Ronald Young didn't use his computer in the five days before Gary Triano was slain or the five days afterward, breaking with his usual habits, a Pima County Sheriff's Department detective testified Tuesday.
Detective John Mawhinney told jurors that while investigating Triano's slaying, investigators reviewed 76,748 documents, 931 spread sheets and 152,989 e-mails generated by Young between 1996 and 2005.
Young, 67, is charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the pipe-bomb killing of Triano, 52. Prosecutors intend to prove Triano's former wife, Pamela Phillips, hired Young to kill Triano for $400,000 - one-fifth of the $2 million she received from Triano's life insurance policy.
Defense attorney Walt Palser, who contends money Phillips paid Young was actually blackmail, introduced an e-mail he said supports that premise. In it Young attaches a Tucson Weekly article printed on the fifth-year anniversary of Triano's death.
People are also reading…
He writes he will begin sending the article's "four long and grizzly pages" to her children's school principal and Aspen leaders every day "until the information is received."
Jurors also heard more recorded phone conversations between Young and Phillips Tuesday. In one, Young tells Phillips he has hidden evidence of their relationship and she needs to do the same. If anyone found the Federal Express receipts she's been keeping, it could be "awkward," he said.
Young repeatedly asks Phillips if anyone can hear her end of the conversation. They also discuss the need to "sneak away" to see each other.
Young and Phillips were indicted in Triano's death in October 2008, and Young was arrested immediately in California. Phillips was arrested in Austria in December 2009 and is awaiting extradition.
