Episode 159: Linda Dolloff
Jeffrey and Linda Dolloff of Standish, Maine had married in 1998 and had put in a significant amount of time and energy into building their home for themselves. Their home was on Dolloff Road, and the street bordered land that had been in the family for over 100 years. Jeffrey had three daughters from a prior marriage and he was often away from home about four to five nights a week for work as a consultant. He also had a large gun collection with 24 in total, but he made sure that he taught Linda and his daughters about firearm safety and how to use and handle them. Linda was a yoga instructor and she was also working on writing a murder-mystery novel in her free time. She absolutely loved teaching yoga and saw it as a way of life as opposed to just a job, and her yoga studio was in the home that she and Jeffrey built.
Over the almost 12 years they had been married, their marriage became rocky. There had been multiple conversations about them getting a divorce, and Linda and Jeffrey were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Two weeks before the incident, Jeffrey and Linda had come to an agreement about separating from one another. This agreement specified that Jeffrey would provide Linda with a lump sum of money, that she would live in an apartment attached to their home for one year and during this year Jeffrey would pay Linda's bills and expenses related to her car and groceries, and Linda would receive half of the ownership rights to the two properties that they both jointly owned. Jeffrey had later told Linda that he was bringing his girlfriend home to meet his family during an upcoming weekend.
In the early morning hours of April 12th, 2009, at approximately 3:00 a.m., Linda called 911. She told the operator frantically that someone had broken into her home and that the intruder had shot her. She then told the operator that her husband was severely injured.
She stated "My husband's not responding. He shot me, he shot me. Somebody shot me." The dispatcher asked her “Your husband did?" and Linda stated “No, no my husband ... he's in bed. He's not answering me. I just hear this gurgling noise."
When police arrived, Linda was still on the phone with 911, but over the call it can be heard that she had set the phone down and walked away from it for a few minutes. The officers on scene told dispatch to tell Linda to turn on the lights and to come out the front door. After a few minutes, Linda went back to her phone and then came outside, stumbling out of the home and falling onto the porch, hitting her face. Jeffrey and Linda’s dog Zoe also ran out the front door, visibly shaken and scared.
Police found empty bullet casings on the stairs that led up to the second floor, a gun at the top of the stairs, and Jeffrey. He was still in bed but was covered in blood. Near the bed, covered in blood and partially burned, was a softball bat. It was clear that Jeffrey was badly beaten with the bat. Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Jim Estabrook stated “In the open door in the bedroom, ... a body on the bed. And ... it ends up being Jeff Dolloff. He's lying ... with his head at the foot of the bed. He's naked ... he's covered with blood. He was just an absolute mess. ... If we didn't get help to this guy ... he was going to die." Jeffrey was rushed to the hospital where it was found that he had sustained multiple life-threatening injuries, had multiple skull fractures as well as a fractured nose, and multiple teeth had been knocked out. He spent over a week at Maine Medical Center, three weeks at a healthcare facility in Massachusetts, and needed more time at a rehab hospital in Portland. His medical team determined that not only did he have no memory of the events of the attack, he would never fully recover from his injuries.
As for Linda, she was shot once in an area above her right hip bone that did not affect any vital organs, and she made a full recovery after the surgery to repair the torn flesh and blood vessels as well as remove bullet fragments from the wound.
Police had Jeffrey call Linda on a recorded conversation, and he explicitly asked her if she was responsible for this, which she denied. On the call they discussed the night leading up to the incident where they had had some wine together and gotten in their hot tub, had sex and went to bed in their separate bedrooms. Linda then said she couldn’t sleep and had gotten up, and that’s when she heard someone in the house and the next thing she knew she had been shot. Jeffrey asked her "Why would they beat me with a baseball bat and shoot you with my gun? They were sitting on 15 hundred dollars cash they left in a drawer." She responded “I have no friggin' idea.”
Linda was indicted for the attempted murder of Jeffrey Dollof, as well as for elevated aggravated assault and false public alarm on July 10th, 2009. She pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and was then tried before a jury. She declined a plea deal when it was offered to her.
The State’s case presented in court was that Linda planned and attempted to murder Jeffrey so that she didn’t have to agree to the deal they discussed for their separation, and instead of getting a lump sum of his money she would get all of it, as well as all of the property. They said that Linda beat her husband with the softball bat while he slept, and then shot herself to make it look like a home invasion. Linda maintained that both she and Jeffrey had been attacked in a home invasion.
In court during the trial, the recording of the 911 call was played, and the jury was taken to the home to see the scene firsthand.
The jury deliberated for nine hours before returning with a guilty verdict on all three charges for attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault, and false public alarm or report.
On January 10th, 2011, Linda was sentenced to 25 years in prison with all but sixteen years suspended and four years of probation for each of the convictions for attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault with the sentences to be served concurrently. She was also sentenced to a concurrent 364-day sentence for her conviction of false public alarm or report. The court also ordered Linda to pay $15,000 as restitution.
Linda is currently part of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, which is “a statewide group formed in 2007 to improve conditions for inmates, former inmates, their families, victims of crime and others.”
Image sources:
centralmaine.com - “Maine court upholds Dolloff’s bat-attack conviction”