Public Records in Criminal Justice

• Ancestry.com is the best database to start with, although you will need an account to use it. Before paying for an account, double check with your local library to see if they subscribe to Ancestry. Many public libraries give free access to patrons who have a library card.
• FamilySearch is a good free backup website, that requires a free account before you begin researching.
• FindAGrave is a website with information on those buried in cemeteries around the world, sometimes including tombstone photos, obituaries, and messages from loved ones.

• Birth Records: These are another fantastic way to find key information on individuals such as full name, birthday, and the exact town or city their parents lived in at time of birth.

•  Census Records: These are released every 72 years (Modeled after average life expectancy for privacy reasons). Census Records show the names, ages, occupations, and education levels of all members of a household. They are a great starting point to find names of relatives to double check you have the correct person later in your research.

• Court Records: These are great for both historical and recent cases and are some of the most well documented. If you believe someone had a criminal history, secretary of state or city websites will have links to official free court records from their district: don't pay for background search websites those are outdated and a waste of time. Most documents within a court record are public, meaning that you will have access to evidence, both defense and prosecution's witness statements, court decisions, and more.

• Marriage and Divorce records: These are especially useful when tracing women throughout history, since marriage and divorce were often the only written records of them between their birth and the birth records of any children. If a woman did not marry or have any children, you will likely only see them in above mentioned census records if they lived with other family members. 

• Military, Travel, and Prison Records: Often grouped together in Ancestry, these will show documents such as draft registration for wars, military accomplishment records, prison records, and immigration or travel logs. If you are looking for immigrants, most will be documented in Ellis Island, Castle Garden, or Angel Island.

•  Obituary Records and Death Indexes: If you want to find if a person of interest has died, as well as details of their death, these records are the best places to look. Some will have an official obituary that you can find both on Ancestry and on FindAGrave.com. Other individuals will only have a small mention in a newspaper death index article that lists recent deaths. 

• Social Media: The recent evolution of social media is a goldmine of information when researching recent cases. From convenient friends lists and public photos to tagged locations, you can find out a lot about a person's life. This is especially useful when trying to find the identity of a missing person or person of interest who only go by nicknames, or are from underserved communities and unlikely to have official missing persons reports filed, newspaper articles on their disappearance or crimes, or other documentation.

• Unidentified persons are particularly hard to search for, since it is difficult to know for sure if they are from the area in which they were found deceased, and many times what they even looked like when alive. Without that information it is almost impossible to reunite them with any loved ones who may be looking for them. 

• The first place to start when searching for unidentified persons is to check their Namus and DNA Doe profiles for information such as assigned sex, age range, and any special characteristics such as scars, tattoos, etc. This might narrow the range of potential identity matches.

• From there, you will need to search missing persons reports from nearby towns and cities where they were found. Focus on those in the age range who match any physical characteristics mentioned in the Jane and John Doe file. Sometimes there will be a forensic reconstruction sketch or clay model available, but those are approximations and the real victim may not look exactly like the reconstruction.

• Next, search Ancestry.com records and social media if a more recent case, to see if any of the missing persons had significant ties to the area where the unidentified remains were found. For instance, if the body was found dumped in the bushes near a store where a missing person worked, that is a definite lead to a positive match, although nothing is certain until forensics and law enforcement confirm.

• Most often you will not be that lucky, and you will have to sift through hundreds of potential people including local citizens, transient workers, and homeless populations. It is likely that many will fit the age range and physical description, and live near the death location, but don't have consistent coverage in media. In the video included above, Walker County Jane Doe remained unidentified for 41 years and had 17 official exclusions of women who were positively identified to not be the Jane Doe, but many others were considered who were unable to be definitively ruled out prior to the Jane Doe's identification in 2021. To further complicate things, sometimes a missing persons case is filed or written about in the newspaper, but follow up articles are not made. In those cases, it is essential to trace relatives of potential matches and see if the potential match is listed as a surviving relative in obituaries.

Porter County John Doe NAMUS File

The following is an approximate facial reconstruction and NAMUS file for an unidentified male skeleton found in Burns Harbor, Indiana on April 27, 1989. Few details are available, but he is estimated to be between the ages of 17-25.

• When beginning a search for missing persons, you have several options: look for files on unidentified remains to see if any are a potential match,  look for potential reasons behind their disappearance, or clues as to where they might have gone. It is essential to take all missing persons cases seriously, no matter the age: just because someone is an adult, does not mean that they left of their own accord. 

•  Some missing persons turn out to be murders committed by a spouse, family member, or close acquaintance. Other times, the missing person is suffering from mental illness, Dementia, or Alzheimer's and as a result, becomes lost and eventually homeless. There are also cases where a missing person is kidnapped by a non custodial parent, other family member, or criminals. While some actually disappear on purpose and are later found alive and well, that should never be the assumption. 

• A semi-recent phenomenon that harnessed media to raise awareness of missing persons was the 1994 music video for Soul Asylum's Runaway Train. Several versions of the music video were released, with photos, names, and details of missing persons in both the United States and the United Kingdom: Approximately 21 of the 36 children featured were found.

• To search for a potential perpetrator of a crime, pay close attention to the details and don't jump to conclusions. It is easy to default to assuming a serial killer or serial rapist was behind a murder or assault, but frequently that isn't the case. Key details to keep in mind are the manner of death i.e. strangulation, blunt force trauma, gunshot, etc, and details about the victims such as marital status, job, and other personal facts. 

• Then, use Ancestry.com to search for the victim's family, noting any potential persons of interest such as a relative with a criminal history or a recent divorce. Many times domestic violence is the reason for a murder, assault, or other violent crime, and unfortunately those closest to a deceased or missing person are likely responsible.

• In the event that spouses and family can be ruled out, look for criminals who share the same method of violence as the crime. Someone who prefers to kill by shooting a victim, is unlikely to suddenly switch to mutilation. A criminal who kidnaps hitchhikers will usually stick to that method rather than abduct a person from their house. 

• Once you have a decent idea of the type of criminal you are looking for, you can search court websites and other offender registries to see if there is a local match, or search for newspaper articles, missing persons flyers, and recent murder coverage to see if there are similar crimes nearby that have already been linked to an offender.