Transcripts For MSNBCW Dateline 20240703

We all came together to have identification to identify jane doe. Theres a passion to try and find out who our doe is. To try and think what if this was your family. You want to give them closure. Two homicide detectives. Its way above our heads. And i said i think i know how we can do it. All of these people share some amount of dna with the unknown person. We thought, this is the family. This is it surreal. It felt like someone just punched me in the stomach. Its a funny thing, isnt it . That it would be important to have a stone with your name on it. It is written on stone. Youre never forgotten. Hello and welcome to dateline in many cold cases, a grieving family is desperate to find their loved ones killer. But this mystery was not a whodunnit. The killer eventually confessed to the brutal crime. But who did he murder . That question haunted a small texas town for more than 12 years. Until a team of tenatious strangers put a name to a face. Heres Keith Morrison with the woman with no name. Here is where they put her. Her permanent home. No one really knew anything about her. This Little Cemetery in east texas. One simple marker on her grave. And the name that was not a name. Jane doe. It makes it personal. Because it makes you think, what if this is your family . What if this could be your friend . She . Who was she . This impossible enigma. How is it that a young woman can disappear and die. And no one can figure out who she is . The question that kept them glued to their computer. Participating in Something Like this can be almost consuming. It can really drain us. The obsession. I was hooked i was absolutely hooked this is where it began. October 29th, 2006. Kilgore texas. Two men out target shooting not far from town. They smelled it first. Then they saw it. Something burning. It looked like a mannequin. The men approached. What was that . And then, they recoiled. That was a young woman. Dead and burning we have homicides just like the rest of the world. As far as trying to burn the body . That really struck fear in people around here. Lieutenant eddie hope was still a sergeant back then. Grey county sheriffs department. She had wood piled beneath and on top of her. And there was a gas can lid there. So, it looked like somebody was trying to cover their tracks. She was meant to be part of one big bonfire and disappear forever . Right. The officers who responded, noted every detail they could. That she was young, late teens early 20s. And she was little. Maybe 54, 100 pounds. She was wearing jeans, a pale shirt. The color of lavender. 44 in her pocket. And this was unusual, baby teeth she still had a few. She never lost them. They said that that was highly unusual. Gives you something to work, with anyway. A little bit. Other than that, the young woman was impossible to identify. She had been murdered, of that there was no doubt. Her last moments had been very bad. But in most homicide investigations, Detectives Burrow deep into the life of the victim. Talk to every friend, interview the family. Find out about scorned lovers. Or past mistakes. That is often how murders get solved. But in this case, none of it was possible. We did not have a clue. What could you do . Nothing. If we got tips, we ran them down. Because we had no grounds to know who this could be a where she comes from. They read her dna profile did not match any person. Not known anyways. But the autopsy revealed seamen in her body. And it did match someone. A known, local sex offender. So they called him in. And he admitted he had sex that day with a woman whose name he did not know but he did not kill her. And he had an alibi too. So that was that. We would get people off the internet that would say, i think this might be so and so. And we would follow up on that. What we were thinking out about the time is maybe she is not from here because nobody is missing her here. And so, the county paid for a burial plot. And a little marker on the ground above her body. A small headstone, that just reads jane doe. There is no information we knew on her. And then winter came. But they did not give up. A texas ranger who sometimes worked with them said maybe he could help. And he was able to fly in an artist to try to reconstruct what our victim looked like in real life. And here it was. But it produced no leads. The county even made a clay model using an xray of the victims skull. Including those baby teeth. Sent it around the local media. Still, nothing. And detective work . It is an unending drum. It beats at all hours of the day and night. Felonies, misdemeanors. The lot. Demanding attention we have cases every day. You know, we had three or four cases each a day. They did not forget her as they went about their work. But the young woman remained nameless. No matter how many trails they followed. That just went on for years. Its all we had. A little bit here, a little bit there. Not much. No. No solution . No solution. No name. And then . Something unusual happened. The little details, like the baby teeth, caught the eyes of an amateur Internet Investigators on sites like reddit, and web sleuths. Before too long, they began referring to the Mystery Woman with kinf of shorthand. It was the color of her shirt that did it. One of those Armchair Detectives took to calling her, lavender lavender doe. This was the case that was followed online very closely by many people. People like this guy. And, what happened after that . Well. Remember what we said about obsession . A Murder Victim without a name. And detectives without any clues. Making this a very hard mystery to solve. But help is on the way coming up. I spent a lot of my spare time looking into a Missing Persons cases. I was impressed that people cared. Cared, and knew how to help. I said i think i know how we can do it. She said bingo all we need is dna. 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Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Tomorrow, and a decade went home of the xfinity 10g network. By. But 11 years after the murder of a young woman they called lavender doe, and more than 200 miles from the spot where her body was found, in the town of killeen, texas. A man was feaverishly at work. It wasnt his profession that work that consumed him. Not yet at least. I kind of spent a lot of my spare time looking into Missing Persons cases, really just trying to kind of flesh out the stories of some of these lesser known cases. His name is kevin lord. He is, well, many things. A former software developer, a tshirt salesman, a passionate and Loyal Consumer of all things true crime. He wasnt an investigator or a Law Enforcement officer, just someone plagued by unanswered questions. I was looking for jane does in the area in texas. That might be a match to one of these missing girls. And thats how we came across hundreds of pages of online forms, about a Mystery Woman nicknamed lavender doe. Could she be one of the missing woman he was trying to locate . And so, kevin called the gregg county sheriffs department. And found himself on the phone with a lead detective, lieutenant eddie hope. I was glad people cared. Because we live in a world where a lot of people are just worried about themselves and not others. And here was evidence that maybe there are people yes. Some other investigator might have blown off. Just as other civilian with an Internet Connection and a theory. But kevin seems to know what hes doing, and his internet skills, way beyond what Lieutenant Hope could do. And before long, they didnt actually meet in person, they began acting almost like partners. We just flew together. Whatever he needed, that he couldnt get that i could get, Law Enforcement wise, he would send it to me. He kind of meshed together these bits of information. Yes. And two things happened. One, kevin realized lavender doe was not one of the missing woman hed been looking for. And two, he got hooked on the case of the girl in the lavender shirt, but he kept hitting dead ends. He needed some specialized help, very specialized. I reached out to Dna Doe Project to see if i might be able to come out as a volunteer. The Dna Doe Project, a nonprofit founded by a former Rocket Scientist named Colleen Fitzpatrick and novelist and genealogy enthusiast margaret press. I barely knew what john and jane does meant, but i had been retired for about a year and come back to the west coast to be near my daughter and grandchildren and to relax. It was winter 2017, when margaret, not the retiring type, was struck with an idea. Shed already been deeply immersed in genealogy. Helping adoptees find their birth parents. If i can figure out jane doess parents, will know who jane doe. Margarets plan . Obtained remains from jane and john those retest their dna and upload their results to a public database, where maybe that dna would lead them to some relative of their victim. So i had my recipe, and i reached out to colin and i said we know how to do it. And she said bingo, all we need is dna. And i know a couple of people. At first, they paid their dna test with their own saving. And then they set up a nonprofit, and started taking donations. And after just six months, they solved their first case. The mystery surrounding a few weeks later, another case made headlines around the world, showing the power of genealogy. Police arresting a man they believe is a golden state killer, and the suspect a former police officer, discovered using dna. That one to change the world because that was a violent killer, and that was a huge impact on the world, on the community. Sure. It opened everybodys eyes. Yeah. And suddenly, colleen and margaret had company. Geneologists just came out of the woodwork, and i could see us as a very unique organization where Law Enforcement agencies could come to us with their bones and no money, and we could bring in Volunteer Genealogists who were begging to help us. What you could bring to this process is a crowd sourced investigation like you know a bunch of bees forming a hive and disperately they are not gonna do much but all together, they could really accomplish something significant. Right, exactly. Kevin lord one of those bees. He joined Dna Doe Project as a volunteer, and then others followed. Kind of a mini hive, looking for the truth about a Mystery Woman they called lavender doe. Coming up, the bees get busy. We spent hours working together, talking to each other. Oh my gosh, did you see this . And what about . This was this . Whos this guy . Were kind of the last resort. When dateline continues. Ontinues were traveling all across america, talking to people about their hearts. Hows the heart . 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Who labored away in a kitchen, or a bedroom, or a basement. Who knew each other only online. Like lori gaff. A former blackhawk helicopter pilot, who stumbled on facebook posting about dna doe. I was completely enthralled and me being me, had to know everything about it. And i thought, i totally want to be part of this. And was soon addicted. It will consume your life if you let it. So, ive been making and effort to kind of set limits. One hour turns into ten, pretty quick, i would think . Ten might be a slow day. This has become an obsession. Then there was missy koski. A selfdescribed search angel, who use Genetic Genealogy to find her biological father. What was that like to find him . It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible. So, she began helping other adoptees find at their birth parents. And one day, while i was helping an adoptee, that adoptee got a phone call from the Dna Doe Project. And she was told that she was distantly related to a jane doe. I just got intrigued. And i said, can i talk to them . Before long, missy was hooked, too. And the three, kevin, lori and missy, formed a team. So you are like the three musketeers sitting there together. We spend hours working together, talking to each other, almost exclusively on line. And we just get in there and blab all day long about, oh my gosh, did you see this . And what about this . And where is this . Whos this . I cant find this . Whatever. Back in gregg county, after more than a decade chasing leads on lavender doe, Lieutenant Hope understood that investigations had changed. Genealogy is the way of the future. To us homocide detectives, its way above our heads. To be honest with you. So, you welcomed their help. We did. And across the country, someone else had taken notice of the amateur investigators working with dna doe. I liked to write about how ordinary people and see how genealogy are dealing with the. Is a staff writer for the atlantic magazine. I like the fact that kevin was so invested in this case. Passion like that was a story worth following. And she did. Watching their process. For one thing, using the victims skin, hair or blood generated the dna profile. Which they have little to a genealogy site called gen match. We get a whole list of dna matches that in all of these people share some amount of dna with our unknown person. Its important to understand the volunteers work with public dna data bases. And where it is all this dna material come from that youre able to look at . So, these are all people who have taken tests with Companies Like ancestry dna or 23 and me. The consumer test. And who have given access to others to view their results. Thats a relatively tiny percentage of the population, so the odds of finding an exact match . Vanishingly small. But just by the pure probabilities, were often lucky enough to get a decent enough match. By decent match, he means a distant relative. Someone who likely doesnt even know the victim. We kind of look for a match thats in the neighborhood of maybe a second or third cousin or so is a good Starting Point. A Starting Point to work, backwards, and try to reconstruct branches of the family tree. By scouring the internet, mining any every possible bit of information from Birth Certificates to death notices, to marriage licenses, to social media. Where the heck do you find all this stuff . I mean, you must spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, in front of a Computer Screen trying to find it . And lots of money. Yeah. The Dna Doe Project made a new sketch and they put it up on line. They added a Paypal Button to raise money for that test. For lavender does dna. And pretty soon, the Online Community that followed the Lavender Doe Case answered the call. And within four days, the public had come through and completely funded the testing that we had to do. But before they could even get the test sent out, something very unexpected happened. I get a call from Lieutenant Hope that the Sheriffs Office saying that he has big news. What could that be . Coming up thats why i wanted to get this off my chest. I let him talk. He left no detail out. A break in the case and a frustrating discovery. We found that there were 27 First Cousins whoa. Where are they . Who are their children . Are they alive . What can we find . When dateline continues. My Mental Health was much better. But i struggled with uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia. Td can be caused by some Mental Health meds. And its unlikely to improve without treatment. I felt like my movements were in the spotlight. 1prescribed ingrezza is the only td treatment for adults thats always one pill, once daily. Ingrezza 80 mg is proven to reduce td movements in 7 out of 10 people. People taking ingrezza can stay on most Mental Health meds. 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Israel said sunday it has restored water to some parts of gaza, but nbc news has been unable to confirm this. Now back to dateline. To dateline welcome back to dateline. Im andrea canning. It had been 12 years since the burned body of a young woman was found in excesses field. She was known only has lavender doe, a reference to her purple shirt. Her true identity was a mystery. When that transfixed a team of amateur cold case sleuths. Now, a stunning confession was about to send their mission into overdrive. Heres Keith Morrison with the woman with no name. It was hot that texas summer of 2018. The summer the Dna Doe Volunteers spent their time inside staring at their computer streams, trying to identify lavender doe. But they hardly started, when kevin lord got a call from eddie hope. A young woman named Felisha Pearson had been reported missing by her family. She was last seen with a new boyfriend who told them she left him, just went away. They spoke with her mother. And we learned there was a wooded area inside of longview that he had taken to before, and thats what we found felisha. Murdered, there was no doubt about the victims identity, and no question with a Prime Suspect was. Her violent ex con boyfriend. Joseph wayne burnette. Lieutenant hope knew the name. The same man who seaman had been found 12 years before in the body of lavender doe. He was arrested. He was brought into the gregg county jail. Two detectives questioned burnett, he admitted killing felicia. But that wasnt all. He started talking about the girl he killed and burned several years ago. A burned girl. . By the way, detectives called hope. You are on the way home . It must have been good to hear. Didnt take me long to get back. I just let him talk. He said if it happened yesterday they left no detail out. Thats when i went down and grabbed a rope, but around her neck. It took seconds. She never saw it coming. A rope around her neck. It only took seconds. As soon as i choked her, she just quit moving. He confessed to killing her, but there was something else. Personally, i dont know her. I think her name was ashley. He thought her name was ashley. He wasnt really sure of that. Just the first name, ashley. Maybe. But even if ashley was a real first name, that didnt solve the mystery. We had a confession we still dont know that this person was its not how its supposed to go. Despite his confession, burnett pleaded not guilty. Justice for a victim still labeled lavender doe in Court Documents would take some time, time volunteers couldnt waste. That made it a lot more real and put more weight behind what were doing. Who was lavender doe . That was what was left at that point. Lavender doe retested dna returned from the lab on october 2018 and the team want to work looking for potential relatives. Just nine days later, they found one. A woman in east texas, right near the spot where lavender doe was found. I contacted Lieutenant Hope. I told him we have this descendant who lives about 30 minutes from where lavender doe was found, i cant tell you exactly how shes related but it seems that could be a huge coincidence if she wasnt fairly closely related. This had to be immensely exciting . We thought this is the mom. This is the family. This is it. And so of course, Lieutenant Hope with a brandnew optimism, drove out to see her, and he came out empty. The woman had no missing relatives, and no idea Who Lavender Doe might be. It must have been disappointing . It was. You thought you were on something and you werent . You get your hopes up and youre let down. That had been happening for 12 years. I was saying, no, no, no. Shes lying, shes lying this is it. When youre researching family from another part of the country, and all the sudden you find this relative in the right spot, in the right place at the right time. It has to be. Then it dawned on them, the woman wasnt lying and there was still a chance she could help. Kevin had a hunch. Perhaps, she knew something without knowing she knew it. What did she know . She told us that she did not know Who Lavender Doe, but she had taken a test herself with ancestry dna. And she would be happy to share her results with us. Well, what happened when she did that . When we compared her dna to lavender does dna, we could see let that it look like lavender does parent was probably a first cousin of hers. Suddenly, they felt close. All they had to do is find the right cousin. The right cousin who might be missing a daughter, or neice, or someone. Not so easy. As we started looking and researching every person in this family, we found that there were 27 First Cousins, who could have possibly been lavender does parents. You think wow. This is our big break. Now all we need to do is to find the cousin. It turns out theres 27 of them . 27 some of the people on the family had had several marriages, and several children from each marriage. And so we started with that list. And we had to go through, and see if we could find each of these people. Where are they . Who are their children . Are they alive . What can we find . One by one they pulled on their threads, hundreds of them, leading nowhere. And then, it was kevin who found it. The texas woman had a distant cousin, who lived out of state. A woman she didnt know and never met, whose name was robin. And robin had a daughter, but when they try to find her she had addresses up until right around 2006, and then kind of just fell off the map, and couldnt find her anywhere. 2006, what a coincidence. It was the year lavender doe was murdered. Coming up, i wasnt prepared for the emotion that i had right then. I couldnt control myself. I remember sitting on the couch, actually crying. A search ends, and the story begins. We lost track between her and us for about ten years. When dateline continues. There is a better way to manage diabetes. 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Dont wait, this one short call could change your life. bright music over the years, lieutenant eddie hope thought a lot about those last moment of lavender does life. Kind of haunts at you if youre coming out here and you cant put a closure to it. You know . You cant get the story. To help write that ending, he had put his faith in the dedicated volunteers who had spent countless hours trying to give her back her name. By the fall of 2018, they seemed close. Dna and genealogy had led them to a woman named robin, whose daughter had disappeared. At that point, we were trying to think wow, this is got to be her. Except, when they try to find her, this robin person they discovered she was dead. So, they kept scouring the internet. And the robin led them to another relative, who, if they were right, would be lavender does cousin. They tracked down a number and Lieutenant Hope called, asked if any young woman in this persons family was missing. He said, i havent seen her in years. He said, last we heard she had ran away from home. Just like she just disappeared. He said, his missing cousin, had a half sister. Lieutenant hope called her too. I talked to her several times and she agreed to send kevin their dna kit. Which meant sending the half sisters dna sample to the lab and waiting. How long did that take . It took about a month and a half, i believe. That must have been pins and needles . Oh, yeah. It was a winters day. Late january. When they got the news. It was a match. Kevin called Lieutenant Hope. I was pretty excited. The whole department was excited. I was not prepared for the emotion that i had right then. I couldnt control myself. Remember sitting on the couch and just crying, because i was so happy, that the emotion of all this work. All these countless nights. You know . Working all day and all night. And trying to figure this out. Just all came together right then. So, who was she . Who was the young woman who for so long had been a sketch known only as lavender doe. Here she was. Dana lynn dodd. It was danas half sister, amanda, who had provided that dna simple and then naturally curious, she looked online and saw that clay model. And i called him back and i told him, thats dana. Its dana. Was it like to see that . Its a real. It felt like Somebody Just punched me. I was angry that she was by herself. You know . Her worst fear came true. She was forgotten. Which was the heartbreaking truth, amanda revealed about dana dodd. Hearse was a life of instability, uncertainty and from the very beginning, rejection. Her mom moved out when she was little. One mother figure after another came and went from her life. She was passed around between my dad and his, you know, her life current girlfriend at the time. And thats how we lost track between her and ask for about ten years. By the time dana was in her early teens, amanda was 23 years old and married, and raising a son of her own. And when she heard dana was living not far away, somewhere in florida i just looked at my husband and i said, this is what we need to do. And he knew it, and there was no questions asked. She moved right into the. Home after all, she had been through. It was almost like a fairytale. A real home. Was she happy about it at first . Very, very happy. She said she liked the normal life. Feeling normal. Not having to worry. You know . Being loved is what she said. The able to sit down at dinner time with a family and then able to discuss your daily things that we take for granted. It was good. For a while. So, what happened to dana dodd . How did she become that Mystery Victim . So far away. Coming up a young girl, alone. Thats when the problem started. A story is all this time . Yeah, oh yeah. And on her own. Its just a form of human trafficking. 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Police had a confession in the lavender doe murder case. But another mystery remained out of reach, until a team of amateur detectives, working closely with police, managed to discover the victims to identity. Now, the strangers who spent years untangling this mystery realized they had one more mission to complete. Heres Keith Morrison with the conclusion of the woman with no name. The 12 years, they knew her only ass lavender doe. The mystery Murder Victim with the purple shirt. Now they knew her real name, lavender doe dana lynn dodd. What a story and named revealed. And amanda davey, i reject a toddler, whose all life been a cautionary tale. Her long lost half sister amanda stepped in to help and get help. But then at age 16, she got a serious boyfriend thats when the problem started. The story is the same so then, amanda sent dana to live with her brother, john. I tried to make it where she always wanted. But, that boy again. Did you give her ultimatum . I did. I told her, you want to stay with this guy . Or do you want a better life . And shes like i love him. But that didnt work out either. Dana, determined to finally take control her own life, decided to get a job. It was with a magazine company, she said, that would allow her to travel, selling subscriptions and other products. It sounded like a bad idea. In contrast between you and those folks in the magazine, you didnt stand a chance. Because she was trying to do something for herself, so she was trying to prove something. She was just looking for substance, and anybody that accept her and take her. And thats what she was looking for her whole life. Dana was 18, and full of optimism. She would call me every month, and say hey, im in indiana. Hey, im in cincinnati. For like six months, five six months, she would call me every month. Summertime, 2006, its when she called him the last time. I told her i took of, and she said no, i want to do it so that was the last time i heard from her. How long do you talk to her that time . About an hour. Long conversation on the phone . Trying to convince her to come home. You are begging her to come home . Oh yes, begging. Or we will take care of you. And then, a long silence. Where was she . They had no idea. Would it help us feeling that must have been . It was hard. Who was very helpless and more so because we didnt know anything, even about the company where she start we know were traveling all over the country. Some of those magazine Sales Companies are notorious for exploiting their young employees. Praying on them. Eddie hope knows this all too well. Its just a form of human trafficking. They track these kids, they promised them a good live. Once they get them away from home, they live in motel rooms, with that drug dealers, and around the prostitutes. You around the pence. It kind of puts this into a whole different dark world. Dark, and in danas case, deadly. Dana met her faith in this walmart parking lot, trying to sell magazines to Joseph Wayne Burnette. Thats where he told police he picked her up, took her to this bridge and killed her. Why . He said it was because she stole money from him. Impossible to know if that was true because of what he did next. I put him out of i lead her body and set her on fire. And when i did that, i left. She wasnt trash, she wasnt a piece of trash that he took upon himself to discard of. And i want everybody to know who dana was, and who she was as a person. Even with her difficult life, and her upbringing, she still had a good heart. Maybe its not the greatest ending, but at least we know. I guess i go back to the truth. They know the truth, and it just feels good we can hand them that truth. Everybody deserves to know the truth. So, after 12 years, he knows to gaiters, professional and amateur, finally knew her name, knew what happened to her. But it felt unfinished somehow. So they all made a kind of pilgrimage to see the place with their own eyes. And that was the very first time the trial would actually meet in person. We would stay up all night working on the internet and messaging back and forth, but weve never met each other personally. Here, Lieutenant Hoped took them to the walmart, and to the cemetery where shed been all this time. I think the thing that surprised me the most is that they were already flowers there. The community over the years paid attention and didnt forget her. They left her their own flowers, lavender, of course. Science writers harrison who set out to learn from the volunteers, saw their journey to the end. It did strike us that we were the first hour gone to knowing who she actually was. So that was extremely pointing. She had been able to stand there i dont know i could not articulate what was that. Like this really, i think, change doesnt change the way we work. It changed how . It makes it personal, because you think, one of this is your family . One of this could be your friend . Kevin became a licensed private investigator and continue to work with the dna Dna Doe Project, still giving back victims their long lost identities. We made a little bit of a dent, where there is never gonna be a shortage, unfortunately, of jane does to help identify. And some are like dana lynn dodd, The Little Girl abandoned early. And one amanda and john try to help, she was in the end abused and discarded. But not forgotten. What do you hope her legacy will be . I hope that she knows that what choice you brought your life to me and our mandy in our family, my son she was a part of our lives. And to those Armchair Detectives and their partner, lieutenant any hope, she was as important as you or me. It doesnt matter what life you come from. Everybody is a person. Everybody has a mom and dad. Its not the way they should be treated. In december of 2020, who Joseph Wayne Burnette pleaded guilty for the murders of Felisha Pearson and dana lynn dodd. Burnetts victims, this has been the last chapter of a very painful book. And indeed it was. By then, amanda and jon had found a little solace. Here in long view, the community that didnt forget. We felt like that was her adopted family. Which is why they decided not to take her remains back home to florida with them. She will stay here in long view with her name carved in stone. Its a funny thing, isnt . It that it would be important to have a stone up above the place youre lying down with your name on it. And yet, it is. It is, exactly, you never think about it. But its important to have that. Because you are never forgotten, and you know, your name is there. Lavender doe no longer. Eternally, dana lynn dodd. So that he was to go by her graveside and still put flowers, and things like that. And thats what we wanted. Because she is part of long view. And she never be sent away again. No, shes home. Thats all for this edition of dateline. Im andrea canning. Thank you for watching. This sunday, striking back. Israel gears up for a major