Investigators seized items from a Colorado home in a search for evidence of what one federal agent called a suspected conspiracy that led to the car-bomb slaying of Tucson businessman Gary Triano 10 years ago.
Detectives obtained a warrant to search the home of Triano's ex-wife, Pamela Phillips, on the grounds that the search could yield evidence that she conspired with her ex-boyfriend, Ronald Young, to kill Triano for his $2 million life insurance policy, said Special Agent Thomas Mangan of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"It's fair to say that both individuals are suspects," said Mangan.
No one has been charged in the bombing death.
The search represents a major break in the decade-old mystery for the Pima County Sheriff's Department, which is the lead agency in the slaying investigation.
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The sheriff's cold-case unit went to Aspen on Monday to search Phillips' home. Other law-enforcement officials, including federal agents were also involved in the search.
Sheriff's homicide Sgt. Michael O'Connor said that while Phillips has been a person of interest for quite some time, it was not until Young was arrested in Florida that detectives were able to show enough probable cause to search her home.
O'Connor called Phillips and Young investigative leads in the case.
Triano died Nov. 1, 1996, in the parking lot of Tucson's La Paloma Country Club. After a round of golf, he was leaving to celebrate his 52nd birthday when one or two pipe bombs concealed near the passenger seat shattered the 1989 Lincoln Town Car he was in.
Triano earned millions investing in Indian gambling halls and other ventures before filing for bankruptcy, and was a one-time City Council candidate.
A task force of federal, state and local officers checked out several hundred tips and other leads before disbanding in 1997 without identifying the bomber.
Young was considered an investigative lead because before Triano's slaying, his rental car was discovered in Los Angeles with a sawed-off shotgun, divorce papers from 1993 pertaining to Triano and Phillips, and a map of Tucson, the Sheriff's Department has said.
However, Young disappeared from Aspen not long after the bombing. In November 2005, he was arrested in Florida on fraud charges out of Aspen after his role in the Triano case was featured on the TV show, "America's Most Wanted."
In Florida, searches of a home, a hotel room and a storage locker turned up evidence that Young and Phillips corresponded by e-mail while he was a fugitive in the fraud case, ATF agent Mangan said.
From the Phillips home outside Aspen, a "tremendous amount" of items, including business records, will be sent to law-enforcement agencies for computer forensic analysis and to be reviewed by accountants, he said.
Young, who was found carrying a handgun, pleaded guilty to being a fugitive in possession of a firearm and got an 18-month sentence, Mangan said. Young still faces the fraud charges.
Phillips, whose businesses include one that sells astrological profiles of babies, was among the fraud victims and lost about $60,000, the agent said. But she did not want to press charges against Young. Two other people did.
In the months after the bombing, investigators were less interested in Phillips as a potential suspect after they learned she had scrambled to send in a payment on the insurance policy that named the couple's minor children as beneficiaries.
But when investigators asked Phillips to take a lie-detector test to see whether that could rule her out as a potential suspect, she declined.
Her attorney at that time, Doug Clark, said he did not want Phillips singled out for a test that is unreliable and inadmissible in court.
"She feels very badly about Gary getting killed, and she hopes they'll find whoever did it in rapid fashion," Clark told the Star in 1997.
"Without a question, we always look at spouses and former spouses, especially those who stand to gain a large amount of money in the event of the person's death," O'Connor said.
Now officials are trying to determine if Phillips was in contact with Young while he was on the lam, he said.
"This is a significant break in the investigation because prior to the arrest of Ronald Young, this case was at a near stand still," O'Connor said. "The arrest opened many avenues to investigate and the case has moved along considerably."
