Colleen M. Fitzpatrick | |
---|---|
Born | New Orleans, Louisiana, United States | April 25, 1955
Education | Rice University, Duke University |
Occupation(s) | Forensic scientist, genealogist |
Known for | Co-founder of the DNA Doe Project |
Colleen M. Fitzpatrick (born April 25, 1955) is an American forensic scientist, genealogist and entrepreneur. She helped identify remains found at the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422, that crashed in Alaska in 1948, and co-founded the DNA Doe Project which identifies previously unidentified bodies and runs Identifinders International, an investigative genetic genealogy consulting firm which helps identify victims and perpetrators of violent crimes. [1]
Colleen M. Fitzpatrick was born April 25, 1955 [2] in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received her BA in physics (1976) from Rice University, and her MA (1983) and PhD in nuclear physics (1983) from Duke University. [3] [4]
She lectured at Sam Houston University for two years, before working on a laser radar system at Rockwell International and then high resolution optical measurement techniques at Spectron Development Laboratories. [5] She then founded, in her garage in 1986, [3] Rice Systems, an optics company that did contract research and development. [6] Her company grew to employ seven scientists but closed in 2005 after NASA dropped the spaceship to Jupiter project on which the company had been working. [5]
Fitzpatrick had started writing a book about forensic genealogy in 2002, and after no publishers would accept it, she self-published the book [6] in 2005. [7] She started selling her book at genealogy conferences. [6] [8] She set up a corresponding website, and started writing columns on the topic for magazines and websites. [6] In 2006, Hebron Investments asked her to find a missing person because someone wanted to buy land, but the title owner could not be found. This led to her trying to locate owners of unclaimed property in 75 cases (of which she found 73) in 30 countries.
Her next venture, Identifinders International, founded with her late partner Andy Yeiser (an engineering and business management consultant), [9] [10] she uses the techniques of forensic genealogy to identify victims and perpetrators of violent crimes, as well as Jane/John Doe cases where the body has been left unidentified for as long as decades sometimes. [8] In 2007 she helped identify the body of a child about two years old that died in the 1912 Titanic disaster as Sidney Leslie Goodwin from England, aged 19 months, whose family had died in the wreck and had relatives in New Zealand. [11] In 2008 she helped identify the remains found in the wreckage of Northwest Flight 4422 that crashed in Alaska in 1948. [6] [8] [12] That same year she helped expose Misha Defonseca's book " Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years" as a fraud. [13] Fitzpatrick and Sharon Sergeant also exposed as a fraud Herman Rosenblat's book Angel at the Fence (which claimed to be about Rosenblat's Holocaust survival). In 2020, Dr. Fitzpatrick of Identifinders International and The Porchlight Project helped Ohio police identify James Zastawnick as a suspect in the 1987 murder by strangulation of 17-year-old Barbara Blatnik. [14]
In 2014, Fitzpatrick helped police narrow down the list of suspects to five men with the surname Miller for the murder in Phoenix, Arizona of Angela Brosso, 22, in 1992, and the murder of Melanie Bernas, 17, in 1993 ("The Canal Killer"). [15] Police found there was only one possibility and DNA testing confirmed that Bryan Patrick Miller matched DNA from the killer. In 2015 Miller was arrested and charged with the two murders. Miller had been a suspect at the time of the murders, but released for lack of evidence. [5] Miller was also later charged with the 2012 murder of 13-year-old Briana Naylor. [16] Fitzpatrick believes this was the first cold case solved by genetic genealogy. [9]
In 2015 Fitzpatrick, Cece Moore and a team of adoption researchers helped Benjaman Kyle, an amnesiac since 2004, find his identity (William Burgess Powell) and family members. [17]
In 2016, Fitzpatrick played a role in establishing the true identity of Lori Erica Ruff, a woman who had assumed a false identity in 1988 and committed suicide in 2010, after which her husband's family discovered she had stolen the identity of a deceased child. Ruff turned out to be Kimberly McLean, who had severed all ties with her family and adopted a new identity to avoid being located by them. [18]
In 2018 and 2019, she helped Rapid City, South Dakota police with the case of the rape and murder by strangulation of 60-year-old Gwen Miller in 1968. Using Y-DNA, Fitzpatrick narrowed the possible suspects down to 6-7 men with the surname Field. Local police were then able to identify Eugene Field as the prime suspect. Field had already died in 2009 from cancer. [19] [20]
In 2020 she helped Orange County, California police identify the body of a young woman who had been found in 1968 beaten, raped and her throat cut near Huntington Beach as 26-year-old Anita Louise Piteau. [21]
In 2017 she co-founded with Margaret Press the DNA Doe Project which has the aim of identifying dead adults for their families [22] (they avoid investigating dead children because the mothers of such children might be very young themselves and might be victims of incest or rape). [23] In June 2020 she resigned from the project. [24]
Their first success in 2018 was identifying the dead "Buckskin Girl" in Ohio as belonging to Marcia King from Arkansas. [25] They also identified the bodies of "Lyle Stevik", [26] "Joseph Newton Chandler III" (Robert Nichols), [27] "Alfred Jake Fuller", [28] "Anaheim Jane Doe" (Tracey Hobson) [29] and "Washoe County or Sheep Flats Jane Doe" in 2018 (Mary Silvani). [28] [30]
In 2019, they identified the bodies of "Lavender Doe" (Dana Dodd), [31] [32] "Rock County John Doe," [33] "Butler County Jane Doe" (Darlene Wilson Norcross), [34] "Annie Doe" (Anne Marie Lehman), [35] “Vicky Dana Jane Doe” (Dana Nicole Lowrey), [36] "Belle in the Well" (Louise Virginia Peterson Flesher), [37] "Orange Socks" (Debra Jackson), [38] "I-96 Jane Doe" (Marcia Kaylynn Bateman), [39] the "Mill Creek Shed Man" (Nathaniel Terrence Deggs), [40] "Phoenix Jane Doe" (Bertha Alicia Holguín Barroterán), [41] "Marion County Jane Doe" (Michelle E. Carnall-Burton), [42] "Barron County John Doe" (William “Billy” Arthur Fiegener) [43] and "Clark County John Doe", the remains of a headless man in an Idaho cave identified as a suspected murderer (Joseph Henry Loveless) who had died about 100 years before, probably in 1916. [44] [45]
In 2020, her team identified the bodies of "Barron County John Doe" (Kraig Patrick King), [46] the "Corona Girl" (Sue Ann Huskey), [47] "Peoria County John Doe" (John H. Frisch, Jr.), [48] the "Lime Lady" (Tamara Lee Tigard). [49] and a Jane Doe in Phoenix, Arizona (Ginger Lynn Bibb) [50] and was involved in the identification of Joseph Augustus Zarelli.
She is a Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) [51] and an Associate Member of the American Academy of Forensic Science. [52] In 2021, Dr. Fitzpatrick was made a full member of the Vidocq Society, make her one of 82 full members, a number set by the society's charter.
Dawn Olanick, previously known as Princess Doe, was an unidentified American teenage decedent from Bohemia, New York, who was found murdered in Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Blairstown Township, New Jersey on July 15, 1982. Her face had been bludgeoned beyond recognition. She was the first unidentified decedent to be entered in the National Crime Information Center. Olanick was publicly identified on the 40th anniversary of her discovery.
The Bear Brook murders are female American murder victims, two discovered in 1985 and two in 2000, at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, United States. All four of the victims were either partially or completely skeletonized; they were believed to have died between 1977 and 1981.
Marcia Lenore Sossoman King was a 21-year-old Arkansas woman who was murdered in April 1981 and whose body was discovered in Troy, Ohio approximately 48 hours after her murder. Her body remained unidentified for almost 37 years before being identified via DNA analysis and genetic genealogy in April 2018. King was one of the first unidentified decedents to be identified via this method of forensic investigation.
Amy Marie Yeary was an American woman whose body was discovered on November 23, 2008, near Campbellsport, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. Her body remained unidentified for 13 years before investigators announced her identification via forensic genealogy and dental records on November 23, 2021.
Sherri Ann Jarvis was an American murder victim from Forest Lake, Minnesota whose body was discovered in Huntsville, Texas on November 1, 1980. Her body was discovered within hours of her sexual assault and murder, and remained unidentified for 41 years before investigators announced her identification via forensic genealogy in November 2021.
Vernon County Jane Doe is an American murder victim whose body was found on May 4, 1984. Her identity remains unknown. Her hands had been removed, likely to prevent identification by means of fingerprinting.
Tammy Corrine Terrell was an American murder victim from Roswell, New Mexico. Her body was discovered on October 5, 1980, in Henderson, Nevada, and remained unidentified until December 2021. Her case has been the subject of extensive efforts by investigators and has been highlighted as inspiring other work to solve cold cases of unidentified murder victims.
Dana Lynn Dodd was a formerly unidentified American murder victim whose body was found in 2006 in Kilgore, Texas. In 2013, investigators had hoped that a new reconstruction of the victim might uncover more leads. In August 2018, Joseph Wayne Burnette was indicted for her murder, following a confession, stating her name may have been "Ashley." The victim's case was later submitted to the DNA Doe Project, who made an identification in January 2019, 12 years later. While she remained unidentified, she was known by the nickname "Lavender Doe".
Unidentified decedent, or unidentified person, is a corpse of a person whose identity cannot be established by police and medical examiners. In many cases, it is several years before the identities of some UIDs are found, while in some cases, they are never identified. A UID may remain unidentified due to lack of evidence as well as absence of personal identification such as a driver's license. Where the remains have deteriorated or been mutilated to the point that the body is not easily recognized, a UID's face may be reconstructed to show what they had looked like before death. UIDs are often referred to by the placeholder names "John Doe" or "Jane Doe". In a database maintained by the Ontario Provincial Police, 371 unidentified decedents were found between 1964 and 2015.
CeCe Moore is an American genetic genealogist who has been described as the country's foremost such entrepreneur. She has appeared on many TV shows and worked as a genetic genealogy researcher for others such as Finding Your Roots. She has reportedly helped law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects in over 300 cold cases using DNA and genetic genealogy. In May 2020, she began appearing in a prime time ABC television series called The Genetic Detective in which each episode recounts a cold case she helped solve. In addition to her television work, she is known for pioneering the genetic genealogy methodologies used by adoptees and others of unknown origin for identifying biological family.
Investigative genetic genealogy, also known as forensic genetic genealogy, is the emerging practice of utilizing genetic information from direct-to-consumer companies for identifying suspects or victims in criminal cases. As of December 2023, the use of this technology has solved a total of 651 criminal cases, including 318 individual perpetrators who were brought to light. There have also been 464 decedents identified, as well as 4 living Does. The investigative power of genetic genealogy revolves around the use of publicly accessible genealogy databases such as GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA. On GEDMatch, users are able to upload their genetic data from any direct-to-consumer company in an effort to identify relatives that have tested at companies other than their own.
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Wilson Claude Chouest Jr. is an American murderer known for the murders of two women, one of whom remains unidentified, in the state of California, both occurring within days of each other in July 1980. He has a history of violence toward women, including abduction, robbery and rape, which occurred between 1977 and 1980. Chouest, who is currently serving a life sentence, was charged with three counts of murder, including that of one victim's unborn son. He was identified as a suspect in the case in 2012, after his DNA was matched to fingernail scrapings collected from both victims.
DNA Doe Project is an American nonprofit volunteer organization formed to identify unidentified deceased persons using forensic genealogy. Volunteers identify victims of automobile accidents, homicide, and unusual circumstances and persons who committed suicide under an alias. The group was founded in 2017 by Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press.
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Shirley Ann Soosay, formerly known as Kern County Jane Doe, is a formerly unidentified decedent found in an almond orchard in Delano, California on 14 July 1980. A member of the Samson Cree Nation, Soosay grew up in Hobbema, in Alberta. For most of her adult life, Soosay lived in Edmonton and then later Vancouver, though she remained in regular contact with her family until 1979, when cards from her stopped coming.