What are your theories

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I agree that the description and photo are probably way off for this kid. I can't help but wonder if just a few details were off enough for him not to get identified when the case was still current. Could it be just a simple factor or two that were incorrect or different from his known description? For example, might he have dyed his hair at the concert?
 
Still - if I was missing a loved one I would still want it to be checked out in spite of the minor inconsistencies.
 
Still - if I was missing a loved one I would still want it to be checked out in spite of the minor inconsistencies.

Absolutely! But I'm suggesting that his family and friends simply may not have known about the accident and Jason Doe. If he was originally from a distant region, the incident was likely not big news there. Even if a local law enforcement agency was keeping an eye out for him, if a couple key details about Jason Doe were changed or incorrect it may have never even been on their radar. Keep in mind this happened before the Internet was ubiquitous. If this kid was intentionally "traveling" for a while, nobody may have even felt the need to look for him until long after the accident was out of the news.
 
I was thinking about the note last night and I know it was not found on JD but if it was with him then where is the world would you leave a note at a concert? The only thing I can think of is on a car.

He traveled alone, as far as we know, and scalped tickets. I've never scalped tickets. Always I had them in hand and went with a group but I'm a female so maybe that is different. The only people who went with us who scalped tickets were guys who decided to go last minute. Anyway, does it make sense (or was it part of the dead culture) to hitchhike, possibly hundreds of miles, to hope to have enough money to buy a tickets there?

No car, no keys, no wallet, no money (except the 4 quarters) - why not sell the Sunday ticket?

I'm pondering if he may have driven himself and his car was stolen on Sunday so he ended up at the PD to report it and/or kept looking for it.
 
Not sure if this is even relevant but thought I would throw it out- 4 quarters to me in '96 was change for a dollar to use the pay phone.
 
Not sure if this is even relevant but thought I would throw it out- 4 quarters to me in '96 was change for a dollar to use the pay phone.

What I had suggested is revealing the contents of his stomach. Maybe it would show that he had McDonald's before he died. Maybe he could have used a pay phone at the McDonald's that could have been traced to where ever he was trying to get.
 
I wonder if it is too late to trace calls from 96. I wonder how late their records go back. What we would need to know is the McDonalds or any close by place that was there in 96 and any payphone associated. Who would have record of that...McDonalds? And if so which payphone company
....
 
I lived in the South in 1995. The phone company in the Gulf Coast area of Louisiana was known as BellSouth. The Bell telephone company, a huge nationwide monopoly at the time, was ordered broken up into smaller companies, which almost instantly were tagged with the nickname of "Baby Bells". The actual Baby Bell telephone company's name depended on which area of the country you lived in, and some of those Baby Bells were bought by other companies and their names changed after they were purchased. IIRC, Bellsouth covered all of the Southern states. There were also smaller companies that existed in competition with the Baby Bells. For more info here's a Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_AT&T.

A city directory from 1995 would list names/addresses of people and businesses/phone numbers. City directories are usually available at the public library and you have to go in person most of the time. One online city directory site seems to focus on 1857-1927 to aid in genealogy research and you have to have a person's last name to locate info. http://distantcousin.com/

As far as pay phones go, the telephone company that installed the pay phone was responsible for maintenance/upkeep of the phone and phone booth, not the business that had the pay phone.
 
I know a lot people who use Irish S names and J names interchangeably. Sean/John, Seamus/James, etc. I also know of people who have nicknames based on their father's nickname. In other words, perhaps his birth name isn't Jason but his dad's nickname is Jay (Jay's son becomes Jason)
 
I agree with the theory that his family knows but doesn't want to pay to claim the body/cremains. Sometimes it's real financial hardship and sometimes it's just crummy coldhearted parents (the idea of wanting to collect SSI benefits granted to a kid indefinitely holds water too, I've seen it done). My guess if he was brave enough to live the Deadhead lifestyle & hitchhike he probably wasn't super-sheltered.

This additional theory makes me extra sad- he might have been orphaned and was bumming around, looking for a place to belong to....

Ha this just jogged my memory I do know of an Eastern Seaboard Deadhead who would have been old enough to cross paths with this kid if the kid had travelled a lot to shows over a period of time...I will try to get a hold of him.
 
The more I think about it, the more I think that this kid is Jason Donald Reynolds. Maybe either sample of DNA was wrong somehow because nothing else seems to fit but it being him. I don't think the sketches of him are wrong, I think they give a reasonably true picture of this person as I see similarities between them and looking at all three of them I can believe they all show the same person. That being said, I do think they should release more information in this case such as autopsy pictures and/or report. If there is something there that they have not understood is relevant another person might see it.
 
Since noone seems to recognize Grateful Doe, I have been wondering if he was home-schooled or if he was being taught by another method called "unschooling" which was very popular in the 1990s. In unschooling, basically the student pursues whatever topic interests them, which may or may not be academic. For example if a student is interested in carpentry and wants to build something, that would lead to having to study measurements, geometry, types of wood, and construction. Someone interested in music or the 1960's could very well have been following the Dead around for awhile.
 
I'm a lurker and reader, usually not a poster...random thoughts:

I think the driver knew this guy. And, by "know" I mean, he had seen him around, heard from a friend of a friend that this guy needed a ride....not a close acquaintence...I just don't think you would take a total stranger to your dad's house...

I also feel that the note has nothing to do with this case. it was found nearby, at the crash site..right? Not on him... I think something would have panned out about if it was meant for him.

And, I think this kid has never been reported as missing...from anywhere.

I don't think his family knows about him and just don't want to come forward and claim his remains...I think everyone just ceased thinking about him. Maybe some day, someone will wonder whatever happened to ???? and they will start searching. I think that is the most likely way he will ever be ID'ed.

My 2 cents may not be worth that much, but there it is!!
 
There is a phenomenon of transient kids/adults bumming around at Universities (I know of one guy who did it in the late 1980s....) Basically people just live on campus until they get caught & are made to leave or they get tired of being there. The article mentioned the driver was a Uni. student...did he live on campus?

Maybe Grateful Doe's plan was to "hang out" with the driver for a few days/weeks until he could line up a job or decide on a new course of action. I've done this favor (hosting travelers) for plenty of people in my lifetime (I was much nicer in my early 20s.) Also GD's bigger plan might have been to get down to Florida somehow and get a job on a boat or some sort of occupation that would offer housing and cash every day....Might be why he was headed in a generally Southern direction...
 
I was just thinking about this guy today. We would have been in similar crowds at that time, and Eric Hager & I have mutual, real life friends, although I did not know either of them at all. (Just to be clear.)

Here's what I think happened:

Grateful Doe went to college & had a good time. I think his family discovered that he was getting high and flipped out, telling him they were done with him. I have friends from that era whose parents did exactly that, over pot, and have never spoken w/ their now 30- or 40-something year old kids since. Seems ridiculous, but not rare in the circles I ran with.

I think he was without a backpack b/c he left his bag in an acquaintance's car. Back then, we had Ride Share boards on campus, and it was very common to grab a ride w/ a total stranger from your college if they were headed to the same show. It wasn't like going w/ your buddies. Just riding along & splitting the gas, but not "responsible" for each other once at the show, like a friend would be. If you missed the ride back, tough luck, and nobody thought anything of it & figured you stayed around longer or got another ride back.

I think GD was in school (college) somewhere in the South, and a ride in that direction got him closer, even if not exactly where he wanted to go.

I would not have considered this "hitch hiking" at the time b/c it was these loose connections of friends and acquaintances, sort of like these days, if you met up w/ a Facebook "friend" that you don't actually know.

If he was considering dropping out of school, his roommate(s) might not even have thought anything of him not returning, especially if he used drugs and they did not. They might have "looked down on" him and not thought anything of it, esp if he was a freshman, where roommates are often thrown together, not selected.

I hated my freshman roommate & didn't even know where she hung out most of the time & certainly would not have known if she went away for a weekend where she was or who she was with. Just my $0.02 from "college life" at that time.
 
Of course this is just a theory, but just like others on here, I theorize that he was a transient. I think his family did not claim him because he was from a broken home, perhaps estranged. He probably roamed from town to town, which is why he never really had the time to grow enough to make links in each town, or not at least friends with anyone for more than a year at a time. He was probably a soul searcher, wanderer, and a free spirit.
 
Of course this is just a theory, but just like others on here, I theorize that he was a transient. I think his family did not claim him because he was from a broken home, perhaps estranged. He probably roamed from town to town, which is why he never really had the time to grow enough to make links in each town, or not at least friends with anyone for more than a year at a time. He was probably a soul searcher, wanderer, and a free spirit.

This is my theory, too. I think the most obvious answers are likely the right ones. That he was a teenager likely in and out of trouble before he left home. The family didn't look for him because they probably had already given up on his lifestyle. I knew someone in AA who had a story like that. Perhaps that star tattoo was a youth sobriety thing, and maybe he fell off the wagon and got on tour with the Dead.

I think a lot of the clues that were dead ends do fit together... The guy who says he picked up a kid with two carolines and couldn't find them again so left RFK stadium with their stuff... the new photos that surfaced suggesting he was from SC... his ID and belongings were in that guy's car, but they never met up again... so he had to catch a ride south where family lived.. because what else would you do if you were in your late teens and suddenly lost everything after months or years of feeling free and invincible... head home to SC to family to hopefully take you back in again... or to clean up his act in the process of getting a roof over his head this time... maybe he really was in Illinois because that's where he was when the money ran out the prior year. The Dead played in Chicago in July 1994. Money ran out so he set up and got a job at McDs to get enough money through the winter and head back East in 95 once the tour started again.

This kind-of reminds me of Alexander Supertramp. Just a drifter who wanted to be free from parents & teachers, but a drifter that had his luck run out. (It also reminds me a little of the attitude of Band Aids in Almost Famous) He thought he'd catch a break by "floor surfing" and catching rides in the Summer East Coast tour '95... maybe with the intention of getting closer to home... and ultimately he lost in the end... Poor planning, too much dreaming... Family tried to help him before he left, but he was set in his ways and they didn't know to report him as a missing person (sometimes you can't help someone who won't help themselves)... Chalked him up as a runaway....

I do really think he met the driver prior to the day they died, though. I don't really know how, but I feel it. They are too similar for it to be a hitch hiking situation. Both deadheads, both going from DC south (and as we think, possibly to SC).

I wish there were more leads on the Carolines. That would really help.
 
I first heard about this case several years ago. I was drawn to it because I felt like I knew GD. I was at almost all east coast shows for ten years. My last Dead shows were 6/24/95 and 6/25/95 at RFK. If I didn't actually meet and party with GD, I certainly knew many people just like him. I recall hanging out with someone who fit his description on the night of 6/23 while camping at Greenbelt Park. But I have not come forward because the details are simply way too foggy to be helpful. For starters, I had eaten a quantity of funny mushrooms that night. And the curse of time has been no friend to my memory.

I knew several deadheads and rainbow family members who lived a hitchhiking lifestyle in 1995. As a choice, they would get on the road, stick out their thumbs, and see where the winds would take them. Sometimes they were looking to get to the next show. Other times they were just looking for adventure. But in all cases, they had some form of possessions -- a backpack with extra clothes, a sleeping bag, an extra blanket, a jacket.

And that's what I find most puzzling about GD. He did not have those kinds of possessions. Which tells me that he likely wasn't on the road and living a hitchhiking lifestyle. I do believe his trip to RFK was a short-term trip. He went there for those shows only and was headed back to his home when he was killed. It is possible he lost his possessions or they were stolen, but I don't find that likely. Even if that was the case, however, he would still be headed to where he considered his home to be.

What kind of home was he returning to? That is the question that could explain why he was never reported missing.
 
I wish there were more leads on the Carolines. That would really help.

It would probably help if we stopped calling them the two Carolines. The first name barely looks like Caroline and the second name doesn't look like Caroline at all. It looks like Corrine.
 
Woah - you mentioned Greenbelt Park, and that struck something with me. Greenbelt park used to have a golf course and I don't know if it still does, but that weird redditt post that "Caroline T" hung out with GD at a golf course near RFK stadium now makes sense if it's true.

Originally I ruled it out because I thought "no way there's a golf course near RFK stadium... that's a bad part of southeast DC!" but Greenbelt park is not THAT far and it makes sense.
 
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