TV Legal Analyst's Wife Found Slain

By Associated Press

October 16, 2005, 11:01 AM EDT


LAFAYETTE, Calif. -- The wife of prominent defense attorney and TV legal analyst Daniel Horowitz was found slain in the couple's San Francisco area home, police said.

Horowitz called 911 Saturday evening to report that the body of his wife, 52-year-old Pamela Vitale, was in the entryway of their home in an upscale neighborhood, police said.

The woman's identity has not been confirmed by authorities, but "based on what we know, it's believed to be the wife of Daniel Horowitz," said Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee.

Authorities would not release details of how the victim died, but said it was a homicide. They had no suspects.

"We're talking to several individuals," Lee said. "Nobody's in custody right now."

A call to the Horowitz' home from The Associated Press went unanswered late Saturday.

"I can't talk," Horowitz told the San Francisco Chronicle when reached on his cell phone Saturday. "I can't. It's beyond words."

Horowitz is a regular television legal commentator who appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News and was a frequent commentator during the Laci Peterson murder trial.

Horowitz is currently defending Susan Polk, accused of murder in the 2002 stabbing death of her husband in the poolhouse of their Orinda home. The trial had been scheduled to continue next week.

Vitale, a former high-tech marketing executive, worked at her husband's law practice, creating and managing databases.

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