CHAPTER 16

Within days of the coroner’s announcement, District Attorney Jeffrey Snyder requested that the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the homicide. In a letter to Attorney General Thomas Corbett Jr., Snyder explained that his term in office was nearly over and he did not have the resources to prosecute the case, nor did Susquehanna County have the money to pay for it. The district attorney also maintained that he had acted professionally in his examination of the facts. “I feel that I have given all of the circumstances of this case the utmost consideration, and I have refused and resisted the temptation to act prematurely on the matter,” he wrote.

Once the DA relinquished jurisdiction, Lieutenant Frank Hacken lobbied Corbett to get Robert Campolongo assigned to prosecute the case and was gratified when the attorney general agreed. A former assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, Robert Campolongo now worked in Norristown as senior deputy attorney general. The fifty-six-year-old had won more than 300 murder convictions in his career and worked extensively with Lieutenant Hacken on several of them. Brusque and rumpled in appearance, Campolongo was a fierce and unyielding prosecutor who had an erudite side—he was known to quote Shakespeare and proffer obscure metaphors in arguments to the jury. Divorced with one grown son, Campolongo was about to remarry Barbara Christie, chief counsel to the Pennsylvania State Police. From the moment he took on the prosecution of Stephen Scher, he immersed himself in the case.

Meanwhile, the police investigation continued. Under Hacken’s supervision, Troopers Schultz and Stoud canvassed Susquehanna County and beyond, interviewing dozens of witnesses. The troopers hunted through payroll information to locate names of staff members at Montrose General Hospital in the early to mid-1970s and carefully checked off a list Bonnie Mead culled of those who had information about Dr. Stephen Scher’s relationship with Marty and Pat Dillon.

From the start, Hacken reminded his men that their mission was to search for the truth, not to collect evidence to convict a suspect. It was a significant distinction for the lieutenant. Just thirty-four years old, Frank Hacken had come to understand an important credo of police investigations—the truth never changes. Maintaining an unbiased approach to an investigation, he taught his staff, was crucial to law enforcement.

“In the beginning you don’t have the total picture; you don’t know the importance of things upfront,” he told them. “You have to analyze, you have to keep an open mind. When you get tunnel vision, you may disregard something. You must first understand before you can be understood.”

*   *   *

Early in their investigation, the troopers paid a visit to Kendall Strawn. For the past ten years, Marty’s friend had been living on a 170-acre farm he’d purchased near Union Dale, about half an hour from Montrose, raising Percheron draft horses and beef cows. He was divorced now and lived with his girlfriend, Debbie Taylor, and two of her children. His daughter, Tami, whose adoption had been arranged by Stephen Scher and Pat Dillon, was twenty.

Kendall Strawn had heard in passing about attempts to get an investigation into Marty’s death started, but he was still surprised finally to get a call from the state police. He’d often thought about Marty as the years passed. Once, in the mid-1980s, he’d received a phone call from Pat’s brother, Robby Karveller, in Las Cruces, asking about the BMW he and Marty bought a few years before Marty’s death. Karveller explained that Michael Dillon was now competing in motorcycle tournaments and was interested in his father’s car.

Strawn confessed that the BMW was gone. He’d loaned it to a professional race car driver who took it to a competition a year or so after Marty died and never returned it. When he told Karveller he hadn’t seen the car or the driver since then, Kendall Strawn quickly sensed that Pat’s brother did not believe him.

“That seems funny,” Robby Karveller said, his voice suddenly icy.

Strawn tried to convince Karveller he was telling the truth, but he gave up after a few minutes, and the conversation ended abruptly. The developer hung up the phone, disturbed. He’d done very well financially over the years, and he would have loved to have given the car to Marty’s son as a gift. Kendall Strawn remembered Michael as a child, how Marty had been so proud of his boy.

Looking back, Strawn wished he’d tried to track down the car years ago. His life was so hectic at that time that he just never got around to looking into it. Kendall Strawn didn’t blame Karveller for doubting his explanation—he knew it sounded a bit odd that he’d given up so easily on something as expensive as a car. But, Strawn reasoned, that’s the way he was, and he couldn’t change the past. If Karveller and Michael Dillon didn’t believe him, there was nothing he could do about it.

In his meeting with the state police, Kendall Strawn struggled to recollect what he could about Marty, Pat, and Stephen Scher. He was fuzzy on dates—he couldn’t recall how often he’d cautioned Marty about Pat’s friendship with Dr. Scher, or exactly when he and Marty went to Florida for a race and Dr. Scher was coming to the Dillons’ to put Pat in traction. He did, however, clearly remember the undertones back then, and the mood. He could still see Pat’s face when he asked about her back problem as he and Marty were leaving, how nervously she’d answered, how obviously she was lying.

And Kendall Strawn had no trouble recounting in detail the night in the Dillons’ basement at 7 Kelly Street, at Marty’s thirtieth birthday party. Twenty years later, Strawn could still picture Stephen Scher’s face as Marty toasted the gathering, the utter malice in the doctor’s glare.

The troopers asked if he’d be willing to testify to that, and Kendall Strawn didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll be there,” he told them. “Just tell me when.”

Strawn wasn’t able to help the state police when they asked about the 12-gauge double-barreled Ithaca shotgun Marty had been using the day he died. It had been Strawn’s shotgun—he’d loaned it to Marty after the lawyer said he’d been thinking of buying one. Strawn vaguely recalled getting it back a few months after Marty’s death. The state police had given it to Marty’s dad, and Larry Dillon had called him to pick it up.

Kendall searched his gun collection and hunted through the attic and the barn. He even called his ex-wife and his eighty-four-year-old father to see if they remembered anything about it. He felt sheepish admitting he couldn’t find it, but the troopers told him not to worry—it wasn’t a pivotal piece of evidence.

*   *   *

The investigators met one by one with the doctors, nurses, and receptionists from Montrose General. They interviewed Rosalie Richards and Betty Williams and heard their nearly identical stories of walking in on Scher and Pat Dillon kissing and touching in the drug room. They listened to Sandra Jean Price as she related seeing Stephen Scher squeeze Pat Dillon’s breasts in a hospital corrider, and Elaine Henninger, who disclosed the couple’s penchant for going into room 13. They spoke with Dr. Bertsch and Dr. Bennett, both still practicing at Montrose General, and tracked down the former receptionist, Jo Ann Warner, now a married high school teacher and mother of two sons, who told them about all the times Scher gave Pat Dillon’s phone number when he was on call.

They talked to neighbors including Nancy Frey, who had lived next door to Pat and Marty, who told of seeing Scher at the house all the time, and Elaine Henninger, who lived on Ridge Road and watched as Scher’s car passed by practically every day. They interviewed Judith Vaccaro, who lived across the street from 7 Kelly Street and had seen Scher and Pat kissing in the driveway, and Judge Donald O’Malley, who had recused himself from hearing the Schers’ divorce because he, too, frequently saw the doctor’s car in the Dillon driveway. Investigators found the former paperboy, Dan Calby, who described waiting on the porch steps before a frazzled Pat Dillon hurried to the door.

The troopers spoke to those who’d been to Gunsmoke on June 2—Susan and Don Strope, the game protectors, and the state police. They interviewed Ed Little three times. The chagrined former district attorney confessed that he now realized he’d made a mistake, that if he had it to do over again he would have investigated the shooting. He tried to explain how he’d rationalized that it had been an accident. “I didn’t think a respectable doctor would do this when he was the only person there, nor add fuel to the fire by marrying the widow of the victim,” he said. “That’s how I analyzed it in my mind.”

Little also conceded that he couldn’t remember many details from the past. When the investigators asked him whether he’d coauthored a letter with Jock Collier to the county commissioners, suggesting that the case be investigated further, Little said he didn’t know. “If it comes down to what other people say and what I say, believe the other people,” he told the troopers.

In the fall of 1995, the state police went to Las Cruces and interviewed Pat’s mother, Laura Karveller, who quickly blamed the Dillons for this vendetta against her son-in-law. She told them that Larry and Jo Dillon never liked her daughter and snubbed her and her husband at the wedding because the Karvellers were foreigners. She said that at the graveside, she heard Larry Dillon vow revenge for his son’s death and that at the lunch following the burial the Dillons forced the Karvellers to move from the family table.

But Laura Karveller told the investigators something else—that she was in her daughter’s living room the night of June 2 and heard Dr. Scher’s explanation of what happened, how he and Marty had been inside the trailer and Marty had jumped up, grabbed a shotgun by the door, and run out.

Laura Karveller didn’t know it, but Stephen Scher gave a markedly different version of the events of June 2 to Trooper Hairston and Jock Collier. Unwittingly, Pat’s mother helped cast further doubt on her son-in-law’s story.

Of all the information culled, the state police were particularly fascinated with what they uncovered at the home of Tom and Carol Gazda. Trooper Jamie Schultz had been assigned to talk to Tom Gazda, as one of the first EMTs at the scene. Schultz had finished taking a statement from Gazda and was getting ready to leave when Carol Gazda, who’d been listening silently, said she had something to add.

She disclosed that she, too, had been to Gunsmoke, that she’d waited in the car with her young daughter after her husband had waved them away from the scene. Carol Gazda then described the man she’d seen, crying as soon as anyone appeared, relaxed and dry-eyed when he was alone.

Jamie Schultz was astonished. He hadn’t known Carol Gazda was even at Gunsmoke. He instantly recognized that what she was telling him revealed a great deal about the suspect.

Carol Gazda explained that at the time, she didn’t know what had occurred at the camp or who any of the people there were. She told Schultz that because they lived just a few miles from the New York state line they went across the border to shop and to go to doctors. They didn’t know anyone from Montrose.

It was later that night, when her husband returned after eleven, that Carol said she learned of the shooting. She was lying in bed when her husband walked into the room and told her there had been an accident, that a man had tripped and fallen on his gun and had been killed instantly. As Jamie Schultz continued to write feverishly, Carol Gazda reported her reaction, almost two decades earlier, to her husband’s words.

“I said, ‘I bet it’s murder. That was no accident,’” Gazda declared.

Jamie Schultz could hardly wait to share the latest interview with his partner, Steve Stoud, and Lieutenant Hacken. He thought about his supervisor’s maxim about gathering everything until the picture becomes clear. This was a small piece, he knew, but it might well turn out to be an important part of the puzzle.

*   *   *

As the investigation progressed, the Schers girded for a fight to have another autopsy performed on the body of Martin Dillon, this time by their own experts. They retained the foremost forensic pathologists in the country—Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Michael Baden—at $3,500 a day, and in addition to Peter O’Malley hired Richard Sprague, a high-priced Philadelphia attorney. After the coroner’s declaration of homicide, Sprague immediately filed a request for reautopsy, listing Pat Scher and her children, Michael and Suzanne Dillon, as the petitioners. The three charged that a third autopsy was necessary to dispel the insinuation that Stephen Scher was responsible for Martin Dillon’s death. The petition alleged that the livelihood of Pat Dillon and her children were threatened by the accusation against the doctor.

The press speculation of Stephen Scher’s involvement in the death of Martin Dillon has caused great personal anguish and emotional distress to Patricia Dillon Scher and her children … In addition, Applicant’s future income, which is tied to that of her husband, will be placed in jeopardy if an immediate re-autopsy for her benefit and protection is not granted.

In the suit, Sprague also demanded that Coroner Robert Bartron release a copy of Isadore Mihalakis’s report, but Bartron’s lawyer, Michael Giangrieco, advised the coroner to refuse. In motions to the court, Senior Deputy Attorney General Robert Campolongo contended that the Schers had no right to the information because a criminal investigation was ongoing, and Stephen Scher had not yet been charged with anything.

Campolongo’s brief urged the judge to dismiss the petition, labeling it spurious and without standing: “Nowhere in the petition does Patricia Scher deny that the death of her husband was a homicide. Nowhere does she deny that her current husband is the perpetrator. Nowhere does she even allude to the fact with hands free of guilt.”

Campolongo pointed out that Patricia Scher failed to appear at hearings for the prior petitions and didn’t appeal the original April 28, 1995, exhumation order. Campolongo told the judge that the exhumation had not been a secret—it was recorded and reported by the press as early as eleven Saturday morning. He charged in court that the physician retained by the Schers, Dr. John Shane, didn’t appear at the hospital until after the autopsy was completed. The prosecutor added that even then Peter O’Malley never sought a special injunction to keep the body in Allentown.

At a hearing before Judge Kenneth Seamans at the Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas, Michael Dillon, now twenty-four years old, flew in from Las Cruces and testified that he, his sister, and his mother wanted a pathologist of their own to review the coroner’s conclusion that his father’s death had been a homicide. The young man made it clear that he was steadfast in his support of his stepfather. “I know Stephen Scher had nothing to do with my father’s death,” he told the court.

Michael Dillon went on to say that his mother was a very caring person and the press attention was devastating to her. “With headlines like this and people calling and state troopers casing the house she is becoming withdrawn,” he explained to the judge. “She looks ill, tired and cannot concentrate on her job, on her livelihood. I understand that the Coroner of the county believes that it was a homicide and I would like my own experts to look into this and tell me what they think. I think I have a right to know that because Martin Dillon is my father. Dr. Scher is the man that raised me. I’m not sure how else I can explain that.”

Despite Michael Dillon’s emotional appeal, Judge Kenneth Seamans was not convinced. He ruled that Pat Scher had not proved that her future income would be jeopardized if a third autopsy was not performed. As for the children, Seamans wrote in his decision that their claims were unfounded. “Michael and Suzanne Dillon have made no showing that an exhumation and autopsy are imperatively required beyond the fact that they are upset by the speculation engendered by the coroner’s declaration to the press that Martin Dillon’s death was a homicide. They have shown no injury to themselves or to their mother which a re-exhumation and reautopsy would rectify. Moreover they have in no way shown that an autopsy conducted by pathologists of their choosing would resolve once and for all the truth regarding the death of Martin Dillon.”

Peter O’Malley spoke to reporters on the steps of the courthouse minutes after the decision was handed down. “I say this respectfully,” he announced. “The last say is not in this courthouse.”

He was right. It took almost a year and cost the Schers some $400,000 in legal fees, but in the spring of 1996 a superior court overturned Judge Seamans’s ruling and permitted the exhumation of the body of Martin Dillon for the second time. The court also ordered that Coroner Robert Bartron turn over Dr. Mihalakis’s autopsy report.

It was May 11, 1996, when O’Malley and his team of gravediggers arrived at Holy Name of Mary Cemetery in a cold, driving rain. The attorney waited, shivering, in his car. Suddenly, the door was yanked open.

Standing in the rain was an angry Jo Dillon. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Who are you?” O’Malley asked.

“You know who I am,” she retorted. “I’m Marty Dillon’s mother.”

Peter O’Malley was annoyed. “Don’t ever yank a door open on me like that again,” he snapped. “You know darn well what we’re doing and we have a court order that allows us to do it. I don’t have to show it to you but I’d be happy to as a matter of courtesy.”

Jo Dillon wasn’t interested in court orders. She was incensed. “How dare you do this on his birthday,” she said harshly.

Peter O’Malley was taken aback. He noticed the flowers in Jo Dillon’s hands. “Well, I didn’t know it was his birthday,” O’Malley said a bit more chagrined, “and I’m sorry. But what has to be done, has to be done. You had your autopsy, we’re entitled to ours.”

Later that day, the Schers finally got what they wanted—their own expert, Dr. John Shane, performed a third autopsy on the body of Martin Dillon. When it was completed, the body was returned to Holy Name of Mary Cemetery. But it wasn’t interred beneath the tombstone that bore Martin Dillon’s name.

At Pat Scher’s insistence and with the support of her children, the casket was lowered into the ground in an unmarked grave about thirty yards away from the original site, in an area where the Karveller family owned a small plot. It was a strikingly bitter declaration.

When Bonnie Mead heard the latest salvo from Pat Scher and her children, she dissolved into tears. Larry and Jo Dillon, however, did not. Jo Dillon even called Bonnie at work to comfort her.

“It’s only his body, Bonnie. His soul is with the Lord,” the older woman reminded her gently. “Pat is looking for a fight, and we’re not going to give it to her.”

Indeed, by this time, the Dillons at last trusted that their patience would soon be rewarded. It was. The very next month, Lieutenant Frank Hacken and Senior Deputy Attorney General Robert Campolongo reviewed the evidence and agreed that they were ready. Troopers Schultz and Stoud prepared an eight-page affidavit of probable cause, outlining the commonwealth’s case against the doctor. Once it was signed by the two troopers as well as Judge Seamans, a copy was faxed to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. A task force was assembled of state bureau officers to pick up the suspect.

On June 20, 1996, exactly twenty years and eighteen days after a shotgun blast split the quiet at Gunsmoke, Troopers Stoud and Schultz and Special Agent Ted Bugda got into a van and headed to Lincolnton, North Carolina.

It was time to bring Dr. Stephen Scher back.