This is part one in a two-part series.

This series discusses domestic violence, crime scenes, and murder.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you're in need of support, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799 Safe.

Or text start to 8-8-7-8-8.

This is the Fall Line.

Akin is a town in western South Carolina, not far from the Georgia Line.

It's a short drive from Augusta, where Jeanette and Annette Melbrook disappeared in 1990.

There are sister cities that share a local news station, WJBF.

Akin, the city, sits in Akin County, home to Shaw Creek.

It's that region where, since the late 1980s, the remains of four women have been found.

Two still unidentified to this day are known as the 1987 and the 1993 Akin County Jane Does.

The others, Jackie Council and Ristin Durdon, they were identified years after their deaths.

Both identified women who were Georgia residents disappeared in the late 1980s.

But it's thought that the other two women might not have been tied to the state.

Local officials have speculated that a serial killer may have been operating in the area at the time.

If so, there's some evidence that he might have been targeting camps of migrant farm workers, as well as more permanent local residents.

At one time, the 1993 Akin County Jane Doe was considered a possible match for one of the Melbrook twins.

Possibly Jeanette, though, she could have been either.

The process of checking that possible match was complicated by the passing of the local coroner, Tim Carlton, who'd offered to make the comparison.

He did indeed seek out DNA analysis for the 1993 Akin County Jane Doe.

But after his death from brain cancer in 2019, communication to and from the office was understandably slowed.

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