The Deeply Unsettling And Unsolved Murder Of Dorothy Jane Scott
The Killer Stalked Scott Significantly Before Her Murder
It all started with a few weird phone calls. Several months before Scott went missing in the year 1980, her phone started to ring frequently with random calls, and a person on the other end would tell her horrifying and threatening things. The other person seemed to know her schedule and her every move, and swung wildly between being friendly though a little obsessive, to violent and angry. It quickly became clear that Scott had a very devoted stalker.
Terrifyingly enough, Scott once said the voice sounded like someone she knew. However, they never revealed their name or location, and Scott never identified them to anyone else. Unfortunately, she'd never get the chance to reveal the mystery of who her stalker was, and no one else would either.
Scott Was So Afraid Of The Caller That She Considered Buying A Gun
The phone calls became so serious and terrifying, that Scott began to fear for her life. At one point the caller told her "...when I get you alone I will cut you up into bits so no one will ever find you." The caller also told her what she was wearing that day, and this shook Scott to the core. She began to take self defense classes and karate, in order to prepare herself for a possible attack.
On top of that, she considered buying a handgun for self-defense, but eventually decided against it. She had a four-year-old son, Shawn, whom she was afraid would accidentally harm himself, so she ultimately never bought the gun. She also worked closely with a hippie community and was much more of a peace-loving woman than a gun-toting one.
Given what happened later, it seems as though she may have needed it after all.
A Black Widow Spider Brought Scott To The Place Of Her Death
Things went bad by chance when Scott noticed that one of her co-workers was acting a little strange. On May 28th,1980, Scott noticed that a fellow worker, Conrad Bostron, was fidgeting and seeming to be in pain, and his arm looked strange. Eventually, she convinced him to go to the emergency room, suspecting something was amiss, and asked another worker, Pam Head, to go with them. When they got to the hospital, they'd found that Bostron had been bitten by a black widow spider and the bite had become infected.
Luckily for Bostron, he was treated in a timely fashion and was on the mend. Scott told Head and Bostron she'd go pull the car around for them, and they waited for her. And waited. And waited. At last, her car came into view, but it was speeding by, and showed no signs or stopping. Without warning, it sped out of the parking lot and into the night, leaving her coworkers standing by the hospital, confused. It was the last time any of them would see her alive.Her Car Was Found On Fire
After a little time had passed, her co-workers and family became worried and called the police. What followed was a search for Scott's car, which reached a horrifying end. After several hours of searching, police came across the vehicle, which was engulfed in flames. It was ten miles away in Santa Ana, but there was no sign of an accident, and no sign of Scott herself, either.
Hope surged that she might not have been killed in the blaze, but as she continued to stay missing, her family began to worry. They were told not to contact the news or media about the disappearance during the investigation, and they simply waited for any word. Before long, they would have even greater reason to fear for Scott's safety.
The Stalker Called And Claimed Responsibility For Her Death
About a week after her disappearance, Scott's mother, Vera, got a phone call at their residence. When she answered, a male voice on the other end asked if she was related to Dorothy Scott. When she said she was, the caller simply said "I've got her." and hung up. The family panicked, contacted the media, and tried to figure out who the caller was with no success.
Another week came and went, and on the day the Santa Ana Register ran a story about the case, Scott's mother got a call from the mysterious male caller again. This time he had far more to say:
"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 also went out of their way to give details on the clothing she was wearing, as well as what she was doing at the hospital. Even though she'd only been away from the others briefly, he seemed to know everything about her activities that day. Although police quickly targeted the caller as a suspect, they were unable to find out more about him. It would not be the last time he made one of these chilling calls.
The Calls Were Meticulously Scheduled For Four Years
Scott's murderer continued calling her parents weekly for four years after her death. Police were enlisted to tap the phone to determine the caller's location, but the voice never stayed on the line long enough to help. Even in those brief calls, the killer still managed to constantly torment the family. He would sometimes simply tell them that he had her. He would say he killed her, she was tortured, and she was held captive. This happened nearly every Wednesday for four years, every time with the same disguised voice that no one could recognize.
The calls did stop in 1984, when Jacob, Scott's father, picked up the phone rather than Vera. After that, the stalker quit calling. It may be that he assumed someone new had moved into the house, because he'd never spoken to Jacob before, but it's impossible to say.
Her Remains Were Discovered Ten Miles From Her Car
In August of 1984, construction workers in North Anaheim discovered a bizarre set of bones on their worksite. While some of the bones turned out to be animal bones, some of them seemed a little strange, even human. When police were brought in, they also discovered a watch that had stopped at 12:30 AM on May 29th, 1980, the same day that Dorothy had gone missing. There was also a turquoise ring, which Vera was able to identify as belonging to her daughter. A week later, the testing results came back that this was indeed Dorothy Scott, finally found ten miles from where her car had been located.
As an added horrifying detail, the finding of her body seemed to briefly reignite the stalker. He called the house at least two more times, simply asking if Dorothy was home, before hanging up. Again, this was not enough for police to get any additional leads.
She Was Buried Underneath A Dog
Strangely enough, Scott was found buried beneath the body of a dog, one that had no relation to her, as she did not have a pet. For obvious reasons, this detail is typically skimmed over in the retellings of Scott's murder. Most people don't think much of it, just another sick twist to an already sick story. If you scour some strange Reddit pages, however, you'll find the significance of this detail.
In order to trick police dogs, people looking to hide bodies will bury them under the body of a dog or other animal, causing what the police see as a false positive; they'll only dig until they find the animal carcass, leaving the murder victim undisturbed. The killer likely knew this and went out of their way to try to hide the body as such.
There Is A Very Convincing Theory Of The Killer's Identity
Even though the case was never solved, there's one very strong theory which has been floating around for quite some time. At Scott's place of employment, there was a man who sometimes came in named Mike Butler. His sister also worked at the shop, and he had become obsessed with Scott. He lived in the nearby mountains, and it was rumored that he was an unstable individual and perhaps involved with cult activities. Scotts's son believes that this man is the stalker and killer. Butler had run across Scott's father before, so it could be that he didn't talk when Jacob answered the phone, afraid that the man would recognize his voice. He also had the opportunity to follow her and know her schedule, because it linked up closely with his sister's and he'd have the excuse to come around the area. However, there is simply no hard evidence to back up Scott's son's theory.
Shawn's father was suspected for a time as well, but had an airtight alibi and was not investigated further. Both Vera and Jacob have passed away never knowing exactly what happened to their daughter.
She May Be Linked To Another Murder
Although the police didn't have many leads, there was one that came up during investigations. In July of 1982, only two years after Scott vanished, Patricia Schneider also went missing. She made a call saying her car had broken down and then vanished. Her car was found a few hours later, on fire in a field, just as Scott's had been found. There was no sign of Scheider at the scene, and she was instantly suspected of being kidnapped, perhaps by the same person who took Scott.
However, the major difference here is that Schneider never received any threatening phone calls (to anyone's knowledge), which doesn't quite match. Her disappearance was also never solved. Even if the two crimes are not connected, we are still left wondering who committed this horrible murder.
A Scarf Held Great Significance
There's one other odd little tidbit about all this which indicates that Scott knew something was amiss prior to her disappearance. She made one stop on the way to the hospital, by her parents' house. She checked on her son and let her parents know what she was doing. But then she was very particular to change her black scarf she was wearing to a red one. No one knows why she did this, but it seemed important to her.
Later, her stalker would make note of her red scarf that she was wearing that day, meaning he had seen her between her trip home and when she got to the hospital. This also led police ot believe that it was this same stalker that killed her.
None Of This Makes Sense, Given Scott's Tame Life
While many people who suffer from horrible misadventures in their lives have tragic backstories or horrifying life events, Dorothy Jane Scott was not one of them. She worked as a secretary at a head shop, was a single mother of a four-year-old boy, and lived with him and an aunt in Stanton, California. Her parents lived in Anaheim, California, and would frequently babysit their grandson while Scott went to work. Everyone was a big happy family, and she didn't even date or leave the house that often apart from work.
Friends described Scott as a church-going woman, loving, and "dull as a phone book," if they were being brutally honest. There was nothing out of the ordinary about Scott, but while her life was painfully plain, her death would be something remembered for decades to come.
