Father of slain California college student testifies in murder hearing. He found her ‘not moving’
The father of Fresno State student Debbie Dorian — who was found slain in her apartment 27 years ago — testified Tuesday that he became concerned when his normally punctual daughter failed to show up for a trip they had planned to Sacramento.
Peter Dorian called her repeatedly, but they never connected. Worried, he drove to her north Fresno apartment. When he walked up the stairs to her second-floor apartment, he noticed the front door slightly open. He called her name several times, but no one answered.
“Then,” he said in court, ”I became even more concerned.”
Peter Dorian was the first witness called Tuesday in the preliminary hearing of Nickey Duane Stane of Visalia. The 56-year-old Stane is charged with raping and murdering the 22-year-old Dorian along with a series of sexual assaults in Visalia from 1999 to 2002.
Dorian chose not to look in Stane’s direction as he recounted finding his daughter in the bedroom of her apartment on Aug. 22, 1996.
Peter Dorian discovers daughter’s body
When Chief Deputy District Attorney Deborah Miller asked Dorian what he saw when he entered his daughter’s room, he paused, looked at the floor, swallowed hard and said:
“She was laying on the floor, not moving, not able to speak.”
Her mouth and nose had been taped shut as were her hands and ankles. She was wearing a T-shirt that had been pulled up over her breasts and she had nothing on her lower half.
“It was so shocking to me, but I knew I had to maintain my composure and not fall apart,” he said.
Dorian said he ran out of the apartment to get help.
One of the first sheriff’s deputies to arrive was David Case. He also went into the apartment and recalled seeing the television on and a half-eaten sandwich with some potato chips on a plate on the couch.
Case testified it was clear Dorian was not alive.
At the time, detectives exhausted all their leads and the case remained unsolved until the fall of 2019 when advances in technology, including DNA analysis, helped investigators zero in on Stane. DNA found in Dorian’s apartment was a match to one of the Tulare County cases involving Stane in Visalia.
Although Stane is charged with crimes in two separate counties, the Fresno County District Attorney’s office is handling the prosecution of Stane, who is defended by Jane Boulger.
Charges include sexual assaults in Visalia
At least four women in Visalia allege Stane sexually assaulted them. One of the women, who was identified as Jane Doe 4, told prosecutor Kaitlin Drake that she was waiting for a city bus at about 6:30 a.m. in January 2002 when a strange man approached her.
The stranger was dressed in all black and covered his face with a mask and his hooded sweatshirt. She said she was the only one at the bus stop that foggy morning.
As she turned and looked for the bus, she said the stranger came up next to her. Spooked by his presence, she tried to walk away.
“I started to leave but he told me that if I gave one more step he would shoot me,” she said. “He lifted his shirt and it seemed like he had a gun.”
He demanded she move closer to him and then told her to lift her shirt and her bra. She complied, saying she was afraid he was going to hurt her.
The stranger began fondling her breasts with his hands as Jane Doe 4 stood there in shock and in fear of her life.
As the bus approached, the stranger fled, she said. She boarded the bus, shaking and crying and told the bus driver what happened. The bus driver reported the incident to police.
If convicted on all charges, Stane faces life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Miller said the district attorney’s office has not made a decision if it is pursuing the death penalty.
The preliminary hearing continues Wednesday in Dept. 54.
