 In 2006, 85-year-old Dorothy Zannie was bludgeoned to death in the backyard of her Hammond, Indiana home while her husband Joseph, who suffered from severe Alzheimer's, sat unaware on the couch. Later, he would tell the couple's children that the killer had said that they would come back and get him. Before we get into it, I just wanted to quickly mention that I just launched a new True Crime Shorts channel. This channel is dedicated to short-form true crime cases, all of which are less than a minute long and I've been uploading every single day, so be sure to check out that channel and subscribe if you like what you see. The link will be in the description or you can click the card in the corner of this video. Welcome to True Crime Stories. My name is Ty Nott. If you like true crime documentaries and want to stay up to date on all of the latest cold case files, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe. It's completely free and it'll keep you up to date with all of the latest true crime videos. Joseph and Dorothy Zanny were your average American couple. They'd been married for over 64 years and lived in a somewhat quiet community in Hammond, Indiana. Dorothy was 85 years old back in 2006 and she'd been in the kitchen on the evening of May 24th, making dinner for herself and her husband. Her husband's health had taken a dark turn in recent months, leaving her with the constant fear of being left alone. Joseph and Dorothy's family knew that putting Joseph in a nursing home would be the best option for him, but Dorothy refused. According to her loved ones, Dorothy insisted that placing her husband in a home was out of the question and she truly believed that she could look after him on her own. But his Alzheimer's have been getting worse and worse lately. He'd often forget where he was, who he was, or what he was even doing. Dorothy put a boiling pot of water on the stove as she began her preparations for dinner. But immediately after doing this, something caused her to leave the kitchen and head to the couple's backyard. Their lawn had been overgrown for many years. After Joseph's health had declined, maintenance around the house was all but forgotten. The lawn was full of old cars and parts, now nothing more than memories of Joseph's former life before his illness took hold. A tall wooden fence outlined the yard and separated the couple from a set of railroad tracks that ran behind their home. A vacant house sat next door, leaving nothing but still and quiet nature surrounding the couple's home. Just two hours later, a local police officer had been parked a few blocks away from the family home. He'd been stationed here to perform seatbelt checks on vehicles that passed by, but he was startled when a call came through, requesting that he head to a nearby neighborhood. According to the police report, passing vehicles had noticed smoke pouring out of a home located on Goslin Street, the home of Joseph and Dorothy. The officer got back into his car and immediately headed towards the home to make sure that everyone was OK. As the officer pulled up to investigate, he confirmed that the witness reports were true. The home was ablaze with smoke billowing out of the windows and the doors. As the officer pulled into the driveway, he saw a 91-year-old Joseph sitting on the front porch alongside his 34-year-old granddaughter, Amy, who had been living with the couple at the time. Amy had just come home from work and noticed smoke coming from the home. When she rushed inside to see what was going on, she saw her grandfather sitting helpless on the couch as the kitchen had burst into flames. Joseph had been in a wheelchair, but his wife helped him in and out of his chair so that he could sit on the couch and watch TV. She had placed her husband on the couch just before she began dinner, but now Dorothy was nowhere to be found. Amy says that she searched the home for her grandmother but was unable to find her before the fire grew out of hand. She was eventually forced to abandon her search, grab her grandfather and make a run for the porch. Fire crews managed to extinguish the blaze before it consumed the entire home, but the damage had already been done. The entire interior of the house had been littered with smoke and stains. As they cleaned up the mess, firefighters were able to discover that the pot that Dorothy had placed on the stove was the culprit of the fire. The pot boiled over and the gas burner beneath the pot had ignited the entire kitchen. Firefighters sifted through the remnants to search for Dorothy, but she was nowhere to be found inside of the home. They eventually made their way outside of the home and searched around the perimeter, and that's when they came across a twisted crime scene that had been left behind by an unidentified intruder. Dorothy was found lying out in the backyard. She'd been attacked from behind, murdered in her own backyard. Crime scene investigators were called to the scene, as well as a coroner. The coroner reported that Dorothy had been killed with a single blow to the head, but the murderer kept on hitting her after she'd already lost her life. She'd been struck multiple times in the head, face, and chest. The coroner's opinion was that Dorothy had lost her life due to a brain laceration. Forensic evidence was found all throughout the backyard, but investigators and special agents were never able to determine what the murder weapon was. They took samples of all the evidence that was found at the crime scene, but all of the DNA came back as a forensic match to Dorothy, meaning that the killer had left nothing behind that would help officers identify them. Just a short way up the street from the Zany household, police spoke about a small community of homeless people and scrappers who lived on the streets. This area was known to have been riddled with crime, but the Zany's stayed far away from this area. The only problem was that the criminals who lived here didn't stay away from the Zany's. Police recalled multiple disturbances in which they were called to the Zany household after Dorothy had seen scary people wandering around her backyard, searching for scrap that they could sell. When investigating the scene of the crime, detectives noticed a small hole in the Zany's fence that gave scrappers a perfect view of everything in the backyard. This meant that anytime someone walked by, they'd be able to clearly see all of the metals and car parts that had been left behind by Joseph all those years ago. Considering this area was known for being impoverished, well, it's understandable that the Zany's often struggled to keep their backyard private. This led detectives to the obvious theory that the motive behind the murder was nothing more than a robbery gone wrong. But there was only one problem. As far as special agents could tell, nothing had been stolen from the property and nothing had even been disturbed. There was no trace of anyone having been in the backyard at any point recently. If you've made it this far in the video, type the word backyard in the comments so I know that you're still watching and I'll do my best to respond to everyone that does. But anyway, after police reached a dead end in their investigation, they decided to question Joseph about the circumstances of the murder. Keep in mind, his Alzheimer's had claimed most of his memories by this point and he barely understood what was going on around it. However, his children recalled that for the last several months, he would speak with Dorothy about a strange group of criminals that he would only refer to as they. Every once in a while, before the couple would go to bed, Joseph would ask Dorothy to check all of the windows of their home and make sure that they were locked. He said that he wanted to make sure that they couldn't get in. According to Joseph, this mysterious group had promised that they would come back and get him. No one ever fully understood who Joseph was referring to because as far as anyone knew, no one had ever broken into the family's home before. So investigators were never able to uncover where Joseph had picked up on these deranged fantasies. Unfortunately, this meant that Joseph's testimony was virtually useless and the children certainly had no clue as to who would want to harm their mother. After all, Dorothy was known for being an upstanding woman in her community and she certainly never let her advanced age get the better of her. She was an active member of her local church and she even helped set up a soup kitchen to help serve the homeless who lived nearby. According to everyone who knew her, she was always seen at the soup kitchen serving less fortunate and she would often put in extra hours around the holidays. To top this off, Dorothy was also an avid bowler. She'd spend a lot of time helping to establish a local bowling club for the younger generation and would teach children how to bowl. Dorothy's children say they're just three years after Dorothy's murder, Joseph would pass away. They don't believe he ever fully understood what happened to his wife as he'd asked about her from time to time. A reward for information was offered by Dorothy's local church but police were never able to track down anyone who committed the crime. They questioned several suspects during their investigation but all of these leads took them nowhere. In the end, they never made any arrests and Dorothy's case remains unsolved more than 15 years later. But that's the video for today, you guys. If you wanna see more true crime documentaries just like this one, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe. You can even ring the notification bell to get updated about all of my future videos but my name is Ty Nautz. You guys have been lovely and I'll catch you in the next video.