Investigators eventually located Dolores in California.  She was far from dead and had apparently left the area for a new start in San Diego.  Two weeks later, in Phoenix, Arizona, they located another one of the women that had previously been listed as "missing" from the tavern.

As it turns out, none of the rotting flesh in the alligator pond was found to be human.  In a 1957 interview with the San Antonio Light, Dolores "Buddy" Goodwin stated that Joe, never put no people