It's been six years since all that was left of Camilla Lyman was found in the bottom of the septic tank. An autopsy, conducted on her skeletal remains has not been publicly released, but according to sources familiar with the investigation, the evidence indicates that she was shot in the head, perhaps execution style, and that her body was then weighted down with cinderblocks before it was ignominiously disposed of.
Homicide, that's the cause of the death. But the real circumstances surrounding her slaying are today as much in question as they were on the day she vanished.
A join investigation by the Rhode Island State Police and Scungio's office is, authorities say, at long last drawing to a close. A grand jury in Westerly, R.I has been considering the evidence in the case. Although grand jury proceedings are by law secret, authorities insist that soon, perhaps within the next few months it will hand down an indictment charging at least one and possibly as many as four people in her slaying.
Authorities declined to publicly discuss the pending indictment. But they privately acknowledge that at the top of the list is O'Neil, the cantankerous chain-smoking sometime dog breeder with hair and skin the same dull gray as November in New England, the guy nobody ever seems to have trusted except for the now deceased Cam Lyman.
O'Neil, who is now recovering from a stroke he suffered last year, recently pleaded guilty to fraud. Authorities had managed to track a fraction of Cam's missing fortune and forced him to acknowledge that he siphoned $15,000 from Cam Lyman's trust funds and estate — holdings once worth millions but now virtually worthless— after her disappearance. The guilty plea was a marked contrast to the vehement denials he made last year.
"The IRS was all over that sh..," he snarled and hacked to a reporter in an interview from his anything-but-palatial North Kingstown, R.I. home. "I got stuck. They ended up owing me money."
This much is clear. By the time Lyman's body was found, her estate had dwindled under O'Neil's supervision to the point that contentious lawsuit erupted when it was learned that there was not enough money left to honor the commitment she had made to the American Kennel Club's Museum of the Dog. There certainly wasn't enough to fulfill Lyman's final fantasy that they cremate her remains, rent a plane and sprinkle her over the matrons and queens at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
Meanwhile, O'Neil vehemently denies that he had anything to do with Camilla Lyman's death.
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