As his bank he was earning 4% interest on his 400,000. why would someone who had committed a murder, a murder for hire, keep detailed records that would essentially prove their own involvement and that of the person they hired? two reasons, i think one if your ego is that big. if you think you will not get caught you are too smart to get caught. and to, your saving it as evidence or as a threat something to hold over your coconspirators. in case she stops thing? yes. ron young was sentenced to ten months in federal prison on gun possession charges. the fraud charges were eventually dismissed. detectives still did not have enough to charge ron young with gary triano s murder. but they did have enough to turn up the heat on pam. we went up to aspen and filed for a search warrant and also let me search her house. but in her home, they didn t find anything related to ron
well detective james gamber and keith st. john were there when the call came into the sherrif s department at tucson. it certainly got investigators attention, especially when they learned more about what was found in that van. there was a map of tucson and handwritten notes with the names and types of cars driven by some of gary triano s business associates, family and friends, including his niece melissa and one time girlfriend taylor. and there was more. and then we found a receipt for a hotel here in tucson, where ron young stayed in the hotel, for 18 days, during the summer of 1996. which would be, what, a few months before gary triano was killed? yeah. and what was interesting about his choice of hotels, it was geographically almost halfway between where gary triano lived and the la paloma country club. where he played golf every day? yes. and even more suspicious, ron young stayed under a phony name. the name of one of the people he was accused of defrauding in aspen. but that was well before the murder.
but detective james gamber s investigation showed that pam was in aspen, not tucson, on the day of the murder. and pam the socialite certainly seemed more bombshell then bomb maker. and i m guessing pam phillips is probably not someone you thought was thinking around building a pipe bomb? no. detective james gamber and his team seemed to be had another dead end, until an alert detective 800 miles away happened to catch a news report about the bombing. and some bells went off. coming up . i found a note in the car, buy toothpaste, and down a little further was saw off shotgun. what could that have to do with the murder of gary triano? when dateline continues. i was always so itchy especially when i was hot.
From pam. payments that were made carefully and surreptitiously using a cryptic code that the two had devised. i m really happy that you are 1. 6 six tax free. he talked about you ve got your 1. 6 i got my four, which adds up to 2 million, adds up to the insurance payment. there is nothing on those tapes which says, ron young says, you hired me for this money to bomb your husband s car. it s not said directly. but when you piece the conversations together, that is said. i helped you on something that was beyond what anybody else in the world would do. perhaps the most damning piece of evidence? would you sit in a women s prison for murdering? would you sit in a women s prisons for murder? i m going to hang up. as far as i know, the only murder in pam phillips life was the murder of gary triano.
By car bomb had set the tucson rumor mill on overdrive. but according to local nbc reporter lupita murillo, an awful lot of fingers were pointed in the same direction. within 24 hours after the dust settled, the word that i was getting was that it was his former wife. and it was because of this insurance policy. pam phillips, gary s ex was someone that investigators wanted to talk with, especially afterward came from aspen that pam had been connected in some way to a fugitive on the run from fraud charges named ron young. nine days after the murder, investigators got their chance. pam phillips voluntarily came in for questioning.
Now each side had one last chance. the defense insisted that investigators had blinders on when they went after pam phillips, carelessly ignoring other possible leaves like neil who had openly wished gary triano dead. there is plenty of proof that we have summoned that there is a reasonable doubt. the state went after the easy the woman who got a 2 million dollar insurance policy, and the guy that was extorting her. but, said the prosecutor, the idea that any one else was responsible for this murder, other than pam and her coconspirator ron young was just pure fantasy. it makes for a good story that neil did must have been him. it makes for a good story that he has a friend who does model airplanes and has
what was it like you for you that she would have been your stepmother, and your friend. a very good friend. that she was implicated? i wanted to throw up. in november of 2007, 11 years after the murder, heather and brian along with gary s youngest daughter elliott, filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against pam phillips, and ron young. elliott s mother, robin. it was not to recover money? the idea was to serve subpoenas, and maybe get the investigation going? it had came to just a slow halt. and it just seemed as if it was as cold as cold could be. so the children got together, and as you said, not for revenue. but to simply get the ball rolling. despite all the evidence investigators had uncovered in ron young s possession. prosecutors in tucson, still didn t feel there was enough to
By now, she was beginning to understand more about how her father died, and who might have done it, and why. when you heard that pam was accused of having your father murdered for 2 million dollar insurance policy, what did you think? i don t know what it is like to live the kind of life that she was living, but i know what it is like to grow up without having my dad around, my biological dad. pamela ann phillips, this is your rain, those are your charges. pam phillips pleaded not guilty to murder and charges to commit murder assigned to prosecute the case. she married gary for his money, we believe, she divorced him for the same reason, he was
Catching ron young wasn t what he said in that interview, was it? no. the big advantage to catching ron young is, he collected all our evidence for us. inside ron young s apartment in storage locker, investigators found a computer with emails, fedex receipts from aspen and a stash of audiotaped that young had apparently recorded in secrets in the years following the murder. conversations with none other than pam phillips. the computer and the tapes turned out to be the gold mine. investigators began to play tape after tape. looking for anything that would shed light on the investigation. and on those tapes, they heard ron young threatening pam. there s just plenty of stuff that i could literally dig out of the ground. and you re a fried duck. and mysterious conversations about banks in money. i can t deal with this. i can t. i d rather die. then what? then sit here and deal with
Charge either ron young or pam phillips with murder. why do you think prosecutors didn t want to bring a case? i don t know if there was an official reason, or if it was a reluctance on just the sheer size of the case. how big this case was, would it be a career ender case? so. no one ever gave me a solid answer. frustrating? a little bit yes. but the civil suit change things. prosecutors decided, it was time to move. you think the wrongful death suit is sort of what guilted prosecutors into going forward? or it showed them how valid the case was. nearly one year after the civil suit was filed in october, 2008. ron young who was out of prison for serving ten less on gun charges, was re-arrested in california. this time, for the murder of gary triano. it ron young was flown back to tucson, lupita murillo is one of the people who like to greet visitors at the airport. good to be back in tucson,