MrBallen

Same as Patricia.

Even though nobody knew where Dorothy was and really couldn't offer all that much information to help the investigation, it was like everybody Vallelongo spoke to had a pretty strong negative opinion of Dorothy.

Like that she was this recluse and that she was kind of crazy and, you know, people thought she had murdered her husbands and buried their bodies in the pet cemetery and also her house and her land were haunted.

But, you know, none of these rumors were going to do anything to advance the case.

But it was interesting to Vallelongo that people felt this way about her.

The only real lead that Vallelongo got was something he got from speaking to Dorothy's lawyer a few days ago, who had mentioned that Dorothy was in the middle of this very contentious lawsuit over the rights to her property with a pair of former employees named Bonnie and Brandon Nodier.

And since Dorothy's case was looking more and more like an abduction or even homicide, the fact that there was this active lawsuit that Dorothy was embroiled in was a big red flag.

So Vallelongo naturally knew he had to speak to Bonnie and Brandon.

But as Vallelongo sat across from Strada at his desk and filled him in on all this, Strada's phone rang.

Strada picked it up and listened to the person on the other end.

And immediately there was this look of shock that came over his face.

Strada thanked the caller and then hung up and then told Vallelongo that a body had been found in the Mississippi River the day before, about 40 miles downriver from here, and they thought it could be Dorothy.

Just a few hours later, Vallelongo and Strada stood with Patricia Newman inside of an exam room at the coroner's office.

In front of them was a long metal table, and lying on this table was the body of the woman who had been found inside the river.

Patricia had been asked to come in here and see if this was Dorothy.

But as Vallelongo looked at the body, he didn't see how Patricia was going to be able to do that because the body was already incredibly decomposed and very bloated.

The medical examiner had said this woman had likely been in the water for weeks and they hadn't done an autopsy yet, but any findings would probably just be a guess because of how badly damaged and decomposed the body was.

The only thing they did know for sure was that this definitely was a homicide.

The woman was found with a plastic bag tied over her head and she was wrapped in a lot of very heavy chains, probably to weigh her down so her body would not float up and be found.

And so Vallelongo looked over at Patricia, who looked visibly anxious as she stared at this body.