Ugly Duckling: A True Life Story of Beauty, Manipulation and Murder Read online

  UGLY DUCKLING

  A True Life Story of Beauty,

  Manipulation and Murder

  By Royal Phillips

  Copyright © 2014 Royal Phillips

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1500625205

  ISBN 13: 9781500625207

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue-Introducing the family

  Royal Phillips Journal Entries: 1949 to 2014

  - Pamela Ann Phillips is born: Missouri 1957

  - Ugly Duckling: Apr14, 1969

  - “When will I get boobs, Auntie Royal?” Aug 10, 1969

  - Pam becomes model: 1980

  - Meeting Gary Triano: Las Vegas 1984

  - Ronald Young cheats Pam: Aspen, July 1996

  - Royal and Pam Reunion: Aspen, Aug 1996

  - Gary Triano pipe bomb murder: Tucson, Nov. 1996

  - Pam loves Ecstasy: Aspen, Feb 2000

  - Tired of Pamela Show: Aspen, Oct. 19, 2004

  - AMERICA’S MOST WANTED: Chicago, Feb. 2005

  - US BUREAU AGENTS storm in: Aspen, Sept. 5, 2006

  - Pam leaves USA: Denver, Sept. 26, 2008

  - Indicted on 2 murder charges: Oct. 18, 2008

  - The Blonde Bombshell: Jan 10, 2010

  - Money laundering: Austria, Sept 15, 2010

  - Extradited to USA: Pima County Jail, July 3, 2010

  - Two life sentences: May 2014

  Acknowledgements

  “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

  (Galatians 6:7-8)

  For Pam

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I didn’t write this book. It wrote itself. These are my actual diary entries as I have recorded my family and life since the 1960’s. I have always been the documentarian in my family. I want my offspring to learn from the truths in our lives. Especially to break out of dysfunctional backgrounds that were previously held secret. I considered Pam to be one of my own since she was born but we really bonded in 1969 when she was 11 years old. I took her under my wing. I kept all of Pam’s letters, emails, and faxes throughout the years. I have albums of family photos captured by us. This is an in depth look at Pam’s life and how she developed economically and socially. I share this, now, so you may gleam some benefit and understanding of how environment impacts society. Having been a childbirth educator for 36 years, I have devoted myself to the care and love of the newborn as well as educating the parents. The family unit is so very precious. I quote Karl Menninger “What’s done to children, they will do to society.” With the ever-reaching tentacles of the Internet, we can know more truths and honor the family. We can learn from our heritage.

  The truth will then set us free.

  PROLOGUE

  1949-CHICAGO

  Truthfully, I was terrified of my mother. When I was 9 years old I was violently awakened from my sleep by late night screams in our Chicago house on the hill. My mother was drunk again. She was yelling at my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Lois, who slept in the guest room. Mother shouted “whore” and “slut” as she beat on Lois who was lying defenselessly in bed. I struggled to pull mother off of Lois. Later that day, my big brother, Frank, took his enraged fists to our mother, landing her in the Woodlawn Hospital with broken ribs. Frank had a horrible temper and didn’t stand for mistreatment of his fiancée.

  Our petite alcoholic mother had a history of being drunk on the floor passed out for days, but then she would sober up and become a controlling tyrant. It was no wonder that there was such a turnover in the house staff. My nannies lasted three to six months. Only Vinson, our chauffeur and butler, stayed for 15 years. She was devoted to her own beauty and had massages and facial lifts and ate lethicin and wheat germ in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Every day she would lay under two sunlamps to stay tan in the Chicago winters. I was also frightened by my handsome six-foot tall father, who would often grab an ax and break through her locked doors when drunk. We were very good customers of the door company.

  I loved Lois like a big sister, which made my mother very jealous. I often wondered how Lois ever put up with our family’s drunken debaucheries. She was very unemotional and could keep her cool under wild circumstances. Once when Frank was crazy and yelling, she simply picked up her drink and silently threw it in his face.

  Family at Palm Springs 1961

  Lois at Christmas

  OPENING my diary…..

  APRIL 14, 1957

  Daddy didn’t drive fast enough. I was so excited! We drove down from Chicago to Monette, Missouri to see my first niece. I adore my first blond nephew. He is such a cute baby. They named him Franklin Mervyn Phillips, Junior, but my mother calls him Putzie. She says it is some kind of German term of endearment. I think it is stupid. On this soggy spring morning, Pamela Ann Phillips had been born to beautiful fair haired Aunt Lois and my big brother Frank. I can’t believe that at seventeen I am an aunt for the second time. Frank had just been transferred to Aurora, Missouri by Griffiths. When we went into the little hospital, there sat Lois, not a hair out of place, painting her nails pink. She didn’t even look like she had just had a baby. She couldn’t wait to smoke a cigarette!

  Pam was in the nursery down the hall. Definitely a Phillips baby with creamy skin, a tiny upturned nose and blond fuzz for hair. Pamela looked very much like her big brother. I fell in love with her right then and there. Daddy and Mother drank toasts at dinner that night while I cringed with fear that they would get bombed. Why can’t my family behave themselves? I hate the scenes they make. And I hate that my mother makes her grandchildren call her MUTZIE. Another one of those dumb German nicknames. She says she doesn’t want to sound old. Have another face-lift, Mutzie!

  Mother’s Cadillac 1957

  Lois with new baby 1957

  _____

  OCTOBER 19, 1957

  Daddy, I can’t believe what is happening. I graduated from high school in June. Boarded a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Germany to live with a family for the summer. Returning to the USA in September, I had two weeks to pack my trunks for the University of New Mexico. I was forced by my mother to join a sorority. My father wrote me secretly to pledge any house I desired. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack. I flew back to Chicago where my inebriated mother buried him in the wrong cemetery. He had a Masonic funeral and she had forgotten that only she as a Catholic could be buried in a Catholic sacred mausoleum. I am stunned.

  What is our life going to be like now?

  My handsome father

  Palm Springs news 1961

  _____

  AUGUST 1, 1962

  After a blind date and a very short courtship, I marry Rodney Putz. We elope to Las Vegas. I knew Mutzie wouldn’t like him. She didn’t.

  Becoming a Royal Putz in Las Vegas

  LIFE IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED

  no air conditioning in the

  tiny turquoise Karman Ghia accelerating

  towards that eloping Las Vegas

  wedding on August 1st, 1962

  you watch shimmering cactus

  transplant on liquid asphalt

  and you’re asking him if he

  is scared and he says, “NO”

  but you can feel your heart

  thumping to the radio beat

  of “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?”

  smack dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert

>   wiping beads of sweat with the

  back of your non-jeweled hand

  remembering how he said “Do you want

  a diamond or a house?” and you gave

  him the pink slip to your new car and

  he bought the Selrose Lane house on

  the foggy Mesa and put it in his name

  but you knew he must love you

  as you sped along to your wedding

  when the Las Vegas strip lights

  flashed across the furrow on your brow

  and the Little White Chapel that advertised

  “WHERE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE”

  as the southern minister

  drawled you man and wife

  all for seventy-five bucks

  the recording and two 8 X 10’s included

  Bernie Mac Elhenney and Ellen Beach

  stand up in the Desert Inn and shout

  to the contorting Don Rickles

  that Rod Putz has just

  married Royal and you take another deep drink of champagne feeling something

  is seriously wrong because the audience is doubling

  over in laughter and you don’t understand until

  the Karmen Ghia is speeding over scalding Highway 15

  back to Santa Barbara when you ask Rodney

  “What does Putz mean, anyway?” and he smiles

  from the driver’s seat and says, “Prick...

  it means prick in

  Yiddish.”

  then the scorched sun fries your hangover to the size of Kentucky and you reply,

  “You mean that

  I am now

  a Royal Prick?’

  and we never did have a honeymoon.

  _____

  JUNE 19, 1963

  In 1963, my nine-pound baby boy, Randall, was delivered at old Cottage Hospital. I say old because in my room was a fireplace that had originally been installed for heating purposes. There were no tours of the hospital. Your husband dropped you off or waited in a waiting room until he was called about the birth. When labor began to get tough, they wheeled you into an elevator and took you upstairs- somewhere- heavily sedated to deliver. When he was born, the doctor held my son upside down and spanked him to breathe- a rather violent introduction to our planet. The result of all those drugs in my body! I had to have a private room where I requested “rooming- in” and was considered very strange because I wanted to breast feed my baby. No one could enter the room except hospital personnel and Rodney, my husband, who had to scrub and put on a mask and gown each time he came to visit us. My drunk mother could not bother me! I was there for six days.

  Birth of Randy 1963

  _____

  MAY 15, 1967

  There was no education on childbirth or parenting in the city. Rodney and I found a one-night class through adult education, which was taught by a tightly girdled nurse who showed us a film of an actual childbirth in back of a cop car. It was not a pretty sight and the woman was screaming (well, so would I if I had to deliver in a cop car). The horror tales surrounding birth continued from well meaning friends and relatives. We were both scared.

  _____

  JULY 6, 1967

  In 1967, I delivered a second son, Erik Bryan at Cottage Hospital in the new maternity wing with no windows. Parked outside in the summer fog, we prayed together before going in. Because the first one took so long to deliver, and because the medical profession had newly discovered Pitocin, a drug administered to augment labor, I decided to be induced. I thought a Fourth of July baby would be just fine. This 8 lbs., 8 ounce boy child was born after threat of a Cesarean section on the night of July 6th. I had forced his birth tearing my cervix and hemorrhaging. He also was held upside down and spanked vigorously. This hospital stay was longer. I did have rooming-in again and was able to sooth him whenever he wanted. I could breastfeed him on demand. I thought, “There must be a better way to do all this.”

  _____

  APRIL 14, 1969

  We gathered at Mutzie and my stepfather Logan’s architectural Cody house on Phillips Road in Palm Springs. Pam is about to turn 12 and I haven’t seen her much since she moved up to Edina, Minnesota. I am pregnant and Pam seems to be enthralled by that. Our sons Randy and Erik are almost 2 and 6. Their daddy, Rodney, really wants a baby girl.

  I surprise Pam with streamers, hats and candles to celebrate her birthday. Of course, mother Mutzie complained that our decorations were making a mess. We would be bothering her maid.

  We all go to the Bob Baker Marionette’s show at Thunderbird Country Club. After Mutzie’s champagne cocktails, she reminds us that this is the only country club in Palm Springs that doesn’t allow Jews. We ask her to please lower her voice.

  We look for the hidden eggs around the golf course. Randy finds the elusive golden egg. The pastel Easter breakfast is always a treat for my children. We always pray that Mutzie doesn’t get too drunk the night before so we can attend. I tell Pam that she should come up to Montecito to visit us and that delights her. We all swim and splash in the pool and frolic in the hot desert air.

  Pretty Pam at 12

  Pam’s parents leave to play golf at Thunderbird with Mutzie, while we leave to play tennis. I hear Lois call out, “Bye, Pammie, my little ugly duckling.” My heart goes out to Pam and I decide right then and there to take her under my wing for I despise people that criticize and denounce children. I know so well how that feels - so very close to the nerve of my own painful past. We make a plan for Pam to visit in the summer. I tell her that she is beautiful. Pam’s smile was radiant.

  Lois and Frank, Pam’s Parents, Palm Springs, Easter

  _____

  JUNE 3, 1969

  Hurray, Pam is here! She loves our Spanish style home on La Vereda Lane. She encourages me to go to Butterfly Beach where she does perfect cartwheels and practices her gymnastics. Our third baby is due in October. Pam says, “It’s a girl”. She is catching on to the positive flow. We take her to the San Diego Zoo and out on our sailboat, Orion, to the Channel Islands. She loves adventure.

  Randy gets jealous. He likes to play tricks on her. Randy would find her candy stash and hide it. That is amusing to me as he has been such a perfect son. I weirdly take delight when he has a negative reaction like this. It proves my number one son is human!

  Erik loves to run around setting his spirit free tumbling with his gymnastic cousin. We talk about the possibility of a girl baby joining our family.

  Pam doing cartwheel, Hollister Ranch

  Siempre Verde, Montecito house

  _____

  JUNE 9, 1969

  You can never expect anyone to change…only yourself. I share my Dr. Weininger tidbits with Pam. I tell her about all my years of learning with this unusual psychiatrist whom I ran to with tales of my families’ dysfunction when arriving in Santa Barbara in 1961. Dr. Ben, as we called this thin, wiry man, had his office in his farmhouse tucked away above Mission Canyon. The windows were always open in his corner office allowing his garden cats to visit whenever they wanted. His old German housekeeper, Anna, would shuffle in with herbal tea for us.

  On the wall, there was a drawing by Charles Schulz showing Lucy Van Pelt and Weininger sharing a wooden sidewalk psychiatric stand. Dr. Ben conducted a street-corner counseling booth on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles for five cents. Schulz named him the “The 5-cent Psychiatrist.”

  Dr. Weininger and Charles Schultz book

  Pam and I stay up late after I have put the kids to bed and talk, talk, talk. I so want to share what I am learning with Pam so that she can make a clear life for herself without all our family dysfunction. She loves our late night talks.

  _____

  JUNE 25, 1969

  Well, it wasn’t anything at all like I expected. This Esalen Institute workshop with my husband Rodney was a surprise. I mean I was expecting harsh Gestalt therapy. Instead the topic was togetherness. Rodney, a tall heavy set man and I, a tall slender blond, shyly experienced the hot mineral
baths naked for the first time with strangers while sea lions played below in the wild ocean. Dr. George Bach, our workshop leader, had joined us in the hot tub. He remarked that I had the body of a Reuben’s model. I could see Rodney scowling. Big Sur was its usual roughly hewn self.

  I am grateful I have had Dr. Ben Weininger, my Jewish shrink, who has taught me more about Christianity than all my upbringing in the Roman Catholic Church. He encouraged us to go to Esalen. I plan to do things separately with each child and Pam so they each have undivided attention. I look forward to sharing Big Sur with them… sharing the beauty of raw nature. We will go camping…a camping we will go.

  _____

  JUNE 30, 1969

  I pack up the little red MGB with beach towels and get Randy and Erik ready for the beach. I feed you all first at home so I don’t have to mess with sandy sandwiches! Pam says that she will dig a hole for my stomach at the beach. She is determined to get us there. I wear my black maternity bathing suit. The one with the daisies. We park at Butterfly Beach and off she scampers to dig my baby hole so I can lie down. I am aware of how she always finds a way to do everything.

  You are a determined young lady, Pam.

  _____

  JULY 6, 1969

  We go to Dr. White the vet with our cat for shots. An assistant comes out from the back kennels with a little puppy in his arms. It has one blue eye and one brown. Pam goes nuts for this puppy and attempts to talk me into adopting him. I ask what kind of dog he is. The young guy says HEINZ 57. We know for sure he is part sheepdog from his eyes. He has curly brown and gray hair. “Get him for Erik’s birthday, Auntie Royal.” You plead with all sorts of reasons why he’d be a good addition to our family.

  We return home with our white cat and one new puppy whose name is Troy. Erik’s second birthday party is a success.