https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2025/03/06/word-of-her-murder-surprised-a-woman-living-in-bowie/81651162007/?taid=67c9954e57ec2100013bdb69&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Mark Twain once said, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
Dorothia Diaz might say the same thing.
Dorothia was unaware until late February that she was the subject of a cold case search by a California coroner’s team which thought she had been murdered half a century ago.
Dorothia, 76, assured the Times Record News on Wednesday she had not been murdered.
DNA obtained from the remains of a woman found dead in an abandoned mineshaft in the Mojave Desert in 1976 sent retired coroner David Van Norman on a genetic safari to identify the woman. By process of elimination, he concluded the murder victim was most likely Dorothy Riddick, whose family was from the Wichita Falls-Henrietta area.
An article about his search in the Times Record News connected Van Norman to a Henrietta family. That connection in turn led him to Dorothia, his missing link who was still alive and well and living in Bowie.