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
PART II: THE EXHUMATION
PART III: WHAT SECRETS LIE BENEATH
PART IV: SHE ALWAYS HAD A NAME
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.
Michael I Schiller has worked for the Center for Investigative Reporting since 2013 as a multimedia reporter, producer, and creative director. His work spans radio, animation, visual design, 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 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.
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 is the director of film and TV and head of Center for Investigative Reporting Studios. Recent films include the Netflix original documentary Victim/Suspect, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival; The Grab, which premiered on opening night of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival; and the Oscar-nominated short documentary Heroin(e) for Netflix, which premiered at Telluride. Her projects have garnered Emmy, Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and RFK awards, among others. Previously, she spent years producing documentaries around the world with a camera in hand. She is based in San Francisco.
