6. Moving On

Summary

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The Unforgotten

Season 3: Finding Dolores Wulff
Episode 6: Moving On
Release Date: September 8, 2025
Hosted by: Kyle Bonagura & Adam Rittenberg (Free Range Productions)

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Overview

Episode 6, “Moving On,” examines the aftermath of Carl Wulff’s release following the dismissal of his murder charges and the profound ripple effects on the Wulff family. The episode poignantly chronicles Carl's spiral, his fractured relationships, efforts to reconnect, and his eventual death without ever revealing the truth about Dolores' disappearance. The narrative transitions to focus on the next generations, exploring how Dolores’ case lingers through familial silence and the power of modern internet investigation communities to keep hope alive for cold cases.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Carl Wulff After the Trial: Alienation, Family Fractures, and Downward Spiral

• Carl’s Life Post-1985: After acquittal, Carl couldn’t reclaim normalcy. Attempts to remain near family failed, as his sons refused contact.

• Notable Incident—Paul’s Football Game (01:50): A rare encounter when Paul played at the Rose Bowl, Carl appeared unexpectedly; Paul spoke to him briefly, “He was there at the game waiting for me outside the locker room...I acknowledged him and talked to him.” (03:04, Paul)

• Last Conversation with Paul: Their final exchange occurred by phone, “He was drunk and that was it. That was the last time I ever talked to him.” (03:26, Paul)

• Minnesota Exile and Familial Tensions: Carl returned to the family farm with help from his brother, Richard, but gratitude dissolved into hostility.

  • Richard recalls: “He did not appreciate all that Pat and I did for him. Instead, he caused trouble for us and for his parents and everyone else...” (10:17)
  • Carl’s behavior steadily deteriorated into belligerence, heavy drinking, and mental instability.
  • Pat (Richard’s wife): “He definitely had some mental problems...Well, he was mentally ill, for sure. He had anxiety issues. He had mental health issues.” (12:42)
  • Anna Wolf notes: “It became more and more obvious, the way he was acting, that he was guilty.” (12:59)

• Community Ostracism:

  • Tom, Carl’s son: “His family doesn’t want anything to do with him...He ended up just a miserable, totally messed up human being.” (14:40, 15:02)

• Final Breach of Family Trust: Upon the deaths of their parents, Carl stole their funeral savings and personal property.

  • Richard: “He waited for my parents to die so he could steal all the cash which they saved for their funeral...He stole everything from the parents, from us, and left here in a disgrace.” (15:23, 15:53)

2. The Complex Bond: Carl and Anna Wolf

• Anna, alone among Carl’s children, maintained contact out of hope for a confession:
  • “It was always in the back of my mind...that someday he will confess to me, so I’ll continue to keep in contact.” (18:57, Anna)
• Carl returned to California, living near Anna, who vouched for his character so he could rent an apartment, but Carl’s drinking and transient lifestyle persisted.
• Anna’s eventual reckoning: Her cousin, Toni Rocha, insists Anna admit Carl killed Dolores—Anna concedes: “I know, I know he did. I always did know. I was just confused.” (20:24, Toni/Anna)
• Anna’s return to Woodland and deep conversations with her uncle Slick lead to acceptance and understanding about her parents’ marriage and Dolores’ mindset.
  • “That was the time where I really processed a lot of the real truth, you know, that my dad probably did it.” (23:04, Anna)

3. Carl’s Final Years: Death Without Confession

• As Carl’s health failed, Anna and Tom traveled to see him hoping for a revelation, but “he was too...not 100% coherent all the time. So it wasn’t making a lot of sense...” (24:12, Anna)
• Tom’s aim: “My goal was to...get information out of him as to what he did with my mother’s body...But I saw him...he was ready to die...I just said goodbye, basically.” (24:40, Tom)
• Family universally agreed Carl never confessed; speculation centers on whether he might have told someone while drinking, but no evidence surfaces.
  • David (nephew): “How is this guy not told anybody in great detail what he did? Because that’s usually what gets people caught.” (26:17)
  • Tom: “I believe he never told anybody, period. I just...I know his nature enough, and I can’t imagine why he would.” (26:54, Tom)
  • Carly (eldest child): “His response was, I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know. She, I didn’t do anything wrong. He’d always say that to me.” (27:38)
  • Carly again: “He didn’t want to get caught. No matter how many years later, he didn’t want to get caught for killing her...” (27:51)
• Paul receives call notifying him of Carl’s hospitalization and eventual death in 2005, age 70, in San Marcos, California.
  • “He had passed.” (28:17, Paul)

4. The Next Generation: Silence, Curiosity, and Digital Hope

• Holly Wolf (Johnson), Dolores’ granddaughter, describes the subject as taboo:
  • “It was kind of a taboo subject, to be honest with you. It wasn’t talked about.” (32:29, Holly)
  • Stories and wild rumors circulated in Woodland; Holly’s curiosity intensified as she grew up, especially after finding a trunk of Carl’s belongings: “It was kind of eerie, and I just remember opening it...It was like, a black trunk, and it was just old newspapers.” (33:58, Holly)
  • She finds a photo of Dolores: “She was just glowingly beautiful. And I was just like, I’m gonna take this. I stole it. And I felt more guilty than anything...” (34:16, Holly)
• As an adult, Holly turns to internet resources to research Dolores’ case:
  • “Every few years, I would just google her name and see what someone talked about...Very, very rarely was there anything.” (34:43, Holly)

5. Digital Detectives: The Doe Network and Modern Cold Case Advocacy

• Exploration of NamUs and the Doe Network:

  • Introduced as communities giving new hope for the missing and unidentified, with volunteers operating largely through “deductive reasoning.” These efforts solve and assist in cold cases—“Our mission is to give the nameless back their names and return the missing to their families.” (36:25, Tara Kennedy)
  • Tara explains: “Missing people, unidentified people, have no voice...I feel that people want to provide agency for these folks.” (37:43, Tara)
  • Technology and volunteer crowdsourcing, paired with databases, have led to “135 missing persons cases” being solved as of April 2025. (41:06-41:31)
  • Tara Kennedy: “You might be the key to identifying someone or finding someone. And I think there really is no greater gift than being able to do that.” (41:31, Tara)

• Holly’s Investigation:

  • Inspired by other missing-person cases, Holly dives into databases, ultimately submitting a potential Jane Doe match for her grandmother, Dolores, in 2019.
  • “Like, I don’t know anything about true crime. Like, there’s just no way that I stumbled upon Jane Doe report that actually is my grandmother.” (43:34, Holly)
  • Despite not getting a response, Holly’s efforts mirror decades of family hope and the frustrating inertia of cold cases, but also the possibility for change. “It was like, just send the damn email. Does it matter? So I sent the email.” (43:58, Holly)

6. Closing Thought

• Dolores’ case has entered a new phase: “In 2016, the Dolores Wolf case was added to the NAMUS database and a DOE network profile followed. They were steps that allowed anyone to take a closer look at what happened back in 1979.” (42:09, Kyle Bonagura)
• The episode ends with the promise that persistent efforts—by both family and strangers—might yet illuminate what happened to Dolores.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Paul Wolf on last encounter with his father:

  “I acknowledged him and talked to him. And then I went back to the majority of my family who was there.” (03:04, Paul)

• Richard, Carl’s brother, on taking Carl in:

  “He did not appreciate all that Pat and I did for him. Instead, he caused trouble for us and for his parents and everyone else that he had contact with in Onamia.” (10:17, Richard)

• Anna Wolf, on hoping for a confession:

  “It was always in the back of my mind ... that someday he will confess to me, so I’ll continue to keep in contact.” (18:57, Anna)

• Holly Wolf on family silence:

  “It was kind of a taboo subject, to be honest with you. It wasn’t talked about.” (32:29, Holly)

• Tara Kennedy, Doe Network:

  “Missing people, unidentified people, have no voice. And that is a tragedy in itself. So I feel that maybe people want to be able to provide agency for these folks.” (37:43, Tara)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:16–04:39: Carl’s post-trial life, last attempts at reconnecting with his sons, Paul’s last conversation with Carl
• 04:57–15:53: Carl’s return to Minnesota, impact on family, mental decline, bridge burning
• 17:57–24:50: Relationship with Anna, Anna’s struggle for clarity, Anna and Tom’s final visit to Carl
• 26:17–28:05: Family analysis on Carl’s silence, speculation on confessions
• 32:29–34:16: Holly’s discovery of family secrets and personal artifacts
• 34:52–41:31: The Doe Network, NamUs, the rise of internet-sleuthing in cold cases
• 42:55–44:16: Holly’s own efforts to spark new inquiry through NamUs

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Episode Tone

The episode is meticulously narrated with a somber, reflective tone, blending personal pain with investigative persistence. The voices of family—often raw, at other times measured—highlight the generational scars left by Dolores’ disappearance, but also a stubborn resolve in seeking truth.

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Conclusion

“Moving On” details how the Wulff family endured Carl’s years of self-destruction and obfuscation, and how the loss of Dolores affected not only her immediate kin but also grandchildren like Holly. In a resonant full-circle moment, the episode closes with the new tools and communities spearheading hope for closure in cold cases—reminding listeners that digital footprints and shared resolve can still bring the unforgotten home.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck. That's the sound of no telling what you'll find next.

[Kyle Bonagura]

So why would you ever take a.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Tour when you could take a detour? Toyota trucks.

[Kyle Bonagura]

After the murder charge against Carl Wolf was dismissed in 1985, he was right about one thing. His life would never be the same. He stayed in the Sacramento area, tried to keep working in insurance, and even brought a girlfriend back to Minnesota to visit his brother Richard and sister in law Pat around Christmas time. But Carl's life was in shambles. What would happen to him now? In this episode, we look at Carl's life in the years that followed him walking out of the courtroom, but also where things began for him. Carl's sons wanted nothing to do with him, but that didn't keep him away. By this point, Paul was playing football for Washington State. And when the team played at Minnesota early in the 1988 season, Paul planned to visit his Uncle Richard's home just outside of Minneapolis. When he showed up, Carl was there too. Then a few weeks later, WSU visited the iconic Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The Rose Bowl. Located in an area that was once dominated by an unruly Branca, it is now an area of recreation for the city and the location of one of the most famous sports arenas in the world. It is the home of the top ranked UCLA Bruins who today will meet the Washington State cougars in PAC 10 conference action.

[Kyle Bonagura]

UCLA was led by future hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman. Legendary broadcaster Keith Jackson, a Washington State alum, called the game for ABC. After falling behind by 21 points in the third quarter, the Cougars stormed back on first and goal from the one. Paul snapped the ball to quarterback Tim Rosenbaugh who handed it to Rich Swinton for the go ahead touchdown. Paul was there immediately to celebrate in the end zone and WSU held on for one of its biggest wins ever.

[Narrator/Announcer]

And so now all the Cougars have to do is snap it one time and this game will go down as one of the most stunning upsets of this football season. UCLA cannot stop. Washington State is not one against the Bruins in Southern California sets the 1958 today they have.

[Kyle Bonagura]

The moment was one of Paul's top athletic highlights and as always, he had a big group of supporters waiting to celebrate with him. But Carl also showed up that day. Here's Paul.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He was there at the game waiting for me outside the locker room and also had a lot of other relatives there as well. And I went over and talked to him for a few minutes. I acknowledged him and talked to him. And then I went back to the majority of my family who was there.

[Kyle Bonagura]

That was the last time Paul saw his father in person. Their final conversation came the following spring.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He had called me and was trying to kind of get a little bit more involved in my life. And, you know, I just said, tell me more information. I don't have a lot to say. And he just told me that I would never probably talk to him again, and he was going to go work for the CIA and move out of the country and all these different things. And he was drunk and that was it. That was the last time I ever talked to him.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl actually tried to see Paul the week after the UCLA game as Washington State played at Stanford, a few hours away from Woodland. But Carl was kept at a distance that day. Here's Paul's brother Tom after the game.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Family gathers around as the kids come.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Out of the locker room and they.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Greet him and visit. And he was there. And that's where I remember feeling compelled to tell him to leave or else there could be a problem because there was a lot of other family there and nobody wanted him there. And we didn't want Paul to have to go through that.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Paul wouldn't be the last of his siblings to try and get Carl to give up information about what happened to Dolores. But Carl's ramblings about the CIA and leaving the country were part of a spiral that would first take him back to where it all began. I'm Kyle Bonagara.

[Adam Rittenberg]

And I'm Adam Rittenberg. This is the unforgotten. Season 3 Finding Dolores Wolf Episode 6 Moving On.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Onamia is a tiny town almost directly in the middle of Minnesota, where fewer than 900 people live today. Carl Wolf grew up there as the second of three children born to his father, also named Carl, and his mother Ann. He had a sister named Mercedes who was about a year and a half older, and his brother Richard, also called Dick, was four years younger. Richard Wolf is in his late 80s and still lives near Minneapolis with his wife Patrick. They've been together since they were teenagers. They're Minnesota nice and often finished each other's sentences during our interviews with them, we heard from Richard briefly in episode five when he told about how he provided money to help bail Carl out of jail following his arrest. Carl and his siblings grew up during the Depression in a log cabin without running water. They later moved to a home their father built from logs he cut and dried himself, living without electricity until Carl's high school years. Education was valued and they walked a mile each day to catch the school bus.

[Narrator/Announcer]

It was a tough life. We just barely existed back in those days. There was no food shelves. So you just had to live off the land and off the garden. And it was a tough life. But many of the people living up in that area were very similar. We never had $5 to do anything. We never had $2. We never had any money.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Despite the financial challenges at home, they seemingly had a good childhood. Mercedes was named the homecoming queen at Onamia High School and Carl was a star athlete. Carl was among the top football players in the area. A team captain who possibly could have gone on to play in college. But in late September of his senior year, he was out hunting when a shotgun pellet from someone in his party ricocheted into his right eye. The 17 year old lost sight in the eye and could no longer play football. The incident generated a headline in the local newspaper, the St. Cloud Times, which doctors said today that Wolf has lost the sight of his eye and that the pellet is lodged in the base of his skull. At present, doctors said it is impossible to operate to remove the pellet, but that no complications will develop.

[Narrator/Announcer]

In this respect, he couldn't play his senior year and that was a tough blow to him because he was a good athlete. He got along well with everybody and was looked up to. But that was a real blow to him.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl enrolled at what is now St. Cloud State University in 1952. But he soon met a friend who convinced him to drive out to California and stay there. Richard didn't hear much from his brother after that. Getting updates mostly through the letters Carl would send their mother. We don't know much about Carl's life when he reached California or even how he and Delores first met. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Richard was a successful engineer and businessman. In 1965 he bought the farm where his parents lived. His parents would stay there for another 20 years until moving into a senior apartment in town. Richard saw his brother more after Carl met Dolores and started having children. But this was the 50s and 60s. Between the distance and lack of technology, communication was minimal. When Carl needed Richard, though he was there for him. After the murder charge was dismissed, Carl again leaned on his younger brother. He wanted to return to the family farm in Onamia. He was financially ruined and out of options.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I'm sure that was what it was all about, why he wanted to come back.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Richard still wasn't sure what to make about Carl's culpability in Dolores disappearance and had his Doubts about whether welcoming his brother back was a good idea. But he gave in and let Carl move back to the farm rent free. He recounted those doubts in a letter he later sent to Carl and Dolores children, which he read to us.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I did not like the idea of him moving back here, but my sister Mercedes and Pat thought it would be okay. It would be the right thing to do.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Mercedes had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and really wanted to get her parents settled into senior housing, which she did in 1985. Perhaps she wanted everything to be in order before she passed. Two years later, she died at age 55. Carl began living at the farm, which Pat Wolf told us was, quote, a nice place for Carl to hide out. The 160 acre property is five miles outside of town, surrounded by forests and parks overseen by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Not much time passed before Richard realized that letting his brother return was a mistake. Here's more from the letter he wrote to Carl's children.

[Narrator/Announcer]

At first, he was somewhat grateful, but as time went by, he became more belligerent every year to a point where we couldn't go to the farm, even though he lived there for nothing. We paid all the expenses. He did not appreciate all that Pat and I did for him. Instead, he caused trouble for us and for his parents and everyone else that he had contact with in Onamia.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Richard never had any issues with those surrounding the farm. But things soon changed after Carl moved in.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He just caused problems with everybody you come in contact with, you know, whether it would be the DNR people or the park people. They were logging up the road, and that bothered them because they went by the farmhouse all the time.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl also fought with the administrators of the senior home where his parents lived. One of them told Richard their mother had become afraid of Carl.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He was nothing but trouble. He was a burden to them and a burden to me and a burden to us. He was a bad person when he came back here. As time went by, he just got more and more mean and belligerent. It doesn't matter who he was with or who was there. He was mean and he got mean to us and to Pat. I mean, we took care of him.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl never saw his son Paul again after the UCLA game in 1988. But there was one memorable interaction with his other two sons. Carly and Tom were in Minnesota visiting their uncle Richard. They ended up driving to Onamia to visit their father. Here's Carly.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I just remember, you know, talking about what he was doing there, just eking out a living he was kind of taking care of the place. My uncle was supporting him, essentially gave him a place to stay, gave him some money to kind of take care of the old homestead.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Richard said Carl continued to drink heavily after he moved to the farm. Carl also was a diabetic and needed insulin, which led to some crash diets. Pat wolf had a nursing background and convinced him to go to diabetic counseling at the local hospital. Pat thinks Carl's fluctuations in weight and blood sugar contributed to his moodiness. But there were deeper problems.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Well, he definitely had some mental problems. Well, he was mentally ill, for sure. He had anxiety issues. He had mental health issues.

[Anna Wolf]

And got to the point where I was very uncomfortable having dick going to the farm.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He had a gun. So it became more and more obvious, the way he was acting, that he was guilty.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Remember, Richard was initially unsure what to make of his brother's potential involvement in Dolores disappearance. He and Mercedes had gone to California back in 1979 and returned confused about a lot of what they had heard and seen. When Carl was charged in March 1985, his mother, Ann, was quoted in the Sacramento bee as saying, why now? His lawyers always said he was in the clear. In the same article, Mercedes was quoted as saying, my brother wouldn't hurt a fly. I can't believe this is happening. But the longer Carl lived in Minnesota and the more Richard believed he had killed Dolores. At one point, detective Ron Heileman reached out. Here's what Richard wrote about that interaction in his letter.

[Narrator/Announcer]

One day, the detective from yolo county called me to find out if Carl ever talked about Delores. I said he never would talk about her. But I told the detective how he was acting and the problems he was causing for us. He told me Carl was guilty, but he can't prove it. I said, I agree with you.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Richard needed to experience his brother's behavior firsthand to reach a conclusion about what had happened in 1979. For others like Tom, Carl's conduct back in Minnesota simply reinforced what he had known for years. He's completely ostracized by the community.

[Narrator/Announcer]

His family doesn't want anything to do with him. You know, he ends up moving back.

[Kyle Bonagura]

To Minnesota, where he was born and raised, and his brother there, who's a.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Wonderful man, took him in and tried to help him. And he ended up totally ruining that relationship and ruining his relationship with his parents, my grandparents. And he ended up just a miserable.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Totally messed up human being. In August 1995, Carl and Richard's father died at age 94, about 10 months later, their mother passed away at age 87. After his mother's death, Richard witnessed even more shocking behavior from Carl.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He waited for my parents to die so he could steal all the cash which they saved for their funeral.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Their savings amounted to a few thousand dollars. Carl and Richard's parents were living in low income senior housing, mostly on their Social Security checks. Richard paid for the funeral, but Carl wasn't finished. He sold as much as he could from Richard's farm, including a bulldozer and some tractors.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He left us holding the bag. He stole everything he could, stole everything from the parents, from us, and left here in a disgrace.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl had burned nearly every bridge in Minnesota. And now, after nearly a decade in exile, he was headed back to California.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The world is full of tours.

[Kyle Bonagura]

But you don't choose a Toyota truck.

[Narrator/Announcer]

To follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places.

[Kyle Bonagura]

In between the detours, where each adventure pulls you toward the next.

[Narrator/Announcer]

And wrong turns turn out right.

[Kyle Bonagura]

So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota trucks, y'.

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Adam Rittenberg]

Of all the relationships we examined in our reporting for this story, the most delicate was the one between Carl and his only daughter, Anna. She had been the one who called the morning after her mother disappeared and was the first to speak with her father, who she soon suspected of inflicting harm. But Anna kept going back to Carl and was the only one of his four children to advocate for him after he was charged with Dolores murder in 1985. She was the one who asked her Uncle Richard for bail money. She found his attorney and testified on his behalf. Not surprisingly, Anna said Carl went directly to her. And after coming back to California from Minnesota, they had kept in touch while Carl was living back in Minnesota, talking maybe once a month. The reason, according to Anna, might come as a surprise, given her support for her dad when he was charged.

[Anna Wolf]

It was always in the back of my mind, you know, going way, way, way back to that initial thought that someday he will confess to me, so I'll continue to keep in contact.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Anna had been living with her daughters in Southern California, eventually settling in Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles from Los Angeles. Carl followed, living nearby, and for about a year, he was part of their lives again.

[Anna Wolf]

He was staying with us for a little while, and then there were neighbors just in our direct area that he started partying with a lot drinking.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Carl ended up renting his own place a little bit closer to San Diego and surrounded himself with a shady crowd. His downward spiral continued, and at one point, he needed Anna to vouch for him.

[Anna Wolf]

I just remember him wanting me to come out there with my two little adorable girls just so that the landlords could see he has this family and, you know, kind of a good image.

[Adam Rittenberg]

During the same time period, Anna's marriage ended and and she returned to Woodland with her daughters. Her support of Carl had created some tension within the family, especially among Dolores cousins. But a lot of time had passed too. One of the cousins, Tony Rocha, helped Anna move back from Southern California. But before they started the drive north, Toni made one thing clear.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I told her, we just had to agree on the fact that your dad killed your mom. And she said, I know, I know he did. I said, the only thing I have to say, we won't talk about it again. We have to agree on it. She goes, no, I always did know. I was just confused. I go, hey, that's good. You don't have to talk about it no more.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Anna first lived with her brother Carly and sister in law Heidi, before finding her own place in town.

[Anna Wolf]

Somewhere after that, or in that same period of time, my dad went and started hanging around with other people in a more remote part of Southern California. And then we totally lost contact at that point.

[Adam Rittenberg]

This was sometime in the late 1990s. What happened to Carl Wolf during the next few years is a mystery to his family. He had little to no contact with any relatives. Anna said her dad was around, quote, scummy people living a transient life and dealing with alcohol abuse as he entered his 60s. Anna, on the other hand, was connecting back to her roots in Woodland, the town she essentially ran away from. As a young adult, she started spending more time with her uncle Slick, who she called Matthew. He was her godfather. But growing up, she didn't feel particularly close to him, much like she didn't feel particularly close to the environment in Woodland.

[Anna Wolf]

He knew how to do boys, he knew how to do boys and he knew how to do sports. So we didn't connect a lot when I was younger.

[Adam Rittenberg]

But when Anna came back, she was adjusting to life as a single mom, working while also raising her daughters. She would eventually get a divorce. She had a lot going on and Slick, as he had done for so many others over the years, realized he had to step up.

[Anna Wolf]

He did a lot for my daughters, getting them to and from places and you know, we spent couple of days, you know, at my kitchen table talking when I was living back in Woodland. And he went over these stories with me and helped me to come to another new level of clear reality.

[Adam Rittenberg]

For maybe the first time, Anna heard in detail from Slick what had gone on in her parents marriage. Slick shed light on Dolores mindset in the months leading up to her disappearance. He also explained that Dolores was in fact very upset by what Anna had told her about Carl's inappropriate behavior when Anna was a young girl. As we detailed back in episode two, Dolores had a poker faced reaction to Anna's revelation, which left Anna scarred.

[Anna Wolf]

That was the time where I really processed a lot of the real truth, you know, that my dad probably did it. He told me about how my mother was hysteric from these other things that I went through. And he told me about how they made this pack, that if anything ever happened that they would take care of the other one's kids.

[Adam Rittenberg]

The kitchen table conversations with Slick brought clarity for Anna after two decades of confusion.

[Anna Wolf]

When he was helping me with the girls, you know, he had helped me to come to terms with a lot. So that was a great thing. We connected a lot. And he also connected a lot with my girls. I think we just had a special connection through those years of healing.

[Adam Rittenberg]

In the mid 2000s, Anna received a call from a woman working at what she remembers as a senior nursing home where Carl was living in Southern California. He was in declining health and the woman suggested coming down to see him. Anna ended up going with her brother Tom. Their goal was to get their dad to finally talk about what had really happened in 1979.

[Anna Wolf]

We were thinking we were going to get a confession and then he was too, like not 100% coherent all the time. So it wasn't making a Lot of sense when we just tried briefly, just getting a feel for him.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Anna and Tom also went to an apartment Carl had shared with another man. Anna hoped to find clues about maybe what had happened to her mom. But Carl's stuff was mostly cleaned out.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I went down there with the false.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Precept that I was going to try.

[Narrator/Announcer]

To evangelize to him. And really my goal was to hopefully.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Get information out of him as to.

[Narrator/Announcer]

What he did with my mother's body. So we went down there and, I mean, I saw him in there and he was ready to die. He was in bad shape, and I didn't even pursue it, and I just said goodbye, basically.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Throughout our reporting, we asked a number of Carl's relatives about his reluctance to say more about what had happened to Dolores. There were many attempts to get him to provide more details. Carl also was, by all accounts, not a very stable person. He abused alcohol for much of his adult life. He wasn't a recluse. He had many girlfriends after the disappearance and found himself in different social circles. Even in the final years of his life. There were all sorts of people he could have told. This was a man brazen enough to regularly threaten to kill Dolores in front of her own family. He didn't seem like the type of man who would then be disciplined enough to never speak of following through on those threats for the rest of his life. His nephew David agreed. David was the son of Slick and Janet and had grown up with Paul and Tom. After Dolores disappeared, he ended up pursuing a career in law enforcement and spent time with several agencies as well as in private security. He is convinced that Carl at some point told someone what he had done.

[Narrator/Announcer]

It's one of those things where you look back and, you know, Wolf was a drinker and he was a talker. I think once he started drinking, that's probably the few times when he really got drunk that I ever saw him halfway smile. So I always thought that, like, how is this guy not told anybody in great detail what he did? Because that's usually what gets people caught. They tell somebody or once they're in custody than he was for a little bit, you tell somebody.

[Kyle Bonagura]

I was kind of surprised that nothing.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Ever came out like he admitted to it.

[Adam Rittenberg]

But Tom Wolfe wasn't surprised that his dad never cracked.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I agree with David about everything, but not this. I believe he never told anybody, period. I just. I know his nature enough, and I can't imagine why he would remember.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Carl's stance when Dolores went missing wasn't that she had died just that she would never be coming back. He never really wavered.

[Anna Wolf]

He just would say nothing. He wouldn't deny anything. He just would say nothing. So that's why, I guess at a certain point I kind of just stopped trying.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Carly Wolf, the oldest of the Wolf children, heard the same selective language from his father over the years.

[Narrator/Announcer]

His response was, I didn't do anything wrong. I don't know. She, I didn't do anything wrong. He'd always say that to me.

[Adam Rittenberg]

When we asked Carly why he thought his father never confessed, he answered bluntly.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He didn't want to get caught. No matter how many years later, he didn't want to get caught for killing her. That's why the next day or 20 years later, I mean, it's still, if you get caught for murder, you get caught for murder.

[Adam Rittenberg]

In early 2005, Paul Wolf was coaching at Eastern Washington when an employee from a hospital in Southern California called his home. His wife answered the phone and said.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Hey, we have your father here. There's no contact name and family, but you're the only family person we've found. You know, he's in a position where he may not live and we want to know if he wants to resuscitate or any of those types of things. And I didn't know what to say, but I was like, probably not, but it was kind of a tough situation. I couldn't tell you if it was. A week or two weeks later we got a call again. I was at work and called the house and called my wife and told him that he had passed.

[Adam Rittenberg]

Carl Ludwig wolf died on February 23, 2005 in San Marcos, California. He was 70. Carl was cremated and buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Onamia alongside his grandparents. The headstone simply reads grandson Carl L 1934-2005.

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Kyle Bonagura]

Carl Wolf's death appeared to remove any remaining hope that Dolores family would find closure. Carl had taken any culpability or confession to his grave. And after 25 years, the Dolores Wolf case was completely cold. Dolores family would never get justice against Carl and they moved on with their lives, accepting that the answers they so desperately wanted would likely never come. A new generation in the Wolf family was growing up without ever knowing Dolores, including 10 grandchildren. One of them is Holly Wolf, now Holly Johnson, one of two daughters born to Carly and Heidi. She grew up in Woodland. Holly doesn't remember hearing much about her grandmother at home during her childhood.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

It was kind of a taboo subject, to be honest with you. It wasn't talked about. Like we knew that she went missing. We knew that the blame was put on my dad's father, but it wasn't really talked about.

[Kyle Bonagura]

But Woodland was a small town and even years later, the case still managed to pop up as a topic of conversation. This fed into Holly's own interest.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

It would be one of those things that you'd meet somebody, like, in high school, it would happen a lot. If you, like, hung out at their house, they'd be like, oh, wait. Then they'd put the link together, like, that was your grandmother. And then they'd have a story. Like, their grandmother would tell a story. You know what I mean? Like, it would come up, but there wasn't any concrete information that I ever received. People would commonly tell me really absurd stories as, like, theories to what happened to her. And I was a chatty one. So I'd be like, sure, okay, tell me some crazy story that she's under the I5 highway. That's great. Like, I'll lose a little bit of sleep tonight, but that's okay.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly never met her grandfather. But sometime after Carl died in 2005, his belongings ended up with her family and were placed in a barn on their property.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

There was, like, a wood stove, a trunk. There's just stuff, and it was the old man's crab, and it just sat there.

[Kyle Bonagura]

As a teenager, Holly couldn't help but wonder what was inside the trunk. One day, she decided to take a look.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

It was kind of eerie, and I just remember opening it. It was like a black trunk, and it was just old newspapers. And I didn't even have the. I had the curiosity, But I knew I probably shouldn't do this.

[Kyle Bonagura]

The clippings covered Dolores disappearance and the aftermath. Holly found something else in that trunk, too.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

There was this little black and white picture of Dolores, and she was, like, in a swimsuit. She was just glowingly beautiful. And I was just like, I'm gonna take this. I stole it. And I felt more guilty than anything. But then looking back, I was like, I wish I was a little bit more nosy and would have dug through that, because who knows what other pictures were in there.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly always was interested in what happened to her grandmother. And as she got older, she began conducting her own research.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

Every few years, I would just google her name and see what someone talked about. Was there a new picture? Was there a new story? Very, very rarely was there anything.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Deloris story reached the lonely place where many missing persons cases end up. The national missing and unidentified persons system, or NamUs for short. According to NamUs, in the United States, there are more than 25,000 active missing persons cases and more than 15,000 active cases of unidentified persons. Many sit idle for years with no major developments. But there is some hope for these cases and the families affected by them. There are groups of people, essentially Internet detectives, who don't know the missing or the unidentified, but work tirelessly to give those who go missing their names again. One of those detective communities is called the Doe Network. Founded in 1999 by the late Todd Matthews and others, the Doe Network is a non profit hub for locating and identifying missing or unclaimed remains. While the DOE Network grew as a grassroots community of online volunteers, a more formal effort to centralize missing persons data came from the federal government beginning in 2003. That's when the National Institute of Justice began developing a national clearinghouse for missing and unidentified persons, which led to Namus in 2009. Now, the two platforms often work together, sharing the same goal to match the missing with the unidentified.

[Anna Wolf]

We're still 100% volunteer. Our mission is to give the nameless back their names and to return the missing to their families.

[Kyle Bonagura]

That's the voice of Tara Kennedy, a member of the administrative team from the DOE Network. Tara is a bubbly woman with funky checkered rimmed glasses and bright white hair. She lives in Connecticut and works for Yale University as the preservation services librarian. The DOE Network stores case profiles of missing and unidentified people on its website, and then its network of volunteers tries to find credible matches between the two groups. The website's information mainly comes from volunteers, but also from law enforcement and those who work in coroner and medical examiner offices.

[Anna Wolf]

Right now there's a total of 65 people that are active. I think for a while we had more volunteers, but what we're really looking for are people who are really dedicated and willing to do the work and do it consistently.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Some in the DOE Network community participate as an extension of their jobs, but many, like Tara, are just drawn to the process of investigating and hopefully finding matches.

[Adam Rittenberg]

What do you think motivates people to be involved with the DOE Network?

[Anna Wolf]

I mean, for myself, it's something that I've always been interested in this, even when I was a child. And I can't explain where this came from for me. And I think a lot of people feel this way. Missing people, unidentified people, have no voice. And that is a tragedy in itself. So I feel that maybe people want to be able to provide agency for these folks. And I think that's where a lot of the motivation comes from.

[Kyle Bonagura]

A poem on the DOE Network website written by a former volunteer reads in part, my name is missing, though I have a face. My name is vanished and I need a voice. My name is lost. I yearn to be found. Do network volunteers don't need any qualifications other than their devotion to the work.

[Anna Wolf]

A lot of it is deductive reasoning honestly. So I happen to have a Master's in forensic science. It's something I got later after my career with my conservation degree. It was something I was always interested in, so I did it thinking I'd switch fields. Didn't do that. So I looked to the DO network to utilize my skills that way. So I've taken like criminal investigation, forensic psychology stuff, toxicology, forensic anthropology, like enough that I might know enough to be dangerous but. But hopefully more helpful because I do have books that I can also look in.

[Kyle Bonagura]

The Doe Network's website was first published in 1999 and looks like it hasn't changed much since. The page is low tech and text heavy. There's a section for featured cases with photographs or renderings of the missing. The updates tab shows recent matches in closed cases and unidentified people from the US and around the world. There is also a place to submit potential matches. The DOE Network has a match panel, which Terra serves on the group, reviews submissions for potential matches each week. The panel's job is to screen submissions and to assess if they should receive further consideration. If a match submission is deemed possible, the match coordinator will work with the DOE Network's law enforcement liaisons to contact the correct agencies and pass along leads and information and off it goes.

[Anna Wolf]

And then we wait.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Tara has experienced the wait herself and the disappointment when a promising match doesn't lead anywhere.

[Anna Wolf]

It's not a personal victory or loss. It's more that it's a loss for that particular person who's missing, that particular person who doesn't have their name back. But when other people submit things and you're reviewing them, when you see how like clearly this could absolutely be, the thing is extremely exciting. Everything we do is online. So there are times where I'm just like when you want to say yes, I will put like all caps like oh omg, yes, yes, yes. And a big long string like but it's so funny because we do this so often it happens and it takes a long time for the potential match to come through. So like there are things where I've seen that and then I don't know what happens.

[Kyle Bonagura]

The development of DNA technology has been a game changer for this type of work. Once hopeless cold cases became solvable and databases like NAMUS and the DOE Network made it possible to connect clues and information scattered across the country. As of April 2025, the DOE Network has assisted or solved 135 missing persons cases.

[Anna Wolf]

Take a look at our site. Take a look at namus. Sometimes you just come across A person, whether that be a person that's missing or unidentified, that just speaks to you, and you develop a sense of, like, empathy and sympathy, and you're thinking, you know, I really want to find this person, or I really want to give this person their name back and then just see what you can find. You might be the key to identifying someone or finding someone. And I think there really is no greater gift than being able to do that.

[Kyle Bonagura]

In 2016, the Dolores Wolf case was added to the NAMUS database and a DOE network profile followed. They were steps that allowed anyone to take a closer look at what happened back in 1979. One of those people turned out to be Holly, Dolores granddaughter. Unlike the DOE Network volunteers, Holly didn't have a strong interest in true crime. She doesn't have a research background and works as a lactation consultant. But in 2019, after a local missing person case caught her attention, Holly joined a few true crime groups on Facebook. While interacting in those groups, she thought about her grandmother's case and whether anyone could help.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

I may have even posted in it saying, like, has anyone ever heard of this case? Does anyone have any information just out of, like, curiosity, not thinking it was going to go anywhere. And it didn't. I mean, it just kind of fizzled out. But while in those groups, I learned about the registries for Jane does. And that's when I was like, okay, what am I looking for?

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly logged into the NAMUS database and spent a few hours looking around. She examined a few reports of Jane does around the time Dolores disappeared. And in the same general area, one of them actually seemed like a decent match.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

I'm just a mom lactation consultant. Like, I don't know anything about true crime. Like, there's just no way that I stumbled upon Jane Doe report. That actually is my grandmother who's been missing for decades.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly called her sister Gretchen and told her what she had discovered. Gretchen told Holly that it wouldn't hurt to email about her possible match.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

I go, yeah, but you know, in all reality, they probably have so many dumb emails coming in, like, I'm okay. And I. It was like a few nights, I feel like almost at least a week or two that I just. I could not sleep. It was like, just send the damn email. Does it matter? So I sent the email.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly showed us a copy of the email, which was sent to a NAMUS regional program specialist on January 15, 2019. Holly wrote that she was interested in a Jane Doe case and provided the case number. Here's Holly reading more of what she wrote.

[Holly Wolf (Holly Johnson)]

The information is similar to Dolores Wolf, who went missing in 1979 and whose body was never found. She went missing from Woodland, California. I would love to know if there's someone I can talk to about this case and if there's any stored data of the missing person. My father is Dolores Wolf's son.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Holly never heard back, but she didn't really think anything of it. She figured they get all sorts of bad leads. Still, there was no response. No thank you, no nothing. In a way, Holly experienced the same lack of action that the older generations had with the case years earlier. But the next year, in 2020, a different Jane Doe case brought a detective to look at Dolores case and he was determined to finally get some answers. I just kind of got more and.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

More vested into thinking if this is.

[Kyle Bonagura]

Her, I really want to bring her. That's next time on the Unforgotten. Finding Dolores Wolf.

[Adam Rittenberg]

The Unforgotten is a Free range production. Season 3 Finding Dolores Wolf is written and hosted by Kyle Bonagura and me, Adam Rittenberg. The story is edited and produced by Wes Ferguson, the executive producer at Free Range Audio editing by Aislin Gaddis Audio production and sound design by Austin Sisler with Eastside Studios in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to ESPN.