11 Female Jane Doe Cases Added to NamUs (Jan–mid-Feb 2026 Update)

Recent Female Jane Does Added to NamUs (Jan 1 – Feb 16, 2026)

Below is a quick reference chart of several female unidentified person (Jane Doe) entries that were recently created in NamUs within the date range shown above. 

At-a-glance notes

• Los Angeles County, California appears multiple times in this set (La Cañada Flintridge, Long Beach, Los Angeles).
• Several cases list race as “Uncertain”, which can make matching more difficult without additional details.
• One entry is an older case (1994) for when the body was found and may have been added to NamUs recently, possibly due to backlog digitization.

Chart: Case information

NamUs UP #	Agency/Case #	Date Found	Estimated Age (Min)	Estimated Age (Max)	City	County	State	Biological Sex	Race	NamUs Created
UP155172	2025-17990	12/13/2025	--	--	Amesbury	Essex	Massachusetts	Female	Uncertain	02/09/2026
UP154481	2025-13928	09/02/2025	--	--	La Cañada Flintridge	Los Angeles	California	Female	Uncertain	01/26/2026
UP154231	J-2025-02-0112	02/04/2025	30 Years	60 Years	Harrisburg	Dauphin	Pennsylvania	Female	White / Caucasian	02/05/2026
UP153815	25-03572	12/10/2025	--	--	Silver Spring	Montgomery	Maryland	Female	Black / African American	01/29/2026
UP154161	2020-01913	09/09/2020	--	--	Atlanta	Fulton	Georgia	Female	Black / African American	01/15/2026
UP153956	2520802	12/30/2025	--	--	Arlington	Tarrant	Texas	Female	White / Caucasian	01/08/2026
UP153882	01250710	08/28/2025	50 Years	70 Years	Estell Manor	Atlantic	New Jersey	Female	White / Caucasian	01/07/2026
UP155211	94-664 (Examined on this blog)	09/07/1994	--	--	Prospect	Waldo	Maine	Female	White / Caucasian	02/10/2026
UP154622	2026-01084	01/18/2026	--	--	Long Beach	Los Angeles	California	Female	Uncertain	02/10/2026
UP154624	2025-17706	11/11/2025	16 Years	25 Years	Los Angeles	Los Angeles	California	Female	Black / African American	02/05/2026
UP155061	2600257	01/14/2026	30 Years	50 Years	Oklahoma City	Oklahoma	Oklahoma	Female	Uncertain	02/09/2026

How you can help (responsibly)

• If you know someone that is missing who fits a description, then check out all the case details and see if everything matches up and discuss the case with others.
• Share case links rather than repeating sensitive personal speculation.
• If you’re family searching for a missing loved one, consider submitting or updating a missing person entry and DNA options through official channels.

Missing Persons News - DNA Doe Project Identifies St. Croix County Jane Doe as Alyce Peterson

DNA Doe Project Solves 23-Year Mystery of St. Croix County Jane Doe

By: Shane Lambert
Original time of writing: August 15th, 2025

In a recent release, the DNA Doe Project announced the solving of a 23-year-old Wisconsin cold case. They identified a skull found in Houlton, Wisconsin, in 2002 as belonging to Alyce Catharina Peterson, a 92-year-old woman from Stillwater, Minnesota, who died of natural causes in 2001.

The breakthrough, announced by the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office and the DNA Doe Project, sheds light on a perplexing case that began when Boy Scouts discovered a skull in a plastic bag at a camp near Houlton on October 21st, 2002.

Source: DNA Doe Project, St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office

Initially, forensic analysis suggested the skull belonged to a woman of Asian, Asian Pacific, or Native American descent, aged 35-60. It was thought that she had been deceased for about a year. The woman was missing all her teeth and had short, mousy-brown hair. Dubbed the "St. Croix County Jane Doe," her identity remained elusive until the Sheriff’s Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project in 2021.

The estimates of her age and ethnicity were far off. One therefore has to wonder if this case would have been solved without the insights of genetic genealogy.

Using investigative genetic genealogy, the DNA Doe Project generated a profile and uploaded it to GEDmatch and FTDNA databases. Surprisingly, the results indicated the woman was Caucasian with recent Swedish ancestry, challenging earlier assumptions.

Family tree research was key in this case. A key DNA match in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, led researchers to focus on a family tree linked to Swedish immigrants in the U.S. After tracing descendants to Stillwater, just miles from the discovery site, the team identified Alyce Peterson, born in 1909, as a potential match.

Peterson, who lived in South Dakota before moving to Stillwater, died in a St. Paul hospital in 2001. Her age at death—92—far exceeded the initial estimate, but the timeline aligned. A niece’s DNA test, sharing approximately 25% DNA with the unidentified woman, confirmed Peterson’s identity.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a Doe identified as someone with a death certificate and who was supposedly cremated,” said case manager Eric Hendershott.

Authorities are now investigating what happened to Peterson’s body after her death.

The DNA Doe Project praised the collaborative effort, crediting the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office, Astrea Forensics, HudsonAlpha Discovery, and volunteer genealogists.

“This unexpected result turned out to be a huge lead,” said co-team leader Robin Espensen, highlighting the pivotal role of the Stockholm DNA match.

Important Takeaway From this Case

I think those that follow missing people cases should take away something important from this case. Mainly, the decadent was never really a missing person. She died of natural causes at a very old age, she reportedly was to be cremated, but somehow her skull ended up in a park.

In short, if you think about it anyone who was cross-referencing the Jane Doe report to missing persons reports would never have found a potential match. Alyce Peterson was known to be dead and thought to be cremated so her family would not have distributed any missing persons reports.

A skull found with teeth removed would suggest something clandestine to those familiar with these kinds of cases. Teeth are identifiers, just as fingerprints are. Even though DNA is the most reliable identifier, the other methods of identification remain valuable. Someone whose skull is found in a park with missing teeth would look like someone whose body was discarded in a way to prevent identification.

It will be interesting to see what news comes from this.

Another important takeaway is just how far-off age and race estimates can be. This was a woman in her 90s but the estimate of her age was put as low as 35. I don't know that I have ever seen a resolved case where the age estimate was 57 years off before. Furthermore, the individual was Swedish and that's not in the Native American, Hawaiian, or Asian groups.

When the estimates are telling you to look for a 35-year old Hawaiian instead of a 92-year old Swede, you can see how difficult it can be to help in these cases using research alone (as opposed to DNA).

Posted by Missing Persons Commentary
Source: DNA Doe Project, St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office

Follow Missing Persons Commentary for more updates on unsolved cases and breakthroughs in identification.

Grok Reviews Missing Person Commentary: Shane Lambert’s True Crime Blog Analysis

By: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: March 4th, 2025

If you don’t know what Grok is, it’s X’s (formerly Twitter’s) artificial intelligence tool. It’s free to a certain extent; however, if you ask too many questions over a certain period, you’ll be prompted with a registration option at a cost. I’m a fan of the tool—in fact, I’m finding it more useful than Google for online research purposes.

I decided to ask Grok what it thought of my website, the one you’re reading right now. Here’s a breakdown of what was said, complete with a “yes” or “no” retort from me.

What Grok Said About What Missing Person Commentary (MPC) Is

Nature: A Blogspot site where Lambert posts about missing persons cases, often referencing sources like NamUs, newspapers, and Unsolved Mysteries episodes. Posts include case summaries, personal theories, and research notes.

• I’d say this is fair enough. But I’d add that I do dabble in anything related to crime writing or forensics. For example, I’ve looked at airplane crash documentaries on the website and other topics that aren’t closely related to missing person mysteries.

Author: Lambert describes himself as an enthusiast, not a professional investigator. He mentions taking a Private Investigator course and a Forensic Science course from Nanyang Technological University, but there’s no evidence he’s a licensed expert or affiliated with official organizations.

• I describe myself as a Freelance Writer. I’m not sure where they’re getting the “enthusiast” description from, but my headline for the website is “A freelance writer trying to help in missing-person investigations (no professional investigators are associated with the site).”
• I think the credentials I have make me a bit more polished than most other freelance writers. Furthermore, I think people who consult blogs don’t mind reading writing—or else what are they expecting?
• Lastly, I think Grok is overly impressed by “licensed” experts or “official organizations.” Anyone with a reasonable amount of life experience should have noticed that “licensed” experts with “official organizations” are a mixed bag themselves.

Content: Focuses on lesser-known cases, attempts to match missing persons with unidentified remains, and provides updates or reflections on cold cases. It’s a one-person operation with no apparent team or editorial oversight.

• I do NOT focus on lesser-known cases. They are included, but I wouldn’t say they’re the focus. Grok is wrong with the first sentence it wrote there. I consider the probability of traffic when I include a missing person case on my website, and that means selecting well-known cases. I don’t see much point in writing something if no one is going to read it.
• Grok is right when it says it’s a “one-person operation with no apparent team or editorial oversight.” I basically proofread my own writing.

Grok’s Evaluation of the Strengths of MPC

Detail-Oriented: Posts often cite specific sources (e.g., NamUs case numbers, newspaper archives), showing effort to ground commentary in verifiable data.

• Fair enough.

Niche Focus: Covers cases that might not get mainstream attention, appealing to true crime enthusiasts or those researching specific disappearances.

• I do cover cases that “might not get mainstream attention,” but it’s not really the focus.

Transparency: Lambert is upfront about his amateur status and hobbyist approach, which adds some credibility to his intent.

• “Amateur status” is a strange term. I have work experience as a writer going back to 2009, and I’ve been in magazines. But I’m not a police officer or a private investigator, so it depends on what they mean. I’d say my research skills are better than most writers. My blog posts do get cited a lot in other forums.

Grok’s Evaluation of the Weaknesses of MPC

Lack of Authority: As a personal blog, it lacks the backing of law enforcement, academic institutions, or established missing persons organizations (e.g., NamUs, NCMEC).

• What website does law enforcement back except their own? Academic institutions don’t really care about missing person cases. NamUs is so error-riddled that they require correction, something I do regularly.

Lambert’s conclusions are speculative and not professionally vetted.

• It’s kind of redundant. Calling the website “speculative” isn’t the best word. I’d say “conjecture” is better. This could point out that I’ve researched hundreds and hundreds of missing person cases.

Potential Bias: His opinions (e.g., “I think this person died in a fire” or “she disappeared voluntarily”) are presented without forensic or investigative evidence, which could mislead readers seeking facts over theories.

• I’d say this is false. The example of the person dying in the fire has to do with the Ricky Jean Bryant case. Actually, my opinion is presented with “investigative evidence.” I researched the original journalism from the days after she disappeared. Her house burned down, and the firefighters who put the blaze out said they heard a child screaming from inside the house as it burned down. I consider professionals like firefighters, professors, bylaw enforcement officers, teachers, judges, lawyers, medical doctors, and similar people to be very reliable eyewitnesses because they know better than to make frivolous statements. So I’d say Grok is just wrong about this.
• I don’t think there’s any misleading readers. When you use the phrase “I think” at the start of a sentence, it’s clear someone is offering an opinion—something people do all the time.
• Lastly, the notion of a “Potential Bias” in my writing isn’t worth pointing out. Everyone has biases, including Grok. It will contain the biases of the people who program it.

No Peer Review: Unlike official databases or journalistic outlets, there’s no mechanism to ensure accuracy or correct errors.

• I don’t see how this makes sense. Peer reviews would be done at other websites, not my own, so why would that be a criticism of MPC? Furthermore, if you look at mainstream media, it’s well-known that they deliberately report things falsely sometimes. I never do this at MPC.

Platform: Hosted on Blogspot, a free blogging platform, which doesn’t inherently signal professionalism or reliability compared to dedicated domains tied to organizations.

• This makes no sense, really. Everything, at bottom, is human-run. The articles speak for themselves, not the platform. Honestly, Grok is stupid here.

For Casual Interest: It’s a decent starting point if you enjoy true crime speculation or want a narrative take on obscure cases. Lambert’s enthusiasm and research effort might spark curiosity or highlight overlooked details.

For Reliable Information: It’s not reputable in the sense of being an authoritative or primary source. Without professional credentials, institutional backing, or rigorous fact-checking, it’s best treated as opinion rather than fact.

If you’re assessing it for a specific case or purpose (e.g., a missing person you’re researching), cross-check its claims against NamUs, official reports, or news archives. It’s a labor of love, not a cornerstone of credibility. What do you plan to use it for? That could shift the answer a bit!

• The so-called “better” sources are often riddled with errors, many of which I’ve corrected in my research.

Evaluation of Grok’s Evaluation

• It’s food for thought, but I think it makes statements that lack depth.
• I’d only give it a four out of ten.