John or Jane Does With Very Clear Facial Photos -- Remain Unidentified

Author: Shane Lambert
Time of publication: January 29th, 2021

On this web page, I highlight cases of Unidentified Persons (UPs) who are deceased. What unifies all the UP profiles on this page is that a great photo of them is provided with their profiles from a time when they were alive. The photos of the unidentified persons are of good enough quality that these are cases where the only thing that is required to solve them is both media exposure and a person who is willing to simply state their names. 

Besides the mystery of their identities, there is the extra mystery of how they can be unidentified despite the clear pictures of their faces. I am not talking about media exposure when I state that. Rather, how did the authorities get the pictures of them alive without someone coming across their names? Did the decedents have pictures of themselves in their wallets? 

This is a web page that is always a work in progress: I will add to as I come across more cases that fit the category. Minimally, please scroll through this page and look at the faces even if you don't feel like reading that much. If a link is, pardon the pun, dead, then please report it in the comments.

Shane Lambert

February 2nd, 2025

I looked at the following case tonight and it also looked solvable. However, a lot of time has passed. But you would think this case would be solved if only enough people looked at the photo. Currently, she is known only as #UP127230.

January 13th, 2025

I worked on this one tonight. It looked solvable!

NamUs #UP76876

January 13th, 2025: Update! This one was solved! At least, they removed the profile (which usually means the person was unidentified.

This fellow was found dead in the Arizona desert on October 26th, 2020. He was believed to have been dead for about 36 hours. His height was measured to be 5'4" and his weight was estimated to be 125 to 135 pounds.

The reason they have a photo of him from life is because they were able to take a fingerprint off of his corpse. The print matched an apprehension from March 2020. The photo is an apprehension photo from that time.

He gave the name Gregorio Cota Valenzuela in March 2020, however, this may be an alias. That detail is something I find strange as I didn't think getting away from the authorities when they are fingerprinting you was as simple as giving a fake name, however, I guess there are scenarios where that is possible.

This individual was found by the USPB (United States Border Patrol). Individuals found in remote desert locations in Arizona by the USPB are often Mexican nationals that may be walking to Phoenix. However, that this person was fingerprinted seven months before he died may suggest that he was in the USA for a long time.

Still, I would not be surprised if he is a Mexican national. If you are working on this case, fluent English and Spanish may be useful in order to look at the missing person websites in Mexico.

Canada's Missing Case reference: 2017073538

January 25th, 2025 update: This case does not seem to be active anymore as the link no longer contains information. It says it was updated on May 10th, 2023.

This case comes from Canada. The man on the right is thought to be an Albertan. He was found deceased in Ontario on October 15th, 2016.

At some point, he identified himself as Mitchell Nelson. At some point, the photo of him must have been taken, maybe by police.

If you visit his UP profile with Canada's Missing using the hyperlink above, then you'll see that they have composite sketches of him too. 

This is truly a strange UP profile. It's the only unidentified person profile I've looked at where they have a composite sketch AND a photo of the UP from when he was alive. There also appears to be a sidelonged photo of him riding a bike and pulling a huge canoe, which is a really weird photo. If they found these photos of him on the John Doe, then why do the sketch?

In another strange twist, this man is given an age range of 40 to 67 years old. I don't see how anyone can look at that photo and see someone who is as young as 40. I see someone who is at least 50 and probably 53 to 63 is I was to give a ten-year guess.

Jennifer M. Dawson (Photo Search - SUCCESSFUL) -- Missing From Florida Since May 1986

Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: January 27th, 2021
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

The following photos are ones I believe to be of Jennifer M. Dawson, #MP26327 with NamUs. Note that I was unable to authenticate these as being of the missing person; however, I use them in good faith as I do believe they are of the missing person. 

Update: Someone claiming to be the missing person's first cousin has claimed the photos are of Jennifer in the comments section.

I BELIEVE THIS IS THE MOST RECENT PHOTO. SENIOR YEAR. 1970 DUNCAN U FLETCHER HIGH SCHOOL IN THE JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA AREA.

CASE DETAILS

Missing person: Jennifer M. Dawson
Last-contact date: May 12th, 1986 (Monday)
Last-seen location: disappeared from Jacksonville, Florida
Link to Government Source: #MP26327

Ethnicity/Race: White
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 34 years old
Hair: Brown
Eye color: Blue
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 4'11" and 110 pounds

Jennifer M. Dawson's BMI at the time of her disappearance, based on a height of 4'11" (59 inches) and weight of 110 pounds, was approximately 22.2, which falls within the healthy weight range (18.5–24.9) according to standard BMI classifications.

Photos Found Since Original Publication

Jennifer M. Dawson was a part of the "No Photo" contingent at NamUs as of the original time of writing in January 2021. Websleuths did find some authenticated photos of Jennifer M. Dawson (#MP26327) after her case was uploaded. But as of March 2025, her NamUs profile is still bare. Furthermore, back in 2021, I felt like I did locate photos of Jenny Dawson; however, I have to consider them unauthenticated. 

STATEMENT ABOUT PHOTOS

When I searched for a photo of Jennifer M. Dawson, firstly, I went to Ancestry.com. Noting that she was 34 years old when she went missing in 1986, I selected the birth year of 1952 with a small range of plus or minus one year. I did find a Jennifer M. Dawson that was of Jacksonville, Florida that was born in February of 1952.

However, I did not take this to mean that they were one and the same person at first. I've come across too many cases where details all seem to align at first, only for them to be different people after a deep dive. 

But that said, Ancestry's Jennifer M. Dawson and #MP26327 had the following in common:

• an affiliation with Jacksonville, Florida
• a birth year of 1952
• a name match, including middle initial
• the range of 1985 to 1992 provided at Ancestry for residency in Jacksonville would include the 1986 last-seen date for the missing person

The following is what I found at Ancestry:

"NAME: Jennifer M Dawson
BIRTH DATE: Feb 1952
RESIDENCE DATE: 1985-1992
ADDRESS: [Address available at Ancestry]
RESIDENCE: Jacksonville, Florida, USA
POSTAL CODE: [available at Ancestry]"

Ancestry Notes: How Do They Calculate Their Addresses?

Note that the "RESIDENCE DATE" above including a residency that extends until 1992 does not mean that she lived there for that time. #MP26327 went missing in 1986 but it could still be Ancestry's Jennifer M. Dawson.

What triggers addresses and residency dates with Ancestry isn't clear to me, but address matches are just food for thought anyway. They must be caused by paperwork as opposed to something physical. I treat Ancestry address recommendations as reflective of where someone's mail went or what they wrote on some kind of official document. This can pertain to the person's whereabouts but it might not.

But when I searched the address that was found at Ancestry, I looked for people of the same last name as Jennifer M. Dawson. I found that these people shared the address and the same last name as Ancestry's Jennifer M. Dawson:

• Laura O Dawson b. 1958
• William B. Dawson b. 1953
• Rebecca Dawson b. 1955

William B. Dawson was born on the exact date of May 16th, 1953 according to Ancestry. Findagrave.com has a William B. Dawson who was born May 16th, 1953 in Jacksonville as deceased as of May 2011. Importantly, this individual had some details included in his online memorial. Those details stated:

"Billy is preceded in death by his wife Cynthia, His Mother Violet, Father William B Dawson III, and Sister Jenny" (bolding added to quote).

William B. Dawson's findagrave.com memorial also stated that he went to Fletcher High School. The school in the Jacksonville area that would match Fletcher High School would be called Duncan U Fletcher High School. I hypothesized that his sister Jenny Dawson also went to that school and put this guess to the test with a manual search of that high school's yearbooks for the years that Jenny would have been in high school (i.e., 1967 to 1970). The photos above are the fruits of that search and I think they are of the missing person.

Although that's not something I have yet authenticated, I do note one corroborating detail between #MP26327 and Ancestry's Jennifer M. Dawson. When you look at the one group photo, Jenny Dawson is the shortest person in the second row. The NamUs profile for her says that she was only 4'11". Thus, additional to an affiliation with Jacksonville, additional to the birth year of 1952, additional to a name match including middle initial, additional to an address range in Jacksonville that includes the year 1986 (the year #MP26327 disappeared in that city), we have very short stature in common as well.

In conclusion, I'm very confident that the pictures from Ancestry and the Fletcher High School Yearbooks are those of the missing person. It would be nice if someone found photos that were taken closer to the date of her disappearance. It would also be nice if someone that knew the missing person as described at NamUs would authenticate these photos (even in the comments).

It would be even nicer, from some points of view, if her likeness matched a composite sketch of a Jane Doe from the Jacksonville area that was thought to have died in and around 1986, a Jane Doe with an estimated height near 4'11". This would produce a lead that might produce more information. That's certainly not to say it would be nice to find that Jenny Dawson is dead, but when it comes to people that have been missing for over 30 years, that's generally to be expected.