We begin today with a fascinating, true life cold case story that teaches us about the power of determination, and how every life matters— even sometimes to strangers. For Dorothy May Strickland, a 17-year-old who vanished one humid summer night in Florida back in 1979, that dust had long settled on her murder. Her skeletal remains, shuffled between labs and storage, sat unidentified and unburied for 45 years until a chain of coincidences that would finally bring her home.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Our remarkable story begins two years ago at Millennium Cremation Service in Vero Beach, Florida. When funeral director Rachel Delashmutt got a call about the skeletal remains of a murdered girl.

Rachel Delashmutt: We received a call from Indian River County Human Services, who they oversee indigent cremations, that we were to pick up the remains of a young woman who was at the medical examiner’s office. After reviewing the paperwork, we found she had been there for over 40 years.

Sharyl: Unusual?

Delashmutt: Very unusual. Very unusual. The death certificate had never been filed as well, which was extremely odd.

Sharyl: What was the name on it?

Delashmutt: Dorothy May Strickland. No family to collect, no family to order a death certificate, no family to write an obituary. We were instructed to hold on for 120 days to the cremated remains and then scatter at sea.

Sharyl: What stopped you from just doing that without anything further?

Delashmutt: It just didn’t feel right. Something inside of me just said, ‘There’s gotta be family. There’s gotta be someone out there that knows her.’

She couldn’t find any obvious trails leading to a local family member of Dorothy Strickland, age 17 when she disappeared. Months later, Delashmutt mentioned the dilemma to a client.

Delashmutt: And just talking, making small talk with her, I told her the story, what we had. And she suggested I reach out to her husband, her husband could maybe help.

The ‘husband’ is Chuck Sullivan, a well-known local attorney with deep roots and connections in Vero Beach.

Sharyl: What did your wife say when she was describing it? Can you kind of remember how she characterized what had happened?

Chuck Sullivan: Well, basically that they had the remains of this poor girl that was murdered years ago. And there was nobody to claim the body. And we, they didn’t, I don’t know if they didn’t know who she was or they didn’t know who her family was. And, and I said, ‘Well, yeah, we can find people.’

Sullivan starting digging into records, databases, and contacted Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers.

Sullivan: And I called him and I said, ‘Hey, you know, we had this case, is there anything you can share with me to help me find it?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’

Sheriff Eric Flowers: So I was at lunch at a local restaurant, and I was approached by Chuck Sullivan. ‘Can you help me get some old records from the sheriff’s office?’ And I said, ‘yeah, of course.’ And so, I reached out to our records section and I said, ‘Hey, you know, whatever Chuck needs, make sure he gets it.’

Any records on Dorothy Strickland’s murder were held here, in the Sheriff’s Cold Case files. In charge of that office another acquaintance of Chuck Sullivan’s, longtime Detective Ed Glaser.

Ed Glaser: So the sheriff calls me and says, ‘Hey, Chuck, you know, who obviously well known in the community is, interested in Strickland.’ ‘I said the only thing I don’t think it’s ever been done and I’ll do it today or start it is looking for her school records.’

Glaser contacted the school system and asked them to look for family contacts by searching records under the name Dorothy Strickland. Dorothy might have attended school in the county. He also thought to ask clerks to look under the name Clowers: the maiden name of Dorothy’s mother, also named Dorothy. And though nothing turned up, that name search turned out to be a fateful and pivotal idea.

Glaser: Probably within a week, maybe, lady calls me from the school system and says, ‘Hey, you know that I just had a gentleman asking for his school records in Indian River County and he used the name Dorothy Clowers as his mother.’ I went, ‘really? You’re kidding me?’ I mean, it’s just so coincidental.

A coincidence almost unbelievable: After 45 years, another caller asking the school system about the same name, Clowers, within a week of Glaser. Between the clerks and his own detective work, Glaser located the caller, on other side of the state, in Lee County, Florida. And called him on the phone.

Glaser: I said, ‘This is Ed Glaser with the Indian River Florida Sheriff’s Office, and I’m doing Cold Case. I gotta ask you one question: Does the name Dorothy Strickland or Dorothy Clowers mean anything to you?’ And literally the phone went really quiet and he, a couple minutes later, not a couple minutes, a couple seconds later, so felt like minutes says ‘She was my baby sister.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ You know, both of us are like, ‘What, what are you calling me for?’ And I’m like, I said, ‘Wait a minute, now we need to slow down. You are— you remember anything about her disappearance?’ And he said, ‘not only am I her brother, but she has two living sisters that live in Cocoa.’

Marvin McDonald: My name is Marvin McDonald.

Sharyl: And what’s your relationship to Dorothy or Dot?

McDonald: I’m her baby brother through by adoption.

Rebecca Clowers: And I’m Rebecca Clowers. I’m her sister.

It just so happened that McDonald called the school district looking for his own records under his mother’s name, Clowers, shortly after Detective Glaser’s call to the school system. His mind reeled as Glaser explained to him that Dorothy’s remains were in Vero Beach.

McDonald: That point on that phone call, it was like an out of body experience almost because it was, it was just weird. It just kind of like opened up old wounds and everything and brought some memories back and stuff. And after that, I called my wife and called my sister and stuff and started letting everybody know what was going on.

Sharyl: Being on the receiving end of that phone call, tell me about that day.

Clowers: I was in shock. I was ‘What, really?’ Nobody has talked about that, you know, ’cause I mean, we look through pictures and stuff like that, but it’s like, we don’t really talk about that, you know? ’cause it was like when we was young. So I guess we just put it outta our mind because it’s been so long and my mom never talked about it.

Their memories of Dorothy’s disappearance in 1979 are fuzzy.

McDonald: I just remember the police were at our house that day and everybody was upset and that’s really all I basically remember from that. And then we was told she was gone. And you know, after that I was, I’m five, you know, so really wasn’t too much else I could do or know.

A scratchy photo is the only image we have of Dorothy today. Piecing together her last moments, Detective Glaser says she’d partied with cousins at a bar in nearby Fort Pierce, hitched a ride home with two men, then decided to go back out after midnight never to return.

Detective Ed Glaser: He seems to remember the pine trees, these

Then, seven months later, in February 1980, hunters stumbled on her skeleton here, partly covered in foliage. The detective who first reported to the scene back then, pointing out the spot for us today.

Michael Brandes/Retired Detective, Indian County Sheriff’s Office: We came back here and they showed me the body. Actually, it was it was just laying in the dirt.

Dorothy’s identity was confirmed through a ring and dental overbite. The family moved on, burying the grief amid subsequent tragedies: two other siblings, also murdered over the years in unrelated incidents. Now, after all this time, Dorothy’s remains are finally in the hands of her loved ones.

McDonald: And I’m just glad that they brought our sister back to our family.

A series of coincidences and determination bringing a long lost sister home to her family 45 years later. Thanks to people who never met her and a funeral director who chose not to bury unanswered questions.

Delashmutt: God’s grace just how everything fell together. Everybody had a part, how everybody had a part in it and how, I mean, it was just amazing how it all just, you know, pieces fell into place where they should have been.

Sharyl (on-camera): As for who murdered 17-year old Dorothy Strickland, the investigation is still open and active, with Detective Glaser on the case.

Watch video here.

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