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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Scottsdale police close decades-old hit-and-run case after suspect identified

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Mayor David D. Ortega, City of Scottsdale | City of Scottsdale website

Mayor David D. Ortega, City of Scottsdale | City of Scottsdale website

On July 29, 1994, a fatal traffic collision occurred in the north area of Scottsdale. The victim, Angela Maher, was a 21-year-old woman who was home from college visiting her mother for her birthday. The evening of her death, she was on her way to Old Town to pick up a friend who had called for a ride home from a local nightclub because they had been drinking. What is sadly ironic about this crime is that while attending Xavier College Preparatory High School, Maher founded a chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD).

Through the course of the investigation, the suspect driver was identified as Gloria Schulze, who was a 31-year-old Scottsdale resident. The investigation revealed Gloria had been drinking and smoking marijuana on the night of the collision. Gloria was charged with manslaughter and three counts of endangerment but fled Arizona before the case went to trial. Gloria's family also claimed they had severed ties with her once she left. No one knew where Gloria had gone.

On May 3, 2001, Gloria was tried in absentia and convicted on all four counts. Scottsdale PD's Vehicular Crimes Reconstruction Unit initially worked the case and attempted to locate Gloria. In 2014, the case was reassigned to a Criminal Investigations Unit detective. That detective worked the case until he retired in 2020 when the case was reassigned to Sr. Analyst Cohen.

Sr. Analyst Cohen continued the investigation and spoke to Gloria's brother. Gloria's brother had received an anonymous phone call that Gloria had passed away from cancer in Yellowknife, Canada. Sr. Analyst Cohen utilized open-source searches on the internet using keywords such as “Yellowknife, Canada,” etc. Through these open-source searches, Sr. Analyst Cohen located an article about a tribute celebration for a woman named Kate Dooley. The article stated Kate Dooley had passed away from cancer on December 1, 2019. The article also contained a photo of Kate Dooley which resembled the age-progressed photo of Gloria Schulze.

Sr. Analyst Cohen contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and was told that Kate Dooley had been arrested in Yellowknife in 2009 for a DUI. Due to the arrest, Canada still had Kate Dooley’s fingerprints on file but they had purged her booking photo and driver's license information due to her death.

Sr. Analyst Cohen then worked with the Scottsdale Crime Lab to send over fingerprints to Canada to confirm Gloria's identity.

Sr. Analyst Cohen then sent the fingerprint card to the FBI who handled the request through INTERPOL. INTERPOL then provided the RCMP with prints for confirmation.

On April 17, 2024, Sr. Analyst Cohen received confirmation of a fingerprint match which confirmed Kate Dooley was indeed Gloria Schulze and she had died on December 1, 2019.

Due to this confirmation of the suspect's identity, this 30-year-old case is now officially closed.

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