More than two decades ago, a California woman was convicted and sent to prison for 25 years to life for murdering her husband.
Jane Dorotik has always maintained that she did not kill her husband of 30 years, Bob Dorotik, and over the years she has filed many motions requesting new testing be conducted on the evidence used in her case.
Dorotik, now in his 70s, was finally able to get his message across to the courts that the evidence assessed against him in 2001 needed further evaluation.
During the summer of 2020, when prisons were overcrowded and COVID-19 was a concern, Dorotik was released on temporary release and parole.
His legal team hoped the release would be permanent pending a court overturning the jury’s verdict.
Jane Dorotik, now in her 70s, spoke to CBS’ ’48 Hours’ about her 22 years in prison for the murder of her husband. CBS journalist Erin Moriarty has been covering the case for 24 years.
Jane (left) and Bob (right) Dorotik lived in the quiet hills outside San Diego before their family’s life was turned upside down when Bob was murdered and Jane became the accused murderer.
During a remote hearing, that’s exactly what happened, much to Dorotik’s surprise. The state requested that his murder conviction be overturned. The judge granted the request.
But the good news was followed shortly by the San Diego County prosecutor’s attempt to retry her. A judge allowed the new trial to proceed but said some of the central evidence used against her 20 years ago would not be admissible.
Then in May 2022, as jury selection was about to begin again, the deputy prosecutor came in and said the state no longer felt the evidence they had was “sufficient to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt and convince 12 members of the jury”. “So we request that the court… dismiss the charges at this time.”
Dorotik once again became, unconditionally, a free woman.
In an interview with CBS’ ’48 Hours,’ Dorotik spoke with Erin Moriarty, who has covered the case for 24 years.
He described the last two decades in prison as “torturous in many ways.”
“I guess there were a lot of moments where I thought, ‘How can I move forward?'” he said.
On February 13, 2000, Bob Dorotik, then 55, went for a run near the couple’s home in north San Diego and never returned home.
Fearing the worst, Jane Dorotik, then 53, reported her husband missing after several hours.
After an all-night search, Bob’s body was found, beaten and strangled, along his jogging route.
Three days later, Jane Dorotik was charged with his murder, based largely on blood stains found in the couple’s bedroom.
When the Dorotik home was searched, blood stains were found in several areas of the bedroom and on the couple’s mattress. Jane explained that her husband had recently had a nosebleed and that the couple had two dogs that had bled, but the authorities did not believe the argument.
In the years after her conviction, Jane said her lawyer’s defense strategy was a huge mistake. “I would describe my defense as limited and inadequate,” she later said. She described as “absurd” the theory that her daughter was the murderer.
Investigators quickly determined that Bob Dorotik was murdered in a different location than where his body was found. They then came to the theory that he had been murdered in the bedroom he shared with his wife.
When the Dorotik home was searched, blood stains were found in several areas of the bedroom and on the couple’s mattress.
Jane explained that her husband had recently had a nosebleed and that the couple had two dogs that had bled, but the authorities did not believe the argument.
In court, two of Jane’s children testified against her and her lawyer offered a defense that blamed the murder on her third child, her daughter Chloe.
Prosecutors launched a litany of theories against Jane during the trial. She had killed her husband for money and to escape a troubled marriage.
The couple had separated in 1997, but reconciled and had been living happily together, by all accounts, for about 18 months when Bob was murdered.
In the years after her conviction, Jane said her lawyer’s defense strategy was a huge mistake.
“I would describe my defense as limited and inadequate,” he later said. He described the theory that her daughter was the killer as “absurd.”
“That was the worst strategy of my life… I told my lawyer, ‘If anything happens to Claire, I’m going to stand up and say I did it.’
Jane Dorotik is pictured on the left in 2000.
Pictured: evidence that was used at the time. The Sheriff’s crime lab at the time was unaccredited and made multiple significant errors in handling the evidence.
The bloody syringes found in Dorotik’s garbage were, according to Jane, the ones he used to give medicine to his horses.
A member of the legal team that ultimately secured Dorotik’s release said the argument used by prosecutors to link her truck to tire marks found near her husband’s body was essentially “junk science.”
In the 22 years since she was locked up, Dorotik has worked extensively with the Loyola Innocence Project at Loyola Marymount University School of Law in Los Angeles.
It was thanks to the work of LPI that Dorotik’s release was secured in July 2020 and his murder conviction was ultimately overturned.
The organization pressured the prosecution to admit that the criminalist who prepared the “bloodstain pattern analysis” for the jury in 2000 was not a competent expert nor was the criminalist who identified the tire tracks near Bob’s body. on which the prosecution relied for its argument.
Additionally, the Sheriff’s crime lab at the time was not accredited and made multiple significant errors in handling evidence.
When she was finally released, Dorotik, who says the case and conviction destroyed everything she and her late husband built together, said: “After fighting for almost 20 years to overturn my conviction, I am so grateful to finally see this day “. ‘
‘I have maintained from day one that I had nothing to do with my husband’s murder.
‘Spending almost two decades in prison falsely convicted of killing the man I loved has been incredibly painful.
‘I lost literally everything Bob and I had built together in my life. Thanks to my great legal team at Loyola Law School, I feel like I can finally breathe and can start thinking about making plans for the future,” he said.
