Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, it's Adam Rittenberg and Kyle Bonagara, co hosts of the Unforgotten Season three, Finding Dolores Wolf. And we're here to recap episode two, Afraid of the Dark, that dropped a couple of days ago. Again, really appreciate all of your continued support for the podcast. And, you know, Kyle, this is an episode where we really, you know, get into the. The case, the disappearance of Dolores Wolf, and also the family dynamics that played into it. And a person that certainly surfaces quite a bit in this episode is Dolores and Carl Wolf's only daughter, Anna Wolf, who is the second of four children. And, you know, we outlined this a bit, but I think it's worth saying that Anna was somebody who we did not speak to for the original ESPN story that we did on this case. But we were always hopeful, as we looked to do a podcast project that maybe she would change her mind. And in talking to Paul Wolf and others, we got a sense that maybe she would be open to speaking with us. And fortunately, she was. And we really get into her recollections and her relationship with her father, Carl Wolf, and quite a bit here in this episode. Unfortunately, I was unable to speak with Anna that particular day. But. But you. You had a chance to talk with her extensively. What. What stood out about the lead up to that conversation and the actual conversation? Just some of the things that she told you as we. As we put this project together.
- [01:37]
B
Yeah, so the first time we spoke, it was really kind of going over what the project was, what we wanted the story to look like conceptually. Right. And just saying, hey, we want to. There's a lot of people involved here. Anna was very obviously a very important person here. It's. Dolores was their mother. Right. So we wanted to. To connect with everyone who had, as, you know, insight into what happened. And she's. She's central to the story. So I think, you know, we kind of. Once we kind of had a chance to, you know, build a little rapport in that initial conversation, then she agreed to. To kind of do it on the record. Right. And. And chat for. For the podcast. And so we ended up talking a few days later, talked for a few hours, and it was really, you know, emotional conversation. The subject matter that we got into ranged from, you know, the happiest times to the. To the worst of times and everywhere in between. And, you know, as we'll learn later in the podcast, her story is complicated. It was a complicated relationship with her mother. It was an even more complicated relationship with her father. And as a result, of that the rest of her family. But, you know, I thought Anna was, you know, brave to share some of the stuff that she did. There's some very personal stuff that she got into with us. And you could, I could kind of sense that she had a lot of this stuff bottled up for a long time and kind of wanted to share it, but wasn't kind of, you know, it's because of how personal a lot of it is. It, it, it was a, a little bit of a. It took a leap of faith to, to open up to me that day and being willing to have some of that stuff shared with our, our listener. So we really thank Anna for doing that. I think her honesty and in telling what she went through really adds to. And I think that's really helpful for listeners, no doubt.
- [03:26]
A
And as we were doing our reporting around this, and whenever she came up with the other relatives, there was always a bit of a pause or just a kind of a delicate tiptoeing around. There was something there that, I'll be honest, if we didn't speak to her, I don't think the story would have been as full as it ended up being. She's an incredibly important part of, of the story, that relationship with Carl Wolf, certainly her relationship with her mother. But the other thing was that she was the first person to reach out the morning after Dolores wolf disappeared on August 1, 1979. You know, that call was at 6:01am which is a very unusual time for her to be calling the house and Carl Wolf answering the phone. And so, you know, that started kind of a whirlwind of phone calls and visits to the house and kind of the early stages of the investigation. And, you know, as you hear in that, in that episode, you know, she immediately suspected her father of being responsible and so did her siblings, Carly and Tom Wolfe. Paul was obviously very young at the time. And so, you know, Anna is involved from the very start and is involved all the way through this saga, which obviously lasts many, many more years after the initial disappearance. So she was a really important voice to include in this podcast. You know, the other thing that we get into in episode two is just the investigation and who was calling whom, whether it was Carl Wolf making notifications, whether it was law enforcement going out to his residence and beginning to collect some of the evidence that we learn about mainly through the voice of Ron Heileman, who is a detective in the area at that time and, and becomes a real central figure to this story. You know, Kyle is, as we, we talked with Ron, he was not. He was not someone we spoke to in person, but. And he was obviously in some. He had some health issues at the time, but was very sharp in terms of remembering this case and exactly what he did in those initial days after Dolores went missing. What stood out most to you, just hearing from Ron and regarding that evidence he collected in that. In those first visits to the home on Hillcrest Drive with Carl wolf.
- [05:58]
B
Yes. It's 40 years later. Right. You know, four decades have passed since. Since he lived those moments. And he was able to walk step by step with incredible recall. I mean, starting with remembering that the first person that he spoke with was Anna. He remembers having a conversation with her immediately after getting pulled in on it and her telling him that she was adamant that her father was responsible. The evidence is. Is. Is interesting as. As that tends to be in these sort of cases. Right. You got the, you know, he had the vivid memory of the fingers on. On the inside of the trunk. There's the blood on the blanket, there's the earring in the trunk. There was enough there for him to, you know, it line theory that the family had relayed to him that Carl Wolf was the only person that needed to be looked at. He had a history of threats and was a little bit evasive, you know, once the investigation started taking course. Right. He ends up b, walking out of a. A lie detector test and eventually lawyers up, you know, fairly quickly after expressing a willingness to cooperate. But yeah, Ron was a seasoned detective for a long time and it was an incredible conversation that we had for him. We didn't have to ask a lot of question. I mean, he was chronological, start to finish, and it was the start of a relationship with this family that lasted for decades.
- [07:15]
A
Yeah, I think the thoroughness of Ron Heileman certainly comes across in the interview we had and in some of the sound that we played in episode two. And certainly the tension is beginning to build between the Rochas, Dolores family and law enforcement and Carl Wolf, and that tension will explode, we'll just put it that way. In episode three of finding Dolores Wolf this way to the murderer's house, which will be coming out this coming Monday. So you're certainly going to want to stay tuned for that episode. It's, it's a. It's a wild one in many ways, and we're looking forward to that. Just as a reminder, we're. We're on social, social media, TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube, obviously here. And please reach out to us with any questions and we certainly appreciate your continued support of the unforgotten. Season 3 Finding Dolores Wolf that's all for now. It's Adam and Kyle. We'll see you next week.