Latest / The Mind of a Man / The IMPOSSIBLE Cold Case That Was Solved By Redditors

Transcript

The IMPOSSIBLE Cold Case That Was Solved By Redditors · The Mind of a Man

0:00
Speaker 1: Christina Skates thought she was killing time. The 23-year-old biology
0:04
Speaker 1: student was scrolling through cemetery records on a quiet afternoon
0:07
Speaker 1: in 2014 when the line 82483 stopped her cold. And
0:14
Speaker 1: on that line was a date of death, February 5th, 1975.
0:18
Speaker 1: And beside the date was a name. But it wasn't
0:21
Speaker 1: a name. It just said, So Christina just stared, puzzled.
0:28
Speaker 1: Someone had been murdered, buried without identity, and completely forgotten.
0:34
Speaker 1: As she later put it, quote, thinking this isn't right.
0:40
Speaker 1: This isn't how things should be. What Christina couldn't know
0:43
Speaker 1: was that her inability to let go would set off
0:46
Speaker 1: a chain reaction spanning years and continents. A single college
0:51
Speaker 1: student's curiosity would mobilize internet strangers, expose massive system failures,
0:57
Speaker 1: and ultimately solve a decades-old cold case that stumped police
1:02
Speaker 1: and for generations. So this is that story. How one
1:05
Speaker 1: haunting line in a cemetery ledger became a digital crusade
1:09
Speaker 1: to give a nameless murder victim her identity back.
1:12
Speaker 2: Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All things that
1:17
Speaker 2: I love to consume and I know.
1:19
Speaker 1: You do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded.
1:24
Speaker 2: And today... We are doing just that.
1:26
Speaker 1: We're getting into a case that is extremely interesting because
1:30
Speaker 1: my good friends over at Reddit solved a dang cold case.
1:35
Speaker 1: And it is an extremely interesting case. So without further ado,
1:39
Speaker 1: let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway,
1:41
Speaker 1: slam on the brakes, and bust through this windshield into
1:44
Speaker 1: this solved cold case together. So Christina Skates had always
2:03
Speaker 1: been drawn to mysteries, hiding in plain sight. And as
2:07
Speaker 1: a biology major at Cleveland State University, she spent her
2:10
Speaker 1: free time tracing family histories and connecting dots across generations.
2:14
Speaker 1: But this wasn't casual hobby work. Christina had developed serious
2:19
Speaker 1: genealogy skills using advanced database searches, DNA analysis, and cross-referencing
2:24
Speaker 1: techniques that would make professional researchers envious. So genealogy just
2:29
Speaker 1: satisfied something in her methodical mind, the puzzle-solving, the detective
2:34
Speaker 1: work of uncovering forgotten stories. And she'd become known in
2:38
Speaker 1: genealogy communities for her thoroughness, her ability to track down
2:42
Speaker 1: records others missed. and her persistence in cases where the
2:46
Speaker 1: trails had gone cold. But line 82483 was different, because
2:52
Speaker 1: the entry appeared clinical, routine even, because beside the name
2:56
Speaker 1: was unknown white female bones. And most people would have
3:00
Speaker 1: just scrolled past it, but Christina couldn't. And the geography
3:04
Speaker 1: of this particular case made it personal to Christina. because
3:09
Speaker 1: she had grown up in Strongsville, which was just 20
3:12
Speaker 1: minutes from where the remains were discovered. So this wasn't
3:15
Speaker 1: some distant tragedy. This was her backyard. Someone murdered, buried, nameless,
3:21
Speaker 1: and forgotten just miles from her childhood home. So to
3:24
Speaker 1: understand how a murder became a footnote we need to
3:27
Speaker 1: rewind back to February 15th, 1975, when three teenage boys
3:33
Speaker 1: were exploring along Rocky River in Mill Stream Run Reservation
3:37
Speaker 1: when they made a grim discovery. Scattered among the winter
3:41
Speaker 1: debris were partial skeletal remains, clearly human and clearly old.
3:46
Speaker 2: Or that's what they thought.
3:48
Speaker 1: And the boys would call the police eventually. It took
3:51
Speaker 1: them a minute, but you know, whether they were scared
3:54
Speaker 1: of admitting it to their parents or they were just
3:56
Speaker 1: scared in general, we won't know. But they did end
3:58
Speaker 1: up calling the police. And the excavation that followed yielded
4:02
Speaker 1: more questions than answers. But the skull told the story
4:06
Speaker 1: because there was a 24 caliber bullet lodged in the
4:09
Speaker 1: left temple. And on February 12th, 1975, the death was
4:13
Speaker 1: ruled a homicide. But the skeleton was incomplete, weathered by
4:18
Speaker 1: months of exposure. And animal scavenging had scattered bones throughout
4:22
Speaker 1: the woods. So crucial pieces were entirely missing. And the
4:26
Speaker 1: jawbone was completely gone. Along with most of the teeth,
4:29
Speaker 1: there was only five left. Plus one interrupted wisdom tooth.
4:33
Speaker 1: And the age estimate was about 20. But without the
4:37
Speaker 1: completed remains, that was even educated guesswork. So investigators knew
4:41
Speaker 1: they had a young white woman murdered and dumped along
4:44
Speaker 1: Rocky River. And someone had executed her with a single
4:47
Speaker 1: shot to the head, then abandoned her body in the woods.
4:51
Speaker 1: But without identification, without family coming forward, the case grew
4:55
Speaker 1: cold fast. So the investigation tried everything 1975 had to offer.
5:00
Speaker 1: They even compared the skull to photos of Patty Hearst,
5:03
Speaker 1: She was actually making headlines at the time, so the
5:06
Speaker 1: police just thought, you know, the most famous person in
5:09
Speaker 1: the United States right now, it's not even near this location.
5:12
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Patty Hearst, you know, they're kind of crossing
5:14
Speaker 1: their fingers that they could solve one of the biggest
5:16
Speaker 1: cases in the United States at the time. But alas,
5:20
Speaker 1: the dental records did not match, and it was just
5:22
Speaker 1: far-reaching anyway. So they couldn't find a match, and no
5:26
Speaker 1: missing persons reports fit with this case. And no families
5:30
Speaker 1: claimed her. So on May 15th, 1975, three months after discovery,
5:35
Speaker 1: the identified remains were buried in Potter's Field at Memorial
5:38
Speaker 1: Garden Cemetery. And Memorial Garden Cemetery was basically where bodies
5:43
Speaker 1: that were unclaimed went. And her headstone was unmarked and unremarkable.
5:49
Speaker 1: And there was no grieving family, no friends, just another
5:53
Speaker 1: unclaimed body in an anonymous section.
5:55
Speaker 2: Reserved for those with nowhere else to go.
5:58
Speaker 1: And that cemetery entry would be what caught Christina's attention
6:01
Speaker 1: all those years later. unknown white female bones. So someone
6:05
Speaker 1: was looking for her once again. But since 1975, years
6:09
Speaker 1: had passed and the case files just gathered dust and
6:12
Speaker 1: detectives retired and evidence was just boxed away. So the
6:16
Speaker 1: young woman murdered along Rocky River became truly forgotten, existing
6:21
Speaker 1: only in that ledger. But in 2014, Christina decided to
6:25
Speaker 1: do something about it. Because Christina's biology training had taught
6:28
Speaker 1: her to question, to dig deeper when something didn't add up.
6:32
Speaker 1: And her genealogy hobby had shown her how to research,
6:35
Speaker 1: how to connect seemingly unrelated information. And her naturally inquisitive personality,
6:41
Speaker 1: what friends called her amateur detective streak, wouldn't abandon someone
6:45
Speaker 1: so completely forgot by the system meant to protect them.
6:48
Speaker 1: So staring at the cemetery entry, Christina had no idea
6:52
Speaker 1: she was about to trigger a chain of events that
6:54
Speaker 1: would captivate online communities, engage professional forensic artists, expose system-wide failures,
7:00
Speaker 1: and give a name back to someone erased from history
7:04
Speaker 1: for 44 years. So Christina made the decision that would
7:07
Speaker 1: consume the next several years of her life. and unknown
7:10
Speaker 1: white female bones would get her name back because of it.
7:13
Speaker 1: So she started where any good researcher would, the newspaper.
7:17
Speaker 1: So hours at local libraries hunched over microfiche machines, scrolling
7:22
Speaker 1: through decades-old archives, she searched for any mention of February
7:27
Speaker 1: 1975 discovery along the Rocky River, just hoping contemporary coverage
7:32
Speaker 1: might reveal details missing from official reports. But what she
7:35
Speaker 1: found was worse than silence. There was virtually nothing. A
7:39
Speaker 1: young woman murdered remains discovered by children, and it barely
7:43
Speaker 1: rated as a news brief. So in 1975, this case
7:46
Speaker 1: was treated as just another Jane Doe, another unidentified body
7:50
Speaker 1: worth little public interest. So without media coverage, there'd be
7:53
Speaker 1: no public awareness at all. No tips, no pressure on investigators,
7:58
Speaker 1: and the young woman had been forgotten by the press
8:00
Speaker 1: as thoroughly as by the system. And next came the
8:03
Speaker 1: police departments.
8:04
Speaker 2: And Christina called INC.
8:05
Speaker 1: Everyone. The Cleveland police, the Akron police, the Cahuahoga County
8:09
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office. And she hit wall after wall. And some
8:13
Speaker 1: departments had no records at all. And others had incomplete files.
8:17
Speaker 1: But most simply told her cold case information wasn't public,
8:21
Speaker 1: or she'd need formal requests, which would take weeks or
8:24
Speaker 1: even months. So the digital age had just spoiled Christina.
8:28
Speaker 1: And here was a decades-old murder with no apparent ongoing investigation.
8:33
Speaker 1: yet accessing basic information required navigating bureaucracies that seemed designed
8:38
Speaker 1: to discourage inquiry. She was actually starting to learn why
8:42
Speaker 1: so many cold cases stayed cold. and institutional barriers can
8:47
Speaker 1: be as formidable as investigative challenges. But then she caught
8:51
Speaker 1: her first break. Lieutenant Dawn Silvis of Cleveland Metro Parks
8:55
Speaker 1: Police was different. And when Christina explained her interest in
8:58
Speaker 1: Strongsville Jane Doe, Silvis, surprisingly, didn't dismiss her like the
9:02
Speaker 1: other ones. He would actually recognize something in her persistence
9:07
Speaker 1: and her genuine concern for a forgotten victim and her
9:10
Speaker 1: demonstrated genealogy expertise from their phone conversation. So Silvus would
9:14
Speaker 1: do something extraordinary and he gave Christina copies of the
9:18
Speaker 1: original case files. Crime scene photos, forensic reports, investigative notes
9:23
Speaker 1: that hadn't seen daylight in decades. And this was not
9:26
Speaker 1: standard procedure. You know, just ask the police, hey.
9:29
Speaker 2: Can I have some f * * * ing crime
9:30
Speaker 2: scene photos? And they give it to you.
9:31
Speaker 1: Because sharing active case files with civilian researchers broke protocol.
9:35
Speaker 1: But Silva saw an opportunity. If Christina's genealogy skills and
9:39
Speaker 1: online networks could generate new leads on a stone cold case,
9:43
Speaker 1: why not take a chance?
9:44
Speaker 2: And those files would change everything. everything. And the photos
9:48
Speaker 2: were haunting.
9:49
Speaker 1: Images of the muddy skull discovered by three teenagers and
9:52
Speaker 1: forensic shots of the in the temple and documentation of
9:56
Speaker 1: scattered remains. So this wasn't just a cemetery ledger.
9:59
Speaker 2: Entry anymore.
10:00
Speaker 1: This was a real person who'd suffered real violence, and
10:05
Speaker 1: Christina was staring at the evidence now. So she would
10:07
Speaker 1: work on it for a while by herself, but she
10:09
Speaker 1: would start to hit a wall. And she had taken
10:12
Speaker 1: her solo investigation as far as possible. So she needed help.
10:16
Speaker 1: And she needed to get other eyes on this case.
10:18
Speaker 1: The kind of collective intelligence only a community could provide.
10:22
Speaker 1: And that's when Christina turned to Reddit. Shout out to Reddit.
10:26
Speaker 1: And she would choose r slash unsolved mysteries. A community
10:29
Speaker 1: of over 400,000 members.
10:32
Speaker 1: Dedicated to cold cases and missing persons. I have spent
10:36
Speaker 1: many an hour on this subreddit, and the people in
10:40
Speaker 1: it are awesome. And she would actually use the username CallMeIce.
10:45
Speaker 1: Her name's Christina. My name's Christina. I say CallMeChris. She
10:48
Speaker 1: said CallMeIce. I don't know.
10:49
Speaker 2: I feel like we need to be friends.
10:51
Speaker 1: Anyway, so Christina would share everything. The cemetery record that
10:55
Speaker 1: started it all. Details from Silvis' case files. Crime scene photos.
10:59
Speaker 1: Her theory that this case had fallen through the cracks.
11:02
Speaker 2: And more.
11:03
Speaker 1: And the response was immediate and overwhelming.
11:07
Speaker 2: Christina would say, And more. She was right.
11:13
Speaker 1: So the community was fascinated, but not for the typical
11:17
Speaker 1: true crime reasons. As Christina noted, people were actually interested
11:21
Speaker 1: in the case because they were amazed that there wouldn't
11:23
Speaker 1: be something in a database. And these weren't just armchair
11:27
Speaker 1: detectives seeking entertainment. They were genuinely outraged that a murder
11:31
Speaker 1: victim could be so completely erased from official records. And
11:35
Speaker 1: the case represented everything wrong with cold case handling. jurisdictional confusion,
11:40
Speaker 1: poor record-keeping, communication failures, and casual dismissal of searching families.
11:45
Speaker 1: So users immediately began deploying sophisticated research techniques, and some
11:50
Speaker 1: would cross-reference the Strongsville's discovery with missing persons databases from
11:54
Speaker 1: the 1970s, and others use advanced Google searches to hunt
11:58
Speaker 1: for newspaper mentions that Christina might have missed. And digital archives,
12:03
Speaker 1: genealogy databases, military records, social security death indexes, the community
12:08
Speaker 1: just cast a research net wider than any individual could manage.
12:12
Speaker 1: And the case would spread beyond Reddit even. With Christina's permission,
12:16
Speaker 1: a Websleuths.com username, Migmu, cross-posted her research. And Websleuths was
12:22
Speaker 1: purpose-built for public involvement in missing persons cases. And it
12:26
Speaker 1: had 115,000 members, 12 million posts, and proven track record
12:32
Speaker 1: of matching over 20 unidentified bodies with missing people, which
12:36
Speaker 1: is crazy.
12:37
Speaker 2: My kind of people.
12:38
Speaker 1: But the platform had specific forms for different types of cases.
12:41
Speaker 1: Unidentified persons, missing persons, cold cases, and members included retired
12:47
Speaker 1: law enforcement, genealogy experts, former military investigators, and amateur sleuths
12:52
Speaker 1: with specialized knowledge. And when this case appeared, it just
12:55
Speaker 1: triggered systemic investigation by people who knew how to research
12:59
Speaker 1: exactly such mysteries. So Christina had accidentally created a perfect storm,
13:04
Speaker 1: a storm of crowdsourced investigation. So the collaboration between Reddit
13:09
Speaker 1: and the web sleuths became seamless, and users on both
13:12
Speaker 1: platforms shared their theories. and divided research tasks and cross-posted
13:17
Speaker 1: significant findings. And some focused on newspaper archives from the 1970s,
13:22
Speaker 1: and others specialized in genealogy research, building family trees from
13:27
Speaker 1: potential matches. And others reached out through professional networks, sharing
13:31
Speaker 1: information with colleagues in law enforcement or forensic sciences. So
13:35
Speaker 1: this collective effort kind of wielded a power traditional law
13:39
Speaker 1: enforcement just couldn't match. Because while individual detectives juggled dozens
13:43
Speaker 1: of cases, these online communities could focus entirely on one
13:47
Speaker 1: single mystery. And while official investigations faced jurisdictional boundaries and
13:52
Speaker 1: bureaucratic constraints, internet sleuths could follow leads anywhere, regardless of
13:57
Speaker 1: geographic or institutional limits. thank god for the internet so
14:00
Speaker 1: christina just watched in amazement as her solitary obsession became
14:04
Speaker 1: a collaborative investigation involving dozens of people across the country
14:09
Speaker 1: because one college student's inability to forget a cemetery entry
14:13
Speaker 1: had become a community effort to restore identity to someone
14:16
Speaker 1: systemically erased from memory so hundreds of miles away from
14:20
Speaker 1: christina's ohio investigation was a 54-year-old former CPA in California.
14:26
Speaker 1: And he was just browsing the same forums that had
14:28
Speaker 1: become captivated by the Strongsville's Jane Doe case. And this
14:32
Speaker 1: man was Carl Kopelman. And he was not your typical
14:35
Speaker 1: forum user. No, no. Nay, nay. This was a man
14:38
Speaker 1: who discovered an unusual calling. And that calling was creating
14:43
Speaker 1: facial reconstructions of unidentified remains. Very niche, but very cool.
14:50
Speaker 1: And Kopelman's path to forensic artistry was unconventional. Because after
14:54
Speaker 1: retiring from accounting, he developed an interest in unidentified remains cases.
14:59
Speaker 1: And initially just following them online, but his analytical mind
15:03
Speaker 1: and natural artistic ability flourished. led him to try something ambitious,
15:07
Speaker 1: which was learning to create facial reconstructions using computer software
15:12
Speaker 1: and anatomical knowledge acquired through intensive self-study, which is so impressive. Like,
15:19
Speaker 1: I like to paint, you know, but this guy's like,
15:22
Speaker 1: you know what I'm going to do?
15:23
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a f * * * ing hero, basically.
15:26
Speaker 1: So it started as a hobby had become something much bigger,
15:31
Speaker 1: and Kopelman had already helped solve high-profile cases, including the
15:35
Speaker 1: identification of Tammy Jo Alexander, known for decades as Caledonia
15:39
Speaker 1: Jane Doe. And his reconstructions combined artistic skill with forensic science,
15:45
Speaker 1: using skull measurements, tissue depth markers, and anatomical knowledge to
15:49
Speaker 1: build faces that could spark recognitions from families and friends.
15:54
Speaker 1: So when he encountered Christina's research, he was immediately intrigued.
15:59
Speaker 1: But intrigue and action are different things, obviously. So Kopelman's
16:03
Speaker 1: initial reaction to the Strongsville case was professional skepticism, because
16:08
Speaker 1: the photos Christina had obtained were challenging, because the skull
16:11
Speaker 1: was caked with mud after months of exposure and damaged
16:15
Speaker 1: by decomposition and animals. So crucial facial features were missing entirely.
16:20
Speaker 1: And he would say, I looked at that for a
16:23
Speaker 1: couple of months and I thought, no, the angles are wrong.
16:26
Speaker 1: There's no mandible, no hair color. The front teeth are missing.
16:30
Speaker 1: There's no way I can do anything with this. So
16:33
Speaker 1: for a forensic artist, these weren't inconveniences, they were fundamental obstacles.
16:38
Speaker 1: Because the mandible determines facial structure and jawline, and hair
16:42
Speaker 1: color affects perception and memory, and teeth influence lip positioning
16:47
Speaker 1: and facial symmetry. So without these elements, Kopelman was being
16:50
Speaker 1: asked to create a face from fragments, and to restore
16:54
Speaker 1: humanity to someone whose most distinctive features had been lost.
16:58
Speaker 1: So the technical challenges were immense, and Kopelman would need
17:02
Speaker 1: to estimate mandible size and position based on what remained
17:05
Speaker 1: of the skull's attachment points. So for months, the photos
17:09
Speaker 1: sat in his files, a constant reminder of an impossible challenge.
17:13
Speaker 1: But something about the case wouldn't let him go.
17:16
Speaker 2: And maybe it.
17:17
Speaker 1: Was Christina's persistence documented in forum posts. Maybe it was
17:21
Speaker 1: institutional failure that had left the murder victim nameless for
17:24
Speaker 1: 40 years. And maybe it was just recognition that if
17:28
Speaker 1: he didn't try, no one else would. So finally, Kopelman
17:32
Speaker 1: made his decision with characteristic directness, and he would say,
17:35
Speaker 1: So using sophisticated 3D modeling software, typically employed by professional
17:39
Speaker 1: forensic anthropologists, Kopelman began to painstakingly process a digital reconstruction,
17:52
Speaker 1: and he studied the skull photographs from every available angle,
17:56
Speaker 1: taking precise measurements and noting anatomical landmarks. And using tissue
18:01
Speaker 1: depth data from the FBI's forensic database, he calculated how
18:05
Speaker 1: flesh would have sat on the bone structure.
18:08
Speaker 2: Which again, just like, crazy that people can do this,
18:10
Speaker 2: but anyway.
18:11
Speaker 1: So the missing mandible was the one that required educated
18:14
Speaker 1: guesswork based on skull proportions and attachment points. And Kopelman
18:18
Speaker 1: studied similar cases and consulted anthropological references and made careful
18:23
Speaker 1: estimates about jaw size and position. And for the missing teeth,
18:27
Speaker 1: he estimated lip positioning based on remaining dental structure. Because remember,
18:31
Speaker 1: she had five teeth left, so not a lot to
18:33
Speaker 1: work with. And the hair presented another challenge. With no
18:37
Speaker 1: DNA to indicate color or texture, Kobelman chose a neutral
18:41
Speaker 1: brown that wouldn't bias recognition one way or another. So
18:45
Speaker 1: the goal was creating a face people could see as
18:48
Speaker 1: their missing loved one, regardless of specific details that might
18:51
Speaker 1: have changed. So using digital reconstruction techniques and years of
18:55
Speaker 1: studying facial anatomy, Kopelman began rebuilding a face from the
18:59
Speaker 1: damaged skull in those muddy crime scene photos. And the
19:02
Speaker 1: result was remarkable. Because despite limitations, Kopelman had created a
19:07
Speaker 1: facial reconstruction that looked like a real person rather than
19:11
Speaker 1: a medical illustration. And the digital artwork showed a young
19:15
Speaker 1: woman with soft features, kind eyes, and an approachable face.
19:20
Speaker 1: someone who could have been anyone's daughter or sister. So
19:23
Speaker 1: for the first time in over 40 years, the Strongsville's
19:27
Speaker 1: Jane Doe had a face people could connect with emotionally.
19:30
Speaker 1: But creating the reconstruction was only half the battle. The
19:34
Speaker 1: real challenge was getting it before the right people. And
19:37
Speaker 1: those people were investigators and family members who might recognize
19:40
Speaker 1: those carefully reconstructed features. And this is where Christina's internet
19:44
Speaker 1: community proved invaluable. Because the facial reconstruction spread across Reddit, Websleuths,
19:50
Speaker 1: and other platforms, reaching thousands who might have information. Yet
19:55
Speaker 1: even with this breakthrough, the case might have stayed in
19:57
Speaker 1: internet forums indefinitely, if not for a completely unrelated phone
20:02
Speaker 1: call Kopelman made in 2016. So he'd been working on
20:06
Speaker 1: another case and needed to contact Cahuahoga County Medical Examiner's
20:09
Speaker 1: Office about different remains entirely. And during that conversation, he
20:13
Speaker 1: mentioned the Strongsville's Bones case, describing his facial reconstruction and
20:18
Speaker 1: his frustration with the lack of progress. And the response
20:21
Speaker 1: was shocking because on the other line, the person said,
20:24
Speaker 1: What Bones? Because the officials had no record of the
20:27
Speaker 1: Strongsville Jane Doe case in their system at all. So
20:30
Speaker 1: this wasn't an oversight or misfiled report. The case had
20:34
Speaker 1: never been entered into NAMUS, the National Missing and Unidentified
20:39
Speaker 1: Person System. which was the primary database for cross-referencing unidentified
20:43
Speaker 1: remains with missing persons reports nationwide. So the revelation was
20:47
Speaker 1: stunning because for over a decade, NAMUS had been solving
20:51
Speaker 1: cold cases by allowing investigators to search for matches between
20:54
Speaker 1: missing persons and unidentified remains. But the system was specifically
20:58
Speaker 1: designed to prevent cases like Strongsville Jane Doe from falling.
21:02
Speaker 2: Through bureaucratic cracks. But as we know, it did.
21:06
Speaker 1: And none of that mattered if the case was never
21:08
Speaker 1: entered to begin with. So it all ended up being
21:11
Speaker 1: a simple clerical error. Likely a spelling mistake or a
21:16
Speaker 1: jurisdictional confusion from the 1970s. And it had prevented this
21:20
Speaker 1: murder victim from being included in modern tools designed to
21:24
Speaker 1: identify her. So the discovery exposed systemic failure beyond one tragedy.
21:29
Speaker 1: And how many other cases were lost to similar errors?
21:33
Speaker 1: And how many families... were still searching for missing loved
21:36
Speaker 1: ones whose cases had never made it into databases that
21:39
Speaker 1: could provide answers. But once discovered, correcting the error was
21:43
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, and the Strongsville Jane Doe case was finally
21:47
Speaker 1: entered into NAM-US, complete with Kopelman's facial reconstruction and all
21:52
Speaker 1: the forensic details gathered over decades. So for the first
21:56
Speaker 1: time since 1975, this person, this victim, was officially part
22:01
Speaker 1: of the system designed to help identify her. And the
22:04
Speaker 1: impact was almost immediate. So in December of 2016, Sergeant
22:09
Speaker 1: Jeff Smith of Akron Police was conducting routine NOM-US database
22:14
Speaker 1: searches when he came across the newly entered Strongsville case.
22:18
Speaker 1: And something caught his attention. The age estimate, the time frame,
22:21
Speaker 1: and the location. So Smith began cross-referencing with missing persons
22:26
Speaker 1: reports from the same period, looking for potential matches. And
22:30
Speaker 1: that's when he found her. A missing person report from
22:33
Speaker 1: September 1974. A 17-year-old girl who had disappeared from Akron
22:39
Speaker 1: just months before the Strongsville remains discovery. And the age
22:43
Speaker 1: was right, and the timing was right, and the geographic
22:46
Speaker 1: proximity made sense. But what really convinced Smith he might
22:50
Speaker 1: have found a match was Kopelman's facial reconstruction. Because when
22:54
Speaker 1: Smith pulled up the missing person photo and compared it
22:58
Speaker 1: to the digital artwork, the resemblance was unmistakable, which is wild,
23:03
Speaker 1: especially based off of how little evidence he had to
23:06
Speaker 1: work off of. And Kopelman's reaction when he saw the
23:09
Speaker 1: photograph for the first time was immediate. and definitive, and
23:13
Speaker 1: he would say, she looked like my drawing. So after
23:17
Speaker 1: months of painstaking work reconstructing a face from fragmentary remains,
23:21
Speaker 1: and after years of the case languishing in digital obscurity,
23:25
Speaker 1: the breakthrough had finally come. and the forgotten murder victim
23:29
Speaker 1: finally had a name. And that name was Linda Marie Pagano.
23:34
Speaker 1: So at this point, having a potential match was one thing.
23:37
Speaker 1: Proving it scientifically was another thing entirely. So what followed
23:41
Speaker 1: Sergeant Jeff Smith's discovery would require months of legal consultations,
23:46
Speaker 1: forensic planning, and scientific precision to finally answer questions that
23:50
Speaker 1: had haunted a family for over four decades. And this
23:54
Speaker 1: was nothing less than the resurrection of Linda Marie Pagano,
23:57
Speaker 1: both literally and figuratively. So the first step was dental records,
24:01
Speaker 1: because Linda's 1974 missing persons file included dental record charts
24:06
Speaker 1: from regular checkups and detailed records documenting her teeth's unique characteristics.
24:11
Speaker 1: So when investigators compared these to the Strongville's Jane Doe's
24:14
Speaker 1: remaining dental structure, they found promising similarities. But as we know,
24:18
Speaker 1: the skeletal remains were incomplete, and only five teeth plus
24:22
Speaker 1: one interrupted wisdom tooth was available for comparison. So while encouraging,
24:27
Speaker 1: the dental evidence wasn't conclusive enough for definitive identification. So
24:32
Speaker 1: for that, they needed DNA. So obtaining DNA samples meant
24:35
Speaker 1: exhuming remains buried in an unmarked grave.
24:39
Speaker 2: For over 40 years.
24:41
Speaker 1: So in October of 2017, the investigators returned to Memorial
24:45
Speaker 1: Garden Cemetery with court orders and ground-penetrating radar from the
24:49
Speaker 1: University of Akron. And the technology would let them conduct
24:52
Speaker 1: magnetic surveying of Potter's Field, searching for the exact 1975
24:57
Speaker 1: burial location among dozens of unmarked graves.
25:00
Speaker 2: Very difficult.
25:01
Speaker 1: And the exhumation proved more challenging than anticipated, because Potter's
25:06
Speaker 1: Field is notoriously difficult. Because with the minimal record-keeping, graves
25:11
Speaker 1: were poorly marked or just not marked at all. So
25:14
Speaker 1: the first attempt yielded wrong remains entirely. And it was
25:17
Speaker 1: just another stark reminder of how easily the dead were forgotten.
25:22
Speaker 1: especially when the proper documentation was lacking. But with multiple
25:27
Speaker 1: attempts and careful surveying, they were finally able to find
25:30
Speaker 1: the correct location, and they were able to successfully exhume
25:34
Speaker 1: the remains buried as unknown white female bones in 1975.
25:39
Speaker 1: So once recovered, samples were extracted and sent to the
25:42
Speaker 1: University of North Texas DNA Laboratory for Forensic Identification. The
25:46
Speaker 1: lab would conduct mitochondrial DNA testing, comparing genetic materials from
25:51
Speaker 1: the remains with cheek swabs from Linda's surviving siblings. And
25:55
Speaker 1: this type of DNA is ideal for degraded remains because
25:58
Speaker 1: it's more stable than regular DNA and passed through the
26:01
Speaker 1: maternal line. So perfect for sibling comparisons. So while science
26:05
Speaker 1: was working, investigators pieced together who Linda Pagano had been
26:10
Speaker 1: So born April 11, 1957, Linda was the youngest of
26:14
Speaker 1: three children. Friends and family called her Midge, short for Midget,
26:20
Speaker 1: a playful reference to her petite stature. Which is not
26:23
Speaker 1: okay to say now, but that's what they called her.
26:26
Speaker 1: It's not me saying it, it's what they called her.
26:28
Speaker 1: And it was a different time, and it's terrible. But anyway,
26:30
Speaker 1: it was based on her petite stature of about 4'10
26:33
Speaker 1: and about 100 pounds. But Linda's small size belied a
26:36
Speaker 1: big personality. And those who knew her described her as honest, hardworking,
26:41
Speaker 1: and surprisingly independent for someone so young.
26:44
Speaker 2: And she had blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to.
26:47
Speaker 1: Sparkle with mischief and despite being naturally shy linda was
26:51
Speaker 1: well liked among her classmates at springfield high school in
26:54
Speaker 1: akron and she worked part-time at the a w restaurant
26:58
Speaker 1: in talmadge earning her own money and just saving it
27:00
Speaker 1: for the future so linda was the kind of teenager
27:03
Speaker 1: who followed the rules and she stayed out of any
27:06
Speaker 1: serious trouble but had dreams beyond her small town circumstances
27:10
Speaker 1: So what investigators discovered about Linda's final night alive was
27:14
Speaker 1: magical and heartbreaking. So on August 31st, 1974, Linda had
27:19
Speaker 1: tickets to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young at Cleveland Stadium.
27:23
Speaker 2: I absolutely love them.
27:26
Speaker 1: So good. Wish I could have seen them in concert.
27:28
Speaker 1: But it was one of the biggest concerts of the year.
27:31
Speaker 1: It was three hours of music, 26 songs, and two albums.
27:35
Speaker 1: And the crowd of 80,000 was electric. And Linda was
27:40
Speaker 1: having the time of her life. And the final song
27:43
Speaker 1: of the evening was Ohio. Neil Young's haunting tribute to
27:46
Speaker 1: the Kent State shootings just a few hours away from
27:49
Speaker 1: Cleveland Stadium. And the irony in that would become heartbreaking.
27:54
Speaker 1: As Linda Marie Pagano's final night alive ended about a
27:57
Speaker 1: song about young people dying in Ohio. And within 12 hours,
28:02
Speaker 1: she would become another Ohio tragedy. So Linda was particularly
28:06
Speaker 1: close to her mother, and her relationship with her stepfather,
28:10
Speaker 1: Byron Claflin, had always been tense. Because Claflin was a
28:14
Speaker 1: strict disciplinarian with a volatile temper, especially when he'd been drinking.
28:20
Speaker 1: And as Linda approached 18, the household tensions were escalating.
28:25
Speaker 1: and she was starting to assert independence that Claflin saw
28:28
Speaker 1: as defiance.
28:29
Speaker 2: So the last.
28:30
Speaker 1: Weekend of August 1974 started ordinary for Linda. She had
28:34
Speaker 1: tickets to her favorite band, and she drove there with
28:37
Speaker 1: her prized gold Mustang she saved up to buy, and
28:40
Speaker 1: she would pick up her boyfriend, Steve Wilson, along the way,
28:43
Speaker 1: and her friends. So they would all go to the
28:45
Speaker 1: concert and enjoy it, and as one friend later recalled,
28:49
Speaker 1: Linda seemed on top of the world. But the evening
28:52
Speaker 1: would run late, and the concert didn't end until after
28:55
Speaker 1: 11 p.m. And then there was traffic, dropping off friends,
28:59
Speaker 1: and the drive back to Akron. So Linda didn't return
29:02
Speaker 1: home until about 4 a.m. on September 1st. And her father,
29:06
Speaker 1: Byron Claflin, was waiting for her. But Claflin was a
29:09
Speaker 1: bartender with a reputation for heavy drinking and a temper,
29:13
Speaker 1: as we know, that made him unpredictable when angry. And
29:16
Speaker 1: he'd been drinking that night, stewing over Linda's absence. working
29:21
Speaker 1: himself into a rage about her independence and perceived disrespect.
29:25
Speaker 1: And the argument that followed was heated and final. And
29:29
Speaker 1: in his fury, Claflin threw Linda out of the apartment,
29:32
Speaker 1: telling her to never come back. And those were the
29:35
Speaker 1: last words anyone would officially hear Linda Pagano speak. And
29:39
Speaker 1: after that night... Linda was reported missing September 2nd of 1974,
29:42
Speaker 1: just one day after the confrontation. And she had nowhere
29:48
Speaker 1: to go, no money beyond what was in her purse,
29:50
Speaker 1: and few options for someone her age in 1974. And
29:54
Speaker 1: unlike today, no cell phones to track, no social media
29:57
Speaker 1: to monitor, no digital footprint providing clues. So Linda Pagano
30:02
Speaker 1: had simply vanished. And despite her family's efforts, she remained
30:05
Speaker 1: missing for 44 years, as we know. And Byron Claflin,
30:09
Speaker 1: the last person to see Linda alive, remained a person
30:12
Speaker 1: of interest until his death in 1990, though never charged
30:16
Speaker 1: with any crime. So he took whatever knowledge he had
30:19
Speaker 1: about Linda's fate to his grave. And the investigation always
30:22
Speaker 1: suspected Linda's disappearance connected to that final argument. Without a body, evidence,
30:28
Speaker 1: or witnesses, nothing could be proven in court. So flash
30:32
Speaker 1: forward to 2017 again with the DNA.
30:35
Speaker 2: Matches going on.
30:36
Speaker 1: So if the Strongsville remains were Linda's, the mitochondrial DNA
30:40
Speaker 1: would match exactly. But the test had limitations because mitochondrial
30:44
Speaker 1: DNA is less discriminating than nuclear DNA because thousands of
30:48
Speaker 1: people might share the same mitochondrial profile. So the test
30:51
Speaker 1: could rule Linda out definitively if it didn't match. But
30:54
Speaker 1: a positive match would only indicate family relationship, not absolute identification. Unfortunately,
31:00
Speaker 1: in Linda's case, other evidence supported the DNA match. The age, height, timing,
31:06
Speaker 1: and geographical proximity all aligned. So when combined with that
31:10
Speaker 1: positive mitochondrial DNA result, Investigators had scientific confirmation of what
31:15
Speaker 1: Carl Kopelman's facial reconstruction had suggested months earlier. So on
31:19
Speaker 1: June 29th, 2018 now, those questions finally received their scientific answer.
31:25
Speaker 1: And the DNA results from the University of North Texas
31:28
Speaker 1: came back with a definitive confirmation. And the remains discovered
31:32
Speaker 1: by three teenage boys along Rocky River in 1975 were
31:37
Speaker 1: indeed Linda Marie Paganos. So after 44 years, the girl
31:41
Speaker 1: thrown out of her home after a late night had
31:44
Speaker 1: finally been found. And Christina Skates learned the news while
31:47
Speaker 1: gaming at home, receiving a phone call that validated years
31:51
Speaker 1: of obsessive research and sleepless nights wondering about a forgotten
31:55
Speaker 1: murder victim. And as she later described her reaction, quote-unquote,
31:59
Speaker 1: I got choked up when I got the news. I
32:01
Speaker 1: can't even imagine just doing a hobby to look for
32:07
Speaker 1: somebody's name that just got forgotten by bureaucratic bullshit, and
32:13
Speaker 1: then being able to solve the case with the help
32:15
Speaker 1: of so many people.
32:16
Speaker 2: It's just amazing. It's amazing to me.
32:18
Speaker 1: So the cemetery ledger entry that had haunted her for
32:21
Speaker 1: months finally had resolution. It And unknown white female bones
32:25
Speaker 1: now had a name, a family, and people who never
32:28
Speaker 1: stopped loving her. And the official announcement came July 12, 2018,
32:32
Speaker 1: at a press conference marking the end of one of
32:35
Speaker 1: Ohio's longest-running Jane Doe cases. And Linda Marie Pagano was
32:39
Speaker 1: no longer a mystery. She was a murder victim who
32:42
Speaker 1: deserved justice. and her case immediately transferred to the Cleveland
32:46
Speaker 1: Metro Parks Police as an active homicide investigation. So for
32:49
Speaker 1: Michael Pagano, Linda's brother, who had called the police in
32:53
Speaker 1: 1975 only to be dismissed, the confirmation was overwhelming. Because
32:57
Speaker 1: back in 1975, Michael heard about the remains that were found,
33:02
Speaker 1: and he thought they were his sister's. But the police
33:05
Speaker 1: just said, nah, nah, doesn't sound right. And the case was,
33:09
Speaker 1: as we know, filed away and forgotten. So I can't
33:12
Speaker 1: even imagine the relief her brother has felt. And also,
33:15
Speaker 1: just the betrayal at the same time. But what he
33:18
Speaker 1: said about the case was, I thought I was in
33:21
Speaker 1: a dream. I thought I would never see this. I
33:24
Speaker 1: thought this day would never come. I thought I would
33:26
Speaker 1: die wondering. I am amazed how this came to light
33:30
Speaker 1: like it did. So the man who had spent over
33:32
Speaker 1: four decades wondering what happened to his little sister finally
33:37
Speaker 1: had his answer. And Michael made sure to meet Christina
33:40
Speaker 1: Skates in person to thank the young woman whose curiosity
33:44
Speaker 1: and persistence had accomplished what the official system failed to
33:48
Speaker 1: do for nearly half a century. And it was a
33:50
Speaker 1: meeting between strangers whose lives had been connected by tragedy
33:54
Speaker 1: and tragedy. determination and recognition that sometimes the most important
33:58
Speaker 1: justice work happens outside official channels designed to provide it.
34:03
Speaker 1: So in January 2019, Linda Marie Pagano was finally laid
34:07
Speaker 1: to rest properly, and her remains were cremated and buried
34:10
Speaker 1: next to her mother in Hollycross Cemetery, ending a journey
34:14
Speaker 1: from an unmarked Pottersfield grave to a final resting place
34:18
Speaker 1: surrounded by family who would never stop searching for her.
34:21
Speaker 1: But finding Linda Pagano's identity was only half the battle,
34:25
Speaker 1: as now investigators face the daunting challenge of proving who
34:28
Speaker 1: killed her. So when the case transferred to Cleveland Metroparks
34:32
Speaker 1: Police as an active homicide investigation in July 2018, detectives
34:37
Speaker 1: inherited a murder nearly 44 years old, degraded evidence with
34:42
Speaker 1: deceased suspects and witnesses scattered to the winds over four decades.
34:47
Speaker 1: So the primary suspect had always been clear, Byron Claflin,
34:51
Speaker 1: Linda's stepfather, who'd thrown her out after the final argument
34:55
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of September 1st, 1974. So
34:58
Speaker 1: these circumstances just painted a disturbing picture. A young woman
35:02
Speaker 1: with nowhere to go, kicked out by her angry stepfather
35:05
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. But as we know,
35:07
Speaker 1: Byron Claflin had died in 1990. So whatever knowledge.
35:10
Speaker 2: He had about that night had died with him.
35:13
Speaker 1: So even if investigators could have built a strong case
35:15
Speaker 1: against him, there would be no trial, no conviction, no
35:18
Speaker 1: formal acknowledgement of guilt. A most likely suspect had escaped
35:23
Speaker 1: earthly justice by nearly three decades. But the other key
35:27
Speaker 1: figure was Linda's boyfriend, Steve Wilson, because he had also
35:32
Speaker 1: vanished from the official record. Wilson had been with Linda
35:35
Speaker 1: at the concert, drove her home that night, and would
35:39
Speaker 1: have been crucial to understanding the final hours. But decades
35:43
Speaker 1: of dead ends had failed to locate Wilson. So by 2018,
35:46
Speaker 1: investigators weren't even certain if he was still alive. So
35:50
Speaker 1: without testimony, crucial details about Linda's final hours remained forever lost.
35:55
Speaker 1: And for Michael Bogano, who'd waited 44 years for answers,
35:59
Speaker 1: the investigation's limitations were deeply frustrating. And the family finally
36:03
Speaker 1: knew what happened to Linda, but legal accountability remained painfully unresolved.
36:08
Speaker 1: And as Michael put it, with weary resignation, we'll know
36:12
Speaker 1: in our hearts who did it, but we'll never be
36:14
Speaker 1: able to prove it. Which is so heartbreaking. The challenges
36:18
Speaker 1: facing Linda's case were symptomatic of broader problems plaguing cold
36:22
Speaker 1: case work nationwide. Because evidence degrades, witnesses die or disappear,
36:28
Speaker 1: and suspects escape accountability through death or time's passage. But
36:32
Speaker 1: Linda's case also exposed systemic failures beyond normal cold case difficulties.
36:37
Speaker 1: And the clerical error that kept Linda's case out of
36:39
Speaker 1: the national database for over a decade raised troubling questions
36:43
Speaker 1: about the entire missing person system. Because how many families
36:46
Speaker 1: were waiting for answers prevented by similar bureaucratic failures? And
36:51
Speaker 1: NAMUS had been operational since 2009, designed specifically to prevent
36:56
Speaker 1: cases like Linda's from falling through the cracks. Yet, as
37:00
Speaker 1: of 2016, thousands of older cases have never been entered
37:03
Speaker 1: into the system. So if a spelling mistake or jurisdictional
37:06
Speaker 1: confusion could erase a murder victim from identification systems, how
37:11
Speaker 1: many other Linda Paganos were buried in unmarked graves, lost
37:15
Speaker 1: to administrative incompetence rather than investigative limitations? The revelation sparked
37:20
Speaker 1: audits of missing person databases across Ohio and beyond. And
37:24
Speaker 1: investigators found hundreds of cases that have never been properly
37:28
Speaker 1: entered into modern systems. And Jane and John Doe's from
37:31
Speaker 1: 1970s and 1980s who'd been forgotten, not because they were unsolvable,
37:36
Speaker 1: but because they'd never been dignitized or cross-referenced with missing
37:40
Speaker 1: person reports. So the inter-agency communication breakdown that dismissed Michael
37:44
Speaker 1: Pagano's 1975 inquiry just revealed how easily crucial information falls
37:49
Speaker 1: through the cracks when police departments fail to coordinate effectively.
37:53
Speaker 1: And Akron police, who took Linda's missing persons report, apparently
37:57
Speaker 1: never received proper notification about Strongsville's remains discovery. Or if
38:02
Speaker 1: they did, the information was never processed or cross-referenced. And
38:06
Speaker 1: in the pre-computer era, a 20-mile jurisdictional gap might have
38:10
Speaker 1: well have been 2,000 miles. So it took a volunteer
38:14
Speaker 1: forensic artist working from his home computer to finally give
38:17
Speaker 1: Linda a recognizable face. Technology that cost thousands of dollars
38:21
Speaker 1: in the 1970s was now accessible to dedicated amateurs with
38:25
Speaker 1: modern software and internet tutorials. But Linda's case also demonstrated
38:29
Speaker 1: the transformative potential of modern technology and community collaboration. And
38:34
Speaker 1: Christina Skates accomplished what decades of official investigation had failed
38:39
Speaker 1: to achieve. Not because she had special training or resources,
38:42
Speaker 1: but because She had persistence, curiosity, and access to digital
38:46
Speaker 1: tools that let her connect with like-minded investigators worldwide. And
38:50
Speaker 1: more importantly, Linda's case revealed how internet communities could serve
38:54
Speaker 1: as force multipliers for justice. The collective intelligence of Reddit
38:59
Speaker 1: and web sleuths users provided research capacity that no individual
39:02
Speaker 1: detective could match. Because when hundreds of people could simultaneously
39:06
Speaker 1: research different aspects of the case, cold cases that have
39:09
Speaker 1: been dead for decades suddenly became solvable. So Christina's approach
39:13
Speaker 1: became a model for responsible amateur investigation because she'd been
39:17
Speaker 1: meticulous in research, respectful and careful to verify information before
39:22
Speaker 1: sharing publicly. And her success inspired other amateur investigators to
39:27
Speaker 1: tackle similar cases, always understanding that responsibility sleuthing required the
39:31
Speaker 1: same attention to evidence and accuracy that professional investigators demanded.
39:36
Speaker 1: And law enforcement agencies began recognizing the value of work
39:39
Speaker 1: of amateur investigators rather than dismissing them as interfering busybodies.
39:44
Speaker 1: And Linda's case showed that citizen involvement, when properly channeled,
39:48
Speaker 1: could provide additional investigative capacity that cash-strapped police departments desperately needed.
39:54
Speaker 1: Because cold case units overwhelmed by decades of unsolved mysteries
39:58
Speaker 1: suddenly had access to volunteer researchers. And for Christina herself,
40:02
Speaker 1: Linda's case resolution was both ending and the beginning. And
40:06
Speaker 1: when asked about her role in solving the 44-year-old mystery,
40:09
Speaker 1: Christina remained characteristically modest and said, I was perfectly fine
40:14
Speaker 1: just bringing the case interest back to the case. And
40:17
Speaker 1: she'd never sought fame or recognition, only knowledge that a
40:21
Speaker 1: forgotten murder victim had finally received deserved attention. And what
40:25
Speaker 1: began as a haunting line of unknown white female bones
40:28
Speaker 1: had become Linda Marie Pagano. Not just a name, but
40:32
Speaker 1: a life restored to memory. A 17-year-old girl with blonde
40:35
Speaker 1: hair and blue eyes who loved music and worked at
40:39
Speaker 1: A & W, who saved money for a gold Mustang
40:42
Speaker 1: whose friends called her Midge, which was questionable, and who
40:45
Speaker 1: spent her final night singing along to Crosby, Stills, Nash
40:49
Speaker 1: & Young. feeling on top of the world. So the
40:51
Speaker 1: faceless victim had become someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone who mattered.
40:56
Speaker 1: And Christina and Carl Kopelman and all the other researchers
41:00
Speaker 1: accomplished something remarkable. And somewhere today or tonight, other families
41:05
Speaker 1: are still searching. And other victims wait in unmarked graves
41:09
Speaker 1: for someone who won't give up. And someone who believes
41:12
Speaker 1: every person deserves to be remembered by name. And every
41:16
Speaker 1: person deserves to come home. And that is it for
41:20
Speaker 1: today's case. I think it is incredible what Christina and
41:25
Speaker 1: Carl were able to accomplish along with everyone else involved.
41:30
Speaker 1: I think it's so wonderful that Linda was able to
41:33
Speaker 1: be put to rest and her family was able to
41:36
Speaker 1: breathe a sigh of relief, even though they weren't able
41:38
Speaker 1: to get the justice they deserved. But I just think it's,
41:41
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. And obviously, you know, there's a responsible
41:44
Speaker 1: way to.
41:44
Speaker 2: Go about it.
41:44
Speaker 1: I'm not saying go solve cold cases, do it. But
41:47
Speaker 1: I think it's important to talk about cold cases and
41:50
Speaker 1: the potential to solve them. Yeah. Let me know what
41:53
Speaker 1: other cold cases you want me to go over. Ones
41:56
Speaker 1: that haven't been solved yet. I think that's really important.
41:59
Speaker 1: And until next time, I will see you beautiful face.
42:01
Speaker 1: All right. Bye.