Mystery Man - Todd Matthews

by Todd Matthews

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 to my dedicating my life's work to the mission of reconnecting families with their missing. This endeavor led to my being one of the founding members of The Doe Network- International Center for Unidentified and Missing Persons, and Project EDAN. (EDAN facial reconstruction composite of Todd Matthews pictured above.)

Unidentified, But Not Forgotten

It all started for me with the 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 came 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 own family. I searched area libraries and newspapers to comb through hard-copy archives, searching both 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.

The Yahoo-based "Cold Cases" group was one of the first of these such "virtual" gathering places, which led to the formation of others, such as the Doe Network. Over the past decade, an increasing number of Web sites devoted to particular cases of missing persons have been created. One of the first was my own for the Tent Girl. (The earliest page still exists, though crude by today's standards.)

Message boards dedicated to other subjects came to be used to post information about missing persons and lost loved ones.

Finally a Breakthrough

It was a night like a thousand nights before, the evening I found what I was looking for at last. I had discovered a message board with a posting by a woman looking for her sister last seen in Lexington, Kentucky. The description very closely matched the description etched onto the Tent Girl's headstone. The feeling in my heart was greater than anything concrete I was reading on the screen. I knew I had found them--the family of the Tent Girl.

An exhumation and DNA revealed Tent Girl was 24-year-old Barbara Taylor, a wife and mother who would have been a grandmother by that time.

Lasting Impact

Connecting Barbara with her family was a profound and fulfilling moment of my life. Tent Girl had a deep impact on others as well. In 1968, long before I knew of the case, the discovery of her remains had led to the establishment of the Kentucky State Medical Examiner's Office. Then three decades later, in 1998, her identification led to the creation of a state-based Web site by the Kentucky Medical Examiners office: UnidentifiedRemains.net.

Case files are in a constant state of review and are cross-referenced by researchers, law enforcement, and the public. The Doe Network alone has helped bring closure to more than forty cases of missing or unidentified people. That network continues to gather data on thousands of other similar cases to help keep them in the public eye.

Techni-Criminologists

Often people involved in using the Internet to help solve crimes are called "amateur sleuths." I prefer terms like "advocate" and "volunteer." The volunteer effort has progressed and has taken the shape of an actual science. Those of us who seek the technology of the Internet and other computerized resources to resolve cold cases have found a niche that truly deserves a name. I like the term "Technology Criminology."

Hundreds of e-mails a day from people searching for their missing loved ones are sent to advocates willing to help. This is a new age where the ordinary man can step up and make a difference. It doesn't matter your sex, age, race, or physical disability. When you think about it, we are all one big family.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

This week's Mystery Man's calling to be a voice for missing and unidentified persons began when he solved the identity of the Tent Girl case, Barbara Hackman-Taylor, after a ten-year journey that ended in 1998. He is also Media Director for the Doe Network, a consultant to Emmy-award winning producer Dick Wolf ("Law & Order"), and on the Advisory Panel for the U. S. Department of Justice NamUS (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) database project.

Tomorrow's guest contributor has appeared on many national television shows, including "Leeza," America's Most Wanted, 48 Hours, "TechTV," "Good Morning America," and the Paula Zahn Show. Articles about our Mystery Man and his advocacy work have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and People Magazine. He hosts a weekly radio show that publicizes unidentified and missing persons cases. A documentary featuring our guest contributor's work was recently broadcast on the BBC. A second documentary about his life will be presented at the next Sundance Film Festival.

So be sure to check back here tomorrow for when we unmask this week's fascinating Man of Mystery.

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DIG!

by Donna Weaver

I just don't understand the delay. Get your warrants, and DIG!

Earlier this month, it was reported that human remains may have been found near Barker Ranch, once the hideout of Charles Manson and his followers. Barker Ranch now resides on national park property, and nearby Myers Ranch was once owned by a Manson Family member and also served as the cult's hideout.

Testing equipment from Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory indicated the presence of two clandestine graves and a possible third gravesite after search dogs from Mammoth Lakes Police Department and Necrosearch--a nonprofit organization that specializes in locating clandestine gravesites--indicated the possible location of human remains.

But Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze stated on Friday that he believes further testing is necessary. In a written statement, Lutze said:

"Myers Ranch is private property, Barker Ranch is national park property. . . . Both are compelling reasons to be as cautious as possible and use every reasonable testing method available before disturbing the ground with excavation."

Last week it was reported that former Inyo County detective John Little said he was told by his former supervisor in 1974 to investigate the possibility of human remains buried at Barker Ranch.

"He said I should go up and take a look around the Barker Ranch and try to find four grave sites somewhere around 150 yards from the building," Little said. "At that time, there wasn't a lot of really good forensic techniques to find things. Imagine what you could find with the sonar stuff they have now."

Until the suspected grave sites are excavated we won't know for sure if they contain human remains, and, if so, how they came to be buried there. Whether or not these possible unidentified remains are victims of Charles Manson or his followers isn't the point. According to The Doe Network Unexplained Disappearances Geographic Index, in California there are 49 reports of men, women, and children who disappeared without explanation between 1944 and 1974, with a total of 901 disappeared persons up until the year 1999.

As a survivor of a homicide victim whose remains have never been found, I can tell you that statistics alone cannot capture the fear, horror, frustration, and pain felt by those who know and love a person who has suddenly vanished from their lives. There have to be several families wondering in anguish if their loved ones could be buried in unmarked graves in Inyo County, California. Those families should not have to wait one minute longer than necessary for an answer, and ownership of the property is not a sufficiently compelling reason to make them wait.

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