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And then, two weeks ago, Scher took the stand and delivered the third version of Dillon's death. On June 2, 1976, Scher said, Dillon looked him "right in the eye" and asked if he was having an affair with his wife. "What could I do? I said yes." The two men proceeded to argue and, Scher said, Dillon grabbed a gun. "I heard a scream or a yell, and I saw he had the 16-gauge in his hand. I knew I had to get that gun away from him. There was a struggle, and the gun went off." Why did he lie throughout the past two decades? "Because of the pain...The pain Pat and the children would have had because of what happened." He testified that the porcupine story was concocted because, as a newcomer and the only Jew in town, he did not feel he would be believed. Last Wednesday the defense presented the Dillons' former baby sitter, Cindy Klein, who testified that Dillon "told me he was going to take Dr. Scher up to his hunting cabin ... and kill him." She said she had kept quiet at the time because her mother did not want her involved in the case. A defense pathologist added that the autopsy evidence is consistent with two men struggling for the gun.
The case goes to the jury this week. If they discount his dramatic account of self-defense and find him guilty of first-degree murder, Scher may be sent to prison for life. (His crime predates the state's reimposition of the death penalty.) "We fought this battle to get answers for a long time," says Mead, who sits with Lawrence Dillon during the trial. "This should have been done in 1976."