The Cup at the Back Door: Dolores' Card Returned After Death

The Cup at the Back Door: Dolores' Card Returned After Death

Cold coffee and a laminated index card for a woman who had been dead fifteen years were propped in the Kettle and Cup’s back door in 22°F - and the card bore a thumbnail-sized bubble Marie Gray had recognized from a drawer where it had sat for a decade and a half. Who left Dolores Fitch’s card wedged outside a locked door after a stranger sitting in her booth the day before, and why was the card the same one Marie had checked twice that morning?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of events as they unfolded around the Kettle and Cup diner in Dunbar, Ohio, from the morning a rescue dog led its owner to a paper cup at the back door to the earlier visit by a woman carrying her own cup of coffee. How did a laminated order card disappear from a locked drawer and reappear in the night where no alarm was tripped?

Person: Dolores Fitch Date: December 9, 2019 Location: Kettle and Cup diner, Dunbar, Ohio Age at death: 81 Visit: December 7, 2019

- The paper cup was found wedged in the back door frame at 22°F on the morning of December 9, 2019. - The laminated index card inside the cup listed the order "Two eggs over easy, rye toast, the tomato juice, no ice" in blue ballpoint. - Marie Gray had kept the service-window laminated card in the drawer behind the counter for 15 years since Dolores died in December 2004. - On December 7, 2019, a woman in a gray coat sat in Dolores’s usual booth for about 40 minutes holding a paper cup of coffee she had brought with her and left $3 on the table. - Three back-door keys existed: Marie held two and cook Pete Salas held one, and there is no evidence the back door was opened the night the cup was placed there.

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