TUCSON, Ariz. — A former Aspen socialite was found guilty Tuesday in the 1996 Tucson car bomb killing of her ex-husband.
Pamela Phillips, 56, who spent years abroad living a lavish lifestyle across Europe after fleeing Aspen in 2008, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
The jury deliberated for less than three days. She faces 25 years to life in prison at her May 22 sentencing hearing.
Immediately after the verdict, Phillips shook her head and looked directly into a news camera, reported KGUN9-TV, a Tucson news station. Her attorneys said they will appeal, the station reported.
During the trial that began in February, Phillips’ lawyers told jurors their client had nothing to gain from the death of businessman Gary Triano and that she was the victim of overzealous authorities who failed to follow other leads. They said Phillips was already a successful real estate broker in Aspen with her own money, and suggested that Triano had numerous other enemies.
But prosecutors described Phillips as a gold digger who hired a former boyfriend, Ronald Young, to kill Triano to collect on a $2 million life insurance policy in order to maintain her extravagant taste for the good life.
Local private investigator Jim Crowley was a detective with the Aspen Police Department when he investigated Young in a fraud case in the mid-1990s. He testified in Phillips’ trial on March 3 about items he recovered from a van in California that Young had rented.
The evidence tied Young, who is serving two life sentences, to Phillips and, later, the murder of Triano, Crowley said Tuesday.
“It turned out the way I thought it would,” he said of the verdict.
Crowley, who also testified at Young’s trial, began investigating him in 1996, after Phillips told police that he stole money from her astrology venture, starbabies.com.
“Then she stopped talking,” Crowley said.
This was before the murder, he said.
But when a pipe bomb killed Triano outside a Tucson country club on Nov. 1, 1996, the evidence that Crowley has retrieved from the van just a few months prior would prove crucial.
Crowley said the items included a map of Tucson, divorce papers of Phillips and Triano, starbabies.com documents, a sawed-off shotgun, a Taser and a receipt for a plane ticket for Phillips from Aspen to Denver.
To pay for the ticket, Young used an American Express credit card that was in the name of part-time Snowmass Village resident Phillip Desmond, who also testified during Phillips’ trial, Crowley said. In August 1996, an arrest warrant for fraud was issued for Young, who skipped town.
“Once the bombing happened, it was in the paper up here, and I called down to Tucson and said, ‘I have someone you might want to look at,’” he recalled.
Investigators from the Pima County Sheriff’s Office were in Aspen within 48 hours.
After a segment on “America’s Most Wanted,” Young was arrested in Florida for Triano’s death in 2005.
After fleeing the country in 2008, Phillips apparently lived in Switzerland,
using the $2 million that she collected from Triano’s life insurance policy.
She was arrested in Austria in 2009 and extradited to Tucson. Her case was
delayed after a judge ruled she was mentally unfit to stand trial at the time.
The defense tried to convince jurors that Triano had plenty of other enemies with better motives to kill him.
“The state went after the easy marks,” defense attorney Paul Eckerstrom said during closing arguments. “You have to tell the state: ‘You made a mistake.’”
Prosecutors presented a portrait of a woman who grew accustomed to the high life and found herself struggling financially with an easy $2 million way out.
The state’s case against her hinged largely on the purported secret arrangement between Phillips and Young, who the defendant dated while working as a real estate broker in Aspen after she divorced Triano.
While Phillips claimed she had paid Young the $400,000 for assistance with business ventures and financial planning, prosecutors argued the money was clearly payment for the hit.
“He’s not getting paid for business advice that she never takes — he’s getting paid for murder,” prosecutor Rick Unklesbay said in closing arguments.
During the trial, in addition to witnesses, prosecutors used financial records and telephone conversations that Young secretly recorded during talks with Phillips. In one recording, Young appears to grow angry over not receiving his payments, telling Phillips, “You’re going to be in a woman’s prison for murder.”
Defense lawyers said the calls were merely the ramblings of a con man.
One prosecution witness, a longtime friend of Phillips, testified that Phillips once told her how easy it would be to hire someone to kill her husband.
The defense downplayed the testimony, noting Phillips was distraught at the time after having a fight with Triano during which he threatened her. Phillips’ lawyers also called into question the witness’ memory.
Triano was a developer who made millions investing in Indian bingo halls and slot-machine parlors in Arizona and California before Congress authorized tribes to open full-blown casinos. But after the real estate market declined and he lost control of his gambling interests, Triano went broke.
That’s around the time Phillips filed for divorce, prosecutors said.
The couple, who had two children together, separated, but Phillips remained the beneficiary of Triano’s insurance policy, paying the premiums herself.
She eventually moved to Aspen and met Young, and prosecutors said the two would later hatch a plan to kill Triano and collect on the policy.
After the killing, Young, on the run from the Aspen warrant, was receiving money for the hit — eventually adding up to $400,000 — from Phillips, prosecutors told jurors.
After his arrest, both Phillips and Young became the key suspects in the killing. Authorities say he kept detailed records of his financial transactions with Phillips, including recorded telephone conversations and invoices.
The defense tried to convince jurors that Triano had plenty of other enemies with better motives to kill him.
“The state went after the easy marks,” defense attorney Paul Eckerstrom said during closing arguments. “You have to tell the state: ‘You made a mistake.’”
Prosecutors presented a portrait of a woman who grew accustomed to the high life and found herself struggling financially with an easy $2 million way out.
The state’s case against her hinged largely on the purported secret arrangement between Phillips and Young, who the defendant dated while working as a real estate broker in Aspen after she divorced Triano.
While Phillips claimed she had paid Young the $400,000 for assistance with business ventures and financial planning, prosecutors argued the money was clearly payment for the hit.
“He’s not getting paid for business advice that she never takes — he’s getting paid for murder,” prosecutor Rick Unklesbay said in closing arguments.
During the trial, in addition to witnesses, prosecutors used financial records and telephone conversations that Young secretly recorded during talks with Phillips. In one recording, Young appears to grow angry over not receiving his payments, telling Phillips, “You’re going to be in a woman’s prison for murder.”
Defense lawyers said the calls were merely the ramblings of a con man.
One prosecution witness, a longtime friend of Phillips, testified that Phillips once told her how easy it would be to hire someone to kill her husband.
The defense downplayed the testimony, noting Phillips was distraught at the time after having a fight with Triano during which he threatened her. Phillips’ lawyers also called into question the witness’ memory.
Triano was a developer who made millions investing in Indian bingo halls and slot-machine parlors in Arizona and California before Congress authorized tribes to open full-blown casinos. But after the real estate market declined and he lost control of his gambling interests, Triano went broke.
That’s around the time Phillips filed for divorce, prosecutors said.
The couple, who had two children together, separated, but Phillips remained the beneficiary of Triano’s insurance policy, paying the premiums herself.
She eventually moved to Aspen and met Young, and prosecutors said the two would later hatch a plan to kill Triano and collect on the policy.
After the killing, Young, on the run from the Aspen warrant, was receiving money for the hit — eventually adding up to $400,000 — from Phillips, prosecutors told jurors.
After his arrest, both Phillips and Young became the key suspects in the killing. Authorities say he kept detailed records of his financial transactions with Phillips, including recorded telephone conversations and invoices.
