'Grateful Doe' no more

December 11, 2015 3:01 AM

One of the most investigated 'John Does' has been positively identified. 20 years after he was killed in a car accident, and a year after a new campaign to identify him began on Imgur and Reddit, 'Jason Doe' or 'Grateful Doe' has been positively identified through DNA as Jason Callahan of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

'Grateful Doe' was a passenger in a car crash in 1995; he had no ID and the car's only other occupant, the driver, was also killed and couldn't identify his passenger. In his pocket were ticket stubs to a recent Grateful Dead concert, and a note addressed to 'Jason'.

One of the most-investigated unidentified individuals in the world, 'Jason's' identity has been the subject of many thousands of hours of investigation by online sleuths who have devoted time to searching missing persons reports, scanning concert footage, and posting on Grateful Dead message boards in the hope of identifying him.

Last December, a Reddit user posted the reconstruction and details of the young man's death on Imgur, where eventually it caught the eye of someone whose ex-roommate, called Jason, was a Grateful Dead fan. He couldn't remember Jason's last name, but offered up photos of his ex-roomie and more information, including a remembered link to Myrtle Beach. This led to local publicity in Myrtle Beach, where a woman recognised the young man as possibly being her son, Jason Callahan, who had left home to follow the Dead and who she had never reported missing due to a combination of factors.

Jason's mother filed a missing persons report in January 2015, and she and other family members offered DNA samples for comparison against the unidentified young man. Eleven months later the results are in, and Jason Callahan, killed 20 years ago with no-one to claim him, finally has his name back.

posted by andraste (13 comments total)

Shannon Michelson, his half-sister ... said she had not seen Callahan since she was a child, when their father and his mother separated.

“No one ever thought to report him missing because they thought he wanted to be missing,” Michelson said.

What a pain for them to hold all these years… probably a lot of pain before, too.

.
posted by cotton dress sock at 3:09 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Quite sad. I love that the Internet coughs up everything eventually, but this is so bittersweet.
posted by Calzephyr at 5:19 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

.
posted by mikelieman at 5:41 AM on December 11, 2015

Closure is good.

Now let's find the bastards who killed Adam Katz at the meadowlands...
posted by mikelieman at 5:42 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

...who had left home to follow the Dead..

Ouch.
posted by Segundus at 6:12 AM on December 11, 2015

The fact that this got so much attention makes me think "somebody died and we never found out who it was" is much rarer than I, for whatever reason, thought it was.
posted by Ian A.T. at 7:09 AM on December 11, 2015

I saw the post on Reddit and spent the time between then and now wondering about the assignation "Grateful Doe". I didn't notice that it was a reference to the John Doe name, despite the fact that we even named the stray cat we rescued "John Doe". This post has resolved the mystery that the resolution of this mystery caused in my head.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 7:22 AM on December 11, 2015

I am glad he finally got identified, although it must mean further sorrow for his family. Good on the internet sleuths who spent years and years and years trying to find out who he was.

There are lots of people who put huge, huge amounts of free into trying to 'solve' cases of the unidentified or the missing, and sometimes it seems so pointless - people have been searching for years, the police haven't got anywhere, why do you think that you'll suddenly be lucky? But then, sometimes they are! (Another one earlier this year: 'Caledonia Jane Doe' was identified as Tammy Jo Alexander, after 35 years.) And even when they're not, it seems like a respectful memorial, somehow, to have a bunch of strangers devoting their time to keeping your memory alive, even when they never know your name.
posted by Catseye at 8:04 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

This year has been big for Does! There's Cali Doe above, Benjaman Kyle, and the Sharon Marshall case.
posted by cobain_angel at 8:08 AM on December 11, 2015

.
posted by Burgoo at 12:23 PM on December 11, 2015

Man that Sharon Marshall case is horrific. Most of it happened in the state where I have lived most of my life, and I'm surprised I never heard of it before.

This thread reminds me of someone I've known since high school or so whose older brother disappeared in the late 70s, before I met her. Eventually the family had him declared dead, but I'm sure his fate has continued to weigh on them. Now his parents are both dead, as is one sibling. It seems like it won't be long before anyone who knew him or cared about his fate will be gone and it will be as if he had never existed. I know that the same thing will eventually happen to almost all of us, but I am still troubled by it.
posted by TedW at 8:33 AM on December 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

This year has been big for Does! There's Cali Doe above, Benjaman Kyle, and the Sharon Marshall case.

Wow. I read this book at the very end of last year (recommended!) and it mentioned all three of these cases. It's really interesting how much a bunch of people grinding and sifting through a lot of old data (namely matching Does against missing person reports in geographically distant places) can get some things done.Thanks (belatedly) for this post.
posted by jessamyn at 5:01 PM on December 13, 2015

Ian A.T.: "The fact that this got so much attention makes me think "somebody died and we never found out who it was" is much rarer than I, for whatever reason, thought it was."

Oh, there's a fair number still.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:17 PM on December 14, 2015