Word: scherlis
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This is the first version of his death. On June 2, 1976, Dillon, a lawyer, and his friend Stephen Scher, a physician, were skeet shooting at Gunsmoke, a hunting camp in northeastern Pennsylvania owned by Dillon's family. According to Scher, as the two of them blasted clay pigeons, Dillon caught sight of a porcupine and, after grabbing Scher's 16-gauge Winchester pump-action shotgun, ran off after it. Scher told police that he heard a shot, ran toward it and found Dillon 250 ft. away with a fatal wound to his chest. He had apparently tripped over...
...years later, Scher married Dillon's widow Patricia and raised Dillon's son and daughter as his own. The family moved to North Carolina, leaving Dillon's grave to be tended by his father Lawrence, a former mayor of Montrose. But questions remained. There had always been rumors that Scher and Patricia had been in the middle of a torrid love affair before her husband died--a rumor they denied repeatedly. Dillon's father, for one, always wondered about the autopsy report and never believed the death was an accident. Says Bonnie Mead, who was Martin Dillon's secretary...
...indicated that Dillon could not have shot himself accidentally. There was also no evidence of the burn marks that usually come from a gunshot at close range. Mihalakis concluded that Dillon was killed not while running but while sitting, and that his death was a homicide. The police declared Scher the chief suspect, charging him with murder...
Suzanne Dillon, 24, and her brother Michael, 26, immediately came to their stepfather's defense, with Suzanne contributing her father's $65,000 life insurance to defend Scher, her "dad." She and her brother testified on his behalf at the trial, which began last month. However, there were other voices at the trial, including that of Edna Ann Vitale, whom Scher was divorcing at the time of Dillon's death. She says Scher confessed his love for Patricia Dillon to her. He had also told her, falsely, that Dillon was his divorce lawyer, thus discouraging her from telling Dillon about...
...then, two weeks ago, Scher took the stand and delivered the third version of Dillon's death. On June 2, 1976, Scher said, Dillon looked him "right in the eye" and asked if he was having an affair with his wife. "What could I do? I said yes." The two men proceeded to argue and, Scher said, Dillon grabbed a gun. "I heard a scream or a yell, and I saw he had the 16-gauge in his hand. I knew I had to get that gun away from him. There was a struggle, and the gun went...