What are your theories

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Someone has to recognize him eventually. If u all want to collaborate on the social media idea let me know. We can do it all together. I know there r sites n FB pages for him already but obv his pic hasn't been circulated enough. We just need to boost it. Someone WILL eventually draw the link. He was likely a transient who was never reported but he prob knew someone. Maybe a go fund me page to collect funds to re-open his case?? This case could be solved. It isn't solved bc it didn't have enough publicity. Now is the time to take advantage of social media.
 
vengeance712 said:
agreed - I always felt he had 'had his fill' of following the 'dead' and wanted to get back home to start anew. it's almost as if the lost/stolen wallet/id was the defining straw to start over.
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I'm glad some of you brought up this theory. I didn't want to say it before but many of the Deadheads I knew when I was younger were very sketchy, some downright CRAZY & it wouldn't be that far-fetched for a couple girls to seduce a naive young kid and steal his stuff. *If* he had mentioned heading home the girls might have rationalized taking his stuff b/c he could make it home soon.

The number might have been deliberately written as a wrong number...women do this frequently to strange men they meet for different reasons. I've also thought it was too "cute" for both girls to be named Caroline- that's probably a road alias.
 
Has it ever been confirmed that the police were never able to track down the Carolines?
 
His heritage (background) could have been Swedish. But as for his home country (nationality), if he came from Sweden, at that age he would like likely spoken Deutsch.
 
Needtoid said:
His heritage (background) could have been Swedish. But as for his home country (nationality), if he came from Sweden, at that age he would like likely spoken Deutsch.
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It is true. My father told me that my grandfather never did master speaking English, and there would have been an accent, unless he was brought up in the states from a young age. My grandfather spoke Swedish with his wife, my grandmother.
 
Couple of things:
I don't think he knew the Carolines all that long and I don't think the Carolines were super good friends with each other, otherwise, they likely would have signed it something like "The Carolines" At least, that's how it worked when I was that age. "The Brians" "The Jenns" and "The Alis" who ran around together constantly became a collective noun.

Is it just me or does the faint tattoo look like a lemur?

The four quarters and the missing stuff:
Is it possible that Grateful left his stuff in a laundromat somewhere along the way intending to pick it back up? Or a bus locker?
 
Man.. my phone is obviously not cooperating... I just posted a long reply about my theory and it's not showing :-(
 
daisytrail said:
He could be from Sweden. My grandfather was. Is Swedish an ethnicity?
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He could have been. About 94 or so, I hung out with a group of people, two guys were from Norway, one was from Greece (he was one of the souls who lost his life last year in the Brooklyn apartment gas leak explosion). They were very big into our local music scene. It's amazing how music brings people together. However, if he was from another country, his accent would have been pretty thick, I would believe.
 
averagemommy said:
Sorry - originally posted in the wrong thread. I deleted that one and put this in the theories thread. . .

OK I have a question regarding active theories because my mind just won't shut off...

I hope that one day soon we will know GD's real name. Even if that day comes soon, there are still a number of gaps. I'm curious if anyone has theories about the following:

1 - When do you think GD received the note?
2 - If he was carrying it with him (versus just found near the scene), why would he have that note and almost nothing else? Was it special to him? Did he really want to call Caroline and therefore made an effort to hold onto her number?
3 - Was he a hitchiker or not? Anyone think he knew EH?
4 - Where did he join Eric Hager?
5 - Where was he headed?
6 - Does anyone theorize that perhaps he visited people along the tour? Perhaps this is one thing that might come to light if he's identified. Tour dates here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~./gdead/setlists/95.html
7 - Was he mugged or had his belongings stolen at some point?
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Ok, trying this again...

I think he received the note the morning of the accident. My reasoning is because the photo of the note is too "clean" (for lack of a better word). It's not crumpled like it was ever in his pocket or anything, like the tickets appear to be. Kinda like he never had a chance to put it in his pocket. I think Eric also met the Carolines. I feel like GD was with the Carolines and met Eric at a gas station or fast food place or something either after the concert or the next morning. The Carolines planned to travel in one direction, while GD wanted to head home. They were discussing this, and Eric overheard and offered to give GD a ride since he was heading the same direction. (if it was the night before, mybe they made plans to meet Eric the next morning to drop GD off with him)

I don't think he was mugged or his stuff was blatantly stolen from him. I think he set his things down somewhere and when he returned to pick them up they were gone. Or he accidentally left them in a car he caught a ride from. Leading him to want to head back home, so he could get a new SS card issued, etc.

... I also just happened along this thought while typing this... maybe the quarters were given to him from the Carolines along with the note to call or page (as pagers were very popular then) them when he reached a certain spot. Cellphones were very rare back then and payphones were still very much used.

... Anyhoo, this is all just my own little theory on what took place. It's just the "feel" I get from what I know.
 
averagemommy said:
Sorry - originally posted in the wrong thread. I deleted that one and put this in the theories thread. . .

OK I have a question regarding active theories because my mind just won't shut off...

I hope that one day soon we will know GD's real name. Even if that day comes soon, there are still a number of gaps. I'm curious if anyone has theories about the following:

1 - When do you think GD received the note?
2 - If he was carrying it with him (versus just found near the scene), why would he have that note and almost nothing else? Was it special to him? Did he really want to call Caroline and therefore made an effort to hold onto her number?
3 - Was he a hitchiker or not? Anyone think he knew EH?
4 - Where did he join Eric Hager?
5 - Where was he headed?
6 - Does anyone theorize that perhaps he visited people along the tour? Perhaps this is
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BBM. I posted this in another thread but I think that (if he is JPC) he was south headed to Myrtle Beach. SC They were headed in the right direction. It would have been a simple matter for Hager to drop him off in Fayettesville, NC. GD could have hitched the rest of the way from there while Hager headed west to Inman SC.

Mel
 
NDMagoo said:
After grading thousands of essays and pages worth of unintelligible chicken-scratch, I've developed a keen knack for deciphering handwriting in a holistic fashion. For what it's worth, I'm almost positive that both names are "Caroline." The second one does sort of look like "Corrine" when examined on its own. But when compared to the first name, the characters are identical. The unique way she connects the "rol" above is replicated below, but slurred in such a way that it looks like "rr" at first glance. The second one looks like it was written a little faster, having more of a slant. The top stroke of the second "a" is higher because of this, but to me it still clearly reads "a" rather than "o" or anything else.
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bbm. And the connection between the 'o' and 'r' in sorry starts at the bottom line rather than come off the top of the 'o' before beginning the 'r'. I just think the writer was in a hurry..perhaps they had a ride waiting and they "had to go". Heck i misspelled my own name a couple of days ago. I was in a hurry and left out a letter.

Mel
 
Long time lurker, first time poster ... you know the drill.

I've been following the Grateful Doe case since I first saw it on the DoeNetwork in 2002. I've always wondered about this young man. He seems like someone that, had I been a little older, I would have been friends with.

With the developments over the past several weeks, I've sort of come up with a scenario in my mind of how Jason ended up where he did. This is going off the assumption that he is Jason Patrick Callahan.

One thing we know about him is that in the year leading up to his death, he kind of wandered from place to place. For several months, he lived in Illinois and worked at a local McDonald's. It's not unreasonable to think that he probably saved some money and, being at the age of 18 when you know EVERYTHING (I know I sure did!), figured he had more than enough to follow the Dead around for the summer.

So, he begins his journey. And maybe he found that things weren't quite what he expected it to be. Tickets weren't free. He had to pay for his weed instead of being able to mooch it off whoever had it. A man's gotta eat - which also isn't free.

By the time he got to DC, he had to buy his tickets from a scalper - and I'm sure he inflated the heck out of the prices. At some point he met up with two girls and started hanging around with them. They get a ride with a guy in a van, and he realizes far too late that he left his backpack - which contained his wallet - in there.

At this point, he's done - at least for now. He starts thinking about heading back to Myrtle Beach. Maybe there he can get a seasonal job - it is the midst of tourist season - and make some cash.

Supposing that what Eric Hager's father said is accurate when he said that his son was alone when he stopped at his house - I can suppose that Jason was able to get a ride as far as the Williamsburg area. Maybe he was hanging around a rest stop when a van pulled up with South Carolina tags. I can see Jason approaching the young driver and telling him he's trying to get back to Myrtle Beach - and Eric, seeing a fellow Dead fan, telling him he can get him as far as Spartenburg.

We all, sadly, know what happens next.
 
averagemommy said:
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.
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THIS

I'm a lonnnggg time lurker here. I am of this opinion as well. I believe he came from a very religious family. I think found his mother on intellius and her other children or family members have extremely religious first names. I'm sorry if this was mentioned in a later post, I haven't read far enough yet, but someone on Reddit said that there was a family looking for an adopted brother with the last name Callahan. I put the pieces together in my head and I must say, Jason's life was (if the adoption story is true) heartbreaking...heart wrenching. I am a mother of two boys and thinking about how Jason must have felt about himself makes my soul cry. I hope some on really digs deep into the family dynamic and writes a book, Jason deserves it. He deserves to finally be treated like the beautiful person he was.
 
mediablitz said:
THIS

. . . I'm sorry if this was mentioned in a later post, I haven't read far enough yet, but someone on Reddit said that there was a family looking for an adopted brother with the last name Callahan. I put the pieces together in my head and I must say, Jason's life was (if the adoption story is true) heartbreaking...heart wrenching. I am a mother of two boys and thinking about how Jason must have felt about himself makes my soul cry. I hope some on really digs deep into the family dynamic and writes a book, Jason deserves it. He deserves to finally be treated like the beautiful person he was.
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If you read through some of the Reddit posts it's Jason's half-sister (Jason's father's and stepmother's daughter) looking for her full brother who was born within a year of Jason. He would have been Jason's half-brother.
 
Been lurking for awhile also and this is the first time I have posted. I myself, traveled to see the Dead and other bands and also went to Rainbow gatherings. I see a lot of people posting their own therories to explain some things they don't understand, that seem normal to us that lived this lifestyle. So I am gonna try to explain how I feel on some things and my therories.

1. To explain how he lost touch with his mother. This was normal for a lot of kids on tour. I personally would call my parents here and there, send a post card, but there were times my mother didn't hear from me until I showed up on her doorstep. The longest was 2 1/2yrs and she never filed a missing report on me.

2. He could have gotten a miracle into the show and not gotten the tickets from a scalper. A miracle is when someone gives you ticket for free. I doubt this since the scalper bought both of the tickets he had. But it was common for us to go to shows without tickets hoping to get in somehow

3. A lot of kids didn't have an ID on them. There were many reasons for this ( being a runaway, on the run from the law, carried no possessions, lost it, don't have a home etc)

4. The Carolines.. For the person that thought the girls weren't close because they didn't go by a nickname. My best friend and I had the same first name and we never went by a nickname. The note makes it sound like they were to meet up but the girls had to leave. My first thought is these girls were headed the same way he was and he was supposed to catch a ride with them. Maybe this is why there is no area code... Or the assumed he knew the area code.

4. He could of gone by a nickname that he received from his show "family"... I knew many that went by nicknames..

.. I have more but my phone is gonna die soon so I will have to post more later
 
I agree with Doodlebug regarding the friends not going by a nickname. My best friend from age 4 and I have the same first name. We have never combined them or had a nickname.
 
:wagon: to Websleuths, Doodlebug, and thanks for your insightful post. :wave:
 
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