Speaker 1: Hey, it's Wes, the creator of Deviltown. I have some
Speaker 1: good news. It took a while, but I work out
Speaker 1: in agreement with the studio that owns Deviltown so I
Speaker 1: can start making new episodes again. I'm hoping we'll be
Speaker 1: back soon. In the meantime, I want to tell you
Speaker 1: about the other podcast I produce, called The Unforgotten. Every
Speaker 1: season is a deep dive into a different case that
Speaker 1: we can't stop thinking about. Here's the first episode of
Speaker 1: season three. Give it a listen, and then head on
Speaker 1: over to The Unforgotten wherever you listen to podcasts to
Speaker 1: get the whole story.
Speaker 2: In October twenty twenty, Kenny Hart, an investigation sergeant with
Speaker 2: the Benetia Police Department, sat alone in his office thinking
Speaker 2: about what to say. Benetia is a town of about
Speaker 2: thirty thousand on the northern outskirts of the San Francisco
Speaker 2: Bay Area, about a forty mile drive from the Golden
Speaker 2: Gate Bridge. In twenty six years as a cop, Kenny
Speaker 2: had seen it all, homicides, violent, He had patrol duty,
Speaker 2: a stint with a corner's office, and with a sheriff's department.
Speaker 2: He was even pulled in on tips related to the
Speaker 2: infamous Zodiac killings, and during his career he had made
Speaker 2: more than his fair share of death notifications, but he
Speaker 2: wasn't sure any of that prepared him for the call
Speaker 2: he was about to make.
Speaker 3: I've never delivered this kind of notification, so I'm about
Speaker 3: to change a family's life forever. I had to prepare
Speaker 3: what questions I was going to get asked, and I
Speaker 3: had a whole bunch of questions. My head was spinning
Speaker 3: that at that point in time, and I remember calling Paul.
Speaker 3: He didn't answer, so I left a voicemail, Hi, Paul,
Speaker 3: as Kenny Hart was gonna shippy, can you give me
Speaker 3: a call back?
Speaker 2: At three five, Kenny was trying to reach Paul Wolfe,
Speaker 2: a longtime college football coach who once led programs at
Speaker 2: Washington State in eastern Washington. But Kenny had only known
Speaker 2: Paul for a few months when they connected about a
Speaker 2: case that had captivated Kenny like few others in his career.
Speaker 3: There was a little relief that he didn't answer, because
Speaker 3: I don't know if I was fully ready to give
Speaker 3: that news yet. And I'm sitting in my office just
Speaker 3: like wow, had my door closed because I didn't want
Speaker 3: to talk to any of my detectives. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be distracted because I knew the phone was going
Speaker 3: to ring, probably at any point in time.
Speaker 2: Kenny tried to steady his thoughts and select his words
Speaker 2: for when Paul called back. Forty one years earlier, in
Speaker 2: July of nineteen seventy nine, Paul's mother, Dolores Marie Wolf,
Speaker 2: vanished from her home in Woodland, California, a quiet suburb
Speaker 2: of Sacramento, about an hour's drive from Benetia. She was
Speaker 2: never seen or heard from again. That's why when Paul
Speaker 2: called Kenny back, it was a conversation that neither man
Speaker 2: will ever forget.
Speaker 3: I think it was about five minutes later he called
Speaker 3: me back and he goes, hey, Kenny. The first words
Speaker 3: out of my mouth were, Paul, we found your mom.
Speaker 2: My name is Kyle Bonnagera.
Speaker 4: And I'm Adam Rittenberg. This is a story about a
Speaker 4: woman's disappearance, but it's really the story of a search,
Speaker 4: a relentless pursuit by a relentless group of people.
Speaker 5: I said, Wolf, you killed her. I know what everybody
Speaker 5: else knows it.
Speaker 6: We're going to start a holy rain of hell on him.
Speaker 5: You can tell me, or was the police tomorrow? Was
Speaker 5: she that? Or I can blow your head off.
Speaker 4: But without finding Dolores would there ever be justice or closure?
Speaker 4: Would her story fade into the night, just like she
Speaker 4: did in nineteen seventy nine. Four decades later, one phone
Speaker 4: call would change everything. From Free Range Productions This is
Speaker 4: the Unforgotten Season three, Finding Dolores Wolf, Episode one, Life
Speaker 4: of the Party.
Speaker 2: The first time I heard Kenny Hart tell the story
Speaker 2: of how he found Delores Wolf, he was in the
Speaker 2: same chair where he made that call to Paul. It
Speaker 2: was the fall of twenty twenty, and Adam Rittenberg, my
Speaker 2: college at ESPN, and I were on zoom, completely captivated
Speaker 2: by what he was telling us. Kenny wore a blue
Speaker 2: polo shirt with an embroidered badge that read Sergeant Venetia Police.
Speaker 2: Behind him, a corkboard showed photos of his family, one
Speaker 2: of him in uniform, and a black and white photo
Speaker 2: of a woman with dark hair and a big smile.
Speaker 2: Adam and I saw it immediately. This was Dolores Wolf.
Speaker 2: We didn't know it back then, but Dolores's story would
Speaker 2: pull us in unlike anything we had reported on before.
Speaker 4: Kyle and I spent the next ten months working on
Speaker 4: a piece for ESPN dot com focused on Paul Wolf,
Speaker 4: the college football coach. Our story was published in August
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty one, but Kyle and I couldn't stop
Speaker 4: talking about it. We were captivated by the events that
Speaker 4: led to Kenny's call to Paul, and by all of
Speaker 4: the people connected to this case. We wanted to tell
Speaker 4: the complete story of what happened to Dolores, her disappearance,
Speaker 4: the search for her, and the incredible events that occurred
Speaker 4: in the years that followed. We will do that over
Speaker 4: the course of this podcast. The center of the story
Speaker 4: is Woodland, California. Technically a Sacramento suburb, Woodland has always
Speaker 4: had its own identity. Nicknamed the City of Trees in
Speaker 4: the nineteen thirties, it's a place where Victorian homes and
Speaker 4: old oaks line the streets. Woodland had some dense pockets
Speaker 4: of homes and businesses, but it's also surrounded by a
Speaker 4: vast agricultural area filled with farms and ranches where fertile
Speaker 4: fields yield almonds, alfalfa, pistachios, and other crops. Woodland is
Speaker 4: where Dolores Wolf was born and raised. It's where she
Speaker 4: would then build a life that revolved around her four
Speaker 4: kids and a large family, and it's where she disappeared
Speaker 4: from on the night of July thirty first, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: To fully understand Dolores and her life in Woodland, you
Speaker 4: have to begin with her family's journey. They were people
Speaker 4: who chose to travel halfway across the world for a
Speaker 4: chance at a new beginning and ultimately the American dream.
Speaker 4: In nineteen seventeen, Frank Roacha, Doloris's father, and one of
Speaker 4: his brothers, left the Azores, a small chain of islands
Speaker 4: off the coast of Portugal, on a steamship to come
Speaker 4: to America. Settling in northern California, they became dairy farmers
Speaker 4: and grew alfalfa outside Woodland. Frank married a woman named Mary,
Speaker 4: and on November fourth, nineteen thirty three, they had their
Speaker 4: second child, naming her Dolores Marie. Here's Dolores's son, Paul.
Speaker 7: And again she grew up not speaking English. I had
Speaker 7: to learn the language somewhere around that first second third grade.
Speaker 7: So you know, her and her siblings always got put
Speaker 7: behind the years just because they're raised only speaking Portuguese.
Speaker 4: De Laurus grew especially close to her youngest brother, Matthew,
Speaker 4: who later in life became known as Slick.
Speaker 5: She's about four or five years older than I, and
Speaker 5: she would read down in their comic books to me.
Speaker 5: We were real typed both like the joke and clown around.
Speaker 8: I remember one time I was walking by the middle
Speaker 8: bathroom that most people use, and she's stand in front
Speaker 8: of the mirror and she knows them coming and she's
Speaker 8: looking in the mirror and she.
Speaker 5: Said, you're beautiful. You're gorgeous. You may be the most
Speaker 5: beautiful woman in the world. I said, knock off that crap.
Speaker 4: Several days later, Slick positioned himself in front of the
Speaker 4: same mirror and waited for his big sister to pass by.
Speaker 5: That did wow, you are one good looking dude.
Speaker 8: But she's laughing and she go through on a corner.
Speaker 8: Did she stick to her head backer on a corner?
Speaker 8: And she says, is that mirror lying to you again?
Speaker 4: Slick became an elite athlete in the area. Many thought
Speaker 4: he could have gone pro and baseball. Dolores, meanwhile, wasn't
Speaker 4: a natural in sports, but one time she convinced her
Speaker 4: brother to come to one of her basketball games.
Speaker 5: He said, I'm the star of the team that says
Speaker 5: you gotta come watch me play. I go watch you play.
Speaker 5: H cramp. Well, I'll watch girls basketball. So I went
Speaker 5: out there. He never got it in a game.
Speaker 4: Deloris grew up in the Portuguese community, but she did
Speaker 4: not end up with a man of Portuguese descent. She
Speaker 4: met Carl Wolf in the Sacramento area. He was a
Speaker 4: large man, maybe six foot one too, twenty two hundred
Speaker 4: and thirty pounds, with dark hair. He had grown up
Speaker 4: on a farm in Minnesota without running water, and had
Speaker 4: moved to California shortly after high school. They were married
Speaker 4: in nineteen fifty five at a Catholic church in Davis,
Speaker 4: followed by a two week honeymoon back to Minnesota. Carl
Speaker 4: made a good initial impression on Dolores's large family. Here's
Speaker 4: Delors's cousin, Tony Roache.
Speaker 9: He was very nice as I remember him. You know,
Speaker 9: he'd gone the driveway, we'd be all playing basketball. He'd
Speaker 9: come out and play basketball with you, stuff like that.
Speaker 6: So he was really well lived.
Speaker 4: The couple's first child was born in nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 4: and they also named him Carl, but everyone would call
Speaker 4: him Carly, and for the purpose of clarity in this podcast,
Speaker 4: so will we. Their daughter, Anna Marie, was born in
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty nine, and as far as anyone could tell,
Speaker 4: Carl and Dolores Wolf were a happy couple growing a
Speaker 4: family together. Tom was born in nineteen sixty three and
Speaker 4: finally Paul in nineteen sixty seven. Here's Tom.
Speaker 10: She was the best mother anybody could ever want. Her
Speaker 10: kids were always perfect, and that's how I grew up.
Speaker 10: We were always treated with her doing nothing but being
Speaker 10: positive and praising us and lifting us up. I truly
Speaker 10: believed I was great because of her. She was in
Speaker 10: the middle of everything we did. Now, before I drove,
Speaker 10: she was going to pick us up at the end
Speaker 10: of basketball practice or football practice or something like that.
Speaker 10: We figured we'd wait for an hour or two before
Speaker 10: she made it because she was always late, and we
Speaker 10: just learned how to live with that. That was just
Speaker 10: her nature.
Speaker 4: This is Delaur's nephew, David.
Speaker 11: I remember she was always smiling, always laughing, would pretty
Speaker 11: much do anything that we wanted as kids. If we
Speaker 11: wanted to go to McDonald's, she was the one that
Speaker 11: would take us.
Speaker 6: If I was.
Speaker 7: Going to spend the night over there.
Speaker 11: She was always for it, and she was always in
Speaker 11: a good mood, at least when I was around.
Speaker 4: After Deloris's kids grew older, she took a job as
Speaker 4: a secretary to the principal of Woodland High School, and
Speaker 4: she got to know everyone from the football team to
Speaker 4: the faculty to the cheerleaders. Most kids went to great
Speaker 4: lengths to avoid the principal's office, but they came to
Speaker 4: see Dolores. Here's Tom.
Speaker 12: The troublemakers loved her. The troublemakers were the ones that
Speaker 12: were in the office, and so she would deal with them. Yeah,
Speaker 12: some of my best friends were the troublemakers, and partially
Speaker 12: because they loved her and how that whole relationship was.
Speaker 4: The laws also remained very connected to her Portuguese roots.
Speaker 4: She served as president of the Yolo Cabrillo Civic Club,
Speaker 4: which raised scholarship money for high school students of Portuguese descent,
Speaker 4: and made sure her children understood their heritage. Here's Paul.
Speaker 7: We would always go to Portuguese functions, whether there are
Speaker 7: relatives or just they always have Portuguese feet. They call
Speaker 7: soapas feed, which is this disgusting orange soup with bread
Speaker 7: and I would never touch that crap. But we'd have
Speaker 7: all these things where we'd go to or the Cabrilla Club,
Speaker 7: which were local Portuguese functions that we were involved in,
Speaker 7: and you know, you do dances and those types of
Speaker 7: things as a child, We do all that stuff.
Speaker 4: When we talk with members of her family, they all
Speaker 4: describe to Laurus the same way, warm, funny, and devoted
Speaker 4: to her family and community. Maybe this is naive of us,
Speaker 4: but when we think of someone who disappears, we often
Speaker 4: imagine them isolated, unprotected, and vulnerable. The Laurus Wolf seem
Speaker 4: to have a strong support system around her. But there
Speaker 4: was another side to Dolores's life, a depressing reality she
Speaker 4: dealt with in private and occasionally in public. This is
Speaker 4: her sister in law Janet.
Speaker 13: She always had chokes. She was very humorous, but then
Speaker 13: she had such a terrible sadness and crying over her
Speaker 13: life with Carl Wolf.
Speaker 4: As Janet alluded to, the warmth and laughter that defined
Speaker 4: Dolores's life, masked something much darker. After the break, Kyle
Speaker 4: will pull back the curtain to reveal the private torment
Speaker 4: she endured.
Speaker 2: No one in the family we spoke to could pinpoint
Speaker 2: when exactly the marriage started to unravel, but Janet remembers
Speaker 2: episodes of Dolores crying about how Carl treated her as
Speaker 2: far back as nineteen sixty three when they were pregnant.
Speaker 2: At the same time, this would have been when Dolores
Speaker 2: was pregnant with Tom, her third kid. Things got progressively
Speaker 2: worse as Carl's business has faltered. First there was a
Speaker 2: gas station in town, then a U haul business attached
Speaker 2: to it. Those ventures had mixed results but ultimately failed.
Speaker 2: As that happened, Carl started drinking more heavily, and those
Speaker 2: on the roach of side began to worry about his behavior.
Speaker 9: My other cousin name also Carl. It was Carl Shu
Speaker 9: that he was my mom's nephew. He worked for Carl
Speaker 9: Wolf at the station. And Carl had went in and
Speaker 9: he used the bathkeroot while he was working his shift,
Speaker 9: and he noticed a hole in the wall and he
Speaker 9: glassed up there and he just thought, oh, I'm sure
Speaker 9: it's nothing. And he looked and he realized that you
Speaker 9: could see right into the office of the station through
Speaker 9: that hole.
Speaker 2: What Tony is suggesting here is that Carl was using
Speaker 2: the hole to act as a peeping tom.
Speaker 9: That was clearly a sign that we're dealing with somebody
Speaker 9: that wasn't right.
Speaker 2: Another woman we spoke with, who's now eighty years old
Speaker 2: and didn't want to be recorded for this podcast, told
Speaker 2: us her husband worked part time at the gas station.
Speaker 2: One day he saw Carl push Delores up against a
Speaker 2: wall of the station. The man confronted Carl about his
Speaker 2: treatment of Dolores, but was told to quote mind his
Speaker 2: own business. He never returned to work a day for
Speaker 2: Carl Wolf again and didn't even collect his final paycheck.
Speaker 2: Carl just had a way of making people around him
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable. After the gas station failed, Carl began working
Speaker 2: at the Farm Bureau of Insurance company in Woodland, where
Speaker 2: he pursued his female secretary despite her clear rejection. She
Speaker 2: would tell police that Carl parked outside her home to
Speaker 2: watch her and that she eventually quit her job to
Speaker 2: get away from him. Here's dozen Debbie Baker.
Speaker 14: We would be over there and we'd spend the night,
Speaker 14: and we'd be sitting on the couch and watching TV,
Speaker 14: and the boys had gone and taken their shower bath
Speaker 14: in Each one of the boys would come out in
Speaker 14: their underwear. We were all kids. But then Wolf would
Speaker 14: come out too in his underwear and it wasn't boxers,
Speaker 14: it was you know, and I seeing a grown man
Speaker 14: and you're a kid in him dress like that, So
Speaker 14: he was a strange person.
Speaker 2: On another occasion, Debbie, who was twenty three when Dolores
Speaker 2: went missing, was getting ready to take a bath at
Speaker 2: the wolf House, but Carl tried to make her do
Speaker 2: it with the door open.
Speaker 14: He tried it with me that I couldn't close the door,
Speaker 14: and then I, I'm not going to get in the bathtub,
Speaker 14: and I closed the door, and I think I locked
Speaker 14: it because I was afraid.
Speaker 2: Debbie also remembered Carl's drinking, something she witnessed firsthand.
Speaker 14: Above the ovens. There was a cupboard in he had
Speaker 14: vodka bottles, and he'd pull that out and just drink
Speaker 14: straight out of the bottle.
Speaker 2: Despite the story about the gas station incident, no one
Speaker 2: in the family was aware of any kind of physical
Speaker 2: abuse from Carl. If Carl was hitting Dolores, she never
Speaker 2: told anyone, and there was no obvious signs, bruises or
Speaker 2: anything like that. But that wasn't the case for Tom.
Speaker 2: He took a lot of physical abuse, so.
Speaker 6: We got into fights.
Speaker 10: I didn't have much of a chance against him physically
Speaker 10: at the time, so I didn't get very far. I
Speaker 10: just kind of took a beating, and then towards the
Speaker 10: end where I started to fight back. Then we got
Speaker 10: into some pretty tough ones. And the worst one was
Speaker 10: I got hit across the side of the head and
Speaker 10: it popped my ear drum and had to have minor
Speaker 10: surgery on that to fix that.
Speaker 2: When Carl and Dolores would get into arguments, it was
Speaker 2: common for her to call her brother Slick. He would
Speaker 2: come and get her and she would stay with him
Speaker 2: and Janet for a while as things cooled off.
Speaker 5: Well, one time she caught me up and how long
Speaker 5: before this has happened? To go get her? And I
Speaker 5: went and get her, and I was believe in he.
Speaker 6: Gethered at her.
Speaker 8: I'm going to kill you. I didn't think much of that.
Speaker 8: I felt like I was a whimp. No, I didn't
Speaker 8: say anything. I should have said, this has haunted me.
Speaker 8: I should have said right then and there, if she dies,
Speaker 8: you died, is what I should have said, But I
Speaker 8: didn't say anything.
Speaker 2: On one occasion, Dolores stayed with Slick for about a month.
Speaker 2: Then one day he returned home and saw her walking
Speaker 2: out with her luggage.
Speaker 8: Said, well, are you gone, Jiff, I'm going to go home.
Speaker 8: I say you can stay here, shif. I don't care
Speaker 8: if you stay here for the rest of your lives,
Speaker 8: and she says no, Let's see if I can work
Speaker 8: it out.
Speaker 2: The pattern went on for years. Carl and Dolores would fight,
Speaker 2: one of them would leave, They would stay away for
Speaker 2: days or weeks, then try to reconcile. In April of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, it had gotten so bad at home
Speaker 2: that Dolores didn't just leave for a relative's place. She
Speaker 2: got her own apartment in town about five miles away,
Speaker 2: But all that seemed to do was make things worse.
Speaker 2: There was a consensus among the family that Carl felt
Speaker 2: so enraged by the idea of divorce and being forced
Speaker 2: to split their marital assets that dolores is moving out
Speaker 2: had the effect of an animal being backed into a corner.
Speaker 2: Cousin Tony lived in the same apartment complex Dolores moved to,
Speaker 2: and one night he received a call from his sister
Speaker 2: Mary asking him if he could go to the Little
Speaker 2: League fields because Carl had used an ice pick to
Speaker 2: pop the tires on Dolores's car. Dolores's son, Carly, was
Speaker 2: already there, but he could use an extra pair of hands.
Speaker 6: And I said, yeah, I'll help him. Tide to drive
Speaker 6: all over. I helped him. He had to go pick
Speaker 6: up tires and because she only had one spare and
Speaker 6: we fixed them all. Well, we'll get ready to leave.
Speaker 6: I go, Carl, you can go home. He's going back stampace.
Speaker 6: I'm going. I'll follow her back, make sure she gets
Speaker 6: to her apartment.
Speaker 2: When Tony arrived at the complex, Carl was waiting in
Speaker 2: the parking lot.
Speaker 6: Dolaws had just pulled into her parking spot.
Speaker 9: So I put my car on part and I went
Speaker 9: running towards her apartment. Because after she ran, he followed her.
Speaker 9: As back when you're twenty two years old and athletic.
Speaker 9: I beat Carl to the door, and he immediately stopped
Speaker 9: and started backpedaling.
Speaker 6: And I said, get the you know what out of here,
Speaker 6: wolf and you guys are crazy. I just want to
Speaker 6: talk to him.
Speaker 2: This came just after the family suspected Carl of trying
Speaker 2: to poison Dolores.
Speaker 9: She gave him a key to her apartment and at
Speaker 9: one point he put kerosene in her mouth.
Speaker 6: And the reason we know it was kerosene because she
Speaker 6: just smelled it.
Speaker 9: And then she gave it to my sister married and
Speaker 9: she worked at the health department. She took it helps
Speaker 9: one had to test it and it was confirmed to
Speaker 9: be kerosene.
Speaker 2: For me, this story was something that I've always had
Speaker 2: a tough time trying to, you know, to understand, because
Speaker 2: even if they didn't believe Carl was going to go
Speaker 2: through with his threats, the fact that there was Ki
Speaker 2: seen in her milk felt like a clear attempt to
Speaker 2: kill Dolores. I don't know how else you could look
Speaker 2: at that and come to any other conclusion.
Speaker 4: Right, it shows a level of sophistication beyond a drunk eye,
Speaker 4: you know, just kind of rambling and making threats, sometimes
Speaker 4: not drunk and more direct. But this is a clear attempt,
Speaker 4: like you said, and you know it was brazen. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was something that I think could have been traced
Speaker 4: back to Carl Wolf, but also maybe provides a peek
Speaker 4: inside what he was thinking and how he was plotting
Speaker 4: to actually have this as an option to get rid
Speaker 4: of his wife as opposed to you know, just the
Speaker 4: just the verbal threats against their life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a level of premeditation to this, but I
Speaker 2: think that's really important when you're talking about a potential
Speaker 2: murder a disappearance. In some cases, if there's an accident,
Speaker 2: you could try to explain it another way, But you
Speaker 2: can't explain this If there's kirascene in milk. It was
Speaker 2: clearly put there by a person with the intent to
Speaker 2: do harm and to do nothing about that after it
Speaker 2: was found. There's really not a good explanation for that
Speaker 2: part either.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, other than the fact that Dolores just had
Speaker 4: this block against taking the next step going to the
Speaker 4: police filling out a full report about all the threats
Speaker 4: that Karl had made against her. But to me, Kyle,
Speaker 4: it makes me again think about her family not taking
Speaker 4: him seriously. How could you not take him seriously after
Speaker 4: this was uncovered, that he wasn't just a drunk making threats,
Speaker 4: that he wasn't just a guy who wanted to avoid
Speaker 4: a divorce settlement, That this guy was actually capable of
Speaker 4: doing something extreme, and yet nothing happened from that point.
Speaker 4: I think that's probably the most difficult part for her family.
Speaker 2: Even after he busted Tom's eardrum, Dolores made up a
Speaker 2: story to tell the doctors that the injury occurred when
Speaker 2: Tom jumped into a pool. She always resisted further action
Speaker 2: against Carl, even though she had people ready to act.
Speaker 9: Is always saying, I don't want you to tell none
Speaker 9: of the guys because I don't want the guys to
Speaker 9: confront Carlo.
Speaker 6: So they were always trying their best.
Speaker 9: To keep her happy because they were worried that he
Speaker 9: would take it out on her. And yeah, at that
Speaker 9: point it was clear that there was major problems and
Speaker 9: that he did have girlfriends.
Speaker 6: And at that point.
Speaker 9: Is when us guys started talking and Delors would beg it.
Speaker 9: You'd say, please, don't go beat Carl up, because I'll
Speaker 9: be honest with you. There were people in the family
Speaker 9: that wanted to do harm, you know, and at least
Speaker 9: make a threat that if you go too far, this
Speaker 9: is gonna happen. Delus begged us, never, never, never to
Speaker 9: do it. You know, he'll never hurt me. She beg
Speaker 9: and beg and beg, and so and every would tell
Speaker 9: us today, out of their business, Yeah, out of their business.
Speaker 2: So we did with people like Slick or Janet or
Speaker 2: Debbie Floris was open about the horror her husband put
Speaker 2: her through, but she always seemed to hold on to
Speaker 2: hope that things could get better, that things could be tolerable.
Speaker 2: This was clearly a symptom of an abusive relationship, but
Speaker 2: all she wanted to do was focus on raising Tom
Speaker 2: and paul. I drove up to Woodland in February twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five and met Debbie at her home in town.
Speaker 2: We sat down at her kitchen table and over a
Speaker 2: couple hours discussed Dolores's life as her pet cockateal Fred
Speaker 2: tripped away in the background. May twenty fourth, nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine is a date Debbie remembers well. It was a
Speaker 2: Thursday night, just before her birthday, and the TV show
Speaker 2: Barney b. Jones was on at ten pm on Thursdays.
Speaker 2: Her older brother had just gotten out of the Navy,
Speaker 2: and she got into an argument with him about who
Speaker 2: had controlled the TV. That night, Debbie went to bed
Speaker 2: and then a little bit before ten o'clock the phone.
Speaker 14: Rang and it was Dolores. Since she was very upset,
Speaker 14: she begged me. She goes, will you come over because
Speaker 14: Wolfe had called her, and she goes, I'm afraid he's
Speaker 14: going to show up or something, But would you come over?
Speaker 14: And I said yes, and I got dressed went over there.
Speaker 14: So it was about ten or so around that time,
Speaker 14: and we're sitting there talking and I was on the
Speaker 14: couch and she was in a chair cause for me
Speaker 14: and I start hearing like the jangle of keys, and
Speaker 14: then I looked and I could see the doorknob was
Speaker 14: moving a little bit. So when I saw the door moving,
Speaker 14: I went over and looked through the people and I
Speaker 14: could see it was him, and I said, Dolors isn't alone.
Speaker 14: I'm here, and then he goes, well, let me talk
Speaker 14: to you. I want to tell my side of the story.
Speaker 14: And I asked Delais and she let him in. So
Speaker 14: I opened the door let him in, and he sat
Speaker 14: on the couch next to me, and he was just
Speaker 14: saying that she needed to come back because her kids
Speaker 14: needed her and all that, and I think I mentioned
Speaker 14: divorce and he put his finger in my face, looking
Speaker 14: at me straight in the eye, and he goes, I
Speaker 14: will see her dead before she gets my property or
Speaker 14: my kids. And I said, you're threatening to kill her,
Speaker 14: and he goes yes, And I mean every word I say,
Speaker 14: and he left shortly after. Dolores was scared to death.
Speaker 11: In the moment.
Speaker 6: Did it feel like the threat was real or did
Speaker 6: it feel like.
Speaker 11: It was just him talking and trying scared.
Speaker 14: No, I really thought he would do it because of
Speaker 14: the different things he was doing following her around. I
Speaker 14: don't know how to explain it, but it was like
Speaker 14: I could see it in his eyes.
Speaker 6: He meant it.
Speaker 14: And I'm not the best at analyzing people, but it
Speaker 14: scared me, and you know, it worried me a lot.
Speaker 14: And then a few days later, she moves back at
Speaker 14: the house and she I believes that. My mom asked,
Speaker 14: why did you go back? And she goes because he
Speaker 14: ignores me when I'm at home. She felt safe for
Speaker 14: being at home with him, and she missed Paul and Tom.
Speaker 14: She was he wouldn't let her see it the kids.
Speaker 2: Debbie was one of several family members who heard Carl
Speaker 2: make threats. There was one in particular that still haunts
Speaker 2: Dolores's sister in law, Janet more than four decades later.
Speaker 13: When they were in dispute, Dolores told me, he's telling
Speaker 13: me he's going to kill me, and I believe him.
Speaker 13: I said, Oh, Dolores, you know when it's yourself, you
Speaker 13: don't know people like that in the family. I said,
Speaker 13: I can't believe he could actually do that. I couldn't
Speaker 13: believe he could.
Speaker 5: Do that to her.
Speaker 13: But then he starts coming to talk to me and
Speaker 13: bringing the boys over, and he said, I'm going to
Speaker 13: kill her. And I said, Carl, you can't possibly mean
Speaker 13: that I'm going to kill I said, and then she'll
Speaker 13: be gone. You'll be in jail, and what the kids,
Speaker 13: What are you going to do?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 13: I know a way to do it and not get caught.
Speaker 2: The threats and the tension were building into the hot
Speaker 2: summer of nineteen seventy nine. After the break, Adam will
Speaker 2: tell you about when everything boiled over.
Speaker 4: On a Sunday afternoon in late July nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 4: about one hundred people gathered in the parish hall of
Speaker 4: Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Woodland. They were there to
Speaker 4: celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Antone and Anna de
Speaker 4: Laurus' uncle and aunt. We tracked down some Super eight
Speaker 4: film of the party, a three minute silent clip that
Speaker 4: offered a rare glimpse into Dolores' World. The guests sat
Speaker 4: at tables covered with white tablecloths and drank from styrofoam cups.
Speaker 4: About halfway through the footage, De Laurus appeared in a
Speaker 4: bright blue dress, a white flower in her dark hair,
Speaker 4: standing next to her father, with cousin Tony holding his
Speaker 4: infant daughter nearby.
Speaker 6: Well had at Blath my parents' fiftieth.
Speaker 9: Well, it gives on a hall full of Portuguese people,
Speaker 9: basically a few, but we had a great time.
Speaker 4: The night before, Dolores had helped make sandwiches with some
Speaker 4: of her cousins and arrived early the next morning to
Speaker 4: set up with Debbie, who had collected some seven up
Speaker 4: bottles for centerpieces.
Speaker 14: And we wrapped them in gold foil and made up
Speaker 14: and we were putting daisies in there. Delors and I
Speaker 14: were in the bathroom and the only people there were Delores,
Speaker 14: my mom and I and my mom was in the
Speaker 14: hall and Delorse goes, I'm going to be an opera singer.
Speaker 14: And she starts singing like she's at the opera, and
Speaker 14: my mom comes in and she goes, God, there are
Speaker 14: moose calls, and we just started laughing. But see that's
Speaker 14: how Dlorus was Delaurus couldn't make anybody laugh her personality.
Speaker 14: You know, you could be at a funeral and Delorus
Speaker 14: could come in and make everybody laugh.
Speaker 4: Dolores's outgoing personality was on display throughout the party. She
Speaker 4: flashed her big, toothy smile as she enjoyed time with
Speaker 4: her family. Woodland was the type of place at that
Speaker 4: time where the local newspaper, the Woodland Daily Democrat, published
Speaker 4: a brief story with a large headline and photo about
Speaker 4: the party, listing many of the family members in attendance.
Speaker 4: Tony remembers everyone having a good time, but off to
Speaker 4: the side, a man stood alone, tending the bar but
Speaker 4: not really talking to anyone. Carl Wolf didn't look like
Speaker 4: someone who wanted to be there.
Speaker 9: The whole time Wolf bartending. They had a bar set up.
Speaker 9: You could tell they're on the outs, you know, he's
Speaker 9: behind the bar the whole time to Lordship Oh, mingling
Speaker 9: with all the family, and he's behind that bar, and
Speaker 9: he's not leaving behind that bar because I think at
Speaker 9: this point he kind of felt.
Speaker 6: Like an outcast. So I didn't go up to the bar,
Speaker 6: but everybody else did.
Speaker 9: But you could tell right dyl and there glance and
Speaker 9: watching that they were on the outs. They were on
Speaker 9: the outs big time, because yeah, I don't even know
Speaker 9: if they even talked up. They didn't drive there together.
Speaker 9: I know that for a fact.
Speaker 4: The party marked the celebration of Antone and ant and
Speaker 4: their marriage, but for Dolores it provided a brief reprieve
Speaker 4: from her own. She had moved out of the house
Speaker 4: on the outskirts of Woodland a few months earlier, and
Speaker 4: had only recently returned to be under the same roof
Speaker 4: as Tom and Paul, who were then sixteen and twelve.
Speaker 4: Carly and Anna Marie had moved out but lived nearby.
Speaker 4: The Wolves were in marriage counseling, but the problems in
Speaker 4: their home weren't going away. Carl had threatened to kill
Speaker 4: her multiple times, both Dolores's face and in front of
Speaker 4: her family. Those threats had been mostly written off as
Speaker 4: the ramblings of a spiraling alcoholic, but Dolores expressed real concern,
Speaker 4: especially when talking with her sister in law Janet Oh.
Speaker 6: She said it more than one. Well, she would be.
Speaker 15: Over there, staying with the two boys. They told me
Speaker 15: he was threatened to kill her. I mean I'd stay
Speaker 15: up at night with her. The letter talked, and that
Speaker 15: was when it first started thought. She said to me,
Speaker 15: if that happened, you can't care my boy. The sort
Speaker 15: of of course, they said, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 4: Delorus was a devout Catholic and the idea of divorce
Speaker 4: was still taboo for some in the church. Even if
Speaker 4: she knew in her heart that her marriage was over
Speaker 4: and expressed that to others, she felt a looming sense
Speaker 4: of obligation to try and salvage things. Before Dolores moved
Speaker 4: back in with Carl and the two boys, she had
Speaker 4: actually filed for divorce, but it was something not many
Speaker 4: people knew.
Speaker 14: We were having a good time at the party, and
Speaker 14: later on he wanted to go home, and so she
Speaker 14: finally went because he was demanding, and he can make
Speaker 14: it the whole party miserable if he wanted to.
Speaker 4: Dolorus went home with Carl, but she soon returned to
Speaker 4: Debbie's house to pick up some leftover sandwiches from the party.
Speaker 14: They had a big fight at home before she came home,
Speaker 14: so that's why she came late. And she parked across
Speaker 14: the street and she had her bags of sandwiches, and
Speaker 14: I walked her to her car because she asked me
Speaker 14: to because she was afraid. She didn't like to dart.
Speaker 14: And I walked her to her car and I stood there.
Speaker 14: She drove away, and I stood there and watched her
Speaker 14: till she turned the corner. And that's the last time
Speaker 14: I ever saw her.
Speaker 4: That was a Sunday night. Two days later, Woodland was
Speaker 4: sweltering in the summer heat. By late afternoon, temperatures had
Speaker 4: soared into the high nineties. In a marriage counseling session
Speaker 4: at four point thirty at the church, the laws indicated
Speaker 4: things with Carl were going well, but he did not agree.
Speaker 4: Carl told the therapist that he was disappointed with the
Speaker 4: state of their marriage, but they did not discuss the
Speaker 4: threats he had been making or anything that made the
Speaker 4: therapist concerned about the loris as well being. Carlin Deloris
Speaker 4: drove separately to the counseling appointment. When it was over,
Speaker 4: Carl swung by the grocery store to pick up bread
Speaker 4: and milk. When he got home, he mowed the lawn.
Speaker 4: Neither of the kids who lived at home was home
Speaker 4: that night. Tom the sixteen year old, was away at
Speaker 4: a week long basketball camp in the Bay Area, and
Speaker 4: Paul was spending the night at Uncle Slick in Aunt
Speaker 4: Janet's house celebrating his cousin David's thirteenth birthday. That left
Speaker 4: Carl and Dolores alone. What happened that night would change
Speaker 4: a family forever. While the details of exactly what happened
Speaker 4: will likely never be truly understood, one thing was clear.
Speaker 4: By the next morning, Delorus Wolf was gone.
Speaker 2: This season on Finding Dolores Wolf right.
Speaker 5: Away, I just said, my dad did it.
Speaker 6: Everything we could do to make his life for them,
Speaker 6: we were doing it.
Speaker 7: I've been involved in a lot of crazy things, but
Speaker 7: at the end of the day, still your father in jail.
Speaker 6: I gotta get him out of jail pretty soon. I'm
Speaker 6: on a stance and I'm just accused of the murderer.
Speaker 6: How on the hell we get.
Speaker 14: To this point?
Speaker 4: The Unforgotten is a Free Range production. Season three, Finding
Speaker 4: Dolores Wolf is written and hosted by Kyle Bonagura and
Speaker 4: me Adam Rittenberg. The story is edited and produced by
Speaker 4: Wes Ferguson, the executive producer at Free Range. Audio editing
Speaker 4: by Aislan Gaddis, audio production and sound design by Austin
Speaker 4: Sissler with East Side studios in Austin, Texas. Special thanks
Speaker 4: to ESPN