Tearful Testimony By Mother Of Scott Dyleski:
Scott Dykeski’s mother, Esther Fielding, testified this past Thursday in her son’s murder trial. Dyleski is accused of killing Pam Vitale, the wife of noted criminal defense attorney Daniel Horowitz…
Fielding acknowledged warning her son that his room was about to be searched by other members of the household and she also said she later destroyed some of his things, including a box of gloves and pieces of paper bearing credit card numbers and other information. Experts have testified Vitale’s attacker wore gloves.
However, Fielding said repeatedly she only worried her son was involved in a credit card scam and did not connect him to the murder of Vitale, their neighbor in the San Francisco suburb of Lafayette.
Prosecutor Harold Jewett challenged that explanation, noting that Dyleski had acknowledged the credit card fraud some days before Fielding burned the items.
“I didn’t think it out clearly,” Fielding replied. “I just panicked.”
Later, Fielding decided to turn in the things she hadn’t destroyed, giving investigators a computer hard drive and a pair of shoes among other things. According to testimony at a preliminary hearing on the case, investigators found the shoe print appeared to match a partial bloody footprint near Vitale’s body.
The defense appeared to address the inconsistencies pointed out by Jewett in Fielding’s testimony Wednesday.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Ellen Leonida, Fielding said she takes medication to fight memory loss and hadn’t taken it Wednesday.
Not having the medication, “makes things a little foggier,” Fielding said.
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