FL FL - Dorothy Schofield, 14, Ocala, 22 July 1976

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Dorothy Delilah Schofield Missing since July 22, 1976 from Ocala, FL

Dorothy Delilah Schofield
Missing since July 22, 1976 from Ocala, Marion County, Florida.
Classification: Non-Family Abduction

Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: January 8, 1964
Age at Time of Disappearance: 12 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'11; 100 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Brown, straight hair; blue eyes. Scofield wears eyeglasses; at the time of her disappearance, she was wearing teardrop-shaped frames.

Clothing: A red short-sleeved form-fitting shirt, blue jeans, a leather belt with a metal buckle, and green tennis shoes. Her glasses had gold wire rims.

Dentals: Her incisor tooth slightly covers her upper front tooth. One of her teeth was missing at the time of her disappearance.
Circumstances of Disappearance
Scofield and her mother went to a shopping mall together in Ocala, Florida on July 22, 1976. They went their separate ways once at the mall and agreed to meet later at a designated location; Scofield never arrived and has not been seen since. She was last seen at approximately 2:00 PM in the center.

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Ocala Police Department, Detective Mike Balken, 352-629-8508 or
352-369-7070

Agency Case Number: O76072084
NCIC Number: M-085578070
The Doe Network: Case File 363DFFL
Source Information:
The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
Florida Department Of Law Enforcement


Link:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/363dffl.html
 
Was Fred Howard Coffey ever known to be in that area? It seems so similar to the Lyon sisters.
 
Comparisons were made to the disapparance of the Lyon sisters but nothing was ever proven. The Scofield family was experiencing financial difficulties at the time. Dorothy ("DeeDee"), her parents, and her older brother had just moved to FL from a Columbus OH suburb to live with DeeDee's married sister, her husband, and their two kids in a mobile home. The family had just opened a barbacue shack at the tme of DeeDee's disappearance. DeeDee was described as an extremely bright, serious young lady. The father stated that most people felt she left on her own.
 
mere said:
Was Fred Howard Coffey ever known to be in that area? It seems so similar to the Lyon sisters.
I do not know if Fred was in Florida in 1976. After his sudden departure from Maryland in July 1975, He was known to be in Virginia Beach, Va by Oct 1975. Later that year or early in 1976 he was in North Carolina, where he joined a National Guard artillery unit. He had family in Bristol, VA and probably spent some time there as well.

Ocala, Florida is between Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando. It would be interesting to know if the NC National Guard did any summer drills or training in the Florida area.

The physical resemblence between Sheila Lyon and Dorothy Schofield is amazing. The girls were of similar age, size, weight, hair and eye color. Both wore wire rim glasses and were said to be very intelligent and studious. Dorothy's clothing was of similar style and color to that of Kate Lyon (who went missing at the same time as Sheila). All three girls were born in Ohio.

The circumstances of their respective disappearances are also very similar. Both cases involved probable abductions from shopping malls in midweek, during daylight hours. Time that the girls were last seen in both cases was aproximately 2PM. No one witnessed any actual abduction take place.

The only thing missing in the summary of Dorothy's disappearance is any mention of a "Tape Recorder Man".
 
The disappearance of Dorothy, more commonly known as "DeeDee", has often been compared to the disappearance of the Lyon sisters from a mall in Maryland. However, in my research, I have come up with an alternate theory...

Christopher Wilder is a well-known serial killer who often used his knowledge of photography as a lure for pretty young girls and women, especially in the Florida area. Wilder was the son of a US military member and his Australian wife. At the age of 17, Wilder was preosecuted for his part in the gang-rape of a young girl. Wilder immigrated from Australia to the US in 1969, settling in Florida. He began a lucrative and successful contracting company, and later got into real estate. The income from these enterprises gave him the financial freedom to pursue his interest in photography. His known criminal career in the US began in March of '71, when he propositioned women in Pompano Beach to pose for nude photographs. In 1977, Wilder was arrested for forcing a teenager at a home he was renovating to have sex with him. A jury later aquitted him of the attack. In 1980, Wilder approached two girls at a shopping mall, claiming he was looking for models to photograph. One of the girls went with Wilder and was raped. For this attack, he got probation. Wilder then returned to Australia, where he was suspected in the attack on two girls at a beach there. The case never made it to trial. Wilder returned to the Florida, and in early March of '84 became a suspect in the disappearance of teacher Elizabeth Kenyon. Upon finding out he was a suspect in the case, Wilder went on a kidnap-murder spree that covered several states, ending in his suicide-by-cop in New Hampshire. During his cross-country rampage, five of his victims were taken from shopping malls...

Two girls, age 10 and 12, who had been sexually attacked in 1983 in Florida, picked Wilder's picture out of a line-up.

In 1981, Mary Hare and Mary Optiz disappeared from a shopping mall in Ft Myers, Florida. Hare was later found dead, Optiz has never been found. Wilder is strongly suspected in their disappearances.

As I stated in a previous post, the Scofield family was experiencing financial difficulties at the time. DeeDee, her parents, and her older brother had just moved to Florida from a Columbus, Ohio suburb to live with DeeDee's married sister, her husband, and their two kids in a mobile home. The family had just opened a barbacue shack at the tme of DeeDee's disappearance. DeeDee was described as an extremely bright, serious young lady. I believe that DeeDee, knowing her family's financial difficulty, may have been especially susceptible to an offer of easy money by modelling...

This case is also of note due to the unique method that police used to make the missing posters of Dorothy. LE obtained clothes matching exactly those worn by DeeDee on the day she went missing. They then had a young girl matching DeeDee's height and weight wear the clothes for photos used in the missing posters. A photo of Dorothy was then size-matched to the photo, and her head was super-imposed on the picture of the other girl.
 
shadowangel said:
The disappearance of Dorothy, more commonly known as "DeeDee", has often been compared to the disappearance of the Lyon sisters from a mall in Maryland. However, in my research, I have come up with an alternate theory... Christopher Wilder ...
Fascinating information about Wilder. Thanks for posting it. Has a study been done concerning where each known or suspected Wilder victim was abducted, where they were taken, and where bodies were dumped? Perhaps such a study might indicate some possible search locations for Dorothy and other missing girls.

Wilder has been mentioned on other threads as a possible suspect. Is there any information available on his travels outside the state of Florida?
 
Other than the trip to Australia, it is believed he stayed in Florida until his fateful cross-country kidnap-murder rampage. One thing of note about Wilder is the lack of any pattern in his violence. When given the time, he liked to torture with electricity-having created a special wire instrument just for that reason (during his incarceration in Australia at the age of 17, he was given shock treatments and decided it would be a great method of torturing his victims). During his final spree, he grabbed girls wherever he could (having a penchant for malls), and disposed of them as was convenient.

He most often approached girls using the ruse of being a photographer looking for models to put on film. Wilder earned the nickname "The Beauty Queen Killer" for his choice of victims...This is one of the primary reasons that Tammy Leppert is believed to be a victim of Wilder's.

Wilder is known to have a penchant for large older-model American-made cars. A Caddilac tied him to the disappearance of Kenyon, and just prior to his spree he purchased a large Chrysler.

Some of his known victims have never been found, and he has been linked to several other missing girls. However, some of the missing cases he has been linked to are much less likely, such as "Cali" from upstate NY (Wilder was tied to this case due to his love of racing, and "Cali" was found wearing a jacket which was a racing promotional item). However, Wilder himself was a driver who raced his Porsche at a track near his home in Florida.

I ordered a couple of books on Wilder, when I have had time to properly peruse them I will post more on his known activities.
 
I found this story in microfilm files. Were these murders ever tied to a known individual? What were the other cases mentioned? Did they continue? It was in mid 1974 that Zodiac seemed to have stopped killing in California and may have moved elsewhere. The reference to a California investigator and the belief that these were the work of someone traveling from west to east might be significant. Zodiac did not re-appear in California until 1978.
-----------------------------------
From the Washington Post 29 August 1975
Page A - 3 Around the Nation
Killings Tied Together in South Florida

Miami - As many as five of South Florida's 10 unsolved slayings of young women this year (1975) may have been committed by the same murderer, Dade County's assistant medical examiner said he believes.

"The similarities , at least in my mind,. make me feel they were most probably by the same assailant." Dr. Ronald Wright said yesterday.

There is another theory that at least two of those sex slayings might be conneted to 33 other similar killings in five Western states.

Detective Charles Mussoline of the Dade County homicide unit said he was operating on the theory that the killings last month of Ronnie Gorlin, 27, and Elyse Rapp, 21, were committed by the same man. And he said he and Sgt Erwin Carlstedt of Sonoma County, California, were developing a theory that those two were perpetrated by one man as he journeyed from west to east.

Wright said he believed the Gorlin and Rapp murders were the work of the same person who abducted Barbara Stephens, 23, from a South Dade County shopping center in February (1975) and stabbed her to death.

He also said the double murder in June of two 14-year-old Hollywood, Fla., junior high school classmates - Belinda Zeterower and Barbara Schreiber - were connected with the other three.

"The medical examiner's office has a certain responsibility to the public to warn the people of dangers in the environment, " Wright said. "This guy is a danger in the environment."

"I want all young women in Dade and Broward Counties to know what I told my wife. If you're shopping and find something wrong with your car, run screaming in the other direction."

Police believe that the Gorlin and Rapp women were approached by a man who flattened their tires in a parking lot, then appeared offering to help them repair them.
 
Does anyone know who the suspect is in the Marjorie Christian Luna and Tammy Lynn Belanger cases is, and could he be connected to Dorothy's disappearance. I know their abductions were a bit South of hers, but as someone who enjoys buzzing down the coast of Florida, I could see them being connected, even 10 years later.
 
Hollow said:
There is also this case from 1974. Her name was Betty Ann New. I have been unable to find anything else about this murder other than this listing. Scroll down to her case.

http://www.alachuasheriff.org/detective/unsolved_homocides.htm
Betty Ann was 17 years old in September 1974 when she was stabbed to death. I have not seen any other information on the case, but it might be one of the cases referred to in the news article.
 
Bumping this case. Dorothy has been missing for 30 years now. Could her disappearance be related to the disappearance of Maryland's Lyon sisters?
 
Hi
Is there a thread for Dorothy Delilah Scofield here?Also does anyone know from about 1970 to about 1978 any unsolved murders or missing children from around the orlando Florida area during these time periods.

suzanne
 
Hi
Is there a thread for Dorothy Delilah Scofield here?Also does anyone know from about 1970 to about 1978 any unsolved murders or missing children from around the orlando Florida area during these time periods.

suzanne

There was a thread for Dorothy started in March of 2006. If you go to search at the top of the forum and type in her name it will take you where you can see the original thread. I would recommend if you have anything to post, to do it on the original thread. There were never any replies to tht initial post. Here is a search I did from the missing and exploied childrens website, the link will take you to the search criteria going abck 30 years in the Orlando area.

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseSearchServlet
 
Hi
Were there any newspaper articles written on Dorothy Scofield over the years?Also do they have a discription on the man the witness saw her with?

suzanne
 
Hi
Ok,Thankyou.It didn't come up for me.The reason I am asking for this or any unsolved or solved murders or missing children in this time frame in or around Orlando,Florida is when I was growing up in around the Orlando area in Florida ln 1970 to about 1978 (I don't remember the exact year this happened)I was walking home and I was in my drive way and a man in a car parked in front of my house said to me your mommy is hurt or sick she is in the hospital come with me.I remember thinking she worked at the hospital so maybe he was confused.I walked in my house and locked all the doors and called my mom at her work at the hospital.she was ok and I told her about what happened.I don't remember what she did about it.I am older now and I know more about all these kind of things,Missing persons ect...I am wondering if this man ever used this line and ever hurt someone after he tried to get me in his car.It just has always bothered me.I remember what he said and what I think I remember he looks like and the expression on his face.


suzanne
 
"I want all young women in Dade and Broward Counties to know what I told my wife. If you're shopping and find something wrong with your car, run screaming in the other direction."

Police believe that the Gorlin and Rapp women were approached by a man who flattened their tires in a parking lot, then appeared offering to help them repair them.

I live in southern IL, and this reminded me of something. Within the last year or so we had a guy flattening tires and approaching the woman driver offering to change their tire. This was happening in the Alton/Wood River/Edwardsville IL area. Not sure what became of this, and the only reason I heard about it is because this was happening in the parking lot of a couple different Walgreens. An e-mail was sent out to all of the stores in the district, including the one I work at. From what I heard/read, the person responsible was doing it for money and thankfully, nobody was attacked.
 

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