Deanna Lee Criswell (officially known as "Jane Doe 19" until she was identified)[1] (September 20, 1971 – c. November 1987) was an American girl from Washington state who was murdered by firearm at age 16 and remained unidentified for 27 years.

[2] The Marana Police Department announced her identification on February 11, 2015, aided by the sophisticated technology of forensic facial reconstruction and DNA analysis, and by websites set up by amateurs to help identify missing and unidentified persons.

They began to search newly available online databases, focusing on unidentified persons in Arizona after learning that their niece had called her sister from Tucson in late 1987.

Her father Jerry Criswell was a trucker,[1] and her mother, who had custody of Deanna, worked two jobs to support her family.

[3] Six months before her death, Deanna ran away from home and lived on the streets, occasionally telephoning her father, but remaining estranged from her mother.

By Christmas, with no word, he attempted to file a missing person report, but local officials declined to cooperate due to Deanna's history of running away.

Police noted tire tracks at the scene, indicating the girl had been killed at another location and disposed out of sight after death.

[3] The remains were transported to the Pima County medical examiner for an autopsy, for determination of cause of death and a full description of her body.

In 1988, a person of interest was also eliminated as a suspect: Benjamin Batson, a convicted sex offender who had been seen with an unknown teenage girl, was stopped by police for a traffic violation near the location where the body was found.

[4] In 2011, further advances in technology enabled a partial DNA profile of a potential perpetrator to be generated from evidence collected from the victim's body at the crime scene.

[12] Investigators feared that Knight's death left them with a blank wall, as they could not question him to identify his potential victim, and of course could not prosecute him.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, a number of websites and organizations have been established that post material about missing or unidentified persons, to engage the power of crowd sourcing.

When they learned that Deanna had not been heard from in decades and was never officially reported missing, they began to search online databases, after their hope dwindled that their niece was still alive.

[1][15] After learning from the father that Criswell had reached Tucson, her aunt and uncle started searching databases for unidentified persons in Arizona cases.

Criswell's father had given them a photo of Deanna as a teenager, and the couple thought the image of the reconstruction resembled their niece, including the space between her two top teeth.

[10] After the pair contacted Pima County law enforcement, their staff took DNA samples from Criswell's parents to compare to the profile of the remains.