Escapee Sought as Benson Trial Witness

Police searched Sunday for a young electronics genius who escaped from jail before he was to testify in the trial of tobacco heir Steven Wayne Benson, charged with murdering his mother and nephew.

Guido Dal Molin, 21, was scheduled as a defense witness this week in Benson’s murder trial. Benson, who turned 35 on Saturday, is charged with the bombing deaths of his mother, Margaret, 63, heiress to the $10-million Lancaster, Pa., Leaf Tobacco Co. fortune, and her adopted son, Scott, 21.

Dal Molin escaped early Saturday from the Collier County Jail, where he was held on a first-degree murder charge in an unrelated case.

‘Pick a Lock With His Eyes’

“He told us he could pick a lock with his eyes,” jailer Louis Gibbs said. “When we brought him in, he told us he could get out in five minutes if he wanted to.”

Dal Molin apparently does not know Steven Benson, but reportedly was a friend of Scott Benson, the illegitimate son of Steven’s sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall. Scott Benson was adopted by Margaret Benson as her own son.

Defense lawyer Michael McDonnell had hoped to question Dal Molin about Scott Benson’s alleged drug dealings.

McDonnell contended in his opening arguments that Scott Benson was in debt to drug dealers. He suggested that the dealers were tired of waiting for their money and that they may have planted the bombs that killed Margaret and Scott Benson and severely wounded Kendall.

The state contends that Steven Benson killed his mother after she threatened to disinherit him because of the way he allegedly spent her money.

Benson’s trial resumes today with the jury of 10 women and two men expected to begin deliberations late in the week.

Escapes From Special Cell

Gibbs said Dal Molin had been placed in a special cell near the jail’s booking room so guards could keep an eye on him. But Dal Molin apparently jammed a steel door to his cell, then got into the room that houses an electronic control panel, he said.

“He started pushing buttons and doors started flying open,” Gibbs said. He said that although Dal Molin had never been in the control room, he apparently was able to figure out quickly which buttons to push.

Dal Molin was arrested earlier this month and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Vernon Stewart, 39, of Lake Wales, Fla. Stewart, who had financed Dal Molin’s burglar alarm installation business, was killed in January.