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Teen neighbor arrested in slaying
Oakland Tribune, Oct 21, 2005 by Jason Dearen
The tall, thin 16-year-old boy often dressed in black.
At Acalanes High School last year, he hung out in a back hallway with what students called the outcasts, Goths, punks and nerds. His yearbook photo shows a stringy-haired teen in dark eyeliner.
In the rugged Lafayette canyon, where multimillion-dollar houses are perched next to double-wide trailers, one neighbor called the boy "weird."
On Thursday, the boy was arrested as the lead suspect in an ongoing homicide investigation into the slaying of Pamela Vitale -- wife of well-known attorney and legal pundit Daniel Horowitz.
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Because the teen is a juvenile, authorities would not release his name -- unless he's ultimately charged as an adult for the crime. But media reports identified the boy as Scott Dyleski, who lived in a house about a mile down the hill from the under-construction estate where Vitale and Horowitz lived.
It was a twist no one saw coming in the sensational murder mystery.
Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee announced the arrest Thursday morning, saying only a 16-year-old Lafayette boy was in custody and booked into juvenile hall.
Lee said investigators were still trying to establish a motive and conducting interviews. Two search warrants were issued in the case, one in Lafayette and another in Walnut Creek.
Dyleski's house sits above Hunsaker Canyon Road with a large pile of clothes heaped on the porch. In the yard, two goats were leashed to a pole next to chickens in a coop. Baseballs, bicycles and an old sink were scattered around.
Neighbors and acquaintances said more than one family lived in the house with Dyleski and his mother, Ester Fielding.
One neighbor, who didn't want her name used, said two local residentsrecently had credit card information stolen, with charges to Fielding's name. The neighbor said she went to police on Sunday with the information.
Early Thursday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Dyleski had allegedly stolen credit card information from mailboxes in the area to purchase strong lights and other equipment used to grow marijuana and shipped the items to Horowitz and Vitale's address.
Horowitz found his wife's body about 6 p.m. Saturday after returning from his office in Oakland where he was working with staff on the Susan Polk murder trial. Polk is charged with the 2002 murder of her husband, although she claims she acted in self-defense.
A judge declared a mistrial Monday in the wake of Vitale's death.
As of Wednesday night, authorities said they had ruled out no suspects, including Horowitz.
Horowitz has said he arrived home Saturday to find blood streaks on the door and his wife, clad in underwear and a
T-shirt, dead on the floor of their temporary home on the property.
She died from a blow to the head.
Authorities declined to provide any details about the teenager or how he was linked to the case.
As news of the arrest spread Thursday, Horowitz attended a private ceremony for his wife at Oakmont Memorial Park in Lafayette.
One senior girl at Acalanes High School, where Dyleski is no longer a student, said Thursday that she remembered him as a boy "who liked to stay out of everyone's way."
But Brendan Lehman said he'd known Dyleski since the fourth grade.
"People think he's strange," 16-year-old Lehman said, adding that was just stereotyping. "He's a very intelligent, logical person."
He didn't act weird, and his appearance didn't reflect the cool, funny guy Lehman said he knew.
"I don't think he'd do it," Lehman said of the killing. "I think it's a really ugly coincidence."
Then he paused.
"I could be wrong," he said.
Neighbor Dan Jegers said Dyleski had changed noticeably in appearance since turning 16 last Oct. 30.
School pictures show the transformation from a smiling, fresh- faced freshman to a glaring sophomore with hair covering half of his face -- not an uncommon example of teenage angst.
But Dyleski had tragedy in his past.
His sister, Denika Dyleski, five years older than Scott, was killed in an August 2002 car accident in Lafayette. They shared the same father, Kenneth Dyleski.
Scott Dyleski's mother was a registered owner of Cafe Esperanza in Lafayette, although the business address is now that of another cafe with different owners.
An Internet site, registered to Fielding, says she does "DNA Activation, Gene Replacement, Core Belief Work ... powerful tools for healing the physical body, the mind and the soul."
The man who sold the property to Fielding's co-tenants, Peter Jegers, said he's never heard complaints and said they were "basically very quiet" neighbors.
"They're the type of people you find in a rural area like this," he added. "They have chickens and they have goats."
Staff writers Michele R. Marcucci, Josh Richman and Matt Carter contributed to this report.
Contact Jason Dearen at jdearen
@angnewspapers.com and Jill Tucker at jtucker@angnewspapers.com.
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