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Dottie Caylor

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Real Name: Dorothy May Rusnak Caylor
Nicknames: Dottie
Location: Pleasant Hill, California
Date: June 12, 1985

Bio[]

Occupation: Former Legal Secretary
Date of Birth: January 9, 1944
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 190 lbs.
Marital Status: Married
Characteristics: White female with brown hair and blue eyes. Dottie suffers from agoraphobia (fear of public places). She wore plastic-framed eyeglasses at the time of her disappearance. She has a scar above her left eye.

Case[]

Details: Forty-one-year-old Dottie Caylor and her husband, Jule, lived in Concord, California, a suburb of Oakland. On June 12, 1985, he drove her to the Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Pleasant Hill, three miles from Concord. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system, known to commuters as the BART trains, links San Francisco with East Bay cities.
Dottie reportedly entered the station and purchased a ticket, a simple task performed each day by millions. But this was a test of courage for her. She suffers from agoraphobia, an irrational and overwhelming fear of being in public places. Facing the unknown and the possibility of panic shadows every step. No one knows if she overcame her fear that day and boarded the train. What is certain is that since that day, there has been no trace of her.
Initially, Jule thought that Dottie had left temporarily to make things inconvenient for him. Her sister, Diane Rusnak, thinks that Dottie could have disappeared in the beginning to get even with Jule since he had disappeared on her for half of their married life. However, Diane cannot imagine her doing that for a long period of time.
Immediately after she disappeared, Dottie's family and friends wondered why a woman so afraid of the unknown would leave behind everything she had and everyone she knew. At first, they thought she may have left to escape an unhappy marriage and start a new life in another city. But as the months and years elapsed, there was no word from her. Holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries went by. Now, her friends and family are wondering: could she really have vanished voluntarily? Or was her disappearance more sinister?
Dottie was from Chardon, Ohio. She loved to read and write. She was quiet and kept to herself. After graduating high school, she attended secretarial school. In 1964, when she was twenty, she moved to Berkeley, California, where Diane lived, and found work as a secretary.
Dottie and Jule first met in 1970. She was twenty-six, and he was thirty-three. He had previously dated her roommate for three years. He introduced himself as "Jim Rupp". Unbeknownst to her, he was married and had a five-year-old daughter. Shortly after they began dating, he professed his love for her.
Several months later, Dottie found out about Jule's wife, daughter, and real name. When confronted, he claimed that he and his wife were planning to divorce. Still in love, Dottie decided to forgive him. Soon after, they moved in together. However, he "dragged his feet" about filing for divorce, claiming he did not want to pay his wife alimony. After Dottie "badgered and begged" him, he finally filed for divorce. In April 1975, he and Dottie married.
Jule was an entomologist and aerial photography specialist with the United States Forest Service. After he and Dottie married, they settled in a house on Greer Avenue in Concord. But over the years, her home became a self-imposed prison. According to Jule, she stayed inside most of the time due to her agoraphobia, anxiety, and insecurities. She could not even apply for a job, much less hold one down. He claims it was a real problem.
Dottie and Jule's marriage deteriorated. She was often home alone because he was working out of town over 50% of the time. While he was gone, she was unable to contact him. She also had no friends in the area. The situation seemed to make her anxiety and agoraphobia worse.
Dottie was cautious and planned her days down to the minute. She made lists for everything, such as her household chores and books she liked. Her friends and family blame much of her habits on Jule, as they believe he went out of his way to avoid being home.
Over time, Dottie became suspicious of Jule and his long absences. She took charge of the household accounts and started keeping track of his trips. She became aware of phone calls, motel rooms, and dinners that led her to believe that he was cheating on her. She wrote letters to women she believed he was seeing. Several of them responded, confirming that they were seeing him. They claimed that they did not know he was married.
Dottie and Jule often had angry, loud arguments about the affairs, which were overheard by neighbors. However, she always forgave him and fought to save their marriage. Diane believes Dottie stayed with Jule because she preferred it to being alone and in the "unknown".
Then, on Thanksgiving Day in 1981, the relationship erupted in violence. Dottie told her friend, Paula Powers, that she and Jule had gotten into an argument after he accused her of hiding a checkbook from him. According to her, he became violent and began throwing things around the house. He also threatened her.
According to Dottie, Jule hit her with her typing stand, and she received a wound on her head. She grabbed a pair of scissors and said, "You keep away from me." Neighbors heard the argument and called the police. By the time officers arrived, Dottie had driven herself to the hospital, where she received stitches. She then spent the night at a battered women's shelter.
Jule claims that Dottie started the fight. According to him, she stood over top of him with the scissors, swearing at him and saying, "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch, I'll kill you." He claims he grabbed her typing stand and hit her with it in self-defense. The police investigated the incident, but since neither of them decided to press charges, the case was dropped.
Along with this incident, Dottie had made other allegations that Jule was violent and abusive towards her. She wrote letters to his parents, accusing him of physically and emotionally abusing her for several years. She claimed that on different occasions, he kicked her, shoved a table into her, threw a scalding cup of coffee at her, and shook her while threatening to kill her. She also claimed that he repeatedly threatened to "pop [her] off" (he denies this).
In one letter, Dottie said that Jule had told her that when he was younger, he built a bomb and blew up his neighbor's dog. In another letter, she said that he had planned on killing his first wife because she was going to "bankrupt" him in their divorce proceedings. He said that he was going to sneak into her house and slit her throat. Dottie talked him out of doing it.
Dottie also wrote a letter to Jule's supervisor, claiming he was like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and was a "psychological and physical batterer." Her friends felt he was controlling. She told family, friends, and neighbors that she was afraid of him. She told neighbors to call the police if they heard her scream.
Jule, however, claims that he was the one who was in fear. He says he installed a lock on his bedroom door to keep her out. He also claims that she often walked in front of the TV carrying a knife in a threatening manner.
After the Thanksgiving 1981 incident, Dottie told Jule she wanted a divorce, but he refused. She told him she would reconsider if he attended counseling. He attended the required number of sessions but refused to sign a statement saying he abused her. Despite that, he told her he still loved her and wanted to stay married. However, she later discovered phone calls and hotel receipts, which revealed he had conducted another affair.
Dottie needed to pull together the threads of her disintegrating life. So in 1984, she joined "Women in Transition," a support group for women who were preparing for divorce or had lost their husbands. Without ever telling Jule, she attended meetings for over a year.
Dottie also started attending church, took college classes, and received counseling for her agoraphobia. She told her support group members about Jule's affairs, his abuse, her fears of being abused again, and her plans to divorce him. She told them that she had "had enough" and realized she did not need him.
Dottie met several new friends through the group, including Paula and Shelley Wilson. Paula thought Dottie was making tremendous progress. Shelley became a role model for Dottie and helped her plan her future. She remembers that Dottie started adding more color to her outfits. She started taking more care of her hair and cut it in a new style, which, according to Shelley, was scary for her. She also started to get a handle on her agoraphobia. To Shelley, it was as if a new Dottie were emerging. Diane also felt that Dottie was a "new and different" person and was confident and strong.
Dottie made sure Jule never met her new friends. He claims he knew nothing about her "secret" life. He believes she wanted it that way. He claims he only became suspicious and began to become aware of it around the time she disappeared.
In the fall of 1984, Dottie secretly rented a post office box so she could receive mail without Jule's knowledge. She applied for credit cards in her own name, opened a personal bank account, and transferred $5,000 into a cashier's check (due to expire in October 1985). The money, which she kept a secret from Jule, came from a truck and trailer she had sold. She planned to use it in case she had to leave him "at a moment's notice."
Dottie placed the check in a locked file cabinet, which also included bank records and documents that contained evidence of Jule's affairs, abuse, and threats to kill her. She asked Shelley to keep the cabinet at her house because she did not want Jule to find it. She wanted the documents to be turned over to the police in case something happened to her. Shelley asked her to move in with her, but she said that she liked staying in her house.
In the spring of 1985, about one month before Dottie disappeared, Jule told her he had to accept a job transfer to Salt Lake City, Utah. She told him she was not interested in going with him. He does not think he would have wanted her to come anyway.
According to Dottie's family and friends, she planned to stay in their Concord house. Around that time, she told Jule she wanted a divorce. On April 11, she talked to a lawyer and started taking classes on life after a divorce. On April 19, she and Jule met with a divorce mediator to discuss the division of property and the dissolution of their marriage. They decided she would stay in the Concord house and pay him monthly rent payments.
According to Shelley, Jule was not happy with this arrangement. Since Dottie had not worked since they married, he felt she was not entitled to the house. He also did not want to pay her alimony. They argued about how much rent she should pay and about her staying there, but she refused to budge from her plan. Over the next few weeks, she packed up his belongings and put them in storage.
In May, Diane met with Dottie. She noticed that Dottie seemed "frantic". Dottie said she was not going to let Jule control her anymore. She said that he wanted her to sign loan papers to refinance their house (which would give him the money to buy a new house in Salt Lake City), but she was not sure if she wanted to do it. She was worried about finding a job and paying rent. She also wanted him to "suffer", as she had in their marriage.
On June 5, Dottie sent a birthday card to a friend. She wrote, "I'm in the home stretch now…a few more weeks and he'll finally be out of here! Hooray!" A few days later, when a loan officer called and told her that the loan for the house had been approved, she said, "Good." However, Jule claims that he and Dottie later argued about her refusal to sign the loan papers.
On Tuesday, June 11, Dottie made a to-do list to prepare for taking over the house. It included getting new house numbers, registering her car, and buying food and drinks for herself. Jule took a sick day. That morning, they visited a mechanic. While there, they argued about money. The mechanic was the last person (other than Jule) to see Dottie alive.
According to Jule, on Wednesday, June 12, Dottie set off on a trip to visit a friend. He did not know who the friend was or where they lived. At 8am, he drove her to the Pleasant Hill BART station. On the way there, she told him she would be gone until around June 24, when he left for Salt Lake City.
Jule claims he dropped Dottie off and that she walked around the corner of the station and disappeared. He is certain she had her turquoise leather purse and overnight bag as she walked into the station for the last time. But he cannot be sure that she ever boarded the train.
The next day, Thursday, June 13, Jule parked at the Concord BART station and took the train to work in San Francisco. He told coworkers he was not feeling well and decided to take a half day. Around 1pm, he returned home and got off at the Concord BART station. In the parking lot, he was surprised to find Dottie's blue 1963 Volkswagen Beetle parked next to his car. When he looked inside, he noticed her purse on the floorboard. He thought it was strange that she had left it there.
Jule opened the car and looked inside Dottie's purse. It contained several items, including her wallet, medical card, medications, checkbook, glasses, a BART ticket, and $30 in cash. Her wallet contained her driver's license, a current Diablo Valley College student identification card, and her library card. However, her bee sting kit, which she always carried in her purse because she was allergic, was missing. Her overnight bag was also not in the car.
Jule left a note on Dottie's car, asking her to contact him. He also put her purse in a paper bag, hid it under the seat, and locked the doors. He then moved the car to keep her from getting a parking ticket.
The next day, Friday, June 14, Dottie's car was in the same spot, so Jule moved it again to a spot around the block. He then drove to his parents' house in Lindsay, California, and left his and Dottie's dog with them. He also left a rug there.
Over the next few days, Jule left a four-page letter and two more notes on Dottie's car, talking about problems he was having with the house. He accused her of "messing up" his life by refusing to sign the loan papers. He also expressed his love and pleaded with her to come home, saying he was worried about her. In a postscript for the letter, he maintained that it was her idea, not his, for him to seek out other women.
Starting on Friday, June 14, Shelley tried to call Dottie but received no answer. Finally, on Sunday, June 16, Jule answered. He told her he had not seen or heard from Dottie for three or four days and did not know where she was. He also said that she had left her car and purse behind. Shelley became upset and was almost hysterical.
Dottie had told Shelley how important it was for her to have her purse with her at all times. It contained everything she considered important. She felt secure when she had most of her things with her, and she felt safe out in the world.
Shelley asked Jule if he had called the police and reported Dottie missing. He said he had. However, when she called the Concord police, she learned that no report had been filed for Dottie. At that point, she felt something bad had happened. She called Dottie's other friends and family, but no one had heard from her. Diane called local hospitals, but Dottie had not been admitted to any of them.
At 3pm on Monday, June 17, five days after Dottie vanished, Jule filed a missing persons report with the BART police at the urging of a neighbor. The following day, the Concord Police Department was finally notified of Dottie's disappearance – not by Jule but by the BART police.
On Wednesday, June 19, one week after Dottie disappeared, Diane called Dottie and Jule's house and learned that movers were there. When she and Shelley arrived, they found that the movers were loading everything from the house, including Dottie's belongings, into a truck. Diane did not understand why Jule was taking all of Dottie's belongings if, according to him, she was not supposed to return to the house until after he left on June 24.
Diane discovered that Jule had repainted the house. Also, on Sunday, June 16, the day before he reported Dottie missing, he called a real estate agent and asked her to list the house for rent. He claimed he was forced to put it up for rent because Dottie had not signed the loan papers before she vanished. Diane asked Jule where Dottie was going to stay if she came back. He did not answer.
Diane and Shelley grabbed anything from the truck that they recognized as Dottie's. They also took her car. However, they believe Jule kept many of her belongings. They felt that Jule was more concerned about his financial situation than Dottie's disappearance.
Jule claims that since Dottie did not sign the loan papers for their house, he had to use his parents' house as collateral to secure a loan for his new house. On June 24, two weeks after Dottie vanished, he moved to Salt Lake City, where he still lives and works.
Shortly after the move, Jule and Diane talked over the phone. She recorded the conversation. He believed that Dottie either voluntarily disappeared permanently, was going to come back and "disrupt" his life, or was dead. He also claimed Dottie took over $30,000 from him.
The police questioned Dottie's friends, relatives, neighbors, and men she met through a Christian singles organization. They also searched her and Jule's house. They found no evidence of a struggle or a recent clean-up inside.
In January 1986, Diane hired private investigators Francie Koehler and Randy Ontiveros. Koehler believes foul play was involved in Dottie's disappearance. No one has heard from her since she disappeared. She left behind all her clothes and belongings, along with her dog. Although her bee sting kit was missing, the instructions were left in her purse. She did not take any money from her bank account, nor did she pick up the $5,000 check she left with Shelley. There has been no activity on her accounts since she disappeared.
Dottie's family and friends do not believe she would make plans to start a new life away from Jule and then walk away from everything and everyone. Shelley believes Dottie would have stayed with her if she wanted to get away from him. She and Dottie's other friends never heard her talk about disappearing for a long time.
As their attempts to locate Dottie turned up no new leads, Diane and Koehler started to worry that she might be dead. They began to consider Jule a suspect. They felt that his story did not make sense. Koehler notes that Jule is the only one who reported that Dottie went to the station. No one knows if she actually went there. In fact, he was the only one who reported seeing her at all on June 12.
Jule took several sick days in the days and weeks following Dottie's disappearance; he claimed he needed time to pack. When questioned by the police, he said he worked a full day on June 12. However, his time card showed he only worked an hour and a half and then took the rest of the day off. He also did not mention that he took June 11 off.
The Concord BART station was known to be very busy during the work week. It seemed unlikely that Dottie would have been able to find an open spot for her to park next to Jule's car.
Jule never reached out to Dottie's family or friends to see if they knew her whereabouts. He claims that he called Diane on June 17 to tell her that Dottie was missing, but Diane claims that he never called and that she learned about Dottie's disappearance from Paula Powers. Although he told the police that Dottie was not supposed to come back until June 24, he reported her missing on June 17 and told several people she "left" him.
The police asked Jule to take a polygraph several times, and each time, he refused. At one point, he sent a twelve-page letter to detectives, giving reasons why he would not take a polygraph.
When Jule was questioned by Koehler and Ontiveros, he changed his story about the day of Dottie's disappearance. He claimed he helped her wash her car around 3pm and then took her to the BART station. When the inconsistencies were brought up, he said that his original statement was correct and that he must have helped her wash her car the day before.
Detective Donald Maich of the Concord Police Department says that if this case proves to be anything other than a straightforward disappearance, Jule will be considered a suspect, along with anyone else who was close to Dottie at the time.
Jule claims he is not bothered about being a possible suspect. He suspects that Dottie either willfully disappeared and then was helped to permanently disappear, or she got involved with the wrong person right from the start.
Years have passed, and still, no one knows if Dottie built a secret life for herself to escape an unhappy marriage or if she was simply the victim of foul play. Diane thinks there is a chance that Dottie is dead, which is disturbing for her to think about. She has had many dreams about Dottie's disappearance. The police and friends she has spoken to have come up with hundreds of ideas. She feels there is no peace, rest, or conclusion. But, she says, they will not forget Dottie.
Jule says it was "hell" living with Dottie and having her disappear the way she did. Yet, since he has gotten to Salt Lake City, gotten settled, started his new job, and that "whole problem" is behind him, things are "really, pretty good" for him.
Suspects: Jule is considered a possible suspect in Dottie's disappearance. He was the last person to see her alive. Nobody else could verify if she ever made it to the BART station. He cheated on her several times during their marriage. He also threatened her and was physically abusive toward her. She kept documents that detailed his affairs, abuse, and threats. They were planning to divorce. She was planning to stay in their house when he moved, which he was not happy about.
Jule took several days off work around the time Dottie disappeared. After she disappeared, he did not seem concerned about her. He never contacted her family or friends to see if they knew her whereabouts. He packed up her belongings and rented out their house, even though she was supposed to stay there when she came back from her trip.
Dottie went on a few dates in the months before her disappearance. However, she told Diane in December 1984 that she was not going to date anymore until after the divorce. The men she went on dates with were questioned, but none are believed to be suspects.
Extra Notes:

  • This case originally aired on the November 29, 1987 Special #4 episode of Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack as host.
  • It was later re-profiled in the Dennis Farina hosted series on the October 22, 2008 episode.
  • It was also featured on The Trail Went Cold and PI's Declassified podcasts.
  • Some sources state that: Dottie and Jule married in 1973; she joined a support group for battered women in early 1985; she had multiple bank accounts; she got the cashier's check after closing her account; she was not sure if she wanted to stay at their house or with Shelley; she was going to pay Jule for half of their house and own it; he accepted the new job in June; she was only supposed to be gone overnight; he arrived at the BART station at noon on June 13; he found her car at the Pleasant Hill BART station; $42 in cash was in her wallet; he told Shelley he had not contacted the police; and he told Diane that he was moving Dottie's belongings out on June 19.

Results: Unsolved - As a result of the broadcast, the police received several tips about possible sightings of Dottie. However, none were found to be credible.
Another viewer contacted the police after she recognized Jule as a man who was engaged to her friend, Della Vigil, at the time of Dottie's disappearance. Jule had never mentioned her to the police. Detectives questioned Della, who had also worked for the U.S. Forest Service. In May 1984, she and Jule met after he gave a work presentation in Lakewood, Colorado. That night, the two went to dinner. He told her he was divorced and had no family.
After Jule returned home, he started calling and writing love letters to Della, saying he "had never been in love" before he met her. He used a post office box as his return address. He visited her several times that fall and spent Thanksgiving with her.
In December 1984, Jule proposed marriage, and Della accepted. He bought her a diamond engagement ring and a wedding band. However, he would not commit to a wedding date. He also refused to let her visit him, claiming he lived in motels in San Francisco and did not have a permanent address (he told a similar story to other girlfriends).
In the spring of 1985, Jule accepted the job in Salt Lake City to be close to Della. In the weeks before Dottie disappeared, he wrote several love letters to Della. Around the time Dottie disappeared in June, he had planned to visit Della in Colorado.
One day, however, Jule called Della and said the tenants in his rental house had left a mess. He said there was blood on the walls, and it looked like they had killed an animal in the kitchen. He said he had to paint the walls and have the carpets cleaned. She offered to help him clean, but he declined. In reality, he did not have a rental property at that point.
In late June, Jule moved into his Salt Lake City house. He told Della he wanted her to move in with him, but that did not happen. Months passed, and he still did not set a wedding date. In October, he wrote her a letter in which he talked about their relationship. He said, "I have faith in myself…if I did not I could never have come here. That took a most Herculean effort – one which you will probably never fully understand (because it was so difficult I really cannot talk about it or think about it coherently to tell you about it yet)."
That Christmas, Della visited Jule at his house. He finally told her that he was still married to Dottie. He then said Dottie was "gone", and he did not know where she was. Della then discovered one of Dottie's calendars that listed Jule's visits to Colorado. The dates listed coincided with the times he had visited her.
The next day, Della confronted Jule about Dottie's disappearance. He said he hated Dottie, and there was violence in their relationship. He said she was mentally unbalanced, always yelling and throwing things at him. He said she attacked him once, and he hit her in self-defense. He said they got into a few other fights that left her with bruises. He also said he carried a gun and kept his bedroom door locked because she had threatened to kill him.
Jule said to Della, "If I have to, I'll kill [Dottie] first. As a matter of fact, she's gone, and if she is dead someplace, it's good riddance." He also told Della that they did not have to worry about Dottie interfering in their lives, "she's not going to come and hurt [them] anymore", and she was "out of [his] life for good." He also said, "Maybe she is dead somewhere, maybe someone killed her, and if somebody killed her, good riddance."
Jule told Della that he struck Dottie so hard one time that he could have killed her. He said that on another occasion, he had his hands around her throat and easily could have choked her to death, but he did not. He also said it would be "so easy" to kill her because of the way she treated him.
When Della asked Jule about Dottie's disappearance, he said, "I don't remember." He told her that Dottie had vanished simply to disrupt his life. Della felt he was not interested in finding Dottie. She could not believe how "cold-blooded" and "cold-hearted" he was about Dottie's disappearance, which was much different from how he had acted before.
Jule also bragged to Della about how easy it would be for him to dispose of a body. He told her that he had buried the family dog after it died. He used a chemistry set to keep the dog from smelling so the neighbors would not complain. He told Della that if he ever wanted to get rid of a person, he would use something similar to what he used with the dog.
Della knew that Jule had special knowledge of lands that the general public did not have access to. She began to fear that he had killed Dottie and was going to kill her.
Frightened, Della left that day. Before leaving, she called her mother and told her to call the police if she did not arrive home within ten hours. For several months, Jule wrote to Della and tried to call her. In one letter, he said his love for her was so strong that he would kill for her. She was so frightened that she ended the engagement and cut off contact with him. By December 1986, he had moved on to another woman who was also a coworker.
However, in February 1987, Jule called Della and asked her to meet him in a remote area between Durango, Colorado, and Salt Lake City. He said he wanted to talk to her about getting back together. She refused to meet him, fearing that he was going to hurt her or make her "disappear" like Dottie.
In January 1988, a month after the broadcast, the police received a letter postmarked Gary, Indiana, which accused Jule of killing Dottie. It stated that he beat her to death in their garage with a tire iron on the morning she disappeared. He then buried her body at the bottom of an embankment under a birch tree in a remote area of Concord, where new homes were being built. Maps of the burial location and the garage were included with the letter.
The police determined that DNA from saliva on the stamp and envelope belonged to a male. However, they have been unable to match it to anyone. A document examiner believes the letter's handwriting is similar to Jule's; however, no definitive match was made. The police believe the writer was either a "psychic", a witness to the crime, or the killer.
In March 1988, detectives spoke to a Salt Lake City insurance agent who had worked with Jule to transfer his car insurance from California to Utah. He told her that his wife had disappeared, and he wanted to remove her from the policy. She said he showed no feeling and little remorse over Dottie's disappearance.
According to the agent, Jule began to visit her at her office and once brought her a rose. During one conversation, he told her he did not believe in divorce and said, "It would be easier to do away with them." He also showed her several aerial photos he had taken of a forest. She believed he was showing her where he had buried Dottie's body.
After the story was re-aired in December 1988, a motel desk clerk contacted the police. She said Jule had stayed at her motel several times in 1984 and 1985. She claimed that he became "obsessed" with her. He wrote her romantic letters even though she was living with another man. She said he would not take "no" for an answer. She also said she had to quit her job and move to get away from him. She became afraid of him and told friends that if she ended up dead, he was responsible.
In the summer of 2001, a reporter interviewed Jule about Dottie's case. He claimed that he "forgot" about her disappearance and assumed she was deceased. He also changed his story, claiming he never drove her to the Pleasant Hill BART Station. He assumed she drove herself there.
In August 2002, Detective Kurt Messick of the Concord Police Department interviewed Jule. Jule said that Dottie had him drop her off at the Pleasant Hill BART station several times before her disappearance. He claimed that she would be gone for three to five days, and he never knew where she went. He said he last saw her when he dropped her off at the station. He was not sure what day it was or whether it was morning or afternoon.
Jule said he found Dottie's car at the Concord station the next evening (he previously said he found it at 1pm). He claimed he did not find her purse until a few days later (he previously said he found it the same day he found her car). He also claimed that nothing was missing from it (he previously said her bee sting kit was missing).
Jule claimed he did not argue with Dottie before she disappeared (he previously said they argued about refinancing the house). He believed she either started a new life with a new identity or had help disappearing. When asked why he rented their house when she was supposed to stay there, he said he needed money. He also said she could have moved in with him if she came back (even though he planned to have Della move in with him).
Jule never had Dottie declared legally dead. However, in June 2003, he filed for divorce on grounds of "willful desertion". A Utah judge granted the divorce and awarded all of the marital property to Jule, which included their Concord house and undeveloped property in Oregon. However, Diane filed a lawsuit, and the divorce was set aside. The judge later ruled that Dottie was already dead when Jule sought the divorce, so there was no marriage to dissolve.
In January 2004, Jule retired. He then ran for Utah's House of Representatives as a Libertarian Party candidate. In March, The Contra Costa Times published a five-part series on Dottie's disappearance. Shortly afterward, the Concord police reopened the case as a homicide. They re-interviewed all of the original witnesses who were still alive, along with new witnesses. They also began pursuing new leads based on information disclosed in the series. They also named Jule a "person of interest".
Detective Messick interviewed John and Peggy Nesbit, who lived next door to Dottie and Jule. Jule had told Peggy that he and Dottie had a "terrible" fight, and he believed she left him.
Jule also told Peggy that he had found Dottie's car keys in her purse inside her locked car. Peggy thought that was strange because she believed a key was required to lock the car. She wondered who locked it if Dottie's keys were inside. One Volkswagen repairman said there was a way to lock the door without a key. However, the president of the Vintage Volkswagen Club of America said the doors could only be locked with a key.
John and Peggy remembered that before Jule moved, he told them not to cut the ivy along the fence that divided their property because the fence would collapse. About ten years later, in 1997, John removed the ivy and discovered a rusted meat cleaver, its handle wrapped in duct tape. He turned it over to the police.
When John was inside Dottie and Jule's house helping Jule move, he smelled what he thought was "burning flesh". He said that Jule gave him a fifty-pound bag of sulfur to use as fertilizer. Another neighbor reported smelling something burning around that time. John and Peggy also reported seeing Jule pour a concrete patio in his backyard around that time. They had never seen him do any home improvement projects before. The police speculated that Dottie was buried underneath the patio.
When re-interviewed, two of Dottie's neighbors said she carried a fireplace poker to protect herself from Jule. She told them he lost "everything" in his first marriage. He allegedly told her that he would "lose the house over her dead body." Another neighbor said Jule tried to sell Dottie's car to her husband a month before Dottie disappeared, and Dottie became upset when she found out.
In mid-April 2004, the police searched Dottie and Jule's house and backyard. Ground-penetrating radar was used to examine the backyard and patio. It detected some "anomalies" underneath the patio. Forensic tests revealed nothing of interest in the house. It is not known if the patio was ever dug up.
At the time of the release of the five-part series, Jule said he believed Dottie was still alive and in hiding. She allegedly told him she could disappear and make it look like he was responsible. He believed someone helped her disappear and create a new identity. He claimed that over the years, he had received letters that contained items that only Dottie and/or Diane had access to. However, detectives later determined that Diane's private investigators sent the letters.
In response to Diane's claim that the couple's marriage was troubled, Jule said that the only problem with the marriage was Dottie's mental health. He also claimed that he poured the concrete patio in 1975, a decade before Dottie disappeared.
On April 17, 2004, Jule withdrew from the House of Representatives race. He claimed that local newspapers were harassing his family about Dottie's disappearance.
After learning from the five-part series that Jule had filed for divorce from Dottie on grounds of "willful desertion", Diane filed a lawsuit against him in civil court. She requested that Dottie be declared legally dead and that she be named executor of Dottie's estate, which included her part of the Concord house and her personal property that Jule had held onto over the years. In June 2004, a judge ruled that Dottie was dead and named Diane executor of her estate.
Meanwhile, detectives continued to re-interview witnesses. Dottie's friend, Ellen Johnson, said she spoke to Dottie a day or two before she disappeared. Dottie did not mention anything about going on a trip.
Ellen said she went to Dottie and Jule's house on June 17, the day Jule reported Dottie missing. She said he was more concerned about his financial situation than Dottie's welfare. She witnessed him taking Dottie's bee sting kit out of her purse (although he previously told the police that the kit was missing). As she looked around the house, he followed her. She noticed that Dottie had left her jeans and underwear neatly stacked in her room. She and another friend said that Dottie planned to stay with Shelley until Jule moved.
Detective Messick examined the BART ticket found in Dottie's purse. It was determined that the ticket had been used at the Concord BART station, most likely on the evening of June 12.
Detective Messick questioned Charlene Parmenter, who had managed Dottie and Jule's house after Jule rented it. Through her records, it was determined that Jule had signed the rental contract for the house on June 7, five days before Dottie disappeared. This was inconsistent with his claim that he was forced to put the house up for rent after Dottie disappeared because she had not signed the loan papers.
Parmenter claimed that Dottie and Jule met with her a few times in May about renting the house. However, Dottie apparently "wandered around the room in a daze" during the meetings. Jule told Parmenter that Dottie was coming with him to Salt Lake City. However, Dottie's friends, family, and Jule himself later said otherwise.
Detectives re-questioned Jule's first wife. She said he was often away from home during their marriage, and she believed he was having several affairs. At one point, he shot a stray cat that had come through their window because it was a "pest". Another time, a man broke into their house. Jule grabbed a knife and chased after the man, who escaped. He told his wife that if he had caught up to the man, he would have killed him. She said he was "skillful" with knives.
Detectives also questioned a man who had dated Dottie. She wrote him an angry letter in which she said, "J[ule]'s back so if you don't want him on your trail, cease mailings to my residence — your fears of him are well founded." The man said he had seen Jule's gun collection (at least twelve pistols and rifles) when he visited their house.
In December 2005, Detective Messick requested a warrant to search Dottie and Jule's former Concord house. In the 140-page search warrant affidavit, he included twenty-nine reasons why the police believe Jule killed Dottie. The reasons included: Dottie's allegations of abuse and her fear of Jule; his engagement to Della while he was still married to Dottie; his suspicious actions around the time of her disappearance, especially involving their house; and his suspicious comments to Della regarding Dottie's disappearance. The affidavit also included the anonymous 1988 letter and a letter that Jule had left on Dottie's car when she disappeared.
The request was approved; the police dug up portions of the backyard and tested for blood and trace evidence inside the house. No physical evidence was found during the search. No charges have been filed in this case. However, the investigation remains active.
Sadly, Dottie's parents have since passed away.
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