MrBallen

And so Vallelongo naturally thought, okay, you know, maybe it's possible that in a sort of foggy mental state,

Maybe for whatever reason, she wandered out of the house on her own.

And then once she was outside, something happened to her.

Whether it was, you know, an animal, a person, a fall, like anything could have happened.

He knew the back door had been unlocked during that initial police welfare check.

And even though he knew the door apparently had been jammed, you know, it clearly had not been jammed so much that it prevented them from getting inside.

And so maybe that door just always got stuck, you know, and maybe that's all that happened.

She walked out the back door and when she shut it, it got jammed and that was normal.

And so Vallelongo turned to his partner and sort of explained to him his theory around Dorothy maybe wandering out on her own and then something else happened once she was outside and said, hey, you know, she's clearly not here.

Let's go out there and search the grounds and see if we can find her.

15 days later, a little past 7 a.m.

on May 3rd, 1985, Vallelongo stepped into Strada's office to give him an update on the case.

At this point, Vallelongo thought it was extremely likely that foul play was involved here because they had searched Dorothy's house and her property a few times at this point and they had not found Dorothy anywhere or any evidence to explain what had happened to her.

Patricia had mentioned that Dorothy had a tattoo of a cross on her left index finger.

So, Vallelongo had spent the last couple of weeks calling around to local hospitals and morgues to see if any women had been brought in with that marking.

Vallelongo also interviewed Dorothy's neighbors and the tellers at that bank that she had gone to shortly before she vanished.

And also he had interviewed some people in town who just knew who she was.

He'd also tracked down Dorothy's new handyman, Kenny Pommier, who the bank had said was with Dorothy on the day she vanished.

He apparently was driving her around.

But none of these people had heard from Dorothy since she vanished 20 days earlier.