Who is the Teen Accused of Killing Pamela Vitale?

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," October 21, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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TONY SNOW, GUEST HOST: In the "personal story" segment tonight, bizarre new details are now coming out about the 16-year-old boy arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of 50-year-old Pamela Vitale, the wife of high profile attorney Daniel Horowitz.

Joining us now from Los Angeles, Harvey Levin, the managing editor of tmz.com.

OK, Harvey, the first thing I want to do, put together a profile one of one of these kids. He goes to a new place when he's in junior high school, he becomes a goth, he wears, you know, he wears eyeliner and wears black and all that sort of stuff.

I suppose that fits a certain profile. But what I'm interested in is, and you and I were talking about this right before we went on the air, it doesn't seem that physically — this is the kind of guy who could pull off the violent murder that police have discovered.

HARVEY LEVIN, MANAGING EDITOR, TMZ.COM: Absolutely, Tony. I mean, you know, the victim in this case was athletic. And she was bigger. He was a scrawny little kid. I think he was 5'5", 110 pounds.

And the murder was so vicious, it was almost Mansonesque. And you have to think that somebody using normal physical strength of 5'5", 110 isn't going to be able to do what he did. And I'm thinking if he was normal, that she probably could have overpowered him. So something else had to be going on with this kid, you would think.

SNOW: Yes. You were talking about clubbing more than 30 times, I think 36 times. And she was beaten with a crown molding and an undescribed other object. There was stabbing. And apparently she put up a pretty ferocious fight, because one of the suspects was picked up. He had scratches and bruises and other things consistent with it. Get you back to the point, was he high on something?

LEVIN: Well, you know, you have to wonder that. And I mean, people aren't talking about that, but that's certainly something that you would want to look for when you have such a vicious attack like this.

And you know, Tony, if he was, you know, that kind of sets up a whole diminished capacity defense in the event he doesn't deny doing this at all. And that's something you really need to look for. And I think we'll probably hear about that early on when a plea is entered in this case, but that's certainly the marker.

SNOW: This is also a truly bizarre case in the sense that the Horowitz family, they're building this nice, new place. And what they've done is they've got a trailer with workers up there. What she had done is posted below the mailbox a little bit of information about how to punch in the right kind of key code so you could get in.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, you've got this young person who apparently was trying to start up a drug selling ring. And they were doing a credit card scam. And apparently for whatever reason, he decided to use the Horowitz address as a place to send some contraband. So he goes to pick it up. The fight ensues. Go ahead.

LEVIN: That's not necessarily clear. I've heard this both ways. The other police theory is that he had somehow gotten her credit card number or the Horowitz's credit card number, and that he felt that the goods that he was looking for to help produce this marijuana crop were mistakenly sent to her house. So he went there to retrieve it. That's another one of the police theories. And that's when a confrontation may have ensued according to the cops.

SNOW: It's one of these things where he was vaguely known to Daniel Horowitz, but not well. Like we're talking about a pretty posh neighborhood. How does this affect the neighborhood? And frankly, what's the buzz around town for that matter?

LEVIN: Well, you know, I talked with the ex-wife of this kid's father yesterday. And she was telling me the last time she saw him was at her daughter's funeral. This is the step sister of this boy.

And she said that at the time of the funeral, he seemed like a normal kid, but was extremely, extremely distraught over this girl's death. She died in a car accident.

And now a lot of people are saying that death may have been what really triggered the change in this boy, that he didn't seem at all out of the ordinary until after that. And then he became this kind of dark gothic kid, you know, who would sit there and read "The Book of Satan" during lunch at school. So you know, that seems to - that may be what triggered him.

It seems - Tony, I got to tell you, the whole neighborhood seems awfully eclectic to me. I mean, you've got people living on the property, who, you know, where there are restraining orders issued against them. And it seemed kind of down and dirty.

On the other hand, you have a 7,000 square foot eye Italian villa being built. So it just seemed like kind of a hodge podge neighborhood.

SNOW: Yes. And meanwhile, you've got this kid, he was — first he was wearing trench coats to school, all those trench coats. He wears black. He wears the makeup. He reads "The book of Satan" at lunch. Most people said ah, he's just looking for attention. Obviously, nobody was picking up on the signs.

LEVIN: But you know what? See, that's where I disagree. I mean, you know, at a point, how many kids do that? How many kids try and express themselves in that way, who aren't going to do something like this?

And I think it's really easy to look back and say, oh, there were clear warning signs. But you know, I don't think, you know, a kid who gets into the gothic look or paints his fingernails black, you know, which is really not that abnormal for a lot of kids, I don't think that's necessarily a marker that doom is ahead.

SNOW: Yes.

LEVIN: And I think a lot of people are kind of painting this with a broad brush.

SNOW: All right, Harvey, thanks so much.

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