The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America's Coldest Cases

Solving cold cases from the comfort of your living room...
"The Skeleton Crew" provides an entree into the gritty and tumultuous world of Sherlock Holmes-wannabes who race to beat out law enforcement--and one another--at matching missing persons with unidentified remains.
In America today, upwards of forty thousand people are dead and unaccounted for. These murder, suicide, and accident victims, separated from their names, are being adopted by the bizarre online world of amateur sleuths.
It's DIY CSI.
The web sleuths pore over facial reconstructions (a sort of Facebook for the dead) and other online clues as they vie to solve cold cases and tally up personal scorecards of dead bodies. "The Skeleton Crew "delves into the macabre underside of the Internet, the fleeting nature of identity, and how even the most ordinary citizen with a laptop and a knack for puzzles can reinvent herself as a web sleuth.

Review :
"Halber's artful sleuthing into this little-known demimonde leaves one bloodthirsty for more."--Ted Botha, author of The Girl with the Crooked Nose "An integral component of NamUs is the group of responsible, dedicated volunteers who scour case details in an effort to match long-term missing persons to unidentified decedents. In "The Skeleton Crew", Deborah Halber follows the journey of some of these volunteers who have made it their mission to assist criminal justice professionals in resolving those cases."--Arthur Eisenberg, PhD, Co-Director, UNT Center for Human Identification "Exploring the world of amateur sleuths, Halber proves to be the perfect guide: unflinching, perceptive, wry. I was hooked from page one."--Allison Hoover Bartlett, bestselling author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much "In this highly addictive story-within-a-story narrative, Deborah Halber skillfully exposes the complex Internet subculture of amateur sleuths. The people who obsess over the fates and identities of Jane and John Does are puzzles in themselves, which adds a fascinating layer to this captivating book. "The Skeleton Crew" will likely inspire many more case resolutions."--Katherine Ramsland, author of The Devil's Dozen and Cemetery Stories "From home-computer screens to a new national database, join "The Skeleton Crew" for a page-turning behind-the-scenes look at the world of Internet sleuths who give names to the men and women who have died without identity. For the first time ever, readers are brought the real-life cases of missing persons, the unidentified dead, and the network of people that gives them their names . . . proving once again what I said at the conclusion of every episode of America's Most Wanted: 'One person can make a difference.'"--John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted ""The Skeleton Crew" is a carefully crafted account of an intriguing new opportunity for arm chair sleuths. Thanks to the Internet, anyone with a computer, curiosity, patience, and a passion for justice can enter the dark world of missing persons and unsolved homicides. It's fascinating to learn how such matches are made and heartening to witness the growing cooperation between law enforcement and ordinary citizens whose persistence can sometimes crack the code in cold cases that have languished unresolved for years. I loved it."--Sue Grafton "From home computer screens to a new national database, join the Skeleton Crew for a page-turning behind the scenes look at the world of internet sleuths that give names to the men and women who have died without identity. For the first time ever readers are brought the real life cases of missing persons, the unidentified dead and the network of people that give them their names . . . proving once again what I said at the conclusion of every episode of "America's Most Wanted" 'One person can make a difference.'"--John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted "A compelling glimpse into a little-known subculture inhabited by a colorful cast of the idiosyncratic, the quirky, and the downright weird."--Alison Bass, author of Side Effects