The Doe Network

Airdate: 9/10/05
Fox 25 Boston

They have faces but no names. Thousands of people lost, all across America. To many, they are a population of the forgotten, but not to the Doe Network.

Dan Brady, Doe Nework
"I never realized there were this many cases unsolved."

Dan Brady's day job is working with computers but his passion is finding the lost.

Dan Brady, Doe Nework
"We're trying to give people a name."

The Doe Network is a volunteer group devoted to helping police solve cold cases. Many of them, John and Jane Doe's.Dan Brady, Doe Nework "Some of these cases happened back in the 1970's. They might have reported it, not much was done. They moved on, and not much information about the case, it's almost like it doesn't exist anymore."

But the cases do exist, at the Doe Network website, thousand and thousands of cases. The Doe Network's database contains precious information about each case. In the hopes someone in one state might recognize a case in another. And it works. Take the case of Cynthia Vanderbeek, missing from New York in 1995. Her body recovered in Pennsylvania later the same year, but identified through the Doe Network, in December 2004.

Dan Brady, Doe Network
"It was a case where the husband went off on vacation with the wife, and the wife never came back."

There are other success stories, but what drives the volunteers at the Doe Network, the thousands of unsolved cases. Like this case out of Caledonia, NY, a teenaged girl shot to death in 1979.

Dan Brady, Doe Network
"Somehow, the details haunt people." "In this case, it was a cold night. It was post mortem. We know pretty much what she looked like. But nothing matches, it's just like she came from outer space or something."

In Massachusetts, Doe Network members try to find Jennifer Lynn Fay, a Brockton teenager missing since 1989. There's the mysterious lady of the dunes case, a woman murdered in 1974 in Provincetown, and still unidentified. And the case of a young woman found murdered and floating in the water off Pope's Island, New Bedford in 1996.

Dan Brady, Doe Network
"There's some indication she's from Eastern Europe."

All of them, older cases, but all very active for the Doe Network. National figures suggest there are 5,000 people whose bodies have been discovered, but who remain nameless, and another 100,000 people considered missing. The volunteers at the Doe Network are working each one.Dan Brady, Doe Network "There are some cases people are itching to solve."

But when there's a match, and a case is solved, it happens because volunteers like Dan Brady never stop searching, never stop caring.

Dan Brady, Doe Network
"I think its amazing what volunteers can accomplish just by working together towards a common goal."

For more information on the Doe Netork, log on to:
The Doe Network.