Horowitz's wife had no enemies, was well liked
eartha...@yahoo.com
Lawyer's wife had no enemies, was well-liked
Her clashes with construction contractor, neighbor seemed resolved,
friends say
Stacy Finz,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Pamela Vitale wasn't the type of woman to have enemies.
She was unhappy with her former contractor, but the bad blood seemed to
be in the past. She and her husband had taken out a temporary
restraining order against a neighbor they found bothersome, but in the
end they had decided not to serve him with it.
She had a man from her past who, according to a girlfriend, seemed to
still be holding on to an unhealthy attraction for Vitale. But
according to Vitale's husband, criminal defense lawyer Daniel Horowitz,
the former suitor is a good man and a good friend.
Vitale, 52, was found by Horowitz, beaten to death in her Lafayette
home Saturday evening. The crime has stunned her friends and family,
who say she was the kindest of women.
"Everybody loved her," said Carolyn Layne, Vitale's friend and former
boss. "She was so warm and at ease."
Three years ago, Vitale left her job at Essential Software in Silicon
Valley to take on the next challenge of her life -- building a
7,000-square-foot home for her and her husband. She and Horowitz had
purchased more than a dozen acres on a hilltop in Lafayette to
construct a house where they hoped to spend the rest of their lives.
"I'm never going back there again," Horowitz said during a telephone
interview Monday. "It's the most beautiful place alive, but all I see
is her face."
Next month would have been the couple's 11th wedding anniversary,
Horowitz said. They met more than 13 years ago after being introduced
by Vitale's sister. Horowitz said that for him, it was love at first
sight.
Vitale had been through a divorce with her first husband, Mario Vitale,
whom she had met and married in her hometown of Minneapolis. After the
breakup, Pamela Vitale decided to make a new life for herself and her
baby daughter, Marisa, and young son, Mario Jr., so she loaded up her
old Fiat and drove to California in 1978, said Jan Lawrence, one of
Vitale's best and oldest friends.
Vitale got an apartment in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County), next to
where Lawrence was living. The two single moms became friends. Vitale
got a bookkeeping job, but Lawrence urged her to come to
Hewlett-Packard, where she was working. Vitale took her friend's advice
and eventually rose into management.
"She worked very hard," Lawrence said. "In those days, she was really
struggling. But Pam was always adventurous."
A few years later, Vitale was laid off from HP, but her severance
package enabled her to study film at UCLA. She got an internship with a
studio and later worked as an independent movie producer, Lawrence
said.
Eventually, Vitale's sister persuaded her to leave Los Angeles and live
closer to her in Northern California. That was how she met Horowitz,
Lawrence said. He had written a screenplay about one of his cases, and
Vitale's sister got the two together so Vitale could read his script.
"Once I met her, I fell completely in love and no longer cared about
the script," Horowitz said.
Vitale left the film world behind and made a career for herself in
Silicon Valley, working in software marketing.
"She was the most awesome employee," Layne said. "She gave 150
percent."
She quit Essential Software after becoming immersed in construction of
the couple's dream house. But the project became something of a
nightmare. A year ago the contractor walked off the job, leaving Vitale
and Horowitz with a leaky roof just before the rainy season.
Then Horowitz and Vitale began having problems with a tenant on their
property, Joseph Lynch. The couple went so far as to secure a temporary
restraining order against Lynch but never served him with it because
Lynch seemed to be getting his life together, Horowitz said.
Lynch said Monday that the couple had been trying to help him and that
he had nothing to do with Vitale's death.
Lawrence said Vitale had mentioned both ordeals in the past, but of
late they no longer seemed to be a problem. Lawrence said she had
concerns about an old boyfriend of Vitale's who seemed to be tracking
her before she was killed and had talked with police about him.
Horowitz, however, said the man was no threat.
"I just think he knows and regrets what he missed out on," he said.
"But to think of him as a suspect would be a grave injustice."
As for who would want to kill his wife, the defense attorney said he is
at a complete loss. Everyone adored her, he said.
"I just want them to catch whoever did this," he said, sobbing. "She
was the love of my life. I just wanted to grow old with her."
de Fragile Warrior Sports Supplies
> Pamela Vitale wasn't the type of woman to have enemies.
Really?
> She was unhappy with her former contractor, but the bad blood seemed to
> be in the past. She and her husband had taken out a temporary
> restraining order against a neighbor they found bothersome, but in the
> end they had decided not to serve him with it.
>
> She had a man from her past who, according to a girlfriend, seemed to
> still be holding on to an unhealthy attraction for Vitale. But
> according to Vitale's husband, criminal defense lawyer Daniel Horowitz,
> the former suitor is a good man and a good friend.
>
> Vitale, 52, was found by Horowitz, beaten to death in her Lafayette
> home Saturday evening. The crime has stunned her friends and family,
> who say she was the kindest of women.
>
> "Everybody loved her," said Carolyn Layne,
Except the people mentioned above. How does that equate to "had no
enemies"? Taking out a restraining order on someone (served or not) equals
some unhappy people.
GEeeeeeeeeeez.
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>PROFILE
>Lawyer's wife had no enemies
Ah, she had at least one.
--
Scorp
It appears that the money has been moved in the
president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war
in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html
Kris Baker
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129624374....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> PROFILE
> Lawyer's wife had no enemies, was well-liked
> Her clashes with construction contractor, neighbor seemed resolved,
> friends say
> Stacy Finz,
> San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
> Tuesday, October 18, 2005
>
> Pamela Vitale wasn't the type of woman to have enemies.
BS. Just the typical "nicey-nice" statements made after someone
dies, like you're stalling off the devil or having to do penance for
the nastiness you said about them while alive.
>She had a man from her past who, according to a girlfriend,
> seemed to still be holding on to an unhealthy attraction for Vitale.
> But according to Vitale's husband, criminal defense lawyer
> Daniel Horowitz, the former suitor is a good man and a good friend.
She's been married 11 years, and some guy's out there with an
"unhealthy" attraction to her, but he's a good man and good
friend? She didn't look like an object of lust.....
Kris
EnEss
"Kris Baker" wrote:
A woman doesn't have to be a hotty to get a man obsessed in an unhealthy or
unwelcome way. But I do agree w/ your main point, and w/ the point made by a
couple of other people, that the article, claiming Vitale had no enemies, is
illogical. It goes one in the next breath to describe 3 such people who may
have a had a reason to do harm to her.
The contractor w/ whom they had a dispute is obviously not a personal fan of
theirs. And when you have to get a restraining order out against someone, as
Giselle points out, that's not a sign that all is peaceful on the home
front, regardless of whether you serve it or not. I know there are people
who don't like me...but I haven't sought a restraining order against anyone.
So this former grounds caretaker or whoever he was sounds like he may have
had an axe to grind too. And I agree that a man who has "an unhealthy
attraction" to a married woman cannot by definition be "a good friend." He
might be an OK guy in other circumstances, but he's definitely someone to
worry about for the person who finds herself the object of this man's
unhealthy attraction.
The article is badly written. It sets up a premise (namely that the murder
victim had "no enemies" and no one who would want to see harm done to her)
then, not only fails to back up its claim, but goes on to contradict itself
by citing examples of a few conflicts in the woman's life that could account
for someone targeting her for murder.
I agree a claim like this is typical of the normal reaction people have to
want to say positive, glowing things about a person meeting a tragic end.
But that instinct doesn't make for good journalism.
NS
(add sbc before global to email)
de Fragile Warrior Sports Supplies
"EnEss" <star...@global.net> wrote [..]
> The article is badly written. It sets up a premise (namely that the murder
> victim had "no enemies" and no one who would want to see harm done to her)
> then, not only fails to back up its claim, but goes on to contradict
> itself by citing examples of a few conflicts in the woman's life that
> could account for someone targeting her for murder.
Maybe it was written tongue-in-cheek?
painter
I don't think my husband would stay chummy with someone that had a
thing for me so obivous that someone else could make the comment that
he had an "unhealthy attraction". Different strokes for different
fokes...
painter
Uncle Buck
>Folks.. sorry bad headcold can't think straight.. sheesh
I tend to have very good head colds. I might be crappy, but the cold is just
fine. :-) Hope you're feeling better soon. ;-)
painter
edi...@netpath.net
husband of a federal judge recently killed by a former civil litigant
who had a grudge against his judge-wife? Angry former client, etc. in
one of husband-lawyer's cases comes there, finds lawyer not at home,
panics, kills lawyer's wife?
No $4 to park! No $6 admission!
http://stores.ebay.com/INTERNET-GUN-SHOW
Alison MacIntyre
As soon as I heard Massi talk about an unserved restraining order
hanging over Lynch's head that specifically stated that Lynch should
stay clear of Horowitz's wife... alarms sounded and red flags went up.
If Horowitz was engaging in unethical legal maneuvering to cheat this
man, I can't think of a better way to royally piss someone off than to
label them a nutcase and slap a restraining order against them. Yet
then again... maybe that's the way he planned it.
Bo Raxo
<edi...@netpath.net> wrote in message
news:1129663369....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> So what that (maybe) SHE was well-liked? Anyone forgotten that
> husband of a federal judge recently killed by a former civil litigant
> who had a grudge against his judge-wife? Angry former client, etc. in
> one of husband-lawyer's cases comes there, finds lawyer not at home,
> panics, kills lawyer's wife?
>
Heh, that's pretty ironic, since in the Lefkow case you were ready to pin it
on the spouse:
Occam's Razor points solidly AWAY from "assassination" in
the Lefkow case! Instead, it points exactly where police normally
start investigations of every other case in which one spouse ends up
inexplicably murdered at home and the other spouse is unscathed -
toward the surviving spouse.
Lefkow's house has two dead bodies - and no reported sign of
struggle or 911 call or panic alarm call to indicate that the killer(s)
were anybody EXCEPT someone they felt comfortable with. Now who would
police start investigating if this were at YOUR house, YOU dead, YOUR
wife unscathed?
Kris Baker
<mr_rav...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129776610.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> "She didn't look like an object of lust"
>
> can be the targets of obsession.
> Not to mention that she was able to attract one of the top attorneys to
> marry her.
Was he *really* a TOP attorney, or a good self-promoter? When
Geragos and Spence were on CourtTV, he was out front passing
out his resume to anyone who'd take it.
Just found out that Pamela was 5'11". Wow. Maybe she was a
real Xena Warrior, with that martial arts training.
Kris
CliffB
Uncle Buck
>well, one enemey maybe,.
lol, smartass... :-)