September 20th, 1987.

Ballaham, Washington.

A worker at the Georgia Pacific Paltmill discovers some skeletal remains inside a chimney on

one of the boilers at the mill's steam plant.

The victim is determined to be male, but since he has been burned so badly by the extreme

heat and cannot be identified, he becomes known as the Ballaham John Doe.

Over the years, investigators explore a number of different theories about how the John Doe

wound up inside the chimney, but since his remains recarbonized, there are no traces

of DNA available to make an identification.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello, everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.

I'm your host Robin Werder, and today we're going to be covering a very unique case involving

an unidentified deceit.

The unexplained 1987 death of the Ballaham John Doe.

So this one is a special request from a listener who has spent years researching and gathering

material about this story.

They asked if I would be willing to feature it on my podcast and offered to turn over all

of their materials, including the original case file.

And I was definitely happy to oblige, because this is one of the most bizarre cases involving

an unidentified deceit that I've ever seen.

What makes this case so strange is the unusual location where the Ballaham John Doe was

found, as his skeletal remains somehow wound up inside a chimney at the Georgia Pacific

...