CA- Son testifies about asking mom about bloody syringe
Jojoz
if I can find some back issue stuff if anyone wants more info (I think you
have to be a UT subscriber to get into some archives) ...
Son testifies that he asked mom about bloody syringe
By Onell R. Soto
STAFF WRITER
May 24, 2001
VISTA -- The youngest son of a Valley Center woman accused of murdering her
husband asked his mother last fall to explain a bloody syringe found in her
home, where detectives say his father was killed.
But Jane Dorotik's response in the phone call from the Vista jail left him
with more questions than answers as her case was proceeding to trial, he
testified yesterday.
Prosecutors say the syringe is a key link between Jane Dorotik and the
crime. On it, detectives found Dorotik's thumbprint in her husband's blood.
Nicholas Dorotik, 23, said he asked his mother to help him understand, but
she evaded his question.
"I asked her how it got there and what it was doing there," he testified
during the fourth day of his mother's trial. "She said her biggest fear in
all this is that our family members would start questioning her."
He said that was the last conversation they had.
"You want answers?" asked defense lawyer Kerry Steigerwalt during Jane
Dorotik's testimony.
"Yes," the son testified.
Steigerwalt said in his questioning the mother wouldn't answer her son's
queries because he advised her not to talk about the case.
Nicholas Dorotik also testified that money his mother spent on horses nearly
broke up his parents' marriage, and his 27-year-old brother, Alexander,
testified that the marriage was "a little colder" than those of his friends'
parents.
Prosecutors say they will prove Jane Dorotik, 54, chose murder over divorce
and killed her 55-year-old husband, Robert, in the master bedroom of the
rented Valley Center horse ranch the couple shared with their daughter,
Claire.
Steigerwalt has suggested to jurors that the 25-year-old daughter is the
real killer.
Nicholas Dorotik testified his parents frequently argued throughout his
life, and sometimes their battles got "to the point where they wouldn't talk
to each other."
They separated and began divorce proceedings, but reconciled after agreeing
to keep their finances apart, the son said.
Nicholas Dorotik, a competitive snowboarder, said his father called him
shortly before his death to say he couldn't afford to go see him at an
upcoming competition because his business was not doing well.
"He seemed down," he said of the last conversation he had with his father.
In suggesting that Jane Dorotik's daughter, Claire, might have killed her
father, Steigerwalt described the daughter as having a violent streak. Her
brothers disagreed.
"I wouldn't describe Claire as violent," said Nicholas Dorotik, and his
brother couldn't recall telling a detective his sister was "explosive."
But a family friend testified yesterday the young woman has a volatile
personality.
"Claire tends to keep a lot in, in terms of her feelings," testified Dr.
James Manshardt of Tucson, Ariz., who befriended the Dorotiks 32 years ago.
"Everything she keeps in comes out in one big burst. She gets explosive at
times."
Manshardt, a psychiatrist, also talked of a rift within the family -- "sort
of like the San Andreas Fault" -- with mother and daughter united by their
mutual love of horses, and father and sons by other sports.
Jurors are not expected to hear or see Claire Dorotik, who invoked her Fifth
Amendment rights against self-incrimination, as did an aunt who provided her
with an alibi in conversations with police.
Robert Dorotik was found beaten and strangled in a patch of poison oak by
the side of a driveway several miles away from the couple's home on
Valentine's Day 2000.
Detectives found Robert Dorotik's blood throughout the master bedroom and on
the syringe containing a fingerprint made by Jane Dorotik.
Meanwhile, prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan failed to get a witness to say
what she promised jurors.
A paralegal who helped Jane Dorotik with divorce papers said she told the
well-paid executive that she might have to pay alimony if the couple
divorced, but denied saying how much.
Howard-Regan said in her opening statements the paralegal told Jane Dorotik
she might have to pay 40 percent of her income to her husband in a split.
Jojoz
Judge OKs blaming of victim's daughter by defense attorney
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20010511-9999_1mc11dorotik.ht
ml
Bloody fingerprint also allowed in trial
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 11, 2001
VISTA -- The defense attorney for a Valley Center woman accused of murdering
her husband can blame the couple's daughter for the slaying, a judge ruled
yesterday.
But the judge rejected the attorney's request to keep jurors from hearing
incriminating evidence about his client's fingerprint, which was found in
the victim's blood on a syringe containing an animal tranquilizer.
The rulings come six days before jurors are scheduled to hear the murder
trial of mental health executive Jane Dorotik, 54, who is accused of killing
Robert Dorotik, 55, at the horse ranch the couple shared with their
daughter, Claire Dorotik.
Evidence that defense attorney Kerry Steigerwalt says points to the daughter
is admissible because jurors could form a reasonable doubt about her
mother's guilt after hearing it, Superior Court Judge Joan Weber said.
"Claire Dorotik had some serious problems with her father," Weber said after
hearing Steigerwalt read from an emotionally charged letter Claire Dorotik
had written to her father.
The case against Jane Dorotik is based largely on circumstantial evidence
found at the rented horse ranch, the judge said, and Claire Dorotik "had
equal access to the family home."
Prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan said there is no reason to believe Claire
Dorotik was involved in her father's February 2000 death.
Howard-Regan unsuccessfully fought to keep the defense attorney from blaming
the daughter.
Claire Dorotik, 25, a San Diego State University student who runs a horse
business in Bonsall, has been unavailable for comment since Steigerwalt
filed court documents saying she is the killer. She has publicly said her
mother is innocent.
The judge has appointed veteran North County lawyer Robert L. James to
represent Claire Dorotik during the trial.
Weber also set a pretrial hearing for Monday at which Claire Dorotik is
being asked to testify so the judge can determine whether jurors can hear
directly from her. Weber also may hear testimony from Jane Dorotik's two
sons and her sister.
Steigerwalt said in court filings that if he gets to question Claire Dorotik
under oath, he will bring out evidence that she had "malice and motive" to
kill her father.
Yesterday, Steigerwalt read from a letter the daughter wrote her father in
1999, when she was 23.
In the undated, handwritten letter, Claire Dorotik tells her father she
resents the way he has treated her for most of her life.
"I must take all precautionary measures to protect me from you," she wrote.
"Your history of betrayal of trust, lack of respect and vicious threats
cannot ever be forgotten."
Later, she wrote, "Your old ways of treating me will not continue."
Among other things, Steigerwalt said, Claire Dorotik was upset with her
father because he resented her involvement with horses. Jane and Claire
Dorotik own a horse training and breeding business.
"Claire Dorotik had a real motive . . . to do whatever it took to continue
in the horse business," he said.
The prosecutor said the letter doesn't prove anything, because it is unclear
when it was written and because there's evidence that the relationship
between Claire and Robert Dorotik had improved.
The father and daughter had taken up long-distance running, and had run a
marathon and a half-marathon together shortly before he was killed,
Howard-Regan said.
The defense attorney wanted to exclude the syringe, saying there was no
evidence it had been used in the killing, but prosecutors say it links Jane
Dorotik to her husband's death.
The autopsy did not find any needle marks, and a test of the victim's blood
did not find the tranquilizer, Steigerwalt said.
But the judge agreed with the prosecutor, who said the syringe is a key link
between the killing and Jane Dorotik.
"I could see why defense counsel doesn't want that in because it is very
damning evidence," Howard-Regan said.
The syringe puts Robert Dorotik's blood literally on his wife's hands, she
said.
"Why else would her fingerprint be in his blood on anything there?"
Howard-Regan said.
"Jojoz" <jojozsd@hotmail[REMOVE].com> wrote in message
news:TdPP6.34140$BN6.2...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
you...@net.com
> of like the San Andreas Fault" -- with mother and daughter united by their
> mutual love of horses, and father and sons by other sports.
I'm not really sure who did it, but I suspect foul horseplay here.
JonesieCat
JC
"Jojoz" <jojozsd@hotmail[REMOVE].com> wrote in message
news:qgPP6.34143$BN6.2...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Jojoz
www.uniontribune.com and do a search on "dorotik" ... seems like some are
just repetitous ... I've followed this one in the local paper since the body
was first found. At first, it just seemed like a jogger killed during a
robbery or something, but very quickly, things changed .. then we didn't
hear anything for awhile, now the trial is underway, so this should be
interesting.
Jojoz
=========
Sides offer theories in man's slaying
Defendant feared paying alimony, prosecutor says
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 18, 2001
VISTA -- One of the women in Robert Dorotik's life wanted him dead,
attorneys told jurors yesterday, but they disagreed as to which one.
When he was killed in February 2000, Dorotik's marriage to his wife, Jane,
was breaking up, a prosecutor said, and as a successful businesswoman she
was worried that he would get nearly half her income in alimony if they
divorced.
Jane Dorotik, whose job allowed her to make a "hobby" of training and
selling horses, feared she might have had to pay her husband 40 percent of
her income, the prosecutor said in asking for a murder conviction.
Dorotik's relationship with his daughter, Claire, was also volatile, a
defense attorney said, suggesting to the jury that the woman's struggle
against her father may have led to his death.
Claire Dorotik had recently clashed with her father, accusing him of being
overly controlling, and writing him a letter saying "your old ways of
treating me will not continue," said defense attorney Kerry Steigerwalt.
On the first day of Jane Dorotik's murder trial, jurors heard prosecutor
Bonnie Howard-Regan outline circumstantial evidence that she said proves
Dorotik, 54, attacked her husband with a hammer in their Valley Center
bedroom, dumped his body several miles away and then covered up the killing.
The couple had often fought over money, and Robert Dorotik had filed for
divorce in 1997, she said. The couple reconciled after agreeing to keep
their finances separate.
He quit his engineering job in Northern California, then moved back in with
his wife, who headed Southern California operations for a mental health
services company.
He started a business making horse jumps out of plastic pipes at their
rented Valley Center horse ranch, Howard-Regan said, but that venture was
failing when he died.
In the days before Robert Dorotik's death, he had lamented to one of his
sons that he didn't have enough money to visit another son who lived in
Northern California.
Jane Dorotik, meanwhile, was not worried about money and was shopping around
for a horse ranch that she planned to put in her name alone, Howard-Regan
said.
Authorities first found out something was amiss about 7:45 p.m. Feb. 13,
2000, when Jane Dorotik called deputies to her Bear Valley Heights Road home
and reported her 55-year-old husband missing.
Dorotik told a deputy she last saw her husband early that Sunday afternoon,
when he was preparing to go for a jog, the prosecutor said.
Jane Dorotik said she had been alone with her husband all weekend because
their daughter was visiting an aunt in Long Beach, the prosecutor said. The
couple ate buffalo burgers for dinner the night before, she said.
Sheriff's deputies found Robert Dorotik's body the following morning, and
two days later a detective noticed drops of blood in the couple's master
bedroom, which appeared spotless at first glance, with the bed neatly made,
Howard-Regan said.
A more thorough search turned up blood on the walls, floor, ceiling, under
the carpet, on a potbellied stove, a comforter and the underside of the
mattress, which detectives determined had been turned over, she said.
All the blood was Robert Dorotik's, she said, including that on a bloody
fingerprint on a syringe containing animal tranquilizer found in a bathroom
off the master bedroom.
Robert Dorotik's blood was also found in the bed of a Ford F-250 pickup
truck Jane Dorotik regularly used in the horse business, the prosecutor
said.
And that truck's tires -- from three manufacturers -- matched tire
impressions made on mud near the body.
An autopsy determined that Robert Dorotik was killed by at least two blows
on the head, the prosecutor said, holding up a hammer that she expects an
expert to say is like the one the killer used.
The weapon used in the slaying has not been found, Howard-Regan said.
A man who knows Jane Dorotik through the horse business said he saw her
driving her pickup about 6:45 p.m. Feb. 13 behind a supermarket shopping
center, where trash containers were located, said the prosecutor, suggesting
to jurors that Dorotik dumped the weapon.
Robert Dorotik was also strangled, and a rope found on his body was the same
type as one found on the porch of the horse ranch, Howard-Regan said.
The autopsy also determined that his last meal included red meat, she said,
adding that it sounds like the dinner Jane Dorotik talked about.
"When you look at all the evidence, it will point to one thing," the
prosecutor said. "Jane Dorotik chose murder over divorce."
Steigerwalt asked jurors to focus instead on Claire Dorotik, calling her
demeanor "explosive," compared with his client's reputation as a
"peacemaker."
A letter Claire Dorotik wrote her father sometime before Thanksgiving 1999
indicated the depths of her bad feelings toward him, he said.
"I must take all precautionary measures to protect me from you," he quoted
from the letter. "Your history of betrayal of trust, lack of respect and
vicious threats cannot ever be forgotten."
Steigerwalt said she was upset at her father because she hired him to help
her overhaul a condominium she was selling and he was late and over budget,
causing her to make an unprofitable sale.
With that venture failed, the 25-year-old moved in with her parents, he
said.
"That move, ladies and gentlemen, was a recipe for disaster," he said.
"Within two months . . . Bob Dorotik was dead."
Steigerwalt said Claire Dorotik's alibi -- that she was with her aunt in
Long Beach -- is a lie. Jurors are unlikely to hear from Claire Dorotik
because she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination
Wednesday and was excused from testifying.
Jurors also won't hear from her Long Beach aunt, Bonnie Long, and a ranch
hand, both of whom also invoked the Fifth Amendment on Wednesday.
Prosecutors have said that invoking such a right is not an admission of
guilt and that the evidence incriminates Jane Dorotik, not her daughter.