Hi folks, Someone told me about these recent posts so I registered in order to make some corrections. Colleen Fitzpatrick and I have recently started DNA Doe Project – our website (under construction) is dnadoeproject.org. Our purpose is to tackle unidentified John and Jane Does by raising funds for specialized lab testing of their DNA, then attempting to locate their families as we do when we help adoptees looking for theirs. We are working on three cases at the moment and just agreed to take on Lyle Stevik as our fourth. The ME is making arrangements to get the sample to the lab to test its quality and concentration. We have been providing details to the Reddit group and Facebook group “Can You Identify Lyle Stevik” today and people are already pledging donations to cover the expensive sequencing needed in cases like these. (He can’t spit in a vial and do and Ancestry DNA test.) We are accepting donations toward existing and future cases (by check, until paypal is set up – see our website dnadoeproject.org) but are telling people to hold off on donations earmarked specifically for Lyle, until we know the DNA is good enough to proceed. That will NOT be this weekend – more likely a couple of weeks. We’ll update all the forums and our website when we have those results. The good news is, if the DNA is sufficient, we’ve nearly reached our funding goal in the few hours since our involvement was posted.
We do want everyone to understand that the odds of successful identification are not huge – there are many challenges with these sorts of cases. So each is a gamble. We’ve put in our own funds as well. The cause is so worth it, and even a slim chance of success where CODIS and tips and all else have failed, would be phenomenal.
Thank you for your interest,
Margaret Press, PhD
Cofounder DNA Doe Project.