American homicide perpetrator who, at age 17, was convicted of killing the wife of a neighbor, attorney Daniel Horowitz. A former Boy Scout, Dyleski attacked Pamela Vitale on October 15, 2005, as she sat at her computer in her Lafayette, CA home. They engaged in a violent struggle in which he bludgeoned her to her death at around 10:15 AM local time.
The gruesome details of the murder revealed that Vitale’s head had been smashed several times. A symbol or letter was carved into her back with a knife and another deep abdominal stab wound exposed her intestines. Investigators surmised that her death was a case of mistaken identity. Dyleski had presumably meant to kill another neighbor who had discovered that he had stolen credit card information to finance lights with which to grow marijuana plants. That same neighbor had mistakenly run over Dyleski’s dog on September 30, 2005, just 15 days prior to the murder of Pamela Vitale. Investigators found a “to-do” list used as evidence that the murder was pre-meditated. Dyleski’s mother was charged with destroying evidence when it was found that she burned some of his papers and other artifacts, but charges against her were dropped when she agreed to cooperate with law enforcement officials.
Dyleski’s parents divorced when he was five, and his mom says she gave up her professional career so that she could spend more time with him. He was considered a quiet and sensitive child who cared deeply about animals, eating no meat and wearing no leather. But the young boy, described as “joyful” by one witness, was terribly shaken by the August 2002 car-crash death of his sister and, somewhere between 7th and 8th grade, he morphed into a sullen and brooding teen. He developed a fascination with symbols and an interest in Goth culture and regalia, dying his hair black and wearing dark clothing. On school assignments he sometimes expressed such horrific sentiments as “You raised me to hate, and hate I will, because now I live, live for the kill.”
Dyleski was tried as an adult and was convicted of first-degree murder and burglary on August 28, 2006 in Martinez, CA. His sentence will be handed down in late September.
Link to Wikipedia biography