A Socialite Scorned: The Murder of a Tucson High-Roller

A Socialite Scorned

Kerrie Droban

The victim was Gary Triano, a Tucson real estate developer with influential friends—and enemies. After finishing a round of golf at a country club, he went to the parking lot and found a gift in his car: a crudely made pipe-bomb that blew him to pieces.

The bomb-maker was Ron Young, a Colorado "bad guy" wanted on weapons and fraud charges. The prosecution claimed that the woman he was dating at the time promised to pay him $400,000 to murder her ex-husband.

Her name was Pamela Phillips, an Aspen socialite, divorcée, and mother of Triano's two children. She received two million dollars upon his death but evaded suspicion for more than a decade. Finally, halfway across the globe in Austria, authorities caught up with the blonde bombshell—igniting one of the most explosive cases in Arizona history.