An interesting case. This wasn't the run of the mill opportunistic predictor, this was an obsessed stalker who moved on to murder and harassing the victim's family. I noticed that the actual abduction was quite unusual. At this point, I doubt much can be done with it but the means of the abdication created several clues. I wonder if they were followed up on.
There seems to be little doubt that the perpetrator followed Dorothy from her place of employment to her parents home (oddly enough, while taking her co-worker to the hospital accompanied by another co-worker, she stopped at her parents home to check on her son) and then to the hospital. This was apparently a work meeting for all employees after the shops had closed; probably early evening but later than she usually left work. The predator must have had a car. He would have had to wait around for hours until she eventually left the hospital with the two co- workers at 11:00PM.
Dorothy went to get her car while the other two waited at the entrance. I don't know how long they waited but long enough to be concerned and much longer than it should have taken. Suddenly Dorothy's car came along but instead of stopping for them, it speed past them and drove away. (One report had her car following a smaller car)
Normally, an abduction is a pretty quick action. A long struggle is unlikely; even in a hospital parking lot at 11:00PM. I suspect there was some verbal exchange. Did she know the guy?
At 4:30 AM the next morning, her car was found on fire in an alleyway in Santa Ana, ten miles away. That raises the question of how did the perp get away and get back to his car ten miles away in the middle of the night? There would be no public transportation at that time of night. Did the police check with local taxi companies? I can't see someone walking the ten miles. I would think if the perp was going to walk back to his car, he would have left Dorothy's car closer.
Interestingly, Dorothy's body was crudely buried in a shallow grave roughly 7 miles north of UCI hospital while her car was left ten miles to the south. There was over 5 hours elapsed between the the time of the abduction and the time the fire was set. There is a good chance the perpetrator did what he was going to do and then disposed of the body that night. If so, it would make no sense to drive to Santa Ana to find a random spot to dump her car. I suspect he lived or otherwise had somewhere to go near where he dumped the car. There would have been ways to get to the hospital parking lot in the morning.
Had the police made the connection between the burned car in Santa Ana and the abduction in Anaheim soon enough, they might have checked the hospital parking lot for cars left all night but most likely the perpetrator got his car before anyone checked.
There is always the chance there was an accomplice with a car but that would be very unusual for a stalker/obsession type crime. These are almost always lone wolf crimes. My guess is that the perpetrator was someone who made the acquaintance of Dorothy sometime in the months before the calls started but did not have a relationship of any kind with her. He may not have had the confidence to attempt to initiate any type of relationship but she probably did recognize him when she encountered him in the parking lot. Otherwise she would have fled, struggled or screamed. She was very likely his only victim.
At this point, 36 years later with no forensic evidence, resolution is very unlikely.
