(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- I am Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support W CTE, the upper Cumberland's own PBS station because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding.

When I support WCTE, I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Narrator] The law offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

(soft music) - In this episode of Where Stories Live, we take a fascinating look into the life and legacy of Todd Matthews, of Livingston, Tennessee, and how he went from factory worker to missing persons expert almost overnight.

During our interview, Todd credited his personal experiences and deep curiosity from an early age as a driving force that led him to become a leading voice in the crime community.

It was during these early years that Todd launched his CSI type career by solving a 30 year old cold case mystery.

It started as a ghost story about an unidentified female found dead wrapped in a tent because of Todd's tenacity, doors opened, which no one could imagine being opened.

And he became a national icon earning the title, first person to use the online tools to solve a cold unidentified remains case.

Who could have known that a crime that occurred before Todd was born would lead him to pioneer the internet's sleuthing community by building an online presence that could identify missing and unidentified persons through private and government programs, and make him a leading consultant with some of the leading producers of television entertainment as John Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf, let's hear from Todd in his own words, how this fascinating career took shape.

- Well, I was born and raised in Urbiton county on the same property that I live at today.

(upbeat music) ♪ Farther along, we knew all about it, ♪ ♪ Farther along we'll understand why ♪ - We've had good years for many years now, but there were bad years that we had to deal with death when I was two, when my sister died, she died within minutes.

My brother was born in the mid seventies and he probably lived two days.

How I knew my brother and sister was a name on a tombstone.

That's how I knew 'em and we mowed the cemetery that we, we owned the cemetery, it's a little country cemetery.

So they were, I had a physical connection to them because they were there.

That was hard, you know, that was where I think a lot of the empathy came from, because I knew what it felt like.

That made me not fear death.

I wasn't really that fearful of it.

I was used to it.

I was accustomed to it.

So it really didn't surprise me when I work on the things that I work on now, I already know what it feels like, I already know.

So I'm not, it's not unfamiliar, it's not morbid.

It's a process of life that has to be done.

I was always a very curious kid growing up and, you know, that kind of gets you in trouble.

But I was very limited in what I could do now, being not very healthy growing up, I was very, very limited.

So I always wanted to find a way to break those bounds just a little bit, sneak off, do something I know I'm not supposed to do, but not in a bad way.

It might be something that's normal for you, but it was a treat for me.

In life, I think I was wherever I had to be, whether it be behind the scenes, watching, caring, guiding, or leading the charge, it's just whatever you heard, the term, whatever it takes.

When I first met my wife, and I'm at Livingston Academy today, and she came out of the office and I saw her and her two sisters, and I told my friend, he was sitting right beside me, I said, "That's a girl I'm gonna marry."

And I don't know why I said that.

It just like it rolled out.

I recognized her and I don't know how I recognized her, but I knew that was the one and I don't know how.

(upbeat music) I had a study hall that was, we didn't study.

We played cards, we talked and it was Halloween of 1987, and the girl that was gonna be my wife said, I guess we should talk, she knew too.

She told me the story of the tent girl.

The tent girl was a Jane Doe that was found by my father-in-law in a canvas tent wrapper.

That was the name they gave her.

It's the only name that she had was Tent Girl, 1968 on the side of the road, murder victim.

♪ In the deep, dark hills of eastern Kentucky ♪ - And that story was like her, familiar, I felt like I knew it.

I had heard that story before.

I don't know where from, I was 17.

I don't know how I would've known anything about it.

But some of the things that I really thought about in the beginning ended up to be true in the end, the tent girl, I think there was a lot of, there was a series of events that prevented her from being identified.

There was no medical examiner system in Kentucky at the time and actually her case was one of the reasons why they developed one at that point.

And she was reported missing in Florida.

The family last knew where she was, was in Florida with her husband and children, and they had relocated to Lexington, Kentucky.

So they really didn't know exactly where to report her.

So that report never really made it back to Kentucky as it should have been, you assume it did, but it didn't.

There was no electronic transfer of data at the time.

So Kentucky was looking within, mostly within Kentucky for a missing person and a missing persons to report in Florida, they would have no reason to connect it to a case in Kentucky that they'd never heard of.

That tent girl was my college, literally, she was my college, I didn't know it at the time.

It was very difficult.

It took 10 years of going through the process of these newspaper articles, this and that.

And then finally the internet came along, and I could do it instantaneously.

I could connect with television stations in Lexington and tempt 'em to write another story or run it again, do it this way, from the research with the tent girl, I learned that it's not always what you read, there are, you know, especially in cases that are older, they don't necessarily know that.

I think with the tent girl case, originally it was somebody who saw a small person.

She must be a child and it is just like it, sometimes what you read, you think it's gospel, but it's an opinion of a layman.

There are cases where the causing manner or death was suicide death from a fall.

How, how do we know that?

We don't know that.

Show me how you know that and then we change it.

And suicide is very hurtful for a family, that's a stigma.

So to go back and say, "Okay, you have a causing manor of death."

No, you don't, sometimes it's better to say undetermined.

♪ And it's there I read on the hillside gravestone ♪ ♪ Saying you'll never leave Harlem alive ♪ - Once word got out about Todd's armchair detective work in the late 1990s, there was no turning back.

Todd became known as the expert, but more than that, he became known as a person that would have compassion for the family and respect for the missing.

He reminds us of his own experience of losing two siblings at an early age, and how that gave him the courage to feel sadness and loneliness, allowing him to put himself in the shoes of those family members.

He says it's what prepared him to help others get through the dark times so they can begin their own healing, years devoted to solving cold cases, piecing the puzzles together keeps Todd busy, and while some cases were solved and others still cold, he is quick to say that he will never give up hope on a missing person.

But he also knows that his work provides closure for those families, and that can be just as important.

We sat down with two family members who have relied on Todd to help them with their cold cases, and they describe Todd as a friend and someone who cares during those dark times when you don't know which way to turn, the families say that Todd provides them hope that sometimes can be missing from traditional law enforcement practices.

And if nothing else, Todd gives the families the opportunity to give their loved ones a proper burial and a final resting place.

- Yeah, Vickie had, she was, I was 10 at the time and she had disappeared.

♪ I have troubled my soul doing things I can't control ♪ ♪ Awaiting my next foolish blunder ♪ - She'd run away before, but she'd been found in Florida, but she'd run away and this time she'd been missing for a while.

So some Guardsmen were on a break and they found her body at the banded rock quarry up on Rock Crusher Mountain.

- So after the tent girl, we were watching 48 hours, and it was 1998 when all of this was wrapping up and the town was watching it with us, you know, people had heard that this story was going on, and a couple of days later, I got a knock at the door, and it's a police officer, it's Ryan, you know, the boy I knew in school, he had long hair and skull bits.

He's all trimmed up and he's an officer and I thought, "Why is he here?"

- Well, she was, you know, she was my big sister.

I mean, she was just somebody that I looked up to, you know, that protected me, so it was, I think it, I was stunned then, you know, I was just kind of just numb, you know, I know that, I don't know if that's cliche or not, but I was just numb.

- And he had seen that show and he said, "I feel like you can take me outside of the bounds of law enforcement to help me with my sister's case."

I knew of his sister's case.

I'd heard bits and pieces of it, nothing I thought I could do about it.

But then I realized that's what's missing in your life.

That's who you are.

♪ And I tried to tell myself ♪ ♪ It's in the hands of someone else ♪ ♪ While living in a world of wonder.

♪ - I can't remember if there were dental records on it, but we, they were kind of sure it was Vickie's body, you know, with the dress, the clothing that was there, et cetera.

- From there, it was an unsolved case.

You know, a lot of people had a lot of different stories, and we've had to go through many, many, many rabbit holes trying to at least piece something together.

- I think my mother had identified her, I don't know her skirt.

- Needed answers that he couldn't get through normal police process.

I don't have a policy and procedure in place.

I can do what I want to, I don't have to do it a certain way.

I do what my gut tells me to do.

And the first thing to do was, we have to dig her up.

Can you do that?

And he said, yes.

He was willing to stand there and do it, and he did.

- You know, I wanted the body up for one reason, and one reason only really was if you fall in here, you can break a bone, let alone 110 feet.

- We, by far didn't get anything that we needed to know from Vickie, everything, at least we did clarify a few things, we know better that things have maybe done wrong or maybe they didn't understand and one thing we did do, one thing I think meant a lot to her mother after her death, many, many years later, she had a gift for her.

She wanted us to wrap her and a comforter.

How often did you get to give somebody that died 25 years earlier a physical gift that goes with them?

It went back into the casket with her back into the ground, and she's wrapped up in it.

So her mother got to have something, she got to have some type of exchange with her through us.

We were able to do that, you know, so it's having one foot in the world of the dead and one foot in the world of the living.

That's just how it works for me.

- So there were several theories that Todd and I talked over about, was she pushed?

Was the body planted there?

Did she die somewhere else?

Was it planted there?

I don't think she jumped, I don't think there's any proof of that.

Did she come off the cliff?

Maybe.

There's actually a person I'd interviewed that was an officer there.

Rick Savage had seen her hands tied like this.

Now, do you commit suicide and jump off a bluff with your hands tied, you know, with a pair of gym shorts?

So.

- Instead of people asking me, what about this, what about that and I thought, you know what, I'll tell you what I know and what we don't know.

So we wrote articles to do that.

So I kind of put that out there, and that's what I could do for Vickie.

If I can't solve her case, if I can't bring anybody to justice, at least I can put it in a package.

- I owe Todd a debt that I can't pay.

He's the only person that lifted a finger to help me.

- I don't mean to feel like he couldn't do for his sister what he wanted to do.

He did everything he could, and that's fine.

Sometimes it has to be enough and to tell him, or had to be satisfied with what we got, it's been a long time, you know?

So I think I did everything that I could possibly do, unless we get some kind of hot tip that comes in that we can go down another rabbit hole, we'll try it.

I'm always ready.

- I keep shaking that tree.

Maybe something will fall out of it, you know, even today, I'll put it out there, you know.

♪ Up above the darkened cloud, there's a light to be found ♪ ♪ Or high above the lightning and the thunder ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, hear my plead, won't you help my eyes to see ♪ ♪ I am living in a world of wonder ♪ - In 2021, my nephew Josh Bohannon went missing.

♪ I love with all my heart, there is no way of stopping ♪ ♪ I have no way to stopping ♪ ♪ I just love with all my heart ♪ ♪ Through the broken and the beautiful ♪ ♪ The bad news and the good news ♪ ♪ Bad news and the good news is I love with all my heart ♪ - And it was a couple days after he was missing.

We were at Burgess Fall State Park, and, but you didn't have phone service down there.

So I had called Todd that morning and he was returning my phone call.

- She contacted me, and of course she didn't feel out they were looking for him as much as they should have, he had a criminal record.

He'd been in trouble, but he was a missing person.

He's somebody's baby and he was her nephew and she helped care for him.

I even saw him as a child, I can remember back, I didn't know him really personally, but I remember him as a child.

- I told him about Josh missing because I'm thinking I can get some help from Todd because Todd has worked with this.

You know, my first instinct was the tent lady.

- Now, something about his case, it wasn't just he was missing.

He was very, very, very, he had diabetes very, it was horrible.

We knew if he did not have his medication within 48 hours, he would be dead, so missing and probably dead.

So they knew after that period of time, and Vickie, she couldn't get enough done.

She didn't feel like she could get enough done.

Maybe she didn't get enough done.

People are not following the procedure as much, she said, "Can you help me?"

and it's like, "Yeah."

- What can we do?

How do I go about this?

You know, you're not giving manual on a missing person, what you supposed to do next and all that.

So he told me to get, let's get him into, NamUs, the database.

And it usually takes, I think he said 30 days, but we had Josh in there within like two weeks.

He was found March 18th, 2022 at Wende Cliff State Park in a cave.

- She had questions, you know, when a body's found their idea was a body was found, it wasn't a body, it's remains.

And I think their vision of her body as a full body at the time, it was partial remains.

It was remains that had been out there for a long time.

So I don't think they were prepared for what they would've had to have seen.

- When we got Josh back, I called and asked Todd to, I said, "I know you've know how this works.

I want you to go to the funeral home to look at Josh's body."

And he did that for us.

So we didn't have to do that part.

He was there for us.

And I don't know what we have done without him.

♪ And a happy man will fill my tears with gladness ♪ - So helping him through that type of thing, like, here's what's coming next, you know, I'm not, I don't know exactly what they're personally enduring at the time, but I've seen it with so many people.

Like, there's phases of this.

You're gonna feel this and this and this and this.

So I kind of have an idea of where they're gonna be going next.

And sometimes I introduce 'em to somebody that has went through something similar that's way down the road and have better accepted what's happened.

- My thing about it is, is we may not ever find who did this to Josh, but I would like to bring out the awareness, to help another family not have to go through what we did - Like Vickie says, "I don't want this to happen to anybody else."

And that's very unselfish.

Not everybody does it that way, but Vickie says, "Even though I had this, nobody should have to feel like this.

And what can I do to change it?

", she's already lost him.

♪ And only when I'm looking back ♪ ♪ I see the straightened arrow.

♪ ♪ I see the straightened arrow when I walk a crooked road ♪ (soft music) - It became apparent to Todd that there was a missing link to solving cold cases, which he described as the inability to connect or to communicate efficiently or effectively.

When agencies don't have a way to share data or information, cold cases stay cold and information is lost.

It was during this time that Todd met with lawmakers and lobbyists to change the laws that would help develop processes and procedures using the common database.

The database site would house information on missing and unidentified bodies, not just for law enforcements and investigators, but for family members who are looking for clues.

Todd also founded the DoeNetwork and became the director of case management and communication for NamUs, the national online database for missing and unidentified cases.

From there, he piloted efforts to coordinate data exchange between NamUs and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Let's hear from John Mark Windle, an attorney and lawmaker at the Help Todd see his dream of making law come true.

- Some of the things I wanna change, and it started here at home.

There was no policy and procedure.

There was no forced way of, we need to all do this the same way, you know, we implied it, you know, with the DoeNetwork, we were kind of set in a standard, but it wasn't working fast enough, it had to be done faster.

So when the federal government recognized like, that might work, you know, and I've become part of that working group, we built a database that NamUs, which is the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, but it wasn't being used, and I don't want to say that it was refused, like law enforcement didn't refuse to use it.

And I've had people that had a harsher stance on that, but they, maybe they don't know how.

Maybe there's nothing to initiate that.

Maybe there's no mechanism to cause this to happen.

New York was working with me on a state law that would require the use of NamUs, you know, they were very progressive, and it's like, yeah, it was, they did it one at a time, like first for the missing, and then they come back and added unidentified to it.

So I took this, I go to John Mark Windle, he's was a state representative down here in my hometown.

- I first saw what Todd was doing when I read that he solved the first crime inside cyberspace.

And connectivity was even an issue at that point in Upper Cumberland.

We weren't as connected to the internet and to the worldwide web as other locations in America and across the world.

But Todd was certainly a pioneer of cyber sleuthing.

And I heard that fairly early and followed him fairly early because it was a hometown boy done good.

- And John Mark was nervous, he said, "I don't know if they're gonna pass it."

So we had to go talk to every one of the representatives that we could get to, and I would explain it to 'em.

The more conservative was, how much is this gonna cost us?

Well, my answer was, "Well, you've already paid for it.

You bought lunch and somebody else is eaten it."

Well, that changes everything.

And I was there the day the vote came, sweating bullets, you know, 'cause I thought, "I'm right here in this chamber."

and the lights were going green, green, green, green, and it's unanimous.

- I still think there's some apprehension or a misunderstanding of what exactly what groups like the one that was supported by Depart of Justice is trying to do.

But I mean, we've still got a ways to go, but he's made strides.

And I think that there's a lot more we can do to help families stricken with grief to try to resolve that.

If we can get the agencies to cooperate.

- I've literally had cases where a person was missing in one county, found deceased in another, and it'd be decades because they hadn't talked to each other.

Maybe they thought they had no reason to talk to each other.

Now all we do is talk to each other, I'm afraid.

- It was very important because the not knowing will eat you alive, not knowing where he's at.

You just sit and wander.

It goes over and over in your head, if he was cold or if we'd ever be able to find him.

But that part did give us closures to have a place to go.

Knowing that where he was finally at, that really did help our family.

- That's what I wanna change next, I wanna go back and, you know, 12 states at Pine State Law, since then, using the models that we created in New York and Tennessee.

And every time ones solved or we have some resolution, it's a drive to, let's do it again.

- It's of great importance because nobody's, you know, he's kind of standing in the gap.

There's not many Todds out there.

- I still think that they don't, that there's a pushback on working with groups that don't, that they don't see as part of the, they don't carry a badge, I mean, which makes no sense to me.

- For me, it's a growing process and now it's a growing old process.

And to be able to do that for people, sometimes you have to take a walk in the valley of the shadow of death, you know?

But I get to come back.

♪ Is there a read on the hillside gravestone ♪ ♪ Said you will never leave Harlem alive ♪ - Todd Matthews, a local with no formal detective training, was able to find his voice during the early stages of the internet when dialup was a real thing and solving cold cases required digging through old newspapers and microfish.

Things are a bit different now.

But Todd continues to be an advocate for the missing and unidentified using the DoeNetwork, and by pushing for more policies and procedures.

With more than 20 years of work under his belt, Todd hasn't stopped.

His awareness is still shaping the forensic community, and he still has people showing up on his doorstep with the hope that their loved ones will be found alive.

We hope you've enjoyed our show on Todd Matthews.

I'll see you next time when we go where stories live.

(soft music) ♪ And the sun comes out about 10 in the morning ♪ ♪ And the sun goes down, down, down, about free every day ♪ ♪ And you fill your cup, go on and fill it up ♪ ♪ With whatever bit of brew you're drinking ♪ ♪ And you spend your life digging cole ♪ ♪ From the bottom of your grave ♪ (upbeat music) - I am Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support WCTE, the Upper Cumberland's own PBS station.

Because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding, when I support WCTE, I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Narrator] The Law Offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.