According to the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, known as Namis, 600,000 people are reported missing each and every year.

While some of these people are found alive, others, tragically, are not.

For the cases left unsolved, and the bodies unable to be identified, families grieve and killers walk free.

Who are the ones to bring justice? Two women took it upon themselves to find answers.

How? By digging deep, not only into case files, but into the ground as well. These are the

stories of the dead.

I'm Emily Campano, and this is the Fox True Crime podcast.

Thank you. Sergeant Shannon Jones oversees the Detroit Police Department's missing persons unit. While working on her many missing person cases, she began to notice a pattern.

Some of these cases overlapped with cold case murders spanning back over the course of decades.

That's when she had an idea.

Throughout the city of Detroit, there are hundreds of unidentified victims of crime

buried in unmarked graves known as Popper Graves.

These cases go as far back as 1959.

Sergeant Jones sought the help of FBI Special Agent Leslie Larson to use the resources they had at their disposal to exume these bodies,

using new technology involving DNA to identify these anonymous people,

and to unearth the crimes, to finally bring justice and restore humanity to the hundreds of unnamed victims.

Together, they established a team of female forensic experts and investigators to lead

this revolutionary project, Operation United.

Retired FBI Special Agent Catherine Schweight followed these women closely and detailed their

accomplishments in her new book, Women Who Talked to the Dead. She joins me now with a look into the science, the investigations, and the closure brought to countless families thanks to Project United.

Special Agent Schweite, tell us about yourself. Let's start with you.

If you can tell us about your history and your career in law enforcement.

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