Sometimes, missing people vanish without a trace, and no evidence of their final fate ever appears. In others, the culprits are eventually found and brought to justice. In the case of Dorothy Jane Scott, her disappearance was somewhat solved when passersby discovered her remains. However, her murder is still an unsolved mystery even 40 years after her bizarre disappearance.
Dorothy Jane Scott was a bit of a homebody, according to friends. She preferred to stay in rather than go out on the town. Dorothy didn’t spend much time out drinking or partying, and she diligently worked two jobs in Anaheim, California, near her home in Stanton. She was a single mom living with her aunt in 1980 when she disappeared. Strangely enough, her sudden vanishing didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.
Dorothy was the victim of a stalker for months leading up to her disappearance. She reportedly received numerous phone calls from a mystery man who would never identify himself. This pattern of obsessive stalking frightened her, but she didn’t seem to know who might be following her and calling her. If she had, it might have helped authorities solve her disappearance.
Dorothy Jane Scott
Dorothy was born on April 23, 1948, and lived in California all her life. She lived in Stanton, California at the time of her disappearance. She was a secretary at a “hippie”-style store that sold items like lava lamps, posters, and glass pieces. Her coworkers would later describe her as a quiet person. She was reportedly a devout Christian, never used drugs or alcohol, and would be likelier to stay home on Friday than go out.
In 1980, she was living with her aunt in Stanton. Her four-year-old son stayed with her instead of his father, and her parents cared for the boy while she was at work. Her father would later tell authorities that she had no steady boyfriend. She was said to have gone out on a few dates here and there, but nothing of particular note.
One day, months before she disappeared, Dorothy started receiving bizarre phone calls while at work. A man would call her and threaten to kill her in between bouts of proclaiming his undying love for her. His disturbed ranting unsettled Dorothy greatly, and she confided in her mother her desire to purchase a handgun for self defense.
The Stalking Intensifies
The stalker would call Dorothy at work regularly, according to her mother. He reportedly threatened that he would get Dorothy “alone” so he could “chop her up into little pieces” and make it so no one would ever find her. She immediately enrolled in self-defense classes to help protect herself in the event that the stalker came to her work.
The stalking behavior intensified when Dorothy received a call from the man telling her to go outside, insisting that he had left a gift for her. When she stepped outside, there was a dead rose on the windshield of her vehicle. This confirmed to Dorothy that the stalker was very aware of her schedule. And he clearly lived nearby enough to put something on her car and then make his way to a phone to call her store.
On May 28, 1980, while attending an employee meeting, Dorothy noticed that one of her coworkers, Conrad Bostron, looked unwell. He had a red mark on his forearm, his complexion was ghost-white, and he looked very clammy. Dorothy and another employee, Pam Head, offered to take Conrad to the hospital. Little did Dorothy know that offering to do a good deed for her coworker would be the fatal mistake to end her life.
Hospital Visit
Pam Head would later tell investigators that she and Dorothy rushed Conrad to the hospital when they saw his condition. Doctors tending to Conrad said he had been the victim of a black widow bite. While the bite was relatively serious if left untreated, he was going to be okay with the proper medical attention.
Dorothy reportedly never left the ER’s waiting room throughout Conrad’s visit to the hospital. Pam told authorities that she never saw Dorothy leave her side, which made the events later that evening all the more perplexing. After Conrad was discharged from the hospital, Dorothy told him and Pam to wait at the entrance. She would get her car to pick up the two so Conrad didn’t have to walk as far.
However, a moment later, Pam and Conrad saw Dorothy’s car speed off, never once slowing to pick them up. They were initially confused but figured she must have been alerted about a family emergency. Pam and Conrad assumed she left in a hurry without being able to say anything. After not hearing anything from Dorothy for hours, though, they contacted the police and reported her missing.
Initial Investigation
The initial investigation into Dorothy’s disappearance made some startling discoveries. On the morning on May 29, around 4:30 a.m., authorities spotted Dorothy’s car, a 1973 Toyota, in an alley in Anaheim. It was about ten miles away from the hospital. Most concerningly, the vehicle had been set on fire. The flames destroyed nearly all physical evidence that could have been found within the car.
There was no sign of Dorothy or an attacker anywhere near the vehicle. An in-depth forensics search of the car revealed nothing of importance to the case. Police scoured the area for any sign of Dorothy or her attacker, but nothing of note was in sight. Whoever had taken Dorothy had been thorough and made sure to leave nothing at the crime scene, either near the car or in the parking lot where he likely abducted her.
After the initial investigation that found the vehicle, the case went completely cold. Police were never able to determine Scott’s whereabouts. However, there was a shocking break in the case years later when a coincidence revealed what would have been Dorothy’s final resting place.
Phone Calls Continue
In an awful twist, the phone calls didn’t stop with Dorothy’s disappearance. An unknown caller continued to harass her mother, Vera, for years after her daughter vanished. He would claim either that he had killed Dorothy or that he “had” her. The calls would only come in on Wednesdays when Vera was alone.
When Dorothy’s father, Jacob, finally managed to be home when the mystery stalker placed the call, he hung up almost immediately. Some internet sleuths have speculated that the stalked might have been frightened that he no longer knew the family’s schedule, which stopped the calls. Alternatively, he could have been worried that Jacob would recognize his voice.
Police believe this caller could genuinely have been Dorothy’s killer. Another series of calls made to a local newspaper, supposedly by the same person, revealed details about Dorothy’s final night that were never made public. He knew what color her scarf was and where she had been leading up to the trip to the hospital. This convinced police that the caller was responsible for Dorothy’s abduction.
Finding Her Remains
In August, 1984, over four years after her disappearance, construction workers found Dorothy’s remains. The workers were on-site in a rugged area near Santa Ana Canyon Road, a remote region that would have gone undisturbed for the previous four years. They found bones, including a pelvis, thigh, arm bones, and, perhaps most importantly, a skull.
Dental records showed that the teeth found in the skull matched Dorothy’s. After four years, random chance revealed that she was, in fact, murdered. The caller who spoke to the local newspaper had alleged that he murdered Dorothy after finding out that she was “cheating” on him. However, given that Dorothy had never had a steady boyfriend in the years leading up to her disappearance, online sleuths speculate that her abductor was an obsessed stalker, not a scorned ex.
The bones also offered some context for investigators, as they were severely charred. The region where Dorothy’s remains were found had been subjected to a brushfire in 1982, telling investigators that the bones had been there for at least two years. It’s likely that her body had been dumped in the remote canyon around May 29, 1980, and had simply been left there to the elements for the intervening four years until discovery.
A Chilling Mystery Lingers
So, while Dorothy’s family received some measure of closure in the form of being able to give her remains a proper burial, the mystery lingers. Who really abducted her on that summer night in 1980? Why did he call and harass her, and then her mother, for so many years?
Police tried to trace the numerous phone calls placed to Vera’s home. Sadly, the culprit was smart enough to hang up the phone quickly after calling to taunt his victim’s mother. Dorothy Jane Scott’s disappearance remains a chilling reminder of the nature of obsession and the dangerous lengths some people will go to in order to assert “ownership” over someone they feel owes them something. Tragically, Dorothy may never know justice, and her murder will likely remain unsolved forever.
