Project 525: Missing and Murdered Children
America's Crime Lab
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Othram began to realize that a lot of unidentified remains cases languishing on shelves in law enforcement offices belonged to children. Children that remained unidentified for decades. Meanwhile, loved ones never gave up hope. There is a solution to this issue, and it’s less of a lift than you would think. In this episode, families finally find answers, and get a chance to say goodbye.
America’s Crime Lab is a true crime podcast about how science solves cold cases, missing persons, and other unsolved cases. Hosted by journalist and clinical psychologist Elin Lantz Lesser, and powered by Othram’s forensic DNA lab, the show connects the science to the story, revealing what really happens in the lab and why it matters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.1 | Hey listeners, this is Matt Graves, host of The Butcher of Mons, the unbelievable story of a terrifying series of sadistic murders and a quest to find the killer three decades later. |
| 0:16.4 | I'm excited to share The Butcher of Mons with you and want to let you know that you can get access to all episodes 100% |
| 0:22.7 | ad free with an IHeart |
| 0:24.5 | True Crime Plus subscription, available |
| 0:26.7 | exclusively on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:29.2 | So don't wait, head to Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:31.4 | Search for IHeart True Crime Plus |
| 0:33.3 | and subscribe today. |
| 0:45.3 | Thank you. and subscribe today. I think many of us |
| 0:47.0 | started to realize as we worked |
| 0:51.0 | these unidentified remains cases |
| 0:53.0 | that many of them were children. |
| 0:56.2 | And unfortunately with children, the people that harm them are usually the people that would |
| 1:02.3 | report them missing. So they were never reported missing. |
| 1:14.9 | For 10 years, the world did not know her name. |
| 1:19.5 | For 10 years, she was known as Opalika Baby Jane Doe. |
| 1:31.3 | On January 28, 2012, police responded to a call from a trailer park in Opalika, Alabama, a child's pink shirt, a small bundle of hair. |
| 1:36.6 | The bones let them know she was probably between four and seven years old. |
| 1:41.2 | There wasn't enough left to build a DNA profile. |
| 1:43.2 | Law enforcement was stuck. |
| 1:49.4 | This is the kind of case Kristen Middleman says Othrum's Project 525 was designed for, cases involving children that have reached a dead end, |
... |
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