#scott dyleski
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Scott Edgar Dyleski (born October 30, 1988) is an American teenager who was convicted of murdering his neighbor Pamela Vitale, the wife of prominent attorney Daniel Horowitz. He received the maximum penalty allowed by the law, life without parole. As a juvenile he did not qualify for the death penalty.
Scott was born in San Francisco, California to Kenneth Dyleski and Esther Fielding. His parents separated when he was two years old, and Scott was raised by his mother. During elementary school, he moved with his mother to Lafayette, California, and began living in the home of another family, with whom they had long been friends. Dyleski attended Lafayette public schools, including Acalanes High School, where he dressed in uncommon clothing such as trench coats and was described as "a nice kid" by a fellow student.
On October 15, 2005, Dyleski's neighbor Pamela Vitale was found murdered in her home. She was found lying in the entryway just inside the front door and had been bludgeoned and eviscerated. Five days later, on October 20, 2005, Dyleski was arrested on suspicion of committing the murder.
Initially, Dyleski was represented by attorney Thomas McKenna. He later asked to be removed from the case, because he defended the driver of a car that killed Dyleski's sister and another passenger in 2002. Dyleski was then represented by Ellen Leonida, a public defender. Dyleski pleaded not guilty.
Investigators believe Dyleski and his friend, Robin Croen, planned to grow marijuana in Scott Dyleski's closet, with Dyleski in charge of raising money, according to Croen, who was granted immunity for testifying. He testified that Dyleski used stolen credit card information belonging to his neighbors and used the cards to order lighting equipment. He also testified that his role in the credit card scam was researching what equipment to order. Croen actually constructed order forms from websites that he claims he then sent to Dyleski. According to prosecutors, one of Dyleski's orders used the credit card information for Karen Schneider, but mistakenly used Vitale's address as the address to bill, and his own address as the ship-to address. The lighting company refused to process the order, suspecting it was fraudulent. Dyleski told Croen that he would "take care of it" and, subsequently, he made one more attempt by calling the credit card company.
Authorities believe Dyleski was surprised by Vitale during a burglary of her home. However, Dyleski's girlfriend, Jena Reddy testified at trial that Dyleski had talked about beating and breaking the necks of children and was curious about how the human body would function without certain organs. They said he killed Vitale by striking her numerous times in the head, possibly with a rock, and then carved a symbol into her back. During the trial, prosecutor Harold Jewett tried to establish that the symbol found on the victim's back closely resembled the letter "H" in the word "hate" from a bumper sticker reading "I'm for the separation of Church and Hate", which was seized from Dyleski's bedroom. The coroner's autopsy report describes the marks on Vitale's back as an "H-shaped figure cut into skin of posterior torso" and "3 intersecting superficial incisions... forming an H-shaped pattern with extension". Other reports indicate that the symbol was a Cross of Lorraine.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, judge Mary Ann O'Malley ruled that prosecutors had enough evidence for trial. Dyleski was arraigned on an additional charge of first-degree residential burglary and he entered a new plea of not guilty to all the charges. His mother was accused of helping her son destroy evidence, but the charge was dropped under the condition that she testify truthfully. Burglary was not presented as a motive during the trial and, in fact, it was stated that nothing had been taken. At trial, Daniel Horowitz said he had never gone through his wife's financial records to see if anything was amiss.
Jury selection began in July 2006 in the courtroom of judge Barbara Zuniga, who became the trial judge after defense attorney Ellen Leonida made a peremptory challenge against judge Mary Ann O'Malley on the grounds that the jurist was "prejudiced against the interest of the defendant". Attorneys provided contrasting views of Dyleski in their opening statements. Prosecutor Harold Jewett said Dyleski identified with gothic symbols and art that depicted violence and stabbed and beat Vitale. Leonida described her client as a gentle kid whose friends know he is not a killer and instead valued human and animal rights.
During the trial, the Nickelodeon animated television series Invader Zim was cited. The prosecution asserted that the defendant had a fascination with images of body parts. They drew attention to comments he had made after watching the episode "Dark Harvest", in which the alien Zim collects human organs in an attempt to appear more human. Witnesses for the defense said that the comments were made in jest.
At the end of August attorneys gave closing arguments, capping several weeks of testimony. The prosecutor called to the stand Dyleski's housemates, mother, girlfriend, friend, a forensic pathologist, a DNA expert and several criminalists. Lawyer Gloria Allred represented Jena Reddy, Dyleski's girlfriend. She told the jury that while Dyleski never admitted or denied killing his neighbor, he told her he would take the blame to protect her and his best friend. DNA evidence showed Vitale's blood was found on Dyleski's belongings, the DNA of both Vitale and Dyleski was found on the ski mask worn during the murder, and his DNA was found on the bottom of her foot. A shoe print at the murder scene was determined by the jury to match shoes belonging to Dyleski. Jason Kwast, another criminalist, testified that the pattern of bloody footprints found on a plastic lid that was discovered in Vitale's house matched the pattern of the bottom of Land's End shoes belonging to Dyleski. A chilling to-do list was purported to have been written by Dyleski. Leonida called a number of Dyleski's friends to serve as character witnesses. Dyleski exercised his right to remain silent and did not testify. No DNA experts were called to rebut the prosecution's DNA evidence.
Scott Dyleski was found guilty of all the charges against him: first-degree murder, the special circumstance of murder in the commission of a first-degree residential burglary, first-degree residential burglary and an enhancement for using a dangerous weapon to bludgeon Vitale.
Even though Scott was originally sentenced to life without parole, in 2018 Dyleski's sentence was reduced to 25 years to life in prison after the state of California passed Senate Bill 394, which bill gives juveniles tried as adults and sentenced to life without parole a chance for eventual freedom. He will be eligible for parole in 2030.
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Ugmmmmmm hello hi hi tccblr who knows scott dyleski💔 accept me here
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me seeing people be like “alyssa is so invader zim coded” knowing very well scott dyleski exists.
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If the Scott Dyleski case happened today Invader Zim would be instantly blacklisted from every from of media and fans would be called murderers just for having an interest in the show
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I honestly fucking hate when antis bring up that fiction DOES affect reality as a counterargument to proshippers bc the thing is they’re not even technically wrong. Fiction and reality are inherently intertwined on some level. For example, fiction often depicts the ideals and standards of the time, or the creator’s lived experience. Fiction can impact reality in the form of individual people, both positively and negatively. For example, a propaganda cartoon vs an educational cartoon. The thing is, antis refuse to acknowledge that the “fiction =/= reality” argument (in the context of proshippers using it) is a direct response to the incorrect assertion that fiction will make people act against their morals. This can be about anything from “incest/abuse/age gap relationships in fiction will normalize it irl”, “video games cause shootings”, “porn causes violence”, or any other amount of honestly baseless and reactionary assertions about the world.
I see propaganda brought up a lot, which is especially frustrating, because antis don’t understand how propaganda works. Propaganda is not something that you watch and suddenly, you’re racist. Funnily enough, propaganda on its own isn’t particularly persuasive or logical in how it’s presented-- it’s just manipulative. Propaganda specifically takes advantage of preconceived ideas, fears, and prejudices-- for example, anti-gay propaganda would play into the idea of gay men being predatory, deviant, and mentally disordered, because that was already the general consensus of the time. Propaganda, by nature, plays into existing emotions, or preys on the human fear of the unfamiliar. This is why the best combatant to propaganda is education.
You can apply this same thing to taboo fiction, violent video games, and violent porn. You could make the argument that these things could have negative influences on children, seeing as they’re much more impressionable and may have a harder time distinguishing between fiction and reality, but the bottom line is kids are not the target audience for any of these things. They are not supposed to be viewing NSFW writings, videos, or games. We already have things like ESRB ratings, “are you 18?” verification checks (as paper thin as they may be), and tagging systems in place for the express purpose of deterring kids (or parents of kids) from seeing something that aren’t meant for them. After a certain point, you really just have to place the responsibility on the parent for either not monitoring their children, or being careless about what kind of content they consume. Aka: NOT the fault of the adults who make or enjoy violent or explicit media.
Going back to propaganda for a minute, with taboo fiction in particular (incest, age gap, etc.), it’s already, y’know, taboo. Meaning people are actively discouraged from participating in, or even just talking about it, since things like incest and pedophilia are already largely considered immoral. Most Western citizens would agree that irl abusive relationships, rape, and the like, are all immoral. So why would reading about it suddenly make them go against the entire worldview and moral upbringing they had? That’d be utterly absurd! However, if someone who was already considering or apologetic towards something like pedophilia were to consume media depicting it positively, it might, and I repeat, MIGHT have a chance to influence them into actually committing an offense. And even then, any evidence of that is extremely flimsy.
There’s been a small handful of IRL cases around fiction and reality. One that comes to mind is the murder trial of Scott Dyleski, wherein the prosecutor asserted that the Invader Zim episode Dark Harvest inspired Dyleski to commit murder. However, this statement was hardly backed up with any kind of proof, and in my opinion, is a weak argument on the prosecution’s end. There just isn’t any psychological evidence that makes a strong connection between dark/violent/explicit media and moral degradation, and while there have been studies done surrounding things like “do video games cause violence?” and “is porn making young men misogynistic rapists?”, these studies either came back inconclusive or even outright stating that no, these things do not lead directly to IRL violence. Simply googling “do video games cause violence?” or “does porn cause violence?” will yield countless articles stating that there’s no strong link between the two things. And, at its core, this is what proshippers mean when they say that fiction =/= reality. To say that fiction is responsible for all of society’s ills, instead of the fact that fiction takes inspiration from the tragedies of the real world, is an absurd take.
Overall, I think I’m still happy with the “fiction =/= reality on a 1-to-1 level” wording that’s since replaced “fiction =/= reality”. It’s far less generalized and overall more difficult for antis to counter with actual evidence (which, let’s be honest, they barely use anyways), even though the only reason proshippers were using such a generalized statement to begin with was to counter another generalized statement: that taboo or violent fiction will always, or almost always, lead to irl crimes and normalization.
#proship#pro ship#proshipping#pro shipping#proshipper#pro shipper#anti anti#shipping discourse#fiction =/= reality#profic#pro fic#profiction#pro fiction#anti censorship#fiction is not reality#fiction is fiction#proshippers please interact
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Scott Dyleski as a kid.
Scott Edgar Dyleski (born October 30, 1988) is an American murderer, convicted of murdering his neighbor, Pamela Vitale, the wife of prominent attorney Daniel Horowitz.
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What happened after dark harvest?
Heads up with a big ol murder + gore tw
in 2005 a 16 y/o named Scott Dyleski was arrested for murdering his neighbor. During his trial, the dark harvest episode was cited (all articles point to it being have said in ~jest~ but what was said was said)
I’m not going to fully type out all he did to the victim because disrespectful (and nsfw) but have at it with the following links
archived 2006 article; right before verdict was given, mostly stating there’s no way and he’s a good kid and of that kind of noise
his at the time girlfriend testifying he had a fascination with torturing/figuring out how the body worked w/o organs
(^heads up with this site, the ads on it are annoying as hell + feature a few hard hitting pictures at the bottom of the article)
wiki goes in little more depth with the trial + what he did
#asks#anon#note; im not saying anything against the series or even the episode this is just a response#Anonymous
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Impulse control starts to develop in the human brain around the age of 4. Scott Dyleski was 17 at the time he murdered his neighbor in 2005 and the “Dark Harvest” episode of Invader Zim first aired 4/20/01. He would’ve been at least 12 at that time, which puts him well above the developmental age to know the difference.
I wrote Scream fan fiction in middle school, which of course translated to a slasher-style whodunnit story where my friends and classmates were either predator or prey. Lots of senseless death and dialogue that made it all pretty incriminating should the pages have seen the light of day, especially in light of Columbine and the rise of school shootings.
But I never killed anybody, and I never wanted to act on or encourage the fictional series of events that were loosely based on reality. Dyleski got the idea to disembowel his victim from Zim, sure. He would’ve killed her either way.
As fuckboy Billy Loomis said: Sid, don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative.
nickelodeon: zim cant hit people with his fist his hand has to be open. no punching. the children.
nickelodeon: dark harvest is allowed
#invader zim#scott dyleski#tw: murder#tw: death#scream#horror#movies#media#wes craven#jhonen vasquez#tw: violence#tw: school shooting
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that was the episode that 'inspired' a serial killer
Fun fact dark harvest is the only invader zim episode i ever watched. I was like 6 years old.
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surprised no one's mentioned this yet but 16-year-old scott dyleski did very much murder someone and his fascination with "dark harvest" was brought up at the trial

nickelodeon: zim cant hit people with his fist his hand has to be open. no punching. the children.
nickelodeon: dark harvest is allowed
#violence -#death -#obvs an oversimplification to be like 'dark harvest inspired a murder!!'#i just think it's interesting
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