We are continuing our investigation into the mystery of Mountain Jane Doe. Subscribe to our podcast, and stay tuned for story updates.

There are at least 80,000 reported missing people on any given day in the United States. At the same time, there are more than 10,000 unidentified bodies in morgues and cemeteries across the country. The difficulty of connecting the missing with these John and Jane Does leaves many families in the dark about their loved one’s fate. The U.S. Justice Department calls it “the nation’s silent mass disaster.” This is the story of one cold case.

PART I: MOUNTAIN JANE DOE

YouTube video

PART II: THE EXHUMATION

YouTube video

PART III: WHAT SECRETS LIE BENEATH

YouTube video

PART IV: SHE ALWAYS HAD A NAME

YouTube video

This documentary series is part of our Left for Dead investigation, which also includes a radio documentary, an app to help solve missing persons cases, and a text story that goes deep inside the world of America’s missing and unidentified.

We’re following the story closely. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on our investigation.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Michael I Schiller is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. His Emmy Award-winning work spans animation, radio and documentary film.

“The Dead Unknown,” a video series he directed about the crisis of America's unidentified dead, earned a national News and Documentary Emmy Award, national Edward R. Murrow Award and national Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award.

His 2015 animated documentary short film “The Box,” about youth solitary confinement, was honored with a video journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, a San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award and a New Orleans Film Festival special jury prize, and it was nominated for a national News and Documentary Emmy for new approaches.

Schiller was one the producers of the pilot episode of the Peabody Award-winning Reveal radio show and podcast. He continues to regularly produce audio documentaries for the weekly public radio show, which airs on over 450 stations nationwide. Schiller is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.

G.W. Schulz is a reporter for Reveal, covering security, privacy, technology and criminal justice. Since joining The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2008, he's reported stories for NPR, KQED, Wired.com, The Dallas Morning News, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones and more. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and was an early contributor to The Chauncey Bailey Project, which won a Tom Renner Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors in 2008. Schulz also has won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California Chapter. He graduated from the University of Kansas and is based in Austin, Texas.

Amanda Pike (she/her) is the director of the TV and documentary department and executive producer of films and series at Reveal. Under her leadership, The Center for Investigative Reporting garnered its first Academy Award nomination and four national Emmys, among other accolades. She was the executive producer of the inaugural year of the Glassbreaker Films initiative, supporting women in documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism. She has spent the past two decades reporting and producing documentaries for PBS, CBS, ABC, National Geographic, A&E, Lifetime and The Learning Channel, among others. Subjects have ranged from militia members in Utah to young entrepreneurs in Egypt and genocide perpetrators in Cambodia. Pike also has dabbled in fiction filmmaking, producing the short film “On the Assassination of the President,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.