"John Doe" looked like a guy you might see - and barely notice - almost anywhere: in the checkout line at the grocery store, on the way into the bank or waiting for a red light to change.

He was young and strong, with a wrestler's build. His jaw was rounded, softening his 5-foot-7-inch, 170-pound frame. But no one has been able to say where his life began or where it ended, just where he was found - wrapped in a sheet and pillowcase, set on fire and tossed in a wooded area off Route 272 in North East, not far from Interstate 95 in Cecil County, five years ago.

Everything about him - whom and what he loved, how he spent his Sundays, when he was born, what he dreamed of doing - died with him. Though his body was discovered in August 1997, his identity remains a mystery. To Maryland authorities, he is simply John Doe.

But he is not forgotten. He is pictured on an international Web site that has hundreds of volunteers who try to match him and others with photographs of people reported missing. The volunteers and the site are known as the Doe Network.

"Everyone is someone's son or daughter. Everyone deserves the dignity of being identified, of a remembrance," said Maryland State Police homicide investigator Roger Cassell, who specializes in unsolved and seemingly unsolvable cases. "These cases are always troubling. Someone out there is missing this person."

Cassell regularly contributes case information to the Doe Network, hoping that someone will one day help police identify one of the 43 unknown victims discovered in Maryland.

Since being founded in 1999 by a Michigan woman named Jennifer Mara, the Doe Network database has grown to include 579 unidentified people, including 11 whose remains were discovered in Maryland.

"There are so many families out there grieving," said Kylen Johnson, who is the network's coordinator for the Maryland, Washington and West Virginia area.

A 32-year-old press technician from Rockville, Johnson became involved with the group after reading newspaper accounts

about unidentified people. "I just thought, Something needs to be done."

The network's volunteers include private investigators, detectives, forensic artists and people who have nothing to do with homicide investigations or missing persons cases.

In one instance, a volunteer in California saw a description of a John Doe with a long chin who had been discovered in a trash can in Glen Burnie in 1985. A man with a similar description had disappeared in California just before the body was found.

The information was turned over to authorities, but an Anne Arundel County detective ruled out a match based on height and age.

While this case wasn't solved, it illustrates how the network is able to generate potential leads for investigators, Johnson said.

They network also has recorded successes. A Jane Doe discovered in Southeast Baltimore in 2000, about a year after she had been killed, was identified through Doe Network investigators last year as Brenda Wright, a 46-year-old city woman who lived with her sister.

One of the network's volunteers noticed the woman's case on the Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults Web site, Johnson said. She had been wearing a shirt with the phrase "Wynn Family Reunion 1997," which Doe Network investigators traced to a family in North Carolina that had given Wright the shirt. The match was confirmed in February by DNA analysis.

"We turn over everything we find to law enforcement authorities," said Johnson, who noted that not all police agencies in Maryland have been willing to submit information about the John and Jane Does who have been discovered in their jurisdictions.

Although Baltimore and Baltimore County police haven't submitted a case, other agencies say it's worth trying.

Cassell said the more people trying to make a connection, the better. "Once you know who the victim is, you can start retracing their steps," he said. "Who the victim is is the first link in figuring out who the suspect is. In most of these cases, the person wasn't killed where they were found. The killer took steps to hide their victim's identity for a reason."

Information on unidentified victims - including renderings by forensic artists based on clay models and skeletal remains - is available in national databases for police use. But Internet sites such as the Doe Network make it possible for others, including victims' families and friends, to make connections between the missing and the unidentified dead, Cassell said.

"As more people become aware of the Doe Network, it will become a more effective tool to law enforcement officials," he said.

The Doe Network can be found on the Internet at www. doenetwork.org.