Tammy Lynn Leppert was an American actress, model and beauty queen who went missing under mysterious circumstances at the age of 18.
Debra Louise Jackson, informally known as "Orange Socks" when unidentified, was an American murder victim who went unidentified for nearly 40 years before being identified through a DNA match with her surviving sister in 2019. Her murder is believed to have taken place on October 30 or 31, 1979 in Georgetown, Texas. Her body was found naked except for the pair of orange socks from which the nickname was derived. She had been strangled and was believed to have died only hours before the discovery.
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".
Gwenn Marie Story was a 19-year-old American woman who was murdered in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 14, 1979. Her body remained unidentified for 44 years before being identified via DNA analysis and genetic genealogy in December 2023. Prior to her 2023 identification, Story was nicknamed "Sahara Sue" and "Jane Las Vegas Doe" because her body was found near the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, at the intersection of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard. Developments indicated she may have used the name "Shawna" or "Shauna" when she was alive, though this proved unfounded.
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 body was not identified for 37 years due to an inaccurate physical description generated by the original investigators and the great distance she was found from where she had resided prior to her disappearance.
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.
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.
Lyle Stevik was the alias used by an American man who, in 2001, died by suicide inside a motel room in Amanda Park, Washington. Although his body was quickly discovered, and fingerprints, DNA and dental information collected and recorded, there were no matches in any databases and the man's identity remained unknown until 2018.
The St. Louis Jane Doe is an unidentified girl who was found murdered in the basement of an abandoned apartment building on February 28, 1983 in St. Louis, Missouri. She has also been nicknamed "Hope", "Precious Hope", and the "Little Jane Doe." The victim was estimated to be between eight and eleven when she was murdered and is believed to have been killed via strangulation. She was raped and decapitated. The brutality of the crime has led to national attention.
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.
Alisha Ann Heinrich, previously known as "Baby Jane" and "Delta Dawn", was a formerly unidentified American child murder victim whose body was found in Moss Point, Mississippi, in December 1982. The child — aged approximately 18 months — was partially smothered before she was thrown alive from the eastbound Interstate 10 bridge into the Escatawpa River, where she ultimately drowned. Her body was recovered between 36 and 48 hours after her death.
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.
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.
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.
Michelle Yvette Busha was a formerly unidentified murder victim discovered in Blue Earth, Minnesota, in 1980. Her murder was solved in 1989, but she remained unidentified for years following the confession of Robert Leroy Nelson, who was a former Minnesota State Trooper. Busha's remains were identified in 2015 after a DNA profile was obtained following the exhumation of her remains.
Mary Edith Silvani, known as "Sheep's Flat Jane Doe" and "Washoe County Jane Doe" while unidentified, was an American woman found shot to death near Lake Tahoe in Washoe County, Nevada in July 1982. She was unidentified for 37 years, the investigation becoming a cold case. The Washoe County Sheriff's Office announced her identity on May 7, 2019. Silvani was identified through DNA analysis and genetic genealogy with assistance from the DNA Doe Project and utilizing the public genealogy database GEDmatch.
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.
Carolyn Celeste Eaton was a formerly unidentified American teenager from Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, who was found murdered along Interstate 40 in Williams, Arizona, on Valentine's Day 1982. The young woman had been last seen alive with an unidentified older man on February 4, 1982, at the Monte Carlo Truck Stop near Ash Fork, Arizona.
