Jennifer Fairgate Pt. One

There are a number of strange details which lead to speculation that Jennifer might have been a spy and was actually the victim of foul play, but all attempts to identify her are unsuccessful.

of the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries. It involves a woman who checked into what is probably the most luxurious hotel in Norway's capital city of Oslo, and three days later she was found dead inside a room of what appeared to be a self inflicted gunshot wound. Even though she had registered under the name Jennifer Fairgate, all the details she provided turned out to be fake and her

true ideay could not be established. Needless to say, there have been a lot of theories pushed forward about who Jennifer Fairgate really was, but one of the most prominent is that she may have been a spy who was involved in espionage, and the Unsolved Mysteries episode even explored the possibility that her suicide was staged and she was

actually murdered by an unknown party. Many of you are probably already familiar with the story of the Somerton Man at Decened, who was found on a beach in Australia seventy six years ago and was tentatively identified in twenty

twenty two. There are a number of parallels between the Somerton Man and Jennifer Fairgate, which i'll be discussing in more detail later on, but this was another case in which there were all sorts of wild theories about the victim being a spy, yet the actual truth might be a lot less complicated. So on this episode, we're going to try and figure out who Jennifer Fairgate was and the circumstances which led to her losing her life.

When you look at a case that occurred and you said, I believe nineteen ninety five, then the police and anyone who would be investigating this case eventually have to step back and not give as much attention to a case like this because there's not much to go on, and in Jennifer's case, you don't have a family and that political pressure and social pressure saying you have to help us solvet our loved one's mysterious death, you have to

help us keep looking at this. So without that kind of evidentiary perspective, and without the social and political pressure of a family and community asking for their person someone they cared about, to be identified, then it's shocking to me that we're even discussing this case. I'm excited because Jennifer Fairgate was somebody's daughter and sister and friend, but it's a really interesting case because you don't have the elements you typically have in a cold case. That's being kept alive.

of numerous requests for her to do so. The woman had exceeded her credit limit, and, since it do not disturb, side, had been hanging on the room's door since the previous morning. The hotel's receptionist asked Nas to speak with her. When Nas arrived at the room, he knocked on the door, but was startled when he heard a gunshot from inside

seconds later. Unsure of what to do, Nas hid in a concealed position for a period of time to watch the room, but when no one emerged, he took the elevator downstairs to the hotel's security headquarters and had them contact the police. The hotel's security chief went to room twenty eight oh five and knocked on the door, but received no answer. Since the door was double locked from the inside, it could only be opened by a special security key card, so the security chief used it to enter.

He then discovered the body of a woman lying face up on the bed, where the linen mattress had been soaked with blood. She was the apparent victim of a self inflicted gunshot wound, which had been fired through the center of her forehead. A browning semi automatic nine millimeters pistol was in the woman's right hand, across her chest

and her thumb was on the trigger. There were two bullets embedded in the floor, and while one of the bullets was from the fatal shot which killed the woman, the second one had been fired through the pillow, mattress and bed. Since the pillow was flipped over, it was theorized that it may have been used as a silencer for a test shot. When the Oslo police arrived at the scene, they quickly came to the conclusion that the

woman's death was a suicide. There were no signs of struggle or for sentry, and since the door had been double locked from the inside, it seemed impossible that an intruder could have exited the room and locked the door behind them, and even though the room's window was open, there was no balcony or means to use for an escape.

The woman had registered at the hotel under the name Jennifer Fairgate and listed contact information for Belgium, but things became a lot more complicated when the Oslo police got in touch with the Belgian authority about notifying next of kin. They soon learned that most of the contact info was false, and there was no record of anyone named Jennifer Fairgate, and sure enough, a search of room twenty eight oh five failed to turn up any official identification for her.

hallway and actually injure him as well. He's very well aware that there's no other way out of that room, so he's sitting there to watch no one comes out, and when he goes to the room, there's a deceased

female there with a gunshot into her forehead. Now we all know when you're talking about suicide, there's a lot of kind of trends when you look at male versus female suicides, and a shooting is a much less common method for a woman to complete suicide, especially a facial injury like that, where she can't be buried in an

open casket, those kinds of things. But what if Jennifer is doing something where no one cares, no one knows where she is, no family's going to come forward, and so she doesn't care about those things, and it really is a suicide. Is that a potential in this case?

And as we're going to go into in a little while, there's been some speculation that this woman was a spy and was involved in sp and that if she was killed by someone, it could have been a professional who locked the door behind them so that it looked like no one was ever in there. But at the outset at least, everyone just pretty much assumed it was a suicide, and that does seem like the most logical explanation. But even if it was the big mystery is who was this woman and why did she do this?

don't shoot themselves. They do, but right in the forehead it seems uncomfortable, awkward, bizarre to even hold a gun in that manner as well.

which is spelled fair Gate. I think this confusion came about. I think this confusion came about because the hotel's booking department registered her under the name Fairgate when she originally made a reservation, but she twice signed her last name

as Fergate when she checked in. Since the majority of the sources seemed to refer to her as Fairgate, that's theme I'll be using here, and of course, even though we know her first name isn't actually Jennifer, this is how we'll be referring to her for the rest of this episode. Jennifer originally phoned in a reservation to the Oslo Plaza on made the twenty second, and called the hotel again on the thirty first to confirm the reservation and informed them that she was planning to check in

that night. It's worth noting that she spoke English during the first call and German during the second call, where she also mentioned that she was planning to check in with a male companion named Lewis Fairgate. This person's first name is spelled l s, which is how we spelled the female name Lois in North America, but in French it's a male name and pronounced Lewis. Jennifer showed up at the hotel to check in at around ten forty pm on the evening of May the thirty first, and

her original reservation was for two nights. The rate for the room was one thousand, eight hundred and forty five kroner per night, which is around one hundred and ninety four dollars in American currency, but for reasons unknown Jennifer was never asked to provide a credit card, and she

did not pay anything in advance. It was also apparent that Jennifer never provided any identification, because even though the receptionist had ticked the box on the check in form where a guest is supposed to write down their passport number, no information was listed for her contact info. Jennifer did provide an address for the village of Verlaine, Belgium, which was located in the promise of Liege and had a

population of around three thousand residents at the time. However, the street name one forty eight Rue de Lastade in the postal code seven nine six eight did not actually exist. The phone number she provided was three five dash six 's eight dash three two six five four eight, but six ' eight was not Forlaine's area code, and while that six digit number did exist in two other area codes, neither of them were six eight. The phone numbers from these other area codes were later called, but none of

the people who answered knew anything about Jennifer Fairgate. On the check in form, Jennifer listed her employer as Serpuce Belgia spelled cer Bis, and it also did not exist, though there was a Belgian company at the time called

Cerberus spelled cerder Us. Jennifer's birthdate was listed as August twenty third, nineteen seventy three, which would have made her twenty one at the time of her death, but after an autopsy was performed, forensic pathologist estimated that she was likely between twenty five to thirty five years old.

one or twenty five, she's just so young. And then you look at this idea that the front desk receptionist doesn't ask for a lot of information. Not guaranteed they required it at the time because we used to be able to pay cash for a room and you make up whatever name you wanted. But Obviously Jennifer was not behaving in a way they raised any kind of suspicion. There was nothing that made her uncomfortable about running her

a room. She very calmly probably filled out all this information and didn't raise any alarms and made her need identification, Like she was smooth enough and calm enough, which then makes suicide really interesting because how long had she.

very confident to fill out this false information. So in that way, you almost feel like, did she come prepared with all these lies because they were given to her, or is it just she made them up very comfortably and didn't care, Like there are people who have no problem falsifying anything that they say, so so many conflicting behaviors almost.

five to forty years old. However, it's possible that the man was not with Jennifer when she first arrived, but was present when she went down to the lobby to make a currency exchange, about an hour and a half after she originally checked in. Whatever the case, no trace of this man could be found after Jennifer's death, and there was no record of any man named Lewis Fairgate

with Interpol or any other databases. But it was established that Jennifer received two key cards when she checked in, both of which were found inside of her room following her death. The only fingerprints which could be found in the room matched Jennifer, but when they were run through interpool there was no match and no missing persons report

on file for anyone matching her description. A review of airline passenger lists for all flights that arrived in Oslo on the night Jennifer checked into the hotel also failed to turn up any leads.

that exists. I mean, she's lied from start to finish about what she's doing there, who she is, and who she's with. So I do find it interesting that their name's match, and how did they find out the name? This is just the registration card, Like she's going to have this guest come check in with her.

on when she made a currency exchanged. But they've never established if this man ever entered the room at any point, and of course, if he was with Jennifer during or stay in the hotel, we have no idea what happened to him afterwards.

form with no real information. Some of the signs point to someone who's kind of lost touch with reality as well.

toilet trees. Or cosmetics such as a toothbrush or hair brush. But here's a full inventory of items which were found in room twenty eight oh five. At the time of her death, Jennifer was dressed in a black thigh length cotton jacket, a bra, black silk pajama shorts, stockings, and black pumps. Other items of clothing in the room were a cotton sweater, a sleeveless blouse, three light colored bras, a gray blazer, a long black leather jacket, and a

long trench coat. Curiously, other than what she was wearing, Jennifer did not have any additional items of clothing for her lower body, such as pants, skirts, or shoes. To make things even stranger, the brand tags have been removed from most of Jennifer's clothing, and the shoe manufacturer's name

was removed from the insoles of her pumps. The only item which did have a label was the blazer, which was traced to the German fashion house Renee Lizard, and it likely wasn't removed because it could have destroyed the blazer's lining. In addition, Jennifer had a gold ring on her right middle finger, which was also likely manufactured in Germany. A gold ring in her left ear and a Citizen

Aquilon diving watch on her wrist. It was determined that the Browning nine millimeter pistol was originally manufactured at a factory in Herstel, Belgium in nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, but it contained no ceial numbers, as it appeared they were burned off by acid, making the gun impossible to trace. Aside from the two bullets which had been fed, there were seven rounds inside the pistols magazine and a black bronze boofal attached. A case was found in the room

containing twenty five additional bullets, but no other items. Jennifer's other possessions included a turquoise green travel bag from the German manufacturer Travelight, as well as a nearly empty bottle of Bungaro poor lom, a cologne for men. The room also contained three empty soda bottles and an open bag of potato crisps taken from the mini bar.

to remove the identification of these designers or whatever. Or it could be as simple as back then we really didn't think about this, but a sensitivity to tags and things like that, or this kind of I don't know, she could have an OCD obsession where she needs to have the name taken off right where she doesn't like that, but to the extent of the gun has the numbers removed via acid. That's a little extreme, right, Like my late heavy buddy used to have to cut every single

tag out of his shirts. Reagan cannot have things that have tags on him. It's just this, you know, sensitivity to things. And but none of them are going to remove like burn off logos. They're simply cutting tags out. So I don't know that that's actually what's happening here, but very bizarre behavior.

that's exactly that something I want to do. I like to remove tags just because they make me feel uncomfortable, So you shouldn't really read anything into that, though I do agree like the fact that the serial number was burned off by acid on the gun is a bit unusual and does suggest that even if she wasn't a spy, that maybe she might might have been involved in criminal activity or something.

a few people don't like that sensation. I'm somebody who's quite sensitive to scratchy fabrics, so if it's a tag that's even slightly scratchy, it will be the only thing that I think of but the labels off of shoes is interesting because you're not going barefoot in a shoe, so you'd think it would almost bother you more because

they're so anchored into your shoe. You'd almost have to like cut it out, and it would maybe potentially create even more of an uncomfortable sensation because you're then exposed to other fabrics. Jennifer's official description was that she was five foot two or five foot three and weighed one hundred and forty seven pounds, and she had blue eyes surrounded by make up, and short crop black hair that

may have been dyed. She had also undergone extensive dental work done with gold and porcelain, a practice which is typically done in the United States, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Germany. The Oslo police held on to Jennifer's body for over a year in hopes that someone would come forward to identify her, but when this failed to happen, she was buried in a pauper's grave at Oslo's Vestra Grovelin Cemetery

in June of nineteen ninety six. The only people who attended Jennifer's burial were the pallbearers who carried her casket, and she did not receive a headstone. However, the case captured the attention of a Norwegian investigative journalist, Lars Christian Wegner, who would spend the next two decades chronicling Jennifer's story and trying to figure out her true identity. Unfortunately, since the Oslo police instantly concluded that Jennifer took her own life,

no homicide investigation was ever performed. The room's bedsheets or pillow were never taken into evidence, very few witnesses at the hotel were questioned, and none of the surveillance footage from the hotel's numerous security cameras were ever reviewed. While a toxicology screening was performed to check Jennifer's system for alcohol, which came up negative, they never checked for any traces

of drugs. Following Jennifer's burial, the Oslo police chief ordered the disposal of most of her personal items and other pieces of evidence, including skin samples taken from her hands and her jewelry which was sold at auction.

of things. But there's somebody that gave birth to that baby girl, and there's somebody who loved her, and so it's really sad when you step back and you think about, we really know nothing about her, and someone's going, I wonder what happened to this person that at one point I was close with and she just disappears. I mean, it seems insane when you think about the fact that I could literally just disappear and no one knows what happened to me, and they're not able to link who

I am here. It is really interesting because you know, is she on sites where people are looking for a missing loved one. Is she being kept alive in a forensic sense where they can go back and test these things? Would they go back and test these things? Or is it just people like us who are remembering how bizarre and sad it is and we're the only ones who were talking about her.

up to missing persons. And in the past several years, we've seen a number of John and Jane does finally get identified thanks to DNA and genetic genealogy, and more often than not, when they contact the victims' families, they say, oh, yeah, I remember when such and such went missing, like thirty forty years ago, and we didn't know, We didn't think that they were dead. We just figured that they kind of went off and started a new life or something

and broke off all contacts. So then it becomes a major shock to them when they find out that the loved one is buried in a pauper's grave somewhere that they're not even from. And there's a good chance that's the same thing with Jennifer's case.

had passed away. So the timing is kind of unfortunate there.

Jennifer's death, and he noticed some additional oddities. The Oslo Plaza had key cards which automatically logged a time someone used them to enter the room, and they showed Jennifer entering room twenty eight oh five total of five times during her stay. The car was first used at ten forty four pm on the evening of Wednesday, May the thirty first after Jennifer checked in, and used again at twelve twenty one am on Thursday, June the first, likely

after she went downstairs to do a currency exchange. She next used it later that morning at eight thirty five am, possibly after she left the room to get breakfast. On the morning of Friday, June the second, Jennifer appeared at the front desk in order to extend her stay at the hotel for an additional two nights, and she was then logged entering her room at eight fifty and eleven

oh three am. One of the staff members would recall having witnessed Jennifer enter her room that morning and placing a do not disturb sign on the door, where it remained until her body was discovered on the evening of Saturday, June the third. But here's where things get a bit strange.

At twelve forty four pm on Thursday, June the first, a pair of maids entered Room twenty eight oh five in order to clean it, and they can firm that no one was there since Jennifer's key card had been used at eight thirty four am, but was not used again until eight fifty am the following day. This implied that Jennifer had left her room sometime on Thursday morning and spent the night elsewhere until she showed up at

the front desk on Friday morning. However, no one could confirm Jennifer's whereabouts during this nearly twenty four hour window.

was there. Is it possible that they had their timeline wrong and that do not disturb sign actually kept them from going in that room, or is there a proof on the computer system that they used their master key to get into that room.

to talk more about this in episode two. But you might remember the episode we did sometime last year about a man named Peter Bergman who checked into a hotel in Ireland and over the course of the next few days you could see him going in and out and he was probably disposing of all of his personal items so that he couldn't be identified. So I think there's a chance Jennifer did the same thing.

The maids also noticed two doubey comforters were on the bed, but since only one of them had been used, they decided to place the second duvet inside the closet, but when Jennifer's body was found, both duvets were lying next to each other on the bed, suggesting that a second person may have stayed in the room at some point, since Jennifer never provided a credit card or paid for

the room when she checked in. A message was sent to the rooms television at two nineteen pm on Thursday afternoon requesting that she come down to the front desk to see the cashier. It was not until Jennifer returned to the room nineteen hours later when she finally hit the ok button to respond. But Jennifer never went to see the cashier, and even though a second notice was sent to the TV sometime on Friday and she responded by hitting okay, she still never showed up at the

front desk. The last confirmed witness to see Jennifer alive was an employee wh went to a room at eight twenty three pm on Friday evening to deliver some broughtworst and potato salad that she'd ordered from room service. Jennifer gave her a tip of fifty kroner, which was considered to be quite generous for a room service tip, But curiously, the employee claimed that Jennifer was dressed in a suit which resembled a flight attendant's uniform, and she also noticed

a rolling suitcase on a trolley. Neither the suit nor the rolling suitcase could be found in Jennifer's room following her death, but it's worth mentioning that the Broughtworst and potato salad the Jennifer had ordered was still there at the time she was found and had only been half eaten. The presence of the unfinished meal had been the source of confusion, as fifty milli liters of undigested food, including Broughtworst,

was found in Jennifer's stomach. This would seem to indicate that Jennifer ate something a short time before she died, even though this meal was delivered to a room nearly twenty four hours before her body was found. At seven thirty six pm on Saturday May third, the front desk receptionist notice that Jennifer had exceeded her credit limit, so she sent an urgent message to the room's TV screen

requesting that she contact the cashier immediately. Even though someone in the room responded by hitting okay, the receptionist was still concerned enough to send security upstairs to knock on Jennifer's door, and that's when espin Ess heard the gunshot At seven point fifty.

of hold up in a hotel room. It's a nice hotel, So I bet that they had, you know, microwaves and our little fridge and things like that, so she could have ordered that food, had a couple bikes and I'm like, I'm going to save it for tomorrow night, right, and had who knows what else she had in her room that she could eat. But what's very bizarre as well

is when that knock happens on the door. Right, There's all these times she's being reached out to, you need to come pay, you need to come pay, you need to come pay. Please come see us, you need to come pay. And then when they go knock, they hear this gun shot very shortly after where I mean, what would cause that? Like they just happened to be there in that one moment that she was sitting there about to end her life anyway, and then she pulls the trigger.

It's not the stress of the money necessarily, because she's clearly ordering food and paying for it. So it's just it's odd timing that that shot comes shortly after someone knocks on our door. Supposedly house cleaning had knocked, Supposedly other people had been by, and she was being communicated with or at least attempts before that. She didn't have to open the door, So why shoot yourself?

few days of my life in a luxury hotel. And then when she got the last message saying that you need to contact the cashier immediately, she realized, Oh the jig's up. They're going to throw me out of here eventually, So that could explain why she decided to shoot herself right after she heard the knock on the front door, because she feared she was going to be ejected.

finding your body, it's going to disrupt the flow of everything at the hotel. So you'd think that the one thing that you would do would be to pay your bill if you could afford it.

There were a few other odd details when Jennifer's body was found, and iron and ironing board were found inside the room, items which would ordinarily have to be ordered from the front desk, but it's unclear if Jennifer ever requested them. It appeared that a bathrobe and towel inside the bathroom had recently been used, and there was an open bar of soap and an open bottle of shampoo.

This suggested that someone had taken a shower shortly before Jennifer's body was discovered, though it cannot be determined if it was her. There was also a newspaper bag containing a copy of the USA Today paper which had the number twenty eight sixteen written on it, as well as

an unidentified fingerprint. Since it was common practice for the hotel to deliver complimentary newspapers to the guests, the bank may have belonged to room twenty eight sixteen down the hall, but by the time this was pursued, hotel registration records

have been destroyed. However, a woman who had been staying in the adjoining room twenty eight eighteen reportedly told police that she had seen what she described as a quote unquote suspicious foreign couple near room twenty eight oh five around the time of Jennifer's death, but this lead was

never followed up on. During his investigation, Lars Christian Wegner learned that a man from Belgium, whom he is only referred to as mister F, had been staying in room twenty eight oh four, directly across the hall from Jennifer during the time period he was there. Mister F was never questioned by police, but Wagner managed to track him down, and mister reff claimed that he remembered one of the employees asking him about Jennifer's death as he was checking

out the problem. Mister F said that he checked out on the morning of Saturday, June the third, and Jennifer's body was not discovered until later that evening. When Wagner pressed him about this is mister F had no explanation for this discrepancy. Even though the Oslo police destroyed a lot of evidence from the case, they still held onto Jennifer's gun, and when Wagner showed it to some weapons experts, they concluded that it was not actually an authentic Browning

nine millimeters pistol. Instead, it was made up of parts from several weapons which were produced by a Hungarian factory during the nineteen sixties and seventies, and the only part of the gun which was actually produced in a Browning factory in Belgium during the early nineteen nineties was the barrel.

not be found on it. Since a nine millimeters semi automatic weapon generally had a strong recoil, one expert believed that the gun should have fallen out of Jennifer's hand after she fired it, or at least left some scratches. Remarks when Espiness heard the gunshot after knocking on the door and headed downstairs. Room twenty eight oh five was technically left unguarded for fifteen minutes before the security chief arrived, and the Oslo police would not show up there for

at least an hour. So could an unknown party have shot Jennifer, place a nine millimeter pistol in her right hand, and then somehow manage to escape the room undetected. Well. If you watch the Unsolved Mysteries episode which aired in October of twenty twenty, it features an interview with Ola caldeger who had once been the group leader for a

section of the Norwegian intelligence Service. Caldegar found it very unlikely that Jennifer's death was a suicide, and even though Room twenty eight oh five had been double locked from the inside, he said the people who work in professional intelligence organizations would be trained on how to manipulate a door and lock it behind them without leaving any evidence.

Caldegar also said that if an intelligence agent was killed in the line of duty, it was common practice for the government to inform the agent's family about their death and take care of them financially for the rest of their lives, on the condition that they remain quiet about the situation. If Jennifer had been an agent who was murdered under these circumstances, this could explain why no one

ever came forward to identify her. Wegner made a trip to Berlain, Belgium, the village which Jennifer had listed on her registration card, but even though he circulated the composite sketch of her face among the village's residents, no one was able to positively identify her. We mentioned earlier that the address Jennifer provided did not exist, and birth records could find no listing for any village residents who were born on the date she wrote down. August twenty third, nineteen seventy three.

interesting when you look at this death here. If there's some highly trained person who would know how to manipulate these systems and could access her, it would make sense that if the family speaks, they lose their benefits, and we've already lost someone we love, we can't afford to lose the benefits too.

various reasons they have just been unable to say anything. However, well, there was nothing to indicate that Jennifer ever lived in Verlaine. There was evidence to suggest she has some knowledge of the area. While she was staying at the Oslo Plaza, phone records showed that Jennifer attempted to make two calls from from Maroon to numbers which did not exist, but the zone and area codes for these numbers did belong to the Belgian municipality of Jamape Sarsambra, located only seventeen

kilometers from Berlin. Interestingly enough, the two non existent numbers Jennifer dialed only had a one digit difference between them, which implied that she could remember the exact number and was trying different digits at random. Back in nineteen ninety five, DNA was not collected, and even though police took a blood sample from Jennifer, it was destroyed. One year after

she was buried. In November of twenty sixteen, Jennifer's body was exhumed and a full DNA profile was successfully extracted from her body. While DNA analysis could not match her profile to anyone, the results indicated that she was of the European heritage, and isotope analysis showed that she likely spent her early years living in the northern section of what was then East Germany. Additional testing was performed on Jennifer's time by a Swedish forensic expert named Henrik Druitt.

During the Cold War era between nineteen fifty five and nineteen sixty three, a lot of above ground testing was performed which involved the detonation of nuclear bombs. As a result, this increased the levels of sea fourteen in the atmosphere and wound up being incorporated in the anomal of people's teeth.

When Druid examined the sea fourteen content in the anomal of Jennifer's teeth and compared with atmospheric levels from different time periods, he came to the conclusion that she was probably born in nineteen seventy one, making her twenty four years old at the time of her death. Even though the use of genetic genealogy has led to the identification of a number of decedents in North America these past several years, the practice has not yet been used in Norway,

though the authorities are reportedly looking into the possibility. But for the moment, the woman known only as Jennifer Fairgate is still unidentified and the actual circumstances of her death remain shrouded in mystery, So I guess you count say the path went Chile.

to be doing these secret missions. Wouldn't they be looking for an agent who's older and who looks younger.

trade children like that in real life. But yeah, otherwise, it does seem weird that's someone so young would be involved in like a top secret espionage thing at such a point in their life. You would think they would have to have years of training before they could pull that off, so, needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when Unsolved Mysteries decided to feature this story on an

episode of the reboot. I had already read about the Jennifer Fairgate case on Reddit and Stephen Pacheco did an episode about her on the Trace Evidence podcast a few months beforehand, but it was great to see an unsolved mystery from Norway get worldwide exposure on Netflix because the more eyes that see Jennifer's face, the better chance there

is of her being identified. It goes without saying that the past several years have been an amazing time in the true crime world when it comes to unidentified decedents, as so many John and Jane Does have gotten their names back thanks to the usage of genetic genealogy and DNA profiling. But like I just mentioned, genetic genealogy is not a practice which is being used yet for criminal investigations in Norway, and I have no idea what the

legalities would be to implement it. However, after the Unsolved Mysteries episode came out that composite sketch of Jennifer Fairgate was circulated everywhere online, so theoretically, if someone recognized her, although would be required is for a living relative to

come forward and submit their DNA for a comparison. In July twenty twenty two, just a few weeks before I covered this case on the Trail Went Cold, it was announced that the Somerton Man had a seton who was found on a beach and the Somerton Park suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in nineteen forty eight, had finally been identified

as a man named Carl Charles Webb. Even though three and a half years have since passed, the identification has still not been officially verified by law enforcement, but the consensus seems to be that one of the most famous

mysteries of all time has been solved. Since there are so many strange details surrounding the Somerton Man's death, one of the most prominent theories has always been that he was a spy who was involved in espionage, but it turns out that Carl Webb was in all electrical engineer who once worked as an instrument maker, and there's nothing to indicate that he was involved in espionage. If he was, in fact, the Somerton Man, then his backstory was a

lot more mundane than people thought. So could the same logic apply to Jennifer Fairgate. While much like with Jennifer, all of the labels have been removed from the Somerton Man's clothing, giving off the impression that he was going to great lengths to conceal his identity. Indeed, there are quite a few cases out there involving unidentified decedents wearing clothing that had their labels removed, and it seems like this detail always prompts amateur sluice to leap to the spy theory.

criminal activity. But like we mentioned earlier, it's also possible that there's just a lot of bizarre behaviors that are happening, perhaps even things like dress up and you know, this kind of pathological lying and trying to create a life for herself that makes her feel like she matters or is exciting, and you know, it could boil down to her having a mental health issue that results in taking her own life. It's just all the little details. It seems so bizarre. We went in that room and she

wasn't there, I guarantee it. That's what the cleaning people said. And then you have where she supposedly has someone in the room with her with the same last name, she's seen wearing the flight, attend an outfit and has a roller case. It's never found where and how did all those things happen? How do you have her not coming out of that room supposedly, but people say that she wasn't in the room.

herself on fire in a probable suicide. But of course there have been a number of people who disagree without ruling and believe that she was the victim of foul play and much like Jennifer All. The labels had been removed from the Isdall woman's clothing and identifying mark removed from her personal items, so it appeared that great steps were taken to conceal her identity prior to her death. The woman had also stayed in a number of local hotels under different names, so the case has always been

surrounded by theories that she was a spy. In spite of their numerous similarities, There's probably no connection between the Isdall woman and Jennifer Fairgate given the nearly twenty five year gap between their deaths, But knowing what we do know about the Somerton Man and a number of other decedents who'd been identified over the years, it would not surprise at all if the backstories of these women turned

out to be a lot more mundane. For other examples of this, look at the cases of Joseph Chandler the Third and Laurie Erica Ruff, who are both discovered to be living understolen identities after they took their own lives.

For years, their deaths were shrouded in mystery, with online sleuths streaming up all of these wild theories about their backgrounds, such as them being spies or wanted criminals or escapees from occult but once they were finally identified, it turned out that they were just ordinary people who decided to take on new identities because they wanted to break off all ties with their old life.

They're like scratching the name off their shoes, and they're burning numbers off their gun because they're paranoid and all these things, and or there could be a reason that she needed to do those things. I am more likely to lean towards their some kind of identity break or there's some kind of mental health breakdown in this case than that she's a spy. But you really never know what could have been happening here because the police ruled it a suicide and at that point the investigation stops.

So I'm praying that you actually get this progress in the genetic genealogy in these European countries, because it literally takes one person dedicated to focusing on Jennifer's DNA and putting it through those systems, and it's a potential we could have the answers like we have here in the US of exactly who this person is. Maybe her family does know she passed away, but if they didn't, can

you imagine what it would do for somebody. This was a nineteen ninety five case that was thirty years ago, So there are still people alive today, most likely that want to know where this individual went, that she's missing and they didn't get a chance to properly bury her, and they could then exhume her body and give her that headstone, give her that funeral, give her the services they deserve, and the whole family could know what happened to their loved one.

of the puzzle together. But when you look into his backstory, he clearly had some serious mental health issues of that time, so it just seems likely that he was not involved in anything clandestine like espionage, and that he was just experiencing some mental health episode before he took his own life, and the whole thing seemed more mysterious than it really was.

And we still don't all that with Jennifer yet, but that is a possibility that a lot of these details that are so weird may be nothing more than red herrings. So this would be a good time to bring an end to part one. Join us next week as we present part two of our series about the death of Jennifer Fairgate.

the ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was the

episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.