Aren’t the best true crime documentaries the ones that are solved by dedicated internet sleuths who spend their free time chasing leads that detectives haven’t even thought of?
Take famed citizen sleuth Deanna Thompson for example. You probably remember her from Don’t F*** With Cats, Netflix’s viral true crime documentary about cat killer and cannibal Luka Magnotta. Thompson helped track down this deranged killer’s whereabouts by diving deep into the nitty-gritty details that everyone else overlooked. She spent countless hours researching door knobs in Lithuania as a way to pinpoint Magnotta’s location and also tracked down specific items depicted in his videos to try and uncover his identity.
So what other armchair detectives have helped solve cold cases? Here’s a list of 10 regular people who have brought killers to justice or have helped identified murder victims.
Carl Koppelman
Former accountant and LA-based artist Carl Koppelman has helped find the identities of previously unknown victims by drawing illustrations of what they might have looked like in real life based on photos taken from when their bodies were found. He notoriously helped solve the 1975 Linda Pagano case. Her skeletal remains were found in the woods and though Koppelman was skeptical about being able to draw her likeness from bones, he took a crack at it and his drawing ended up being the missing link that was needed to identify Pagano’s remains.
Websleuths Forum
A group of amateur detectives on Websleuths helped crack the Abraham Shakespeare murder in 2009. Shakespeare won the $30 million lottery in Florida in 2006 and was reported missing by family members three years later. When a suspicious person began commenting on the murder in a Websleuths forum, the detectives in the group matched the IP address to Shakespeare’s financial advisor, Dee Dee Moore. Shakespeare’s body was found in her boyfriend’s backyard underneath a newly-poured concrete slab. Moore was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
DNA Doe Project Researchers
Kevin Lord, Missy Koski, and Lori Gaff, three volunteer genealogical researchers for the DNA Doe Project helped solve the Lavender Doe cold case using DNA, online research, and ancestry sites to ultimately track down the unknown identity of a 21-year-old woman whose body was found in the woods in Texas. Her body was burnt and unrecognizable, the only discernible traits were her perfect teeth and lavender shirt. After tracking down distant relatives from a confusing family history and finding her old MySpace page, Lavender Doe was finally identified as Dana Lynn Dodd. Joseph Burnette confessed to her murder and was sentenced to three consecutive 50-year sentences.
Ellen Leach
When a skull was found in a bucket of cement at a Missouri truck stop, Doe Network researcher Ellen Leach helped match a photo of a missing man named Gregory May to a reconstructed facial bust of the skull found in the bucket. After much back and forth, May’s former roommate and murderer, Douglas DeBruin was convicted in 2005. DeBruin had stolen thousands of dollars worth of May’s Civil War antique collection and had run away to Flagstaff, AZ, where police arrested him.
Susan Galbreath
Susan Galbreath helped solve the murder of 18-year-old Jessica Currin, whose body was found behind a school in Mayfield, Kentucky in 2000. Susan worked the streets along with British investigative reporter, Tom Mangold, and was able to help narrow down the suspect list before identifying Quincy Cross as Currin’s rapist and murderer.
Sharon Derrick
Forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick helped solve the decades-old Paulette Jaster case in 2014. Jaster, who disappeared from her Michigan hometown in 1979, was killed by a hit-and-run. Her identity remained unknown until Derrick saw her autopsy photos and read an internet tip that made her think the Jane Doe could actually be Paulette Jaster. Though Derrick was missing DNA and dental records, she zoomed in on the freckles on Jaster’s face in autopsy photos and compared them with other photos of Jaster provided by her family. Three freckles matched perfectly and her identity was finally known.
Payne Lindsey
Payne Lindsey’s uber popular true crime podcast, Up and Vanished, helped solve the murder of Georgia schoolteacher Tara Grinstead. His digging and reporting never named Ryan Duke as a suspect, but it did stir up new facts in the case and caused new people to come forward with information. Duke was charged with Grinstead’s murder in 2017 but no trial date has been set as of March 2021.
Layla Betts
A woman on Reddit named Layla Betts started reading about the Grateful Doe case and decided to dig deeper by starting a subreddit. In 1995 an unidentified man was killed in a car crash in Virginia after hitchhiking and being picked up by a man named Michael Eric Hager, who also died in the crash. The John Doe had two Grateful Dead ticket stubs in his pocket (hence the Grateful Doe moniker) and a star tattoo on his arm. As more people joined the subreddit and as drawings of the Grateful Doe circulated, the victim’s former roommate reached out and soon, the Doe was identified by his mother as Myrtle Beach, SC resident, 19-year-old Jason Callahan.
Billy Jensen
Journalist Billy Jensen is known for cracking cold cases via targeted social media ads. In one chapter of his book, Chase Darkness With Me, Jensen describes how he was able to help solve the murder of bartender Marques Gaines, who was randomly punched in the face outside of a 7-11 in Chicago. The force of the punch caused Gaines to fall into the street, where he was then run over and killed by a car. Jensen created targeted Facebook ads and asked a popular sports blogger to retweet the post. Soon, new witnesses came forward with a video and even a photo of the man who punched Gaines. After noticing several distinct facial features from the photo, Jensen matched it to the mugshot of a man named Marcus Moore and confirmed he was living in Minnesota after finding him on Facebook. Police arrested Moore and he was sentenced to aggravated battery. He spent less than two years in prison for his crime.
Michelle McNamara
Perhaps one of the biggest citizen sleuth stories from the past few years is that of author Michelle McNamara, who wrote her best-seller I’ll Be Gone in the Dark chronicling her relentless search for the Golden State Killer. Sadly, McNamara passed away in her sleep before she could finish her book and before the killer’s identity was finally found, but it’s clear that she was hot on his trail and even predicted that the killer had been a policeman at some point. Detective Paul Holes uploaded the killer’s DNA to GEDMatch and found familial connections that they then narrowed down. Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested in April of 2018 and was charged with 12 counts of first-degree murder. DeAngelo was sentenced to multiple life sentences and blamed the murders and rapes on an alternate personality named “Jerry.”
It’s always amazing to read about armchair detectives who spend their free time and talents digging deep into a cold case that has touched them in some way.
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