Kerrie Droban A Socialite Scorned

Kerrie Droban A Socialite Scorned

Plot: 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, divorce, and mother of Triano’s two children. She received two million dollars upon his death but evaded suspicion for more then a decade. Finally, halfway across the globe in Austria, the blond bombshell was detained and sent home - igniting one of the most explosive cases in Arizona history.

My Review and Thoughts:

God help any man that leaves a crazy psycho bitch scorned and money hungry. The book has an amazing narrative, very descriptive and very in your face. The prologue grabs you and never lets you go. This true crime book is a flawless read of murder, money, a woman scorned, bombs, a hitman, a true sense of pure criminal nature.

This plays out like a perfect prime time murder mystery with all the plot twists of a soap opera. This book is flawless in it’s word play, it’s written to hold the reader tight to the unfolding true story taking place on page after page. For the love of money brings out the dark side. The hunger for more and more and more tends to control all the way to murder.

Pam and Gary met, both loved money. Gary and Pam faked the perfect image of a loving couple but behind the scenes the drama was thick. Money was everything and Pam found Gary spent more then he had and then he enjoyed spending her money. Pam was trapped in an abusive marriage, Gary was not the sweet man she saw, he was controlling, obsessive, physically abusive husband that enjoyed beating Pam and threatening her.

Next came divorce, then the child custody battle, then money, money, money. Pam and Gary where both over the top personalities and this book expresses the insanity of these two people.

“The blast that immediately followed blew open his skull, split apart his forehead, and exposed a bridge of bone. Metal from the explosion flew into his brain. His hair singed and his eyes ruptured. His right hand, except for his pinky, blew off, and rocketed with the windshield and other car parts, up to two hundred yards into the resort’s swimming pool.” --Page 2

A powerful book of murder, mystery and it gives a sense of true life reality. Anyone can comprehend this ordeal because it's real. Anger and hate plastered against a divorcing couple with kids as monkeys in the middle all mixed with a rich lifestyle and the pleasure for the green backs gives forth a surprising little read of perfectionism. 

I can feel for Pam because she was abused but in the end it was not abuse that caused her to do what she did, it was the love of money. Greed brought the evil inside Gary and Pam out into the open. This love to live high and mighty showcased a true sense of just how these two ticked. Money was everything, appearance to have money was just as important and no matter what it took that money was going to be in the pockets of these two insane people.

It’s amazing what money can do. Into days world someone can be killed for 2 bucks in Pam and Gary’s world it was 2 million dollars. The love of money shows no discrimination, it gives, it takes and it showcases the true nature of people.  

I feel what is so unique about this book is there is no good side in this mystery. Both the victim and the victimizer are criminals or very sick disturbed people. The victim had a mysterious reality about him, people that owed him money simply disappeared. 

Obtaining that money was often in criminal ways. The victimizer was all about money and getting her way to the point of murder. Now I am not saying Gary deserved to be murdered what I am saying sometimes certain lifestyles, bite back, what comes around goes around is an old saying.

“The air smelled like gunpowder. Metal fragments spiraled over treetops. Papers littered the ground like confetti.”--Page 3

The star of the book is Detective Gamber the one who gave up everything to solve this case. He lived it, he ate, drank and became it. His whole life was wrapped around finding the guilty one and to bring justice to the victim and to give peace to the victims children. He was a true Detective that never once gave up, no matter how hard or how long it took. Many doubted him, many shunned him and many ridiculed him, but he never once walked away.

“Gary’s friends were all villains hidden in plain sight. All were either dead or missing.”--Page 61   

I like how this book plays out. It’s a true mystery of lots of open ideas on just who Gary was and on how far and who was Pam in reality. They both had dark side’s. Each one held a personal demon, an obsession and that was money. Money ultimately destroyed both of them.

I think what truly shocks me is how these money hungry people never have enough. I am happy with a hundred dollars in my pocket these people spend a hundred thousand dollars like its drinking water. They blow millions as if it’s a joke, truly a disgusting greedy reality that makes you not feel sorry for them as they spill out there woes.

“…the two conspired to commit murder over crème brulee. They plotted how and when without much thought to why, and they memorialized the anticipated “event” with receipts, recordings, and handwritten lists that included, among other things, a sawed-off shotgun and a tube of toothpaste.”---Page 88

I think this makes a perfect read of the human mind on just how far one can go in hate and hunger to get their way. This is pure soap opera of secrets, lies, deceit, hate, anger, murder and true life that spirals downward into a black dark abyss of pure unrelenting destruction.

“Gary Triano’s death sparked a national manhunt, enlisted a multi-agency task force, and inspired countless years of investigation. Had Gary not been rich or famous, would he have received the same attention?”--Page 209