Latest / The conspiracy / How The Internet Solved A 35 Year Old Cold Case
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: For over three decades, a nameless girl haunted the fields
- 0:03Speaker 1: of upstate New York. She was known only by the
- 0:06Speaker 1: place where she was found, a small farming community that
- 0:10Speaker 1: would never forget her.
- 0:11Speaker 2: This is the story of how a chance.
- 0:13Speaker 1: Discovery in nineteen seventy nine launched one of America's most
- 0:17Speaker 1: enduring mysteries, and how a new generation of investigators and
- 0:22Speaker 1: Internet sloths refused to let her be forgotten.
- 0:25Speaker 2: Crime conspiracy, cults, terdo, killers, and.
- 0:29Speaker 1: Murder all things that I love to consume and I
- 0:31Speaker 1: know you do too, You sick, twisted, intellectually, beautiful minded.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Today we are talking about a crazy cold case that
- 0:41Speaker 1: once again Internet sloths swooped in and did some incredible work.
- 0:47Speaker 2: So, without further ado, let's unbuckle our.
- 0:49Speaker 1: Seatbelts, go mat fact on the highway, slam on the rights,
- 0:51Speaker 1: and buster this windshield into this cold case. Together, on
- 1:08Speaker 1: a brisk autumn morning in nineteen seventy nine, a quiet
- 1:11Speaker 1: farming community in upstate New York awoke to a harrowing
- 1:14Speaker 1: discovery in a rain soaked cornfield. Just off Us wrote
- 1:18Speaker 1: twenty outside the village of Caledonia, a local farmer checking
- 1:23Speaker 1: the fields stumbled upon what he first thought was perhaps
- 1:26Speaker 1: a trespassing hunter in a red jacket, but as he
- 1:29Speaker 1: drew closer, his heart sank because it was the lifeless
- 1:33Speaker 1: body of a girl, face down amid the cornstalks, and
- 1:37Speaker 1: she had no identification on her, and it was immediately
- 1:40Speaker 1: clear she had met a violent and and the farmer
- 1:44Speaker 1: phone the Livingstone County Sheriff's office, setting in motion a
- 1:47Speaker 1: mystery that would haunt the region for decades. So a
- 1:50Speaker 1: police arrived at the scene on what would later be
- 1:53Speaker 1: recorded as November tenth, nineteen seventy nine.
- 1:56Speaker 2: They noted that the.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Girl was young, but they didn't know what her age
- 2:00Speaker 1: was exactly at this point, and they knew that she
- 2:03Speaker 1: had been shot. And this girl died by two gunshot wounds.
- 2:07Speaker 1: One was a shot to her right eye and another
- 2:11Speaker 1: to her upper back, and the positioning of the wounds
- 2:14Speaker 1: and a large blood spot by the roadside suggested a
- 2:18Speaker 1: grim sequence, and that sequence would be that she was
- 2:21Speaker 1: most likely first shot by the road, then dragged roughly
- 2:25Speaker 1: twenty feet into the cornfield, and shot again in the back.
- 2:29Speaker 1: And the girl's pockets were turned inside out as if
- 2:32Speaker 1: someone had rifled through them to remove any form of identification,
- 2:36Speaker 1: and in the dirt beneath her body, investigators recovered a
- 2:39Speaker 1: single thirty eight caliber bullet slug evidence of the murder
- 2:43Speaker 1: weapon that had been used to end her life. So
- 2:46Speaker 1: sheriff's deputies secured the crime scene, combing through the muddy
- 2:49Speaker 1: field and adjacent roadside for any physical evidence, and rain
- 2:53Speaker 1: had fallen very heavily during the night, and officers quickly
- 2:56Speaker 1: realized that crucial clues might have been literally washed away
- 3:00Speaker 1: by the storm, and the downpour had likely obliterated any
- 3:03Speaker 1: sort of footprints or tire tracks and any trace of
- 3:06Speaker 1: DNA that the killer might have left on the victim's
- 3:09Speaker 1: body or clothing. Despite the challenging conditions, though investigators did
- 3:12Speaker 1: recover some evidence and noted several key details. They found
- 3:17Speaker 1: no purse, wallet, or documents on the girl, nothing to
- 3:21Speaker 1: indicate who she was, and the fact that her pant
- 3:24Speaker 1: pockets were pulled inside out suggested the killer had perhaps
- 3:28Speaker 1: taken her money and id with them, and this was
- 3:31Speaker 1: a strong indication of an attempted cover up of her identity,
- 3:35Speaker 1: because other than that, the girl was fully clothed and
- 3:38Speaker 1: showed no signs of s or obvious struggle. Aside from
- 3:43Speaker 1: the gunshot wounds obviously, so it was robbery or personal
- 3:47Speaker 1: motive that might have been the driving factor in murder,
- 3:50Speaker 1: and as mentioned, a thirty eight caliber slug was recovered
- 3:53Speaker 1: beneath the body, and ballistic experts would later determine it
- 3:57Speaker 1: likely came from a handgun of that caliber, and the
- 4:00Speaker 1: medical examiner confirmed the cause of death was massive hemorrhaging
- 4:04Speaker 1: from the two gunshot wounds, and the shot over her
- 4:07Speaker 1: eye appeared to have been fired at very close range. Tellingly,
- 4:12Speaker 1: the victim had not even flinched or turned away, indicating
- 4:16Speaker 1: she might have been caught completely by surprise when the
- 4:19Speaker 1: trigger was pulled, and the second shot into her back
- 4:23Speaker 1: seemed to have been fired after she was already down,
- 4:26Speaker 1: so investigators scoured the area for anything the killer might
- 4:29Speaker 1: have left behind. Beyond the bullet, there was two peculiar
- 4:33Speaker 1: items found with the body that offered faint hints about
- 4:36Speaker 1: the victim's recent travels because attached to the victim's belt
- 4:39Speaker 1: loops were two metal keychains. One was heart shaped with
- 4:43Speaker 1: a keyhole and inscribed with the phrase he who holds
- 4:47Speaker 1: the key can open my heart, and the other was
- 4:50Speaker 1: the matching key meant to fit that heart, which.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Is so sad.
- 4:56Speaker 1: These cheap trinket keychains were later traced to vending machines
- 5:00Speaker 1: means along the New York State Throughway, a major highway
- 5:03Speaker 1: cutting across New York, and this suggested that the victim
- 5:06Speaker 1: and likely the killer, had traveled along the through Way,
- 5:10Speaker 1: recently picking up the souvenir at a rest stop vending machine.
- 5:14Speaker 1: And it was a small clue, but it was interesting nonetheless,
- 5:17Speaker 1: because perhaps the pair had been on the road passing
- 5:20Speaker 1: through New York when this town became the end of
- 5:23Speaker 1: the line for the young woman. And the other item
- 5:26Speaker 1: that was found on the victim was a necklace. She
- 5:28Speaker 1: wore a delicate silver necklace with three small turquoise stones,
- 5:33Speaker 1: and the necklace had a handmade Southwestern look, resembling Native
- 5:38Speaker 1: American style jewelry, and this style isn't common in Rule
- 5:42Speaker 1: New York, leading investigators to wonder if the necklace and
- 5:46Speaker 1: the girl herself came from somewhere in the American Southwest,
- 5:50Speaker 1: like it's extremely popular here in Texas to wear that
- 5:53Speaker 1: type of jewelry, So coupled with the Throughway keychains, the
- 5:56Speaker 1: necklace hinted at long distance travel before death, so perhaps
- 6:01Speaker 1: a road trip that started in a far warmer place
- 6:03Speaker 1: than western New York, and as forensic teams collected what
- 6:07Speaker 1: evidence they could, detectives canvassed the local area for leads
- 6:11Speaker 1: and also given the contents of the victim's stomach, the
- 6:14Speaker 1: coroner determined she had eaten a meal not long before
- 6:17Speaker 1: she was killed, and potatoes, sweet corn, and ham were
- 6:20Speaker 1: found undigested, so this pointed to a classic diner style dinner,
- 6:26Speaker 1: and remarkably, a waitress from a small diner in the
- 6:29Speaker 1: nearby town of Lima or Lima Sorr if I'm saying
- 6:31Speaker 1: that wrong, believed she had served this girl the night
- 6:34Speaker 1: of November ninth, nineteen seventy nine, because the young woman
- 6:38Speaker 1: had been in the diner at around eleven thirty pm
- 6:41Speaker 1: with an older male companion who paid for their meals,
- 6:45Speaker 1: and the waitress noted nothing alarming At the time, the
- 6:48Speaker 1: pair seemed like any other customer and companion rabbing a
- 6:51Speaker 1: late meal. But this was a crucial lead because the
- 6:54Speaker 1: victim had been seen alive just hours before her death
- 6:57Speaker 1: in the company of a man who might well be
- 6:59Speaker 1: her killer, and from the waitress's account, police obtained a
- 7:02Speaker 1: description of this unknown man, and he was described as
- 7:06Speaker 1: a white male around five eight to five nine, with
- 7:09Speaker 1: black wire rimmed glasses and curly hair, and he drove
- 7:13Speaker 1: a tanned station wagon that night. So two investigators, this
- 7:17Speaker 1: man immediately became a person of interest and perhaps the
- 7:21Speaker 1: last person seen with the victim while she was alive,
- 7:24Speaker 1: So if they could find and identify him, they might
- 7:27Speaker 1: solve this case. So police circulated a composite sketch of
- 7:31Speaker 1: this curly haired man and an alert for any tann
- 7:34Speaker 1: station wagons matching the description. So, whoever this mystery man was,
- 7:38Speaker 1: he had willingly bought the girl dinner, then less than
- 7:41Speaker 1: an hour later, she was executed and left in a field.
- 7:45Speaker 1: And as the waitress, Marge Bradford later wondered in horror,
- 7:49Speaker 1: why would you buy somebody dinner and then kill them
- 7:52Speaker 1: forty five minutes later and throw them in a corn field?
- 7:55Speaker 1: So it was a very chilling question that investigators were
- 7:58Speaker 1: determined to answer. So as the initial investigation unfolded, the
- 8:02Speaker 1: victim herself remained a Jane Dough and a full autopsy
- 8:07Speaker 1: was conducted, building a detailed profile of the young woman
- 8:10Speaker 1: in hopes of eventually matching her to a missing persons
- 8:13Speaker 1: report and they estimated the girl's age between thirteen and
- 8:17Speaker 1: nineteen years old. She was petite, about five feet three
- 8:20Speaker 1: inches tall and weighed around one hundred and twenty pounds,
- 8:24Speaker 1: and she had an athletic, tanned build, not typical for
- 8:28Speaker 1: someone from the chilly Northeast. In November when the exam
- 8:31Speaker 1: noted pronounced tan lines in the pattern of a haltertop
- 8:35Speaker 1: or bikini on her upper body, and this meant she
- 8:39Speaker 1: had likely been in a sunny climate not long before
- 8:41Speaker 1: her death, and tanning beds were virtually unheard of in
- 8:45Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, and upstate New York certainly hadn't been
- 8:48Speaker 1: warm enough for sunbathing in late October, so the tan
- 8:52Speaker 1: lines were an early red flag that the victim was
- 8:54Speaker 1: not a local girl. And the girl's hair was a
- 8:57Speaker 1: light brown color, wavy and shoulder length, and the front
- 9:00Speaker 1: locks had been highlighted about four months prior to her
- 9:04Speaker 1: death and the darker roots were starting to grow out,
- 9:07Speaker 1: and her eyes were a soft brown, and the medical
- 9:09Speaker 1: examiner also noted some acne on her face and chest
- 9:13Speaker 1: and freckles dusting.
- 9:14Speaker 2: The back of her shoulders.
- 9:15Speaker 1: So in terms of distinguishing marks or old injuries, Jane
- 9:19Speaker 1: Doe had no tattoos, no scars, and no healed broken
- 9:23Speaker 1: bones that might have been recorded in hospital records, and
- 9:26Speaker 1: it appeared she hadn't received much medical or dental care
- 9:30Speaker 1: in her entire life, a fact that could hint into
- 9:33Speaker 1: her background, because her teeth specifically were in poor shape,
- 9:37Speaker 1: and she had multiple untreated cavities, including one tooth so
- 9:40Speaker 1: decayed that only the roots remained, and one source mentioned
- 9:44Speaker 1: there was signs of a bit of dental work that
- 9:47Speaker 1: was done which appeared substandard, noting it might have been
- 9:50Speaker 1: performed outside the US given its unusual technique, and the
- 9:54Speaker 1: girl had no fillings or orthodontic work typical of American teens,
- 9:58Speaker 1: reinforcing the idea that she might have come from a
- 10:01Speaker 1: less privileged background or had been a transient and not
- 10:04Speaker 1: under regular medical care.
- 10:06Speaker 2: And none of her wisdom.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Teeth had come through yet, consistent with a young age,
- 10:11Speaker 1: likely under eighteen, and the blood type was determined to
- 10:14Speaker 1: be a negative, though without a living person to match,
- 10:18Speaker 1: that fact was mostly filed away for future reference, and crucially,
- 10:22Speaker 1: the clothing on the victim provided further clues, because at
- 10:25Speaker 1: the time of discovery, she was fully dressed and every
- 10:28Speaker 1: day attired that would not have been out of place
- 10:31Speaker 1: for a nineteen seventies teenager, perhaps that some items were
- 10:35Speaker 1: ill fitted or quote unquote masculine. She wore ten corduroy
- 10:40Speaker 1: pants women's size seven and multicolored plaid button up shirt
- 10:44Speaker 1: with a collar and over the shirt was the most
- 10:47Speaker 1: eye catching item, and that was a red windbreaker jacket
- 10:50Speaker 1: with black stripes down the arms men's style labeled auto
- 10:55Speaker 1: sports products ink on the inside, so it looked like
- 10:59Speaker 1: a racing or automotive jacket, and investigators tried to trace it,
- 11:03Speaker 1: but they soon learned it had been a promotional item,
- 11:05Speaker 1: produced in limited quantity and not traceable to any particular owner.
- 11:10Speaker 1: And on her feet were brown shoes with ripple soles.
- 11:13Speaker 1: She also was wearing blue knee high socks, a white
- 11:16Speaker 1: brawl and blue underwear, and everything she wore seemed to
- 11:19Speaker 1: have been purchased off the rack, so it was nothing
- 11:22Speaker 1: bespoke or extremely distinctive save the red jacket and the
- 11:26Speaker 1: personalized key chain charms. But the overall impression was that
- 11:30Speaker 1: of a normal American teen or young woman of the
- 11:33Speaker 1: late seventies, perhaps one who was traveling or had run
- 11:36Speaker 1: away wearing practical clothes for comfort, and one by one,
- 11:40Speaker 1: each piece of physical evidence was cataloged and photographs of
- 11:44Speaker 1: the girl's face were taken because her facial features were
- 11:47Speaker 1: still mostly intact despite her near eye wound. Police even
- 11:51Speaker 1: released a retouch to post barnum photo and a sketch
- 11:55Speaker 1: to the media in hopes someone would recognize her. But
- 11:58Speaker 1: in those first days, no immediate matches came back, and
- 12:02Speaker 1: the local authorities checked all missing persons reports in New
- 12:06Speaker 1: York State and the surrounding areas for any teenage girl
- 12:09Speaker 1: fitting her description, but none matched Jane Doe, and they
- 12:12Speaker 1: also sent her fingerprints to the FBI's national database, but unfortunately,
- 12:16Speaker 1: the prince turned up nothing, and she had never been
- 12:19Speaker 1: fingerprinted by law enforcement or any government agency that reported to.
- 12:23Speaker 2: The FBI, so she had no record.
- 12:25Speaker 1: So the initial phase of the investigation presented a giant puzzle.
- 12:30Speaker 1: Here was a young woman with tan lines suggesting a
- 12:33Speaker 1: life in sunny climates, found dead far from home, wearing
- 12:37Speaker 1: a mishmash of clothes and carrying trinkets from roadside stops,
- 12:42Speaker 1: and she shared a humble last meal with a stranger
- 12:45Speaker 1: who might also have been her executioner. And there were
- 12:48Speaker 1: no immediate answers, only questions echoing in the minds of
- 12:52Speaker 1: investigators and townspeople alike. Who was Jane Doe and how
- 12:57Speaker 1: did she come to be in Caledonia and who murdered
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- 15:27Speaker 1: So from the very start, the Caledonia Jane Doe case
- 15:29Speaker 1: weighed heavily on the hearts of investigators involved, and one
- 15:32Speaker 1: man in particular would become the steadfast guardian of Jane
- 15:36Speaker 1: Doe's memory. John York, a Livingston County Deputy sheriff who
- 15:40Speaker 1: was one of the first officers on the scene that
- 15:42Speaker 1: November morning. John York was deeply moved by the site
- 15:46Speaker 1: of the murdered girl and the tragedy of her anonymity,
- 15:49Speaker 1: and as the years went on, York's career advanced and
- 15:52Speaker 1: he was elected Livingston County Sheriff in the nineteen eighties
- 15:55Speaker 1: and he held that office until twenty thirteen. And throughout
- 15:59Speaker 1: those years he were refused to let that Jane Doe
- 16:01Speaker 1: case fade away, and Sheriff Yorke made sure that Calli
- 16:05Speaker 1: Doe remained an active investigation. She was called Calli Doe
- 16:08Speaker 1: because of where she was found, reminding his department and
- 16:11Speaker 1: the public that this girl was never forgotten. And York's
- 16:15Speaker 1: dedication was both professional and deeply personal, and he often
- 16:19Speaker 1: visited that unidentified girl's grave, talking to her in his
- 16:22Speaker 1: thoughts and asking her for forgiveness that they haven't found
- 16:25Speaker 1: the name of her killer.
- 16:27Speaker 2: Saying, quote, what did we forget? What did we overlook?
- 16:31Speaker 2: Here's a child shot, dumped roadside, shot again, stripped of identification.
- 16:36Speaker 2: Somebody has to give that.
- 16:38Speaker 1: Child justice unquote, he would remark, emphasizing the sense of
- 16:42Speaker 1: obligation he felt, and in his words, quote you don't
- 16:46Speaker 1: think that kid deserves some justice unquote. So the case
- 16:50Speaker 1: was a promise he meant to keep, and in the
- 16:52Speaker 1: earliest years after nineteen seventy nine, York and the investigative
- 16:56Speaker 1: team pulled out all the stops to identify the girl
- 16:59Speaker 1: and hunt down them murderer, but with no name to
- 17:01Speaker 1: start from, the first priority was giving Cali do back
- 17:05Speaker 1: her identity, since one of the biggest parts of solving
- 17:08Speaker 1: this case is knowing the victim, as Sheriff Thomas Daughtry
- 17:12Speaker 1: would say, and in nineteen seventy nine and the early
- 17:15Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, this meant painstakingly checking missing persons reports by hand,
- 17:20Speaker 1: reaching out to departments near and far, and appealing in
- 17:23Speaker 1: the media for anyone who knew the girl who vanished
- 17:26Speaker 1: to come forward, and leads poured in by the dozens
- 17:29Speaker 1: and then hundreds, and according to Sheriff Yorke, over ten
- 17:32Speaker 1: thousand tips and leads would ultimately be examined in the
- 17:36Speaker 1: course of the investigation, which is a staggering figure that
- 17:39Speaker 1: illustrates just how many possibilities the team had to consider
- 17:42Speaker 1: and how determined they were to chase down any hint
- 17:45Speaker 1: of a clue, and early on, investigators prepared flyers detailing
- 17:49Speaker 1: the girl's description and clothing and mailed them to police
- 17:52Speaker 1: departments all across the United States, Canada, and even overseeks.
- 17:56Speaker 2: So this was a.
- 17:57Speaker 1: Massive pre Internet outreach effort to see if any agency
- 18:01Speaker 1: had a similar cold case or a missing girl who
- 18:04Speaker 1: might match, and John York's law enforcement students even assisted
- 18:07Speaker 1: in stuffing envelopes and addressing them, learning firsthand how a
- 18:11Speaker 1: real case was pursued with dogged determination, and the team
- 18:15Speaker 1: compared notes with missing persons databases. But the late nineteen
- 18:19Speaker 1: seventies and eighties lacked a digital, centralized national system, so
- 18:23Speaker 1: it was like searching for a needle in a haystack
- 18:25Speaker 1: by candlelight. Sadly, none of the countless inquiries produced a
- 18:29Speaker 1: name for Cali Doe, and realizing the killer might not
- 18:33Speaker 1: be a local either, investigators scored truck stops, rest areas,
- 18:37Speaker 1: and highway records because Caledonia sits not far from the
- 18:40Speaker 1: Interstate Highway and the Throughway, so if the victim and
- 18:44Speaker 1: her killer were traveling, maybe a trucker or gas station
- 18:47Speaker 1: attendant had seen something. So the canvas diners and gas
- 18:51Speaker 1: stations asking if anyone were called the curly haired girl
- 18:54Speaker 1: or the man with glasses, and some promising information did emerge.
- 18:59Speaker 1: A few long hall truck drivers reported possibly seeing a
- 19:02Speaker 1: teen girl hitchhiking along the highway in that area around
- 19:06Speaker 1: the time of the murder, and this fuel the theory
- 19:08Speaker 1: that Jane Doe had been hitchhiking her way through New York,
- 19:11Speaker 1: which fit the narrative of a runaway or a traveler. However,
- 19:14Speaker 1: without confirmation of who she was, these sightings remained frustratingly
- 19:19Speaker 1: vague leads and they suggested a scenario, but not a name.
- 19:23Speaker 1: So by the end of nineteen eighty the case had
- 19:26Speaker 1: gone cold in terms of identifying the victim because despite
- 19:29Speaker 1: the extensive efforts, no family had come forward to claim her,
- 19:33Speaker 1: and no missing persons reports in any database matched her
- 19:37Speaker 1: unique combination of characteristics. So it was just heartbreaking and
- 19:42Speaker 1: it seemed as if no one was looking for this girl,
- 19:44Speaker 1: at least not in the right places. So with great reluctance,
- 19:48Speaker 1: Livingstone County authorities arranged for Kelly Doe's burial about a
- 19:52Speaker 1: year after her death, so in nineteen eighty she was
- 19:55Speaker 1: laid to rest in Greenmount Cemetery under a headstone that
- 19:58Speaker 1: read les Forget Unidentified Girl, November nineteen seventy nine and
- 20:04Speaker 1: flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest. The beautiful
- 20:07Speaker 1: Shakespearean sentiment on the stone was a promise that although
- 20:11Speaker 1: her name was unknown, she would not be forgotten by
- 20:14Speaker 1: this community. And a handful of locals and law enforcement
- 20:17Speaker 1: officers attended her funeral, and they were just strangers, really
- 20:21Speaker 1: moved by the plight of this lost girl, and John York,
- 20:25Speaker 1: for one, took it to heart that Caledonia had adopted
- 20:28Speaker 1: this nameless teenager in death and that as long as
- 20:31Speaker 1: he was around, she would have someone advocating for her.
- 20:34Speaker 1: So throughout the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, the Sheriff's
- 20:37Speaker 1: office continued to grind away at this case, checking every
- 20:41Speaker 1: conceivable lead, because if a teenage girl went missing anywhere
- 20:44Speaker 1: in the country that even remotely fit the time frame
- 20:47Speaker 1: and description, The team compared dental records, descriptions, just anything
- 20:51Speaker 1: available to see if it could be matched to Kelly
- 20:53Speaker 1: Joe and thousands of law enforcement agencies were contacted over
- 20:57Speaker 1: the years, and the case file bulged with correspondence and
- 21:01Speaker 1: reports from all corners of the US and even abroad,
- 21:05Speaker 1: as Interpol and Canadian police were alerted just in case
- 21:08Speaker 1: the victim was from outside the country. But still every
- 21:12Speaker 1: promising lead seemed to hit a dead end, and not
- 21:15Speaker 1: a single missing person's report lined up with Caledonia's Jane Doe.
- 21:19Speaker 1: It was as if she had never officially been reported
- 21:23Speaker 1: missing at all, which is a deeply unsettling thought that
- 21:26Speaker 1: implied she might have come from a troubled home or
- 21:29Speaker 1: transient life where no one realized or cared that she
- 21:34Speaker 1: was gone. But investigators didn't give up, and the case
- 21:37Speaker 1: even received some national media attention. A segment of the
- 21:41Speaker 1: Caledonia Jane Doe aired on the popular TV program America's
- 21:45Speaker 1: Most Wanted, and though America's Most Wanted usually focused on fugitives,
- 21:50Speaker 1: they sometimes featured Jane or John Doe cases to drum
- 21:53Speaker 1: up tips and the exposure would lead to a flurry
- 21:56Speaker 1: of calls and armchair detectives and psychics alike. None provided
- 22:00Speaker 1: the key to unlock Jane Doe's identity, so years went by,
- 22:04Speaker 1: and by the early two thousands, the Caledonia Jane Doe
- 22:07Speaker 1: case was the most extensive and expensive case in Livingston
- 22:11Speaker 1: County's history, having occupied countless man hours and resources, and
- 22:16Speaker 1: Sheriff John Yorke, true to his word, never closed the
- 22:20Speaker 1: case and his team carefully preserved all the evidence, from
- 22:23Speaker 1: the red jacket and clothing to the bullet slug and
- 22:26Speaker 1: the necklace, and these items remained in storage, awaiting any
- 22:30Speaker 1: advancement that could help solve the mystery. And one persistent
- 22:34Speaker 1: heartache was the idea that somewhere, surely this girl had
- 22:38Speaker 1: family or friends who missed her. How could it be
- 22:41Speaker 1: that in all these years no relative had come forward.
- 22:44Speaker 1: So this led to much speculation. Perhaps she had been
- 22:48Speaker 1: a runaway for a long time and her family assumed
- 22:52Speaker 1: she was living independently. Perhaps she had fallen through the
- 22:55Speaker 1: cracks of a foster system or had no close kin
- 22:59Speaker 1: to miss her. It was even possible that she might
- 23:02Speaker 1: have not even been from the US originally, and she
- 23:05Speaker 1: could be a foreign team brought to the States. So
- 23:08Speaker 1: investigators considered every single scenario, and they kept Kelly Do's
- 23:13Speaker 1: dental records and later DNA profile on file, ready to
- 23:17Speaker 1: compare against any new missing persons entries that might appear
- 23:20Speaker 1: in the evolving national database.
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- 25:26Speaker 1: As the murder investigation dragged on without a suspect, detectives
- 25:30Speaker 1: also weighed the possibility that the killer might have been
- 25:33Speaker 1: an interstate serial offender because the late nineteen seventies and
- 25:37Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties saw numerous serial killers operating across the
- 25:41Speaker 1: country as we know, and many targeting young women and runaways.
- 25:46Speaker 1: And it was only natural to question if Calli Doe
- 25:48Speaker 1: had crossed paths with one of these predators. And in
- 25:51Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, a startling development occurred, and that was
- 25:55Speaker 1: Henry Lee Lucas, a drifter turned notorious serial killer or
- 26:00Speaker 1: self proclaimed serial killer, and he confessed to murdering an
- 26:03Speaker 1: unidentified girl in upstate New York, a story that seemingly
- 26:08Speaker 1: matched the Caledonia case, and Lucas, at the time was
- 26:11Speaker 1: making headlines for confessing two hundreds of murders nationwide. He
- 26:16Speaker 1: had been arrested in Texas and in custody was unloading
- 26:20Speaker 1: tail after tale of homicidal exploits, some credible and many
- 26:25Speaker 1: others fantastical. Let me know if you want me to
- 26:27Speaker 1: go into Henry Lee Lucas on a different deep dive,
- 26:29Speaker 1: because my God, is he special And by special I
- 26:33Speaker 1: mean just a horrifying human being. So when Lucas mentioned
- 26:38Speaker 1: killing a girl in a cornfield in New York, investigators
- 26:42Speaker 1: had to check it out. And he even roped in
- 26:45Speaker 1: his companion Otis tool, which again I will deep dive
- 26:48Speaker 1: on him as well as Henry Le Locas climbing. They
- 26:51Speaker 1: were together when they picked up a girl hitchhiking near
- 26:53Speaker 1: Philadelphia and later shot her in a New York Cornfield's.
- 26:57Speaker 1: On a surface, it sounded like it could fit. Tool
- 27:00Speaker 1: and Lucas were known to have traveled together and had
- 27:03Speaker 1: been spotted in upstate New York in nineteen seventy nine,
- 27:06Speaker 1: So could these two infamous killers have been responsible for
- 27:09Speaker 1: Caledonia's jaint doe? But upon investigation, authorities found Lucas's confession
- 27:13Speaker 1: to be dubious at best, because Lucas was a known
- 27:17Speaker 1: attention seeking piece of shit who often fabricated stories to
- 27:21Speaker 1: gain favor or notoriety, and in this case, he failed
- 27:24Speaker 1: to provide specific details that weren't already public knowledge, and
- 27:29Speaker 1: law enforcement could not place Lucas or Tooled definitively in
- 27:33Speaker 1: the Caledonia area at the right time, nor find any
- 27:37Speaker 1: evidence beyond Lucas's own words to tie them to the crime.
- 27:40Speaker 1: And many of Lucas's confessions were just outright lives and
- 27:44Speaker 1: he was actually dubbed the confession Killer after it came
- 27:47Speaker 1: to light he had been falsely claiming credit for murders
- 27:50Speaker 1: he could not have committed, so the Texas Rangers eventually
- 27:53Speaker 1: had to rescind many of the two hundred plus cases
- 27:56Speaker 1: that they thought Lucas saw upon realizing he had been
- 27:59Speaker 1: fed case details and was fabricating stories altogether. In Caledonia's
- 28:04Speaker 1: Jane Doe was one of those false confessions, and Henry
- 28:07Speaker 1: Lee Lucas did not kill her, and investigators officially ruled
- 28:10Speaker 1: his claims not credible by the mid nineteen eighties, So
- 28:14Speaker 1: the brief hope that the case was solved just evaporated,
- 28:18Speaker 1: leaving frustration in its wake. But another serial predator that
- 28:22Speaker 1: came under scrutiny was Christopher Wilder, a serial killer in
- 28:26Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four who went on a multi state spree
- 28:29Speaker 1: abducting and murdering young women across the US. Now Wilder
- 28:34Speaker 1: had ties to both Florida and New York and was
- 28:36Speaker 1: known for his interest in car racing, and Sheriff York
- 28:40Speaker 1: at one point speculated about Wilder because the victim's racing
- 28:43Speaker 1: style jacket was a type Wilder might own or distribute,
- 28:48Speaker 1: and Wilder was actually hiding out in upstate New York
- 28:51Speaker 1: in mid nineteen seventy nine evading law enforcement on other charges,
- 28:56Speaker 1: and it's important to note that Wilder was indeed in
- 28:59Speaker 1: the region around the time of the murder, and the
- 29:01Speaker 1: scenario a pretty teen girl potentially lured by a terming
- 29:04Speaker 1: older man was not unlike Wylder's known modus operande. In
- 29:09Speaker 1: later years, however, Wilder could not be conclusively linked to
- 29:14Speaker 1: the Caledonia case, and tragically or conveniently, Wilder was killed
- 29:20Speaker 1: in a shootout with police in nineteen eighty four, which
- 29:23Speaker 1: meant investigators never got the chance to directly question him
- 29:26Speaker 1: about the case. So the Wilder angle remained speculative, intriguing,
- 29:31Speaker 1: but unproven and just not enough evidence. So when all
- 29:35Speaker 1: allegedly over sixty known serial killers and murderers were considered
- 29:40Speaker 1: and investigated in connection with the case, and this includes
- 29:43Speaker 1: the likes of Lucas and toul and numerous other violent
- 29:47Speaker 1: offenders who happened to be active around nineteen seventy nine,
- 29:50Speaker 1: and each time a serial killer was caught, the team
- 29:53Speaker 1: behind Calido would check their timelines, habits and known victims
- 29:56Speaker 1: against the details of the Cornfield murder. So every possi
- 30:00Speaker 1: disability was run down, and by the early two thousands,
- 30:03Speaker 1: after a quarter century, the case remained unsolved and the
- 30:06Speaker 1: victim unnamed, but it was not shelved, and investigators both
- 30:10Speaker 1: old and new continued to feel a sense of duty
- 30:13Speaker 1: about Calli Doe. In in two thousand and five, a new
- 30:16Speaker 1: opportunity arose because advances in forensic science were emerging that
- 30:20Speaker 1: had the potential to do what old fashioned detective work
- 30:23Speaker 1: could not, So the team prepared to leverage cutting edge
- 30:26Speaker 1: techniques to finally crack the identity of their Jane Doe,
- 30:30Speaker 1: even as a search for her killer remained a daunting challenge.
- 30:34Speaker 1: So by the mid two thousands, technology had caught up
- 30:37Speaker 1: in ways that just breathed new life into many cold cases,
- 30:41Speaker 1: including that of Caledonia's Jane Doe, and investigators made a
- 30:45Speaker 1: pivotal decision, and that was to exhume the remains of
- 30:48Speaker 1: Jane Doe from her grave for advanced forensic testing. So,
- 30:52Speaker 1: with a court order in hand, the young girl's body
- 30:54Speaker 1: was carefully disinterred from Greenmount Cemetery, and it had been
- 30:58Speaker 1: twenty six years since her burial. But modern science offered
- 31:02Speaker 1: capabilities that had been science fiction in nineteen seventy nine,
- 31:06Speaker 1: and the goal was twofold, extract a viable DNA profile
- 31:10Speaker 1: from her remains and apply new forensic analysis techniques like
- 31:13Speaker 1: isotope and pollen analysis to glean clues about her life
- 31:18Speaker 1: and origins, and the exhumation was successful and using bone
- 31:22Speaker 1: and tooth samples, forensic experts managed to extract DNA from
- 31:26Speaker 1: the victim's remains and this was a major breakthrough as
- 31:29Speaker 1: at last they had a genetic fingerprint of the girl,
- 31:33Speaker 1: and while this didn't instantly reveal her identity by any means,
- 31:36Speaker 1: it laid the groundwork for a potential future match. And
- 31:40Speaker 1: it also meant that if a relative of hers ever
- 31:43Speaker 1: entered their DNA, the system could connect the dots. So
- 31:46Speaker 1: having her DNA on file was lighting a beacon in
- 31:49Speaker 1: the darkness, basically, and now there was hope that one
- 31:53Speaker 1: day it might signal a match. And another advanced technique
- 31:56Speaker 1: applied was forensic palaeonology, the analysis of pollen and spores trapped.
- 32:02Speaker 2: In the victim's clothing.
- 32:04Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, the girl's garments, which had
- 32:07Speaker 1: been preserved in evidence all those years good on the cops,
- 32:10Speaker 1: were sent to a laboratory at Texas A and M
- 32:13Speaker 1: University for pollen testing, and a palinology expert examined the
- 32:17Speaker 1: microscopic pollen grains embedded in the fabric and the results
- 32:21Speaker 1: were fascinating because among the pollen types identified were oak, spruce,
- 32:26Speaker 1: and birch, as well as Cassarina, which is Australian pine
- 32:30Speaker 1: and oak trees are widespread, but spruce and birch pollen
- 32:34Speaker 1: was notable because those particular species are common in the
- 32:37Speaker 1: mountainous regions of California, not in western New York. And
- 32:42Speaker 1: none of the spruce or birch pollen found on her
- 32:45Speaker 1: was present in a control sample from the cornfield itself,
- 32:49Speaker 1: meaning she picked it up elsewhere. And the biggest clue
- 32:52Speaker 1: of all was the Australian pine pollen, because this invasive
- 32:56Speaker 1: tree grows in only a few places in the US,
- 33:00Speaker 1: pecifically South Florida, parts of South Texas, and three areas
- 33:04Speaker 1: of California, North Bay, San Luis, Obispo.
- 33:08Speaker 2: And San Diego. Deifa said any of that wrong.
- 33:11Speaker 1: An Australian pine cannot survive the winters in New York
- 33:14Speaker 1: at all, so there was no doubt the victim had
- 33:17Speaker 1: been in one of those warmer regions not long before
- 33:19Speaker 1: she died. So the pollen evidence led researchers to construct
- 33:22Speaker 1: a possible travel narrative, and I theorized that Jane Doe
- 33:26Speaker 1: may have spent a considerable amount of time in southern
- 33:29Speaker 1: California or Florida. Given the Australian pine pollen and the
- 33:33Speaker 1: presence of spruce and birch that match California mountain species,
- 33:36Speaker 1: suggested she might have traveled through the Sierra Nevada region
- 33:40Speaker 1: at some point, perhaps heading east. So the investigators imagined
- 33:44Speaker 1: a journey maybe starting near the San Diego area, then
- 33:48Speaker 1: moving through high altitude areas, picking up spruce and birch,
- 33:52Speaker 1: and eventually ending up in New York. Alternatively, Florida was
- 33:56Speaker 1: still on the table, given Australian pine flourish as there
- 34:00Speaker 1: and her notable sun tan lines, and in twenty twelve,
- 34:03Speaker 1: a re examination of the pollen data reconfirmed that only California,
- 34:07Speaker 1: Arizona or Florida made sense as points of origin. In fact,
- 34:12Speaker 1: science was echoing what the tan lines had first whispered,
- 34:15Speaker 1: and that was that this girl came from far away,
- 34:18Speaker 1: and alongside pollen, isotopic analysis was performed on her teeth
- 34:22Speaker 1: and bones, and this technique analyzes chemical signatures like ratios
- 34:27Speaker 1: of oxygen isotopes embedded in one's body that vary according
- 34:30Speaker 1: to regional water supplies and diet, which is extremely interesting,
- 34:35Speaker 1: and the early isotope tests on her tooth enamel indicated
- 34:38Speaker 1: she likely spent her early childhood in the southern or
- 34:41Speaker 1: southwestern United States, and later bone isotope analysis further supported
- 34:46Speaker 1: that her life history included significant time in a warm
- 34:50Speaker 1: climate region. So these subtle chemical clues aligned neatly with
- 34:54Speaker 1: the pollen findings, pointing investigators to look west or south
- 34:58Speaker 1: of New York when considering her identity. But the two
- 35:01Speaker 1: thousand and five to two thousand and six forensic push
- 35:03Speaker 1: didn't stop there, and the Sheriff's office also engaged a
- 35:07Speaker 1: forensic artist to help with a new facial reconstruction of
- 35:11Speaker 1: Jane Doe, and in twenty ten, an artist named Carl
- 35:14Speaker 1: Kopelman volunteered his skills to draw a lifelike reconstruction of
- 35:19Speaker 1: the girl's face, and Copelman used the Morgue photos and
- 35:22Speaker 1: autopsy measurements to create a color portrait that captured how
- 35:26Speaker 1: Jane Doe might have looked in life, a pretty teen
- 35:29Speaker 1: with feathered, light brown hair, soft features, and a slight smile.
- 35:34Speaker 1: And he even drew her wearing a red jacket and
- 35:36Speaker 1: turquoise necklace, as she had been found to jog recognition.
- 35:41Speaker 1: So this reconstruction was uploaded to the online databases, including
- 35:45Speaker 1: non US, which by twenty ten had become a crucial
- 35:49Speaker 1: tool for matching missing and unidentified cases, and non US
- 35:52Speaker 1: allowed the public in law enforcement to access case profiles.
- 35:56Speaker 1: So for the first time, Kelly Doe's information, physical staff charts,
- 36:00Speaker 1: DNA availability, and Calli's new portrait were all there on
- 36:05Speaker 1: the Internet where anyone could stumble upon it and potentially
- 36:08Speaker 1: make a connection. So these forensic advancements were a huge
- 36:12Speaker 1: leaps forward, and by twenty ten, investigators knew much more
- 36:16Speaker 1: about Jane Doe. She was almost certainly from a sunny
- 36:20Speaker 1: southern or southwestern state, had likely traveled cross country, and
- 36:24Speaker 1: had DNA and facial images available in national systems. But still,
- 36:29Speaker 1: for all this progress, she frustratingly remained nameless. She was
- 36:34Speaker 1: a girl with a story written in her bones and clothes,
- 36:38Speaker 1: but her name was still missing from the narrative. And
- 36:40Speaker 1: what the Sheriff's Department could not have predicted was that
- 36:43Speaker 1: the final pieces of the puzzle would come not just
- 36:46Speaker 1: from science, but from the emergence of a new kind
- 36:49Speaker 1: of detective. Because while the forensic experts were hard at
- 36:53Speaker 1: work in the labs, a parallel effort was growing on
- 36:56Speaker 1: message boards and websites, where amateur crime buffs took up
- 37:00Speaker 1: the case of identifying Jane Doe. So the stage was
- 37:03Speaker 1: set for the worlds of law enforcement and crowdsourced slothing
- 37:07Speaker 1: to collide, and by the early two thousands, as the
- 37:10Speaker 1: Caledonia Jane Doe investigation embraced new forensic techniques, another powerful
- 37:16Speaker 1: tool was coming into play, and that was the Internet,
- 37:19Speaker 1: and true crime forums and online communities were forming and
- 37:22Speaker 1: bringing together enthusiasts and amateur detectives from around the world,
- 37:26Speaker 1: and these web sloths found each other on sites like
- 37:30Speaker 1: webslues dot com, Doe Network and later on Reddit, pooling
- 37:34Speaker 1: information on cold cases in unidentified remains, and the mystery
- 37:38Speaker 1: of Calido naturally drew the attention of the growing community,
- 37:42Speaker 1: and her case became one of the most talked about
- 37:44Speaker 1: unsolved Jane Doe cases online, captivating a generation of armchair
- 37:48Speaker 1: detectives determined to help where official investigations had stalled. So
- 37:53Speaker 1: on websluth dot com, a massive thread dedicated to Caledonia
- 37:57Speaker 1: Jane Doe case was started as early as the early
- 37:59Speaker 1: two thousands, and over the years it grew to over
- 38:02Speaker 1: one hundred pages of discussion, theories and painstaking research, and
- 38:07Speaker 1: users poured over every available detail, the clothing, the key chains,
- 38:12Speaker 1: the dinner sightings, the forensic clues, and the forum members
- 38:16Speaker 1: collaborated to generate hypotheses about Jane Doe's identity and background,
- 38:21Speaker 1: and one of the most dedicated contributors was Karl Kopelmann
- 38:24Speaker 1: and Copelelman discovered the Cali Dough case through web sluice
- 38:27Speaker 1: in the late two thousands and became fascinated. He was
- 38:31Speaker 1: a professional accountant by day, but he volunteered countless hours
- 38:34Speaker 1: to help identify missing persons and does and the web
- 38:37Speaker 1: sluice community also kept the case alive in the public
- 38:40Speaker 1: eye and it was a remarkable crowdsourcing effort years before
- 38:44Speaker 1: crowdsourcing became a buzzword. And what made the web sluice
- 38:47Speaker 1: era special was not only the theorizing, but the bridge it
- 38:51Speaker 1: formed between the public and law enforcement. Was By the
- 38:54Speaker 1: twenty tens, some investigators were watching these forums and in
- 38:58Speaker 1: certain cases even to directly engaging or seeking help from
- 39:02Speaker 1: citizen sleuths, and the Doe network worked in parallel logging
- 39:06Speaker 1: the Caledonia Jane Doe as case file one, UF and Y.
- 39:12Speaker 1: So the synergy of official forensic data and crowd driven
- 39:15Speaker 1: research created an environment ripe for a breakthrough. So the
- 39:19Speaker 1: case that had languished for so long was about to
- 39:21Speaker 1: be cracked open by the unlikeliest of alliances, a persistent
- 39:26Speaker 1: high school friend with an aching question, a volunteer web
- 39:30Speaker 1: sleuth with an eye for faces, and detectives willing to listen.
- 39:33Speaker 1: So the online community's collaborative efforts produced several compelling theories
- 39:38Speaker 1: about Jane Doe's identity and life history, many of which
- 39:41Speaker 1: we have briefly discussed. First, that she was a Florida
- 39:44Speaker 1: runaway from a troubled home. Many noted the victims deep
- 39:47Speaker 1: tan lines of bikini lines and posited that she came
- 39:50Speaker 1: from a warm, sunny state like Florida. Next, that she
- 39:54Speaker 1: was from California or a West Coast traveler, given the
- 39:57Speaker 1: pollen evidence of Australian pine and mountain spruces, and some
- 40:00Speaker 1: sleuths believed she had spent time on the West Coast.
- 40:03Speaker 1: Also that she was a victim of opportunity versus a
- 40:07Speaker 1: known assailant, as debate raged whether her killer was a
- 40:10Speaker 1: stranger like a trucker or serial killer picking up a
- 40:13Speaker 1: random hitchhiker or someone she knew, like a travel companion
- 40:17Speaker 1: or a boyfriend. But the fact that she ate dinner
- 40:20Speaker 1: with the man and seemed at ease suggested to some
- 40:23Speaker 1: that she might have trusted him, at least initially, but
- 40:26Speaker 1: others argued that hitchhikers often accept meals from kind strangers,
- 40:30Speaker 1: so it could still have been a chance encounter turned deadly,
- 40:34Speaker 1: and the lack of obvious defensive wounds or made the
- 40:37Speaker 1: motive a mystery, and the Web sleus floated ideas from
- 40:41Speaker 1: a botched robbery to the man making in advance she rejected,
- 40:45Speaker 1: leading to rage. And then there's the failed identification due
- 40:48Speaker 1: to reporting lapses, because some of the savvier Web sleuth
- 40:51Speaker 1: members began to suspect that the reason Jane Doe hadn't
- 40:55Speaker 1: been identified was that no official missing person's report was
- 40:59Speaker 1: active for her, and this was possible as families don't
- 41:02Speaker 1: report a runaway because they assume she left intentionally, or
- 41:05Speaker 1: reports get lost in the shuffle, and this theory would
- 41:08Speaker 1: prove incredibly predictive. Essentially, they were searching for someone who
- 41:12Speaker 1: should have been reported missing but wasn't, so This was
- 41:15Speaker 1: an ambitious and difficult task, finding a void rather than
- 41:19Speaker 1: a record. But through all of this, the web sleuth's
- 41:21Speaker 1: community kept the case alive and in some ways prepared
- 41:25Speaker 1: the ground for the final breakthrough because they had a
- 41:28Speaker 1: mass a wealth of knowledge, and a list of possible names,
- 41:32Speaker 1: and one name in particular was about to emerge from
- 41:35Speaker 1: obscurity brought up by those who knew and cared for
- 41:38Speaker 1: the girl back when she was alive, and the collaborative
- 41:42Speaker 1: spirit of the Internet slews was about to intersect with
- 41:45Speaker 1: a very real missing person search initiated by someone from
- 41:49Speaker 1: the victim's past, proving that the boundary between amateur and
- 41:52Speaker 1: professional detective work can sometimes blur to great effect. So
- 41:57Speaker 1: the long awaited breakthrough in the case began with someone
- 42:00Speaker 1: who remembered and missed the girl who had vanished so
- 42:03Speaker 1: many years ago. And in the early twenty tens, a
- 42:06Speaker 1: woman named Laurel now Well started wondering about her old
- 42:09Speaker 1: high school friend in her Nando County, Florida, and the
- 42:13Speaker 1: friend's name was Tammy. Joe Alexander and Laurel and Tammy
- 42:17Speaker 1: had been close in their early teens, but Tammy had
- 42:19Speaker 1: dropped out of sight by the end of the seventies,
- 42:22Speaker 1: and Laurel searched for Tammy on Facebook and other sites,
- 42:25Speaker 1: but found nothing, so concern grew. Could her bubbly, adventurous
- 42:30Speaker 1: friend from youth really have just disappeared on the face
- 42:33Speaker 1: of the earth. So Laurel reached out and eventually connected
- 42:36Speaker 1: with Pamela Dyson, Tammy Joe's half sister, who still lived
- 42:39Speaker 1: in Florida, and Laurel discovered something shocking. No one in
- 42:44Speaker 1: Tammy's family had heard from her since the late nineteen seventies,
- 42:48Speaker 1: and Pamela had long assumed Tammy had simply run away
- 42:51Speaker 1: to start a new life. Since Tammy had a history
- 42:54Speaker 1: of short disappearances, maybe she had gotten married, or maybe
- 42:58Speaker 1: she had kids somewhere and their mother, Barbara, had apparently
- 43:01Speaker 1: told police Tammy was missing back around nineteen seventy nine,
- 43:05Speaker 1: but because Tammy was known to hitchhike and vanish, local
- 43:09Speaker 1: police didn't take it seriously, and Pamela and Laurel's inquiries
- 43:12Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen uncovered a bureaucratic failure because the Hernando
- 43:17Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office had no record of any missing person
- 43:21Speaker 1: report or Tammy Joe. It seemed any initial report had
- 43:25Speaker 1: been lost or never properly logged. In essence, Tammy was
- 43:29Speaker 1: never officially listed as a missing person anywhere, so, realizing
- 43:34Speaker 1: this egregious oversight, in August twenty fourteen, the Hernando County
- 43:37Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office filed a fresh missing person's report for Tammy
- 43:41Speaker 1: Joe Alexander, and this marked the first time her name
- 43:44Speaker 1: entered the national database as a missing teen. And now
- 43:48Speaker 1: at last, Tammy was on the radar of systems like
- 43:51Speaker 1: non US and NCIC, albeit many years too late. But
- 43:56Speaker 1: fate and internet slews soon intertwined, and when Tammy's new
- 44:00Speaker 1: missing person's profile, complete with an old high school yearbook photo,
- 44:04Speaker 1: was added to non US in late twenty fourteen, it
- 44:06Speaker 1: caught the eye of Carl Kopelman, who again had been
- 44:10Speaker 1: deeply involved in the Caledonia Jane Doe case and had
- 44:13Speaker 1: sketched Calli Doe's portrait years prior, and at the time
- 44:17Speaker 1: he was not only a web sluice moderator but also
- 44:20Speaker 1: actively monitoring non US for new cases. God bless this man,
- 44:25Speaker 1: and in September twenty fourteen, Carl saw Tammy's listening a
- 44:29Speaker 1: teen missing from Florida since nineteen seventy nine and froze
- 44:32Speaker 1: in recognition. The high cheekbones, the curve of the eyebrows,
- 44:36Speaker 1: the wavy, light brown hair, or the hint of highlights.
- 44:39Speaker 1: It all looked strikingly like the Cali do he had drawn,
- 44:44Speaker 1: and Carl later said, quote the very moment I saw
- 44:47Speaker 1: her photo, it clicked that was Caledonia Jane Doe unquote.
- 44:52Speaker 1: All those hours studying Jane Doe's features for the reconstruction
- 44:56Speaker 1: had paid off, and Carl Copleman didn't waste second and
- 45:00Speaker 1: on September twentieth, twenty fourteen, he emailed his contacts at
- 45:04Speaker 1: the Livingston County Sheriff's office alerting them that the newly
- 45:07Speaker 1: listed missing girl from Florida, Tammy Joe Alexander, was their
- 45:11Speaker 1: long identified Caledonia victim, and he c sed non US
- 45:15Speaker 1: regional administrators and the Hernando County authorities in Florida, effectively
- 45:20Speaker 1: connecting all the necessary parties, and in his message, Carl
- 45:24Speaker 1: likely laid out the key resemblances and circumstantial fits. Tammy's
- 45:29Speaker 1: age sixteen in nineteen seventy nine, matching Jane Doe's estimated
- 45:33Speaker 1: age for disappearance timeframe Spring nineteen seventy nine, which fits
- 45:37Speaker 1: her death in November of nineteen seventy nine, for Florida
- 45:40Speaker 1: origin aligning with ten lines and pollen hints, and the
- 45:43Speaker 1: high school photo that looked just like a younger version
- 45:47Speaker 1: of Calli Doe. The law enforcement officials on both ends
- 45:51Speaker 1: took this tip very seriously, and after thirty five years
- 45:54Speaker 1: of dead ends, it seemed almost unbelievable that a volunteer
- 45:58Speaker 1: web sleuth might have solved it, but the logic was compelling,
- 46:02Speaker 1: and Livingston County Sheriff's Thomas Daughtry's team contacted Pamela Dyson,
- 46:07Speaker 1: Tammy's half sister, and arranged to collect a DNA sample
- 46:10Speaker 1: for comparison, and by late twenty fourteen, that sample was
- 46:13Speaker 1: sent to a lab to perform a mitochondrial DNA test
- 46:17Speaker 1: or mt DNA, which can confirm maternal line relatives, and meanwhile,
- 46:22Speaker 1: investigators pieced together Tammy's path and family confirmed she had
- 46:26Speaker 1: run away from home sometime in nineteen seventy nine and
- 46:29Speaker 1: never returned, and an ex boyfriend verified the last time
- 46:33Speaker 1: he saw her was in the spring of nineteen seventy nine,
- 46:36Speaker 1: and she essentially vanished after that, and all of it
- 46:39Speaker 1: fit with the timeline of Callie Doe showing up dead
- 46:42Speaker 1: in New York in November that year, so as twenty
- 46:44Speaker 1: fifteen donned, anticipation built, and in January of twenty fifteen,
- 46:49Speaker 1: the results finally came in and the mitochondrial DNA from
- 46:53Speaker 1: Jane Doe matched Pamela Dyson's DNA, so the unidentified girl
- 46:58Speaker 1: was indeed Tammy Joe all Xander. The long lost teenager
- 47:02Speaker 1: had her name restored, and authorities kept the news under
- 47:05Speaker 1: wraps for a few days to notify family and prepare,
- 47:09Speaker 1: and on January twenty sixth, twenty fifteen, former Sheriff York
- 47:12Speaker 1: held a press conference and delivered the incredible news Caledonia's
- 47:17Speaker 1: Jane Doe had a name, and after over thirty five years,
- 47:21Speaker 1: one of the nation's most enduring Jane Doe mysteries was
- 47:24Speaker 1: solved and the room filled with triumph and poignancy. An investigators,
- 47:29Speaker 1: some on the case since day one, felt relief and emotion,
- 47:33Speaker 1: and Sheriff Daughtry voiced what everyone felt, quote to be
- 47:37Speaker 1: able to put a name on her, I can't even
- 47:40Speaker 1: tell you what it means. We've always said one of
- 47:42Speaker 1: the biggest parts of solving this case is knowing the
- 47:45Speaker 1: victim unquote. So at long last they knew the victim
- 47:49Speaker 1: Tammy Joe Alexander, a sixteen year old girl from Florida.
- 47:52Speaker 1: So with the DNA confirmation in hand, the authorities could
- 47:55Speaker 1: finally close the chapter on Jane Doe and open a
- 47:59Speaker 1: new one sent on Tammy Joe Alexander. And for Tammy's
- 48:03Speaker 1: family and friends, the revelation was bittersweet, and Pamela Dyson
- 48:07Speaker 1: and Laurel now Well, the sister and friend who had
- 48:10Speaker 1: initiated the search, were grateful for answers, but devastated by
- 48:14Speaker 1: the reality of Tammy's fate. And Pamela had spent years
- 48:17Speaker 1: holding on to a hopeful image that Tammy was out
- 48:20Speaker 1: there just living a happy life, and the truth that
- 48:23Speaker 1: Tammy had been dead the entire time, killed brutally as
- 48:28Speaker 1: a teenager was crushing, and Pamela would say, quote, I'm
- 48:32Speaker 1: truly glad for the closure, but it hurts to know
- 48:34Speaker 1: she died that way. It's terrible. Nobody should have to
- 48:37Speaker 1: be shot and dragged out into the woods unquote. So
- 48:41Speaker 1: Livingston County officials swiftly moved to give Tammy the dignity
- 48:44Speaker 1: and death she had been denied for so long, and
- 48:47Speaker 1: the humble grave in Dansville that had borne the inscription
- 48:51Speaker 1: un identified girl was finally going to carry Tammy's name,
- 48:54Speaker 1: and a local funeral home actually donated a new headstone
- 48:57Speaker 1: with her full name and dates nineteen sixty three to
- 49:00Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, and on June tenth, twenty fifteen, a
- 49:03Speaker 1: ceremony was held where the new Tammy Joe Alexander headstone
- 49:08Speaker 1: was unfailed and about one hundred people attended, including family members, townsfolk,
- 49:12Speaker 1: and law enforcement, symbolizing how Tammy had bridged communities thousands
- 49:17Speaker 1: of miles apart, and the sheriff's deputies and townspeople who
- 49:20Speaker 1: had cared for their Jane Doe all those years were
- 49:24Speaker 1: finally able to address her by name and formally pay
- 49:27Speaker 1: their respects. And Carl Koppelman even flew out from California
- 49:31Speaker 1: to attend, and he felt a profound connection to Tammy
- 49:34Speaker 1: and was honored to stand by as her name was
- 49:37Speaker 1: rightfully returned. And Tammy's family expressed a deep gratitude toward
- 49:41Speaker 1: the Livingston County community for never forgetting her, and they
- 49:44Speaker 1: thanked officers like John York and Thomas Daughtry and the
- 49:47Speaker 1: citizens who kept flowers on her grave and kept her
- 49:50Speaker 1: story alive. And Pamela Dyson became an advocate for missing persons,
- 49:55Speaker 1: urging families of missing loved ones to enter their information
- 49:58Speaker 1: into non US and others databases, and she emphasized that
- 50:02Speaker 1: the database was critical in achieving her sister's identification, but
- 50:06Speaker 1: her message was powerful. Had Laurel and Pamela not realized
- 50:09Speaker 1: Tammy wasn't listed anywhere and taken action, she might still
- 50:13Speaker 1: be a Jane Doe today. So their initiative, combined with
- 50:16Speaker 1: the Internet and Carl's sharp eyes, had finally broken the
- 50:19Speaker 1: case and the repel effects of Tammy's identification were felt
- 50:23Speaker 1: far and wide, and the FBI and law enforcement hoped
- 50:26Speaker 1: that the high profile success would encourage more collaboration with
- 50:29Speaker 1: amateur sleuth communities and Saint John Fisher College residence scholar
- 50:34Speaker 1: in Media Thomas Paretti noted that without the Internet and
- 50:38Speaker 1: social media, this case might never have been solved, saying quote,
- 50:42Speaker 1: I really do think this played a critical role in
- 50:44Speaker 1: putting the pieces together, because, as you know, cold cases
- 50:47Speaker 1: each day get more and more difficult to solve. It's
- 50:50Speaker 1: kind of like they're two icebergs going in the opposite direction.
- 50:54Speaker 1: What social media allowed this to do is bring the
- 50:57Speaker 1: two icebergs back together unquote, re saying how Tammy's Missing
- 51:01Speaker 1: Persons listing and the Jane Doe case converged online and
- 51:05Speaker 1: the case became a shining example of the positive power
- 51:08Speaker 1: of social media and crowdsourced investigations in solving cold cases. However,
- 51:13Speaker 1: while one mystery, Tammy's identity, was resolved, another part of
- 51:17Speaker 1: the squary was far from over was who killed Tammy
- 51:21Speaker 1: Joe Alexander. And with her name known and her background
- 51:24Speaker 1: coming to light, investigators redoubled their efforts on the homicide itself,
- 51:29Speaker 1: and Sheriff Daughtry noted that identifying the victim is a
- 51:32Speaker 1: huge part of solving a murder, but now they had
- 51:35Speaker 1: to find the killer, so the focus shifted from who
- 51:38Speaker 1: is she to who was she and who did this
- 51:41Speaker 1: to her? So the investigation entered a new phase, buoyed
- 51:45Speaker 1: by fresh leads that emerged once Tammy's past was uncovered
- 51:49Speaker 1: and the clock had been turned back to nineteen seventy nine,
- 51:52Speaker 1: reconstructing Tammy's final months on Earth, and the hope was
- 51:56Speaker 1: that clues from her life in Florida and her journey
- 51:58Speaker 1: north could point to a suspect who had remained hidden
- 52:01Speaker 1: all this time. So, with Tammy Joe Alexander's identity now known,
- 52:06Speaker 1: a troubling story of her life began to emerge, one that,
- 52:10Speaker 1: in hindsight, made it perhaps less surprising that she slipped
- 52:13Speaker 1: through the cracks for so long. So Tammy's background was
- 52:16Speaker 1: marked by instability, heartbreak, and yearning for escape, which tragically
- 52:22Speaker 1: set the stage for her fateful journey. So Tammy was
- 52:25Speaker 1: born on November two, nineteen sixty three, in Atlanta, Georgia,
- 52:29Speaker 1: and her early childhood in Georgia is less documented, but
- 52:33Speaker 1: by the mid nineteen seventies she was living in Brooksville, Florida,
- 52:36Speaker 1: a small town about fifty miles north of Tampa, and
- 52:39Speaker 1: Tammy's family life was, by all accounts, tumultuous. Her mother,
- 52:43Speaker 1: Barbara Jenkins, struggled with severe personal issues. She was addicted
- 52:47Speaker 1: to prescription drugs and had intense emotional problems described as volatile,
- 52:53Speaker 1: erupting into temper tantrums. And Tammy's biological father was not
- 52:57Speaker 1: in the picture at all, and Barbara remarried, giving Tammy
- 53:01Speaker 1: a stepfather in the home and Tammy had an older
- 53:04Speaker 1: half sister, Pamela Pamela Dyson, but Pamela had a different
- 53:08Speaker 1: father and left to live with her paternal grandmother when
- 53:10Speaker 1: Pamela was around eleven, So this means by about nineteen
- 53:14Speaker 1: seventy two or nineteen seventy three, Pamela was out of
- 53:17Speaker 1: the household and young Tammy was left essentially as an
- 53:21Speaker 1: only child in a very unhealthy home environment, and Pamela
- 53:25Speaker 1: later said that their mother put Joan Crawford to shame
- 53:29Speaker 1: in terms of anger and referencing the allegedly notoriously abusive
- 53:35Speaker 1: Hollywood mother depicted in Mommy Dearest. So it just paints
- 53:38Speaker 1: a picture of how Tammy growing up in a home
- 53:41Speaker 1: where love was scarce and chaos was plenty. And given
- 53:45Speaker 1: these conditions, it's not surprising that Tammy had a history
- 53:48Speaker 1: of running away during her teenage years. She was just
- 53:51Speaker 1: searching for freedom and adventure and likely just peace away
- 53:56Speaker 1: from this turmoil. And when she was around fifteen, Tammy
- 53:59Speaker 1: and her close friend Laurel now Well started doing what
- 54:03Speaker 1: many restless teens did in Florida, and that was hitchhiking
- 54:06Speaker 1: rides with truckers and traveling to see the rest of
- 54:10Speaker 1: the world, and in one incredible episode, Laurel and Tammy
- 54:14Speaker 1: daringly thumbed their way all the way to California in
- 54:17Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight and two fifteen year old girls on
- 54:20Speaker 1: the road crossing the country. It's unfathomable, especially nowadays, but
- 54:26Speaker 1: it happened, and when they reached Los Angeles, Laurel became
- 54:29Speaker 1: scared and called her parents back in Florida, and her
- 54:32Speaker 1: shocked parents bought plane tickets for both girls to fly home,
- 54:35Speaker 1: bringing that runaway adventure to an end. That incident shows
- 54:39Speaker 1: both Tammy's courageous, impulsive spirit and the lack of strong
- 54:43Speaker 1: parental anchors because other people's parents had to wheel them
- 54:47Speaker 1: back in and back in Florida. Tammy didn't remain put
- 54:50Speaker 1: for long. She worked as a waitress at a truck
- 54:53Speaker 1: stop cafe with her mother during her midteens, and this
- 54:56Speaker 1: truck stop connection is significant as it put Tammy in
- 55:00Speaker 1: daily contact with truck drivers and travelers crisscrossing the country,
- 55:04Speaker 1: and she likely heard stories of distant places and had
- 55:08Speaker 1: ample opportunity to catch rides or plan escapes. And according
- 55:12Speaker 1: to secondary sources citing the New York Daily News, Tammy
- 55:15Speaker 1: Joe Alexander was described as being an experienced hitchhiker by
- 55:19Speaker 1: age fifteen and having caught rides with long haul truckers
- 55:23Speaker 1: while working at a truck stop cafe near home.
- 55:26Speaker 2: So by nineteen seventy nine.
- 55:27Speaker 1: Tammy had both the itch to leave and the network
- 55:30Speaker 1: truckers and fellow runaways to facilitate it, and multiple accounts
- 55:35Speaker 1: from family and friends described Tammy as a friendly, outgoing
- 55:38Speaker 1: girl despite her home life. Quote, people were just rawn
- 55:41Speaker 1: to her unquote. Laurel recalled remembering Tammy's bright smile and
- 55:46Speaker 1: bubbly personality, but behind the warmth was a desperation to
- 55:50Speaker 1: get away from her mother's boots, and Pamela Dyson, the
- 55:53Speaker 1: half sister, summarized it, quote, I believe Tammy left to
- 55:57Speaker 1: escape a turbulent household unquote. And indeed Pamela felt guilt later,
- 56:02Speaker 1: wondering if she'd stayed in home longer, could she have
- 56:06Speaker 1: protected Tammy or convinced her to stick out. But Pamela
- 56:10Speaker 1: had been just a kid herself, which she fled to
- 56:12Speaker 1: her grandma's house. So by early nineteen seventy nine, Tammy
- 56:15Speaker 1: was fifteen going on sixteen and seemingly reaching a breaking point,
- 56:20Speaker 1: and at one stage that year, records show Tammy ended
- 56:23Speaker 1: up at the Rainbow Youth Ranch, also referred to as
- 56:26Speaker 1: a prison Ministry in Young Harris, Georgia, and this was
- 56:31Speaker 1: essentially a Christian residential program in the mountains of northern
- 56:34Speaker 1: Georgia aimed at helping troubled teens or those who had
- 56:37Speaker 1: brushes with the law. And it's not entirely clear how
- 56:40Speaker 1: Tammy got there, but one theory is that juvenile court
- 56:44Speaker 1: or social service placed her there to get her away
- 56:47Speaker 1: from the bad environment, perhaps after a runaway incident or
- 56:51Speaker 1: minor delinquency, or her family might have sent her hoping
- 56:54Speaker 1: it would help reform her.
- 56:56Speaker 2: And the stay at the.
- 56:57Speaker 1: Ranch was in the summer of nineteen seven, and we
- 57:01Speaker 1: know this because of the remarkable audio tapes that surfaced later,
- 57:05Speaker 1: because in July nineteen seventy nine, Tammy recorded a cassette
- 57:08Speaker 1: tape of messages and songs, which she mailed it to
- 57:12Speaker 1: her boyfriend back home in Florida while she was at
- 57:15Speaker 1: the Georgia Ministry, and on that tape, Tammy's voice is
- 57:19Speaker 1: upbeat and hopeful, and she sounds, as her sister later said,
- 57:22Speaker 1: like she still had a positive attitude and warmth despite everything,
- 57:28Speaker 1: and it's heartrending to listen knowing what fate awaited her
- 57:32Speaker 1: just months later.
- 57:33Speaker 4: Hiyaa now, so you take care and be careful. So
- 57:40Speaker 4: that's cool, And I canna post called it does moon
- 57:45Speaker 4: over Miami, the alarum lute beauty of moonrise, shimmering of
- 57:51Speaker 4: the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. That two palm trees, the moon,
- 57:57Speaker 4: the ocean and a girl now like shirt but can't
- 58:02Speaker 4: anna ed moon beautiful beautiful. Yeah.
- 58:12Speaker 1: So by the end of the summer of nineteen seventy nine,
- 58:15Speaker 1: she either returned to Florida or left the ranch on
- 58:18Speaker 1: her own accord. And what we know is that at
- 58:20Speaker 1: some point in autumn of nineteen seventy nine, Tammy Joe
- 58:24Speaker 1: Alexander shruck out on the road again, and this time
- 58:28Speaker 1: were good and her exact movements are still a bit
- 58:30Speaker 1: of a jigsaw puzzle, but investigators have pieced together some
- 58:34Speaker 1: of it. And at sixteen, Tammy had her whole life
- 58:36Speaker 1: ahead of her, but she chose to take a chance
- 58:39Speaker 1: at a different life than the one she'd known, and
- 58:42Speaker 1: it appears Tammy left Brooksville likely in early fall of
- 58:45Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, and her high school boyfriend, a young
- 58:48Speaker 1: man named Kevin. The ones who kept her tapes last
- 58:52Speaker 1: saw her in the spring of seventy nine, so by
- 58:55Speaker 1: the new school year she wasn't around and perhaps after
- 58:58Speaker 1: turning sixteen in November of nineteen seventy nine, she had
- 59:01Speaker 1: hoped to celebrate freedom, but instead, by early November, she
- 59:04Speaker 1: had somehow traveled roughly eleven hundred miles from Florida to
- 59:07Speaker 1: upstate New York. So how did Tammy go from Florida
- 59:11Speaker 1: to New York? But as mentioned before, given her history,
- 59:14Speaker 1: the most plausible scenario is she hitchhiked rides with truckers
- 59:18Speaker 1: or other travelers heading north, and it's possible she might
- 59:22Speaker 1: have made a friend or met someone maybe even a
- 59:25Speaker 1: boyfriend type, at the Georgia Ranch or elsewhere who was
- 59:28Speaker 1: traveling and she just joined them. And Tammy is believed
- 59:31Speaker 1: by police to have had a last meal at the
- 59:34Speaker 1: Lima Diner on November ninth, nineteen seventy nine, with an
- 59:37Speaker 1: unknown man, and she likely arrived in the region not
- 59:40Speaker 1: long before, so it's conceivable she was making her way
- 59:44Speaker 1: toward the big city, maybe Boston or Canada. Given the
- 59:48Speaker 1: hitchhiking to Boston mentioned and just happened to cross paths
- 59:52Speaker 1: with a predator, or maybe she had some plan to
- 59:55Speaker 1: stay with someone that fell through. We might never know
- 59:58Speaker 1: for sure why Tammy was in Caledonia, but tragically, within
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: perhaps twenty four hours of being in that area, she
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: was killed. And one heartbreaking detail that came out after
- 1:00:10Speaker 1: Tammy was identified was that her mother, Barbara Jenkins, died
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight at the age of fifty six,
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: and in Barbara's obituary, the family listed Tammy Joe Alexander
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: as deceased and that had no proof, but by then,
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: almost twenty years after Tammy's disappearance, they assumed she must
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: have died because she never contacted anyone, And it's unclear
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: if Barbara truly believed that or if it was a
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: way to find closure, and Barbara went to her grave
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: not knowing for sure what happened to her daughter. It's
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: a tragic footnote in a tragic story, and a troubled
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: mother who lost her troubled daughter and never got answers
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: for Pamela. She said until identification, she held onto a
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: fantasy that Tammy found what they never had At home
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: and that was stability and love and learning the truth
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen just shattered that dream, but at least
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: it ended the uncertainty and allowed the family to properly
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: mourn Tammy. So Tammy's background is one of a girl
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: failed by those who should have protected her, who then
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: took her fate into her own hands with youthful bravado,
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: and she chased freedom and adventure, but unfortunately ran headlong
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: into deadly danger. So her story resonates as a cautionary
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: tale of the era, and the nineteen seventies had many
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: lost teens like Tammy who ran from bad homes only
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: to face worse on the road, and it just underscores
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: why in the wake of Tammy's case, systems for reporting
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: and tracking missing children have improved, and in nineteen seventy
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: nine there was no National Missing Kids Network, no Amber alerts,
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: no nom us. But today one hopes a girl like
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: Tammy would not fall through the cracks so easily, and
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: with a fuller picture of who Tammy Joe Alexander was,
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: investigators could now refocus on the biggest unanswered question, and
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: that is who took the life of Tammy Joe. So
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: the identification sparked new leads as police tracked Tammy's final
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: steps and companions, and now armed with her name and history,
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: they began the renewed hunt for a killer that, for
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: all anyone knew might still be out there, perhaps even
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: watching the news that the Jane Doe they thought would
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: never be identified now had a name. So the identification
- 1:02:25Speaker 1: of Tammy Joe Alexander was a monumental step forward, but
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: it was not the end of the case. Rather, it
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: was the beginning of an active homicide investigation with a
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: clear direction, and with Tammy Joe's background uncovered, now detectives
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: could retrace her path and contacts in nineteen seventy nine
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: to hunt for suspects, and new leads poured in after
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: the twenty fifteen announcement as people across the country realized
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: that the long ago missing Brooksville girl and the famous
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: Caledonia Jane Doe were one and the same, and the
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: FBI joined local law enforcement in a fresh push for information,
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: and in early twenty fifteen, the FBI put up billboards
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: nationwide featuring Tammy's photo and details of the case, asking
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: for the public's help to find the killer, and this
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: campaign led to a surge of tips, and by the
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: end of February twenty fifteen, the Livingston County Sheriff's Office
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: reported that they received many new leads enough to start
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: developing a working theory of Tammy's travels in her final days,
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: and while they did not release that scenario publicly in full,
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: they indicated that they had a better sense of how
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: she might have arrived in Caledonia, and one intriguing lead
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: came from a trucker in Tennessee who contacted authorities after
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: hearing Tammy's story on a radio broadcast, and he remembered
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: a young girl matching Tammy's description from that time. I
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: we don't have the exact details of the sighting, but
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: police called it significant, implying Tammy was indeed spotted on
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: the road during her odyssey, and although specifics were not disclosed,
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: we can speculate perhaps this truck driver recalled giving a
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: ride to a girl he now believes was Tammy, or
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: he saw Tammy with someone suspicion at a truck stop
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: in late nineteen seventy nine, and Tennessee lies on a
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: route between Florida and New York, so if Tammy hitchhiked
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: up the I seventy five or I ninety five and
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: then west or north, passing through the Appalachians. It's plausible
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: a trucker out of Tennessee had encountered her, and this
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: kind of eyewitness account, even decades old, can be surprisingly detailed.
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: Truckers often remember unusual passengers or events vividly, and investigators
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: likely followed up rigorously on this, trying to corroborate times
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: and places that matched Tammy's known timeline. Then there was
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: a matter of Tammy's time at the Young Harris George
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: Ministry that summer. As in March of twenty fifteen, the
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department revealed that they discovered Tammy had ties to
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: a former prison ministry in Georgia that worked with youth
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: on probation or parole, and this is clearly referencing the
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: Rainbow Youth Range. And they noted that the ministry was
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: defunct and the founder's deceased, which was a dead end
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: in terms of directly interviewing staff. However, or they did
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: track down some individuals connected to it, and the key
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: question was did Tammy meet someone at the ranch who
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: could have harmed her or taken her on the road,
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: and the investigators learned that the program often dealt with
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: troubled young men and women, and perhaps one of them
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: left around the same time Tammy did, and records from
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: the ranch might have listed fellow attendees or visitors, and
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: the mention of individuals on probation or parole suggest an angle.
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: Could a newly paroled or probated person from the area
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: have been traveling north and crossed paths with Tammy. Maybe
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: an ex convict volunteer or someone affiliated with the ministry
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: offered Tammy a ride, And in early twenty sixteen, the
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: police disclosed they had identified three male persons of interest
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: who had known Tammy before her death, and they didn't
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: publicly name these men, but it was said that they
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: were part of Tammy's life or circle back then, and
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: it's likely these included perhaps a boyfriend or acquaintance from Florida,
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: maybe someone from the Georgia Ranch, or maybe a trucker
- 1:06:00Speaker 1: or friend of a friend who had been in contact.
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: And investigators worked to locate these persons of interests decades later,
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: and impressively they did find them, and they collected DNA
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: samples from all three men to any forensic evidence from
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: Tammy's case, and this was a major step was getting
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: these men's DNA on record would allow police to either
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: include or exclude them if any DNA from the crime
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: scene existed, And by November twenty sixteen, the FBI reported
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: that none of the three persons of interest DNA matched
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: the sample taken from Tammy's clothing. In other words, those
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: three men were not the source of the unknown male
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: DNA found in this case. So this presumably cleared those
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: individuals of direct involvement in her murder, or at least
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: they weren't the ones who left trace evidence. So the
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: elimination of those suspects might seem like a setback, but
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: it was actually progress and it narrowed the field, and
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: their interviews might still have provided useful context even if
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: they weren't the killer, perhaps one of the new Tammy's
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: plans or last companions, because after Tammy was identified in
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, investigators publicly said they were revisiting witnesses and leads,
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: and reporting identifies that Lima Diner waitress Marge Bradford as
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: the last known person to see Tammy alive, and she
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: described the teen's male companion, tanned station wagon, black wire
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: rimmed glasses, and the meal that they shared that night,
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: and they revisited the original scene and evidence with fresh
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: eyes and modern forensic labs re examined Tabby's clothing, the bullet,
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: and any other items for hints that might have been missed.
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: And one big advantage of identifying Tammy was being able
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: to chart her movement from Florida to Georgia, perhaps some stopovers,
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: and then New York where she was murdered, So investigators
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: likely checked if any other crime occurred along a path
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: Tammy might have taken around late nineteen seventy nine that
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: could be related, For instance, was there a pattern of
- 1:07:52Speaker 1: hitchhikers or any similar shootings of women. Because they had
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: already looked at serial killers earlier, but now with Tammy's
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: known journey, certain suspects might become more or less likely,
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: and so far law enforcement has not publicly named any
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: prime suspect, though, but they emphasized that the case is
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: very much active and that the original man, furly haired
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: glasses wearing in a station wagon remains at the center
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: of the investigation, and over the years, composite sketches of
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: him have been circulated and they hope someone might recognize
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: him and if you do, please call your local authorities.
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: And one of the most promising angles in the search
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: for Tammy's killer is the DNA evidence gathered from the crime.
- 1:08:34Speaker 1: It was back in nineteen seventy nine, they likely didn't
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: have the ability to recover much from the body due
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: to the rain and lack of evidence. However, it appears
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: that with modern methods, investigators managed to find some male
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: DNA on Tammy's clothing when they re examined it in
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: post identification, and they haven't publicly clarified what kind of
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: DNA it could be touch DNA like skin cells on
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: her jacket or pants, or perhaps fluid like a bit
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: of sweat or saliva, but it's enough to have a
- 1:09:04Speaker 1: mail profile which they've been actively analyzing, and by twenty twenty,
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: officials announced that they were leveraging cutting edge forensic genealogy
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: techniques to try to identify the source of that mail DNA.
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: And this is the same approach that famously caught the
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: Golden State killer, which I did review in one of
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: my older videos. But using genealogical databases to find relatives
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: of the unknown DNA profile and build a family tree.
- 1:09:28Speaker 3: To a suspect.
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: So the FBI was reported to be testing the DNA
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: against national databases in search of a familial link to
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: the killer. In Sheriff's office, Captain Brian Aplan confirmed we
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: have been and are exploring DNA avenues in the case,
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: including the ancestral DNA angle. No new information available on
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: that at this time, but the syndicates they've likely uploaded
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: the suspect's DNA profile to genealogical services with law enforcement
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: access like ged match or family Tree DNA, and as
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: of the latest updates, no match or close familial hints
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: have been announced, meaning the killer's relatives either aren't in
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: those databases or the connections are too distant so far.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: But this work is ongoing and it can take time,
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: especially if the suspect came from a lineage not well
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: represented in the databases. And it's worth noting that DNA
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: technology is advancing very quickly, so if the team hasn't
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: found a match yet, a future improvement or database growth
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: could suddenly make a difference. And additionally, the FBI has
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: offered a twenty thousand dollars reward for information that leading
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: to the killers arrest, and they hope that even decades later,
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: someone who knew something might feel compelled or financially motivated
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: to speak up, and perhaps a killer confided in a
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: friend or family member at some point, or witnesses who
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: stayed silent might finally break their silence. So Tammy Joe
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: Alexander's story is not over yet, and the dedicated individuals
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: pursuing her case will not rest until the question that
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: has echoed since nineteen seventy nine is answered, and that
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: is who killed Tammy Joe.
- 1:11:04Speaker 2: But if you have.
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: Any information on this case, please contact local authorities. I
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: hope to God this case gets solved so any family
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: members can can have peace from it and to get
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: a killer off the streets. It's extremely scary and an
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: extremely devastating story, but it's incredible that detectives and internet
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: slews were able to at least give Tammy her name back.
- 1:11:31Speaker 1: I think that's incredibly special. But I hope this case
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: gets solved. If you guys want me to go over
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: any other cases, let me know. I always read the
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: comments and until then I will see your beautiful face. Okay,
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: stay safe,