10 Disturbing Crimes Solved By Amateurs
8. Caledonia Doe: Identifying A Homicide Victim After 35 Years
Wesley Clements and his father, Harry, were strolling through the Caledonia Cornfield when they found a teenage girl lying face down. Snuffed out by a bullet to the forehead and another to the back, Dansville police were unable to uncover any evidence thanks to mother nature having soaked the body and cornfield for hours prior to the Clements’ walk.
A sergeant York was frequently frustrated by the investigation’s dead end leads becoming a headache inducing roadmap from the Avon area, to the state of New York, to the entire nation. Magazines, newspapers, and America’s Most Wanted all featured the unclaimed for Cali Doe’s likeness, but no one could identify the corpse found 10 November 1979.
Years later, through the exponential growth of the internet, authorities sent Cali Doe’s likeness to millions of people. With a bevy of amateur sleuths slugging it out online to identify the deceased first, Carl Koppleman, a public accountant and moderator of the Websleuths domain, connected the police’s sketch to another missing person photograph.
After 35 years of residents adorning the unknown girl’s burial site, she was finally identified as Hernando County’s Tammy Jo Alexander, who had turned only 16 shortly before her death.