Unidentified, but Not Forgotten

There are 100,000 missing people and more than 7,000 unidentified bodies listed with the FBI-NCIC. I came to care deeply about one of them -- a Jane Doe that led me to dedicate my life's work to the mission of reconnecting families with their missing. This endeavor took me to The Doe Network as their media director and helped me also create Project EDAN

Unidentified, But Not Forgotten
It all started for me with a Jane Doe nicknamed the Tent Girl -- an unidentified body found in a canvas tent wrapper dumped along the side of the road in Kentucky in 1968. Nearly twenty years would pass before I learned of Tent Girl. In fact, I wasn't even born until two years after her remains were discovered. I would learn of her through my wife Lori. Her father had found the body. Tent Girl was murdered.

Why could I not forget Tent Girl, a woman whom I had never known? I think it had something to do with my own family. Unlike my wife, who has many siblings, I only have one surviving brother, Mark. He and I still bear the mental scars of the passing of our younger brother Greg and sister Sue Ann. They died as infants, but never left our hearts and minds. That's how Lori and I began to feel about Tent Girl, as we built our own family.

Mark and I visited the cemetery where our siblings were buried. Tent Girl made me sad because she had no known family to visit her grave. So whenever Lori and I went to Kentucky, we visited Tent Girl's grave. In a way, we made her part of our family.

But I had a longing to connect her with her family. I searched area libraries and newspapers to comb through hard-copy archives, searching for stories about the Tent Girl. This went on for a decade. At times I felt I was going nowhere, but I was learning.

Criminology in a Technical Age
The advent of the Internet changed the face of research, making it easier, more affordable and realistic. Distance was no longer an obstacle. Naturally, investigators also benefited from instant access to people with information.