Are you a Heather?
Are you a Heather?
Obituaries are, once again, the answer.
The thing about being a litigator is, if you stick around long enough, and you’re not careful, somebody’s going to try to turn you into a trial lawyer.
Nothing quite ruins your life like a jury trial. And as of September 4th, I had four scheduled between now and Valentines’ Day.
This was going to be a short bit about that investigation in Modesto, but I am deep, deep, underwater, and about to go deeper, and a how-to is a bit easier than a how-did.
Sorting through the Jessicas, Jennifers, Michelles, and Melissas
My name is unusual. Enough so that if you knew it, and you’d been reading Justin, MJ, and Kennedy’s posts carefully enough, you’d be able to get my work number and a copy of the deed to my house by the time you finished drinking an icy-cold coke zero.
But I was born into the generation of American girls where first names ran thin on the ground. Demographically, I ought to have been a member of the Jennifer-Jessica-Ashley-Amanda bloc; the successors to the Melissas, Amys, and Beths, who took over from Michelle, Kimberly, and Lisa. And on back into history.
When the subject of your research — whether a witness, suspect, or otherwise — has a common, or even generic, name, how do you sort out the wheat from the chaff? Or, select among the Heathers?
Last year, or maybe earlier, or perhaps never1, Justin and I were trying to test the truth of a rumor that a woman, key to one of our investigations, managed to changed her identity, without changing her name.
How could she do that? Plausibly enough. If her name was, say, “Heather Duke,” and she was given the third-most popular first name for baby girls, the year she was born, paired with an incredibly common last name, shared by a population about the size of the state of Wyoming.
Making things even more complex — and fucking hard to google — she shares her first and last name with a character in a popular film.2
“Heather Duke” wouldn’t have to change her name to get lost in a crowd.
How do you sort between them? How do you exclude any one Heather, from the list of Heathers?
Obituaries. It’s always going to be obituaries.
I began, where I often do, with obituaries.3 First name, last name, location, and “survived by.”
Obituaries are particularly good sources of information concerning women who were — like our Heather — born prior to 1980, and therefore, are in the demographics (a) most likely to be married4, and (b) most likely to change their names at marriage.5
Maiden names are listed in obituaries. Married names, too. Children’s names, and often, a present location.
A handful of obituaries, whether of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, over the period covered by your investigation, is often enough to sketch out a family tree, identify spouses, and guess at a person’s present and past locations, current marital status, and even hint at a separation or divorce.
With a family tree, list of relatives, and past residences, then it’s to the usual sources to find out more: Professional licenses, property and court records, social media. Old yearbooks.
And with our family trees, and timelines, yearbooks and real estate licenses, we excluded each “Heather Duke” who couldn’t have been in Sherwood, Ohio6 in 1988.
Vagueness for the purpose of mystery, and also confidentiality.
Fantastic movie, a bit dark. Not the most helpful in my ongoing life long quest to tell the difference between Christian Slater and Kevin Bacon, though.
Yes, it’s always dead people. With me it will always be dead people.
Around 80% of people born during the 1970s in the United States are presently married.
Around 15% of women in heterosexual marriages keep their names.
Yes, this is the town from the movie. I have a trial in thirty-three days. It’s just pop culture and panic, from here on out.