Talking Dateline: The Woman with No Name

0:08Hi, it's Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Keith Morrison. Hi Keith. Hello, Josh. So this episode is called The Woman With No Name, and it's about the 2006 murder of an unidentified woman who was dubbed Lavender Doe because of the lavender shirt she was found in after she had been murdered. And an interesting team of people kind of banded together to help find her name, identify her. Now, if you have not listened to this episode yet, it's the one right below this one on the list of podcasts that you just chose from. So you can go there and listen to it. or if you want to watch it, you can stream it on Peacock and then come back here.

0:45Now, when you come back, Keith has an extra clip that he wants to play for us from his interview with the co-founder of the DNA Doe Project. And then later, we're going to be joined by a Dateline producer, Veronica Mazzica, to talk about what she's learned from her work, reporting on other unsolved cases of Jane and John Doe. So stick around for that. Now let's talk Dateline. So, this was an unusual episode of Dateline. It unfolded differently than ones I'm used to, probably also ones the audience is used to. It begins with something that usually doesn't come at the beginning of the episode, which is the finding of a body.

1:28Usually, we meet the victim before we… Usually, we do. But in this case, we were unable to meet the victim. Right. Tell us how this unfolds a little bit. Well, in this case, we met the victim when she was – her body was actually on fire, a really pretty awful scene that a couple of hunters came across. And they, of course, called it in. So the fire was put out. The body was taken to the morgue, and they tried to figure out who it was, and they had no idea. They did some DNA tests and discovered that she had sex of some kind in the recent past. So they were able to get a DNA profile from the semen.

2:11What do you know? It turned out to be an offender they knew pretty well. At the beginning, he has an alibi, right? They kind of look away from him originally. Yeah. Then they discover that his girlfriend is also missing and that the family is very worried about her. And that's too much of a coincidence. Right. and he finally confesses to both murders. But police genuinely believe that he doesn't know who she was. Well, he doesn't know who she was. He hasn't got a clue. It was some girl that he ran into outside a Walmart. And she doesn't match any missing persons reports from that jurisdiction.

2:47Yes, correct. This became, in my mind, and it's one of the few stories I like to call my Horton Hears the Who story, which is that, you know, a person's a person. no matter who. They deserve the same respect as, you know, the president of the United States. Anybody deserves respect, attention, and deserves to have whatever measure of justice can be afforded to them. Happily, a detective on this case, Eddie Hope, had that very opinion that everybody's in everybody and then these cases need to be solved for the sake of the person who's dead as much as for the family. One of the things I thought was interesting about this is that, you know, frequently when people from the outside contact police departments and say, I want to help you solve this case, the answer is, thanks.

3:33We got it. Like, we really don't need your help. And also, outsiders getting involved presents all kinds of other problems like evidence and chain of custody, and I don't want you at the crime scene, and you're not a law enforcement officer, and you don't have any subpoena power. All those things. There's lots of reasons why average citizens should not get involved in things like this. But in this case, Detective Hope was actually, he was like, yeah, let's go. Let's do this. He was very frustrated that he couldn't find out who she was to let people know. And that's when these DNA Doe Project people got involved.

4:07And DNA Doe is a fascinating organization where people use genetic genealogy to try to nail down who missing people are. Now, when this happened, that was quite new. Now it's something that we almost take for granted in criminal cases. Yes, I was at a local event where I live not long ago, and I heard about several cases that the local police department has solved with genetic genealogists just in the last year. So it's becoming rather common. It is, and it's becoming so common that when we do these stories on Dateline now, it's only a little part of the story. But at this time, it was kind of the story.

4:49It was the story. It really was groundbreaking. And it also shows you not just sort of what can be accomplished through science, but also sort of the dedication and fascination and obsession almost of the people who got involved because they didn't know her. They didn't know anything about her. They just wanted to know an answer. And it's a web of people all around the country. And Detective Hope, he got right away what the possibilities were for this, not only the technology, but the cooperation. He met with these people, and at least he met with them virtually, and began to trust them more and more as time went by.

5:27This is all information, the genetic information that they use to identify her. This is essentially what is done in numerous cases, both ones that you and I have covered and other people, usually done to identify killers. You have the killer's DNA, but it doesn't match anybody. So you look at the panoply of information that is available out there on commercial DNA websites to see whether you can find family members. And then you kind of work backwards from their third, fourth, fifth cousin. That's exactly right. It works exactly the same way. Whether you're trying to solve it from one end of the puzzle or the other end, it's still a puzzle.

6:04And it still involves finding these family trees. And the family trees can sometimes be very, very large with branches going out all over the place. So you have to follow along one branch until you hit a dead end, and then you try the other branch and you go down. It's a very time-consuming, labor-intensive process. If anybody wants to look at their own DNA on a site like 23andMe or Ancestry, you specifically check some box and say, I want to make sure that that is uploaded and available to other people, and that way I'll be able to find cousins or relatives that I don't know about. And so that's what this was.

6:42This is information that people have chosen to make public about themselves. I'm sometimes surprised that people are prepared to put their family trees out there, put their DNA online where other people can see what it is. It seems very personal to me. I'm not sure I'd do it. I did one of these once. You did, huh? Yeah. And it says on there, by the way, like, get ready for when this comes because it may reveal things to you that you don't know. I think personally, Josh, I've always suspected, and you can confirm it for me now, that you're from some different species altogether. And I have no pulse.

7:16That's exactly right. When I did it, by the time I did it, the Golden State Killer case had been solved. And so I just thought, well, I should do it for that reason. I wasn't actually looking forward to meeting any relatives that I hadn't met. But I did it just for the sort of law enforcement reason. Every little bit of information helps. like in cases like this and other murders that you and I have covered, it can make an enormous difference. Oh, indeed. Yeah, sure can. When we come back, we have an extra clip from the DNA Doe Project co-founder, Margaret Press.

7:56So one of the founders of this DNA Doe Project is a fascinating woman I interviewed named Margaret Press, whose background is as much literary as it is scientific. And she was, you know, she had intended to retire. And instead, she found herself getting involved with genetic genealogy, which was the kind of puzzle that she really thrived on. And then these other people joined in who are, they call themselves online sleuths. But there There were lots of people all around this invisible web or beehive, they like to call it, of tens or hundreds or thousands of people all around the country who are fascinated by these cases, who learn about missing people and who join in the effort to try to figure out who they are.

8:41We're going to listen to some more of Keith's interview with the DNA Doe Project co-founder Margaret Press. And she's going to talk about what got her interested in the cases of people like Lavender Doe, Jane and John Doe cases. So I was starting to catch up on my mystery novel reading. And one of my favorite authors was Sue Grafton, who wrote the Alphabet series. and I got up to Q is for Quarry and I opened it up in February 1st 2017 I remember the day and she had an afterword that was startling because she said this is the first time I've based a story on a real crime there was a Jane Doe found in Lompoc California in I believe 1968, who had been thrown into a quarry and never identified.

9:41She had written the book 15 years earlier and had actually paid to have the skeleton exhumed so that a facial reconstruction could be done from the skull and DNA could be collected. There was no hit because this Jane Doe had not previously been in the criminal justice system. So I read this and had an immediate epiphany. I've been helping adoptees find their birth parents. This is the same thing. If I can figure out Jane Doe's parents, we'll know who Jane Doe was. It's no different. I actually remember that case in Lompoc, California, because my grandfather used to live in Lompoc, yeah, in a trailer.

10:29Interesting guy. I love that she was inspired by Sue Grafton. My favorite of the Sue Grafton series, by the way, is K is for Keith. I should think it would be, yeah. Yeah, not a well-known novel, but underappreciated. One of her best. Yeah, underappreciated, let me just say. So it took 12 years to give Lavender Doe a proper name, even after her killer had confessed to killing her. This was a particularly complicated one because she was kind of alone in the world. And though a sister— And that family was kind of fragmented. I mean, they were like, what, 27 cousins. Exactly. And they kind of didn't know much about each other.

11:14And the mother, Lavender Doe's mother, was not with her as she was growing up, and she stayed with a sister. Her relatives, who were trying to get their own lives in order, tried very hard to protect her. she was a kid who was naturally troubled given what she had been through already and this one, my heart went out to this girl she'd had so many strikes against the possibility of her having a normal life and she was entitled to one, I felt she had a boyfriend who didn't work out well and she had this and she had that and eventually she wound up where these young people will be offered deals where they get into the back of a bus or a truck or something and they go off to various towns around the country.

11:57And they're selling magazines subscriptions. And they're told that they're going to sell magazines on the street and that this will earn them money and they'll be able to get themselves launched on some other kind of career. You'll be able to afford to go to school. You'll be able to afford an apartment if you just stick with us and sell magazines. And then this other guy comes along and she had one more guy who's throwing 10 bucks at her. And can you really condemn her for going along with them? And that's her killer. It's not her fault. And she was killed. And an awful way to die and a terrible way to be treated after she was dead.

12:33So it was a sad story. But one that the good part of it to me was that there are people who are so determined to get to the heart of humanity of these tales. To figure out who it was to honor that person. And in the end, they did. They were able to put her name on a grave marker. And they all, those people who took part in this search, the central ones, they all gathered in that little town in Texas at the cemetery. And they had a ceremony for her. They had a funeral. And it really was a moving thing. Yeah, no, I thought that was great. And I loved that the members of the Lavender Doe team had never met until after they had already given her her name back.

13:21What was that dynamic like between them when they're all three sitting there? It was like talking to three siblings. They filled in each other's sentences. So they had communicated enough for long enough that they were very familiar with each other. And they felt comfortable together. You could see it. It was quite a delightful thing to see. It makes the point that knowing someone, the definition of that is kind of changing. Because they clearly did know each other. I mean, they'd communicated a lot, but it was all probably by email. It was. or a text message or whatever. But, I mean, I almost feel like I know you, and yet I've never seen you in person.

13:57I wouldn't want to. No, I feel the same way. What you were able to uncover about Lavender Doe, real name, Dana Lynn Dodd, is that let's say her ID had been in her pocket at the time and they had been able to identify her or her prints had been on file someplace or a DNA hit had come back. I don't get the feeling she would have had as many people at her funeral as there ended up being. No, it's true. And I guess you can spin all kinds of stories. As you know, and I've said it to you repeatedly about my dad being a minister, a preacher, but he could take that theme that you just talked about, How when we become committed to a person, they become important enough for us to travel across the country and be together and have a ceremony in honor of that person, which they deserve.

14:56So thus endeth the sermon for the day. This is a little off topic. How often did your father sort of give you that kind of lesson? I mean, daily? Annually? I mean. No. I had to go to his sermons at least twice a week, often more. Right. Yeah. Yes. And did he say, I mean, I apologize in advance because I'm aware that I'm off topic here, and that always makes you a little bit uncomfortable. You're also kind of an infidel, so I'm suspicious of you. I am. I meet every definition of an infidel. But, like, I mean, my own dad never said to me, you know, remember this, son. Like, here's a life lesson for you.

15:43He never said anything like that. But he said things, and all these years later, I remember him like he said him this morning. Exactly. Yeah, precisely. No, I never got advice, personal advice from my dad. I just, I listened to his talks in front of other people. I have to say, I mean, I know you're not doing this for him, but it sounds to me like he would have loved this story. Because this was a story about— Oh, exactly, yes. Precisely. This was a story about people doing something for someone that they didn't know that really did not benefit them. I'm serious when I said at the beginning. I should go back and reread it to make sure I'm not misrepresenting the tale.

16:20But to me, my father's life could be boiled down to a many years long version of the Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears the Who. And in many ways, that's the only story that a human being who wants to be an empathetic, caring person needs to know. It's a great story. I advise you to look it up. I'm going to. Do you know the story, Josh? I mean, yes, that was not the Dr. Seuss book that I read the most. I was more a green eggs and ham guy. Oh, yeah, there you go. Okay, after the break, we're going to be joined by Dayland's digital producer, Veronica Mazzaca, who is invaluable around here. She has been reporting on these kind of cases for years.

17:08okay we are now joined by our dateline digital producer veronica maceica hy-vee your hair looks fabulous you've had your hair done for for uh talking dateline i can tell yes yeah i knew i knew i needed to get it done before we continue i hear some noise from your end of the interview and that's because there's, what, some construction going on there? Yeah, unfortunately, they are doing construction outside my apartment building, and it just started. So hopefully they quiet down. All right. We are going to just have to live with that. That, by the way, is exactly the timing known to intimately with Josh and me.

17:48Everybody at Daylight. Every single time. The second I start to do an interview, there's a guy outside with a leaf blower or an airplane flies over here. Yeah. So every week, the digital team, which you're part of, covers Unsolved Cold Cases for our online Cold Case Spotlight series. And you've also worked on Missing in America with me. And a lot of those cases are John and Jane Doe's. And so you maybe can talk a little bit about those cases and what it takes to cover them, because it's really sort of not like doing other stories, is it? Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a different experience than when we have a family reach out to us about their missing loved one or their murdered loved one.

18:28Every single case we feature is sent to us by people who watch Dateline and interact with us on our social media. And the Jane and John Doe cases that we have featured have also been sent to us by people in our social communities. I've found that a lot of these Jane and John Doe's have some person out there that they've never crossed paths with that Jane or John Doe, but they have dedicated themselves and their lives to this person that they don't know. To be clear, we're not doing the genealogical investigation at Dateline. You're reporting on these cases. Yes, that is correct. One of the things that is helpful in these cases is getting the sketches or the reconstructions or anything that has been created in these cases and getting that out to the public and using our platform to show these things to the general public.

19:24And if you recognize this, please call is the goal of telling these stories. So, you know, Lavender Doe was known by that name because of the color of the shirt that she was wearing. Who's Penny Doe? Yeah. So Penny Doe is a Jane Doe that was found in Pennsylvania in July of 1990. And inside her pocket, each pocket was a penny. And so she was nicknamed Penny Doe. And there's not a lot of information out there about Penny Doe, but they believe this woman was between 20 and 40 years old. She had shoulder length, dark brown hair. Penny Doe's body was found in a place called Monroe Township, which is in Clarion County, Pennsylvania.

20:11And they don't believe she's from there because they didn't have anyone missing from that area that matched the description of this Jane Doe. But also because they believe she came from a place that had fluoride in her water due to her teeth when they did testing on it. They were able to tell that she didn't have any cavities and it just seemed like she had come from an area that had fluoride in their water at that time and that area did not. So it's now been 34 years since that Jane Doe was found. There are a lot of people in that town. I talked to a guy that worked at the newspaper there. I talked to the girl who found her, now all grown up, and they all really want to give Penny Doe her name back.

20:56Well, the town is invested in this still after all these years. Yeah. It's impressive. Tell me about Paratrooper Doe, John Doe. So Paratrooper John Doe, he was actually found in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which this hits a little bit close to home for me because I actually grew up there. I have been exactly in the spot where his body was found. He was found on Memorial Day weekend in 1984. 84. His body was found floating in the water. I did speak to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, and they said that his death was a drowning and that they did not suspect foul play. However, there is this woman who she actually lives in New Jersey.

21:39And back almost 10 years ago, she started an organization called Veteran Doe. And I spoke with her. Her name's Amelia. That organization is just to identify this guy. It's not just to identify him. She does work on any cases that seem to have a military connection. And I asked her why she was starting this, like what made her do that. And she said, you know, she had a bunch of military connection in her family. The men in her family had all been in the military. And one of the things she was talking about was that because of the military connection, it should be relatively easy to find. And that's the first thing I'm thinking is that there aren't that many paratroopers in the world.

22:24Exactly. I mean, the Pentagon should be able to help you with that, particularly also, you know how old he is. Yes. So he was about 20 years old and he had brown hair and brown eyes. And the thing that she was telling me about that is very specific to this John Doe is that he has two tattoos that she thinks might be the key to identifying this John Doe. One of them is a Pegasus with the phrase born to fly free. And the other is a skull with a beret that says U.S. paratrooper. So she thinks that that might be the easiest thing to identify him. Earlier this year was the 40th anniversary of his disappearance.

23:07And Amelia would really like to help bring him home and give him his name back, even though they don't suspect foul play in his case specifically. Let's also talk a little bit about the Jane Seneca Doe case, which the DNA Doe Project got involved in. Yeah, so Jane Seneca Doe is a case that the Dateline Digital team covered a couple years ago. The Jane Doe was found in October 1976, and she died of a single gunshot wound. She was found in Grundy County near Seneca, Illinois, and that's how she got her name, Jane Seneca Doe. So a couple years back in 2018, the Grundy County, Illinois authorities, they began working with the DNA Doe Project.

23:51And I actually spoke to the Grundy County Deputy Chief Coroner. His name is Brandon Johnson. And he was just stressing to me just how much investigative work went into actually identifying her, which they were able to finally do earlier this year. identified Jane Seneca Doe as a woman named Joanne Vicki Smith. And he told me one of the things that was really difficult with this case was that she had actually been adopted. And so a lot of her family members on her family tree didn't even know that she existed, which made it 10 times harder to solve this case. And so between the DNA Doe Project and the Grundy County, Illinois authorities, they were able to finally give her her name back.

24:38And anyone who's interested in these cases, they can read all about them. We're putting a link in the description of this podcast. Veronica, thank you. Good luck with the construction that's going on at your building. Thank you so much. If you have cold cases that you think we should be looking at, you, the listener, you can send them to us on social at Dateline NBC, whatever social platform you're at. Before I go, though, I do have a question for you. There's a question from social that you need to ask us. We did get a question from a Jensen Peterson on Instagram. They said, sometimes when I listen to the podcast, it seems as though the writers have written the piece specifically for the voice and style of Keith, Josh and Andrea.

25:28I try to imagine another host saying those exact words, but it would be out of character for them. So are the episodes written specifically with each host's talents in mind? What a good question. Thanks, Jensen Peterson. Well, the answer is the reason that those words sound appropriate to each of us is that each of us actually writes those to some degree. Written by us or amended by us, sometimes I think of myself not so much as a writer as a rewrite man because you stay up late at night and you take other people's copy and you revise it so that it comes out of your mouth. Generally, you can't do a six-hour podcast or a two-hour television program without some degree of collaboration with other people.

26:10And by the way, like that's one of the huge changes for me from when I moved from being a daily reporter in local and network television to Dateline, which is when you're working on daily news stories. What goes on the air is almost 100 % your own work. And a lot of times it's your first draft because you're doing the story in less than eight hours, maybe less than two hours. So this is a much more, a longer process. It takes months to do these stories frequently, sometimes years. But I claim 100 % responsibility for the words that come out of my mouth. And I know that Keith and Andrea and Dennis and Blaine do too.

26:47Good. All right. That is Talking Dateline for this week. Thanks, everybody, for listening to us. And remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or any cases that you think we should cover, you can reach out to us on social at Dateline NBC. Or you can send us an audio message for a chance to be featured in our next Talking Dateline episode. And remember to listen to my all-new podcast, which is called Deadly Mirage. The first three episodes are available to listen to now. Or if you subscribe to Dateline Premium, you can listen to the first five episodes ad-free wherever you get your podcasts.

27:23Thanks, everybody. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.