Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

Charges against teen suspect’s mother dropped

San Francisco Chronicle, USA
Oct. 28, 2005
Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writer
www.sfgate.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Saturday October 29, 2005

The mother of a Lafayette teenager accused of killing his neighbor agreed to testify against the boy today just minutes after prosecutors charged her with being an accessory to the crime.

Esther Marion Esther Fielding, whose 16-year-old son Scott Dyleski has been charged in the death of Pamela Vitale, was released from Contra Costa County Jail after arranging the deal with prosecutors during a brief — and unscheduled — court appearance late Friday afternoon, Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies said.

Sheriff’s office investigators arrested Fielding, 53, on Thursday and booked her into jail on a single charge of being an accessory after the fact to murder. She was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Just after Flinn read the single count accusing Fielding of being an accessory after the killing of Vitale, Prosecutor Harold Jewett then told Fielding that the charge would be dropped if she agreed to testify.

“She agreed and we moved to drop the charges,” prosecutor Hal Jewett said after the brief hearing before Contra Costa Superior Court Judge David Flinn.

Fielding’s attorney Barry “Blackie” Burak did not answer reporters questions afterward, citing a gag order on the case. Jewett also declined to discuss the agreement.

Vitale was the wife of noted attorney and television commentator Daniel Horowitz. He found her bludgeoned to death in the entryway of their Lafayette home on Oct. 15.