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Victor Maccharoli- Corey Lyons sits in court Thursday during his preliminary hearing for double homicide.

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Prelim begins in double homicide

By ERIC LINDBERG — July 3, 2009

Shotgun blasts and shattering glass disturbed the early morning hours in a quiet Mesa neighborhood on May 4.

Hours later, after Santa Barbara police had assembled the SWAT team and secured a search warrant, authorities busted down the front door of the modern stucco home at 621 Aurora Ave. and discovered the bodies of prominent attorneys Daniel Lyons and Barbara Scharton.

“Both had been brutally, horribly murdered,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss during a preliminary hearing into the slayings.

The man allegedly responsible for the double homicide, Auchincloss argued, is Corey John Lyons, the 50-year-old brother of Daniel Lyons who is facing two counts of homicide with special circumstances of murder for financial gain and committing multiple murders.

Corey Lyons, wearing a tan suit, blue shirt and reading glasses, took notes with an unshackled hand as Auchincloss gave his opening remarks and called a handful of witnesses to the stand.

It was 1:20 a.m. on the Monday morning when police received several calls reporting shots fired, the prosecutor began. Officers arrived minutes later and spoke with a neighbor who had dialed 911. He had a terrible feeling about the dark, silent house next door.

That neighbor and a close friend of the victims, who arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting, told officers to track down Corey Lyons, explaining there was “bad blood” between the brothers concerning the construction of the home at 621 Aurora Ave., Auchincloss said.

Daniel had hired his brother, a licensed contractor, to build the home, the prosecutor said, but things quickly soured.

“The relationship became strained during the construction and there were numerous construction defects, mostly leaks,” Auchincloss said. “Also, at the end of construction, Daniel Lyons learned his brother had been stealing from him.”

The brothers had become embroiled in a contentious civil lawsuit over the home. Daniel Lyons levied serious allegations of fraud, extortion and larceny against his brother, who was facing potential criminal prosecution and the revocation of his contractor’s license, Auchincloss said.

But the brothers had apparently gone through mediation sessions and reached an oral settlement involving approximately half a million dollars — a $100,000 payment to Daniel Lyons, another $150,000 within five years, and the deed to a vacant parcel in Goleta owned by his brother.

Auchincloss said the defendant and his wife, Mildred, had until May 4 to sign the binding agreement, the same day the two victims were killed.

“May 4 was D-Day in this litigation,” the district attorney said.

After learning of the familial dispute, police raced to Corey Lyons’ home in the first block of Lassen Drive and discovered his full-sized white truck in the driveway. Near the passenger door, they found a fresh drop of blood, Auchincloss said.

In the garage, investigators also found traces of blood in a sink and on a towel, the prosecutor said. Mildred Lyons answered the front door and told officers that her husband usually sleeps in another bedroom because he snores.

But when authorities looked in the room, he wasn’t there, Auchincloss said, and his wife had no explanation. She suggested he might be staying in a recreational vehicle parked on a nearby property, but police searched the RV and turned up no trace of the 50-year-old.

They did, however, notice his BMW motorcycle was missing, Auchincloss said.

Back on Aurora Avenue, officers decided to take the cautious path and called in the SWAT team. At 6:25 p.m., authorities entered the home and found the two victims in separate bedrooms.

Det. Bryan Jensen, the lead detective on the case, testified that Scharton was found in a ground-floor bedroom. It was readily apparent the 48-year-old had died instantly from a single shotgun blast to the face while in bed, he said.

Daniel Lyons was found in the second-floor master bedroom with an obvious injury to his right side. Ballistics indicated he had been wounded by a shotgun blast, then killed by a .38-caliber round to his head, Jensen said.

After reconstructing the scene, authorities determined the 55-year-old had been wounded by the shotgun near a sliding glass door leading to the patio, as a panel of the door had been shattered.

Daniel Lyons managed to make his way back across the room, Jensen said, sustaining cuts to his feet from the shattered glass before collapsing.

The shooter had unloaded four shotgun shells before switching to a .38-caliber handgun and firing at least five rounds. The bullet that entered the back left area of the victim’s head likely killed him instantly, the detective said.

Other than the front door that was busted down by SWAT officers, the two-story home showed no signs of forced entry or theft, Jensen said. All doors were locked other than a rear sliding glass entryway that had been closed, but not secured.

Back on Lassen Drive, police staking out the location were stunned to see Corey Lyons emerge from the nearby RV at approximately 9:25 a.m. Appearing confused, the 50-year-old asked officers what was going on and told them he had just woken up, Auchincloss said.

At the police station for questioning, the prosecutor said the defendant shared a whispered dialogue with his wife in an interview room.

When Mildred Lyons asked her husband if he committed the murders, Auchincloss said the defendant gave a mumbled, indecipherable reply. His wife allegedly responded, “Don’t talk.”

Meanwhile, investigators were starting to piece together more evidence. The owner of a property management company who works from offices on Overpass Road — near the Lassen Drive residence — called police to report something suspicious.

She told investigators that she used Corey Lyons as a handyman for work on some of the company’s properties. What was peculiar, Auchincloss said, was that the defendant had left his motorcycle in her parking space.

Corey Lyons also left a note saying the motorcycle wouldn’t start and he planned to pick it up the next day, the prosecutor said. Police inspected the motorcycle and found it to be in perfect working order.

Investigators also found several paths running from the office to Lassen Drive and the RV, suggesting Corey Lyons could have made his way into the motorhome without being seen by authorities, Auchincloss said.

And, like a trail of breadcrumbs, he said, investigators found gunshot residue linking the 50-year-old to the shootings.

“Everywhere the defendant was that night, we find gunshot residue,” Auchincloss said, listing the steering wheel of his truck, the seatbelt, the light switch in the truck, motorcycle gloves and even on Corey Lyons’ hands.

A set of keys left at the motorcycle led detectives to a storage trailer on a vacant lot, the prosecutor said, where they found a large cache of weapons including a shotgun, several handguns and ammunition.

But none of the firearms were used in the slayings, Auchincloss said, as none appeared to have been fired recently.

After his opening statements, the district attorney called Victoria Allard-Bernhardt to the stand. The longtime attorney had worked closely with Daniel Lyons at a Fresno firm and had become a family friend, in addition to assisting him with the civil suit against his brother.

She verified much of what Auchincloss had said about the litigation, noting that if Corey Lyons had lost the suit he would have stood to lose the $1.2 million he was paid to build the home, not to mention facing punitive damages.

Allard-Bernhardt testified that, in late April, Corey Lyons had come forward with a new proposal to pay all $250,000 of the agreed-upon settlement at once, but asked for an additional 90 days to get the financing together.

Daniel Lyons didn’t want to wait, she said, and made it clear that he wanted the settlement signed by May 4 or they would meet in court. He had a reputation as a “take-no-prisoners” litigator, she said, answering a cross-examination question from defense attorney Steve Balash.

Sgt. Marylinda Arroyo took the stand next and described her experience as the first officer to arrive at the scene of the shooting. En route to a rally point with other officers at Dolores Drive and Meigs Road, she passed Ricardo Avenue, which leads from Meigs Road to Aurora Avenue.

A large white truck parked facing Meigs Road caught her attention as she passed the roadway. Its headlights were illuminated, but she couldn’t see anyone inside. After slowing, she continued to the meeting point before investigating the area where shots had been reported.

When she walked down Ricardo Avenue half an hour later to move her squad car, the truck was gone. Later that morning, she traveled to Lassen Drive to inspect the truck parked in Corey Lyons’ driveway.

“I believe it was very similar to the vehicle I had seen on Ricardo,” Arroyo testified.

Under questioning from Balash, the sergeant said she didn’t return to the Mesa neighborhood to determine if anyone owned or regularly parked a white truck there.

Auchincloss then called Det. Jose LaTorre, who testified that he had contacted a close friend of the victims following the homicides. He said the woman told him Corey Lyons had contacted her several weeks prior to the murders, asking her to intervene to get Daniel Lyons to drop the lawsuit.

“She stated that he seemed upset,” the detective said. “Not mad, but upset and desperate.”

Corey Lyons allegedly told the woman that his brother was going to “take everything he owned,” LaTorre testified. That “he was going to be homeless, his family was going to be homeless.”

Jensen, the lead detective, had a similar experience while questioning another longtime friend who grew up with Daniel Lyons. Corey Lyons had also contacted that friend several weeks before the homicides.

Jensen said the defendant reportedly pleaded with the family friend to intervene in the civil lawsuit as well. “This will ruin me,” Lyons said, according to Jensen’s testimony. “I’ll lose my contractor’s license.”

Last to take the stand was Coleen Zitelli, the sister of Corey and Daniel Lyons. The Petaluma resident grew up with Corey, Daniel and her two other brothers, Tom and Patrick, in Santa Barbara with their parents.

She told Auchincloss that the siblings had few major conflicts growing up, but all the other siblings had issues with Daniel as adults.

“He was just argumentative,” Zitelli said. “He just had conflict.”

She was surprised when he agreed to have his brother, Corey, build his home on Aurora Avenue, saying that Daniel is “difficult to work with.” Zitelli testified that she knew about the civil suit that grew out of the construction job.

“I knew that was bad, because Dan’s a fierce person,” she said.

She told Auchincloss that Corey Lyons had also spoken with her occasionally about marital problems he was having, noting that the lawsuit with his brother “added to the trouble.”

At 3 a.m. on May 4, the morning of the slayings, she received a call from Corey Lyons. She said it was hard at first to figure out who was calling her in the middle of the night.

“He seemed very quiet and I’m a little hard of hearing,” Zitelli said. “He wasn’t really responding.”

He didn’t say much, she testified, other than that he loved his family.

Auchincloss pressed her repeatedly on that conversation, asking her if her brother said anything about Daniel Lyons.

“He did not tell you, ‘Daniel is dead’?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” Zitelli responded repeatedly.

Auchincloss also pressed her about interactions she had with her brother Tom, but she struggled to remember when certain conversations took place and what was discussed.

Zitelli did note that, toward the beginning of the civil lawsuit between the two brothers, Corey Lyons had told her “he felt like killing Dan.”

The preliminary hearing resumes at 9 a.m. on Monday. At its conclusion, Judge Brian Hill will determine whether enough evidence exists against Corey Lyons to hold a jury trial.

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