I worked with Diane in 1970 at First Valley Bank in the Data Processing department. She was abducted I believe on September 9, 1977, that might have been the date of the article, but I think it is the actual date of the abduction. A similar case happened while I was living in the Sacramento area in 1991 which caused me to go and look up the info. Across from the State Capitol are the state archives which has newspapers from all over the state. I knew that it had happened before I moved out of San Jose in November of 1977, so I just went back to the date I left (11/17/77) and started working back. I printed off a copy of the article from the San Jose Mercury but I can't find it at the moment. When my wife and I were considering moving back to California in late 1981 and early 1982 we started getting the Santa Cruz paper and during this time is when Dian'e body was found near the Santa Cruz Summit on Highway 17. As far as I know the baby was never found and the baby was about 6-7 months old when the abdution happened. I knew when I first read about it in the paper that when her glasses were found it was not good as she could not see very well at all without them. As far as I know the case is still open with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department, at least it still was when I checked with them in 1991. I turned over all the information I could to the Placer County Sherriff's Department because of the similarities between the two cases. The other case that I'm refering to is that of Cindy Wanner of Granite Bay that happened on 11/25/1991. Her body was found two weeks later in the Sierra foothills in an area similar to where Diane's body was found. There were simliarities between the two women as well the manner of abduction. They were roughly the same age at the time of their abductions (earlu 30's), height (5-8 to 5-10), were rather plain in appearance and taking care of young children at the time of their abduction. In the other case the child wasn't taken. Diane from my memory of her belonged to a fundementalist church as did the other woman. There were some differences in that the community that Cindy Wanner was abducted from was pretty upscale from the description in the paper while Rainbow Drive in San Jose was not any thing too fancy from my recollection of the area at that time. Actually I was somewhat surprised to hear that she was living in San Jose because when I knew her she was living off Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the 'Chateau' and loved living up there.
Engima, thanks for bringing this case up as it has bothered me for years. She had an influence on my life as quite often we talked about religion and relationships at work. She acted like an older sister to me in giving me advice even though I was her supervisor, but I was a little bit younger. My parents were seperated at the time and most of the people that I knew at the time seemed unable to maintain relationships. Diane was always very positive about her marriage and her husband and I knew that she wanted to have children. Which is one of the reasons why I think I get so upset about this case. Here she is 7 years later with a young child finally and this happens. I was very glad when the husband was cleared as that would have been too upsetting for me to handle, plus we, the husband and I, share the same first name. What is another oddity for me is that my wife and I named our daughter Elizabeth which I didn't realize until I went back and re-read the news article in 1991. I may have some other information that may be useful but can't think of it right now, so please feel free to contact me. Thanks again engima, it is nice to know that someone else still cares about Diane other than her family.
Here's to hoping someone has some new information!
Wanted to work on it tonight but I'm not feeling my best. Hopefully tomorrow. And I will check and/or recheck the newspaper archives for all the names mentioned in this case. I'll save any article that might be of interest (something we don't know) and just give a brief synopsis here of everything I find. Will take a while so I want to feel better before I start.
