ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- A California man is responsible for putting the face to Tammy Jo Alexander through social media and ultimately cracking the case.
“Since September, we’ve been waiting for an answer and I’m glad to see we got one today,” said Websleuths.com moderator Carl Koppelman.
As a moderator for the online crime sleuthing community, Koppelman not only keeps track of more than 15,000 missing persons, but he also helps reconstruct some of their faces from coroner photos.
When he came across the missing person’s report for Tammy Jo Alexander last year, the connection was instant. He had done her facial reconstruction five years ago.
“The very moment I saw her photo it clicked, that was Caledonia Jane Doe,” Koppelman said. “I recognized her because I had done the facial reconstruction. I studied her face pretty intently trying to create an accurate portrayal of what she might have looked like in life.”
St. John Fisher College Resident Scholar in Media Thomas Proietti said the use of the Internet and social media to solve cold cases like these is becoming more common. Without it, he believes this case may have never been solved.
“I really do think this played a critical role in putting the pieces together, because as you know cold cases each day get more and more difficult to solve,” Proietti said. “It’s kind of like they’re two icebergs going in the opposite direction. What social media allowed this to do is bring the two icebergs back together.”
Although this isn’t the only case Koppelman has helped solve through Websleuths, he said it was a larger one he’s glad to have helped break.
“I’m delighted to be a part of it,” Koppelman said. “It’s one of the most prominent cases of the whole forum. I mean, there may be a half a dozen or a dozen cases that you know everybody has been focusing on to solve and the Caledonia Jane Doe was right at the top of the list.”
As the person who finally gave the family back their child, Koppelman said he will always feel connected to Tammy herself and hopes social media will continue to help families of those missing.
This case is not completely solved however, since the killer has never been arrested. Proietti said there is a strong possibility social media could help solve their identity as well.