Murder suspect described as bright, drifter:
Usually, in cases of violent crimes involving teenagers, I usually ask where were the parents. In the case of Scott Dyleski killing Pamela Vitale, we now know the answer…
The crowded home, shared by three families and recently, invaded by mice, is just down the one-lane rural road from the modular home where Vitale lived with her star-attorney husband, Daniel Horowitz, next to the palatial house they have been building.
Dyleski and his mother moved from Sebastopol to the Lafayette hills about six years ago and set up a lean-to on her friends’ property.
Dyleski slept on a thin mattress on pallets through his middle school years, until the landowners, Kim and Fred Curiel, built a house using ecological materials in 2002 and they all moved inside, Marcus said.
A family friend said the family is very tolerant and gave Dyleski space.
“They wanted to give him that freedom,” he said.
The words “hippy commune” leap immediately to mind.
16-year-olds shouldn’t have unlimited “freedom” as they say. It doesn’t matter how smart the kid may be. 16-year-olds need boundaries and guidance. It seems like to me that Dyleski was allowed to roam free without any fear of parental reprisal. Sounds like another case of the parent wanting to be a friend rather than a parent.
Yesterday I wondered how Dyleski went from a relatively normal kid to the dark and foreboding figure he has become…
Friends said Dyleski started to change about the time his father’s daughter, Denika Dyleski, and a 19-year-old boy were killed in a car crash while driving on Ygnacio Valley Road. A 17-year-old friend was driving too fast and flipped the car on a curve, hitting two other vehicles.
After that Dyleski started wearing dark clothing, entered a gothic, Marilyn Manson phase and stopped talking openly, Marcus said.
Why is it when anything “goth” makes the headlines, the media automatically points to Marilyn Manson? While I’m no fan of Manson, he’s not goth his music is considered industrial, but I digress.
It’s obvious he was suffering from depression. Was any professional help sought out or did the commune try some new age approach considering Dyleski’s mom is “a long-distance healer who believes that DNA strands can be activated to alleviate disease”, whatever that means.
And as usual, a recurring theme rears its ugly head…
Everyone seems to agree that Scott stood out, and got picked on for being different.
And why, you might ask?
Some students said Thursday they had long considered him “weird” or “creepy,” and not only for the black trench coat he wore nearly every day.
One remembers him coming to school one day in full face paint, dressed up as a sort of gothic clown with a top hat. The student also mentioned his dark personality, evidenced by charcoal drawings of “people with their mouths sewn shut and eyes with nails through them dripping blood.”
I’m all for the idea of individual expression, but when you stick out so much you’re bound to invite trouble from the more ignorant parts of society.
What’s my point? My point is this. All the things I’ve mentioned above will be used as a defense when Scott Dyleski comes to trial. All these things will be used as an excuse. I’ll even go as far as to predict that there will be people who support him just because he’s different. None of that excuses what he did.
Ultimately, Scott Dyleski is responsible for his own actions and hopefully, a California jury will realize that.
