Here’s a good summer project for the Internet. The woman pictured above (on the left in the early 2000s, on the right in a 1990 passport photo) committed suicide in 2010. When she died, she took with her the knowledge of who she actually was — the private detective hired by her ex-husband’s family is… READ THE REST
She’s a person, not an interesting summer puzzle for the internet. Let well enough alone.
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I agree that she’s not a fun puzzle, but a person. Still, I understand why her family wants to cast a wide net on this one. Her daughter will want answers, and maybe there’s someone else out there who will finally get resolution knowing what happened to her.
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It would take a very unusual person not to want to dig into this and get some answers, especially after the tragedy of a suicide. I don’t think it is disrespectful, as the family has clearly reached out for assistance in trying to solve the mystery.
Sometimes I wonder how many Don Drapers are out there, even as it gets harder to avoid leaving a trail.
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I’m gonna call it now, she’s Dan Cooper.
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Why is it important anyone identify this person?
It is possible that this woman was in a witness protection program.
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There’s a good chance she read “Day of the Jackal” at some point; taking on the identity of a child who died young is right out of that book. The Jackal takes visits a cemetery in gets the the name of a random male child who died in infancy who was born roughly when he was, requests a copy of the birth and death certificate from the local records office, and eventually escalates the birth certificate into a passport. You could still get away with that in the 1980s if you were careful, which it seems she was.
Why she’d do that, and why she’d take on another name afterwards is anyone’s guess.
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Please try not to use the phrase ‘committed suicide’ - it has strong criminal and moral connotations. Not mine, but here’s a very personal account from the sister of someone who died by suicide.
No, she wouldn’t have been allowed to keep papers giving away a previous name, even in a safe deposit box. Besides, she had several fake names in a row.
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Well, this has future TV drama all over it.
I think she must be DB Cooper and has experience jumping out of planes.
She’s Dan Cooper.
I’d say Donna Draper.
You mean Dixie Whitman? 
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What? What? I don’t even…
Dixie, of course! I couldn’t think of an equivalent female name, but you nailed it.
It’s not that I am uninterested, but rather that I think the dead deserve peace. Who knows, maybe she was a waitress scamming her way from Wentworth to Omiguchit - it doesn’t matter. She didn’t want to be found. It’s laughable to think it will bring the family any kind of peace, there is no “this is why I did it” letter hidden in a shoebox at Sunny’s Diner.
Her daughter should perform some molecular genealogy. For a few hundred bucks, she can send her DNA to ancestry.com, 23andme.com and several other sites. If my experience is any indication, she will discover a handful of 2nd cousins and dozens of 3rd/4th cousins. Should be relatively easy to put the pieces together then.
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Wait a minute… sounds like you know more than you’re letting on, Ted. (could be you’re just presenting your opinion as fact - not sure)…
I wonder if she was on some kind of witness protection program?
