SAN DIEGO — This weekend, CBS’s 48 Hours takes a deep dive into the murder case involving Valley Center mother, Jane Dorotik. She spent 20 years in prison before her conviction for murdering her husband was overturned.
“I was very impressed with her. I found her very credible,” said 48 Hours correspondent, Erin Moriarty.
48 Hours first interviewed Dorotik in 2000 when the mother of three was out on bail and charged with murdering her husband, Bob Dorotik.
The husband was found bludgeoned and strangled in a wooded area near the family's ranch in Valley Center.
Dorotik told police her husband went out for a jog on February 13, 2000, and never returned. Prosecutors argued he was killed in the family’s home, inside the bedroom, and that the wife moved her husband’s body to where it was found.
“She had been married for years. They had separated once in the past. And prosecutors were saying since she was the main breadwinner that she did not want to pay alimony. That was the motive that they, at least, told the jury,” said Moriarty.
Dorotik was convicted and spent 20 years in prison. But new DNA testing on evidence in the case led to Dorotik's murder conviction being overturned.
“There was a rope found around her husband's neck. Her DNA should have been on there if, in fact, she had used it. It was not there. There was foreign male DNA that wasn't identified,” said Moriarty. “The victim had DNA under his fingernail that, again, did not match his wife's.”
Defense attorneys said blood evidence found in the couple's bedroom was either never tested or, if it was the victim's blood, it could have been deposited there by a recent nosebleed.
“I was at the trial when the prosecutor said all this blood we sent out for DNA, all that we're going to show you, we sent out for DNA testing. And it comes back to Bob Dorotik. And now we know from new testing that just simply wasn't the case,” said Moriarty.
To be fair, experts confirmed some of the blood in the bedroom to be Bob Dorotik's, including a bloody syringe found in the master bathroom with Jane Dorotik's fingerprint on it.
“So, what they told the jury is oh my gosh, this is a syringe that had horse tranquilizer. And they insinuated at trial that it had been used to, you know, subdue him. The problem was, there was no evidence that Bob had been injected with anything,” said Moriarty.
In May 2022, after a year-long preliminary hearing and on the eve of Dorotik's retrial, the San Diego County District Attorney's office abruptly dropped all charges. The judge dismissed the case, without prejudice.
“I spent 20 years in prison for a crime I did not commit,” Jane Dorotik told 48 Hours. “I thought truth and justice was at the front of everything, and it certainly has not been in my case.”
Dorotik filed a lawsuit against the County of San Diego in 2023, which is still pending in federal court.
48 Hours "The Troubled Case Against Jane Dorotik" airs Saturday, March 30 at 10 p.m. on CBS 8.
Sneak peek: The Troubled Case Against Jane Dorotik