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- [00:00]
Wes Ferguson
Hey, I'm Wes Ferguson, executive producer of the Unforgotten. Every season of the Unforgotten is a deep dive into an unresolved case, like a murder or a lot of murders or some miscarriage of justice. These are stories that matter to us, and with your support, we shine a light on them. Here's a quick sneak peek at season one, the Labor Day Ghost. Just in case you missed it. This is the story of a young mom named Shelly Salter Watkins. Her mysterious death in Corsicana, Texas, and why the quest to deliver justice for Shelly has gone so horribly wrong for so long.
- [00:37]
Debbie Baker
She does not go away.
- [00:39]
Kyle Bonagara
She haunts all of the people involved. They regard it as a cold case, but in fact, it's still hot.
- [00:47]
Holly Johnson
They do intimidate me for sure. Don't ruffle too many feathers. You need to be careful there.
- [00:53]
Kyle Bonagara
But also, 30 years later, I'm getting.
- [00:56]
Holly Johnson
Frickin tired now of oh no, we're.
- [00:59]
Kyle Bonagara
Still hoping and praying that we get some sort of closure.
- [01:05]
Holly Johnson
Don't we want to find out who killed Shelly?
- [01:10]
Wes Ferguson
This is the Unforgotten. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know we have a newsletter for the Unforgotten? It's totally free and you can sign up@unforgottenpod.com we're also on Facebook and Instagram and those are great ways to stay in touch. But the newsletter is cool because it's an email that we send straight to your inbox every time we have a new episode. You get to go behind the scenes with the series creators. We also share photos and case files when we have them if you want. We also have a premium version of the newsletter. It's pretty cool because it lets you listen early and ad free. So I hope you'll head on over to unforgottenpod.com and sign up for our newsletter today. Whether you sign up for the free version or the premium version, you're the reason that the Unforgotten is able to shine a light on these unsolved crimes and other cases of injustice that are so important to a lot of people. We just thank you for listening and we thank you for your support. Again, that's unforgottenpod.com After 41 years of.
- [02:13]
Kyle Bonagara
Uncertainty, word of Dolores identification spread quickly through the Wolf and Rocha families. Paul Wolf drove to Woodland the day after he found out to break the news to Slick in person. By then, just about everyone who needed to be told had received word. So Paul gave the green light to Kenny Hart for the benicia Police department to go forward with a public announcement.
- [02:41]
Adam Rittenberg
More than four decades after she went missing, the remains of a woodland woman have finally been found.
- [02:47]
Kyle Bonagara
It's stirring up mixed emotions for Dolores Wolf's family tonight.
- [02:50]
Holly Johnson
Yeah, they're reliving the deep scars of.
- [02:51]
Kyle Bonagara
Her disappearance, but also thankful they can.
- [02:53]
Holly Johnson
Finally find some peace.
- [02:56]
Kyle Bonagara
In the announcement from Benicia PD on October 22, 2020, interim Police Chief Mike Green said the department was quote, unquote, glad to be able to bring a sort of closure to the Wolf family after decades of uncertainty and that he was proud of Kenny and his team's tenacity on the case. The release also included a statement from Yolo County Sheriff Tom Lopez, who said, quote, this case has haunted my office and in fact all of yolo county since 1979. Countless hours were spent investigating Dolores Wolf's disappearance. It is my hope that this bring some closure to the family who has suffered so much. I am grateful for the dedication and professionalism of our law enforcement community who made this identification possible, including the members of the Benicia police department for their incredible efforts. Lopez, as it turns out, first joined the department in 1980, just after Dolores went missing. The tone from all parties was celebratory, as it should have been. This was good police work that delivered an outcome for a family that had been waiting far too long. And for Paul, it felt good to make those calls to his family members that his mom was finally coming home.
- [04:19]
Tony Rocha
Because I know how it affected so many family and friends that were so deeply involved for years. Digging up creek beds, sides of hills, by trees, digging up the most unbelievable areas where they thought she could be be. And the raw emotions are brought back for so many of those people. It felt good.
- [04:38]
Kyle Bonagara
But Paul also felt a different emotion from his family too.
- [04:42]
Tony Rocha
There was some frustration with some people because of the amount of years and efforts and things and the raw emotions. And I was like, damn, how could they not have figured that out?
- [04:51]
Kyle Bonagara
I'm Kyle Bonagara.
- [04:53]
Adam Rittenberg
And I'm Adam Rittenberg from Free Range Productions to this is The Unforgotten Season 3 Finding Dolores Wolf Episode 8 Making Sense of It all.
- [05:11]
Kyle Bonagara
As word got out, Kenny left for a vacation with his then girlfriend Beth. He had already written the news release and gave the go ahead to Benisha PD's public information officer during a layover at the Salt Lake City airport.
- [05:26]
Kenny Hart
We land in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I don't even remember how many phone calls I missed and text messages. I had more reporters and a lot of phone numbers. I didn't recognize because I had previously told Paul to feel free to give my phone number to any of the family members.
- [05:43]
Kyle Bonagara
Kenny and Beth checked into their hotel, dropped off their bags, and went to Jackson hole's famous bar, the million dollar cowboy.
- [05:52]
Kenny Hart
We ordered, each, got an adult beverage, and we gave a little toast to each other for Dolores.
- [05:59]
Kyle Bonagara
They raised their glasses, hoping for a moment of quiet reflection. But within seconds, the phone started buzzing again with calls from family members desperate for answers.
- [06:11]
Kenny Hart
Because at this point in time, there's still a lot of unknowns. But I tried to share as much information with the family as they had questions, because there was questions, everything, you know, she was found six weeks after she went missing. Why wasn't there notification? I mean, there was a lot of very good questions. I mean, questions I even had that I couldn't answer.
- [06:32]
Kyle Bonagara
The family had assumed for years that Dolores remains had never been found. So when they learned she had actually been discovered in 1979, they had a lot to process. Matt Rocha Jr. Heard from his father slick, but he was confused by the timing.
- [06:50]
Tony Rocha
The way my dad told me was, hey, they found the body. I'm thinking they just found the body.
- [06:56]
Kyle Bonagara
Matt contacted Paul, who filled him in on when Dolores remains were actually found and how they were only confirmed to be Dolores that week.
- [07:05]
Tony Rocha
Then I was like, God damn it, that's sort of pissing me off now. And he's like, yeah, I know.
- [07:11]
Kyle Bonagara
I said, God, we could have freaking.
- [07:12]
Tony Rocha
Got this thing all done with 40 years ago. But he told me all the details right then, and I was like. For a moment, I started crying. I was just like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe that there's resolve to this that's been hanging over us for this many years.
- [07:27]
Kyle Bonagara
Matt's brother David had always been frustrated by the authorities inability to locate Dolores body. Even as a teenager, he had a hard time comprehending how she had never been found.
- [07:40]
Tony Rocha
It really bothered me, and I don't know why. I was really upset that nobody could find her. I didn't understand that back then. I'm like, how can you not find her? She's got to be somewhere.
- [07:51]
Kyle Bonagara
That frustration was part of what drew David to a career in law enforcement. He spent several years working in a jail before becoming a sheriff's deputy, working mostly in patrol. He then spent about 20 years working for the sheriff's departments in Ventura and Santa Barbara in southern California. David retired and began doing private security. He even protected Jim Carrey as well as Kim Kardashian and Kanye west when they were still Together. David then returned to work for the sheriff's department in San Luis Obispo. For David, finding out his aunt's body had been discovered by authorities back then brought on a fresh round of disappointment.
- [08:37]
Tony Rocha
My father left me a message. He said, they found your aunt. We called her to Ta. So he says, they found your Tatia. And I was just like, what do you mean they found her? I was thinking they found her alive. I didn't think it was possible just based on the circumstances that happened at the time. But you always hope. You always hope that there was that one chance that, you know, she made it and is still alive. But when I called him, he told me that they had found her body and some water. I was completely shocked because to find out that they had found it, literally, you know, whatever it was, six weeks. As far as from a law enforcement standpoint, I didn't understand how that worked, because nowadays it's a lot different. There's a lot of interagency communication or outside agencies. And so to think that one agency, one county over, literally had, you know, a portion of her body but didn't bother to contact the one next door, I was just kind of shocked about that. Just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
- [09:51]
Kyle Bonagara
The identification also didn't make much sense to Ron Heileman, the Yolo County Sheriff's detective who had worked the case so closely in the beginning. Ron regularly put out notices to law enforcement agencies in the region to create awareness about the search for Dolores. And whenever he learned of an unidentified body in the state that had any sort of similarities with Dolores, he reached out to learn more, even when those bodies surfaced hundreds of miles away.
- [10:21]
Debbie Baker
Normally when they find a body like that, they check. And especially when the cat eye did they check all the bulletins, all the missing persons. They would have had to see Dolores was there. And they said, did anybody check this? But somehow the report got taken away from the department, and it just sat there.
- [10:44]
Kyle Bonagara
As Kenny said last episode, he tried to see what kind of work his department, the Benicia pd had done to identify the body. But the case file, for whatever reason, probably just by mistake, was purged from the department's records years earlier. So there are no remaining records of what kind of outreach was conducted by the department or the two detectives assigned to the case, both of whom since passed away. Kenny is confident that had the same circumstances occurred today, if a decomposing torso was found without a head or arms, it would not have been difficult to make an identification. The fact that he was Able to ID Dolores after she had been buried for four decades is pretty good evidence of that. But both he and Ron said it would not have been so straightforward in 1979.
- [11:37]
Kenny Hart
I'm not certain it could have been a match made because the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Maybe they could have done a blood typing. But blood typing is not a confirmation of. There would have been really Nothing to make 100% confirmation on until years later, which would have been in the mid late 80s DNA. But given the decomposition of the body, I'm not sure the 1980s DNA would have been able to make that match.
- [12:05]
Kyle Bonagara
But there were other ways Jane Doe 16 could have been connected to Dolores. Ron thinks that the combination of all the evidence connected to the body, what she was wearing, the location and timing of her discovery, all would have likely been enough to determine it was Dolores.
- [12:23]
Debbie Baker
We'd have probably been able to find out it was her. I can't say that 100%, but most likely the state labs, they would have been able to get enough tissue somehow. But even back then, I think even though I was. They didn't have DNA, they might have been able to do something. The idea, but I can't say 100%. Then we'd have been right back where we were. Except that we would have probably realized that was her.
- [12:57]
Kyle Bonagara
The shoe, for example, would have been helpful because it was unique, it was her size. And someone likely would have been able to testify they knew it was hers. Her pubic hair was a match for her hair color. The coroner's notes confirmed that Jane Doe 16 had given birth at least twice the age and height, fit. And who knows how having the body, even in the state it was in, could have been used to interrogate Carl Wolf. We asked Rick Gilbert, the former Yolo county district attorney, how the discovery of Dolores body the month following her disappearance would have impacted his willingness to prosecute the case.
- [13:38]
Tony Rocha
I would have filed the case, no question about it. To the extent there was any worry about the credibility of people saying, I saw her here, that's off the table. We now have somebody who is dead. The circumstances of the finding of her body are consistent with homicide, Even though you don't have a necessarily a cause of death.
- [14:00]
Kyle Bonagara
But Gilbert also reflected beyond that. He understands that even all these years later, there are members of Dolores's family who remain angry about his choice not to file charges in 1979.
- [14:14]
Tony Rocha
It's one of those cases that is very frustrating. Frustrating that you can't make these people who are hurting give them what they deserve and need.
- [14:25]
Kyle Bonagara
And with the benefit of 45 years of reflection, Gilbert wishes he had filed charges against Carl wolf, especially after the ruse to get him to go to the body was unsuccessful.
- [14:37]
Tony Rocha
I look back on that and say, you know, if I had that to do over again, and I knew that history, you know, if I could have seen the future, I'd probably gone forward much sooner, probably after the operation failed. If you're going to have a do over, that's probably where it would have been. You look back in the wolf case and, well, I think I was trying to do the right thing. I don't feel good about having to confront that family and tell them, no, we're not going to do this, and we're trying to do the right thing didn't make anybody happy. It's not a fun time. If those people wanted to meet with me tomorrow and just yell at me, I'd say, well, okay, let's go to Starbucks. And you yell at me because you know, I'm not going to criticize you for those cameras.
- [15:18]
Kyle Bonagara
Gilbert's thoughts speak to the weight of missed opportunity within the justice system. And one of those missed chances was the absence of public awareness outside of yolo county. At the time, law enforcement often relied on media coverage to generate leads and connect cases. Ron Heileman was frustrated that nothing in the media about a body being discovered in benicia ever made its way to him.
- [15:45]
Debbie Baker
It's a shame. See the. This body, there had to be some information somewhere that would have come out in the news media, probably when they found her in the bay.
- [15:57]
Kyle Bonagara
This is something Adam and I have also discussed. Dolores disappearance occurred during an era with a lot more local news coverage than exists today. At that time, the city of Benicia had its own newspaper, the Benicia herald. So it seemed like the discovery of a dead body would have been covered, but our research didn't find any evidence of that. In early 2025, I spent an afternoon at the Benicia public library pouring through microfilm of the paper from that time. One of the paper's staple features was a crime and police blotter that documented even the most benign types of police activity. But there was nothing about a body being discovered in the bay or any sort of investigation by the Benicia pd. This archival newspaper collection might be incomplete, so perhaps the discovery was covered in some way at some point. But I left the library that day thinking the Benicia PD just never released the information publicly, because if it had, this was definitely the type of incident the newspaper would have covered. Especially considering the less significant news that was regularly in print. It's just another what if in a saga that has been full of them from the beginning. The disappearance of Dolores and the investigation into Carl was a case that Ron never truly put behind him. And her identification in 2020 provided him a layer of closure he never thought he would get. But even with that, one thing didn't change, and that's how he'll remember his own investigation.
- [17:39]
Debbie Baker
In my mind, it was solved because we did end up arresting him and. But just the fact we never had a body.
- [17:47]
Kyle Bonagara
When Paul called Ron to tell him about Dolores identification, Ron asked to speak with Kenny, who of course agreed.
- [17:56]
Kenny Hart
Short time after, I drove up to Woodland and we met at a restaurant and I took my books and was able to kind of open them up and show him the information. I had the very limited information because he had a lot of the same questions, why didn't we get notified? And I had shown this is all I had. But Ron was able to kind of look at what I had to work with and see the process. And I think Ron filled in more holes for me than I did for him. I wholeheartedly believe Ron solved the case. I have no doubt in my mind reading his notes, reading what I know about this case.
- [18:33]
Kyle Bonagara
He solved it.
- [18:41]
Debbie Baker
Hey.
- [18:42]
Wes Ferguson
I'm Wes Ferguson, executive producer of the Unforgotten. Every season of the Unforgotten is a deep dive into an unresolved case, like a murder or a lot of murders or some miscarriage of justice. These are stories that matter to us. And with your support, we shine a light on them. Here's a sneak peek at season two, Unnatural Causes. Just in case you missed it.
- [19:05]
Charlie Scudder
Think about a loved one you've lost, maybe a grandmother or your father or a beloved aunt. You believe the end was peaceful and painless. You've planned the funeral, made sure the estate was settled. You've moved belongings into storage or soldiers them or said final goodbyes on the curb. Now imagine you get a call. As much as two years later, police want you to come to the station. They say what you were told about the death was wrong. They want to add your loved one's name to a list of murder victims. That's the terrible reality that at least two dozen families are facing today. My name is Charlie Scudder. I'm a journalist who's been covering this case for five years. Together, we'll do what the police, medical examiners, senior living facilities and more either failed or refused to do. String together evidence that points to systemic Flaws in how we care for our older loved ones. You'll hear about a man who used the cracks in that system to become the worst serial killer in Dallas history. This is Unnatural Causes, Season two of the Unforgotten. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:17]
Adam Rittenberg
The news of Dolores Wolf's identification 41 years after she went missing reached people and affected them in different ways. The identification brought closure, but also mixed emotions, especially for those who had been part of the story the longest. No one still alive in 2020 had been part of Carl Wolf's story longer than his brother Richard. Richard and his wife Pat were having breakfast at their home in Minnesota. When Pat checked Facebook, as she did often to try to keep up on news of their extended family, she saw a post from Tom Wolf's wife Sherry, relaying the details of how Dolores remains had been identified.
- [21:00]
Debbie Baker
We were very affected by the near Lisa. It just brought back tons of pain. I cried and Dick was very upset. Well, it was a real shock, very painful.
- [21:16]
Adam Rittenberg
Richard was so troubled that he began drafting an email to Dolores and Carl's four children, Carly, Anna, Tom and Paul. But he decided not to send it right away. After speaking with Paul over the phone and and discussing the details of what had led to the identification, Richard decided to send his thoughts only to Paul, who could then pass them along to the others. Richard shared his note with us this morning.
- [21:44]
Debbie Baker
I have a sick feeling as Pat and I read the story of finding Dolores body. I kept thinking, why did it take so long to confirm? Why did we have to wait 40 years? Each of you, as well as her family has gone through hell all of these years waiting for an answer.
- [22:10]
Adam Rittenberg
Richard went on to recount his history with Carl, how Carl left when he was young, only to return and cause heartache for the family before going back to California. He also told Dolores children about how he became convinced over time that Carl was responsible for her death. Richard Wolf had lived through it all with Carl. Tony Rocha, Dolores cousin, had also witnessed just about everything, especially when the troubles began between Carl and Dolores. The news reached Tony when he was driving his truck. For some reason, he had not stored Carly Wolf's number in his phone. But when he saw a call from Cheney, Washington, the wolves lived. He answered.
- [22:54]
Tony Rocha
He just goes, they found my mom. I go, what? I go, what do, what do you mean they found your mom? He goes, they found my mom. And they found her 48 days after she disappeared. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm thinking, am I hearing this right? You know, I'm Just thinking, my God. We got off the phone, and all of a sudden, the social media stuff starts going ding, ding, ding.
- [23:23]
Adam Rittenberg
After the initial shock wore off, Tony's attention turned to the circumstances of the discovery. He and others had spent years searching for her around woodland. Despite some physical evidence connected to the case, the absence of a body became the critical missing piece in the investigation against carl wolf. Her actual remains were discovered just weeks after she disappeared in the next county over.
- [23:49]
Tony Rocha
A lot of the anger you might hear in my voice, and you would have heard in my sister mary, she's alive, Come from that foot soldier thing. We were on it every day.
- [23:59]
Charlie Scudder
Every day.
- [24:00]
Tony Rocha
I mean, we would go out in the middle of the week. We had a feeling we wanted to dig some spots. We would go. If carl wolf was seen somewhere, we would go. So our anger was with, you know, the system. You know, we waited 40 years. And she was found 30 some odd miles from her house 48 days later.
- [24:19]
Adam Rittenberg
Debbie baker, another cousin of dolores, who was very involved in the family's pursuit for justice, Reacted similarly to tony when learning about the identification.
- [24:30]
Debbie Baker
It was a shock, but then it was me personally. I was mad because I thought, why did the police send out reports that a woman was missing to the other police around? Why didn't they send out a report that we found remains of a woman? And so I had a lot of anger with that.
- [24:56]
Adam Rittenberg
When dolores sister in law janet learned about the condition of the body without the head attached, she thought back to the threats carl wolf made against his wife, and also the confidence he projected when asked about the potential consequences of his actions.
- [25:12]
Kyle Bonagara
He said he could do it and would never get caught. And now I realize what he was.
- [25:18]
Debbie Baker
Actually saying was they won't be able to identify her.
- [25:22]
Kyle Bonagara
He removed her head.
- [25:32]
Adam Rittenberg
Okay, kyle, let's get to what happened to dolores's body, because janet has provided her theory, and there's others that are out there. But with everything that we know about where she was found, how she was found, you, know, the location of benisha, what do you think really happened?
- [25:49]
Kyle Bonagara
It's a difficult question. It's also a question I've given a lot of thought to over the years, because there's not a clear way to really know. Obviously, she's found in the waterway near the benicia bridge, which is where the sacramento river feeds into. And so I think it's, you know, reasonable to say that she might have been dumped in some sort of waterway further up the river, Right before it actually became the bay. And eventually, in the six weeks after she was killed eventually floated her way down to where she was found. So I definitely don't believe that she was dumped in the bay. I think she got there after being unearthed by. By the tides or whatever, further upstream. So from there, it's difficult to. To know where. And then I think beyond that, you got to talk about the state of the body. She was found without her head. She was found without her arms. And there's no way to really know if it was Carl, like Janet thinks it was, who removed her head and arms, or if at some point in the weeks after she went missing, the decomposition of the body led to those parts of her body being unattached. You know, Kenny Hart said there's some theories that maybe, you know, there's a lot of large boats in that area. It's a popular shipping ch, so maybe a large propeller did that sort of damage. We don't really know. But I think I tend to kind of lean towards what Janet is saying, that it was probably Carl, and then eventually the body just made its way to where it was ultimately found.
- [27:11]
Adam Rittenberg
Well, the thing for people to remember, like, people think of the San Francisco Bay as just the bay that surrounds the city of San Francisco or the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz. I mean, this is eastward, you know, towards Sacramento, but certainly nowhere near the city of Sacramento. But if you think about where woodland is and you go due south, there are some very remote areas. Like duck hunting was something that Carl Wolf knew about, and it would make sense if he, again, like Janet said, was plotting this out. Where am I going to take her? Let me take her to somewhere that I know where there likely won't be anyone in the middle of the night. You know, the dismembering is really hard to figure out just because that's a pretty brutal thing to do to somebody rather than just getting rid of the body and moving on. But I think that location northeastward from the Benicia area where she was discovered, that would seem to me, and I'm curious, your take, you know, a place that Carl Wolf could have dumped her.
- [28:06]
Kyle Bonagara
Yeah, I think it makes sense that he would go to somewhere immediately that he was familiar with, a remote place where he didn't think the body would be found. I also tend to think that, you know, he probably placed her somewhere where he thought she would stay and that the fact that she ended up where she did wasn't part of the plan. That, you know, for whatever reason, maybe he tried to sink the body somehow, and it was lodged free through the tide. Or the river, whatever the case may be. I mean, look, we're trying to get into the head of a man in 1979. So it's really difficult. But I think it makes sense if he's trying to hide a body, to do it in a way where he didn't think it would move from the original location.
- [28:56]
Adam Rittenberg
Dolores Wolf's identification left questions and confusion for many who loved her. But it brought a bit of relief, especially for those who were young when she went missing. Remember Darrell Ehresman, the neighbor of the Wolfs and childhood friend of Paul's who toured us around Woodland back in episode three? Darryl's life also changed the day Dolores disappeared. As the decades passed, he never stopped thinking about her.
- [29:26]
Kyle Bonagara
My whole life, at least once a month, you know, I dreamed about Dolores.
- [29:30]
Adam Rittenberg
Darryl's dream started much like the final time. He sauntered down Hillcrest Drive toward the Wolf home several days after Dolores went missing, only to be turned away. Just like that day. Dolores relatives had gathered at the house. And just like that day, Darryl wondered why he hadn't been invited over, especially since he was so often there. But there was a twist in the dream.
- [29:56]
Kyle Bonagara
I would show up and all the family's here, and Mrs. Wolf would walk out, and I'd be like, hey, what are you doing? Oh, yeah, but act like nothing's happened. And I'd be like, well, when did you get back? Oh, maybe about three weeks ago. And you never told me. And I'd be pissed. I mean, pissed.
- [30:16]
Adam Rittenberg
That same dream followed him into adulthood. Then Paul came to Daryl's house with his wife and sons and told his childhood friend that Dolores had been identified.
- [30:27]
Tony Rocha
Since they found her, I've never had that dream.
- [30:30]
Wes Ferguson
That's the only dream that I've ever had reoccurring.
- [30:33]
Kyle Bonagara
And since that, and it's just a peace that has came over.
- [30:38]
Adam Rittenberg
By now, you've heard about many of the incredible stories within the Dolores Wolf case, and Darrell supplied one of them when we were driving around Woodland in his truck. He spent years as a correctional officer on death row at San Quentin, interacting with some of the most notorious and violent criminals in the state's history, from Richard Ramirez, the night Stalker, to mass shooter Richard Farley. Darrell, as you probably picked up on, is extremely friendly, but he had to limit himself at work. He didn't wear his wedding ring and never revealed personal details to the inmates. Still, he talked about sports and other topics and got to know some of them very well. In 2005, a new inmate came to death row at San Quentin. He was clean cut and self assured, a Cal Poly graduate who had once been a competitive golfer. His name was Scott Peterson.
- [31:34]
Kyle Bonagara
Scott Peterson was my clerk on death row.
- [31:37]
Tony Rocha
Did you know it? I saw him every day. He did all my typing, that kind of stuff.
- [31:43]
Adam Rittenberg
Peterson had been convicted of murdering his wife, Lacey, and their unborn son. The case became a national obsession, dominating headlines for months and later spawning numerous books, documentaries, and television specials. It was one of the most widely followed murder trials of the early 2000s. The case began on Christmas Eve 2002, when Lacey was reported missing in Modesto. Months later, the bodies of Lacey and the fetus were discovered in the San Francisco Bay. Lacey's body was badly decomposed and missing her head, arms, and most of her legs. Scott was arrested shortly after, convicted in 2004, and sent to San Quentin the following year.
- [32:30]
Kyle Bonagara
He reminded me of Mr. Wolf to.
- [32:33]
Tony Rocha
A T. To a T. Dealt with him every day for years.
- [32:37]
Debbie Baker
In what way?
- [32:38]
Tony Rocha
Very narcissistic.
- [32:40]
Adam Rittenberg
Daryl later described what it was like to be in Scott Peterson's presence.
- [32:45]
Kyle Bonagara
He's just in his own world over here, right? Standing right here, just. And I'd look at him going, does he ever interact? Carl's the same way. They would have the Fourth of July.
- [32:54]
Tony Rocha
The Thanksgivings, the Christmases, and I would.
- [32:56]
Wes Ferguson
Do my deal and then run down.
- [32:57]
Kyle Bonagara
Here and get some extra. I don't ever remember him being part of the family.
- [33:02]
Adam Rittenberg
The overlap between the cases doesn't end there. Both Laci and Dolores were found in the San Francisco Bay. Laci near Richmond, Dolores near Benicia, roughly 25 miles apart. Both bodies were badly decomposed, both missing their heads and arms. There were other connections, including something incredibly eerie. Here's Matt Rocha Jr.
- [33:27]
Tony Rocha
I met Scott Peterson at a freaking golf tournament in Modesto six months before he killed his wife.
- [33:34]
Adam Rittenberg
Matt was playing in a member guest event that day and was looking at the board displaying all of the scores when Peterson approached him.
- [33:42]
Tony Rocha
He says, how you doing? I said, freaking terrible. I'm losing a ton of money. And he says, what place are you? And I says, dead laugh.
- [33:52]
Adam Rittenberg
Then Scott Peterson saw Matt's name.
- [33:55]
Tony Rocha
He says, oh, my wife's last name is Rocha.
- [33:58]
Adam Rittenberg
Lacey Peterson was born as Lacey Denise Rocha, the daughter of a Portuguese American father. She had grown up on a dairy farm near Escalon, California, in an area similar to Woodland and located just 90 minutes away. There is nothing that suggests Dolores and Lacey were related, but the parallels are staggering. Think about it. Two women born as Rochas from Portuguese families, both from California's agricultural midsection. Both found dead in the San Francisco Bay and both with husbands almost immediately suspected of their murders. The key difference, of course, was the discovery and identification of Laci Peterson's remains a few months after her disappearance. Law enforcement communication and technology helped quickly arrest, prosecute, and convict Scott Peterson of murder. But these cases are hard to nail down, especially if they don't receive widespread media attention like Laci Peterson's. Did we know there was a communication breakdown between law enforcement in neighboring counties back in 1979? But as Kyle will tell you after the break, there were also more recent opportunities to make the connection before the case reached the desk of Kenny Hart.
- [35:32]
Kyle Bonagara
Most people learning about Dolores Wolf's identification were confused at first. Wait, where was she found? And just six weeks later. But Holly Johnson, Delores granddaughter, had a different reaction. As you heard in episode six, Holly did some research on her grandmother's case back in 2019. She logged into the NAMUS database and searched for reports of unidentified remains that could be Dolores. And one case stood out.
- [36:02]
Holly Johnson
The reason it stuck out to me was the missing report said that she was a Caucasian woman, white woman, with dark pubic hair. I'm like, that's a Portuguese. That's a Portuguese right there. They're hairy. And then it also stated that she had given birth, like, you know, two to five times or three to five times or something.
- [36:22]
Kyle Bonagara
Nearly two years later, after the identification was made, Holly's mother Heidi reached out with the news. But Holly missed the call. Heidi then called her other daughter, Gretchen.
- [36:35]
Holly Johnson
My mom called my sister and goes, they found Dolores. And my sister goes, oh, did she not have a head? Or she said something like that? And my mom's like, wait, what? She goes, oh, yeah. Holly found her, like a year ago.
- [36:47]
Kyle Bonagara
When Heidi finally reached Holly, the. The pieces clicked into place.
- [36:52]
Holly Johnson
She was talking about the kind of the aspects of it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I totally read this. Like, this is exactly what I read.
- [36:58]
Kyle Bonagara
The news was almost hard to comprehend. Holly started her research on a whim and within hours had actually found her grandmother nearly four decades after she disappeared. She wasn't able to confirm it, but Holly made the connection that had eluded law enforcement since 1979. And not only that, she emailed NAMUS about the possibility of a match. Holly understands why many of her older relatives became frustrated and angry when they learned about when Dolores body was first discovered. But she doesn't hold any bitterness about her email never leading anywhere in 2019.
- [37:39]
Holly Johnson
I don't think two years is much different when it's been 40 or whatever it was, you know.
- [37:45]
Kyle Bonagara
Holly was just happy that her father, Carly could finally get an answer.
- [37:50]
Holly Johnson
My father is a hard ass, but like he is. He's a damn good dad. Like he's a good person. And for me it was like I just, that closure of having that answered for him was very, very positive. So I didn't really care how it happened. For me it was like, well, I mean, if the little seed moved it in the right direction, great. If it was just a lost email, I mean, the end result's the same.
- [38:17]
Kyle Bonagara
Holly might not have been upset by the non reply to her email, but the situation shows how difficult these cold cases are to close, even when the right information is found. But what's also remarkable is that she wasn't the only one to connect the dots before Deloris case made its way to Kenny Hart. In March of 2019, two months after Holly reached out to NAMUS about the possibility of Dolores being a match for Jane Doe 16, a woman named Stacy Sherman made the same connection. Stacy lives in the Sacramento area about 25 miles from Woodland, and she came across the Dolores Wolf case while searching for possible victims of the Golden State Killer, a notorious serial killer who terrorized the region around the time Delores went missing. The Golden State Killer was connected to 13 murders and more than 50 rapes between 1974 and 1986, but was not arrested until 2018, when police used DNA to identify 72 year old Joseph James DeAngelo. Stacy grew up in the Southern California beach town of Dana Point, in the same gated community where DeAngelo murdered a couple named Keith and Patrice Harrington. She also knew DeAngelo's last victim, Janelle Cruz, who was raped and murdered in Irvine, California in 1986.
- [39:46]
Stacy Sherman
There's a lot of us that followed the Golden State Killer case, and we believe that there are murders that were never attributed to him.
- [39:56]
Kyle Bonagara
Stacy is not an official DOE network volunteer, but she is part of the larger online detective community who share a similar mission.
- [40:06]
Stacy Sherman
There's Facebook groups, there's Reddit groups, there's websleuths. There's just a massive number of people that are trying to give people their names back. It's an area of society that was kind of, I think, forgotten by law enforcement. You know, the cases go cold forever. There wasn't DNA until the last 20, 30 years, and so there's this huge backlog of cases sitting out there.
- [40:32]
Kyle Bonagara
NAMUS has allowed people like Stacy to devote time and energy to solving cases that law enforcement did not. She started her research around 2013 on a message board dedicated to Golden State killer cases. She then began monitoring several groups on Reddit.
- [40:51]
Stacy Sherman
The discussions on those groups was much more in depth than you know, than anything you certainly saw in the media.
- [40:58]
Kyle Bonagara
In early 2019, Stacy was looking for additional victims of DeAngelo. While searching the archives of Sacramento Bee for information about women who had disappeared from their homes in the 1970s, Stacy found coverage about Dolores Wolf. She read about how Carl Wolf was suspected in her disappearance and concluded that Dolores was not likely a DeAngelo victim. But she decided to keep poking around. Stacy logged into the NAMUS database and searched for unidentified remains found in the neighboring counties, starting with the date Dolores went missing. Her search showed about 20 possibilities before she narrowed it down.
- [41:41]
Stacy Sherman
And I ended up with maybe five or six that kind of fit the timeframe of when Ms. Wolf went missing.
- [41:49]
Kyle Bonagara
Stacy cross referenced the description of Dolores from when she went missing with elements found on the unidentified bodies.
- [41:58]
Stacy Sherman
Floral print bikini panties, pantyhose, open toed black leather shoes on left foot with artificial wood grain heel. And that was the description of the unidentified body. And it also said that she had dark hair, height was estimated to be 5, 6, age range was estimated to be 30 to 45 white. And so it roughly fit the description of Ms. Wolf. And I just felt that it was a good enough match to submit it.
- [42:32]
Kyle Bonagara
Within an hour or two of looking at namus, Stacey drafted an email to the DOE Network. It was her first submission for a possible match. She received a response from the DOE Network's potential match coordinator and it was passed on to the authorities. Tara Kennedy from the Doe Network told us that emails about Jane Doe 16 as a match for Dolores were sent to Yolo county and to namus. And Solano county was contacted via fax. Tara said that YOLO county responded in September that family DNA would need to be collected and submitted to the Department of Justice to assess whether the unidentified body found in the bay near Benicia was in fact Dolores. But that DNA was never collected. And Stacy's submission wasn't the one that came to Kenny Hart with the Benicia pd. Her work ultimately fell through the cracks. We reached out to NAMUS to find out more about how Delora's case first reached the database and why no one followed up to the submissions from Stacey and Holly, months apart in early 2019. We know emails were sent to a regional program specialist, but it's unclear if any steps were taken upon receiving the tips. As of this recording, NAMUS declined to comment or make anyone available, directing us toward Benicia PD and Solano County. Stacy was contacted in 2020 when Delores Wolf's remains were finally identified. She felt excitement and relief, especially for Dolores family. Stacy has since submitted several other potential matches and done other work on what she calls her pet cases. Stacy believes the elements are in place to solve many more cases if everyone would work together.
- [44:27]
Stacy Sherman
There are tens of thousands of cases that are out there and law enforcement doesn't enter them into NamUs. They could be clearing these cases so much faster and getting them off of their books and making families happy if they would just get the cases loaded well into namus.
- [44:48]
Kyle Bonagara
The point here isn't to assign blame, only to highlight the challenges. Cold cases like Dolores Wolf's often stayed dormant not because people didn't care, but because of limited resources, staffing shortages and outdated systems. There are real world hurdles that make solving these cases difficult. That said, things have improved dramatically since 1979. Today we have DNA technology, centralized databases like NamUs, and improved interagency communication that has transformed how missing persons cases are handled. The search for Delores Wolf had snags at the start and even toward the finish. But it finally ended in October of 2020. Her remains were cremated and Paul Wolf called his cousin Debbie Baker to collect his mother's ashes. Debbie told me about picking them up while we sat at her kitchen table.
- [45:51]
Debbie Baker
We brought her here and sat on that shelf and on this bookshelf. It was tough. And then when we went to the cemetery, my sister was driving and I had Dolores on my lap and I finally handed her over. I can't remember to who. And they took to have her buried and I just sat through it.
- [46:16]
Kyle Bonagara
As Debbie sat at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery in the heart of woodland, she thought about all the years that had gone by and all the people who had put so much into finding Dolores after that awful day in 1979. She especially thought of her aunt Mary Thomas, who had died in July of 2020, less than three months before the identification.
- [46:40]
Debbie Baker
We always said that when Aunt Mary died, she went up in heaven and she told God, enough is enough. Bring her home.
- [46:51]
Kyle Bonagara
Dolores Wolf had finally come home after 41 years and the following year she would get the burial and send off she so rightly deserved. That's next time on the Unforgotten. Finding Dolores Wolf.
- [47:17]
Adam Rittenberg
The Unforgotten is a free range production. Season 3 Finding Dolores Wolf is written and hosted by Kyle Bonagara 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.