Dane Ross frantically asked Dole employees to call police and stop loading trucks. He climbed into several trailers parked at the loading dock and called out "Sheila! Sheila!" the night his wife died.

On Tuesday, Feb. 20, the Yuma Police Department released a 139-page report detailing its investigation into Sheila Ross' death on Jan. 27 - a death the department has classified as accidental.

The police report details strange circumstances surrounding the incident.

Dole officials reported that cameras inside the warehouse were not working the night of Ross' disappearance. Ross' husband offered to finish his haul before coming back to search for Sheila. And, there was disagreement between Dole employees on where Sheila had been and whether forklift operators would notice if they hit a person.

When he couldn't find her, Sheila's husband reported her missing that night. She had stepped away from truck to get paperwork for a load they were scheduled to haul out of the Dole plant in Yuma, AZ.

Three days later, workers at a Hy-Vee distribution center in Iowa found Sheila's body between several pallets of lettuce when they were unloading another trucker's trailer. An autopsy showed she died in Arizona from compression asphyxiation.

Yuma police later said that Sheila was pushed onto the trailer in Arizona, which was attached to Hugh Ort's truck, as she stood or walked in the loading dock area.

The report states that police wrote down cell phone numbers of drivers at the Dole plant, and that Ort later opened his trailer and checked his load on the side of the road before stopping in Iowa.

The couple's small trucking company regularly did business at the Dole plant in Arizona. Alvaro Garcia, a Dole Food Co. dock worker who regularly loaded produce onto Sheila and Dane Ross' trailer, may very well have been one of the last people to see Sheila alive and shared impressions with authorities. Garcia told police he believed he would have felt it at the time if he hit a person with the forklift he was operating. He also told police he thought she may have been on drugs, based on his impression that she looked "very jumpy." 

Other than Garcia's statement, police had no other reason to believe Ross had used drugs, said Clint Norred, a Yuma Police spokesman.

"I honestly think that if there would have been some indication, that the medical examiner would have said that," Norred said. "It would have said, 'impaired judgment.' It didn't come down to that."

An autopsy was performed on Ross in Lucas County, IA. Lucas County Sheriff Delbert Longley said he didn't know whether the autopsy revealed drugs in Ross' system.

"I cannot confirm or deny it," Longley said. "I have no idea at this point. I have not seen the report."

Garcia told police he saw Sheila walk out of the plant's refrigerated area with a yellow sticker in her hand that would indicate she had visited the Dole dispatcher. That statement was contradicted by Dole supervisor Luis Portillo, who said he didn't think Sheila ever entered the warehouse, because loading documents were never picked up from the dispatch office.

Two other Dole forklift operators also disagreed with Garcia's assessment that he would feel the impact of hitting someone's body with a loaded forklift.

The police report showed that dock workers Dennis Plumber and Jose Zarate told police they didn't think they would feel it if they hit someone with a loaded forklift. Those two workers also told police they didn't think they would hear screams if they hit someone because of noise in the warehouse and ear protection worn by dock workers.

Yuma police investigators watched trucks being loaded at the Dole plant and noted potential hazards in the bustling dock area, including the small amount of room allowed to see in between pallets of produce already loaded onto trailers.

The forklift that struck Sheila was driven by Jose Parra. Parra, who worked at Dole for 14 years, was in tears when he told investigators he didn't see Ross or remember how the pallets were loaded into Ort's truck. Parra apologized and said he didn't know how anyone could have been accidentally loaded onto the truck with the produce.

Dane Ross told police that he and Sheila had a good marriage and were co-owners of D&S Trucking. The couple, from McCloud, OK, did not carry life insurance policies, the report stated.

The Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating Ross' death. Phone messages left by Land Line at the agency Wednesday, Feb. 21, were not immediately returned.

- By Charlie Morasch, staff writer
charlie_morasch@landlinemag.com