In June 1995, a van crashed in Greensville County, Virginia, killing the two people inside. The driver was a 21-year-old student named Michael Hager. The passenger was a young man carrying no identification. His face was significantly injured in the crash, so the only images of his face available were artistic reconstructions. In his pocket, two ticket stubs for a Grateful Dead concert gave him the name by which he came to be known: Grateful Doe. 
 
 For the last 20 years, Grateful Doe's identity has been a mystery, but now he has been positively identified using DNA analysis. Grateful Doe is Jason Callahan, an 18-year-old man who had set out in 1995 to follow his favourite band on tour around America. 
 
 This identification has come about thanks to sleuths on the Internet. It was announced on reddit and Facebook, and confirmed by a spokesperson for the Myrtle Beach police, where Callahan had grown up. "We can confirm that through DNA Grateful Doe has been identified as Jason Callahan," Lt Joey Crosby said in an email to CNET. 
 
 In January 2015, an imgur and reddit user going by the names greymetal and zombiegrey respectively posted images of Grateful Doe's facial reconstruction around both websites, along with several items that may be helpful in identification. These included the aforementioned ticket stubs, a home-made tattoo of a pentagram, and a letter addressed to "Jason". 
 
 This letter was from two girls he had apparently met at the concert, and included a phone number, but the phone number did not include an area code. It was a dead end in the search for Grateful Doe's identity. 
 
 Myrtle Beach PD 
 
 In addition, there was no missing person report, since Callahan's mother had not known with which jurisdiction the report should be filed. She had last seen him in early June 1995, when he had left to follow the Grateful Dead on tour. She had no idea in which state he had gone missing. 
 
 Not long after Grey posted on reddit and imgur, a former roommate recognised Callahan. 
 
 "After viewing this post, a wonderful user messaged me and stated that he believed he knew the young man in the photo. He told me that his name was Jason (the letter found in the vicinity of the accident was addressed to a 'Jason'). He was about 17 - 18 years of age in 1994 - 1995. The user went on to tell me that he had lived with 'Jason', and a few other friends, in Illinois in late 1994 to early 1995," Grey explained in an updated imgur post. 
 
 "In early 1995, Jason left, and the user had not heard from him since. This user went on to tell me about 'Jason'; He worked at a local McDonalds, he did not study... and he was a huge fan of The Grateful Dead." 
 
 The roommate sent through some photos, which closely resembled the reconstructions. On 10 January 2015, Callahan's mother posted to the Grateful Doe Facebook group that the reconstructions and photographs were of her son. Two days later, she filed the missing person report and, using DNA from Callahan's sister, police were able to confirm his identity and lay his case to rest. 
 
 "I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you. For everyone on this Facebook page as well as all the Websleuths and people on reddit who followed this case adamantly. Had I not found the post and reddit pages in January, I would have never known that my brother Jason was still missing, or what happened to him. Thanks to you all I was able to talk to Jason's mom and find out more about my brother who I haven't seen since I was a young girl," Callahan's sister said via the Facebook page. 
 
 "Thanks to all your hard work I was able to submit my DNA and that's what confirmed Jason's identity. I ask that you all keep Jason's mom in your prayers as she is hurting more than anyone ever should. God bless you all and thank you for helping me get some closure." ||||| Here is a composite image created by a user of the forum, WebSleuths. The similarties are certainly obvious. The user I spoke with described the Jason he knew as having quiet eyes, that they looked half shut most of the time. This is certainly obvious in the original reconstructions, and the photos provided. This lead is obviously huge. Maybe one of the biggest that investigations into this 20 year old case has had. We are following it through with relevant law enforcement agencies, as well as justice and missing persons/UID organisations. These photos have already been posted to WebSleuths. I have asked there if they felt it was important to repost the photos, and they believed it was. This case needs closure. As I have already stated, I have asked permission to post these photos. So, Imgur.. I ask this of you. Do you recognise the young man in these photos? Have you ever seen him before? Was he your neighbour, did he attend your school, did you meet him at a Grateful Dead concert? We want to know a few things for certain: 1. Is this Jason alive and well? 2. If not, is this Jason our Grateful Doe? 3. What are some more details about this Jason, that we can identify him? There are 3 possibilities: This Jason may already be deceased, and may not have been our Grateful Doe. This Jason may be alive and well, and if this is the case; I know three guys who would love to reconnect with you over a beer. This Jason may be our Grateful Doe. We may be able to put a 20 year cold case to rest. If you have any more information at all, please message me, or comment. If you are a member of the WebSleuths community, please feel free to post information there. I repeat; The Grateful Doe has not been I.D'ed. This is purely a lead. We are investigating this further, and involving relevant LE agencies. THE GRATEFUL DOE HAS NOT BEEN SUCCESSFULLY I.D'ED. Thank you again, for all of the help, support and information you have provided. ||||| RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A car crash victim who became known as "Grateful Doe" because of two Grateful Dead ticket stubs in his pocket has been identified more than 20 years after he was killed, authorities said Thursday. 
 
 DNA evidence confirmed that the man whose identity remained a mystery for two decades is Jason Callahan of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, said Arkuie Williams, a spokesman for the Virginia Medical Examiner's Office. 
 
 Callahan was 19 when he was killed in southern Virginia in 1995. His injuries made him unrecognizable and his body was never claimed. 
 
 In recent years, the "Grateful Doe" mystery captured the attention of Internet sleuths, who created pages dedicated to solving the case and circulated a computer-generated image of his face. 
 
 It was through those sites that Callahan's family recognized him and contacted authorities, said Shannon Michelson, his half-sister, who lives in New Jersey. Michelson said she's both relieved and sad that her questions surrounding her brother's disappearance have finally been answered. 
 
 "I'm glad it was solved, but I'm also incredibly sad because I wanted so badly to reconnect with him," said Michelson, who said she was among several family members who submitted their DNA to help confirm his identity. She said she had not seen Callahan since she was a child, when their father and his mother separated. 
 
 Callahan's mother filed a missing person's report for her son with the Myrtle Beach Police Department in January. 
 
 She told authorities that she hadn't heard from her son since June of 1995 when he left to follow the Grateful Dead, according to the report. Lt. Joey Crosby said she told officials that she didn't know where he had been traveling and wasn't sure where to file the report. 
 
 Callahan's mother did not immediately respond to a message from The Associated Press on Thursday. 
 
 Michelson said Callahan often ran away from home and that his parents just assumed he was living on his own somewhere. 
 
 "No one ever thought to report him missing because they thought he wanted to be missing," Michelson said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press Writer Larry O'Dell in Richmond contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Alanna Durkin on Twitter at twitter.com/aedurkin. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/alanna-durkin ||||| A recently reconstructed image of the recently-identified victim of a fatal car crash in 1995, until now known only as 'Grateful Doe' - (Source: identifyus.org) 
 
 MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – A man who was killed in a car crash in 1995 in Virginia has been positively identified as Jason Callahan, a man who was reported missing from Myrtle Beach 20 years ago. New DNA samples submitted this year confirmed the identity of “Grateful Doe,” months after efforts on social media led investigators to connect the two cases. 
 
 The Virginia Medical Examiner’s office and a representative for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS) confirmed that Callahan is “Grateful Doe,” a young man who died in a car accident in June 1995, but was not identifiable due to his extensive injures. 
 
 Earlier this year, efforts to identify the man were reignited in social media after a new image of Grateful Doe was reconstructed, giving new hope to those who have followed this case. Information was received via social media indicating that Grateful Doe may be Jason Callahan, and the Myrtle Beach Police Department worked with other agencies to collect DNA samples and link the cases. The Virginia Department of Health says Callahan died due to acute head injuries suffered in the accident. 
 
 A NamUS representative stated that a lab at the University of North Texas processed some of the DNA samples that contributed to the association of Jason Callahan with “Grateful Doe” through a multi-agency effort. 
 
 On Wednesday, the Grateful Doe community on Facebook posted the following message: 
 
 Within minutes, more than 100,000 people had seen it, and many of them had shared it with their friends. Lesha Johanneck was behind the post, which followed a few years of cyber investigating. 
 
 "It all kind of came together at once, and started going viral with the guy being Jason Callahan," Johanneck said. 
 
 Johanneck runs the Grateful Doe Facebook page, along with several others like it. 
 
 She says Callahan's case really started coming together in January, when his former roommate spoke up, leading the search for family to Myrtle Beach. 
 
 "That's when his mother posted to our Facebook page saying that's her son," She explained. 
 
 Callahan's mother went on to report him missing weeks later, which Johanneck says was the key to the case. 
 
 Johanneck believes everyone's efforts to identify him on social media, reignited the nearly two decade old case. 
 
 "You share it to one person, and they share it to all their friends, and their friends share it to their friends, it's just like a pyramid," Johanneck said. 
 
 We reached out to Callahan's family. They chose not to comment, saying they were still taking it all in. 
 
 Related Story: 
 
 MBPD investigates 'Grateful Doe' case after social media attention 
 
 Copyright 2015 WMBF News. All rights reserved.
– For 20 years, he was known as "Grateful Doe." Now, police have confirmed a man killed in a car accident in Greensville County, Va., with two ticket stubs for a Grateful Dead concert in his pocket, was Jason Callahan, a 19-year-old from Myrtle Beach, SC, who'd set off to follow his favorite band around the country. Callahan was riding in a van driven by a 21-year-old in 1995 when it crashed, killing both of them, per CNET. The driver was quickly identified, but Callahan was carrying no identification and his face was left unrecognizable. Police had to rely on artist reconstructions in the hope that someone would identify the man who had a tattoo of a pentagram and was carrying a letter addressed to "Jason." Users on a cold-case site started checking for possible matches in missing persons' reports beginning in 2005, per the Washington Post, but the case was finally cracked open this past January. An Australian Reddit user started circulating Grateful Doe's reconstructions, which were seen by 500,000 people, including Callahan's former roommate. He "messaged me and stated that he believed he knew the young man in the photo" and had lived with him "in Illinois in late 1994 to early 1995," the user wrote in an Imgur post. The roommate shared photos of Callahan, which were posted to a Facebook group, and Callahan's mom soon confirmed they were of her son, per WMBF. She told authorities she never filed a missing persons report because she didn't know which state her son was last in. His parents figured he was living alone somewhere, says Callahan's half-sister, who submitted DNA to confirm Grateful Doe's identity, per the AP. "Had I not found the post and Reddit pages in January, I would have never known that my brother Jason was still missing, or what happened to him," she adds. (Check out another intriguing mystery that may have finally been solved decades later.)