Having a stalker can be a scary thing. They seem to know your every move, yet you have no idea who they are, and in most cases, what they want. That was the case for 32 year old Dorothy Jane Scott.
In 1980, Dorothy Scott was a single mother living with her aunt and her 4 year old son in Stanton, California. She had what most would consider to be an uneventful life. She worked as a secretary for Swinger’s Psych Shop, a joint psychedelic shop and head shop, that had been once owned by her father. She preferred to stay home rather than go out, and did not drink or do drugs. While she would go on a date on occasion, she had no steady boyfriend, and her parents were her babysitters.
She began receiving anonymous phone calls at work and while she recognized the man’s voice, she couldn’t place it. He professed his love for her. He could provide accurate details of her day-to-day life. He threatened to kill her. “One day he called and said to go outside because he had something for her. She went out and there was a single dead red rose on the windshield of her car,” said Dorothy’s mother.
As if the dead rose wasn’t enough, on another call he told her he would “cut [her] up into bits so no one will ever find [her].”
Dorothy considered buying a handgun, and started taking karate lessons.
At 9pm on May 28, 1980, she was at an employee meeting at work. She saw that a colleague, Conrad Bostron, was not looking well, and had a red mark on his arm. She, along with another colleague, Pam Head, left the meeting to take Conrad to the emergency room at UC Irvine Medical Center. Along the way, Dorothy stopped by her parents’ house to check on her son, then one to the ER.
Emergency Room staff were able to determine that Conrad was suffering from a black widow spider bite. While they treated him, Dorothy and Pam remained in the waiting room, and at no time were they out of each others’ site.
Conrad was discharged around 11pm with a prescription. Not wanting him to walk far in his condition, Dorothy offered to go get her car and bring it up to the exit. After using the restroom, she left the building for the parking lot while Pam helped Conrad get his prescription filled. When they did not see Dorothy’s car pull up, they decided to step outside into the parking lot. That’s when they spotted her car, a white 1973 Toyota station wagon, speeding toward them with its headlights blinding them.
They waved their arms to get her attention, but the car sped right past them, taking a right turn out of the parking lot. Thinking an emergency had come up with her son, Pam and Conrad dismissed it and waited for her to return. But after a few hours, and still nothing, they reported her missing.
Around 4:30am the next day, Dorothy’s car was found burning in an alley about 10 miles from the hospital. Neither Dorothy or her supposed kidnapper were anywhere to be found.
A week later, Dorothy’s parents started receiving strange phone calls from an unidentified man. “I’ve got her,” he said, and hung up. They contacted the police, who told the family not to release any details about their daughter’s disappearance, or the phone call to the media, aiming to keep the upper hand and rule out false confessions. But after a week, and no positive results, they contacted the local newspaper, the Santa Ana Registered, and offered $2,500 to anyone who could provide information that would lead to Dorothy’s whereabouts, be it dead or alive.
On June 12, 1980, Pat Riley, editorial manager for the Santa Ana Register received an anonymous phone call. “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 was able to relate details about the night of her disappearance that hadn’t been released publicly, from Conrad’s spider bite to the red scarf Dorothy had been wearing. He even said that Dorothy had called him from the hospital just hours before she disappeared.
However, Pam remained confident that Dorothy had never left her side that entire day aside from a single restroom trip, and going to get her vehicle in the parking lot.
The calls to her parents did not stop either, instead he called almost every Wednesday afternoon, claiming to either have Dorothy, or to have killed her. He kept his calls brief, and usually only called when her mother was home alone.
The calls lasted for 4 years, and despite all attempts to trace the calls failed, as the conversation was always kept brief. In April 1984, the man called during the evening, and her dad answered. That’s when the calls stopped.
It wasn’t until August, 1984, when a construction worker discovered the remains of a dog at Santa Ana Canyon Road, thirteen miles away from UC Irvine Medical Hospital. The bones were unearthed, but then, underneath it, they found a second set of remains – this time human. Along with the bones was a turquoise ring and a wristwatch, which had, interestingly enough, stopped at 12:30am on May 29, 1980.
Dorothy Jane Scott was identified using dental records, and despite all efforts, no cause of death could ever be determined.
No suspects have ever been formally named, though there was some circumstantial evidence pointing to Mike Butler, the brother of a female colleague of Dorothy’s. Mike reportedly had an unhealthy obsession with Dorothy, but other than that, there is nothing tying him to the case.
As of today, this case remains unsolved.
We can say with some level of confidence that a stalker killed Dorothy Jane Scott. What we can’t say is who killed Bob Crane.
