Thanks, Tricia!
I just wanted to give a more detailed timeline of Diane's disappearance because it is kind of confusing in this thread. So I'll start at the beginning.
Diane had gotten into an argument with her mother earlier in the day. It wasn't anything major, just a run of the mill teenage-mom argument. She had a female friend over at the time, and when the argument ensued, Diane's mother asked her to leave, and she did. Diane told her friend she would call her later.
Ted was at the house as well, hanging out with Diane's brother Dean, but I do not believe he witnessed the argument. Diane did tell both of them that she was going to run away for a couple days.
About 30 minutes later, Diane's mother left for work. She worked a night job. Diane's mother's boyfriend was still in the house. He heard Diane go into her bedroom for about 10-15 minutes, then come out and exit through the garage without saying anything to him.
Before Diane left, she did in fact contact her female friend who had been there earlier. She told her she was going to the mountains for a few days, and that she had someone to stay with there. She said she would call her soon. That was the last her friend heard from her.
There was a guy named Doug whose parents lived on the same street as the Dye family. Doug did not live there but he visited on occasion, and that's how he met Dean and Diane. He was 17-18 (Diane was 13) and had a criminal background, so Diane was forbidden to associate with him. Many say she had a crush on him and he had a thing for young girls also.
Around the time of Diane's disappearance, Doug lived in the Coyote (mountains) area between San Jose and Morgan Hill, CA. He was staying with his probation officer, presumably because his parents would not let him live with them and the probation officer was responsible for keeping track of him.
Dean and Ted went to the Coyote area with Doug once, to an abandoned or vacant house that was being used as a party spot. Several of Doug's friends were there, and Dean and Ted left when they witnessed stashes of weapons and overheard things about planned criminal activities. Neither Ted nor Dean remembers exactly where this location was, but Ted can describe what it looked like.
Diane went missing on 7/30/79.
Sometime between 7/18-7/23, a house in the Coyote area was burglarized. Doug's probation officer/foster father had gone out of town for a few days, leaving Doug at his house alone. When he returned from his trip on 7/25, he found the stolen items in a crawl space in his house. This included guns, fishing equipment, and a stereo or boom box. He reported Doug to the police on 7/25.
It is unclear whether he was arrested for this before or after Diane went missing. I am still trying to pinpoint an exact arrest date. He was
charged with the burglary on 8/13 so I know he was arrested somewhere between 7/25 and 8/13. He was not released until November, 4 months after Diane went missing.
If he had already been arrested when Diane went missing, it's very likely that she would not have known that and still attempted to go see him. She would have needed a ride if that was where she was going, and there is no evidence that she'd been there before so it would have had to be someone who knew how to get there. It would not have been Dean or Ted since they were adamant that she stay away from him.
Doug was arrested and released several times in 1980 and 1981, mostly for auto theft. It does not appear that Diane was with him any of these times.
In 1983, Doug was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole. He is still in prison today. He killed a man because he wouldn't let Doug use his car. This man, like his probation officer had in the past, had given him a place to stay after one of his jail stays because he had no place else to go.
I want to note again that San Jose Police didn't really do an investigation when Diane went missing. Runaways were not taken very seriously. They just took a report and ran a small snippet in the newspaper. It wasn't until New Jersey authorities found the remains of Princess Doe and thought she resembled Diane, that the NJ police came and did an excellent investigation, though unfortunately several years after she disappeared.
They did talk to Doug (he was already in prison by this time) and he said that he had canvassed the neighborhood when he found out she was missing, and that he'd gone to the school and talked to the principal. The principal said this never happened. (I do not know exactly when he is saying he went to the school, but Diane went missing in July so the school was closed for summer and there was nobody there). He told one of Diane's relatives that he saw her in Washington State when he happened to pick her up hitchhiking, and that she'd had a baby. He also said to police that he wanted to 'get' whoever murdered her. He had not been told about Princess Doe or that she had been murdered, just that she was missing. (Though it's possible he'd seen it on the news from prison)
There were quite a few 'sightings' of Diane, some were considered credible, others not so much.
There have been mentions earlier in this thread of Diane being sighted working in Atlantic City and as a prostitute in New York. Both of these were reported as sightings of Princess Doe, who at the time was believed to be Diane. The people who reported these sightings lived on the East Coast and had seen images on TV, they did not know Diane. I do not consider these credible.
There was a sighting of Diane a few days after she ran away, with two neighborhood girls about her age, on Felder Drive in San Jose. The identity of the two girls is unknown. The person who saw her here lived on her street and knew Diane and her family. This was reported to SJPD right away, but from what I can tell, it was not followed up on.
There was another sighting of her in a beat up car with two older girls pulling into a McDonalds on Cottle Road. This witness was a school friend of Diane's and did not report it because since she was seeing Diane behaving normally in the neighborhood, she assumed that Diane had already been home and was no longer missing. This person did come forward during the Princess Doe investigation though.
Another schoolmate claimed to have seen Diane in December 1981 at the Serramonte Mall in Daly City, CA. She was reportedly alone and appeared to be well-nourished and cared for. This is the only person who claims to have spoken to her where she reportedly said she did not want to go home. I am not sure if this sighting is credible.
