Mrs. Wyler later gave the following statement to Dorothy:
Mrs. Allison worked by providing description, of people, places, and things, that she felt were relevant to the case. To further aid us, she went through three hours of detailed questioning under hypnosis which was taped for later reference. It is necessary to interpret her material and for this she collaborated with the Civil Air Patrol units, the state police, and knowledgeable local citizens. She also spent ten days hiking in the mountains working with these groups, our two sons, and me. Early in July she predicted that if the plane was not found by July 15, it would be found on December 9, as it was.
The affidavit goes on to say that "the plane made a U-turn" in Dorothy's description, and when found, the plane was heading west, not east, as it should have been heading; she reported the plane "leaving a trail, and the tail of the plane separated from the plane," whereas it had indeed crashed through the trees, leaving a trail of plane parts and belongings over a 350-yard path. Dorothy saw "cotton candy all over the ground," and the night it crashed the weather reports indicated the site was shrouded in fog. "I see checkered jackets," Dorothy had reported. Both men were wearing checkered jackets. "The men aren't together," she said. Only one man was found in the plane, the other having been blown some twenty feet away by the impact.
During one of the early hypnosis sessions Dorothy was told to get in a car and drive toward the wreck from New York City. Mrs. Wyler reports that "through questioning we led her through New Jersey en route to Pennsylvania, where we were convinced the plane had gone down. Mrs. Allison strongly objected to leaving New Jersey. Had we allowed her to follow her own instincts and questioned her more skillfully as to her reasons for wanting to stay in New Jersey, perhaps we could have found the plane earlier."
While in central Pennsylvania Dorothy had gotten some feelings about Patty Hearst. She felt Patty was somewhere in the area, somewhere in Pennsylvania. She insisted upon calling the FBI agent in San Francisco who was in charge of the Hearst case. From the state police office in Holli-daysburg Dorothy reported to the agent that Patty was in Pennsylvania in a farmhouse, not in California as they felt. He accepted the information and gave her the name of an agent in Johnstown whom she could call if she got anything more specific. She did contact the Johnstown agent, calling him at home at 2:00 A.M., reporting to the sleeping agent that she was a psychic and that she felt strongly about Patty Hearst being in the area.
"What?" the dubious agent asked. "You saw Patty Hearst in Hollidaysburg?"
"No, I didn't say I did. I said I feel she is in Pennsylvania, not California. I see her in my head," Dorothy explained.
"Are you for real lady? How did you get my number?" His voice did not hide his agitation.
Dorothy gave him the name of the agent in San Francisco. "He said to call you if I felt anything about Patty being in the area," Dorothy said, not pleased at the credibility problem.
"You live in Hollidaysburg?" the agent asked.
"No, I don't live here. I'm looking for two bodies and a missing airplane. I live in New Jersey."
The thoroughly confused agent said he would check with headquarters the next morning. He quickly said good-bye and hung up.
Months later it was discovered that Patty Hearst had been in Pennsylvania at the time of Dorothy's call. However Dorothy had no way of knowing whether the agent she had spoken to had ever acted on her call.
On December 9, Ruth Wyler called Dorothy to say that the remains of the airplane and the two men had been found not in Pennsylvania, but in Morris County, New Jersey, in an area very much like that described by Dorothy during hypnosis. A hunter trekking through the woods half a mile south of Jefferson Township Middle School had found the plane's wreckage unburned, as Dorothy had envisioned.
Ruth Wyler expressed her thanks and allegiance to Dorothy and her work.
"You've put my mind at ease," Dorothy told Mrs. Wyler. "Not bad marksmanship, finding the plane on the day I predicted. My stars are in a good place today."
Dorothy felt terrific that week as she prepared for the holidays. Articles appeared in the papers from Altoona to Nutley claiming that Dorothy's predictions had been corroborated five months after the plane had crashed.
The next day Dorothy was pleased to find a letter from Catherine Hearst thanking her for the St. Anthony statue the psychic had sent as a gift. She thanked her, as well, for the efforts she had made in the investigation. The mother of the still-missing girl expressed her faith in God and the hope that Patty would be found alive, as Dorothy insisted. Dorothy continued to work on the Hearst case with New York FBI Agent Bob McDowell.
On Friday, December 13, Dorothy took Justine and Paul for an early dinner and some shopping at the neighboring Bloomfield shopping center. Thousands of pre-Christmas shoppers prowled through the stores, bumping into one another with the resignation of the inevitable.
While Dorothy and her children pranced around the mall, fate prepared to alter the life of another shopper that evening.
Francis Carlucci, a heavyset, quiet, unassuming mother of four from Colonia, New Jersey, was shopping with her daughters Justine and Doreen, and Doreen's new girl friend, Jeanne Delardo. Francis moved slowly and patiently after a long day of work as a nurse at Rahway Hospital, thinking about the presents she had yet to buy for her children, husband, and parents.
Joe Carlucci, her husband, had taken their two sons for haircuts, and would retrieve the women at an appointed spot. Joe Carlucci, a machinist for fifteen years, had worked closely with his wife to raise a family who believed in God and the freedoms that their country offered. Religion formed a strong foundation for the Carlucci family: that foundation's strength would soon be tested.
The night was clear and crisp. Everyone's mind was on gifts and holiday spirits and the tree that was to be picked out on Sunday.
When the family arrived back at their split-level home, Doreen, fourteen years old, and her friend Joanne, fifteen, discussed evening plans while the rest of the family unpacked purchases and talked about the exciting things they had seen in the stores.
Doreen stood at the kitchen phone, leaning on the Formica counter, checking with friends about the evening's recreation, mindlessly doodling on a note pad a cartoon of shoes and feet. Of medium height and attractively slim, Doreen was feeling particularly good because she had just had her long, dark hair cut into a more modern short style, like her girl friends'. She wanted to show it off that night.
Bright, compassionate, and artistic, Doreen had a niche in her heart for the underdog; she had befriended one or two boyfriends whom others felt were undesirable. A student at Colonia Junior High, her grades were very good and her participation in school activities enthusiastic. She had become friends with Joanne, who lived several blocks away and was a year ahead of her in school, through Joanne's sixteen-year-old brother, Joseph. A junior in high school, Joseph liked Doreen and had visited the Carlucci house on several occasions. Friday, December 13, was the first time Joanne had ever visited the Carlucci house, and was the last time Francis and Joe saw either girl alive.
The girls decided to go to the Delardo house to watch a Christmas special on the Delardos' color television. Francis called Jeannette Delardo, whom she had never met, to see if it was okay with her.
"No problem," Mrs. Delardo said. "I'll be home all evening. Doreen's welcome here."
Francis told Doreen that 11:00 P.M. was the latest she could be out. She kissed her daughter on the forehead and went back to wrapping presents.
Doreen and Joanne watched the television special and then walked the eight blocks to St. John Vianney Church where a coffeehouse called Shalom House was sponsored on weekends to give the teen-agers a place to get together.
At 11:15, Francis called the Delardos to find out whether Doreen had left for home yet. She found that her daughter had gone to the Shalom House, and the girls were expected home momentarily. At 11:45, Francis got into her car and drove to the church, where teen-agers were tal
king in the parking lot.
Two friends of Doreen's reported that they had last seen the two girls sitting on the steps, eating ice cream. That was at around 10:00 P.M. No one had seen them since. No one knew where they were heading, or if they had any plans.
At 4:00 A.M., Francis and Joe phoned the Woodbridge Police Department to report their missing child. Francis, normally a quiet worrier, had to stop several times during the policeman's questioning to stifle the rush of tears. The police reported they had not heard of any problems in the area.
On Friday, December 20, Detective Salvatore Lubertazzi sat in the Nutley Police Department thinking that the clock was crawling at a snail's pace. "What could be accomplished in the next hour," he wondered, "before splitting for home?"
Christmas always had its freak emergencies; incidents of vandalism and theft also ran higher than at other times of the year. The holiday season always brought out the difficulties in life, with Santas on every comer as reminders of loneliness and economic strife. The detective smiled, recalling a Santa they had picked up for pickpocketing people who were standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. He had turned out to be a bald former Hare Krishna follower.
A call did come that Lubertazzi, known as Lupo, had to handle: a call that would lead the shy Italian down on a trail of frustration, sadness, and discovery.
The call came from Nutley resident Elaine DeMars, who lived with her husband, John, and their two little boys in a quiet, well-to-do neighborhood. The woman's voice was nervous but contained. She had never had occasion to call the police before.
Lupo listened while the woman explained that her husband, an upstanding citizen, a man of reliability, an officer of the Chemical Bank of New York, was missing.
"He calls if he's going to be five minutes late," the twenty-six-year-old wife said. "It doesn't stand to reason that he would stay out late at a friend's without letting me know."
Six feet three inches tall, weighing over two hundred pounds, John DeMars lived his life with regularity and reason. A man of habit, he parked his car each morning at the Delawanna Station in Nutley, rode the Erie Lackawanna Railway to Hoboken, where he picked up the PATH train to the Church Street stop, four blocks from his Chemical Bank branch. The same route, in reverse, was repeated each evening, getting him home between 6:30 and 7:00 P.M.
With only half of their Christmas shopping done, and tree ornaments still sitting in the box ready to adorn the tree, Elaine DeMars sat anxiously as the minutes and hours passed and still no word from her husband came.
By 10:00 she had called every possible friend or bank acquaintance, looking for her husband. Two friends who had lunched with him said he had talked about bowling that night. She also found out from his secretary that he had left the office full of holiday spirit, saying he was looking forward to playing with his kids over the weekend. That was the last time anyone reported having talked to him.
Lupo went to the DeMars home where he took down the information from Elaine DeMars and John DeMar's mother and brother-in-law, a deacon in the diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. When they had finished talking, Lupo thought to himself that the description of the missing man given by the family made him think a saint was missing, not a mortal.
John DeMars was an unlikely candidate for the many possible explanations the detectives had to pursue: a 1966 Rutgers graduate, a former intelligence officer in Vietnam, assistant manager of commercial accounts at Chemical Bank, a district deputy of the Knights of Columbus and a past Grand Knight of Council 6159, plus the father of two boys. A man like John DeMars would be difficult to lose between the cracks.
Investigatory agencies, like all bureaucracies, observe weekends and holidays to some degree. If a person is reported missing on Friday, the wheels of the investigation do not begin to turn until Monday. It is also standard procedure to wait twenty-four hours before full-scale investigation begins on a case; in many instances a missing person shows up, having forgotten to mention a prior engagement or having been lost in someone's arms.
Beginning Monday morning, Deputy Chief Salvatore Dimichino coordinated the efforts of his men, the newspaper, television, and radio stations. Chief Buel put the investigation in his charge, asking for a daily report on his findings. Each evening Dimichino would sit with Lupo, analyzing the steps that had been covered that day, taking in the phone calls of people reporting having seen the man whose photo appeared in newspapers throughout the New Jersey and New York metropolitan area.
After five days of investigation they had come up with nothing more than the clockwork routine of a man who seldom, if ever, was deflected from his daily course. Dimichino was baffled as he heard about the hundreds of interviews his men conducted in Nutley, in the subway stations, on the train platform, and the train itself, without a single clue to the man's whereabouts.
A missing person stops time and alters life irrevocably for the family. Suddenly a phone ringing becomes a symbol, one that Francis Carlucci, Jeannette Delardo, and Elaine DeMars listened for constantly in tearful hope that the next call would be the familiar voice that resounded in their dreams, in their prayers, in their every waking moment. Waiting for the unknown to be disclosed is torture to thousands each year whose family members are reported missing.
Each evening Lupo sat with the DeMars family and gave them a progress report. Passengers on the train were being questioned, he told them, as well as cabdrivers. Some commuters recognized the photograph of DeMars, having silently traveled with him to and from Manhattan, briefly acknowledging one another over newspapers and briefcases. The conductor and train personnel had also been questioned and all recognized DeMars, but no one confirmed his having been on the train that evening.
"If Mr. DeMars left 199 Church Street at four-thirty P.M., then he would have been at the World Trade Center subway station in time to catch the five-oh-five PATH train for Hoboken," Lupo explained. "But there was a delay in the PATH that night, so he had to take a later train, and would have been on the five-twenty Erie Lackawanna."
A PATH official confirmed that there had been a ten-minute delay in service on that line during the December 20 rush hour because of equipment problems.
Possibilities of kidnapping were investigated thoroughly, since any bank official has access to material and information that might provoke a crime. Bank records and notes afforded no explanations for the police, as well DeMars' files were in perfect order and no money had been removed from his own account apart from the usual weekend fare.
Lupo's heart weighed heavily each time he left the De-Mars home. A Christmas tree sat in their living room, unlit and simply decorated; no presents were visible. Expecting her husband to walk in at any time, Elaine DeMars had decided to leave the tree ready for celebration.
Each evening Lupo went home to Ms wife, Phyllis, and their five children. A detective with a great store of compassion and an unprepossessing manner, Lupo spent much of his time wondering how so much suffering existed in the world.
As a child growing up in Nutley, he had experienced anti-Italian feelings that lingered still in his reticent, if not shy, demeanor. Underneath his facade remained a hard core of skepticism, however, that would soon be tested by Dorothy.
The day before Christmas, at 8:30 that chilly morning, Dorothy received a call from Francis Carlucci. The hushed-voiced woman from Colonia explained that one of Dorothy's neighbors, whom Dorothy had never met, was an old school chum of hers and had reported to her that Dorothy had psychic abilities. The tearful caller wondered whether Dorothy might have a moment to spend with her as her daughter had been missing with her fifteen-year-old-old girl friend since Friday, December 13.
"She had no reason to run away." Francis's tone was adamant after weeks of listening to police theorize and insist that her daughter had, indeed, run away. She had pointed out that the girl's $50.00 in Christmas money still sat on her dresser.
Dorothy believed the mother. She could feel instantly that the girls had not run away. She could
not tell if they were still living, but her inclination weighed heavily toward the belief that they were dead.
"Could we come up and see you, Mrs. Allison?" Francis Carlucci asked. "Whenever is good for you."
"Would you wait till Thursday so I can spend Christmas with my family? I'm having twenty-seven people for dinner tomorrow. Anyway, you should spend tomorrow thanking God you have other beautiful children," Dorothy advised.
Francis didn't know what to say. Had she mentioned her other children to the psychic?
"Also," Dorothy said, "bring one or two articles belonging to the girls. You know, a necklace or a glove, or better yet, something they loved wearing. And bring the exact time of birth for both girls. Be sure it's the exact moment. That's very important," the psychic instructed.
Francis thanked Dorothy and told her that her prayers would include her. A Roman Catholic, Francis's faith in God was being tested beyond any of her prior experiences. A woman who spent her days caring for the sick and her evenings tending and loving her family was a sadly ironic candidate for the tragedy she and her family were suffering.
Dorothy Allison - A Psychic Story Page 9