DEATH IS IN THE DETAILS

By ELAINE RIVERA/MONTROSE

Carved on Martin Dillon's tombstone are words from the Book of Wisdom: "The just man, though he die early, shall be at rest." But Dillon, who was 30 at his death, has not yet found rest. He has died, so far, in three different ways.

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 a shoelace and fell on the gun. Splattered with blood from trying to revive his friend, Scher said he was so overcome with emotion that he smashed the gun against a tree, destroying it. The coroner declared the death an accident.

Two 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: "We don't know why people put blinders on in this town." Nevertheless, the elder Dillon kept his peace until his grandchildren were older. In 1989 he hired a private investigator to review the evidence and by 1995 had got the authorities to exhume his son's body for another autopsy.

And this is the second version of Dillon's death. Isadore Mihalakis, a pathologist, declared that the shape and angle of the shotgun wound 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 the affair. Other prosecution witnesses said Scher had been trying to figure out a way for his lover--a devout Roman Catholic--to get an annulment so she could remarry within the church. Meanwhile, FBI lab analysis showed that the high-speed blood-spatter patterns on the boots Scher wore at Gunsmoke could have been left only after a huge amount of force was used at close range. Prosecutor Robert Campolongo called the killing an "ambush."

And 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 off." Why did he lie throughout the past two decades? "Because of the pain...The pain Pat and the children would have had because of what happened." He testified that the porcupine story was concocted because, as a newcomer and the only Jew in town, he did not feel he would be believed. Last Wednesday the defense presented the Dillons' former baby sitter, Cindy Klein, who testified that Dillon "told me he was going to take Dr. Scher up to his hunting cabin ... and kill him." She said she had kept quiet at the time because her mother did not want her involved in the case. A defense pathologist added that the autopsy evidence is consistent with two men struggling for the gun.

The case goes to the jury this week. If they discount his dramatic account of self-defense and find him guilty of first-degree murder, Scher may be sent to prison for life. (His crime predates the state's reimposition of the death penalty.) "We fought this battle to get answers for a long time," says Mead, who sits with Lawrence Dillon during the trial. "This should have been done in 1976."