The Doe Network is a non-profit organization of volunteers who work with law enforcement to connect missing persons cases with John/Jane Doe cases. They maintain a website about cold cases and unidentified persons, and work to match these with missing persons.
Gerald Eugene Stano was an American convicted serial killer. Stano murdered at least 23 young women and girls, confessed to 41 murders, and the police say the number of his victims may be closer to 88.
Tammy Lynn Leppert was an American actress, model and beauty queen who went missing under mysterious circumstances at the age of 18.
Peggy Lynn Johnson, also known by the last name Schroeder, was an American woman whose body was discovered in 1999 in the town of Raymond, Racine County, Wisconsin. She was 23 years old at the time of her death, which had occurred after enduring several weeks of extreme neglect and physical abuse. New developments in the case emerged after her body was exhumed on October 16, 2013, including isotope analysis. In November 2019, authorities announced that after two decades she was finally identified. Both the victim's and the murderer's name were released on November 8, 2019. In March 2022, Linda La Roche was convicted of her murder. In May 2022, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Johnson's murder received national attention both preceding and following her identification.
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.
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".
Perry County Jane Doe, also nicknamed "Girl with the Turquoise Jewelry" is an unidentified woman whose body was found on June 20, 1979, in Watts Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania, near the Juniata River. The cause of her death is not known, but it was considered to be suspicious by the authorities. Her name is still not known, despite efforts to identify her. She is the only unidentified decedent in the county.
Marilee Lee Bruszer, previously known as Juab County Jane Doe, was a formerly unidentified American murder victim who was found on September 3, 1978. Bruszer's was not identified until August 2015, 37 years after her discovery, due in part to inaccurate estimates of her age and physical characteristics, and also due to the long distance between the site of her disappearance in California and the discovery of her remains in Utah. The exact circumstances of her death remain unknown.
Atcel Olmedo was an American toddler who was allegedly murdered by his abusive stepfather and his mother in 2005 and disposed of in Naperville, Illinois. His body was not positively identified until 2011. The case received national attention and was broadcast on several different television shows. Forensic evidence obtained from the body during the investigation was analyzed to assist in his future identification. His case remains unprosecuted; the two main suspects were released on a bond, and promptly disappeared. Authorities believe the suspects fled to the Mexico City area.
The Redhead murders is the media epithet used to refer to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females in the United States between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The murders may have continued until 1992. The victims, many remaining unidentified for years, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in prostitution.
Michelle Angela Garvey was an American teenage girl murdered in Texas within a month of running away from her home in Connecticut. Her body was quickly found but remained unidentified until a 2014 DNA test, after an amateur Internet researcher suggested a match between the Texas unidentified decedent and Connecticut missing-person data.
The Long Beach Jane Doe was an unidentified murder victim whose body was found on May 28, 1974. Her suspected murderer was arrested in 2013, but she has never been identified, despite extensive investigation.
Brenda Marie Gerow, previously known as Pima County Jane Doe, was a formerly unidentified American murder victim whose body was found on April 8, 1981. In late 2014, a photograph of a facial reconstruction of the victim was made public that led to Gerow's identification the next year. She had been buried under a headstone with the placeholder name of "Jane Doe" with the phrase "UNK – 1981". Gerow's body remained unidentified for 34 years until it was announced that her remains had positively been identified.
Deanna Lee Criswell was an American girl from Washington state who was murdered by firearm at age 16 and remained unidentified for 27 years. Criswell's body was found on November 25, 1987, in Marana, Arizona, near Tucson. The Marana Police Department announced her identification on February 11, 2015, aided by the sophisticated technology of forensic facial reconstruction and DNA analysis, and by websites set up by amateurs to help identify missing and unidentified persons.
Carol Ann Cole was a 17-year-old American homicide victim whose body was discovered in early 1981 in Bellevue, Bossier Parish, Louisiana. The victim remained unidentified until 2015, when DNA tests confirmed her identity. Cole, native to Kalamazoo, Michigan, had been missing from San Antonio, Texas since 1980. Cole's killing remains unsolved, although the investigation is continuing.
Bella Neveah Amoroso Bond, previously known as the Deer Island Jane Doe and "Baby Doe", was an American child whose body was found in a plastic bag on the shore of Deer Island in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 25, 2015.
Margaret Fetterolf was an American murder victim from Alexandria, Virginia, who was discovered on September 12, 1976, in Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland. For 45 years, her body remained unidentified before being identified in September 2021 through DNA testing by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Bode Technology, and Othram. Prior to her identification, she was known as "Woodlawn Jane Doe", in reference to the area of the county in which her body was found. The murderer, or murderers, have never been apprehended.
Erika Antoinette Hill was a 15-year-old American girl who was murdered in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, in February 2007. Her damaged body was found in Gary, Indiana on February 26, and her identity was not discovered until 2015. Taylin Hill, her adoptive mother, was charged with reckless homicide after Hill's identification, and later pleaded guilty to reduced charges for which she was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.
"Julie Doe" is the nickname given to a transgender woman believed to have been murdered in Clermont, Florida, in 1988. Neither the victim's identity, nor the identity of those involved in her death, have been established. The victim was believed to be a cisgender woman until DNA testing in 2015.
Othram is an American corporation specializing in forensic genetic genealogy to resolve unsolved murders, disappearances, and identification of unidentified decedents or murder victims. The company offers law enforcement agencies tools and programs to infer kinship among individuals, closely and distantly related, through a combination of short tandem repeat and single nucleotide polymorphism testing, as well as forensic genome sequencing of DNA.
