Aspen – Socialite Pamela Phillips allegedly hired her business associate and one-time lover to kill her ex-husband in Arizona so she could collect his $2 million life insurance policy, according to a police affidavit released Thursday.
Recorded telephone conversations, e-mails and other documents recovered from Ronald Lee Young, who is suspected of being the hit man, are summarized in an affidavit supporting the search warrant executed at Phillips’ Aspen home.
The affidavit alleges Young was to be paid $400,000 for blowing up Phillips’ ex-husband, Gary Triano, with a pipe bomb left in a Lincoln Town Car in 1996.
Phillips and Young, who is serving an 18-month sentence in a Florida prison for possessing a firearm while he was a fugitive from justice, quarreled often about the murder payment, transcripts released in the affidavit allege.
Arizona-based officers, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents, Aspen police and Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies searched Phillips’ residence Wednesday and removed boxes of financial documents and computers for forensic audits. Phillips and Young have been “persons of interest” in the Triano murder case for years, but now police said they are developing firm evidence against them.
“Obviously, we suspect both Pamela Phillips and Ronald Young were involved in the murder of Gary Triano,” said Thomas Mangan, senior special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “They are suspects. But we stress neither of these individuals have been charged with that crime.
“We’re hoping the information that we recovered from Pamela’s home in Aspen will yield some additional evidence to further our case. If that evidence leads to their indictment, Pamela and Mr. Young will be the first to know.”
Phillips did not return phone messages left at her home.
