Episode 4: Web Sleuths
When the unidentified girl was found fatally shot in the Caledonia cornfield in 1979, the Internet was years from being a household tool for transmitting and receiving information. But, as the years passed and the Internet became a societal constant, Livingston County Sheriff John York predicted that it would one day answer the mystery of the girl’s identity.
What he did not know was that an online network of citizen sleuths had been following the case of “Cali Doe,” as the teenager was called. They’d been waiting for the slightest hint that could lead to her identification. And one California man in particular constantly drew new versions of her possible appearance, designed to show what she may have looked like before her death.
This citizen network, some of whom participated in the online website websleuths.com, would become central to the ultimate recognition of “Cali Doe.”
Continue the conversation on Twitter with @gcraig1 and @VeronicaWXXI using the #TammyJo hashtag.
On Sunday, May 22, they'll hold a Twitter conversation at 7 p.m. with Deborah Halber, author of the book The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America's Coldest Cases.
SUBSCRIBE
iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher
Email us: FindingTammyJoPodcast@gmail.com
CARL KOPPLEMAN'S RENDERINGS OF TAMMY JO
PHOTO EXTRA
VIDEO EXTRA
CATCH UP ON THE PODCAST
THE HOSTS
Meet the hosts of Finding Tammy Jo: Gary Craig and Veronica Volk.
Gary Craig is a member of the Democrat and Chronicle’s Watchdog team, and focuses on public safety and criminal justice. He has worked at Rochester newspapers since 1990, covering City Hall, politics and federal courts before joining the newspaper’s investigative team. He has won state and national investigative writing awards. He is married with two daughters.
Veronica Volk is an award-winning reporter and producer from WXXI News where she's been working as a general assignment reporter since 2014. She covers government, education, environment, arts and culture, public safety and breaking news. Veronica cut her teeth as an enterprise reporter in the Bronx for WFUV Public Radio, and later became the senior producer of its weekly public affairs show Cityscape. Veronica is originally from Ocean County, New Jersey.
RELATED ARTICLES
Law and Disorder: Chronicles of the unidentified dead
MUSIC FOR THIS EPISODE
Karen Stackpole with Die Elektrischen - Whole Body Magnetic Resonent Artifacts
Nest - Marefjellet
Marcel Pequel - June
Marcel Pequel - November
Kai Engel - December