CHAPTER 14

That night, Robert Bartron called the vault company and the gravediggers he’d already lined up and confirmed they would all meet the next morning at seven by the gate to Holy Name of Mary Cemetery. Worried that Peter O’Malley might appeal to the superior court to issue an injunction, Bartron was wasting no time.

On Saturday, April 29, 1995, the steel vault containing the casket of Martin Thomas Dillon was raised from the ground, loaded onto a truck, and taken to a secluded spot on Michael Giangrieco’s property, where Robert Bartron cracked it open with a chisel. The mahogany casket was then hoisted out and placed in a hearse for the two-hour drive to Lehigh University Medical Center in Allentown.

In the autopsy room later that morning, Dr. Isadore Mihalakis opened the casket. Those on hand to witness the procedure were Lieutenant Hacken; Troopers Stoud, Schultz and Schocin; Sergeant Weling; Coroner Bartron; Mihalakis’s autopsy assistant Lysek, and a university student on a pathology rotation.

There was an eerie silence as each person stared at the near perfectly formed body of Martin Dillon.

It’s almost viewable, Robert Bartron thought.

Indeed, interred in a dry, airtight seal, the body was in excellent condition.

Dr. Mihalakis removed the rosary beads still clasped in the hands and the wedding band inscribed PRK to MTD 8/31/68. The doctor handed the ring to Bartron for safekeeping.

For the next six hours, Dr. Mihalakis searched for answers. He measured the length of the arms and examined the type and size of the wound and its characteristics. He performed microscopic analysis of the skin at the impact area, looking for powder burns and gunpowder residue and their location on the body. By four o’clock Mihalakis was done, and the body was on its way back to Montrose.

All morning, as Peter O’Malley relaxed by his pool at home in Waverly, he’d been fighting an uneasy feeling. Finally, he gave up. He got dressed, thumbed through his files to find the name of the cemetery in Montrose, and drove half an hour north. He stopped in town and asked a passerby for directions to Holy Name of Mary Cemetery.

The attorney drove through the gate and began to circle the path. When he came to a pile of fresh dirt, he got out of his car, walked across the grass, and peered at the headstone next to a large cavity. Martin Thomas Dillon.

Peter O’Malley ran to his car and grabbed his cellular phone. He couldn’t get a signal in the hills of Montrose, so he sped down Route 11 until he got a stronger tone. He pulled over and called Dr. John Shane at home.

O’Malley told the doctor that the autopsy was taking place—at that very moment. “For God’s sake,” O’Malley practically shouted, “get over to that hospital as soon as you can.”

It was a few hours before Dr. Shane called him back. “I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said. “I got to the autopsy room and the place was clean as a whistle. No body, no nothing. I was looking for Mihalakis. I even tried to find his dinger.”

“Dinger?” O’Malley asked.

“Yeah, they’re the guys that clean up the slop,” Shane said bluntly. “Mihalakis has his own dinger. Even he wasn’t around.”

*   *   *

In the weeks that followed, Dr. Isadore Mihalakis conducted a multitude of tests and experiments. He also examined other evidence—the microscopic trace of Dillon’s blood on Scher’s hunting boots, the cut stump stained with blood, the clothing of both Dillon and Scher, the broken 16-gauge shotgun, the spent magnum-load cartridge, the photographs of the body at the scene and at the original autopsy the following day. He reviewed Scher’s statement to Collier, the report by Scales, and an earlier seventeen-page treatise by county-detective Frank Bayer, indicating discrepancies in Scher’s statement to Jock Collier. Mihalakis studied the FBI report on the blood spatter, indicating that the size of the droplets suggested that spatters were the by-product of high-velocity impact, and its pattern matched the shot in the 16-gauge shotgun. The doctor and state troopers experimented with a Winchester, identical in make and model to Scher’s, that Michael Giangrieco had in his own gun collection. They attempted to simulate the angle of the entry wound by dropping the gun and exploring an array of possible angles and theories.

In May, Dr. Mihalakis submitted his thirteen-page report to the state police and Coroner Bartron. He found that the shot entered to the left of the sternum and went downward through the heart and left lung. The hole was oval and measured about one and a half inches in length and one inch in width. Pellets were found in the rear of Dillon’s chest cavity.

Mihalakis determined that Martin Dillon could not have accidentally pulled the trigger if he had fallen over the 16-gauge shotgun. He would have hit the ground before the gun. There were no grass or dirt stains on his clothes or hands suggesting such a fall. It was also not possible that Dillon had snagged the weapon-trigger on a branch. Tests showed no gunpowder residue on the body, and the spread of pellet wounds suggested that the shot was fired from three to five feet away.

Mihalakis also concluded that investigators were unable to re-create dropping the weapon so that it discharged upon hitting the ground. The weight of the weapon would have caused the barrel to have pointed down had it been dropped.

In the end, Dr. Mihalakis found that evidence suggested Martin Dillon was crouched with his shirt billowing away from his chest when the magnum load passed right to left through his chest, destroying his heart. There were no burn marks on either clothing or skin, no marks a gun muzzle would have caused had the victim fallen on his weapon, no smoke deposits in the wound, and no blood on the gun barrel. The wound, Dr. Mihalakis found, also had scalloped edges, suggesting that the number 4 shot was beginning to spread from the plastic cartridge. That happens when the shotgun is at least several feet away.

If the gun barrel had been directly against Dillon’s chest, in a fall or suicide, the shirt would have been taut. But the shirt he wore had a rent caused by the shotgun load that was offset from the wound. The clues ruled out a wound caused by the gun barrel being in contact with the body.

In his report, Dr. Mihalakis wrote:

After review of the history and complete autopsy of the body of attorney Martin Dillon, death is attributed to a close range shotgun wound of the chest, not contact or near contact, and in this prosecutor’s personal opinion it is to be beyond one foot and most likely even beyond two feet but less than six feet. Since at that range it is beyond self-infliction, the manner of death is homicide.

For a few weeks after receiving the report, Robert Bartron put off announcing its results aware of the reaction it would engender. As time passed, however, reporters began calling every day. Finally, on Tuesday morning, June 20, 1995, the coroner issued a terse press release.

The Susquehanna County Coroner, Robert Bartron, has announced that the re-autopsy performed by Forensic Pathologist Dr. Isadore Mihalakis, from Allentown, has indicated in his opinion that the cause of death of Attorney Martin T. Dillon who died on June 2, 1976, in Silver Lake Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, was a gunshot wound to the chest. Dr. Mihalakis indicated in his report that the specific manner of death of Attorney Martin T. Dillon was homicide.

The Susquehanna County coroner will have no further comment this time as the investigation is ongoing. Any further question can be directed to Lt. Francis Hacken of the Pennsylvania State Police.

At last, the wheels were in motion.