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E206: Dottie Caylor
4.2k Plays1 year ago
By all accounts, 41-year-old Dottie Caylor suffered from a near debilitating phobia of public places and spent most all of her time at home. So, when her soon-to-be ex-husband reported that she had asked him to drive her to a very public, crowded train station so she could travel to visit a friend, the story raised eyebrows. When Dottie failed to ever return, suspicions continued to grow.
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Transcript
Halloween vs. Real Phobias
00:00:00
Speaker
During the fall and Halloween time, we talk a lot about fears, the things that go bump in the night. Every year, it seems, I see more and more houses go all out decorating for Halloween the same way they will in a few short weeks for Christmas. They dust off or don't. Cobwebs are spooky after all. There are skeletons and witches, spiders and bats. And I'll be honest, some houses are so creepy
00:00:28
Speaker
that if I were a trick-or-treating kid, I might actually have paused to consider whether any candy would make it worth approaching that home. But the Halloween scares are ones that soon get boxed up and stored away until next year.
Understanding Agoraphobia: Dottie Kahler's Story
00:00:46
Speaker
In contrast, more than 19 million people in America alone suffer from a fear that cannot be packed away, that aren't made of plastic. I'm talking about phobias.
00:00:58
Speaker
And for some, that phobia can be debilitating. The good news is that for many, they are seldom in a situation where they're forced to face their biggest fear. After all, for those with hemophobia, it's not every day that one sees blood. For those with acrophobia, it's not every day that one has to climb on a ladder or peer over a cliff's edge. But for those with agoraphobia, every day is a battle.
00:01:27
Speaker
Agoraphobia, the fear of busy places or places that don't feel safe, is one that develops slowly. It often begins as mild anxiety and can become all-encompassing to the point where the person's only safe space is their home, and they often refuse to leave it. The woman at the center of our case this week suffered from agoraphobia, refusing to leave her home most days. That is,
00:01:56
Speaker
until the day she left and never came back. This is the case of Dottie Kahler.
Introducing 'Coffee and Cases' Podcast
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:02:57
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:03:14
Speaker
Well, sleuthounds, I am back this week, though, as you can tell, my voice isn't completely back. Hopefully I will get there soon and I might have to rerecord this episode. So I'm not getting all of the harsh undertones to my voice, but I did want to give you a new episode when possible.
Dottie Kahler's Life and Marriage to Jewell
00:03:35
Speaker
I also want to warn you before we begin due to the graphic nature of some of the details in this case.
00:03:42
Speaker
that might be disturbing to some listeners, listener discretion is advised. Dottie Kaler was born Dorothy May Rusnick on January 9, 1944, in Chardon, Ohio. Dottie was, like her family, extremely devoted to her Catholic faith, and she loved language, both reading and writing, so a girl after my own heart.
00:04:08
Speaker
After she graduated from high school, Dottie immediately enrolled in secretarial training and took a job as a legal secretary. In 1970, Dottie met and fell in love with a graduate student at UC Berkeley named Jim Rupp. Well, at least that's what she thought his name was. As it turned out, his real name was Jewel Kaler.
00:04:34
Speaker
a fact which she eventually discovered, along with the fact that he had initially given a fake name to her as an attempt to hide from Dottie, that he was actually a married man with a young daughter around five or six years old. Sources differ on the age. Despite starting off their relationship on a lie, Dottie was already madly in love with Jim.
00:04:57
Speaker
or Jewel, by the time she learned his true identity, which blinded her to any red flags a fake name may give to a person, and she stayed in the relationship. Of course, realizing that she had been dating a married man, Dottie began trying to convince Jewel to divorce his wife so they could be together. While it took quite a bit of convincing, several years, in fact, Jewel finally did just that, and he and Dottie were promptly married
00:05:27
Speaker
in 1973 when they moved to Concord, California, a suburb of Oakland, California. Sadly for my research, it doesn't seem as though their marriage had much of a honeymoon period where everything was blissful. Instead, with Jule's careers and entomologists with the U.S. Forestry Service, it meant Jule was away from home upwards of 50% of the time, continuously leaving Dottie home alone.
00:05:54
Speaker
That time away would be hard for any couple, let alone one that had a rocky foundation from the start. It was during this time of high uncertainty and loneliness that Dottie developed agoraphobia.
00:06:07
Speaker
Jewell later told Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries when Dottie's case aired, quote, Dottie had what doctors have called agoraphobia. She would stay inside most of the time. She couldn't even apply for a job, much less hold one down. It was a real problem, end quote. Of course, Jewell's statement of Dottie's phobia being a problem seems a bit of a finger pointing statement. You know what they say about pointing fingers. When you point one,
00:06:37
Speaker
three more are pointing back at you.
Marital Struggles and Independence Efforts
00:06:40
Speaker
What Jule didn't acknowledge in that moment that caused tidal waves in his marriage to Dottie was the fact that his frequent trips out of town were used as prime time to carry on extramarital affairs. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd call that a real problem too, especially because Dottie found out about several of them. One of the multitude of affairs was with a woman from Alaska.
00:07:05
Speaker
And to give Dottie credit, she managed to not only find out about the affair, which was impressive in a time before cell phones and internet and tracking, and when she doesn't even leave the home, but she also managed to find the woman's name and address. When she did, she wrote a letter to the woman explaining that she was Jewel Kaler's wife, which prompted the woman to end the affair.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yet another finger pointed back at Jewell was the fact that around Thanksgiving of 1981, the arguments between he and Dottie became physical, all due to an argument over a missing checkbook. Jewell accused Dottie of hiding it from him and the argument escalated from there. Jewell said that Dottie grabbed a pair of scissors and began to threaten him with them before he grabbed the wooden typing stand from the desk and struck Dottie over the head with it.
00:08:01
Speaker
Dottie argued that she was struck first and only then tried to defend herself with the scissors. It was actually the next door neighbors who overheard the altercation and called the police. When law enforcement arrived, it was a he said, she said debate and neither would agree to press charges on the other. Despite the fact that charges were then dropped, Dottie did drive herself to the hospital where she received stitches for her head wound.
00:08:29
Speaker
Instead of driving home that night, Dottie stayed the night at a battered women's shelter. While I know that I personally wasn't there, it was a situation where only Dottie and Jewel know the truth of what happened in that moment, my analytical brain questions Jewel's story more than Dottie's concerning the altercation.
00:08:52
Speaker
I understand that some modicum of self-preservation will enter in no matter what to minimize our own complicity in a situation like that, but it was the extent to which Jule does that minimization when discussing the physical altercation, saying, quote, She was standing over me with those scissors, swearing at me and saying, I'll kill you, you son of a, I'll kill you, end quote. So there's an extreme when describing Dottie's actions.
00:09:23
Speaker
in contrast of his own actions about which Jewel said the following, quote, and I grabbed her little typing stand and hit her with it, end quote, minimizing the size and impact of his assault on Dottie with the typing stand. Dottie asked for a divorce from Jewel at this point, a request which he refused to even entertain.
00:09:48
Speaker
From there, things became harder for Dottie, particularly with her agoraphobia, and it seems the happy moments, what little there were to begin with, of a loving marriage, were long gone. From research, though, it appears as though that realization that the marriage had long since been over, and it was just a matter of time until it officially ended, was what led to concerted efforts on Dottie's part to become more independent.
00:10:16
Speaker
Without telling Jewel about her steps, she joined, in 1984, a women in transition group. Though Jewel had his, quote-unquote, suspicions, Dottie kept her attendance of these meetings secret from her husband for over a year. The suspicions on Jewel's part likely came from the changes in Dottie that were obvious to her friends as well.
00:10:40
Speaker
Well, obvious on the rare occasions when Jule was home, and not on a business trip and allegedly philandering. Dottie's friend Shelly Wilson said this of the change, quote, as time went on, I would notice she was adding a little more color to her outfits. She cut her hair in a new style, which was a very scary thing for her. It was as if a new Dottie were emerging, end quote.
00:11:07
Speaker
There were also other changes, preparations for an independent life that Dottie was making that weren't as obvious. You see, Dottie had rented a PO box to receive mail, which of course required actions on her part of going into public, not only to rent the box in the first place, but to retrieve mail on a regular basis. She also opened a bank account and took $5,000 out in the form of a cashier's check.
00:11:34
Speaker
To be fair, the couple had been talking about a divorce, and this may have been Dottie's way of making sure that she at least had access to some funds. She asked if she could keep a filing cabinet stored at a friend's house, in which Dottie kept letters, evidence of Jule's affairs, and her cashier's check. In May 1985, a big change happened that would finally afford Dottie the chance to begin that fresh life of her own.
00:12:05
Speaker
Jewell came home to let Dottie know that his current position with the U.S. Forest Service was being dissolved, but that he accepted a new position with them in Salt Lake City, Utah. Obviously, this was not a move with the marriage clearly already coming to an end that Dottie was wanting to make alongside Jewell. Jewell Kaler recounted, quote, Dottie had said,
00:12:27
Speaker
in the event I got transferred, that she was not interested in going with me, so I wasn't expecting her to go with me, and wouldn't have even wanted her to, I guess." Though the full reason why he wouldn't have wanted Dottie to come with him wouldn't come to light until much later, as I'll tell you about in a bit.
The Mysterious Disappearance of Dottie Kahler
00:12:48
Speaker
Dottie and Joel went forward with working out details of an impending divorce. The sungazette reporter Joan Morris
00:12:55
Speaker
wrote in a June 21st, 2006 article that in addition to Dottie visiting a lawyer, the two had gone to a mediator to discuss division of marital property. According to my research, initially Dottie had refused to sign loan papers to refinance their Concord, California home that would allow Jewel to purchase a new home in Utah. In fact, she never did sign the refinancing papers.
00:13:23
Speaker
Jewel had to end up asking his parents to use their home as collateral so he could buy the Utah home. Though Jewel wasn't the most excited about it, the plan was for Dottie to remain in their California home and to pay rent to Jewel. Though where this money was to come from since Dottie didn't have a job, I don't know. She was set to pay $400 a month to remain in the home.
00:13:48
Speaker
By June 1985, the move to Salt Lake City was a few short weeks away. According to Jewel, Dottie had planned on going to visit a friend and on staying away from their shared home until Jewel had made the move to Salt Lake City, stating that she wouldn't return until after June 24, when Jewel was already long gone. Asked whom she was going to visit, Jewel said that she never told him.
00:14:15
Speaker
Dottie's friend Shelly did later tell law enforcement that Dottie had, quote, taken pains that Jewel not meet or know any of her friends, end quote. Dottie's goal, it seems obvious, was complete separation. On June 12th, 1985, Jewel Kaler recounts that he drove Dottie to the Pleasant Hill, California Bay Area Rapid Transit or BART train station.
00:14:43
Speaker
He says that he took her to the station where she got out, purse and overnight bag in tow, and went into the station to buy a ticket and, he assumed, get her trip underway. I say assumed because, number one, there were no other witnesses who would be able to place Dottie Kaler at the train station. And because, number two, there's no evidence to prove that a ticket were purchased, nor anyone to come forward to say Dottie was coming for a visit.
00:15:13
Speaker
Instead, this car ride to the station would be the last time anyone would say they saw Dottie Kaler. And the last time anyone saw Dottie other than Jewel was the day before, on June 11th, when an auto mechanic recalled seeing both Jewel and Dottie and noted that it was obvious there was tension between the two. But here's where the story gets a bit convoluted. According to Jewel, who would take the train home from work,
00:15:44
Speaker
said that the next day, on June 13, 1985, in the parking lot of the Concord station, a different station from where he had dropped Dottie off the day before, that he was shocked to walk to his car to drive home, only to see Dottie's Volkswagen parked in the spot right beside his own. He reported that he looked inside the car and saw her purse there inside, but no sign of Dottie.
00:16:13
Speaker
Over the course of the next four days, Jewel has stated that he did a variety of actions related to Dottie's car. First, he reported that he continually moved it to various spots around the lot. Why, you might wonder? Well, he said it was to avoid the car getting any tickets for remaining in the same spot as if abandoned.
00:16:35
Speaker
Now, I don't know about you. I personally cannot go into a supermarket and be in there for an hour and accurately remember on most days where the heck I've parked my car. Can you imagine how much anxiety you would have if you went to at least the remote region where you were certain you left your car only to find it not there at all? Now imagine that level of anxiety added onto the back of someone who already feels extreme anxiety in public.
00:17:05
Speaker
The action of moving her car doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, for many, neither does the act of finding it. They argue that logic would nearly preclude the possibility. With the busyness of the station, Dottie brought her car there and just happened to find a spot right beside of Jewel? And for what reason?
00:17:30
Speaker
First, according to Jewel, she didn't even drive to the first station on her own. So why drive here? And she just lucked out to get the spot right beside Jewel so he would notice the car?
Post-Disappearance Suspicion on Jewell
00:17:45
Speaker
Also, let's say she either just wants a clean break from Jewel, or she's scared of him. Neither scenario would lead to her parking as close to him as possible.
00:17:56
Speaker
A second thing that Jewel reported he did was to place Dottie's purse, which he noticed was still sitting in the car, under the driver's seat so it wouldn't be sitting out in the open, an invitation for someone to break in. From my understanding of the research, it sounds as though Jewel went through the contents of her purse as well, because he was able to recall a particular item was missing from it. While there inside the purse was her driver's license and other ID and some cash,
00:18:26
Speaker
her bee sting kit was missing. The directions for how to use the kit that could save Dottie's life based upon her allergy to bees was there, but the kit itself was not. As a final move, Jewel Kaler left multiple notes for Dottie on the car. One of those notes was an extremely long four page note.
00:18:49
Speaker
According to reporter Joan Morris, that note swayed from one extreme to another in terms of emotions and emotional manipulation. It read in part, quote, my dearest Dottie, it is Saturday, June 15th, and you've been gone four days. I'm so lonely. I really don't know how to survive. I need you. I always have. I've tried so hard to be good to you, to be good for you.
00:19:18
Speaker
if you could only see that. I couldn't believe it when I found your car parked beside mine on Thursday. I've been checking and making sure it isn't ticketed. What in the world did you get into to get all the footprints on your freshly washed paint? And why in the world did you leave your purse? How are you getting by with so few clothes? Whom are you with? Please, God, call me and tell me what you're doing and where you will be when you will be back.
00:19:47
Speaker
You thought I could get an independent loan if you would not sign, but I can't. So you really screwed up my life by refusing to sign those loan papers, since the property is in both of our names. I don't know what to do. I can either sell it, nor get a loan on it, until you're willing to sign the papers with me. Are you a Shelley? She called a few days ago, but she has not called me back, so you must be with her. Please give me her last name or phone number.
00:20:14
Speaker
Since I cannot reach you, I must rent out this place to be able to obtain enough income to cover the loan on my other place. Otherwise, I cannot get anything in Salt Lake City." You can tell he waffles between feelings and expressions of sentiment to claims that she has basically ruined his life. He added near the end, quote, How I wish I didn't still love you. How I wish you still did love me.
00:20:44
Speaker
I gotta tell ya, reading a letter like that probably would not entice me to want to return home. I'd like to also pause here to express my confusion in Jewel leaving notes at all. If Jewel were worried because Dottie was supposed to be gone on a trip and it appeared that something prevented her from actually leaving, why continue to move her car and leave her notes begging her to get in touch?
00:21:11
Speaker
Why not immediately file a missing persons report, or at least call family and friends to see if they had additional information of where Dotty might be? Jewel Kaler didn't either. On the other hand, if Jewel truly believed that Dotty were gone on a trip, and the car might be a coincidence, why leave notes at all? Because you know she wouldn't be getting them until she returns. Why eventually file a missing persons report on June 17?
00:21:39
Speaker
when Dottie wasn't even supposed to be back for another week until the 24th. No matter how you turn the situation to examine his behavior, it doesn't make sense. Friends of Dottie's as well as Dottie's sister have, at times, considered that Dottie may have finally had enough of her marriage to Jewel and have left to start a new life. Specifically, Dottie's sister, Diane Resnick,
00:22:06
Speaker
though now she has other inclinations, initially said, quote, I think that Dottie could have disappeared to get even with her husband, who had disappeared on her for half of their married life, end quote. Friend Shelly continued to try to call Dottie after days of not hearing from her. She eventually called the Concord Police Department to see if Jewel had filed a missing persons report on Dottie. At the time of her phone call, he had not yet done so.
00:22:35
Speaker
It was also Shelly who first called Dotty's sister, Diane, and let her know that Dotty hadn't been heard from. Though Jewel maintains he called Diane to let her know, she insists that she found out from Shelly. And all of this begs the question. If Jewel thought something was wrong, wrong enough to leave all of those notes for Dotty to call him, and even if he didn't have contact information for Dotty's friends, why wouldn't he have called Diane?
00:23:06
Speaker
to see if she had heard from Dottie. After days, weeks, and months passed with no word from Dottie, even the friends who initially believed perhaps Dottie had left to begin a new life had changed their perspective, now realizing that she never would have left without her purse, without her car, and without the funds she had been careful enough to keep from Jewel. Now they feel in their hearts that she must have been the victim of foul play.
00:23:36
Speaker
And in their guts, there was only one name on the list of who might have meant harm for Dottie. But there didn't seem to be enough evidence to name that person. Though I think we can all guess at this moment who that person is as a suspect. And years passed with no word nor sign from Dottie Kaler.
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00:28:01
Speaker
Dottie's case finally got some public attention when it aired on November 29, 1987, on Unsolved Mysteries, the first episode with Robert Stack as the host. It was on that episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which I would highly encourage you to watch, that Jule himself acknowledged that although he had suspicions of Dottie keeping things from him, that he had no idea how far her secret life went
00:28:28
Speaker
in terms of the PO box, nor the bank account, until the recording of that episode.
Media Attention and Emerging Suspicions
00:28:34
Speaker
He said, quote, she had secret lives, a secret existence that I knew nothing about, and she wanted it that way. I wasn't even aware of it. I was just suspicious, end quote. But it was a comment made near the end of the Unsolved Mysteries segment focused on Dottie's case that even had Jewel Kaler's attorney
00:28:56
Speaker
on set of Unsolved Mysteries with him yell, cut, immediately following it. Or at least that's how the story goes. Jewell said the following about his wife's disappearance, quote, it was hell living with Dottie. It was hell having her disappear the way that she did. And yet since I've gotten here, meaning Salt Lake City, and gotten settled and into a new job and
00:29:25
Speaker
That whole problem is behind me? Things are really pretty good." Wow. It seems extremely dismissive to seem to refer to Dottie's disappearance as, quote, that whole problem, end quote, which from the way the sentence is worded might also have been a comment about Dottie herself.
00:29:51
Speaker
It also seems cold to say, whether they were going through a divorce or not, that now that Dottie was gone and time had passed, that his life was, quote unquote, pretty good. Remember that I stated earlier that Jewell commented that he wouldn't have wanted Dottie to accompany him on the move to Salt Lake City, even if she had wanted to. Well,
00:30:15
Speaker
He might have been against Dottie making the move because of the fact that he had proposed to a woman that he was secretly seeing while still married to Dottie. And Jewel had invited that fiancé to move in with him in Salt Lake City. If both Dottie and the fiancé had come to live there, well, it would have been quite a crowded and toxic living situation.
00:30:42
Speaker
This other woman, and plans for a new life himself, was information that Jewel had never shared with law enforcement, nor with anyone. In fact, it wasn't until the Unsolved Mysteries segment aired that a friend of the other woman saw Jewel on the show, recognized him, and made a call to law enforcement. By this point, the relationship between the woman and Jewel had already ended, and, interestingly,
00:31:08
Speaker
without even knowing the full story of Dottie, she had grown fearful of what Jewell was capable of. Add to that suspicion, which we'll discuss in more depth here in just a moment, a typed letter sent from Gary, Indiana to law enforcement and postmarked on January 4th, 1988.
00:31:31
Speaker
The letter states the following, quote, to whom it may concern. Dottie was killed by her husband the morning she disappeared. It happened very early in the morning. He brought her out to the garage and struck her with a tire iron, end quote. The letter goes on to say where Jewel took the body to dump it. Also in the envelope was a map of a neighborhood and a drawing of the Kaler garage, including where to find bloodstains.
00:32:01
Speaker
Law enforcement tested the DNA from the stamp and the envelope. This was back in the day before stamps were stickers and you had peel and stick envelope flaps. This was in the day when you had to lick stamps and lick the envelope. They were able to determine that the DNA from those items had quote, male characteristics, end quote.
00:32:23
Speaker
but they were not able to identify the specific person who was a match to the DNA. Police had several theories as to who might have sent the letter. They posited that it may have been a psychic who saw the segment on unsolved mysteries. It may actually be someone who witnessed the event, or it may have been sent by the killer himself.
00:32:45
Speaker
Investigators did argue that the handwriting had, quote, some similarities to Jewell's handwriting, but not enough to be sure. Might he have been so cocky, they wonder, that he felt he could send such a letter and still get away with it? Unfortunately, the letter led to no additional information, and years passed when the case failed to garner any new leads nor advancements toward justice.
00:33:15
Speaker
until in 2004, Jewel Kaler, who was then running as a candidate for the House of Representatives in Utah, was named a person of interest. With renewed interest and focus on the case, Jewel did withdraw from the House of Representatives race, especially when a 140-page affidavit was filed with Contra Costa County Superior Court in 2005.
00:33:42
Speaker
The following is what the lead investigator in Dottie's case and author of the affidavit, Detective Kurt Messick, told reporters. In the article, Dottie's Story, Focus on Husband and Revived Cold Case, written June 21st, 2006, reporter Joan Morris wrote that Detective Messick, quote, cautions that assertions made in the court papers are merely the police theory of what happened.
00:34:11
Speaker
In police terminology, Kayla remains a person of interest and not a suspect. On an affidavit, we have to be specific, Messick says. We have to state that we believe one, that a crime occurred. Two, that there is reasonable cause to believe that this particular person was involved. And three, that items related to the crime may be at that location. It doesn't mean a person is guilty, Messick says.
00:34:40
Speaker
When we serve a search warrant, sometimes we find exculpatory evidence. We don't call him, Kaler, a suspect, until we have enough to arrest and charge him. Then we call him a suspect." The implications I get from those comments made to reporter Morris is more of a when rather than an if. Unfortunately, that when
00:35:09
Speaker
wasn't in 2005 when the affidavit led to a search warrant of the Kaler's old property on Greer Avenue in North Concord. Police tested for trace evidence and dug up parts of the couple's backyard, but from what I could tell, found nothing.
00:35:27
Speaker
Ground-penetrating radar was used on a concrete patio that Jewel had poured around the time Dottie disappeared. The radar did show anomalies, but I wasn't able to locate any information on whether the spot were excavated nor tested further. At the same time, with the new interests returning to the case, Jewel Kaler seemed like he was trying to change the original narrative.
00:35:55
Speaker
I say this because that same reporter for the Contra Costa Times, Joan Morris, interviewed Jewel in 2001, which was more than 15 years after Dottie disappeared. And he said then that he didn't drive Dottie to the train station, but that she drove herself. That shift would make the fact that her car was in a different spot the next day much more plausible, but it's also a detail that shouldn't change in your memory.
00:36:24
Speaker
no matter how much time had passed. Of course, what also shouldn't change is actually remembering that your wife went missing. But Jewell told reporter Morris when she first asked about Dottie that he, quote, forgot about his wife's disappearance, end quote. Excuse me, what? Regardless of what all of your inclinations likely are at this point,
00:36:53
Speaker
We do have two primary theories of what may have happened to Dottie Kaler to discuss.
Theories: Escape or Foul Play?
00:37:00
Speaker
Theory one is that Dottie Kaler had finally had enough and decided of her own volition to begin a life of her own and to escape all that she had known. After all, her sister did originally consider this as a possibility. Some may want to dismiss this theory as a possibility because Dottie suffered from agoraphobia
00:37:21
Speaker
Going into a train station and buying a ticket, let alone traveling by herself, wouldn't have been a small step, but a giant leap for someone suffering from that condition. At the very least, she would most likely have been nervous if she were about to travel by herself, but Jules said nothing about any nerves she mentioned over going to the station. Any nerves about the travel? Nothing.
00:37:47
Speaker
On the other hand, those who still believe her leaving of her own accord is a possibility would note that Dottie had been taking a lot of steps that would require the same level of confidence in a public setting as buying a ticket and traveling, like the haircut, the PO box, the bank account. She had been taking steps over the last year to potentially build up to this moment. Maybe this was her chance and she took it.
00:38:18
Speaker
What doesn't make any sense is why she would need a whole charade with the car in the first place. If she left and Jule didn't know where she was going, why stage the car the following day? Why not just leave? And if she did decide to leave the car in order to mess with Jule, it doesn't explain why she wouldn't have taken the purse with her, why she would have taken a train rather than leaving with her car.
00:38:46
Speaker
Maybe she thought the car could be used to trace her and her wallet or ID as well, and she wanted to truly disappear. It makes sense that she would take her allergy kit, something she might need to protect her life. But wouldn't she also have taken cash out of her account or cashed in the cashier's check before she left, especially if her plan was to completely disappear? Additionally, Jewel was just about to leave himself anyway.
00:39:17
Speaker
According to his accounts, he was about to move to Salt Lake City and Dottie to stay behind in California. According to him, they had even come to an agreement on the way in which Dottie might keep the house. So my question is, if she chose to leave on her own, why now? If all that was happening was that Dottie wanted to start a new life and a life alone, why set up some elaborate disappearance when she was just about to have everything that she wanted?
00:39:47
Speaker
without having to do so. The only answer I can think of to that question is that she was scared that she wouldn't be allowed to stay behind in peace. Maybe she had to leave in this way out of fear, fear of what would happen otherwise, because she felt Jewel might try to get revenge or hurt her. But if that is the case, then this theory is only as likely as the alternative.
00:40:18
Speaker
foul play. In terms of that scenario, there has only ever been one person of interest identified by law enforcement, Jewell. And it wasn't just a hunch that police were working on. Rather, according to information that can be found on the Unsolved Mysteries message board, there was that whopping 140-page affidavit filled with 29 reasons Jewell may be considered a person of interest.
00:40:46
Speaker
that was filed by police in Concord, California, the very one that led to the search warrant. Among those reasons were the following items, dating from information stemming from Jewel's youth to the days leading up to Dottie's disappearance. Number one, when the Unsolved Mysteries episode aired, a man emailed producers of the show to say he had attended both middle school and high school with Jewel. He claimed that while in school, Jewel had written a paper
00:41:16
Speaker
outlining, quote, how to commit the perfect murder, end quote, that had dismayed their teacher as well as several classmates. Number two, Dottie had previously written letters to Jules' parents that make some unsettling claims of not just a single incident, but years of both emotional and physical abuse. We know because when Dottie would write letters to Jules' parents,
00:41:46
Speaker
She would write a second copy that she kept for her own records and that filing cabinet that she had asked a friend to store. She mentioned in those letters being abandoned by Juul a major holidays due to his multiple extramarital affairs. But she also mentioned a story in one of those letters that she says Juul told her about his childhood. She claimed that Juul told her that when he was younger, he had built a bomb
00:42:16
Speaker
had stuffed it into the anus of a neighbor's dog and then masturbated while the dog blew up. To me, this story is too disturbing for the average person to make up. Still other letters, Dottie told his parents that neighbors were looking out for her to help protect her because Jewel had made murder threats that he would, quote, pop her off, end quote.
00:42:45
Speaker
There was a definite pattern of violence and killing throughout these letters. Number three, in the weeks before the disappearance, Jewel was in Utah making arrangements for his upcoming move there. He was in an office getting his insurance transferred when he was flirting with the insurance agent. She later told police that during the course of her conversation with Jewel, he said something to the effect that it was easier to quote, do away with, end quote, an ex.
00:43:15
Speaker
rather than divorce them and that he didn't believe in divorce. Given the fact that Dottie disappeared weeks later, those comments are extremely ominous, especially when added to the fact that the two were about to go through the process of a divorce. And it is definitely off-putting for someone to make comments like that in such an off-handed manner. Number four.
00:43:43
Speaker
We also know that Jewel had already proposed to another woman named Della six months before Dottie disappeared. When police spoke with Della, she told stories as well that turned their attention on Jewel. She stated that when she and Jewel had first met, Jewel had told her that he had been divorced 10 years prior. But at the end of 1985, he finally told Della about Dottie.
00:44:09
Speaker
Only, though, after his daughter came to visit the two of them, saw the engagement ring on Della's hand and asked how he could be engaged when his wife Dottie was still missing. It was then that he told Della about Dottie. Of course, he told her an interesting tale. He told Della that he had been fearful of his life with Dottie.
00:44:38
Speaker
and had said that if he had to, he would kill her first, and that if she were dead, good riddance. I don't know if that was the extent of their conversation, but something happened between them that made Dela fearful of Jewel and what he was capable of doing. Some sources claim he insinuated to her how easy it would be to get rid of a body, and no one would ever suspect him.
00:45:04
Speaker
It could be that he mentioned once killing Dottie's dog and being able to bury it and hide the smell before insinuating that he could do the same with a human body. Regardless of which element was the final straw, Della ended the relationship. Number five, the day before Dottie disappeared, June 11th, Jewel took the day off saying he was sick.
00:45:31
Speaker
On the day Dottie disappeared, June 12th, Jewel worked less than two hours before leaving for the rest of the day, again saying he was sick. He worked only a half day on June 13th and took off several days afterward until it was time to move to Salt Lake City. To law enforcement, that doesn't look good that there would have been ample time with no alibi during which to commit the crime, though, he said,
00:45:59
Speaker
He used it for packing up his belongings for the move. Number six. During the process of that packing for the move, Jewel also packed up Dottie's things. We know this because Dottie's sister, knowing by this point from Shelly that Dottie was missing, heard that there were moving trucks outside of the home on June 19th. When she went to Dottie and Jewel's home, all of Dottie's personal belongings were also being boxed. She asked Jewel the very question I would have asked.
00:46:30
Speaker
If she said she's coming back after you're out of the house on the 24th, why would you pack up all of her things so they aren't here when she would return? Jewel had no answer. Number seven. Jewel also reportedly refused not only to take a polygraph and wrote a 12 page letter outlining the reasons he refused to take a polygraph test.
00:46:57
Speaker
He also refused to spend a dime on a private investigator Dottie's sister hired to look into the disappearance. Additionally, he didn't seem to have an explanation as to how Dottie's car could have even made it to a train station, let alone a different train station from the drop off if Jewel's story were true that he took her to the train station when she bought a ticket. Number eight, to me,
00:47:26
Speaker
The strongest support of the foul play theory has to do with the home Jewel and Dottie had shared that she would be living in when she returned. He claimed that prior to Dottie leaving, they came to an agreement that Dottie would maintain the home and pay Jewel $400 a month. The plan, when he says she left town, was for her to return only after he had left for Salt Lake City on the 24th.
00:47:55
Speaker
However, only days after Dottie left and Jules said he saw her car at the train station and still over a week before she was planning on returning, he stated in his letter that he left on her windshield that he was forced to rent out the home for financial reasons. That claim was clearly a lie. Why would he be forced to do so if Dottie were remaining in the home and was never going to get back before the 24th anyway?
00:48:26
Speaker
and someone did move in. This is reason number nine. What is even more interesting is that if the whole plan were for Dottie to go out of town until the 24th and then return to the home, and if Jewel were, quote unquote, forced to rent out the home after she had been gone for a couple of days, as he stated in that letter,
00:48:52
Speaker
Why was the rental agreement signed on June 7th, nearly a week before Dottie disappeared? Number 10. Many wonder, might Jewel have really known about Dottie's secret life and angry about it, have harmed her? These are just some of the various reasons
00:49:20
Speaker
included in the 140-page affidavit.
Renewed Police Interest in Jewell
00:49:24
Speaker
In contrast, according to an article by Kristen Stewart for the Salt Lake Tribune, published March 31, 2004, Jule had a response. He told the reporter that he, quote, blames renewed police scrutiny on a smear campaign orchestrated by Dottie's sister, Diane Resnick. She felt sure that I must have made Dottie disappear.
00:49:49
Speaker
But she'd disappeared on her own, said Kaler. Dottie's probably still around, probably in this country or the Bay Area, just watching all this and smiling." I would love nothing more than that statement by Jewel Kaler to be correct.
00:50:09
Speaker
that Dottie was able to get away, to start a life of her own, unfettered by fears of retaliation, a space in which she could blossom and grow into all the potentials of herself. But the likelihood of that scenario feels like an illogical hope, the dream of a dream rather than a distinct possible reality. Reality feels much darker, devoid of hope,
00:50:39
Speaker
and weighed down by the violences of Dottie's past. However, without continued pressure, without a concerted effort to say, we won't stop talking about her case until we have answers, memories will continue to fade. Dottie Kaler finally mustered up the courage to take back the leading role in her own life. Let's not let a woman with that much courage fade into obscurity.
00:51:10
Speaker
Anyone with information pertaining to Dottie Kaler, please contact the Concord Police Department at 925-671-3240.
00:51:24
Speaker
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00:51:53
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.
00:52:16
Speaker
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Speaker
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