Scottsdale fire captain reveals what 1994 cold case fugitive said to him before she disappeared

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (AZFamily) — A recent cold case twist solved a decades-long Scottsdale mystery and now we’ve learned more from somebody on the scene the night of a deadly crash.

In 1994, a woman under the influence, Gloria Schulze, struck and killed 21-year-old Angela Maher, but before the case could go to trial, she disappeared.

Arizona’s Family learned last week she was living under a new identity in Canada before dying of cancer in 2019, but it was the actions of a first responder at the crash that may be part of the reason she was still convicted even after she vanished.

A glance around the courtroom 30 years ago, and Scottsdale Fire Capt. Dave Folio noticed something odd.

“My first initial thought when I was in the courtroom was where’s Gloria?” said Folio.

In July 1994, Folio was a young firefighter working for the Rural Metro Fire Department in Scottsdale. He said the fire crew was asleep when they got a nighttime call for a car accident.

“As you take a right off of Shea (Boulevard), looking down Scottsdale Road, I remember seeing a van on its top and a white car off to the west side of the road,” said Folio.

Folio was first on the scene and didn’t know who each person involved was, but she ended up transporting the van driver, and that’s when she started talking.

“I had the lady, who at the time was Gloria Schulze, in the van telling me she had been drinking all day and had several drinks,” said Folio. “She was extremely forthcoming. You could smell the alcohol on her breath.”

It was enough for Folio to go back to the fire station and do something he didn’t typically do.

“This just doesn’t feel right. I’m going to document everything I did. And I documented everything on a one-page form and stuck it on a file in the station,” Folio recalled.

There was also brutal irony.

Maher had been in town celebrating her mom’s birthday.

She was the designated driver on her way to pick up a friend who had been drinking. Maher started the Students Against Drunk Driving chapter at Xavier High School.

Schulze was charged with manslaughter and endangerment and appeared in court for her arraignment, but then she disappeared.

They decided to move forward with a trial and convicted her in absentia.

Folio said nobody testifying knew Schulze was missing. An attorney later told him why.

“They didn’t want the jury to not know she wasn’t in the courtroom or that she wasn’t detained,” Folio said.

That’s why Folio’s testimony became key because he had the documented facts from the night that Schulze admitted to drinking.

In 1996, Folio and his crew recreated the crash scene with the hit TV show Unsolved Mysteries.

“Thinking that, you know, this thing would go on Unsolved Mysteries and people would see it and find her, but they never did,” Folio said.

Her whereabouts as a fugitive were unknown until last week when Scottsdale Police identified Schulze as a woman who had lived for decades in Canada under the name Kate Dooley.

She died of cancer in 2019, but fingerprints from a DUI in Canada matched the fingerprints Scottsdale PD had from her 30 years ago.

Folio could not believe it, but is thankful for answers he thought may never come.

“It’s just one of those calls that will always stick with me,” he said.

Folio said at the time he also got a chance to speak with Maher’s mother.

He assured her they did everything they could on the scene and said that because of the impact, he believed Maher did not suffer.

Angela’s mom died a few years ago, but she advocated for her daughter and Schulze’s capture for years.

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