a hunch that anybody he knew was involved, he didn't

actually say the neighbors right away, so maybe he told this to Nancy afterwards, but he couldn't quite figure it out because he said that he and his wife had experienced like maybe a few negative run-ins with only two people in the last few years. So there wasn't somebody that stood out immediately, but there were two people that he kind of wondered about enough to tell the police.

Now one of them was a contractor who bailed on his gig fixing their roof while he was in the middle of working on it. But that didn't turn into anything at all. But the other was a man who used to rent space on their property, a guy named Joseph Lynch. They had so many problems with Joseph that they had actually filed a temporary restraining order against him after he moved off their property because they didn't want any kind of retaliation after everything that had happened. But Pamela and Daniel eventually chose not to serve him with it and acknowledged that

he had just been struggling to get his life back on track. You know, these are the people that they are. They are very understanding and they kind of looked at a situation and thought, you know what, let's just leave it alone. He's having a hard enough time as it is. So Joseph was interviewed just to be sure, you know, to see if he was connected to Pamela's death, but he maintained that he had nothing to do with it. Other than these two people, Daniel also told investigators about a kind of troublesome

former boyfriend of Pamela's who may have been following her around prior to her death, but his involvement was disproven as well. Daniel said, quote, I just think he knows and regrets what he missed out on. But to think of him as a suspect would be a grave injustice. Daniel added through tears, quote, I just want them to catch whoever did this. She was the love of my life. I just wanted to grow old with her. That's a really, really sweet sentiment from Daniel. The fact that, you know, he's saying, you know, I really,

like, I'm missing out on this opportunity to grow old with the love of my life. Like, it's, it's really heartbreaking. Yeah, and he is doing everything he can to help in the investigation. You know, this is also his background. So he knows a lot about all of this type of stuff. And he is just totally dumbfounded at who could have done this to his wife and why because as we said everybody loved her she was a wonderful person she had a lot of different jobs she met a lot of different people but it doesn't make sense why somebody would murder her and particularly murder her as brutally as they did as if they had like a personal

vendetta against her. Yeah, and we're also having to consider the fact that it didn't appear that anything had been taken from the home. You know, so it's like, what was the motive here? Yeah, yeah, we are going to touch on that later as well, because there are talks of robbery in kind of different ways throughout this case, as you guys will see. Um, but really quick, also going back to Daniel, so he had been defending Susan Polk in that case and after this happened, she actually fired Daniel and opted to represent herself and anybody wondering what happened to her, she lost her case.

Well, it took investigators three days to collect all the evidence from the house because there was so much damage done and so much left behind. A bloody shoe print was recovered from an overturned plastic bin near the front door, prints from fingertips shrouded in gloves were left behind, indicating at least some premeditation to the crime. And there was also blood smears on a water bottle, a mug, and a bowl in the kitchen,

as well as on the shower curtain and the hot water knob in the shower. Which is so weird because like you said earlier, Heath, you know, he took a shower, he had a glass of water, he washed his clothes. I'm saying he because he and I know what happened. But you know, they're doing all these things in the house so comfortably moving around putting DNA all over the place and Multiple items in the kitchen and across the house like you're cleaning up, but you're not cleaning up Yeah, yeah, and obviously we have to assume that most of this blood if not all of it is

Probably Pamela's because we know that the attacker was wearing gloves Right, but still like you're you're pushing the mess around the house Yeah, but you're still not in a hurry, so you're not you're not cleaning it up But you're trying to clean up some of it. I don't know right right yeah And you also have to just think about the fact that if your bloody fingerprint is on the shower nozzle Investigators are gonna find that So you're clearly very stupid and you're not thinking about the fact that they are going to look at DNA in this case and fingerprints, and yeah, that's probably how you're going down.

And thankfully it was there. Well let's move on to this next part of the story and how this investigation unfolds, because around the time of Pamela's murder, a neighbor of Pamela's named Karen Schneider had a strange run-in with a local teenager and she reported what happened, wondering if the two were connected. So Karen was Pamela and Daniel's next door neighbor, and two days before Pamela's murder, she noticed three fraudulent charges on her credit card statement that read, quote, specialty lighting. The billing name was listed as Karen Schneider, but the billing address was Pamela and Daniel's

address. But here's the strange thing. The shipping address was listed as a woman named Esther Fielding, who also lived in the Quiet Canyon with Karen Schneider and Pamela and Daniel. And by the way, Esther lived with a family named the Curioles along with her son and another family in a boarding house arrangement on a large property. Within minutes, three of these charges were made to Karen's credit card, and Karen would later learn that another was made and billed to a different neighbor of hers. So Karen called the lighting company and it turns out that they had rejected the sale on suspicion of fraud.

The owner of the store named Jackie Jawoski said that she remembered these transactions because the buyer had called and tried to convince her to make it work, but she informed him that she couldn't ship to a different address than the billing address, and that her system had flagged the sales as fraud. So he would need to contact his credit card company. The man on the other end of the phone apparently said sweetly, quote, Okay, that's fine. She remembers him being very polite and that he sounded like a boy trying to be portrayed as someone older and professional.

The day after Pamela was killed, a meeting was held among the neighbors to discuss their concerns about Pamela's brutal unsolved murder that had taken place in their small community. And almost immediately, Karen brought up the issue of her credit card and pointed the finger at Esther Fielding, who was completely shocked and dumbfounded. This was the first that she and most of her housemates had heard of the credit card debacle. So, Fred Curiel, the owner of the property

that Esther and her son lived on, vowed to search all of the computers in the house and When he searched Esther's son's computer, he to Esther Fielding and Kenneth Dalesky was born on October 30th 1988 to Esther Fielding and Kenneth Dalesky, but they split up when Scott was just two years old and he was raised almost solely by his mom. But when Scott was in elementary school his mother started struggling to kind of keep things afloat and they wound up moving into the yard of the Curiel family in Lafayette, California. Now, the Curials were apparently family friends of Esther's and allowed Scott and his mother

to camp out on their property while they built their house and lived in a nearby trailer. But unfortunately, that project took years, meaning that for most of the formative years of his childhood, Scott was camping with his mother without access to electricity, plumbing, or running water, and they were allegedly able to shower only about once every week or so. And when they finally did have a home, court documents later described it as a lean-to, or a shack, held together by straw and mud. The defense attorney in Pamela's murder case later attested, quote, The fact that Esther Fielding describes the years they spent in a lean-to as fun and like

camping is a telling example of the profound narcissism that defines the adults in Scott's life. Scott's dad, Kenneth, married a woman named Lynn, and the couple actually lived a stable life and owned a home, but without Scott. Lynn reportedly asked Kenneth multiple times over the years to let Scott move in with them, knowing that Esther was not capable of caring for their son, but Kenneth declined her requests for unknown reasons. You know, so that's a sad situation. Even his stepmom is trying to convince his father to let him move in with them, not necessarily at Scott's request, but she just knows the situation and wants better for Scott even herself.

But Kenneth would not budge on this and instead of even trying to help financially or in some other way remove his son from the situation, Kenneth twice reported his ex Esther to Child Protective Services, but neither of these reports were followed up on. So he was failed by the adults around him who seemed Far too wrapped up in the drama of their own personal lives to care for their son and During his childhood by the way his dad married and divorced once and his mom married and divorced twice Then in August of 2002 his half-sister Danika Duleski was killed in a car accident.

Though Scott, who was almost 14 at the time, never lived with his sister, he would often see her when he visited his dad and was apparently deeply affected by her loss. And according to his family, this began his downfall. His grades, which were good beforehand, fell to Ds and Fs, and Esther also noticed that he started dressing in all black, painting his nails and wearing heavy makeup, and his attitude shifted to Solon. Which is normal for a lot of teens, including both Heath and I. Yeah, of course.

A lot of people, I think, like to act like just because a teenager is goth or emo or whatever means that they have bad intentions. But we kind of wanted to add this anyway about, you know, his head, the way he dresses just because a lot of people talk about it, but it's not relevant to his character, you know? No, it's definitely not. And also I have to say this is 2005. Emo music was was soaring through the roof. I mean, everybody was dying their hair black and you know like it was it was a mass

it's not a phase mom but like you know for a lot of people it kind of was a phase this was like the time that this was the style exactly yeah but when he reached Akalani's high school his behavior took a turn for the worse he began to isolate himself and his deme, which was perceived as odd and even scary by some of his classmates, didn't really earn him very many friends. He also became obsessed with conspiracy theories, and one fellow student remembered him drawing a pentagram on the ground and dancing around it with a few other students when he was in middle school, and he also apparently told people that he was reading the book of Satan.

Another peer later told a news publication that Scott was somewhat of a contrarian and an instigator, and took pleasure in dressing and behaving in a negative way, simply just to get a rise out of people or draw their attention. Which, again, is something that a lot of teenagers do. Well, he was described by other kids in class as quiet and unassuming. He had a few friends but mostly just kind of kept to himself. He started dressing as a goth and fought back when his school told him that he couldn't wear a trench coat, which by the way during that time I had friends that were kind of you know

dressing as Goths in school as well And my school also did not allow them to wear trench coats. Do you think it was because of Columbine? Yes, absolutely I think that was just a very normal thing. Like you couldn't wear a trench coat to school I don't know if it was every school, but it was definitely my school I mean, yeah It seems like maybe you weren't alone on that because you know after the Columbine shooting in the late 90s weren't alone on that because you know after the Columbine shooting in the late 90s understandably a lot of faculty was afraid that kids would wear trench coats and hide weapons under them. Yeah that they were able to conceal weapons right?

Well in high school Scott started dating a girl named Jenna Reddy who seemed to share his appreciation for what other kids their age viewed as dark and bizarre. They enjoyed drinking Absinthe together and engaging in BDSM. And they also read texts of Satanism and theorized about the backgrounds of serial killers, especially Jack the Ripper, whom Jenna said was Scott's absolute favorite. They also became fascinated with organs. So that's a little out of the ordinary. Like sometimes they would even talk about what would happen if they killed people

to experiment on them and dissected their bodies. Yeah, so this isn't just like, I'm interested in human anatomy for a potential career that I wanna get into after school. Like this is, it's morbid. It's a disturbing fascination. Yeah, it's not, hey, I listen nine-inch nails and I paint my nails black it's I am interested in what it would be like to kill someone and experiment on their

organs and Jenna will kind of give other examples later too that just goes even further beyond this like things that they would talk about and it's just it's just bad well Scott was also a huge fan of the Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim, in particular the episode called Dark Harvest, where the alien at the center of the show becomes fixated on harvesting organs to masquerade as a human child. And some people actually believe that this TV show, Invader Zim, was actually cancelled because of a perceived connection to this murder. And some felt that it had a profound effect on Scott and influenced his actions, kind

of fanning the flames of his morbid curiosity with death and disembowelment. Yeah, and take that how you will. I mean, it's kind of like how people, there's a lot of people who don't like those shooter video games because they think that inspires Youths to go out and shoot people, you know, not everybody is going to take Certain things from TV and video games and movies to heart. Yeah But yeah, I mean we've talked about this so many times on this show just because you like horror movies Does not mean that you're to go out and brutally murder someone. I love horror movies like I love 80s slashers, and I'm not you know like yeah, and that can be for every situation like we

a lot of the cases we cover if not most of the cases we cover where we discuss murderers and their childhoods a lot of them are abused it doesn't mean that everybody who's abused is going to turn into a murderer A lot of them are abused. It doesn't mean that everybody who's abused is gonna turn into a murderer Right. It's it's kind of like everything is is relative Yeah, and we also talk about the fact that a lot of like murderers and serial killers will torture small animals But in this case Scott actually apparently loved animals. Yeah, very true Well Scott wound up dropping out of high school his sophomore year Well, Scott wound up dropping out of high school his sophomore year, but in the summer of 2005 when he was 16 turning 17 in October, he was working towards his GED so that he would be able to start taking art classes at Diablo Valley College for the fall semester. And that is actually where his girlfriend took classes. So at the time Scott and his friend Robin were gearing up to start a small marijuana growing operation out of Robin's closet, but they needed some professional lighting and

hydroponic equipment to provide the proper environment for growth. Yeah, and this is going back to that lighting situation where there was fraud found. Indeed. Hello. We're coming full circle. So leading into that actually without the proper funds, you know, they're teenagers, they don't have the money for this expensive equipment. Instead of, you know, working for it, getting a job, doing something else to earn the money, they decided to steal the credit cards of unsuspecting neighbors.

And this is where Karen comes in. Because on September 30th, 2005, Scott had his first run-in with their neighbor, Karen Schneider, whose credit card information he later stole. And there's a little more drama in all of this because around this time, Karen accidentally hit Esther and Scott's dog, Jazz, while she was backing out of her driveway. And although she did feel bad about it, she also argued that the dog was not contained or leashed and that she hadn't seen Jazz behind her. She didn't do this on purpose.

And then she's kind of turning around and saying, well, it's not my fault because your dog, that you let your dog out so that it could walk behind my car, you know, but right kind of unsympathetic. But yeah. And so this caused a lot of drama between the neighbors, of course, because, you know, Esther was angry at Karen for not taking more responsibility, understandably. So especially because Jazz did not survive this. Jazz actually sadly had to be put down after being hit by Karen's car. So while this was happening,

Scott is remembered to exhibit similar behavior as he did at his sister's funeral. He was quiet, serious, and withdrawn. He seems like many of us, to be deeply affected by the death of loved ones. Now, according to Daniel Horowitz, he and Pamela had seen Scott around the neighborhood, but he had no prior connection to them whatsoever. They didn't know each other. They just lived on the same street, essentially, and they had seen each other, but they didn't have

a relationship. They weren't friendly necessarily. They weren't enemies. You know, they just didn't know each other like many of us with our neighbors. But his behavior on the day of the murder was nothing short of suspicious. On the afternoon of October 15th, Scott's girlfriend Jenna remembers him reciting a rhyme about Lizzie Borden, the axe murderer, or the alleged axe murderer, and apparently adding that, if you wanted to kill someone, you should shoot them, but that if you wanted to cause them pain, you should bludgeon them

36 or 39 times. Jenna said that she couldn't remember the exact number, but believes that it was either 36 or 39, hence why Pamela is believed to have been struck so many times. That day, Esther apparently called Scott and told him that someone had been murdered and he should stay away from the house for a while

to avoid the hassle of the investigation, which I think is really bizarre. Like the hassle of it, what do you mean? Yeah, like what does that even mean? It makes me wonder if she was afraid that her son was going to be questioned in some way. Maybe she knew something, maybe she had suspected something herself,

and she didn't want him to be standing in front of the police. Yeah, I definitely think so. I think it's, and as we're going to talk about, she actually did obstruct justice in this case and tried to help her son out. Yeah, so wouldn't be surprising if she did that here as well. Now, the credit card connection seemed like a kind of odd coincidence, and investigators and neighbors alike began to suspect Scott of possibly being involved, especially since his housemates recall him

coming home from what he said was just a walk the same morning as Pamela's death. Obviously, people are allowed to go on walks. If he did go on a walk and somebody else murdered her, that would be fine, but people are kind of taking note of all these things Yeah, but what you're about to talk about is exactly where the suspicion comes in. Well exactly because After the crime the family he lived with also noted that he arrived home with cuts on his face and a swollen hand and wrist He claimed that they came from having fallen while on a hike by himself

that morning and he actually told multiple people this story including his mom Esther and his girlfriend Jenna. So he's not going around telling different stories. He is sticking to one story which is weirdly rare. You know a lot of people decide to say different things but yeah he's saying these cuts on his face and a swollen hand and wrist, which are very common in a fight, were not from that and instead from a hike. Well, a few days after the murder, Esther went into Scott's room to rifle through his things. She spotted pieces of paper with various credit card numbers and names, including the names of Karen Schneider and the other neighbor who claimed that Scott had stolen from him.

There were also gloves and a journal that she believed may have incriminated him, all of which she threw in the fire. INSANE. She also reportedly told him that she believed his room may be searched, and to clear out any damning evidence. So it's like, she kinda is like, I kinda feel like my son did this, you know? Yeah, and like, let me try to help him instead of, I don't know, do the right thing. Right, well Scott piled a few things into a backpack and gave it to Jenna for safekeeping.

Esther later testified, quote, on second thought, I think I was wrong about that. Uh, yeah. Uh, hello? Well, she swears however that she was just trying to paper over the credit card fraud, worried that her son's involvement was going to get him kicked out of the house, and that she had not seen any evidence that indicated that her son was involved in the murder of Pamela. But with the other housemates growing suspicious of him, and the glaring credit card fraud that seemed to be linked to him as well, Scott was already on the detective's radar. Within a few days, Scott's home was searched and they removed three computers, a duffel

bag and knives. They also noted that he owned multiple books on serial killers and the psychology behind them, which I'm sure a lot of us do as well, but in this context, it was just looked at very differently. Also among the items taken from the home were his artwork, drawings depicted in black, white, and red with knives, syringes, blood, murders, and even a swastika. One drawing contained the words quote, guns don't kill people, I kill people.

Another depicted people along with the words quote, before Manson, before Bundy, there was Gein, and he's referring to the serial killer Ed Gein. On Tuesday, October 18th, 2005, Scott told both Jenna and his friend Robin that he was going to admit to the credit card fraud to clear Robin from potential involvement. He also expressed fear that he would be suspected of involvement in the murder, wondering what the police would think if his DNA was found on Pamela's body. Which, why would it be there, Scott? If you didn't do it, why would it be there? Well, multiple people, including Jenna, Robin, and the Curial family,

recall Scott telling them that his DNA may be on the body because he and Pamela crossed paths on the morning of the murder and she quote, scratched him. How the hell does that happen? Why would she scratch you, bud? Yeah, right? Well, on Thursday, October 20th, 2005, so five days after Pamela's murder, Scott was arrested at the home of a friend in Walnut Creek. He was just one week away from turning 17.

I just think it's so weird that he said that. That he said, oh well I saw her that morning and she scratched me so I'm worried that they're going to find my DNA on her body and think that I murdered her. Right. It's just, it's weird that you're, it's like he's trying to let people know that there's an excuse for his DNA being on her body before they find it. Right, right. Yeah, it's like at first when nobody was talking to him, nobody was searching his house, he's saying, oh, I fell during a hike, that's how I got these scratches on my face and my hand and my wrist and whatever.

And now that the walls are kind of closing in, he's like, oh shit, I kind of need to come up with something because they're going to find DNA. Yeah, like, DNA yeah like oh by the way well she did scratch me so in case my DNA comes up that's why haha like yeah it's like you're already trying to plant a seed yeah but I just how did how did she scratch you like it didn't happen it didn't happen on the walk if she scratched you it's because you were in her house, according to me. So investigators believe that Scott walked in brazenly through the front door in what

was initially supposed to be a robbery looking for seed money for his marijuana growing company. But when Pamela apprehended him in the midst of the robbery, Scott panicked and changed course. He then struck her with the first blunt object he could find, that piece of molding, and he got carried away or intentionally hit her that many times to fulfill his desire to murder. Yeah we've already talked about this how he has this fashion fascination with organs and murder So is it possible that you know this was kind of just and this is something we're also going to talk about later So I guess I'll just put a pin in it for now

Well, it's hard for me Just the whole carried away thing like you hit her over the head And then you got carried away and just got lost in it and did it almost 40 times and then did all those other Horrific things because you just got lost in it and did it almost 40 times and then did all those other horrific things because you just got lost in it. No. Yeah, it's not like you, it doesn't feel like you're just trying to get away from the scene, you know?

It was brutal. It was very, very brutal. And to me, this just proves that he wasn't trying to defend himself or get her off of him for illegally going onto her property, going into her home, but instead that he wanted to commit all these specific acts of violence. While his mother Esther was also charged, like Heath mentioned earlier, with obstructing justice by helping him dispose of evidence, but these charges were dropped when she agreed

to work with police. When police talked to Scott, they noted that his face and body were covered in scratches that looked like they were from Pamela in an attempt to fend him off. And due to the heinous nature of the crime, Scott was charged with murder and burglary and tried as an adult.

His defense lawyer, a public defender named Ellen Leonida, called the trial a witch hunt and claimed that this was all because people didn't understand his lifestyle and admonished his black clothing. So she is acting like there's no other reasons to think that he's guilty other than the fact that he's goth. Right. When Jenna was put on the stand she admitted that while Scott didn't tell her that he had done it, he also wouldn't tell her that he hadn't done it. So he wasn't denying it, even though if you didn't do it and somebody says, did you kill her? You'd be like, no. The only answer is no. There's no other answer.

Jenna also admitted that they had experimented with pain and sadomasochism in their sex life, which doesn't make someone a murderer or interested in hurting people without consent, of course. admitted that they had experimented with pain and sadomasochism in their sex life, which doesn't make someone a murderer or interested in hurting people without consent of course, but it's all part of the context of who Scott really is. She also said that they joked about killing children and examining organs outside of someone's body, but that they were just hypothetical scenarios and that she didn't think that he would ever act on those impulses. Imagine having like a funny, ingest conversation about killing children.

Weird. Well, Ellen described her client as a loving, gentle person who had the utmost respect for life and cared for animals and people alike. A parade of witnesses who knew Scott preached his sob story and attempted to portray him as a victim. Scott's former stepmother, Lynn Daleski, said that she blamed Scott's dad, Kenneth, for being an absentee father. His mom, Esther, also testified, but none of them were able to offer any evidence to the contrary that Scott had murdered Pamela. But here's the kicker.

Pamela's blood was found on some of Scott's belongings, including the ski mask that he was believed to have been wearing as he carried out the crime. So how can they explain this one away? His DNA was also found on her foot, including under her toenail. So there's his DNA found on two different parts of her body and her DNA, her blood is found on his clothing, the ski mask that they found in his home. So it goes both ways. This isn't just she had a little bit of your DNA under her fingernail because she scratched you on a, on your walk that

morning. This is far beyond that. Absolutely. Yeah. DNA evidence does not lie. So Pamela's husband, Daniel, said proudly, quote, she eventually took from him by kicking a little DNA that helped convict him. If she hadn't fought the way she fought, if she had just gone down or whimpered or cried, he would have gotten away with it.

What I say to people is that she convicted him. Because she fought, she ended up getting him." Shoe prints found at the scene also matched a pair of shoes found in Scott's home, and when it became clear that her client was not going to see Freedom anytime soon, Ellen urged the judge to sentence Scott to 25 years to life, which would give him the opportunity for parole after 25 years. She claimed that quote, at this point in his life, it's not right and it's not just. There's more to this kid than the worst thing that he's ever done.

But Judge Barbara Zuniga disagreed. She addressed Scott by saying, quote, Sir, you do not deserve to live among decent people. You, sir, inflicted terrible pain on this family. This was a very deliberate, planned murder, and you concealed your identity by wearing a mask, gloves, and a long coat. This was a very brutal murder. This was not an easy death for Miss Vitale." And also, yeah, just piggybacking on this, the fact that she is saying, you know, this was a deliberate planned murder. I want to go back from what we were saying before about how police suspected that it might have been a robbery gone wrong and then he decided to just kind of murder her brutally. I personally don't agree with that. Just knowing again what he did to her. It's not like he incapacitated

her or he had a gun on her and he shot her. He did a lot of things to her. He took his time. He took his time afterwards. He wasn't scared and ran out of the house. He drank a glass of water. He took a shower. He washed his clothes. He wasn't in a hurry. He wasn't trying to run into her house and take something and leave. So I am more of the belief that he went in there to kill her. Well, to kind of piggyback on that, the judge also noted that when Pamela's autopsy photos were projected for the court, she said, quote, I saw you lean forward and your mouth fell open. You were absolutely fascinated by your

handiwork, the scene of horror that you created for this family. So it's like, yeah, I mean, it's crazy that he was so fascinated when they show these autopsy photos in court and was like, wow, look what I did. That's so amazing, you know? Well, a lot of people also who are inside the courtroom noticed that he lacked emotion throughout the trial. You know, we talk about this all the time and we always say that as well, that people react differently to things. Not everybody is going to show emotions or get upset in a time when other people think they should be upset,

but he just didn't seem remorseful or even upset that he was being pinned for a crime that he didn't commit. Yeah, the word that the judge used was fascinated. Yes, exactly. So Daniel himself told Scott that in all his years of defending convicted criminals, he never had a client who, quote, ever took such pleasure in the actual act of killing.

When he beat her again and again, he took pleasure in killing. He enjoyed it." At the trial, Pamela's children gave victim impact statements directed at a seemingly unaffected Scott. Her son Mario started by saying that the two of them actually had so much in common. They were both artists and had a flair for industrial music. But then he said, quote, You got lost. You're only a murderer with no one to blame but yourself. He took a gamble and lost, and now he wants leniency?

He wants mercy? The bottom line is you messed up. You made your bed and you're going to have to lie in it. His sister, Marisa, told Scott, quote, You didn't just kill my mom, you killed a huge piece of all of us as well. In 2006, Scott Dalesky was found guilty on all charges. In 2009, his case was reevaluated,

but his conviction was upheld, though he has continued to maintain his innocence, like many killers do. But some people actually point the finger at Daniel Horowitz, but there isn't any forensic evidence to support this claim. There's also people that believe that, you know, Scott didn't act alone and that Robin or maybe his girlfriend Jenna were involved as well. But again, there is no evidence to prove this

Yeah, actually when I looked up Scott's name there was like a petition for kind of like an innocence project for him but it's really hard to To disagree with the outcome of this case when his DNA was was found, you know, like yeah, it's like Maybe there maybe you guys should just chill out on that. I don't know. Some people think that, you know, the fact that he was up against this high-powered lawyer, you know, Daniel, Pamela's husband, made things kind of difficult that Daniel kind of pushed, that Scott did it. You know, he told Nancy Grace, as we know, that he always suspected one of his neighbors, but that's not what he initially told the police. A lot of people think that the DNA evidence that they found was suspicious, but there's no real reason they say that. As far as we know,

everything that was presented in the trial was real, and there are no other suspects in this case. I think when there aren't other suspects and when someone is kind of spearheaded in a case like this and when things happen this fast, a lot of people speculate whether or not it's accurate, especially in this case with the fact that he was goth and apparently worshiped Satan. Absolutely.

Many point out the kind of fanciful and dramatic headlines that hit the papers about it and feel like that's the only reason that Scott was convicted and is still in prison to this day. But like I said, without other suspects coming forward or proof, you know, that the DNA evidence found on her body was somehow faked, Scott was found guilty of Pamela's murder in a court of law. Yeah, you have to take away all of those things.

You have to take away the goth aspect. You have to take away his fascination with anatomy even. You have to take away all of those things and focus on the things that matter in this case, which is the pure DNA, the DNA of Scott's that was found underneath Pamela's toenail. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, what's found at the scene of the crime. Yeah, her blood on the ski mask, like, let's be real here, people.

Yeah, I'm always interested to see people discuss Innocence Project type things, and it's so disturbing, I think, for any of us to imagine that somebody could be behind bars who didn't commit a crime, especially somebody as young as Scott. Sure. At 17 years old, he was sent to prison for 25 years to life. So it's definitely disturbing. But like I said, yeah, at this point in time, there's no evidence to prove or to show any other conclusion.

Absolutely. Well, in 2018, Scott's sentence was reduced to 25 years to life after a bill was passed in California Giving reduced sentences to juveniles tried as adults meaning that he will be eligible for parole in 2030 Pamela will be remembered for the incredible person that she was by all those who loved her Regarding the building of what was supposed to be their dream house, Daniel claimed that he just couldn't bear to be there without Pamela. He said quote, I'm never going back there again. It's the most beautiful place alive, but all I see is her face. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.

What a crazy story, just all the true crime elements that were involved in this case. It's such a sad one. I mean, there is no reason for anybody ever to murder somebody, but knowing that Scott and Pamela didn't know each other and that this really was so senseless and random is somehow a little bit more devastating that she was just minding her business. She was such a wonderful person and he just chose her. I wanted to mention this before that some people think, or there are like theories that Scott believed that he was going into the house of Karen Schneider.

Right, right, yeah. I can't believe we didn't mention this before. I'm so sorry guys, but yeah, some people think that he meant to go into Karen's house because she killed his dog. And you know, she was the one who outed him for him stealing her credit card information yeah and that he wanted to kind of get

back at her and take revenge on her and instead he found Pamela yeah maybe he just went into the wrong residence I guess yeah I think that would make more sense otherwise it really is so weird to me to think you know why Pamela but also if if Karen was backing out of her driveway and hit the dog jazz wouldn't he know he would he would know which house She lived in I yeah, that's a good point kind of strange, but yeah I mean really really devastating all around but if you want to see pictures from this case We're gonna post those on our socials. We're on Instagram at going west podcast. We're also on Facebook We have a discussion group, and then we just have a regular going west true crime page

Yes, and again big thanks to Madison for recommending this case if you guys have case suggestions We have such a long list. I can't remember when Madison recommended this one But sometimes it takes us a while to get to but please still send them in we're always accepting cases to, but please still send them in. We're always accepting cases. Email us goingwestpodcast at gmail.com and we try to reply to everybody, but if we don't thank you so much for sending it in anyway, it is always appreciated. Well, with that, we will see you guys on Tuesday. So for everybody out there in the world, Don't be a stranger. Thanks for watching!