DANIELLE: On April 24, 1996, at 12:30 AM,
on the Southside of Atlanta Georgia,
screams erupted from an empty lot
by Dorothy and Lansing streets.
SGT YOUNG: Hey. SAMSON: How you doing?
SGT YOUNG: How you doing? Mike Young, Atlanta Homicide.
SAMSON: Samson McClendon. SGT YOUNG: Nice to meet you.
So, um, I'm working a case from 1996.
I believe you were listed as a witness?
SAMSON: Yes. It's something you never forget.
I was living here at the time.
When I walked out the back door (sighs)
I just saw a silhouette of a man on fire.
I could hear him yelling for help.
I grabbed the water hose and I started to spray him down.
SGT YOUNG: Okay. SAMSON: He was literally
engulfed from head to toe.
His face was flame.
All he said was, they robbed me.
DANIELLE: I've written about hundreds of cases
of missing persons and unidentified bodies,
but I've never come across a case that's affected me
like this.
How can someone who died in such a dramatic way
still be unidentified nearly 30 years later?
SGT YOUNG: They had somebody do a reconstruction.
Do you recognize him? SAMSON: No.
SGT YOUNG: He died in the hospital of his burns
the next day.
DANIELLE: I feel like he's been totally forgotten
and if I don't do something it will never be solved.
A few years ago I noticed there are a lot of missing person
cases that didn't get any coverage,
and I started my online page called Find our Missing,
to highlight those cases that aren't talked about.
So in between working as a counsellor and looking
after my 9 year old son,
I go through a lot of missing person databases,
articles and write up stories, to get people to pay attention.
After coming across this case from 1996,
I really wanted to give him his name back and then hopefully
help a family find out where their loved one is.
NARRATOR: But Danielle's posts about the man known only
as, Fulton County John Doe, have so far met with silence.
So she's come to Atlanta, Georgia, where he died,
to start digging for answers herself.
Her first call is the DNA Doe Project,
an organization that uses genetic databases
to identify dead bodies.
One of their researchers actually lives in the city.
REBECCA: Hello, come on in. DANIELLE: How you doing?
REBECCA: Hi, nice to meet you. Come on in.
DANIELLE: Part of the reason I was so struck by this case
was the sketch because there's like a sadness in his eyes.
REBECCA: Uh huh.
DANIELLE: It's so striking to me.
REBECCA: I agree and he looks so young.
DANIELLE: Yeah he does.
REBECCA: And there's a mom out there wondering
what happened to him.
DANIELLE: Right.
REBECCA: This is a case we've gotta take on.
It's been almost 30 years, we need to solve this.
NARRATOR: But there may be a problem.
They'll need a DNA sample from the Doe to progress the case
and his body has been buried for nearly 30 years.
DANIELLE: Danielle, pleased to meet you.
JIMMY: Danielle.
REBECCA: Rebecca Somerhalder.
DANIELLE: Thank you for meeting with us.
JIMMY: Oh, you're welcome.
There was something about this case that caught me.
According to the autopsy report, he had 80% burns to his trunk,
upper extremities, lower extremities and from
the autopsy photo of the face.
DANIELLE: Wow.
JIMMY: There was some swelling, to his jaws and lips.
DANIELLE: And there was no identifying marks, no tattoos?
JIMMY: No. No tattoos.
He was six foot 2 and he weighed 235 pounds.
He took care of himself, no alcohol, no substance abuse,
no illicit drugs in the system.
DANIELLE: Did he seem like he was healthy?
JIMMY: He was a healthy young man,
he was a meat and potatoes guy, ha, ha, because, you know,
according to the autopsy, the stomach contained partially
digested meat, corn, and potatoes.
REBECCA: My question is, like, well,
if this case is based 1996 how do we get the DNA?
Do you still have tissue from the Doe?
JIMMY: Yes.
In 2005, we sent his tissue to the FBI
and had them extract some DNA.
REBECCA: So am I correct in thinking that from an
investigative standpoint that there have been no criminals
that actually match his DNA?
JIMMY: Correct or any missing persons.
But we retained that extraction from this case.
REBECCA: What a miracle that you had it after all this time
just waiting for this day.
JIMMY: Right.
DANIELLE: So it sounds like the medical examiner's office
never really forgot about this case?
JIMMY: No. I'm not gonna give up on him.
Til the day I die I'll probably remember this 96 771.
I don't know what his name is but when the file sits on my
desk, and some people may think I'm crazy, I talk to him.
We're going to get you identified with whatever help
that I can get.
NARRATOR: The next step is to sequence the Doe's DNA and
upload it to online databases used by people researching
their family histories.
Rebecca needs to find anyone who shares DNA with the Doe.
REBECCA: I go into every case thinking we are going to be able
to give Doe back their name, but it really does rely on us
getting decent DNA matches.
We'll need at least 1% shared DNA to give us
a fighting chance.
RHONDA: Which seat do you want, and I'll take the other?
REBECCA: Uh, I'll take the left. RHONDA: Okay.
LADY: Oh my goodness this is so exciting.
REBECCA: Good morning everyone. It's launch day.
So, on April the 24th 1996, a young man was found
in Atlanta Georgia.
His body was 80% burned, though asked his name
he did not give it before he died.
Okay so let's talk about matches.
Top match and the Doe share 4.6% DNA.
WOMEN: Woohoo! Amazing.
RHONDA: We're gonna be able to find him.
NARRATOR: The match to the Doe is a man called Brett.
The amount of DNA they share suggests they could be
first cousins once removed, meaning one set of Brett's
grandparents would be the great grandparents of the Doe.
REBECCA: It's doable. This is what I hoped for.
but didn't expect.
NARRATOR: And there's another clue in the DNA.
It shows that Brett can only be related to the Doe
through his mother's side of the family.
REBECCA: Then we're only gonna be dealing with his maternal
side of the tree we won't have to dive into the male side.
NARRATOR: The task now is to build a family tree from Brett
up to his maternal grandparents and then back down
to reveal the identity of the Doe.
So the team searches online public records
to find Brett's ancestors.
REBECCA: Gonna figure out where they live, where they died,
who they married.
I would like to know if Brett's family live
close to where Doe was.
STACEY So I think I've had a breakthrough.
TEAM Yay. Yay.
[clapping]
STACEY Okay.
So, Brett Gaines, I have tracked him and his two siblings
through an obituary to his father Robert Miller Gaines.
REBECCA: Okay.
STACEY: And Brett's mother Dorothy.
Dorothy's mother's name is Mable and Mable is married to Clyde.
REBECCA: So these are Brett's grandparents.
Where are they from?
STACEY They are from Georgia.
REBECCA: Aah. Fantastic. Fantastic.
DANIELLE: Hi, I'm Danielle, I'm here to see Sergeant Young.
SGT YOUNG: Danielle? DANIELLE: Hi.
SGT YOUNG: Hey, Sergeant. Mike Young.
DANIELLE: Nice to meet you. SGT YOUNG: Nice to meet you,
come on in. DANIELLE: Thank you.
NARRATOR: Danielle's gained access
to the original casefile.
SGT YOUNG: After you. DANIELLE: Thank you.
SGT YOUNG: The case happened in April of 96.
Let me show you. There is the crime scene photos.
This is basically the vacant field where the original scene
happened and he ran to Dorothy Street.
DANIELLE: All of his clothing burned off.
SGT YOUNG: Yeah. DANIELLE: Wow.
SGT YOUNG: And these are his boxers.
He had to be in some pain.
DANIELLE: Wow.
It's such an unusual and horrible way to die,
I wonder why he's still unidentified.
SGT YOUNG: Well his fingerprints were checked against
our fingerprint database, nothing came back.
It seemed that nobody looked for him.
Detectives sent out CI's confidential informants to try
to find out information on the streets and somebody
gave a possible name of David.
DANIELLE: Wow. SGT YOUNG: Yeah.
Detectives did a door to door canvas to try to figure out
if anybody named David was missing at the time.
But they were unsuccessful.
NARRATOR: The police also got a tip off that the Doe had been
seen with two sex workers, called Shan and Tasha.
They managed to track one of them down and brought her in
for questioning.
The time is 5.26 on June 20th, 1996
I am sitting here with Tasha
Would you tell me what your knowledge is of this incident?
Well as far as I know, Shan,
she'd have been the last person with him
She claimed that they partied.
She claimed what, now?
They, you know, they partied.
Explain to me what you mean by partied
You mean he paid her for sex?
Yeah, they messed around
Okay
What does she know about him being burnt up in this field?
She said he had some gasoline or kerosene or whatever.
She said that he said he'd see her in hell.
He'll see her in hell?
Mm-hmm.
So what she said was he indicated to her
he wanted to kill himself?
Yeah.
What about the talk that you and Shan set him on fire
trying to rob him?
I wasn't even out that night
DANIELLE: Seems like it could be interpreted two ways
as he really was suicidal or that's what Shan put forth
because she knew something else.
SGT YOUNG: Tried to get away with it right.
DANIELLE: Right, yeah.
SGT YOUNG: Yeah. I don't know.
Robbery is just a theory, a theory is not enough
to get charges.
He didn't have a name and that's where our case stopped.
And then July 12th, 1996, about three months after,
they put the case file in inactive status.
DANIELLE: It hit a dead end.
SGT YOUNG: Hit a dead end.
And that's why it's important we find a name.
REBECCA: Alright guys. We know people at the time,
at the scene seemed to have some information
that he might actually be called David.
You know, let's make sure that we keep that top of mind
as we're starting to build trees.
NARRATOR: The team now needs to build a family tree
down from Brett's grandparents.
REBECCA: We know Doe's in there.
So how many children did Clyde and Mable have?
STACEY: They had Mable, 1927, Clyde, 1928, and Dorothy, 1931.
REBECCA: Alright. We can rule out Dorothy
because she's Brett's mum but one of those other children
is going to be the grandparent of doe.
LANCE: So, Clyde has one grandson
and Mable has two grandchildren
but only one boy.
NARRATOR: The family tree points to these two men.
One of them should be the Doe.
REBECCA: We need to dive into them as much as possible
finding proof of life and yes I think we're close.
RUTH I've got it, I've got an obit with grandchildren,
Michael.
LADY: Michael's still living though.
So it's not him.
LANCE: I think I've found the Facebook page
for the other grandson.
REBECCA: Oh! Is he living or dead?
LANCE: He's alive.
REBECCA: So we're missing something and now we're back
to the drawing board.
This is an example where you can start a case,
you've got great matches, you think it's gonna be simple
but as you get into the research you realize
that you've got some issues.
It looks like someone had another child
who's not on the records.
DANIELLE: Hi, you must be Jim? JIM: Yes, ma'am.
How you doing Miss Danielle? Nice to meet you, Danielle.
NARRATOR: Danielle is following up her investigation,
meeting a detective who was on patrol
the night Fulton County John Doe burned alive.
They're returning to the neighborhood,
in the southern suburbs of Atlanta.
DANIELLE: So this is the location?
JIM: Yes. This is 23 Dorothy Street right here.
When I arrived on scene, the victim was already being
loaded up to the Grady ambulance and being moved out.
DANIELLE: It was probably pretty shocking.
JIM: Yes, um, you know it was something that you,
you can't really prepare for or train for.
DANIELLE: What was the difference in this area
in 1996? Was it a big difference?
JIM: Yes. It's been renovated, it looks a whole lot better.
There was definitely rough areas there back during that time.
NEWSREADER: The sounds of crime play continuously
in the streets of Atlanta, like the soundtrack
for a violent movie that's never over.
POLICE: Put him on the ground. Get on the ground.
NEWSREADER: Atlanta has the dubious distinction of being
America's most violent city on and off for at least
the last 20 years.
The crime problem is in Atlanta's suburbs.
NARRATOR: The murder rate in Fulton County was four times
the national average.
228 people were killed in 1996 alone.
DANIELLE: And during that time, were there specific
hangout spots near Dorothy Street?
JIM: Yes. Jonesboro Road this was one of our main
troublesome streets.
Here to my right it was the Church's Chicken.
You'll find your amount of street walkers,
drug dealers standing round, and sometimes,
verbal altercations, physical assaults and stuff like that.
DANIELLE: What I pictured in my head was people hanging out,
and there's multiple theories that it could be accidental,
self-inflicted, or a sex worker that might have robbed him.
JIM: Right. DANIELLE: And just never.
JIM: It was never established, which surprised me because
there was a lot more active patrols at the time
to make sure that we was keeping a lid on the crime,
especially with the Olympics going on.
DANIELLE: Okay.
JIMMY: And all the attention that the city was getting.
NEWS ANCHOR: The 1996 Olympic Games get underway
this week in Atlanta. Joining us this morning is Atlanta
Mayor Bill Campbell. Mr. Mayor, we're now five days
away from the opening.
How is the city dealing with safety concerns?
BILL: Atlanta will be the safest place in the world
during the Olympic Games, but clearly for our visitors
there'll be no concerns at all.
DANIELLE: So April 24th, John Doe dies.
July 12th, request for case to be made inactive, but open.
And then a week later, July 19th, the Olympics started.
Wow, oh my gosh.
NARRATOR: Danielle's discovered Atlanta PD conducted
their own inquiry into policing at the time.
DANIELLE: The allegations by several APD officers
were that the crime incidents were downgraded,
under reported and discarded, case clearances were inflated
and numerous cases improperly closed.
These charges have not been verified but wow.
It makes you wonder if Fulton County John Doe's case
was handled properly, because they didn't want people
to know about it.
But I'm glad we're there now and that other people care
about this case the same way I care about it.
REBECCA: The possibility of there being a secret child,
an adopted child, a child out of wedlock,
you know all of these family situations make it hard
for us genealogists but they're a fact of life.
Maybe it's time we contact the top match, Brett,
in case his family knows something.
I think we go for it, I think we contact Brett.
SGT YOUNG: Morning nice to see you.
REBECCA: Hey. Good to see you too. You ready?
YOUNG: Yes I'm ready let's go. REBECCA: Okay good.
It's always a risk to contact a match.
You know sometimes you get people that are very willing,
but other times they shut down and you get one shot at this.
NARRATOR: Brett has moved to California,
but he has a brother called Robert who still lives
in Atlanta.
REBECCA: It would really be good if Robert knows
whether or not there are any cousins missing.
SGT YOUNG: Sergeant Young with Atlanta Police department.
I work at the cold case unit. Miss Rebecca.
REBECCA: Hi. ROBERT: Nice to meet you.
SGT YOUNG: We opened up a case from 1996.
A young man was found burnt over 80% of his body,
we're unable to identify this person,
but we did put his DNA into a system,
we came up with a couple of relatives and
you would happen to be one of those relatives.
REBECCA: You know are you aware of any cousins who might have
gone missing about that time?
I'm searching my memory,
I can't recall anything specific.
No.
NARRATOR: Robert's taking them to visit his and Brett's
93 year old mother Dorothy, who lives nearby.
SGT YOUNG: Hi, how are you doing?
REBECCA: So um, I'm Rebecca.
Your son and you, you're related to a person who is this Doe.
DOROTHY: Oh my goodness. Yes he resembles some of
our relatives. Yes. He looks.
ROBERT: Familiar. DOROTHY: Yes, he does.
ROBERT: That's, that's, that's as close as I could come too.
REBECCA: Your brother is Clyde, and you have a sister Mable?
DOROTHY: Mable. Yes. REBECCA: Okay.
So let me ask you, do you know about a family member
that might be missing from the records?
DOROTHY: No. REBECCA: Okay.
ROBERT: It doesn't ring a bell to me.
REBECCA: Okay. Thank you so much.
SGT YOUNG: Alright, thank you. REBECCA: Thank you.
DOROTHY: You all stay cool. REBECCA: You too.
DOROTHY: Alright. REBECCA: Thank you ma'am.
DOROTHY: It's all right, you're quite welcome.
SGT YOUNG: Are you feeling disappointed?
REBECCA: Yes. You know I think I had already convinced myself
that, you know, this, this would actually solve the case.
NARRATOR: But there's one last hope,
Brett and his mother Dorothy have agreed to upload their DNA
to a different database to see if it reveals any new matches.
REBECCA: Oh wow.
I know who the top three are, but the fourth match is
someone I don't, I don't recognize.
Braylon Brown. He shares 8% with Dorothy.
You know, that's quite a lot.
So who's this Braylon?
Here's a Braylon in Atlanta.
Uh, 28 years old, okay. Living with this mom.
It looks like Marilyn, born in 1961.
That makes her the right age to be a missing grandchild
of Clyde or Mable, so she could possibly be the Doe's sister.
Okay let's see.
I've found a street address for Marilyn from 1995.
So Adair Avenue is right behind where the church's
chicken used to be.
And it's only
half a mile from where the incident happened on Dorothy.
This can't be a coincidence.
This is crazy.
Hello Danielle. DANIELLE: Hi.
REBECCA: We have a new match, Braylon.
DANIELLE: Oh I'm so excited. REBECCA: And his mom Marilyn
could be the Doe's sister
and she actually did live in the neighborhood
where the crime happened. DANIELLE: Wow.
I'm just blown away.
REBECCA: Good morning gentlemen.
I have some really exciting news for you.
SGT YOUNG: Can't wait to hear.
REBECCA: Turns out we have a whole branch of the family
that we didn't know about and even Brett did not know about.
We found the family lived on Adair Street.
SGT YOUNG: Okay, so let me see if I can find this.
REBECCA: We found that there was a Marilyn Brown living there
in 1996, and we believe that she's sister or half-sister
to Doe and she's still living. SGT YOUNG: Okay.
JIMMY: This is close enough to reach out to Marilyn and,
uh, speak with her. SGT YOUNG: Yeah.
JIMMY: Great work.
MARILYN: Hello.
JIMMY: Hi Marilyn, my name's Jimmy Sadler,
I'm an investigator with the Fulton County Medical
Examiner's Office here in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARILYN: Okay. JIMMY: I'm working on a
1996 case, where a unidentified, black male
was taken to Grady Hospital and you know,
he, he died there at Grady. MARILYN: Okay.
JIMMY: We believe this may be a possible sibling of yours.
MARILYN: Mmm.
JIMMY: Do you have a brother? MARILYN: Yes, I have a brother.
JIMMY: What's your brother's name?
MARILYN: His name was David.
David Brown.
He got missing and he never came back.
JIMMY: Well I believe the person that we have may be,
uh, your missing you know brother.
MARILYN: Oh gosh.
JIMMY: Would you consent for me to test your DNA
with this person?
MARILYN: Yes.
MARILYN: He was my little brother.
He was my baby brother.
When you first come in the house you see David, he's smiling.
Yeah, I can just see him now smiling at me.
He was a good little child. You know he used to pick flowers
for me and bring 'em to me.
ROSITA: David was happy go lucky.
He had so much energy and he was a very positive person.
I remember him following us, uh, everywhere we went
when I came over.
MARILYN: He graduated from high school and he did
restaurant jobs and stuff like that.
But we didn't know his friends because he didn't
ever bring 'em to the house.
He had got up one night and he just left.
He probably wanted his space, cos it was a big family.
He did never come back, you know.
BRAYLON: I was like, um, a couple months old when he
disappeared so I didn't even get a chance to meet him.
But I know my Grandma did a missing person's report.
MARILYN: My ma, she said where is he, where is he?
She got a feeling about something.
You know, he not came, he not coming back.
BRAYLON: David was missing probably like a couple days
before my grandma saw a report of somebody being burnt alive.
MARILYN: She was looking at the news that day and she told me
to go down to the Grady and see who that was.
ROSITA: Marilyn and I arrived to the hospital.
She wanted me to go in the room with her to look at the body,
but I didn't wanna see it so I looked through the glass.
MARILYN: He was burnt, he was black all over,
I didn't know that was him burnt like that.
I didn't know.
ROSITA: Marilyn said she don't believe that
that was her brother.
BRAYLON: My ma now knowing that she saw um David's body
in the hospital, she's devastated.
MARILYN: I hope he forgive me, 'cause I didn't know myself.
That's my, that my brother.
RANDOLPH This is the location of the grave.
MARILYN: Is it, right here?
(Sighs) BRAYLON: It's okay.
(Crying)
BRAYLON: It's okay.
MARILYN: We kept looking and looking for 28 years,
because I thought he was still living.
It has hurt so bad.
I'm so sorry.
I wish I could see him one more time.
BRAYLON: I wish I got a chance to meet him.
MARILYN: My baby brother.
I wish they catch that person who did it.
Who could've did something that wrong?
Burning somebody. That's the question.
JIM: Now we have a name.
So now we can open up the case, we can establish acquaintances,
friends, relationships, anything that can lead us
to what happened that night.
MARILYN: How you doing? JIM:How you doing Miss Marilyn?
Right now we're just trying to make the determination
of was it intentional, was it accidental.
I gotta start the case off from the base and build it back up.
Okay. It's gonna take some help from you,
so did you know any of David's associates that well?
MARILYN: Not Really. Back then it was a lot of gang members
and all that stuff. In 1996, you know, everything was bad.
JIM: Yes. Yes ma'am.
MARILYN: I don't know who did this, he probably know'd them.
JIM: Uh huh.
MARILYN: They just do that and they just set him up,
you know what I'm saying? JIM: Yeah.
Does two young ladies, by the name of Tasha or Shan
ring a bell to you?
MARILYN: No. JIMMY: No. Alright.
MARILYN: I just can't see how anybody could have burned him
like that. JIMMY: Alright.
(Crying)
JIMMY: It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.
I was patrol officer that night back in 1996.
After 28 years, I really want to see this through.
DANIELLE: Justice is very important.
His family deserves to know what happened to him.
I'm glad that I was involved in bringing his name back
and at least now his family know where he is.
BRAYLON: It's been really tough for my mom finding out
the news about her brother, but on the positive side,
us finding out that we're gonna meet cousins and stuff,
I think that'll do wonders for her.
BRETT: You must be Marilyn? MARILYN: Yes.
BRETT: I'm Brett. MARILYN: Okay.
BRETT: Robert and Michael.
Discovering there's this new branch of the family
that I was previously unaware of, is a wonderful thing.
It's nice to meet you.
MARILYN: How you doing?
BRETT: David was a grandson of my uncle Clyde.
Turns out Clyde had another family when he was a teenager.
Braylon, I'm Brett.
BRAYLON: How you doing Brett? BRETT: Pleased to meet you.
MARILYN: It's a good feeling. It's an amazing feeling.
To know that I got somebody, who's kin to me.
I had a little joy in my eyes when I seen them.
BRETT: I can definitely see Uncle Clyde.
MARILYN: In him? BRETT: No in you. In you.
Clyde passed away several years ago now, so
we have no idea if he was aware that he had
this other family or not.
ROBERT: Even in your mannerisms and the way you talk.
MARILYN: Uh huh.
ROBERT: Yeah we definitely family.
BRETT: The reason we are here is because of this horrific
thing that happened to David.
You get angry to think that happened to a family member,
but perhaps grateful that now at least he's been identified.
Where there was an unmarked grave,
we're able to place a headstone, giving him his humanity back.
MARILYN: David Ubank Brown you will never be forgotten.
It hurt me so bad to know what happened to you, I'm so sorry,
may your soul and spirit rest in peace.
BRAYLON: You will never be forgotten.
I love you.
MARILYN: He's not no missing John Doe, he's not that no more.
He had a family and they loved him.