Sneak peek: The Troubled Case Against Jane Dorotik
"I thought information and justness was astatine the beforehand of everything. And it surely has not been successful my case," Jane Dorotik told "48 Hours" analogous Erin Moriarty successful an encore of "The Troubled Case Against Jane Dorotik," airing Saturday, June 21 astatine 10/9c connected CBS and streaming connected Paramount+.
Dorotik reported her hubby Bob missing the evening of Sunday, Feb. 13, 2000. She told the San Diego County Sheriff's Department she had past seen him that afternoon, erstwhile helium said helium was going retired for a jog. Bob Dorotik's assemblage was recovered aboriginal the adjacent greeting connected the broadside of the roadworthy respective miles from their Valley Center, California, home. He had been bludgeoned successful the caput and strangled.
"It was evident to maine that it was a homicide," sheriff's detective Rick Empson told Moriarty.
Bob and Jane Dorotik's bedroom.
San Diego County Sheriff's Department
Investigators rapidly determined Bob Dorotik wasn't killed wherever his assemblage was found, due to the fact that determination wasn't capable humor there. When they searched the Dorotiks' home, they recovered spots of humor each implicit the bedroom. Jane Dorotik explained that Bob had had a nosebleed recently, and they had dogs who had bled. But authorities dismissed her explanations.
"There was nary question successful our caput that this battle occurred successful the maestro bedroom," Empson said.
Three days aft Bob Dorotik's assemblage was found, Jane Dorotik, 53, was arrested for his murder. She aboriginal posted bail, and though she was nether a unreality of suspicion, she invited "48 Hours" into her location successful 2000.
"It felt similar a nightmare, and I kept saying 'when americium I gonna aftermath up?'" she told Moriarty.
When the lawsuit went to proceedings successful May 2001, authoritative Bonnie Howard-Regan described the 20 locations wherever investigators recovered blood.
"There was humor connected the comforter. There was humor connected the pillow sham …on the partition down the furniture … connected the ceiling supra the bed," she said.
Howard-Regan besides told jurors determination was a ample humor stain connected the underside of the mattress. The prosecution theorized that Jane Dorotik deed her hubby with an entity successful the chamber and strangled him. She past dressed him successful his jogging suit, enactment him successful their motortruck and dumped him on the broadside of the roadworthy wherever his assemblage was found.
"The grounds volition amusement that each this humor that has been described to you, the observations made successful this bedroom, that it was each sent retired for DNA analysis, and it each came backmost Bob Dorotik's blood," Howard-Regan told the jury.
The assemblage deliberated for 4 days earlier uncovering Jane Dorotik guilty. She was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Jane Dorotik speaks to Erin Moriarty successful jail.
CBS News
"I just, I can't spot my mode wide to a beingness successful prison. I conscionable can't spot it," she told Moriarty successful an interrogation successful jail.
Dorotik spent years down bars asking for a caller introspection of the evidence. She argued authorities focused connected her from the opening of the probe and failed to travel different leads. But question aft question was denied.
By 2016, she began moving with a squad from Loyola Project for the Innocent. They reviewed the chamber humor grounds the authoritative told the assemblage was afloat tested and was Bob Dorotik's. According to the appeal, not each azygous spot successful the chamber believed to beryllium blood, was tested. Instead, typical samples were tested.
The appellate squad says that respective blood-like stains connected items including a pillow sham, the nightstand and a lampshade turned retired not to beryllium blood. And immoderate stains connected the bedspread, which were described astatine proceedings arsenic Bob Dorotik's blood, were ne'er tested astatine all.
"If you conscionable look astatine each of the pieces of grounds that Loyola was capable to perfectly instrumentality isolated … and yet we cognize what was told to the assemblage successful the archetypal conviction… How tin that happen?" Jane Dorotik told Moriarty erstwhile they spoke again 2 decades aft her conviction.
The authorities stood by its archetypal investigation, maintaining the chamber was the execution country and that the grounds inactive pointed to Jane Dorotik arsenic the killer. It besides claimed the defence arguments were "largely derived from speculation and misstatements of fact."
In April 2020, Jane Dorotik was temporarily released from situation owed to COVID wellness concerns. The San Diego County District Attorney's Office recommended her condemnation beryllium overturned owed to caller grounds successful the case, but successful October 2020, it made the determination to retry her.
The justice ruled that the caller proceedings could spell ahead, but that immoderate cardinal grounds presented successful her archetypal proceedings would not beryllium admissible. In May 2022, conscionable arsenic assemblage enactment was astir to begin, the prosecutors dropped the charges.
"We nary longer consciousness that the grounds is capable to amusement impervious beyond a tenable uncertainty and person 12 members of the jury," said Deputy District Attorney Christopher Campbell.
At a quality league extracurricular the courthouse, Jane Dorotik expressed her relief.
"It conscionable is overwhelming to recognize that present I tin find my ain future. It's thing I've prayed for and hoped for," she said.
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