Expert rebuffs Scher's story

MONTROSE, Pa. - A lawyer slain in 1976 was shot from a range of three to five feet, not in a close struggle as the doctor charged with his murder claims, an expert testified yesterday.

Stephen Scher, now 67, is being retried in the death of his friend Martin Dillon, 30, while the two were skeet shooting on June 2 at the Dillon family's hunting camp in rural northeastern Pennsylvania.

Scher maintains that Dillon confronted him about his affair with Dillon's wife, and was killed accidentally as the pair struggled over a shotgun.

But Martin Fackler, a military surgeon and expert in firearm injuries, said yesterday that the shooting could not have happened the way Scher described it, based on the shape of Dillon's wound.

The prosecution plans to wrap up its case today with testimony from a pathologist and a medical examiner. The jury is expected to get the case by the end of the week.

Scher was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court ordered a new trial in 2004.

Prosecutors say Scher killed Dillon so he could marry Dillon's wife. Witnesses have testified that Scher and Patricia Dillon had been having an affair before her husband's slaying.

Scher and Patricia Dillon married two years after Martin Dillon's death and moved to North Carolina, where he had a successful medical practice. They have since divorced.

Until 1997, Scher claimed that Dillon tripped while chasing a porcupine and accidentally shot himself. He admitted the story was a lie at the first trial.