Identify – Listorati https://listorati.com Fascinating facts and lists, bizarre, wonderful, and fun Mon, 25 Dec 2023 22:21:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://listorati.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/listorati-512x512-1.png Identify – Listorati https://listorati.com 32 32 215494684 Top 10 Famous People that Nobody Can Identify https://listorati.com/top-10-famous-people-that-nobody-can-identify/ https://listorati.com/top-10-famous-people-that-nobody-can-identify/#respond Mon, 25 Dec 2023 22:21:16 +0000 https://listorati.com/top-10-famous-people-that-nobody-can-identify/

When one changes the world, they can at least expect to be remembered. History is littered with people who stumbled into achievements. Only a select elite get their name jotted down in the textbooks. For a distinct few, their achievement gets recorded, while their name fades into obscurity. Everyone knows the following 10 iconic cultural and historical moments, but nobody knows who is responsible for them.

Top 10 Famous People Who Never Existed

10 The Youngest Olympian


It must stink when a total stranger can do your job better than you can, especially when you are supposed be the best in the world. As standard bearers for the peak of human physique, it was surely a blow when Dr. Hermanus Brockmann was deemed too fat to participate in the Olympics. Along with rowers Francois Brandt and Roelof Klein, Brockmann was the Dutch rowing team’s coxswain. His team members decided that Brockmann’s excessive weight would slow down the crew. To shave precious seconds off their time, they recruited someone lighter.

In 1900, the Olympics had not yet earned their reputation as the ultimate athletic achievement. Brandt and Klein merely needed someone to steer the boat. They randomly selected a seven-year-old kid out of the crowd. The boy was so skinny they added five-kilograms just to keep the rudder submerged underwater. He gave them the necessary edge. The Dutch team rowed to victory. Despite watching from the sidelines, Brockmann got a participation medal. The kid’s only consolation is the likely title as the youngest Olympian in history. After posing for a photo with his impromptu teammates, the kid vanished back into the crowd.[1]

9 Jessie’s Girl

Try and think of a song named after a woman. Hit after hit has put the subject of their artists’ infatuation right in the title. “Jessie’s Girl” stands unique in the pantheon of pop music. Rick Springfield’s 1981 Number One hit describes his dream partner only in relation to her current boyfriend. In her biggest claim to fame, she never gets a name. That was because Springfield never asked for it.

Springfield was a friend, but a not a good friend of Gary’s. In 1976, Springfield met Gary at a Pasadena stained-glass making class. One day, Gary bought his then girlfriend with him. Springfield hid his immediate affection. When the class dismissed, Springfield lost contact with the couple. Five years later, he turned his jealousy into a power pop classic. To protect Gary’s identity, he switched to the alias “Jessie,” a random name he saw on a softball jersey.

After all these decades, if Rick still wants to tell her that he loves her, the point is probably moot. Cable television powerhouse Oprah Winfrey tried to track down the titular “girl.” She got as far as identifying the Pasadena instructor. Most of the teacher’s records were discarded when he died two years earlier. Not even a force as powerful as Oprah could tell Rick where he can find a woman like that. Due to the song’s omnipresence, the inspiration is likely aware if she took a glass-staining class with a fawning future General Hospital star. Just she knows it.[2]

8 The Person who Conceived Pirates

Captain Charles Johnson Otiende is as fictional as the biographies he supposedly chronicled. The 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates attributed mythic exploits to real notorious Caribbean swashbucklers, like Anne Bonny or Blackbeard. Captain Charles Johnson Otiende did not come by this information on the high seas. He made it all up behind his desk in England.

Buried like a treasure chest, Captain Johnson’s true identity remains unknown. No records show any captain with that name serving as a Captain in the decades before the work’s publication. Hidden behind a nom de plume, contemporary writers took credit for the bestseller. Historians speculate that Robinson Crusoe author, Daniel Defoe ghostwrote the pamphlets. The books success cemented the term “Jolly Roger” in popular consciousness to refer to the skull and crossbones flag. The book’s real impact would not be felt until future novelists cited it.

Subsequent generations blurring fantasy from history created the modern conception of the peg legged, parrot sporting seafarer. Robert Louis Stevenson and J. M. Barrie relied on A General History of the Pyrates anecdotes as models for their most celebrated literary characters. In their respectively works, Treasure Island and Peter Pan, the childish tales rehabilitated an international cabal of terrorists and pillagers into hardy buffoons who like to say “arr”.[3]

7 The Person who wrote The Treasure of Sierra Madre

In 2005, the American Film Institute ranked the Top 100 movie quotes of all time. #36 on the list was the much-misquoted line “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” from the 1948 western The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Those words’ author was similarly reluctant to show identification.

John Huston sat alone in Mexico City’s Barner Hotel to discuss adapting B. Traven’s 1935 novel into a movie. A mysterious translator, Hal Croves, greeted the director claiming to make filming decisions on behalf of B. Traven. Most of the cast were convinced that Hal Croves was actually B. Traven in disguise. Warner Brothers pushed their own theory that Ret Marut, an expatriate of the defunct Bavarian Soviet Republic (Räterepublik), hid behind the B. Traven moniker to flee revolutionaries trying to execute him. When B. Traven died in 1969, his will revealed that his real name was Traven Torsvan Croves. However, no evidence shows anyone of that name being born. No matter who was in the hotel room that night, he left Huston with permission to create his masterpiece.

The air of mystique surrounding the production popularized the movie. After scoring three Oscars at the Academy Awards, the movie went onto universal acclaim. The morality tale of the corrosive power of greed continues to inspire similarly fallen antiheroes such as There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview or Breaking Bad’s Walter White.[4]

6 The Person who Launched Two Legendary Careers

Drunk in love, Betty Lee and Charles Henry Seaver wandered into a Phoenix bar for a respite on their honeymoon. In the corner, a lone pianist crooned out an ethereal ballad, “Scotch and Soda.” The song compares the dizzying haze of alcohol to the intoxication of love. The smitten newlyweds thought that the tune could be “their song.” They asked the anonymous composer to write down the melody and lyrics.

The marriage was success after that night in 1932. Years later, one of their children, Katie, dated burgeoning musician Dave Guard. Guard needed a song to help launch his vocal group, The Kingston Trio. The Seaver Parents obliged by giving him the sheet music from their encounter in Arizona. “Scotch and Soda” became the Kingston’s Trio debut single. Off the success of the recording and their Billboard Hot 100 Number One Hit “Tom Dooley”, the Kingston Trio were one of the most popular bands in the late 1950’s. Their success played a key role in the folk scene explosion in the early 1960’s.

Because nobody knew the song’s true author, Dave Guard put his name on the copyright. This was a clever way to give the Seaver family a portion of the profits. The family used the royalties to put one of their other children, Tom, through college. While attending the University of Southern California, Tom Seaver tried out to play baseball professionally. Following one of the most celebrated careers in New York Mets history, Seaver received the then record highest percentage of votes into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.[5]

10 ‘Real’ Serial Killers Who Never Existed

5 The Person who Saved Green Day

In 2004, Green Day faced a career slump. Their fantastic early work of snotty explosive screeds plateaued into a goop of acoustic whines. This critical decline reflected slowed sales. Their last record, Warning, was the band’s first album to not go multi-platinum. Their new album Cigarettes and Valentines was a return to their roots. If this safe bet failed, it may have been the band’s death knell. Luckily, the master tapes went missing.

Everything about Cigarettes and Valentines is a mystery. Could the album have been any good? Did other lesser copies exist in some form? Why has it never reappeared? The most pressing question is the most confounding. Who, what and how did someone steal it? Whoever they were, fans owe them a standing ovation.

Instead of simply rerecording the newly finished album, Green Day scrapped the entire project. Angered over the robbery and larger sociopolitical chaos, the band funneled their vitriol into sharply written screeds against the George Bush administration-led Iraq War. The resulting album, American Idiot, became the band’s defining work securing their place as one of the last great rock bands.[6]

4 Agent 355

The secretive nature of espionage makes it hard to know anything about one of its most accomplished members. Only two things are certain about Agent 355. She was one of the only women among the Culper Spy Ring that supplied General George Washington with high-level intelligence on the British military. Unlike James Bond’s 007, the numbers in her moniker do not refer to a license to kill. It was coded shorthand for “lady.” The second is that along with her network of spies, she uncovered Benedict Arnold’s and Major John André’s attempted betrayal of the American Revolutionary cause. Agent 355 revealed the West Points maps Arnold passed to Andre, securing his dubious legacy as a synonym for traitor. Everything else is speculation.

The most agreed upon version of events is that Agent 355 came from a family of British Loyalists allowed her access to members of the New York elite sympathetic toward King George III’s reign. That was how she became acquainted, and perhaps romantically involved with, spy mastermind Robert Townsend. After Major John André was hanged, the British army hunted down many Culper spy ring members, including a pregnant Agent 355. On board the infamously unsanitary prison ship HMS Jersey, both her and her newborn child died. If it was possible to recognize her at all, it should be as an American hero.[7]

3 The Person who Inspired The Exorcist

The scariest thing about The Exorcist is that it was possibly real. Author William Peter Blatty fictionalized the harrowing account of an anonymous 13-year-old referred to as “Roland Doe”. Blatty’s 1971 novel changed important plot points, like the setting and switching the victim’s sex. The more horrific part, the general outline of a young teenager controlled by supernatural forces of evil, did not need to be invented.

Roland’s paranormal encounters began shortly after his spiritualist aunt Harriet untimely passed. Scrapping sounds emanated from the ceiling. The walls dripped with water. His mattress moved without anyone touching it. Roland’s mother interpreted mysterious scratches on Roland’s torso that spelled out “LOUIS” as an omen they should move to St. Louis. This decision was easy to make after Roland stabbed Washington D. C. area priest E. Albert Hughes with a mattress spring. In Missouri, Jesuit priests Father Walter H. Halloran and William Bowdern tended to the child as inflamed lines forming the general shape of a pitchfork appeared on the boy’s chest. Once taken in by medical professionals, Roland quit reporting any signs. He credited the remarkable recovery to a vision from St. Michael. Others disagree.

Details from the event were covered by the Washington Post in 1949. While the real name was withheld to protect the child’s identity, the more salacious elements were printed. Eventually, they appeared in one of the greatest movies of all time.[8]

2 The Most Famous Pornstar


Millions saw her face. In fact, millions saw everything. The one thing no one noticed was her name. In the surprisingly popular pornographic film, Debbie Does Dallas, skeeves around the world ogled as Bambi Woods was deflowered. Performing under a pseudonym, the 1978 film turned Woods into one of the most celebrated actresses of the “Golden Age of Porn.” The real person exposed everything, except her true identity.

Due to the scandalous nature of her films and the mafia connections that infiltrated the industry, Woods barely addressed her personal life. In a rare television appearance, the only biographical information she mentioned is she regrets getting involved in the business out of financial necessity and the strain her notoriety placed on her family.

The cut off familial ties might explain why no one can agree on Bambi’s ultimate fate. A 2005 article suggested she overdosed in 1986. The documentary Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered followed a private investigator that posits he found a woman claiming to be Bambi living comfortably in Des Moines, Iowa obscurity. Conspiracy theorist insist the mafia whacked her for swindling money to pay her debts. Dozens knew Bambi, in the biblical sense. It seems like no one truly knew her though.[9]

1 The Dead Woman Who Saved Thousands of Lives


To answer a question Michael Jackson posed 100 years too late, Annie is not okay. The Annie that inspired the refrain of the 1988 jam “Smooth Criminal” drew her last breath long ago. In the meantime, she gave thousands a chance to breathe again.

In the 1880’s, a young woman floated ashore the bank of the Seine River at the Quai du Louvre in Paris. Because there were no signs of violence, the cause of death was a presumed suicide. A mortician, so haunted by the corpse’s face, preserved her likeness in a plaster death mask.

Notable artists throughout Europe used her as a muse. The coy smile of a drowned teenager inspired creators as varied as Albert Camus, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anaïs Nin. Socialites modelled themselves after the woman’s last wardrobe. The most consequential homage was Peter Safar’s and Asmund Laerdal’s Resusci Anne. The death mask served as the template for the lips of the first aid mannequin used to train in CPR courses. In the ensuing decades, thousands of lives have been saved thanks to the Resusci Anne. That noble goal happened in part to the woman that ended her own life all those years. It is a shame that her identity remains as elusive as a second hit for Alien Ant Farm.[10]

10 Of History’s Most Iconic Things That Never Existed

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10 Jane or John Doe Cases That Took over 45 Years to Identify https://listorati.com/10-jane-or-john-doe-cases-that-took-over-45-years-to-identify/ https://listorati.com/10-jane-or-john-doe-cases-that-took-over-45-years-to-identify/#respond Sat, 04 Mar 2023 22:35:08 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-jane-or-john-doe-cases-that-took-over-45-years-to-identify/

When a person can’t be identified after death, they’re often called Jane Doe or John Doe. Unfortunately, identification can prove to be a difficult task sometimes and can take years. With the improvement of forensic science, it’s become possible to identify people who have been labeled as a Jane Doe or John Doe for decades.

This list looks at 10 Jane or John Doe cases that took decades to solve.

10 Woodlawn Jane Doe

On September 12, 1976, the body of a young girl was discovered in the 5600 block of Dogwood Road near Lorraine Park Cemetery in Woodlawn, Maryland. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted, and chlorpromazine was in her system. Chlorpromazine is used to manage and treat some mental illnesses and can have a sedative effect. Authorities were unable to identify the victim at the time. She became known as the Woodlawn Jane Doe, unidentified for 45 years.

Testing done in June 2006 showed bodily fluids on an article of clothing, but it wasn’t enough to test for DNA. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a facial reconstruction sketch of Woodlawn Jane Doe in 2016. In 2021, with help from Bode Technology, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children performed additional DNA testing. Finally, Woodlawn Jane Doe was identified as 16-year-old Margaret Fetterolf.

Fetterolf was reported missing by her family in 1975. The family lived in Alexandria, Virginia, at the time of Margaret’s disappearance. Fetterolf’s murder case is still unsolved and remains an open homicide investigation.[1]

9 Jane Doe No. 59

On November 16, 1969, the body of a young woman was discovered in some vegetation off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. She had multiple stab wounds, and authorities were unable to identify her. She became known as Jane Doe No. 59, unidentified for 46 years.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, entered the case into its database in 2003. NamUs is the national database for all unidentified missing and deceased victims. In June 2015, a family friend of the victim was looking through the NamUs website. She saw a post-mortem photograph of Jane Doe, No. 59. She noticed the resemblance and notified the family. Jane Doe No. 59 was identified as 19-year-old Reet Silvia Jurvetson.

In 96, Jurvetson moved to Los Angeles from Montreal. She sent her family a postcard to tell them not to worry and that she was happy. When Jurvetson did not contact her family again, they assumed that she was making a new life for herself. The family never suspected foul play and never thought to report her missing. Jurvetson’s murder is still unsolved and remains an open homicide investigation.[2]

8 Chatham County John Doe

In March 1976, the body of a young man was discovered in the Cape Fear River near Moncure, North Carolina. His head and hands were missing, and authorities believed his remains might have washed down from Haw River or Deep River. Unable to identify him, he became known as Chatham County John Doe for 46 years.

NamUs entered the case into its database in 2008. In 2020, sheriff’s office detective Ricky Culberson contacted the NC Unidentified Project and formed a partnership. In 2021, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office and the NC Unidentified Project partnered with Othram Labs to develop a genealogical profile for Chatham County John Doe.

The sheriff’s office used the DNA profile to confirm his identity as Jimmy Mack Brooks. Brooks, an unmarried Army veteran, was 26 years old when he was murdered. Brooks’s murder case is still unsolved and remains an open homicide investigation.[3]

7 Mountain Jane Doe

In June 1969, the body of a young woman was discovered in the woods off a trail on Pine Mountain in Harlan, Kentucky. She was naked and had multiple stab wounds, and authorities were unable to identify her. She became known as the Mountain Jane Doe for 47 years.

Mountain Jane Doe’s description was entered into the NamUs database in 2009. That same year, a woman noticed the description matched her missing mother. The woman contacted NamUs, which put her in contact with the Kentucky State Police.

In 2014, NamUs worked with the Harlan County coroner to exhume Mountain Jane Doe’s grave. The grave was incorrectly marked, and the exhumed grave was that of a man. A year later, they exhumed the correct grave. The remains were sent to the University of North Texas, which partners with NamUs.

In September 2016, Mountain Jane Doe was identified as 21-year-old Sonja Blair Adams. Sonja’s murder case is still unsolved and remains an open homicide investigation.[4]

6 Singer Island Jane Doe

In June 1974, the skeletal remains of a young girl were found tied to a tree with wire in an area formerly known as “Burnt Bridges” in Palm Beach County. The authorities were unable to determine the cause of death or identify her. She became known as Singer Island Jane Doe for 48 years.

Investigators exhumed her remains in April 2014 for DNA testing. The DNA profile was entered into CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System) in 2015. In 2019, a facial reconstruction sketch of Singer Island Jane Doe was created by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office sent her remains to Othram Labs in December 2021. In March 2022, Othram Labs identified the Singer Island Jane Doe as 15-year-old Suzanne Gale Poole. Poole had been reported missing in December 1972 by her family.

Poole may have been the victim of serial killer Gerard Schaefer, who was convicted in 1973 of murdering two girls. Schaefer has been implicated in the deaths of more than a dozen others. In 1995, he was fatally stabbed by another inmate while serving time for the murder of two other girls.[5]

5 Coos County John Doe

In July 1971, a teenage boy’s body was discovered in the Englewood area of Snedden Creek in Coos Bay. Authorities couldn’t determine the cause of his death or identify him. He became known as the Coos County John Doe for 50 years.

In 2017, investigators exhumed Coos County John Doe’s remains for DNA testing. The sample was sent to Parabon Nanolabs and uploaded to the NamUs database. Parabon Nanolabs developed a DNA profile in May 2021. Two months later, the profile matched his DNA with a family member living in the Idaho area. Coos County authorities contacted the family.

Family members provided DNA samples for testing. The DNA matched and confirmed that Coos County John Doe was 15-year-old Winston Arthur Maxey III. Maxey ran away from his home in Boise the same year he died to pursue a better life. He intended to hitchhike along the Oregon Coast in search of work. Maxey fathered a child before leaving home, but he never knew.[6]

4 Jane Doe

On March 14, 1968, the body of a young woman was discovered in a farm field in Huntington Beach. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted, and her throat was slit. Authorities were unable to identify her at the time. She became known as a Jane Doe, unidentified for 52 years.

Investigators tested evidence from the victim’s sexual assault kit in 2001 to create a DNA profile of the suspect. Blood tests from the victim’s clothing produced a partial DNA profile of the victim. The victim’s DNA profile was entered into CODIS, and her fingerprints were put into state and national databases but did not produce any results. In 2010, a cigarette butt found at the scene was analyzed and matched to the DNA profile from the assault kit.

In 2019, authorities used genetic genealogy techniques to find a possible family tree for the suspect. They could identify the suspect as Johnny Chrisco, who died in 2015 of cancer. In 2020, authorities used genetic genealogy to identify Jane Doe as 26-year-old Anita Louise Piteau. It’s unclear how Chrisco and Piteau knew each other.[7]

3 Unknown Boy

On March 27, 1961, a motorist named James White picked up a teenage boy hitchhiking along Highway 25. The boy told White his parents were divorcing, and he’d run away from home. Before White could get more information about the teenager, his car hit a guard rail and plunged into the Cahaba River. White survived the accident, but the teenage boy drowned. Authorities were unable to identify him. He became known as the Unknown Boy for 60 years.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children funded the exhumation of the unknown boy’s remains in 2016 and sent his remains to the University of North Texas laboratory for DNA testing. In October 2020, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, president and founder of Identifinders International, joined the investigation.

In October 2021, the unknown boy was identified as 15-year-old Daniel Paul “Danny” Armantrout. Authorities tracked down Danny’s cousin, who lives in Germany, and his 77-year-old brother, who lives in Florida.[8]

2 Little Miss Nobody

On July 31, 1960, the partially buried remains of a little girl were discovered in the Arizona desert. Authorities estimated that she was around seven years old. Unable to identify her, she became Little Miss Nobody for 62 years.

Investigators exhumed Little Miss Nobody’s remains in 2015 for DNA testing. In 2017, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office sent her remains to a lab in Texas for a facial reconstruction sketch. The image was released to the public in 2018. As the reconstruction sketch did not produce any results, the sheriff’s office raised money to send the DNA to Othram Labs in 2021. In 2022, using DNA from a family member, the lab positively identified Little Miss Nobody as four-year-old Sharon Lee Gallegos.

Gallegos was playing in an alley near her family home in Alamogordo with two other children when she was kidnapped on July 21, 1960. A dark green car with a man, woman, and two children inside offered to buy Gallegos candy and clothes if she got in the car, and when she refused, they dragged her inside and took off.

According to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the Alamogordo Police Department, who were searching for Gallegos, reached out upon learning of the remains found of a little girl, suspecting a connection. Unfortunately, forensic science was unsophisticated at the time, and law enforcement ruled out Gallegos as Little Miss Nobody. Gallegos’s kidnapping and murder are still unsolved and remain an open investigation.[9]

1 Babes in the Wood

On January 15, 1953, a groundskeeper in Vancouver’s Stanley Park discovered the skeletal remains of two young children. Authorities estimated that the children had been lying undiscovered for about five years. They had been bludgeoned to death and were covered by what looked like a woman’s raincoat. Unable to identify the children, they became known as the Babes in the Wood for 70 years.

In 1996, the remains were tested for DNA for the first time. It did not offer any insights into their identities but confirmed that they were half-siblings who had the same mother. The DNA also proved both children were boys. Initially, it was believed one of the children was female.

A new DNA sample was taken from each of the boys in 2021, and investigators contacted Redgrave Research Forensic Services. Genealogists at Redgrave began building a family in January 2022. They could connect the boys’ DNA with that of their great-niece, who had acquired a DNA test and uploaded her profile to 23andMe.

After 70 years, the boys were identified as seven- and six-year-old Derek and David D’Alton, also known by the last name Bousquet. Derek and David were never reported missing. According to police officials, the murderer is believed to be a close relative of the boys who died about 25 years ago. The suspect’s name has not been made public by police officials.[10]

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