A Pima County Superior Court judge has refused to set aside the conviction of Pamela Anne Phillips in the 1996 murder of Tucson businessman Gary Triano, delivering a decisive ruling that leaves intact a verdict reached after years of investigation, indictment and trial. The judge’s denial of Phillips’ petition for post-conviction relief concludes the most recent wave of litigation in a homicide that has drawn public attention in Southern Arizona for nearly three decades.
The petition at issue challenged Phillips’ convictions for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. In denying the motion, the court disposed of each claim raised by Phillips and concluded there were no legal grounds to disturb the jury’s findings. The post-conviction petition prompted multiple hearings, extensive legal briefing and additional forensic work, including DNA testing performed with newer technology that was not available at the time of the original trial.
Courtroom gavel representing the judge's ruling denying the post-conviction appeal in the 1996 Gary Triano murder case.
The Pima County Attorney’s Office said the court rejected every argument presented in the petition and affirmed the result reached by the jury. In a statement, Pima County Attorney Laura Conover commended the office’s appellate team for their work over the course of the appeals and post-conviction proceedings. “Justice doesn’t end with a verdict. It requires an ongoing commitment to protecting the integrity of that verdict through every stage of the legal process,” Conover said, acknowledging Appellate Supervisor Bill Brammer, Deputy County Attorney James Rappaport, Paralegal Maggie Guzman and the appeals staff for their role in defending the conviction.
Investigators say Gary Triano was killed in 1996 when a bomb detonated inside his vehicle. Prosecutors have maintained that Phillips hired Ronald Young to place and trigger the explosive device that took Triano’s life. Both defendants were later tried and convicted in separate proceedings: Phillips in a 31-day jury trial that concluded in 2014, and Young in his own prosecution. Phillips received a life sentence following her conviction; Young was convicted separately and is serving a natural life sentence.
Archival wedding photograph of the couple connected to the 1996 car-bomb murder at the center of the upheld conviction.
The procedural history of the case spans several decades. Phillips was indicted in 2008, years after Triano’s death, and was ultimately tried in 2014. After the jury returned guilty verdicts on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy, she was sentenced to life in prison. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed those convictions in 2018, and Phillips pursued further relief in state court beginning in 2024.
That post-conviction effort set off another round of court activity, as defense lawyers sought to introduce new evidence and pressed a variety of legal claims challenging both the verdict and aspects of the investigation. State court records show the litigation included additional forensic testing using techniques that became available since the original trial, along with multiple hearings to assess the merits of the petition. The Superior Court’s ruling on July 29, 2026, rejected the petition in full and left the jury’s verdict intact.
With the July ruling, prosecutors secured another legal victory in a case that has remained one of the region’s most closely followed homicide prosecutions. The denial of post-conviction relief preserves the convictions and sentences previously imposed: life in prison for Phillips and a natural life sentence for Young. The court’s decision closes the latest chapter in the litigation surrounding Triano’s death, though the formal record now reflects the extensive appellate and post-conviction proceedings that preceded this ruling.
The Pima County Attorney’s Office characterized the outcome as the result of sustained appellate work and the office’s ongoing efforts to defend criminal convictions through successive stages of review. The court’s determination that no grounds existed to overturn the jury’s findings restates the outcome reached by jurors more than a decade ago and reaffirmed by the state appeals court in 2018. For now, the convictions tied to the 1996 car-bombing that killed Gary Triano remain in place, and the July 29, 2026 ruling stands as the latest judicial determination on the matter.
In 2023 defense-ordered testing of parts of the explosive device produced a DNA profile that did not match Ronald Young; Pamela Phillips filed a Rule 32 petition challenging her conviction based on those results on August 15, 2024.
Phillips’ post-conviction attorney, Stephanie Bond, has publicly said she believes the new DNA testing weakens the prosecution’s case and has pursued genetic genealogy and other investigative steps to try to identify the unknown profile.
The case and the new DNA developments were the subject of an ABC News 20/20 segment that aired on January 24, 2025, which examined the 2023 testing and competing views from the defense and prosecutors.
The man prosecutors say built and detonated the bomb, Ronald Young, was tried earlier than Phillips — a jury convicted him on March 31, 2010, and he was sentenced on May 3, 2010 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
The victim, Gary Triano, was killed on November 1, 1996, when a pipe bomb detonated inside his car, and Pamela Phillips is currently serving her life sentence at the Arizona State Prison Complex–Perryville.
The Pima County Attorney’s Office formally filed its response to Phillips’ 2024 petition on January 14, 2025, arguing the newly obtained DNA profile did not undermine the State’s case and did not warrant overturning the convictions.