A unique investigative technique involving playing cards displaying the faces of homicide victims helped investigators in Minnesota identify a victim in a 20-year-old cold case, CBS Minnesota reported Wednesday.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) issued a certificate of thanks to Mike Doherty, a Minnesotan who used the technique launched by the BCA in 2008 to identify Deana Patnode.
Patnode is a 23-year-old friend and neighbor of Doherty’s aunt, who was last seen in a South St. Paul bar in Oct. 1982, according to the CBS Minnesota news report. Patnode’s remains were reportedly found along Highway 61 in Wabasha County, 80 miles away from the bar in 1989. They remained unidentified until Doherty volunteered information about Patnode in 2009, having happened on a card bearing Patnode’s picture and personal information online, the report noted.
“I was just a boy. My aunt had a friend named Deana Patnode. I’d always wondered, ‘What happened to Deana, what happened to Deana?’ My family was always talking about, ‘I wonder if they found Deana,'” Doherty told CBS Minnesota.
The card Doherty found online reportedly described Patnode as someone who might have walked with a limp. Doherty recalled that his aunt had told him Patnode had fallen off a motorcycle and had surgery on her leg. Doherty then contacted the police. Six months later, the investigators found Patnode’s sister in Iowa and got a hair sample from her, which proved Patnode’s identity, the report noted. (RELATED: 32-Year-Old Cold Case Solved After Already-Convicted Murderer Comes Clean)
“We never thought we’d hear anything. it’s phenomenal. We are glad she got to be one of the playing cards, otherwise she wouldn’t be identified. I know that,” Patnode’s sister said, according to the report.
But while Patnode’s identity is no longer a mystery, the circumstances leading to Patnode’s death remain under investigation.
“A lot of our leads have come up dry in this particular case. This is where we really need the public’s help to understand anything big or small,” BCA Superintendent Drew Evans told CBS Minnesota.
The deck-of-cards technique has also recorded some success in Florida and Indiana, WANE 15 reported.