Tonight Saturday (March 30, 2024) “CBS 48 Hours” n 2001, a California mother and wife, Jane Dorotik, was convicted of murdering her husband but always maintained her innocence
The March 30 2024 edition of “CBS 48 Hours” starts at 9PM ET/PT on CBS. In 2001, a California mother and wife, Jane Dorotik, was convicted of murdering her husband but always maintained her innocence. From prison, Dorotik spent years filing motions asking for new testing of evidence, which was eventually done. Dorotik and her legal team say they discovered serious problems with some of that evidence. Correspondent Erin Moriarty followed the case for 24 years and reports on the outcome “The Troubled Case Against Jane Dorotik”
48 HOURS started following Dorotik’s case in 2000, after she was arrested for the murder of her husband, Bob Dorotik, who was found bludgeoned and strangled by the side of a road near their home. As Jane Dorotik awaited trial and was under a cloud of suspicion, she allowed 48 HOURS into her home.
“He said he was going out for a jog … had his jogging suit on, was tying his shoes,” Jane Dorotik told 48 HOURS of the last time she saw her husband.
At trial, the prosecutor said Bob Dorotik never went for a jog and that Jane Dorotik moved his body to where he was found after killing him in their bedroom. Investigators described finding blood all over the bedroom.
Charles Merritt, a criminalist and bloodstain pattern analyst for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Crime Lab, testified that he saw bloodstains in 20 locations: blood was found on one of the pillows, on a lamp, nightstand, on the potbelly stove, on the ceiling and then on the underside of the mattress.
“Now, the evidence will show that all this blood that has been described to you, the observations made in this bedroom, that it was all sent out for DNA analysis, and it all came back Bob Dorotik’s blood,” prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan told the jury.
Jane Dorotik had explanations for some of that blood. She said her husband had a nosebleed and they had dogs who bled, but couldn’t explain it all.
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