Dorothy Gale Brown, an 11-year-old Caucasian female, disappeared on the evening of July 2, 1962, in Torrance, California. She had left her home at the Skylark trailer park around 7 p.m. to ride her bicycle to a nearby car wash to purchase sodas from a vending machine. Her father later found her bicycle parked on its kickstand on 21st Street near Border Avenue, about a block and a half from their home, with no signs of a struggle.
The following day, a 12-year-old girl discovered Dorothy's white dress stuffed into a beer can at Tin Can Beach. Unaware of its significance, her mother laundered the dress before recognizing its importance from news reports and turning it over to the police. Later that day, two skin divers found Dorothy's nude body floating in a kelp bed approximately 150 yards offshore near Corona del Mar. The coroner estimated she had been in the water for six to eight hours and determined the cause of death as asphyxia due to drowning.
Investigators noted similarities between Dorothy's case and that of Karen Lynn Tompkins, another 11-year-old Caucasian female who had disappeared from the same area less than a year earlier. Both girls were of the same age, had blonde hair, and vanished from nearby locations around the same time of day. Despite extensive investigations, including questioning known sex offenders and administering lie detector tests, no arrests were made in connection with Dorothy's murder.
Mack Ray Edwards, a convicted child rapist and serial killer active in California during the 1950s and 1960s, emerged as a suspect in Dorothy's case. Edwards confessed to the murders of six children and was suspected in several other cases, including those of Dorothy Gale Brown and Karen Lynn Tompkins. However, no concrete evidence linked him to Dorothy's death, and he was never charged in connection with her case. Edwards committed suicide in San Quentin State Prison in 1971 while on death row.
As of now, the murder of Dorothy Gale Brown remains unsolved. Her case continues to be one of the oldest unsolved homicides in Orange County, California.
