Formation 2001 Headquarters Livingston, Tennessee Volunteers 600+ | Purpose Body identification Location United States | |
Key people Todd Matthews (co-founder) | ||
The Doe Network is a non-profit organization of volunteers who work with law enforcement to connect missing persons cases with John/Jane Doe cases.
Contents
Purpose
The website features "cold case" disappearances and unidentified decedents, in hopes to create awareness for such cases and to generate potential leads. Those documented have occurred during or before the year 2013. Case files are created for both unidentified and missing persons, detailing physical estimations of the subjects as well as circumstances of the disappearance, sightings and recovery of the unidentified subjects. Images of the missing and unidentified, including forensic facial reconstructions, tattoos, and age progressions are also available for cases. Cases of murder conviction without a body are also listed, although their cases have been solved, as the victim could possibly remain unidentified. The website has developed an online form for viewers to submit potential matches between missing and unidentified persons, which are subsequently reviewed by volunteers prior to submission to authorities. After the form is completed by a reader, sixteen members of the Doe Network's administrative panel evaluate the importance of the possible match and whether or not to submit it to investigators handling the case. The website also works alongside other databases, such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and the NCIC. The network contains cases from across the world and is also presented in various languages.
Since the launch of the Doe Network, over six-hundred people have volunteered. Members are selected after applications are submitted and background information is confirmed. A "core team" organizes information that is published on the website, compiling approved information received from other members.
History
The Doe Network was first created in 2001 and is based in Tennessee, although there are volunteers for the organization across the world, including every state in the United States. The organization was co-founded by Todd Matthews, who had assisted in the identification of Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor, previously nicknamed as "Tent Girl," in 1998, which had inspired him to create a website to help solve similar cases. Matthews also co-founded a different organization, known as Project EDAN (Everyone Deserves a Name), which consists of a group of forensic artists.
Since the start of the project, many have acknowledged the importance of such an organization. Their website lists 70 successful identity resolutions that the site assisted with, 36 had occurred within the first five years. Such include Deanna Criswell, found in 1987 and identified in 2015, Samantha Bonnell, and Dorothy Gay Howard, found in 1954 and identified in 2009. Criswell was identified after family members came upon the case file of the unidentified teen and later submitted a possible connection between the two. Samantha Bonnell's mother recognized a reconstruction created by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on the file of her daughter. Various other cases have been solved in a similar way, often when loved ones or those investigating the disappearance of a missing individual discover a case file on the website that details a case similar to their missing companion or family member.
The Doe Network has received some criticism, as many officials note that they received significant amounts of information "that can be annoying," as Todd Matthews stated on an interview with National Public Radio in 2008.