Network helps identify unamed victims

July 20, 2007

LIVINGSTON, Tenn.- More than 100 agencies have contacted Metro police about suspected serial killer Bruce Mendenhall.
The 56-year-old truck driver is charged with one homicide and a suspect in at least five others.
A lot of people are looking at him in other cases including a group of volunteers who are not police detectives.
One of the volunteers lives in Overton County. He and others help police on the Internet, looking at other unsolved homicides.
But these cases are different. The victims are Jane and John Does.
For Todd Mathews holding an unidentified skull is nothing new.
In fact, he’s been helping families and police try to identify Jane and John Does for nearly ten years.
“It came from a need,” Mathews said.

He got involved nearly a dozen years ago when he started using the Internet to research the identity of human remains discovered by his dad in Kentucky.
“I was just opened up to this whole world,” Mathews said. “I had no idea that there were so many other Jane Does or John Does.”
The research and contacts with others created what is called the Doe Network.
“There were state Web sites, local Web sites with missing persons, but nothing really central,” Mathews said.
It’s a public website listing thousands of missing and unidentified persons throughout North America, Australia and Europe.
“We have 21 unidentified bodies listed for Tennessee,” Mathews said.
Mathews has found a couple of Jane Doe cases in East Tennessee and Kentucky that are similar to the murders allegedly committed by Bruce Mendenhall.
Police said Mendenhall has implicated himself in the killings of six prostitutes, but there could be others.
There’s a case in Campbell County.
“She was stabbed and dumped along I-75 and she was thought to be have been a prostitute,” Mathews said.
The Doe Network shares information with police all over the world.
For Mathews, it all started with the bones discovered by his dad. It took awhile but he found the victim’s name.
“Ten years, it took a decade to identify her,” Mathews said.
The success of the Doe Network has been recognized by the federal government. The Web site organizers said they have a meeting with the U.S. Justice Department in a couple of months.

They’re going to talk about expanding the site to include more unsolved cases.

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=6820452
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Search For Mendenhall’s Victims Expands

http://www.doenetwork.us/

U.S. Department of Justice

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http://www.missingpeople.net/sketches_express_softer_side_of.htm