Namus UP#4757 vs. Namus MP#3229 (Scott William Crain) - I tried, I failed, and it's not totally my fault

By: Shane Lambert

I spent a couple hours today looking at a John 'Clinton' Doe case, an individual in his teens or early 20s, that was found by hunters in southern Wisconsin. I started as I often do, by simply cross referencing the John Doe's time of death (in this case estimated) with missing-people reports. I found a photo of a missing person whose age was a couple years out of range, but one who I felt resembled the decedent.

At the end of everything, the conclusion is that Namus Missing Person #3229, Scott William Crain, is not Namus Unidentified Person #4757.

However, getting to that conclusion was a little harder than it had to be I think. The first thing I do when I subjectively associate a Missing Person with an Unidentified Decedent is what I think everyone should do: look at the ruled-out individuals listed on the opening page of the Unidentified Decedent at Namus. I did that and I didn't see Scott William Crain's name as per the chart below.

If you are working on this Doe, here's the ruled-out chart to use: link.

I figured, quite fallaciously, that since Scott William Crain wasn't on the John Doe's list of rule outs that he was worth pursuing. I did the online research and came to the opinion that the two were probably not one in the same person. However, when the timing allows it and when a sketch of a Doe resembles an MP (missing person) I just can't let it go without trying my hardest. 

In this case, I decided to contact Melinda Whitehead (formerly Spillman), someone who I learned knew the MP in this case. I messaged her on Facebook, introduced myself, revealed my hobby, and asked for a few minutes of her time and she obliged.

She too saw the resemblance, however she reviewed her previous messages on the case with other individuals and informed me that Scott William Crain was in fact a rule out for the John Doe found in Clinton, Wisconsin. She was kind enough to send me an email that she received on the matter from a task-force member who has worked to identify the decedent (email is from Jack Friess with Melinda Spillman as a recipient, dated October 12th, 2015):

"Re:  William Scott Crain: NamUs MP # 3229

         John Clinton Doe: NamUs UP # 4757....

William Scot Crain is eliminated as being John "Clinton" Doe based on the following inconsistencies between these two individuals:

      1. Both Crain's and JCD's DNA profiles are resident and searching in the same computer databank without an association as reported today by A. Dobbs, NamUs RSA.

      2. Crain's age in 1994 was 22, and JCD's is estimated to be 17-20.

      3. Crain lived in Kentucky, an area outside JCD's Iso-area of Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Michigan.

      4. Crain is 72" to 74" tall, quite a bit taller than JCD's estimated height of 65" to 67".

      5. From Crain's NamUs photo, it appears he has a significant over-bite on his front teeth, confirmed by NOK.   JCD had no such over-bite.

      6. Crain's favorite music group was Guns and Roses and Metallica (on shirt in his NamUs photo).  While certainly heavy metal, his favorite group was not Venom."

Point 2 and point 6 are total fluff in my opinion. In regard to Point 2, there's not much to being a couple years outside of a small age range. In regard to Point 6, as I write I'm wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers hat. It doesn't mean they are my favorite team, it just means I think blue and white are my colors. Wearing clothing only counts as endorsement for contracted professional athletes. However, DNA counts for a ton and, if Iso-area is what I think it means, it counts for far less but is still insightful (ie. I think it has to do with eating habits and teeth). 

What also counts for something is just listing a ruled-out individual among the rule outs at Namus. On that matter, Melinda stated she would follow up on why William Scott Crain's name was not there, so hopefully, if nothing else, that happens.

Either way, it's back to the drawing board for this case and for my efforts to try and provide a fruitful lead to law enforcement, coroners, or loved ones when it comes to finding a missing person.

Conclusion: unless DNA databases are flawed, the composite sketch below is not of the missing person in the photograph below.

John Clinton Doe

William Scott Crain.

Further reading: http://findjcd.org/.

My Hunch on Sand Canyon Road John Doe - Namus UP#7582 Might Be MP#29973 (Updated - no match)

By: Shane Lambert

July 12th, 2016 Update: 

"Shane

….quick review of dentals proves it isn’t our guy.  Our UP has tooth 32, this MP does not.

Thanks for being so interested in the case, though.  We do appreciate it. 

Marika

Marika A Morris, D-ABMDI

Medicolegal Death Investigator/Technician

Washoe County Medical Examiner/Coroner's Office"

At least I got him added as a rule out.

Original article:

I was working a few nights ago on Namus unidentified person #7582. He is an unknown individual whose remains were found in 1992 in Nevada with the following physical description with DoeNetwork.com:

"Estimated Age: 35-50 years old
Race: White, of European descent
Gender: Male
Height: 6'0" to 6'2"
Weight: Unknown
Hair Color: Reddish brown
Eye Color: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown."

There are a lot of clues as to who he is but, as of July 10th, 2016, he has not been identified. However, after working on his case for a few hours I believe that I have found an individual who is a candidate for examination as a potential match - one that is not listed as already ruled out with this John Doe's Namus profile.

Believed to be a likeness of the individual.

Due to the fact that the Doe has not been identified in about 25 years I decided to focus on the whole United States when looking for a missing person that could be the John Doe. My reasoning is that someone who does not get identified for such a lengthy period of time is someone who clearly has no obvious match. If the decedent lived within a few miles of the location that he was found in, chances are he would already have been identified.

Furthermore, that he was found in a rural location near a highway suggests that he was a traveler in my opinion. Accordingly, looking outside of the area where he was found seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Since the greater Los Angeles area is one of the more populated regions in the relevant sector of the USA, that's where I focused my efforts.

The John Doe was not found near Los Angeles but rather "off of Sand Canyon Road, approximately a mile east of Highway 338, near Wellington, in Lyon County, Nevada." The date that he was first discovered is March 12th, 1992, at that time by an unknown caller. Law enforcement, after responding to the call, found him the next day on March 13th, 1992. His estimated date of death is unknown, however his remains were only skeletal suggesting that some time had passed since his death.

There are some possible leads/clues or possible red herrings involved with this John Doe. Specifically a car was reported to have been abandoned in the area in October of 1991. Also there is a dog that a local resident claimed used to come around her place at about that time and leave in the direction of where the remains were eventually found. Importantly, the John Doe was found to be near a broken dog collar so perhaps the deceased owned one.

To get to the heart of the matter, the individual that I think should be looked at is named Joseph Anthony Stuart. He is a missing person (Namus #29973) as of September 6th, 1991, about six months ahead of the discovery of the John Doe. His sparse Namus file does not mention a dog, it does not have a photo, the relative heights are not a perfect match, and Namus MP does not mention that he was a vehicle owner. For skeptics, those are valid points that suggest that Mr. Stuart and the decedent may not be one in the same person.

However, Stuart was a 35-year old white male with brown hair. Those features match the features of the decedent who was 35-50 with reddish-brown hair. The height of the decedent relative to the John Doe is a little off in this case, by about four inches. I feel that that's the strongest rule-out based on the information available at Namus.

Maybe the timing is a little off, however it cannot rule out Mr. Stuart as a possible match to the John Doe in my view. Mr. Stuart was last seen in early September 1991, he was reported missing on September 26th of that year, and the decedent was found in March 1992. Since the remains were skeletal perhaps Mr. Stuart died from causes unknown at this location in September/October of 1991 and his remains decomposed until he was found in his skeletal state.

Geographically the decedent and Mr. Stuart are not a dead-on hit. Mr. Stuart was last seen in Fullerton, California while the deceased was found in Nevada, near Wellington and just off of Highway 338.

However, what cannot be overlooked with Mr. Stuart is a comment that he made to a friend before disappearing. According to his Namus profile "Stuart had mentioned to his friend that he was heading up to Reno, Nevada to look into a possible job." 

One route from Fullerton to Reno would take you to within a reasonable proximity of where the decedent was found. Thus, the clues in each case, that of Stuart's and that of the John Doe's do align in a way that I think a reasonable person will find intriguing. The physical description matches to a large extent, the timing matches, and when the comment about going to Reno is factored in the geography in fact matches as well.

Did Stuart have a car? Did he have a dog? Did he hitchhike? Did he head to the area that the decedent was found in?

Those are very good questions that I pose to anyone that is in a position to investigate further. Perhaps a much simpler question, one that those who knew him may be able to speak to, is simply if John Anthony Stuart looks like the decedent and if the found clothes match as well.

Snohomish County Doe Soon To Be Identified or Another Dead End?

Update: This one was solved in the summer of 2020. Her name was Elizabeth Roberts.

Link good as of October 2020: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8463099/Girl-murdered-Washington-identified-43-years-later-DNA-taken-hair.html

The rule-out candidate that I submitted was ruled out.

Update from Coroner's office on March 9th, 2017: 

"Hi Shane,

New South Wales PD’s forensic odontologist performed a dental comparison between our Jane Doe and Narelle Cox and ruled out a match based on dental records.

I hope you find your Narelle and we figure out who our Jane is!  Thank you again,

Jane"

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By: Shane Lambert (UncoolNegated on WebSleuths)

She was found dead on August 14th, 1977 - a couple of days before Elvis died - in Snohomish County, Washington. Her murderer was subsequently convicted, but he could not identify her. Her name has remained a mystery for what is almost forty years now.

However, a June 23rd, 2016 article from Komonews.com at least offers a little bit of hope that the Snohomish County Jane Doe, whose composite sketch appears below, might be named soon.

According to the article, which can be read here, an Australian phoned Washington state to offer a potential lead on who the Jane Doe sketched on the left might be. As of July 9th, those that follow missing persons cases are still in the dark.

However, the Australian identity of the caller got me working. In looking over the missing persons at an Australian website, my guess would be that the decedent is Narelle Mary Cox, pictured to the right.

The details surrounding Cox's disappearance corroborate to a large extent with the Jane Doe. Firstly, Cox was 21 when she disappeared and that is within the hypothesized age range of the Jane Doe above. 

Secondly, Cox was last seen in the months prior to the discovery of the decedent. One source, DoeNetwork.com, says that Cox has been "Missing since July 20, 1977" (my bolding/underlining). Another source, a news article from 2006 by Julia Iles, claims "whatever dreams Narelle Mary Cox had as she hitch-hiked from Grafton...were never realised. She has been missing ever since" (bolding/underlining added).

Her travel plans were ambiguous but maybe those "dreams" were to travel to America. It's the distance between Cox's last known location and the Jane Doe's location that will certainly cause many to dismiss a connection between the two.

On other matters, whether the face matches the composite sketch is a matter of opinion but certainly all will agree that there are some similarities. The parted hair matches, the skin color matches, and the shortness of the hair in the forehead area matches too. Those that attempt to match composite sketches to photos of unknown people will tell you that anything in the ballpark is worth looking at. 

Another match is that the decedent was a hitch-hiker and, as per the quote above, so was Cox. Circumstantial? For sure. Axiomatic proof? Hardly.

It's important to stress that I'm not claiming that the composite sketch and Narelle Mary Cox are of one and the same person. That's an announcement that comes with stronger evidence that only law enforcement and coroner's can provide. 

However, when I read that someone from Australia had called the USA regarding the Snohomish County Jane Doe, I scoured through hours of Australian databases and news sources. Narelle Mary Cox is my guess based on her matching age, her matching look, her matching hitch-hiking tendencies, and the corroborating dates. Even if she isn't the one being looked at based on the Australian-caller lead, she's a candidate for a ruling out in my view.

That most that object will do so on grounds of how far apart Cox was, when last seen, from the resting place of the decedent is not something that bothers me at all. The amount of time that it has taken to identify the Jane Doe is actually a clue.

If the decedent was an American in life then she probably would have been matched to the Jane Doe already for cultural reasons. When a pretty, caucasian, and young 21 year old is killed in her home country, she so often gets identified because of the abundance of affiliated news coverage. Could be that trans-national travel is what has been the hold up in this case all along.
-----------------------------
September 2017: Additional photos of Narelle Mary Cox