Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 39 - Marathon Man - Full Episode | Forensic Files

it was on a cold wet winter night that a woman called police to report her husband missing the man was a marathon
runner who had gone for a workout but never returned forensic evidence revealed that
wherever the man went he ran into some trouble [Music] [Music] [Music] deep in the heart of Southern California
lies the small town of Valley Center an hours drive from San Diego it's a quiet and peaceful community surrounded by
Hills and farmland The Rustic setting appealed to Jane and Robert dorek who had been
married almost 30 years the couple lived on an 18 acre horse ranch they called Charisma
Farms to Jane horses were her life she obviously was very passionate about her horses this was one of her great loves
Bob preferred the outdoors in camping his passion was physical fitness and he was a marathon runner the thing he
enjoyed most was going camping with his family with his sons in particular they would go and different uh hikes up uh
Mount McKinley or they would go for hikes down into the Grand Canyon and you know spend the night there the couple
had three grown children two sons and a daughter Claire who still lived at home Claire was a marathoner and an expert
horsewoman on a Sunday night in February of 2000 Jane dtic called the sheriff to
report her husband [Music] missing she said Bob had gone running a few hours earlier but never returned
home when she reported him missing what was going through my mind even though he's a jogger and ran marathons I mean
they do have uh hard attacks and things like that sometimes when they're jogging it wasn't unusual for Bob to
take long runs but he had never been out this long the sheriff and his deputies searched the entire area concentrating
on Bob's usual running routes the search was ended at 4:30 the next morning with the discovery of a
body I noticed something on off to my left in the brush that appeared to be a body I stopped my vehicle had my
Spotlight shining on the vehicle and then I walked out and confirmed that it was a
body I could also see some trauma to the head as well as a cord wrapped around the victim's neck my initial thought in
looking at the trauma to the body that this was a homicide the lack of blood in the area
revealed that Bob's injuries had occurred elsewhere we found Tire impressions in
mud two sets of those and we found shoe Impressions that weren't usable but they
were just like deep holes in the leaf litter that was on the ground there were drag marks in the mud from the area of
the tire Impressions to the body and there was a clue that Bob hadn't been jogging that
day his shoes were very clean he didn't have have any mud or any Splash marks water marks on his shoes and the
information I had obtained earlier was that he went out for a jog on the previous day which uh had been a rainy
day as well a piece of doric's head hair was found underneath his shirt on his chest suggesting that he had been
dressed after death and there was another indication someone else had dressed him his shoelaces were tied on the
outside of his shoes the knot itself was not tied in the middle of the shoe as if
somebody were to have tied their own shoe um the knots were on the outside whoever dumped the body left mountains
of forensic evidence investigators knew if the killer was this sloppy here he'd be just
as careless elsewhere [Music] word of Bob dtic murder spread quickly to friends and family alike it was Bob's
son Alex who called his father's best friend I was standing in the kitchen with my wife picked up the phone and and
he said Jim this is Alex dork and I said Alex how you doing he goes not too good
they just found Bob murdered and um I couldn't believe it forensic scientists began their
investigation by attempting to identify the vehicle at the crime scene from the tire impressions in the
mud they measured the distance between the wheels the vehicle was identified as a pickup
truck next they analyzed photographs of the tire Impressions first you have to look at
the width of the tire track there's different size tires uh second you look at the design uh every tire manufacturer
has multiple tread designs that they make designed for different types of Road handling the pickup truck had three
different tire models The Impressions were compared to the thousands of tires on the
market I noticed that the front two tires were the same brand tire which was a big O brand de IA identified the side
rear tire as a firestone radial and the passenger side rear tire as a coper brand Discoverer
model at the autopsy the medical examiner determined the dtic died due to blunt force trauma to the head with some
type of hammer there were also signs he had been strangled inside his stomach was the
undig rested dinner Bob consumed on Saturday night which meant he was killed on Saturday Jane said Bob left home on
Sunday afternoon despite his mild mannered demeanor a background check revealed Bob
dor and his wife separated just a few years earlier although they had recently reconciled and Bob had often been at
odds with his wife and daughter over the costs of running the horse ranch Jane and CLA favored investing
more money into the ranch for expansion and there was the possibility of a disgruntled
employee Ranch Foreman lonel Morales had long sided with Claire dork in the debate over whether to expand the
ranch we felt it warranted further investigation and an interview with him to see what time he when was the last
time he was there and what did he do when he was there Leonel Morales CLA and Jane dork all denied any involvement in
Bob's murder lonel and Claire each had aliis Jane said she was home all day working with the
horses she cooperated with police by voluntarily allowing them to search her home actually the homicide detective
took me aside before he went in and said now Carolyn this is a consent search um
so I want you to all we're looking for is patent obvious blood don't be crawling under things and looking up
don't be opening drawers don't be doing anything just be as inobtrusive as possible it was muddy so it's a no shoe
house so to be polite is a consent search and this is the only time ever in my life I've done this at a scene take
off my shoes investigators examined the house and especially the master bedroom and found nothing out of the
ordinary but criminalist Carolyn ganet decided to take a closer look around and it was in her stocking feet that ganet
made her Discovery just happened to step in one corner of the bedroom and I could
feel wet carpet underneath my feet through my stocking feet and my heart just jumped cuz I knew exactly what that
was the bedroom floor was wet as if something had recently been cleaned from the floor and the carpet had a slight
tinge of red what really struck me was how how easily we could have missed it if we hadn't taken off our shoes we
would have missed it we would not have found that scene at all I asked the family if there would be any reason that
we would find blood in the master bedroom the family number of family members began to speak uh one was Jane
dorch sister Bonnie long who had indicated that one of the dogs had cut his declaw and uh had been
bleeding investigators decided to conduct more tests to see if it was dog blood in the bedroom or something
[Music] more not long after the murder of 55-year-old Bob Dora tick investig vators had no shortage of forensic
evidence or suspects in the master bedroom of the doric's home investigators found traces of Blood
on the floor that had been cleaned up and when they looked closer they found even more they could
see what appeared to be blood spatter all across the comforter of the bed I could see blood spatter on the headboard
I could see blood spatter on the wall behind the bed and there was blood on the brick
wall and on the stove in the corner of the bedroom some had even dripped down into a utility room below I looked at
the stains on the wall stains on the brick work and they were all consistent with uh in size about a half a
millimeter in diameter maybe a little bit less a little bit more with medium velocity it's what I would expect to
have seen in a beating merits analysis revealed the blood spatter emanated from the top of the bed where Bob may have
been sleeping the shapes of the stains on the wall and on the nightstand uh showed me
the direction they were traveling in so I just took strings on the wall knowing the direction they were traveling and
pulled them back taped them onto the wall which gave me an area of convergence that area of convergence
told forensic scientists the location of Bob's head during the attack Meritt also found castoff blood
spatter on the ceiling created when blood is thrown from a moving object there was circular stains on the ceiling
directly above the bed that's the first indication of calf off the other indication is directional stains linear
stains going away from that site so there were stains on the ceiling basically in a line going towards uh the
wall DNA testing confirmed it was Bob doric's blood based on an interpretation of the
blood spatter investigators believed doric's death came from a massive head wound the attack didn't occur out on
that road that attack based on the blood stains occurred in that room inside the home investigators also
found a piece of black rope consistent with the Rope found around Bob's neck I told Jane we were confident and
there was no doubt that Bob was assaulted in the master bedroom and the family gasped but investigators found no blood
anywhere else in the home meaning the killer had carried the body downstairs and out of the house
police couldn't find the murder weapon or any bloody clothing inside the home and there were no signs of forced
entry an intruder never takes the time to clean a crime scene I've been a law enforcement about 28 years I've not seen
or known of one case where an intruder has come into a house murdered somebody inside a house and cleaned up
afterwards police found the pickup truck in the garage there were no visible signs of blood so investigators looked
to see if blood had been removed we used Florine we sprayed most of the outside of the truck and also the
inside and we did find several areas that fluoresced there was one area um in particular on the bed of the truck that
Florest it was fairly large which was an indication blood had been present then washed
off DNA testing of the hidden blood residue showed the blood was Bob's the left front tire is turned
towards me and I can see the pattern on the tire clearly as I'm approaching it and I know what it's supposed to look
like for the Tire in that location if it were at The Bu dump scene and as I closer and closer it looks like it I'm
getting closer it clearly could be it and and I get right up to and I'm I'm sure that this is the right
impression the front tires were type O brand the passenger side rear tire was a Cooper Discoverer the driver side rear
tire was a firestone radial all were identical to the Impressions left at the crime
scene the white pickup truck was registered to Jane dork before leaving the residence
investigators found one last piece of evidence in the trash there were actually several syringes and one of the
syringes was a large barrel syringe appeared to be a syringe that might be used on
animals the syringe contained Trace Amounts of a potent horse tranquilizer called Ace
promazine it's also known as Mellow Yellow from the song from the' 60s um only 3 Ms would put my horse make my
horse very sleepy toxicology tests did not detect a promazine in Bob's blood sample although it could have been
present in amounts too small for testing to identify on the outside of the syringe
was a bloody fingerprint the blood was Bob dtic the finger print was Janes you'll often hear it said that one
of the best things you can find at a crime scene is a suspect's fingerprint in the victim's blood and now how do you
explain that 3 days after Bob dork was found dead on the side of a road his wife Jane was
arrested and charged with [Music] murder your honor I'd like to say that I'm innocent
I loved my husband I love him still in May 2001 Jane dtic stood trial for the murder of her husband
Robert prosecutors believe that Jane injected Bob with the horse tranquilizer while he was sleeping on Saturday
night she then struck him in the head while he was in bed and then on the floor near the
stove when Jane threw away the syringe she left her fingerprint in Bob's blood after dressing the body she either
carried or dragged it downstairs to her pickup truck when she left the body alongside
the road she did everything but sign her name to the crime the clean shoes were proof he had
not been jogging the shoelaces showed that someone else had tied them and the blood underneath his shirt
was proof he had been dressed after he was dead and then there were the tire Impressions from her pickup
truck friends saw Jane late Sunday afternoon at a nearby shopping center which is where prosecutors think she
threw away her bloody clothes and the murder weapon everything that was collected
just pointed the finger at Jane dork there all these different pieces of a puzzle and when you put it all together
it just pointed the finger at Jane dork the motive appeared to be money Jane was very interested in spending a
lot of money on the horses the care of the horses the boarding of the horses he didn't mind Jane's uh hobby Jane and
cla's hobby with the horses however that they regularly had disagreements about how many Family Resources this hobby
should use two years earlier when the couple separated Jane learned that under California law she would have to pay Bob
alimony in the event of a divorce since she was the primary wage earner Bob initially told me that she was extremely
angry about the possibility of having to pay him alimony it it made her livid and that uh she got very
threatening we found some letters dated the Friday before he was killed where he
was already looking for a job maybe he said this isn't working out and I think we should go ahead and get a divorce and
she was not about to pay him any alimony at the trial the fence claimed that Claire dork with the help of Leonel
Morales killed Bob dork they produced a letter Claire wrote to her father filled with deep hostility
over alleged abuse she just lived her life and trying to please her father and it built up a
tremendous amount of hatred and resentment over the years about her relationship with her father the defense
claimed that Leonel Morales was sympathetic to cla's position was suggested that since he basically worked
for CLA dork and CLA dork didn't like her father that he would do anything for CLA but police were satisfied that each
had a solid Alibi we were confident that CLA was out of town for the weekend and Jane was the
only one that was home and Jane was the only suspect in our mind Claire do you know why your mom is
pointing the finger at you CLA Dora tick and Leonel Morales invoked their Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination and did not testify Jane offered no explanation for how her fingerprint in her husband's
blood was found on a syringe containing a horse tranquilizer after 3 days of deliberation the jury returned their
verdict cause find the defendant Jane Margaret dork guilty of the crime of Murder in the First Degree in violation
I was sad but I was I was elated that Justice was served from me she stole you know one of my best friends away from me
and from all his other friends and it was it was the worst kind of theft really Jane dork was sentenced to 25
years in prison there was no dispute about the critical role forensic evidence played
in Jane doric's conviction the forensic made it clear he wasn't out for a jog as she explained
the forensics made it clear his shoes were tied and his clothing was put on after that body was pummeled and so the
forensics told the story as so often is true when you find a body in a homicide case the body itself tells a story
[Music] one [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

Bob Doric was murdered; his wife Jane was convicted based on forensic evidence linking her to the crime.

Key points

The Mysterious Disappearance. Bob Dorek, a marathon runner, goes missing after a workout, leading to a frantic search.
Grim Discovery. The search ends with the shocking discovery of Bob's body, indicating foul play.
Forensic Evidence Unveiled. Investigators uncover crucial forensic evidence linking Jane to Bob's murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I loved my husband. I love him still.

Jane Dorek's emotional statement during her trial.

17:00WatchSep 16, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.