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[music playing] [gun firing] NARRATOR: Two friends spent
a summer afternoon skeet
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shooting in rural Pennsylvania. [gun firing] Only one returned home. The other died of what was
determined to be an accident.
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What happened that day sent
shockwaves through a small town and launched a mystery that
would take 20 years to solve.
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[music playing] Montrose is a quiet rural area
in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania.
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It's a small, close-knit
community with stately homes, one traffic light,
and the courthouse
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that dominates the town square. In 1976, Montrose was
home to 30-year-old Martin Dillon, his wife, Pat,
and their two young children.
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Marty Dillon was a
very popular man in town and his father was
the local mayor. I mean, everybody knew
him and really liked him.
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NARRATOR: On June 2, 1976,
Martin Dillon left work early to go skeet shooting at
his family's hunting camp,
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a secluded place
called Gunsmoke. His good friend, Dr.
Stephen Scher went along.
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Stephen Scher was one
of the town's doctors and a close personal
friend of the Dillons.
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Martin asked some other friends
to go with him that day, but they all had other plans.
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And I said, Marty, I can't go. I said, I got just so much
going on I just can't get away.
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And he-- I just didn't go. NARRATOR: A few hours later,
Martin Dillon lay dead.
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FRANK ZANIN: Martin Dillon
was laying on his back with his arms outstretched, his
clay pigeons under the one arm.
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The wound itself was dead
center into the chest, right into the heart. There was no mistaking that it
went straight into the heart.
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NARRATOR: Dillon's
ear protectors and sunglasses were lying
on the ground near his body.
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The shoelace of his
right boot was untied. Dr. Scher told police that
he and Dillon were headed
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towards the cabin when
Dillon spotted a porcupine, grabbed Scher's loaded
shotgun, and ran to shoot it.
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[gun firing] Scher said Dillon apparently
tripped over his shoelace and fell on his gun, which
went off accidentally,
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blasting a hole into his chest. Scher attempted to
perform CPR, then went next door to get a neighbor.
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STEPHEN SCHER: Saw a porcupine,
and he grabbed my gun. He ran into the-- NARRATOR: He smashed the
shotgun against a tree
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in a fit of rage, saying the gun
would never kill anyone again. State policeman Frank Zanin took
the photographs of the scene.
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And I says, wait he
was running from where? He said, down the path. He ran up the path
here after a porcupine.
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I said, well, this doesn't make
sense because his bootlaces are untied. Says, yeah that's
what he tripped over.
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I says, no, take another look. I said the boot itself
is tight to the leg. I said, if he had been
running, that boot
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would have been wide open. NARRATOR: And Zanin was
concerned about another part of the story.
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Well, he said he rolled him
over, he tried to perform CPR. I said, CPR? There's a hole right
through his heart.
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I said, it's dead
center in the chest. I says, he's a doctor. He didn't give him no CPR.
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He's dead. NARRATOR: Martin
Dillon's body was taken to the county
morgue in the basement
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of a funeral home in Montrose. On the death
certificate, the coroner, who was a political
appointee, ruled the manner
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of death an accident. The funeral took place
in the same church where Martin Dillon was married.
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Dr. Scher was one
of his pallbearers. For Martin Dillon's
father, Larry, sadness was overshadowed
by suspicion and doubt.
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He did not believe his only
son's death was an accident. A few months after the shooting
death of Martin Dillon,
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Dr. Stephen Scher
divorced his wife, Anne. Some said it was the stress of
the death of his best friend,
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others said trouble had
been brewing between Scher and his wife for some time. Either way, Stephen Scher
moved from the small town
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of Montrose, Pennsylvania,
and eventually settled in North Carolina. A year and a half later,
Stephen Scher remarried.
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His new wife? Pat Dillon, the widow of his
best friend, Martin Dillon. When Larry Dillon learned that
his daughter-in-law and his two
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grandchildren were moving
in with the only witness to his son's death, he grew
increasingly suspicious.
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He questioned the conclusions
of his son's autopsy, which was done by a family
doctor who was not
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trained in forensic medicine. So Larry Dillon went to visit
this man, Stu Bennett, a friend
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of his son's and the
former police officer who was running a small company
in Montrose specializing
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in accident reconstruction. He felt that he was murdered. He did not tell me specifically
why, or he couldn't.
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He just felt in his heart
that it was not the way it was reported was correct. NARRATOR: Bennett studied
the autopsy photos
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and read the report. The first thing he noticed
was that Dillon's wound was 1 inch by 1 and
1/2 inches in size,
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but the internal diameter
of a 16-gauge shotgun is 5/8 of an inch. A contact wound made by that
gun would be the same size, 5/8
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of an inch and not any larger. To find out for
sure, Stu Bennett conducted an experiment.
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He stretched some
pigskin over a mannequin and used the same make
and model 16-gauge shotgun
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with the same ammunition
used in the accident. In order to create a
wound the same size,
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the gun had to be 3 to 5
feet away from the pigskin. Now, when I say the
firearm is 3 to 5 feet away,
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I'm talking about
the end of the barrel where the shell
actually comes out. Now, you have another 40
inches, 36 to 40 inches
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to the trigger housing itself. So now, you're up to 6 feet
away, between 5 and 6 feet
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away from the trigger housing
to discharge the firearm, which means that you'd have to employ
a stick or some other type
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of string or-- to have the gun discharge. NARRATOR: And there was
no gunpowder residue
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on Dillon's shirt, which
would have been present if it had been a contact wound.
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And there was no
blood from the wound found on the shotgun barrel. Stu Bennett suspected
homicide and shared
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his feelings with Larry Dillon. It didn't surprise him. In fact, the family
broke down and cried.
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NARRATOR: And the Dillons,
like others in the small town of Montrose, began
to hear rumors
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that Dr. Scher and
Martin Dillon's wife, Pat, were having a sexual
affair before Martin's death.
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Pat Dillon had been
a nurse at Montrose General Hospital,
the same hospital where Dr. Scher practiced.
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There were rumors
going on by employees in the hospital
of open caressing, that sort of thing going on.
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NARRATOR: Maria
Eftimiades described this clandestine relationship
in her book, "Secrets
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from the Grave." They just didn't seem to care. They didn't care if anyone
knew, if anyone saw them.
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When they were caught,
they just sort of just went back to their
work, and, you know,
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it would just happen again. NARRATOR: Seasons
passed, then years. And, in time, law
enforcement agencies
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moved on to other cases. But questions remained. What really happened at Gunsmoke
that day in June of 1976?
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For almost 20 years, those
questions remained unanswered. Martin Dillon's
parents never gave up
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their fight to have their
son's death reinvestigated. They were convinced that
the autopsy was incomplete
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and the manner of
death incorrect. The state policeman who
photographed the accident scene
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agreed with the
Dillons and was never convinced it was an accident. It's very frustrating when
people don't want to listen
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and you know something's wrong. And see, back then,
the state police-- I mean I love the state police.
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I was with them for 20
years, but they have-- back then, especially--
a philosophy
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whereas if you have less time
on the job than another man, you don't know
anything, all right?
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Senior men always ruled. NARRATOR: In 1991, 14 years
after the accident, Frank Zanin
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and others helped
convince the state police to send the evidence to
the FBI lab in Washington DC.
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And they also sent the evidence
to this man, Herbert MacDonnell an expert in blood spatter.
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The first thing he analyzed were
the boots Dr. Scher was wearing on the day of the accident.
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Dr. Scher said he was 150 feet
away from where Dillon tripped, fell, and accidentally
shot himself in the chest.
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But on Dr. Scher's
boots McDonald discovered a very
fine mist of blood, which she identified as
high-velocity impact spatter.
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High-velocity impact spatter
results when something, such as a bullet or
shotgun pellet, strikes
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a source of blood, like a body. As a result, the energy breaks
up blood into very small spots.
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The little droplets are
almost atomized or vaporized. NARRATOR: High velocity
impact spatter was also
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found on the side of the tree
stump closest to Dillon's body and on the instep of
Martin Dillon's left shoe.
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This indicated that Dillon was
squatting near the tree stump when he was shot, not
running after a porcupine.
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Forensic pathologist Dr.
Isidore Mihalakis was also asked to look at the evidence.
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He noticed another
inconsistency in the photograph of Dillon's body. The legs of his trousers were
pulled up, exposing his socks.
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Indicating that somehow, he
had been either in a seated or in a squatting
position, otherwise,
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why would the cuffs ride up? NARRATOR: Dr.
Mihalakis also noticed what is called scalloping
on the edges of the gunshot
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wound, evidence that the
shot pellets had started to spread as they
traveled through the air
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before striking the skin. Scalloping does not occur
around a contact wound. Once the Dillons heard
of this new information,
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they filed a petition
to exhume their son's body for a second autopsy. This time, Dr. Mihalakis
performed the autopsy.
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Dr. Mihalakis discovered
that the direction of the wound track was
in a downward direction,
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at a 45-degree angle. The shot came from the
right of Martin Dillon and went through Dillon's
heart and left lung.
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ISIDORE MIHALAKIS: The
wound track is wrong. If the gun had dropped
and then shot him
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it would either have
it perfectly backward or an upward wound track. Here, this was a sharply
downward and very
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angulated from right to left. NARRATOR: Authorities could
no longer ignore the evidence,
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and on June 26, 1995,
Martin Dillon's death was formally declared a homicide.
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The next day, Dr. Stephen
Scher and his wife, Pat, returned to Pennsylvania
to hold a news conference.
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Scher told reporters he was
innocent and still maintained that Dillon was chasing
a porcupine and fell,
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accidentally shooting
himself in the chest. The last I saw
Marty Dillon alive, life he was moving
away from me up the end
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of this trail towards
where we had just been. And I just waited there
for him to come back
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or to tell me to
do something else. I heard a click and
a shotgun blast, and I think I yelled
out, you couldn't
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hit the broad side of a barn,
teasingly, and then nothing. Steve is not capable of the
things they've accused him of.
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I've known him and lived
with him for 17 years. He's not capable of this.
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REPORTER: Is it true that
you two had an affair? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
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Claim that they've
got a murder case. They've had 19 years
to investigate it.
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They've had investigators,
all the state police, they've had their autopsy
and everything else.
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Their move next, and
we challenge them. NARRATOR: The
challenge was accepted. Dr. Stephen Scher was arrested
and charged with the murder
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of Martin Dillon. Two decades after his
death, Martin Dillon would finally get his day in court.
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21 years after the shooting
death of Martin Dillon, Stephen Scher sat in
a courtroom on trial
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for the murder of
his former friend. According to the
prosecution, Martin Dillon
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knew that Scher was having
an affair with his wife and told him that day while
skeet shooting that he had
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talked it over
with his wife, Pat, and that she agreed to
end her affair with Scher.
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Scher would not accept this. Scher was obsessed. And he said to himself,
it's not gonna be this way.
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It's not gonna be this way. I'm gonna get what I
want one way or another,
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and you have to die. [gun firing] Nice shot, man. Yeah, I've still got it. NARRATOR: While Martin Dillon
was reloading the machine
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with clay pigeons, Stephen Scher
placed a special ammunition into his gun, moved
to within 5 feet,
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and fired a single shot into
the center of his chest. The shot entered Dillon's
chest at a 45 degree
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downward angle directly
into his heart. The blast caused
high-velocity impact spatter
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to land on Scher's boots and
onto the side of the tree stump nearest to Dillon's body.
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Scher then removed Dillon's
ear protectors and sunglasses and untied his shoelace,
making it appear
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that Dillon tripped and fell. Scher then invented the
story about Dillon running
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after a porcupine with his gun. Right here. NARRATOR: When Scher returned
to the scene with the neighbor,
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he picked up the gun and
smashed it against a tree in a public display of grief.
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In court, when Dr. Scher
learned of the forensic evidence against him, he changed
his 21-year-old story.
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He finally admitted
that he had been having an affair with
Dillon's wife, Pat,
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at the time of the accident. He also admitted fabricating
the porcupine story. But he still claimed
Martin Dillon's
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death had been an accident. Scher said he and Martin
argued over the affair. There was a scuffle, and the
gun went off accidentally.
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Scher said he didn't think
anyone would believe him, so he staged the
accident scene and made
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up a story about the porcupine. But prosecutors didn't believe
this new version either.
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The only reason he put himself
in proximity to the deceased at the time was because of
the overwhelming evidence
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we had of the blood
spatter on his boots. NARRATOR: The angle and
direction of the wound track,
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the hiked up trousers
with the sock showing, and the size and location
of the blood spatter
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all pointed to only
one conclusion, that Martin Dillon, while
kneeling near the tree
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stump from approximately
5 feet away, was murdered by Stephen Scher. The motive, Stephen Scher wanted
Pat Dillon all to himself.
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He had essentially
been dumped. Pat Dillon said, no, I'm-- I'm staying with my husband.
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I'm not leaving him. I'm not divorcing him. NARRATOR: Martin Dillon's
children, whom Dr. Scher had
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raised since they were
small, stood solidly behind their stepfather
during the trial,
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even contributing a part of
their father's life insurance proceeds for his defense.
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But the forensic
evidence was too great. The jury convicted Dr. Stephen
Scher of first degree murder
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and he was sentenced to life
in prison without parole. ISIDORE MIHALAKIS: It's a case
in which originally somebody
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took somebody's word and
believed it and did not look any further, and there was
no no in-depth investigation
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done at that particular time. The Dillons had some peace of
mind is what, really, I wanted
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to see, was the Dillons relieved
of the burden that had been hanging on their shoulders
for all those years,
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and I was happy for them. NARRATOR: The verdict was a long
fought victory for the parents
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of Martin Dillon. REPORTER: Larry, what kind of
thoughts went through your mind when the first degree
verdict came back?
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Were you thinking of Marty? Yes. REPORTER: What thoughts were
going through your mind?
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Well, I really did it for him. REPORTER: Did you ever
think this day would come?
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I've been praying for it. NARRATOR: After Dr. Scher
spent 20 months in prison,
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the Pennsylvania superior court
overturned his conviction. A judge said the state's
20-year pre-arrest delay
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caused substantial prejudice
to his right to a fair trial. In 2002, that decision
was overturned.
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Dr. Scher was retried
in March of 2008. A jury deliberated just
two hours before finding
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him guilty yet again. He will spend the rest
of his life behind bars. [music playing]