CONSPIRACY THEORIES ( & more )

The Unsolved Murder of Dorothy Scott

( i'm typing this on my phone and it won't let me input the pic on the actual page ugh )

on May 28, 1980, 33-year-old Dorothy Jane Scott disappeared from a hospital in California.

this case is so frustrating bc not only is it shady, but there was no one convicted for the crime. the police didn't actually consider any serious suspects, like wtf ??

anyway, Dorothy lived in California with her 4 year old son, Shawn, and worked as a secretary in a shop her dad owned. very important detail.

Dorothy was described as quiet and religious, and she never really left her house since she was so focused on her son. she worked morning through evenings and everyone appreciated her.

some months before she disappeared, she began to receive weird phone calls to her home and work phone. the caller, whom she didn't know, sounded obsessive and angry and he even made it clear he knew about her whereabouts all the time.

he made a threat once before she disappeared.

Dorothy would soon enough enough say that the voice of the caller was recognizable, but it was hard for her to pinpoint it exactly to a person. this means she definitely knew her stalker.

no one really knows whether she reported the calls to the police, or if the calls stopped near the time she was abducted.

on the evening of her disappearance, Dorothy dropped off her son at her parent's house while she went to a late staff meeting at around 9p.

in the meeting, she noticed one of her co-workers was acting ill, and that he had a red rash on his arm. concerned, Dorothy and Pam, another co-worker, took Conrad to the hospital so he could get his rash checked out.

on the way to the hospital, she decided to stop by her parent's house to tell them she might be coming to pick up Shawn late just as a warning so they wouldn't worry. she also decided to change her black scarf to a red one. also very important detail.

in the hospital, Conrad was told he'd been bitten by a black widow while Dorothy and Pam waited for him in the waiting room.

his bite wasn't THAT serious, so the hospital discharged him at around 11p. they were headed to the pharmacy next.

as they were leaving, Dorothy offered to pull the car up to the front of the hospital so Conrad wouldn't have to walk so much bc of his state. they agreed, but before leaving the building, Dorothy went to the bathroom and so did Pam and Conrad.

when Pam and Conrad went back outside, Dorothy was nowhere in sight. they waited for around 20 minutes before they saw her car driving towards them at top speed with its headlights at full beam.

the car drove straight past them, got to the end of the parking lot, turned right and turned off its headlights.

both of them were like tf ?? but they thought an emergency had occurred with Dorothy's son. however, if that was true, they didn't understand why she didn't just briefly stop to tell them, or to quickly pick them up.

Pam and Conrad decided to wait an hour before calling Dorothy's parents, Vera and Jacob, to ask if they've seen her. unfortunately they had not.

not long after, they called the police and reported her missing.

a few hours later at around 4a, Dorothy's car  was found in a backstreet in Santa Ana 10 miles away from the hospital, and it was on fire. there was no sign of Dorothy.

after giving her parent's the news, the police advised them to not go to the papers with the story. weird huh ?

by the end of the week, Vera — Dorothy's mom — received an odd phone call. this initiated a long chain of calls from the same male voice that was believed to be the one who would call Dorothy.

the man asked if Vera was related to Dorothy and when she said yes, he told her he had Dorothy.

no one outside the family and close friends knew of Dorothy's disappearence, so it was believed the caller was definitely the one who'd kidnapped Dorothy.

it took another week before the family got tired of the deal they had with the police and they went to the papers and told them to run the story about Dorothy's disappearence.

the editor in charge of the story soon got a call from who was believed to be the abductor not long after the story was published. the caller said "I killed her. I killed Dorothy Scott. She was my love, and I caught her cheating with another man. She denied having someone else. I killed her." the caller also knew specific details about that night that no one else would've known. like how Dorothy had changed into a red scarf.

he also claimed Dorothy called him to inform him of her whereabouts, but Pam denied this by saying Dorothy had never left her side that night except for when they went to the bathroom. in this time, mobile phones weren't really around so it's not like Dorothy went into the bathroom and called the man from there. plus, no one saw her at or near a payphone.

the police kept investigating, but all leads they got we're dead ends.

the calls from the unidentified man kept coming to Vera's phone for the next four years. he would ask whether Dorothy had come home, or he would claim he had her, or just straight up say he killed her.

the thing was that the man only called when Vera was home, not Jacob.

the police tried tracing or tracking the number, but it was pretty much useless since the calls were too short.

the calls finally stopped on April 1984 when instead of Vera answering the phone, it was Jacob. this time the caller just flat out hung up.

3 months after, a construction worker came upon some remains along the Santa Ana road. the remains we're tested and proven to be Dorothy's.

among the remains there were some of Dorothy's belongings she had that night. the watch Dorothy wore had been identified and it had been stopped on May 29, 1980 at 12:30a. a day after she'd disappeared. the cause of death was never concluded.

now for the theories about who could've done such a thing.

the most believable theory is that Dorothy had been kidnapped by the man who was calling and stalking her months prior. he might've created a fake love story due to his obsession with her and it's possible he saw her with Conrad that night and mistaken him with another "lover".

one theory is that Dorothy had been killed by her ex-husband so he was the first suspect. however, this didn't go very far since he had a really strong alibi. doesn't really make sense either bc im pretty sure Dorothy would've immediately recognized the voice on the phone as her ex-husband's.

second theory is so good i'm mad the police didn't do anything with this one. this theory came up after a blogger and Dorothy's son, Shawn, brought up a name who he believed was a suspect in his mother's murder. the man was called Michael Butler, he was the brother of one of Dorothy's co-workers. Mike was sketchy af and was obsessed with Dorothy.

he could've know where Dorothy was at all times since he knew the coworkers and their schedules thanks to his sister.

since Dorothy's dad owned the shop, it would make sense that Mike had crossed paths with Jacob before. the man only called  when Vera was home since she didn't know his voice, but as soon as Jacob picked up, he hung up the phone bc he knew Jacob would recognize him.

it also explains why Dorothy thought the voice was familiar. since Mike was an acquaintance she wasn't so familiar with his voice.

something that's also sketchy is that Mike's sister would avoid or ignore Shawn whenever he tried getting in contact with her.

whether Michael was actually involved in the kidnapping and murder of Dorothy Scott, we will never know. no arrests were ever made and no suspects we're ever looked into.