The Mystery of Mountain Jane Doe

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the summer of 1969, a young woman was found dead off a remote mountain trail in Harlan, Kentucky. She’d been stabbed multiple times. Her identity was a mystery, so locals referred to her as Mountain Jane Doe. Decades later, a woman from the area takes up the cause of identifying the murdered woman, and her quest for answers leads investigators to a hillside grave and a DNA lab, bringing some long-awaited answers.

Mountain Jane Doe is one of more than 13,000 in a national database of unidentified dead. There are no national laws requiring coroners or law enforcement to use the database, and as a result, cases fall through the cracks and family members are left in the dark about their loved ones.

An exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who Mountain Jane Doe was and why she might have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening cold cases and using DNA science to try to solve them.

But as one mystery is solved, another remains unanswered: Who killed her?

This episode originally was broadcast April 1, 2017. We updated this show Jan. 26, 2019.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alan. I hope 2022 has been a good year for you. But to be honest, it's been a tough one for us.
0:08.0	This year, Reveal was struck by a financial crisis that jeopardized our very existence.
0:14.0	But we've rallied, and all the while that was happening, our staff forged ahead to produce ambitious investigations
0:22.0	that exposed corruption and abuses that the powerful interests did not want revealed.
0:27.0	Because that's what we do. If we're going to keep telling these kind of stories though, we're going to need support from you.
0:34.0	To support fearless investigative nonprofit journalism, please donate by December 31st.
0:41.0	Just visit revealnews.org slash 2023. Again, to donate to the show and to support our work into the future.
0:48.0	Please visit revealnews.org slash 2023. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
1:01.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Aleddon.
1:08.0	Karen Stypes was around a year old when her mother went missing.
1:12.0	You know, I had to suffer through my whole life because of whatever happened, you know, with my mother.
1:21.0	I wished that someone would tell me, you know, let me know what happened.
1:26.0	Let's rug sun disappeared on a fishing trip.
1:29.0	My son, Kyle Rugg, is 20 years old. He disappeared on a Wednesday. March the 4th, 2015.
1:36.0	Alice Allman-Daris's father went missing in Houston. His regular phone calls to his daughter just stopped cold.
1:42.0	My dad was reported missing in the end of June 2002.
1:46.0	People vanish. Right now, around 90,000 men, women and children are missing in the United States.
1:53.0	These are just a few of the family members of missing people we spoke to across the country.
1:58.0	There's no way to describe what it feels like to not know where someone is or what happened to them.
2:04.0	The worst part about it is not knowing.
2:08.0	Unfortunately, some of those missing people will never come home, like Alice's dad.
2:14.0	His body was unidentified for 10 years and was buried as a John Doe just a few miles from his home.
	...

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