Dateline episode The Woman With No Name will air on NBC on Friday, December 6, 2024, at 10.15/9.15c as correspondent Keith Morrison reports on the murder of a Texas woman, Dana Lynn Dodd, whose real identity remained under wraps for over a decade. Dana, better known as 'Lavender Doe,' was found dead in the woods of Kilgore, Texas, on October 29, 2006.
The police identified her as a woman in her early twenties. But for more than a decade, investigators could not comprehend Dana's true identity until February 2019, when three volunteers working with the DNA Doe Project (an NGO set up to identify crime victims) helped the authorities using genetic genealogy.
It was a major breakthrough in the case. According to Lt. Eddie Hope's statement:
"I was pretty excited.The whole department was pretty excited."
For years, Dana went by the moniker 'Lavender Doe' online because of the color of the shirt (lavender) she was wearing at the time of her death. Even after Dana's murderers were arrested, her identity remained a mystery until 2019.
Disclaimer: This article contains descriptions of murder. Please be advised.
What happened to Dana Lynn Dodd aka mystery woman 'Lavender Doe'?
Dana Lynn Dodd, a Texas woman in her early twenties or late teens, was found dead in Kilgare Woods, Texas, on October 29, 2006. According to Lt. Eddie Hope's statement:
"She had wood piled beneath her and wood piled on top of her, and there was, I believe, a gas can lid there, so it looked like somebody was trying to cover their tracks."
As per police reports, the incident was clearly a homicide, but investigators had very little evidence and information to identify the victim. Lynn reportedly had a small stature, but there were still some baby teeth in her mouth.
Hope further added:
"We didn’t have a clue. We had no grounds to go on of who this could be or where she came from."
According to Dateline, the police reportedly got no matches after entering Dana's DNA into the databases. Multiple leads came forward, but none of them were fruitful. Thus, the case eventually went cold.
How was the investigation revived?
Over a decade passed, but the investigators got no answer until the case first garnered attention from two amateur online sleuths - Kevin Lord (former software developer and a T-shirt salesman from Killeen, Texas). He spent his free time trying to find matches for missing persons and crime victims.
Kevin came across the Lavender Doe case while going through the Texas missing persons directory and contacted Hope. The latter mentioned in a statement, saying:
"I was impressed that people care because we live in a world where everything is fast-paced and a lot of people are worried about themselves and not others."
Soon after, Kevin and Killeen started working on the case with law enforcement assistance from Lt. Hope, who further added:
"We just flew together, you know, whatever he needed that he couldn’t get that I could get, law enforcement-wise, he would send it to me."
Lord helped the sheriff's department with his advanced computer skills. But even his technical expertise was not enough to reveal the identity of the mystery woman. So, he joined the DNA Doe Project (a non-profit organization) and started working with two other volunteers - Lori Gaff and Missy Koski.
Who was convicted for the murder of Dana Lynn Dodd/Lavender Doe?
As the DNA Doe Project was busy making DNA profiles for public ancestry websites (to create a family tree using distant relatives of victims), the case had its first breakthrough in the summer of 2018 after another woman named Felisha Pearson was found in the woods. Witnesses last spotted her with Joseph Wayne Burnette (her ex-con boyfriend).
As per Dateline, Brunette was connected to the Lavender Doe case as his semen was found inside Dana's body at the time of her murder. He was also brought in for questioning, where he admitted to having intercourse with an unidentified woman on the same day.
However, Brunette was not arrested at that time. He even provided an alibi at the time of Dana's murder, which at the moment looked solid.
After the police found Pearson's body, Brunette confessed to the murder of his ex-girlfriend as well as Dana Lynn Dodd. He was thus sentenced to 50 years in prison. Lt. Hope said in a statement:
"He talked about this 12-year-old murder like it had happened yesterday. He left no detail out."
How was Dana's true identity revealed?
Even though the investigators had a confession, the victim's identity still remained a mystery. Kevin Lord reportedly said:
"That made it a lot more real and put more weight behind what we were doing."
The team soon set out to work in October 2018 with Dana's DNA profile and, shortly after, got in touch with a distant relative, probably a cousin, with which they built a family tree connecting to Dana. Koski told Dateline:
"I wasn’t prepared for the emotion that I had right then. I couldn’t control myself. I remember sitting on the couch and just crying because I was so happy but the emotion of all this work, all these countless nights, you know, working all day and all night and trying to figure this out just all came together right then."
Dana's half-sister Amanda Gadd said in a statement to Dateline:
"It felt like somebody just punched me in the stomach. I was angry that she was by herself. You know, her worst fear came true. She was forgotten."
Dana Lynn Dodd had a troubled life with her mother moving out when she was just a kid. She stayed with Gadd and also her half-brother John Dodd. But Dana's boyfriend turned out to be a problem in both situations.
So, she joined a magazine company where her work included a lot of traveling all throughout the country. Even after her brother's dissuasion to not go out, Dana (who was already 18 by then) said that she wanted to be on her own.
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