Murder by nature

The Unsolved Murder of Dorothy Scott

• Jazmin Hernandez • Season 1 • Episode 24

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“Welcome to Murder By Nature, where we discuss True Crime, Mystery disappearances, and unsolved cases! I’m Jazmin Hernandez, your host!


Thank them for listening and being a part of this community. 


References:



Stalking there are many different forms, from searching someone's social media profiles to watching them walk around the school. But some are more intense, making you look over your shoulder and lock your doors at night. The people you have had passed relationships with or who always watched you from afar. In the united states, more than 10% of our population is stalked at some point in their life. 89% of femicide victims who had been physically assaulted had also been stalked in the 12 months before their murder. 79% of abused femicide victims reported being stalked during the same period that they were abused. 54% of femicide victims reported stalking to police before they were killed by their stalkers.



For months, Dorothy Jane Scott had received phone calls from the same mysterious admirer at her workplace.  The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she just couldn’t place who it was.  Sometimes he expressed fawning adoration, and other times, resentment and violence.  He told her he was trailing her wherever she went, and he described details of her daily activities to prove it.



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Intro

“Welcome to Murder By Nature, where we discuss True Crime, Mystery disappearances, and unsolved cases! I’m Jazmin Hernandez, your host!


Thank them for listening and being a part of this community. 


References:



Stalking there are many different forms, from searching someone's social media profiles to watching them walk around the school. But some are more intense, making you look over your shoulder and lock your doors at night. The people you have had passed relationships with or who always watched you from afar. In the united states, more than 10% of our population is stalked at some point in their life. 89% of femicide victims who had been physically assaulted had also been stalked in the 12 months before their murder. 79% of abused femicide victims reported being stalked during the same period that they were abused. 54% of femicide victims reported stalking to police before they were killed by their stalkers.



For months, Dorothy Jane Scott had received phone calls from the same mysterious admirer at her workplace.  The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she just couldn’t place who it was.  Sometimes he expressed fawning adoration, and other times, resentment and violence.  He told her he was trailing her wherever she went, and he described details of her daily activities to prove it.


Dorothy was born on April 23, 1948. She was a single mother living in Stanton, California, with her aunt and four-year-old son. She was a secretary for two jointly-owned Anaheim stores, one that sold psychedelic items (i.e., love beads, lava lamps) and the other a head shop. Dorothy worked in a backroom office and led a life far less colorful than the tie-dye shirts and multicolored bongs sold at the other end of the store. She was a dependable worker and, by all accounts, a kindhearted and compassionate person. She was a devout Christian. She did not find drinking or doing drugs to be something that interested her. She would rather be at her with her son. Her parents, who lived in Anaheim, would babysit their grandson while Dorothy was working. Little did everyone know the woman that didn't date was having trouble. The 32-year-old secretary was frightened someone had been calling her for months. Someone would call her daily and threaten to cut her “into bits.” they stalked her closely, sometimes detailing her every move in his terrifying calls. One call shook Dorothy to the core. The stalker called and told Dorothy to go outside; he had a surprise for her cautiously; Dorothy made her way outside to her where there was a single dead red rose on the windshield of her car. This terrified her to the point of finally calling the police, she didnt knows where to turn or how to protect herself or her son. As the police came to investigate the situation, they let her know that since he hadn't physically harmed her, there was no way for them to really help her. The stalker wouldn't stay on the phone long enough to be traced, and they had no idea who he might be. Then Dorothy received a call that really freaked her out. Her stalker stated, 'OK, now, you are going to come my way, and when I get you alone, I will cut you up into bits, so no one will ever find you” Unsure of how to move forward, Dorothy started taking karate classes to equip herself in the event that something did happen. 

May 28th, 1980, was like any other day except Dorothy had to go to work for a company meeting. She got ready and headed to her parent's house to drop off her son and head to work. The meeting was like any other day until Dorothy noticed her coworker Conrad Bostron looking ill. She continued to watch him throughout the meeting, getting sicker and sicker to the point that his hand was inflamed from what appeared to be a spider bite. At this point, she asks him if he's okay or if he wants to go to the hospital. Knowing this could be a long stay, Pam Head offered to go with the pair to the hospital. The trio got into Dorothy’s white 1973 Toyota Station Wagon and drove to UCI medical center. Now on the way to the hospital, Dorothy knew she had to stop by her parent's house to check in with her son and let them know that she was going to be late and take her friend to the hospital. She kissed her son goodnight and got her red scarf as she was walking out the door. When they arrived at the hospital, the doctors determined that Conrad was bitten by a black widow as Dorothy and Pam waited in the lobby until Conrad was ready to go home. Around 11 pm, Conrad was finally released from the hospital but noticing that he was still very ill, she decided it was best if Pam and Conrad filled his prescription and waited at the exit for her to bring the car around. As the two went to the pharmacy, Dorothy made her way to the restroom and then out to the car. When Pam and Conrad came back around to the exit, they thought they would see Dorothy there waiting, but she wasn't. Strange to them, they decided maybe she got held up and started to walk towards the car. Suddenly they were confronted by her vehicle driving erratically towards their direction with the headlights on full beam, blinding them as they waved their arms in the air to get her attention. The driver never stopped as the vehicle swerved past them, making a sharp right turn out of the parking lot. Confused by the situation, Pam and Conrad thought an emergency had occurred regarding Dorothy’s four-year-old son and decided to remain at the hospital for two hours, thinking she would return, but she never did. Finally, Pam decided it was time to call Dorothy’s parents and ask if they had any contact with their daughter. When Dorothy’s mom answered the phone, she was confused, Dorothy was there, and the last they heard from her, she was taking this pair to the hospital. Worried, Pam and Conrad decided it was time they called the police and reported Dorothy missing. The police took the initial report but didn't really take the report very seriously. Dorothy was an adult, and just because she was not there didn't mean something had happened to her. It wasnt until 4:30 AM on May 29th, 5 hours since Dorothy was last seen, that the police and family started to get very concerned. 10 miles from the hospital, the police had a report of a vehicle on fire. As the police arrived at the scene, they found Dorothy’s white 1973 Toyota Station Wagon engulfed in flames burning in an alley. But no sign of anybody in the car or at the scene. The police knew this was either a kidnapping or an elaborate plan for her to run away. Several search parties immediately started as they looked for Dorothy, but nothing came from them.  Jacob and Vera Scott were distraught about their daughter’s disappearance. The police told them not to speak to the press to ensure Dorothy’s safe return, but the positivity soon began to wane. They feared the worst, and those feelings only grew more devastating on June 4th, a week after she went missing. When they received a phone call from a male asking, “Are you related to Dorothy Scott?”. When Vera said that she was, the caller simply added, “I’ve got her,” and then hung up. This would not be the last call the family would get from this man throughout the years. Every Wednesday for years, her parents were harassed by the caller; sometimes, he would say that he killed her and sometimes say that she was alive. The police installed a call recorder but could never trace the caller since the calls were always brief.  They told the Scott family not to release any details about their daughter’s disappearance or the phone call to the media in order to have the upper hand with pivotal information and to steer clear of false confessions. On June 12th, 1980, Pat Riley, editorial manager for the Santa Ana Register, received a phone call from a man claiming to have killed Dorothy. The caller said, “I killed her. I killed Dorothy Scott. She was my love. I caught her cheating with another man. She denied having someone else. I killed her”. The caller then revealed clues that had been withheld from the public about the night Dorothy was abducted. He knew about Conrad’s spider bite and the color of Dorothy’s headscarf (the one she'd changed before heading to the hospital.) The caller also claimed that Dorothy had called him from the hospital. This last detail is the only one that doesn’t fit. Pam claimed to have been with Dorothy the whole night at the hospital and said she never made a phone call. Unless Dorothy made a call between using the bathroom and retrieving the car, it didn’t happen outside of the mind of her abductor. He felt like they were in a relationship and that her taking another man to the hospital was, in fact, an act of infidelity. The phone call to Pat Riley baffled Dorothy’s family and friends. They told authorities they had no knowledge of Dorothy having a boyfriend, let alone time for one, with her two jobs and her son to look after. Police believe that the person who called the Santa Ana Register was her killer.

Years passed with no answers on what happened to their daughter; the family wanted to believe that the caller was telling the truth when they said she was still alive. They kept their phone number the same just in case he would allow them to speak to their daughter until one day, the caller slipped up and called in the evening, only to find Jacob on the other end. The caller hung up and didn’t phone again for another four months. There are theories that the caller got scared when Jacob answered or that he felt like Jacob could identify who he was. 


Four years after Dorothy’s disappearance in Aug of 1984, a construction worker who was digging up the area to add in new telephone lines discovered the remains of a dog at the Santa canyon road approximately thirteen miles away from UC Irvine Medical Hospital. As he kept digging, he found a second set of bones, but this time, the body of a partially burned human. As the police arrived, they found a turquoise ring and a watch that stopped working at 12:30 AM on May 29th, about an hour after Pam and Conrad last saw Dorothy. Both of the items were linked back to Dorothy Jane Scott. Investigators believed the scorch marks weren’t from an attempt to burn the body. Police believed they were actually the result of a brush fire in October 1982 which had destroyed 125 homes in the area. This gave police an idea of how long the body had been there. To fully confirm that the body was Dorothy’s, the police pulled the dental records that confirmed it was her. The autopsy was never able to confirm her cause of death but her parents felt a sense of relief when they found the body. They said, "Before, you didn’t know whether she was…or she wasn’t…it’s a big relief. It’s one hell of a relief.” Two days after the body was found the family got another call. The caller asked is Dorothy there.


At her memorial service, where the few bones that had been excavated from the site could now be buried, Dorothy’s brother stepped up to the podium. “I spent time with her in her last days – a lot of time,” began Jim Scott. “To me, she exemplified the word ‘give’. She’d just give and give and give, no matter what it cost her…she spent her last hours giving and being concerned about others.”


No one has ever been charged with the murder of Dorothy Jane Scott, but there has been one strong theory or suspect that her son believes is responsible for his mother's death. Mike Butler, his sister, worked at Dorothy's shop, and Mike had become obsessed with her. He lived in the nearby mountains, and it is rumored that he was an unstable individual and perhaps involved with cult activities. Her son claims law enforcement had their eye on this guy but never had enough evidence to arrest or charge him. Scott’s son believes that Butler is the stalker and killer. Butler had run across Scott’s father before, and that is why the caller hung up when Jacob answered the phone, afraid that Jacob would recognize his voice. Butler was working at the same place, so he had the opportunity to follow her and know her schedule because it linked up closely with his sister’s, and he’d an excuse to come around the area. But there is no hard evidence to support Scott’s son’s theory.


In 1994 on Dorothy’s birthday, her father, Jacob Scott, passed away. Vera Scott passed away in 2002, 22 years after her daughter's abduction. They never discovered what happened to Dorothy or who was responsible. The case remains unsolved. Tips can be called to the Orange County Crime Stoppers website: https://occrimestoppers.org.


The police didn’t have many leads, but one came up during the investigation. Two years after the disappearance of Dorothy Scott, Patricia Schneider went missing in July 1982. Before her disappearance, Patricia called, saying her car had broken down, and then there was no news from Patricia. Her car was found a few hours later, on fire in a field, just as Dorothy’s car had been found. Similar to Scott, there was no sign of Patricia at the scene, and she was suspected of being kidnapped, maybe from the same person who took Scott. However, the major difference between the disappearance is that Patricia’s family never received any threatening phone calls, and her disappearance remains unsolved.

Outro

That brings us to the end of this episode!  As always, thanks for listening to Murder By Nature. If you enjoy our show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any streaming platform you are currently on, and be sure to come back Saturday for our new episode. Until then, I am your host, Jazmin Hernandez, don’t forget to stay safe! Don’t get murdered or murder people, you lovely humans!





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