The approach the Seattle Times took was to actively manage the public engagement rather than simply release information and step back. The paper created a private online forum for tip submission, monitored social media channels, and engaged directly with the online communities discussing the case. When specific names appeared as theories — Christie Lynn Farni, Cynthia Perry, Jennifer Wictor — the paper’s staff assessed them and, when they could be ruled out, did so rather than allowing them to circulate as live possibilities.
This approach was not perfectly executed. The case had enough online attention that some theories and names spread beyond the channels the paper could monitor. But the effort to manage responsible public engagement, rather than simply opening the case to uncontrolled crowdsourcing, represented an attempt to apply journalistic standards to a new kind of public investigative work.
The article’s enduring effect was to reach Colleen Fitzpatrick. This was not the intended audience — the article was aimed at people who might recognize a face or a handwriting style or a specific reference in the notes. But the genetics expert who had been building a career in forensic genealogy read the article, recognized a case to which her methods could be applied, and made contact. The identification that followed was a product of that connection.
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## The NamUS Database and Its Removal
The NamUS database was established by the National Institute of Justice in 2007, building on earlier work to create a national infrastructure for missing and unidentified persons cases. It represented a significant advance over the previous state of affairs, in which information about missing persons in one state was typically unavailable to investigators and family members in other states.