Identified! GA - Rising Fawn, WhtFem 26UFGA, 16-25, On East Side of NB I-59, Dec'88 - Stacey Lyn Chahorski

[victoriarobinson642]

Rest in peace, Stacey

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

And now identified: Rising Fawn Jane Doe is Identified

Sneaky Othram strikes again!
Haha, just kidding, I couldn't be happier right now! Thank you so much

I'm also shocked over how straight her teeth were, and that she has had a WS thread for several years. Makes you wonder how many other possible matches we've missed...

My deepest sympathy to the loved ones of Stacy Lyn Chahorski.

 

[Blurgle]

Stacy does not resemble her artists' interpretations.

To the point that she would likely have been excluded if anyone had made the connection. Was the photo heavily retouched, or did she suffer perimortem dental damage that was misinterpreted as 'crooked teeth'?

 

[azure]

I’m not an artist, but I still have to wonder why so many reconstructions of UIDs barely even look human. Is there some theory that thinks they’ll get better identifications that way?

MOO

There's a school of thought that says if you highlight the UID's unique features, the recon will be more recognizable by people who knew the UID. So for example if the UID was a man with a larger chin, the sketch might make the chin impossibly enormous with the thinking that it will make the sketch more recognizable as that person. I don't know if this has ever been proven either way, but it certainly makes for some interesting recons.

Also I'm guessing Stacy decided to lighten her hair at home, resulting in an orange color. Then the artists depicting her really latched onto this red hair, when her hair looked nothing like that normally and it took her out of consideration for this Doe.

 

[Blurgle]

There's a school of thought that says if you highlight the UID's unique features, the recon will be more recognizable by people who knew the UID. So for example if the UID was a man with a larger chin, the sketch might make the chin impossibly enormous with the thinking that it will make the sketch more recognizable as that person.

This can be true for celebrities because we rarely if ever see them in person; if you've only ever seen someone in photos, you might be better at recognizing an exaggeration - a caricature - than the original. I wonder if artists wrongly extrapolate that to people a witness might know in real life.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I’m not an artist, but I still have to wonder why so many reconstructions of UIDs barely even look human. Is there some theory that thinks they’ll get better identifications that way?

MOO

A couple of pages back somebody described this original reconstruction as looking like something out of a National Geographic documentary. Obviously the forensic artists are taught to exaggerate but if you get it wrong and err too much on the high side then it throws everyone off, like this case with everyone focusing an abnormal teeth and the recent one with neck slanting to her left.

I don't search for matches but that might lead to greater clarity in some respects. Stacey's missing date lines up perfectly with this Doe. Just a few months earlier. Sharon Gallegos was 10 days earlier. In sampling these threads after the name is known one aspect that stands out to me is quickly retreating many years for an apparent facial similarity match, instead of downplaying the features and age range estimate and looking first at the time frame and those possibles. That's the way I would do it from a probability standpoint.

Otherwise I think the geography aspects here were an unfortunate fooler. North Carolina to Michigan doesn't sound like Georgia is in play. But when the original police report indicates Stacey was en route from Knoxville to Chicago, then all of a sudden that gets us a heck of a lot closer to that tri state area where the body was found, in Georgia but only 30 miles from Chattanooga. I always think of Chattanooga as a central hub of the well known nearby cities of Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta and Birmingham. Numerous freeway options in that area, connecting to each other and parallel to each other. I often use Chattanooga as overnight stop when traveling through that area. It wouldn't be out of question to detour briefly southwest from Knoxville before heading north to Chicago. You can pick up I-24 easily.

Probably more likely, the girl wanted to go north but her killer(s) was headed south so he pulled off I-59 briefly and conveniently on the small road leading through Rising Fawn:

Google Maps

 

[Lisahas2cats]

Haunted no more I hope. She has her name back.

I cried. I'm so glad she finally has her name, and she can go home again.

 

[Springrain]

I'm surprised she was publicly listed as a missing person.

Rest in eternal peace, Stacey.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

Hopefully investigators can next identify who killed her.

It sounds like you know the particulars and therefore the possibilities. I mentioned in the Othram thread last week that your company is going to become as well known and praised for identifying perpetrators along with already famed for identifying Does. That was obvious when the detective in the Little Miss Nobody/Sharon Gallegos case mentioned toward the end of the presser that he asked Othram and David Mittelman to stick around one more day to attend a meeting and go over other local cases ideal for Othram's type of work. Detectives are going to prioritize criminal cases.

 

[carbuff]

I’m not an artist, but I still have to wonder why so many reconstructions of UIDs barely even look human. Is there some theory that thinks they’ll get better identifications that way?

MOO

I don't know what's going on with this case, but when I took a forensics class a few years ago, one of the things they mentioned was various styles of artist interpretation, and the purposes of the drawing. Are they trying to depict what the person might have looked like in life, or show them exactly the way they look on the ME's table? There have been studies that show relatives of a decedent often don't recognize their loved one when they see the dead face, but the artist has no way to know whether the person normally smiled, for instance, so "what they looked like in life" might also be misleading. Another school of thought says the sketch ought to be so precisely accurate that an expert looking at it can make a match from the sketch. And there are a few people who go for an almost caricature approach, emphasizing the decedent's most obvious characteristics.

Afterthought: we also don't know whether that nice photo actually looks like what Stacey looked like in everyday life.

 

[MadMcGoo]

Great news and another Othram success story.

Rest peacefully now Stacey.

 

[othram]

Looks like she has been in NAMUS for at least a few years now. I wonder why the match was never made... a poor/degraded DNA sample?

Often missing and unidentified are not match up due to

It sounds like you know the particulars and therefore the possibilities. I mentioned in the Othram thread last week that your company is going to become as well known and praised for identifying perpetrators along with already famed for identifying Does. That was obvious when the detective in the Little Miss Nobody/Sharon Gallegos case mentioned toward the end of the presser that he asked Othram and David Mittelman to stick around one more day to attend a meeting and go over other local cases ideal for Othram's type of work. Detectives are going to prioritize criminal cases.

Thank you for the kind words. Ideally, we will be able to help with both types of cases!

 

[ntt1]

Often missing and unidentified are not match up due to

I think something got cut off here!

 

[evilwise]

This one gets my attention as having been poorly recorded at the time of discovery. Not just the teeth (perhaps knocked crooked during the murder?) and hair color which are apparent at a glance from the composite and very different from Stacy but some of the very earliest posts in this thread were discounting missing persons with scars because this Jane Doe was recorded as having none but Stacy had a large one that should have been obvious. Stacy's ears were also heavily pierced which should have been recorded for this UID and I must assume was not.

 

[ntt1]

This one gets my attention as having been poorly recorded at the time of discovery. Not just the teeth (perhaps knocked crooked during the murder?) and hair color which are apparent at a glance from the composite and very different from Stacy but some of the very earliest posts in this thread were discounting missing persons with scars because this Jane Doe was recorded as having none but Stacy had a large one that should have been obvious. Stacy's ears were also heavily pierced which should have been recorded for this UID and I must assume was not.

Depending on the extent, decomposition could have factored in discrepancies regarding those two.

 

[30Anne]

I am so glad Stacey has her name back, this case has been one I looked and searched for but never posted anything in the thread because I was not confident to do so. I do think from the nose up there is a similarity when Stacey's image is compared to the sketches. Rest in peace Stacey

 

[wary]

Depending on the extent, decomposition could have factored in discrepancies regarding those two.

They recorded her eye color—I think that rules out extensive decomposition? (I’m not an expert on the subject.)

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Often missing and unidentified are not match up due to

Please come back and finish this very important and interesting sentence.

 

[othram]

Please come back and finish this very important and interesting sentence.

Sorry about that!

Often missing and unidentified cases are not matched up because there is a substantial separation in time and/or geography -- i.e. where/when they went missing versus where/when they were found.

 

[ntt1]

Sorry about that!

Often missing and unidentified cases are not matched up because there is a substantial separation in time and/or geography -- i.e. where/when they went missing versus where/when they were found.

Pretty sure it's probably been explained at some point somewhere, but would the DNA have already been automatically compared (in theory) due to both being in NAMUS?