Sister's hope wanes, even as detectives plug on

Twenty years after Dottie Rusnak Caylor disappeared from her Concord home, the search for her continues. But it appears her family and authorities are no closer to finding her than they were that warm spring day in 1985.

After the Times published a five-part series on Dottie's disappearance in March 2004, the cold case took on new life. Concord police reopened their investigation, and Dottie's sister, Diane Rusnak, filed a civil suit against her brother-in-law, Jule Caylor, seeking to preserve Dottie's share of the marital estate.

But while police continue to work the case, trying to follow a trail of evidence now two decades old, the civil case has stalled pending the outcome of the police investigation. And Dottie, who would have turned 61 years old in January, is still missing, the truth about her disappearance seemingly no closer to the surface than it was when she slipped into oblivion.

The last reported sighting of Dottie was June 12, 1985, when her husband, Jule Caylor, says he dropped her off at the Pleasant Hill BART station.

Dottie and Jule had had a troubled relationship and marriage, which began as an affair. Jule was married and had a child when he first met Dottie, although Dottie didn't know any of that for several months.

Their marriage was plagued by Jule's infidelity and Dottie's growing insecurities and phobias. While Jule was often gone for weeks at a time, Dottie suffered from agoraphobia -- the fear of open spaces -- that all but imprisoned her in her house.

The betrayals, coupled with one documented case of domestic battering, drove Dottie to transform herself. She began to venture beyond her home. She made friends and joined support groups for women planning life-changing moves. She started talking about her marriage, the emotional abuse she believed she'd suffered, and her plans to divorce Jule.

June 1985 was to be the month that Dottie took her first real step away from Jule. His U.S. Forest Service job in San Francisco had ended and he'd found another position with the agency, based in Utah. He was moving. Dottie was staying.

The investigation into Dottie's disappearance began five days after Jule said he took her to the BART station. The next day, he said, he had discovered her car parked next to his in the BART parking lot. Her purse was inside.

By the time Jule, at the urging of a neighbor, reported Dottie missing, he had packed all of their belongings, repainted the inside of the house and put the three-bedroom home up for rent. When Diane Rusnak learned her sister was missing, nearly everything Dottie owned was being loaded onto a moving van bound for Utah.

Police questioned Dottie's friends and men she had met through a Christian singles' organization. Even though Dottie had left behind everything she owned, including a $5,000 cashier's check, police found no evidence of foul play in her disappearance.

Jule moved to Utah, where he planned to start a new life with a woman he'd proposed to six months before Dottie disappeared. The relationship dissolved when the woman learned about Dottie.

In the years that followed, no one heard a word from Dottie. Her case was relegated to the cold case files in the Concord Police Department.

Then last year, partly spurred by the Times series, Concord police announced they would take another, closer look at Dottie's disappearance, starting the investigation anew. Detective Kurt Messick, lead investigator in the case, says police have interviewed all the original witnesses -- the ones they could locate and those still alive after all these years -- and have expanded the investigation to other witnesses.

In some ways, the past year has been harder on Diane Rusnak than all the others that have stretched between today and the day she learned her only sister was missing.

When Dottie first disappeared, Diane, an artist who lives in West Contra Costa County, held out hope that Dottie had run from an unhappy marriage and would soon resurface.

She kept thinking that Dottie would call. If not today, then tomorrow. And as all the tomorrows merged into 20 years of yesterdays, Diane had held onto the diminished hope that Dottie was safe. That she was happy.

But last year, Diane finally came to accept what those less close to the case had long believed: Dottie was dead.

The realization brought with it a fresh wave of grief and anger. It also led her to push a civil action against Jule to recover and preserve Dottie's estate. She filed a civil lawsuit, asking that Dottie be declared legally dead and that Diane be named executor of the estate. At stake is Dottie's personal property and her share of the Concord home, which Jule has held on to all these years.

Although a judge found evidence that Dottie was dead, the court awaits a finding from the police on the time and manner of her death. Until then, the case sits in limbo.

Diane says she was hopeful, with the renewed attention, that police would finally solve the mystery of Dottie's disappearance. More than a year later, her hopes have waned.

"I assume a lot is going on that I don't know about," Diane says. "I haven't agitated much against the Concord police because I'm trusting them to do everything they can. But as the months go by, I get a strange feeling. When is something going to happen?"

Jule Caylor, who retired from the U.S. Forest Service last year, continues to live in Utah with the woman he describes as his life partner. They've been together nearly 20 years.

Jule, a Libertarian, attempted a run for the Utah state legislature, but withdrew his candidacy after party members learned police were investigating Dottie's disappearance.

At the time of his retirement, he filed for divorce from Dottie, saying she had deserted their marriage. A judge granted the divorce and awarded all the marital property to Jule, but Diane filed suit and the divorce was set aside. The Utah judge ruled that Dottie was dead at the time Jule sought the divorce, so there was no marriage to dissolve.

Jule declined to be interviewed for this story. Via e-mail, he said he had nothing more to say about Dottie's disappearance that he hadn't already said. He repeated his belief that Dottie is alive and in hiding.

"Assuming she has successfully concealed herself thus far, I think it unlikely she will choose to voluntarily disclose her whereabouts any time soon," Jule wrote. "She said she could disappear, and she did it. There is nothing more I can add that is not well documented."

The neighborhood where Jule and Dottie lived doesn't look that different from when the couple called it home. Most front yards blaze with the glory of spring flowers. The trees that were small when Dottie last saw them now tower above the houses, their leaves providing a shady canopy.

Many of the people who lived there 20 years ago have moved on, replaced by new homeowners. Only two of the houses on the street are rentals. More children seem to be living there, longtime residents say.

But while Dottie is gone from the neighborhood, she is not forgotten. Those who knew her say they remember. And they wonder. Will they ever learn what happened?

Dottie Rusnak graduated from Chardon High School in Ohio in 1962 and immediately headed to secretarial school, a choice influenced by her parents who wanted their youngest daughter to have a skill she could use to support herself.

How sad. It doesn't seem likely that she's alive, but I hope they find out what happened. If the husband killed her, he should be prosecuted and convicted.

She was a beautiful young lady. I hope at least they can find her and give her a decent burial. If her husband killed her, I hope they get enough evidence to fry him.

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