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By JERRY LYNOTT; Times Leader Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 1997 Page: 1A
MONTROSE- Dr. Stephen Scher and attorney Martin Dillon had a lot in common
21 years ago. Both were young professionals making their way in a small, rural
Pennsylvania town. And both loved the same woman, Patricia Dillon.
Attorneys in Scher’s trial agreed he had a sexual affair with his best
friend’s wife and later married her, but they split on the issue of adultery
as a motive for murder.
For the defense, it was the first admittance of the affair and several
others Scher had as his first marriage soured. For the prosecution, it was the
first and foremost. For the jury, it is evidence to consider when determining
whether Scher is guilty of first- or third-degree murder for the shotgun death
on June 2, 1976.
Both sides delivered opening statements Monday in the Susquehanna County
Courthouse a half-block away from the Montrose law office that still bears
Dillon’s name in gold block letters on a large picture window.
Attorney Robert Campolongo, a deputy state attorney general specially
assigned to the case reopened in 1995, and Wilkes-Barre attorney John Moses
painted different pictures of the 56-year-old Scher and Dillon, who was 30.
“He was a man who always thought the best of people,” Campolongo said of
Dillon.
He didn’t want to believe that there were “vile and evil” people “whose
hearts were black and filled with evil but look like saints on the outside,”
Campolongo said while making no attempt to hide his reference to Scher.
“The defendant found his wife attractive and wanted to satisfy himself on
her, and he did,” he told the jury of seven women and five men.
Scher and Patricia Dillon carried on their affair in public for neighbors
to see and for workers at the hospital to witness, he said.
The doctor and Patricia Dillon, who was a registered nurse at the Montrose
General Hospital, had sex in Room 13 for an hour as patients’ needs went
unattended, Campolongo said. “All the nurses were afraid to knock, that’s how
blatant it was.”
The way Scher conducted the affair was evidence of his lack of morality.
Unlike the Dillons, both Roman Catholics, Scher practiced no organized
religion, Campolongo said in his hourlong address.
“He believed in the religion of Stephen Scher and nothing else. … That
was his religion, the religion of me and the hell with you,” Campolongo said.
About two weeks before his death, Dillon had delivered an ultimatum to his
wife- either me or Scher. When Patricia Dillon told Scher she wanted to stay
with her husband, Scher was affronted, Campolongo said.
Martin Dillon stood in the way of Scher getting what he wanted. When the
opportunity arose for both men to go skeet shooting, Scher seized upon it and
blasted Dillon through the heart with a shotgun at close range, Campolongo
said.
The original investigation pointed to an accidental shooting: Dillon
shooting himself while chasing a porcupine under a trailer on his family’s
land.
Incessant protests by Dillon’s family, and a fresh investigation by the
state police led them to file murder charges against Scher, who lives in North
Carolina and practices medicine there. He is free on bail.
The circumstantial evidence turned up in the probe makes up the bulk of the
prosecution case, Campolongo said. Some of the key players from the initial
investigation are dead.
“I’m familiar with the case. I’ve spoken to all the witnesses,” said the
prosecutor.
But Moses corrected Campolongo.
“He told you he interviewed everybody. There are four people he didn’t
interview,” Moses said, before naming Scher, his wife Patricia and their
children, Michael and Susan Dillon.
The defense attorney chided Campolongo for his handling of evidence during
his address earlier that morning.
“We can’t take liberties with the truth and expect the justice to work,” he
said.
While Campolongo roamed in front of the jury box after moving aside a
lectern, Moses pretty much stuck to the notes he prepared in a spiral bound
notebook resting on the wooden stand before him.
“The defense in this case is three-pronged- honesty, the evidence and the
presumption of innocence,” Moses said.
Despite his constitutional right not to testify, Scher will do so at the
trial.
“Stephen Scher will admit to you, no matter how hard, how difficult, that
he had sexual relations with Pat Dillon while she was married to Martin
Dillon,” the defense attorney said.
The statement brought Campolongo to his feet, shouting that Scher has
denied there was an affair all along. After meeting out of earshot of the jury
before Judge Kenneth Seamans, the attorneys returned to their posts.
Where Campolongo created a mosaic from the details of the investigation,
Moses scrutinized the pieces of evidence that made up the big picture.
“The evidence in this case will clearly show that Stephen Scher did not
murder Martin Dillon,” Moses stressed.
Like the prosecution, the defense will rely on internationally respected
expert witnesses to explain the evidence during the three to five weeks of the
trial.
To defuse the affair, Moses pointed out the admission and stressed Scher is
on trial for murder, not adultery.
“Let me make it perfectly clear that we will not pin a medal or star on
Stephen Scher for his sexual activity,” Moses said. ” We will defend him
vigorously against charges of murder.”
AP PHOTO
Patricia Dillon Scher, center, walks with her children, Michael Dillon,
second from left, and Suzanne Dillon, right, into the Susquehanna County
Courthouse on Monday during the lunch break of the murder trial of Dr. Stephen
Scher in Montrose. Patricia Scher was married to attorney Martin Dillon, who
died of a gunshot wound in 1976. Patricia Scher is now married to Stephen
Scher, who is on trial for the murder of Dillon. The man at left is
unidentified.