Dottie Caylor *Update*

[Zero]

I wasn't able able to read the whole thing because I'm not registered to read the article online (stupid) but it appears that Dottie Caylor was officially declared dead on June 9 2004. I believe it was a judge who did it. As I said I couldn't read the whole thing.

This is all such a shame.

I don't know if anyone read the rest of the articles before they put them behind registered only catigories, but Jule Caylor was running for some sort of political position in Utah a few months ago. When word came out about what happened to Dottie he dropped out of the race.

I hope someone here can chime in with some more information.

[crystaldawn]

That guy is such a "creep" on that story. You could tell he could couldn't care less what happened to his wife and I think he killed her. You might do a search on this board, we discussed it a few months ago and someone had posted an interesting article.

Did they just declare her dead because she was missing for so long and presumed dead, or did they find her?

[UMfan77]

I think it's morally wrong to declare someone dead without finding a physical body. Just because someone's been missing for a long period of time doesn't necessary mean that they're dead. Declaring someone dead sounds too official without finding a body first.

[Zero]

Posted on Wed, Jun. 09, 2004

Caylor finally declared dead

Court decides 19 years after disappearance

By Joan Morris

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

"For almost 19 years, the friends and family of Dottie Caylor have struggled with the question of whether the woman who mysteriously disappeared from her Concord home is dead or alive.

A Superior Court probate commissioner Tuesday took only minutes to provide an answer. Commissioner Don Green ruled that Dottie, who has not been seen or heard from since June 12, 1985, is dead -- the exact date of her death and how she died to be determined.

Green also named Dottie's sister, Diane Rusnak, executor of the woman's estate. Calling it "an unusual case," Green limited Rusnak's authority as executor, barring her from selling property held jointly by Dottie and her husband, Jule Allan Caylor, but permitting her to act on behalf of the estate.

Rusnak, who has never stopped searching for her younger and only sister, said she was pleased by the decision.

After waiting almost 20 years for some word about what happened to her sister, Rusnak said it was the news that Caylor had divorced Dottie on the grounds of "willful desertion" that led her to probate court.

Rusnak had not known about the divorce until it was reported by the Times in a March series of stories about Dottie's life and disappearance. Caylor was granted a divorce last June in Utah, where he now lives, and was awarded the Concord house and undeveloped property in Oregon. Rusnak said she wants to preserve her sister's estate on behalf of their elderly mother, Susan Rusnak, of Chardon, Ohio.

Caylor did not attend Tuesday's hearing in Martinez nor did he submit papers opposing the probate. However, Caylor told the Times that he believes Dottie is alive and in hiding.

"My personal opinion, from postal mail I have received over the years -- plus other issues -- is that Dottie is no more dead than I am," Caylor said in an e-mail to the Times on Tuesday. "I believe she disappeared with assistance, after securing an alternate identity, and that she is hiding in plain sight under all our noses. She will turn up eventually."

Caylor said that he has, over the years, received "correspondence that contains items to which only Dottie and/or Diane would have had access." He said he sent two of the letters to the Concord Police many years ago, but received no acknowledgment from detectives. Other messages, he said, he has kept.

Caylor said Dottie often claimed she could disappear and "make it look as though I was responsible, and make me pay, and pay, and pay." He also quoted Dottie as saying, "Sometimes you have to be utterly ruthless to get what you want."

"I wish to be left alone," Caylor said. "I do not care whether Dottie or her sister want to play dead, play alive, play someone else, play victim, or whatever."

Dottie Caylor, who was 41 when she disappeared, had been planning a divorce when she vanished almost two decades ago. Caylor, who moved to West Jordan, Utah, within days of Dottie's disappearance, told police he had taken Dottie to the Pleasant Hill BART station the morning of June 12, 1985, and had not seen her since.

The Caylors had a turbulent relationship that included extramarital affairs by Jule and at least one instance of physical battery that sent Dottie to the emergency room for stitches.

Caylor, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service, often was away from home for weeks at a time. Meanwhile, Dottie developed agoraphobia, a fear of open and unknown spaces, and rarely left the Greer Avenue home they had purchased shortly after their marriage.

By 1985, the 10-year-old marriage appeared to be ending. While Dottie was working in secret, developing a plan to divorce her husband and opening a bank account in her own name, Caylor was proposing marriage to a woman in Colorado. But just days before Caylor was to move to Utah and Dottie was to start her new life alone in Concord, she vanished.

Concord Police reopened the investigation into the woman's disappearance after the Times featured Dottie's story in a five-part serial in March.

In a statement to the Times, Concord Police Sgt. Judy Moore said investigators are continuing to pursue the case.

"The Caylor investigation is ongoing and active," Moore said. "We still classify Jule Caylor as a 'person of interest' in his wife's disappearance. Nothing has changed in that respect."

In April, police returned to the Caylor home on Greer Avenue to search the house and back yard for evidence. Using ground-penetrating radar, an expert probed the yard for signs of anomalies while a forensic team conducted tests inside the house, which Caylor has rented out for the past 19 years. Police said at the time that the tests revealed nothing of interest."