WHO ENDED THE LIVES OF DOLORES AND JOAN?

15 Years Later, Two Bergen County Murders Still Asking For A Name

By The Garden State Gazette

Fifteen years ago, two women who lived alone in quiet Bergen County houses were beaten, stabbed, and left in burning homes five miles apart.

No one has ever been charged.

Today, their names — Dolores Alliotts of Palisades Park and Joan Davis of Teaneck — sit in the cold case file at the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, and investigators are still saying the same thing:

The key might be sitting in one person’s memory.

This is what’s known, and what still isn’t.

Case One: 55 Stab Wounds On 12th Street

Palisades Park – April 28, 2010, around 2:30 a.m.

Police and firefighters respond to a house fire at 261 12th Street. Inside, they find 69-year-old Dolores Alliotts dead.

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office later lays it out in stark language:

• Alliotts suffered blunt force injuries to her head
• She had 55 stab wounds
• After she was killed, someone set a fire inside the home, apparently trying to destroy the crime scene

“Alliotts was the victim of a cold-blooded murder,” prosecutors said at the time.

According to her obituary, Dolores was:

• a lifelong Palisades Park resident,
• with two brothers and several nieces and nephews,
• but no children of her own.

She lived alone in the home where she died. In a later CBS News piece, her family put up a $25,000 reward for information, and investigators said they believed the killer **may have been a young adult who’d had prior interactions with her.

Whoever it was, they walked away from 12th Street that night without a name attached.

Case Two: Bound, Stabbed, And Left In A Burning Teaneck Home

Teaneck – August 30, 2010, just before 11 p.m.

Roughly four months later, and about five miles away, Teaneck police are dispatched to a house fire at 976 Alpine Drive.

Inside, they find 74-year-old Joan Davis:

• dead from blunt force injuries and “multiple” stab wounds
• with her hands and feet bound
• in a house where, again, a fire had been set after the killing

This time, investigators recover more to work with:

• Surveillance video and scene evidence point to one male suspect
• Detectives believe he wore a size 9–10 shoe
• He was likely under 160 pounds

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office later releases a video that shows:

• a man walking toward Joan’s home with a “satchel-style backpack”,
• then walking back out of the neighborhood nearly two hours later — past fire trucks.

The bag, a detail that stuck with investigators, is described in the Cold Case Task Force video as that “satchel-style backpack.”

Still, no arrest.

Two Women, Two Fires, One Pattern

On paper, Dolores and Joan lived different lives.

Dolores Alliotts

• Lifelong Palisades Park resident
• Lived alone
• No children, but a close extended family
• Described as a quiet woman who kept to herself, in a home she’d occupied for years

Joan Davis

• Lived alone in Teaneck
• Graduated from Albertus Magnus College in 1958
• Worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development
• Was a freelance writer, local political activist, and a familiar face at Teaneck town meetings

Friends remembered her as:

• intelligent,
• idealistic,
• a pacifist who “wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

A nephew told CBS that in later years she had become more paranoid, a bit of a gadfly, but still someone he cared about — and local politicians remembered her as a persistent presence, showing up at meetings to hold them accountable but ultimately harmless.

Despite their differences, detectives see a through-line:

• Both were older women, living alone
• Both were killed inside their homes
• Both were beaten and stabbed
• Both homes were set on fire afterward, presumably to destroy evidence
• Very little was taken from either scene

One CBS story even quoted a detective suggesting the killer may have had a “fetish for older women.”

To this day, investigators publicly say they believe the murders are connected.

Eleven Years Later: A Video, A Backpack, And Still No Name

Around 2020–2021, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Cold Case Task Force tried a new angle:

• They released the surveillance video of the man walking toward Joan’s Alpine Drive home with that satchel-style bag, then walking away past emergency vehicles.
• They produced a video walking through the two crime scenes — burned homes, crime-scene photos, and reminders of who Dolores and Joan were.

The goal was simple: jog someone’s memory.

Deputy Chief of Detectives Jeff Angermeyer told Patch:

“The key to unlocking this case, and finally bringing closure to the victims’ families, may reside in the memory of a single community member.”

And:

“It is never too late to do the right thing and help us deliver the justice these families so desperately deserve.”

He also made it clear the office isn’t shelving the file:

Their detectives, analysts, and assistant prosecutors are still reviewing every piece of evidence with newer technology — and time, he said, doesn’t weaken their resolve, it “only sharpens it.”

What GSG Won’t Do

There’s a lot of room here for theory, rumor, and Reddit-level fantasy.

We’re not going there.

• We don’t know the suspect’s name.
• We don’t know exactly why these two women were targeted.
• We don’t know if the killer is still in North Jersey, in prison on something else, dead, or walking past those addresses like nothing happened.

What we do know is:

• Two women died violently in 2010.
• The cases are still open.
• Law enforcement thinks one man did both.
• Someone out there might recognize:
  • a man under 160 pounds,
  • size 9–10 shoes,
  • in that satchel-style backpack,
  • with some connection — even distant — to Palisades Park or Teaneck around 2010.

If You Know Something

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office is still accepting tips on the murders of Dolores Alliotts and Joan Davis.

• The cold case video and tip portal are available via the BCPO website.

Even now, detectives say one memory, one story, one ID might be enough to push this out of “cold case” territory and into a courtroom.

For the families, it’s been 15 years of waiting.

For The Garden State Gazette, this isn’t just old news.
It’s a standing question to North Jersey:

Who killed Dolores and Joan — and who’s finally going to say their name?