Named at last

Before a case can be solved, the person at its center has to be identified. For the victims here that took decades — bodies found without documents, fingerprints that matched nothing, faces reconstructed from bone. Each was filed under a placeholder, a Jane Doe or a nickname or a case number, while the search for a name went on.

The Somerton Man lay unidentified on an Adelaide beach for 74 years before genetic work proposed a name in 2022. "Buckskin Girl" was Marcia King, named 37 years after her murder. In New Hampshire's Bear Brook barrels, four victims waited decades to be known.

For most of the people here, the first act of justice was simply to say who they were. For one, the Isdal Woman, that work is not finished.