DEFENSE SAYS EVIDENCE UNRELIABLE AGAINST WOMAN IN MURDER CASE
New hearing is set to begin for Jane Dorotik; husband killed in 2000
More than two decades after Jane Dorotik was convicted of murdering her husband in Valley Center, her defense lawyers say that critical crime scene and forensic evidence against her is now wholly unreliable and should not be used against her.
The contention from lawyers for the Project for the Innocent at Loyola Law School came on the eve of a scheduled hearing where prosecutors with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office will once again try to prove Dorotik, now 74, guilty. Doubts about DNA evidence have resulted in the new trial.
In a series of motions filed last week, defense lawyers say that a vial of blood belonging to her husband Bob Dorotik — evidence crucial to the case against Jane Dorotik — was missing and can’t be accounted for during the time Sheriff’s Department investigators were searching the Dorotik home for blood evidence.
Also, the defense said that a key witness, a now-retired criminalist
for the department, can’t be trusted or allowed to testify because the prosecution’s own expert recently concluded his work analyzing blood spatter evidence and reconstructing the crime scene “did not meet the standards of practice” for such forensic work at the time he did it in 2000.
The defense is asking a judge to ban him from testifying at a preliminary hearing, set to begin today. It could last as long as two weeks.
The defense also wants blood and DNA evidence that were critical at the first trial kept out of the hearing. In a detailed motion, lawyers said that new information, some of it uncovered as recently as December, shows significant gaps in the chain of custody — the record of the collection, control and analysis of evidence in a criminal investigation.
Those gaps “have completely and forever decimated the reli
nor appeared wrapped in the Luxembourg flag, the duo jokingly asked where the country is located.
The show’s announcers called the obstacle course faced by the 10 contestant couples on the April 15 broadcast “the most challenging ‘Wipeout’ zone in history.”
Before being propelled 20 feet into the air from the cannon, Kaitlyn revealed, show workers had “slimed” her body with a slippery gel. She landed in a pool of freezing cold water and had to continue through the gantlet.
“I was nervous to get shot out of the cannon, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she told me the morning after the show aired.
The San Diegans confronted a series of three
obstacle courses as the elimination rounds progressed. The challenges bore daunting names such as body blender, jigglelator, sweep and weep, pummel pool, revolving french fries, messy mile and silver bullet.
“The most challenging event for me,” says Connor, “was the second obstacle course drop onto a spinning beam.” The giant lollipop spinner revolved faster and faster while he prepared to jump to another platform that was a long distance down and very slippery, he explained.
When not working out about two hours a day, Kaitlyn works as a design consultant for Marrow Fine, a Del Mar jeweler that specializes in engagement rings.
Connor sells real estate from his Compass office in La Jolla and is involved in an investment venture with his brother to buy and renovate properties, then rent them. In fact, the couple plan to
invest their $25,000 “Wipeout” prize money in a rental property purchase.
“I grew up watching ‘Wipeout’ as a kid and seeing the commercials and always thinking it looked so cool. It’s so surreal that they brought it back,” Kaitlyn says. She received a call from one of the show’s producers after her sister recommended her as a contestant.
In spite of all their leaping, slipping, grabbing and being pummeled, they emerged relatively unbruised, she reports. Both call the experience fun and would love to tackle the course again if “Wipeout” stages an all-star version.
“Hands down the greatest athletic accomplishment of my life,” Kaitlyn announced to her Instagram followers. “Clearing the ‘Wipeout’ big (inflated) balls was truly a dream come true.”