Monday, July 19, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Missing woman case a mystery after two years

Police suspect daughter killed her, motivated by beliefs related to Manson family slayings

Ruby Dorman's last shift ended much like every one before it.

The 78-year-old buffet hostess clocked out at the Flamingo Laughlin, changed her clothes and walked to the parking garage. She always parked on the fifth floor.

Later that day, Dorman's white Honda Accord sat outside her home. Her purse and keys were inside the car, but Dorman was nowhere to be found.

That was two Easters ago. No one has seen her since.

"It's really kind of a mystery. This lady just disappeared off the face of the Earth," said George Sherwood, the Las Vegas homicide detective leading the case.

Police have no trace of Dorman, but they have a suspect: her daughter, 46-year-old Juliann White. Her motive, police said, was a long-simmering hatred of her mother that was fueled by her belief that Dorman had White's aunt killed by the Manson family.

"We suspect Juliann," Sherwood said. "We just can't prove it."

White has denied any involvement in Dorman's disappearance. Attempts to reach her last week were unsuccessful.

The day Dorman disappeared, she clocked out at 2:26 p.m. Police believe she got home about 2:45 p.m., although her commute might have taken a few extra minutes because of the Laughlin River Run.

That morning White, a hairdresser, showed up at Dorman's house after calling Dorman's roommate and asking for directions, police said. Detectives believe mother and daughter drove to an unknown location after Dorman came home.

Dorman's roommate, Jane Rugge, had been asleep when Dorman came home, but she told police she awoke about 4:50 p.m. when White pulled up in Dorman's Honda. White was alone, police said.

Rugge watched White park the car, walk to her Jeep Cherokee and drive away, police said.

Dorman's disappearance started as a missing persons case before being transferred to homicide.

Investigators scoured the Honda for evidence. They searched the depths of Lake Mead. They combed the desert around Laughlin. They hoped to find a body, a clue, something, but each time they found nothing.

"We don't have a body and we don't have a crime scene," Sherwood said. "We do have a kook who tells a different story every time we talk to her."

The reference is to White. The woman has a history of mental illness and has blamed Dorman for everything wrong with her life, Sherwood said.

Fueling her hatred was White's belief that Dorman orchestrated the slaying of a woman she claimed was her aunt, Rosemary LaBianca, he said.

In August 1969, LaBianca and her husband, Leno, were murdered in their home by members of the Manson family.

In a letter to Los Angeles police White wrote that Rosemary LaBianca, her father's sister, wanted to "adopt me as to save me." When an attempt by Dorman's then-husband to adopt White fell through, Dorman "made the decision to get even with Rosemary LaBianca," police said.

White believed Dorman instructed her husband to give the LaBianca address to the Manson family, according to police.

However, no connection to Dorman ever surfaced during the investigation or trial of family members.

Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted the cases and wrote the best-selling book "Helter Skelter," said, "I'm not aware of anyone with the name Ruby Dorman being associated with the family."

Bugliosi put forth the idea that Charles Manson orchestrated the LaBianca and other slayings in an attempt to spark a racial war that he called Helter Skelter.

On the morning after the slayings, White wrote in a letter to Los Angeles police, her mother read the newspaper in Las Vegas and let out a "phony scream" that "held falseness."

"I knew that by tolerating her evil presence I would eventually get each and every detail about the day my aunt was slain," White wrote. "I now perceive the entire story in its egregious entirely."

Detectives have all but ruled out a voluntary disappearance by Dorman. Credit checks since her vanishing have come up empty, and she had always been the model of consistency, never missing work and keeping the same roommate for 18 years, Sherwood said.

During their investigation, police interviewed White twice. The last time detectives talked to her in January in Carson City, White told them they would never find her again, he said.