# 5 Chilling True Crime Mysteries You've Gotta Know

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 5 Sep 2025, 34 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7644030452.mp3

Join me as we discuss five unsolved true crime mysteries. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 missing persons podcast, true crime america, unsolved murders usa, jane doe cold cases, unidentified victims podcast, american missing people, cold case investigations usa, unsolved mysteries podcast, unidentified bodies america, murder mystery podcast usa, true crime missing persons, jane doe podcast, cold case murder usa, unsolved disappearances america, unidentified homicide victims usa, missing women podcast, unsolved murder america, unidentified remains usa, cold case podcast america, true crime jane doe

## Transcript

[0:00] In a quiet Virginia cemetery, a small gravestone once bore the
[0:04] name Charles Lee Charlette, a name given by strangers to a boy
[0:09] no one could identify. In June 1972, the body of an
[0:14] approximately 4 year old was discovered under a bridge, and
[0:18] for 53 years he remained known only as a John Doe.
[0:22] It took five decades, determined detectives and cutting edge DNA
[0:27] science to finally discover the boy's real name and the likely
[0:31] dark truth of what happened to him.
[0:34] It also turned out that uncovering this John Doe's
[0:37] identity would uncover yet another crime just as depraved
[0:41] as this one. And fair warning, while I don't
[0:45] include any graphic descriptions or anything in here, this is one
[0:48] of the most deeply disturbing cases I've ever covered.
[0:54] On June 13th, 1972, a passerby discovered the body of a young
[0:59] boy in Massey Creek beneath the Old Colchester Road Bridge in
[1:03] Lorton, VA Police determined that he had perished from
[1:07] intentional blunt force trauma to the head.
[1:10] No one came forward to identify the boy and investigators found
[1:14] no missing person reports that matched his description.
[1:19] The absence of any missing child report for a boy of that age was
[1:22] a grim sign as it suggested that whoever knew the truth was
[1:26] likely a family member or guardian.
[1:30] With no leads to follow, the case quickly went cold.
[1:34] With initial breakthroughs in genetic testing in the 90's, the
[1:38] preserved DNA samples from the young John Doe proved
[1:41] insufficient to create a full genetic profile.
[1:46] In 2021, cutting edge DNA techniques finally provided the
[1:50] big break. Experts at a private lab,
[1:53] Austria Forensics, managed to extract a viable genetic profile
[1:58] from just a few millimeters of the boy's preserved hair.
[2:02] This was far less than what earlier methods required and a
[2:05] complete DNA profile was obtained.
[2:08] With this powerful DNA profile in hand, investigators turn to
[2:12] another new technique, forensic genetic genealogy, the method of
[2:16] tracing family trees using DNA matches.
[2:22] Forensic genealogists used the unknown boy's DNA to search
[2:26] databases and soon found relatives that pointed toward a
[2:29] family in Philadelphia. Detectives working with
[2:33] Philadelphia police identified a woman from that family.
[2:37] This connection ultimately LED them to the boy's mother, Vera
[2:41] Bryant. She was from Philadelphia and
[2:45] had passed away around 1980 of unknown causes.
[2:49] Her relatives recalled that she had two young sons in the early
[2:53] 1970s. Family members told police the
[2:58] story as best they could remember.
[3:00] In 1972, Vera Bryant and her boyfriend James Hedgepeth had
[3:06] taken a trip from Philadelphia to Virginia with her two little
[3:09] boys. These were 4 year old Carl and
[3:12] six month old James Junior. When the couple returned from
[3:16] that trip, the children weren't with them.
[3:19] Vera claimed the boys were staying with Hedgepeth's
[3:21] relatives in Virginia and she never reported her son's
[3:25] missing. No one in the family saw Carl or
[3:28] the baby again. And in a weird turn of events,
[3:32] everyone seems to have been cool with this and simply moved on.
[3:38] Regardless of how odd this is, this family account was the
[3:41] puzzle piece investigators needed to make sense of the cold
[3:44] case to be absolutely certain they had the right person.
[3:50] Detectives sought definitive DNA proof.
[3:54] In 2023, Fairfax County investigators exhumed Vera
[3:58] Bryant's remains from a Philadelphia cemetery to compare
[4:02] her DNA with the unidentified boy's DNA.
[4:06] The testing took some time due to the condition of the old
[4:09] remains, but by mid 2025, the results were in.
[4:14] Vera was the biological mother of the boy.
[4:17] At long last, the child in the Creek had a real name.
[4:22] He was Karl Matthew Bryant, a child who was cruelly taken when
[4:26] he was just four years old. With Karl's identity known, the
[4:32] focus shifted to what happened and who was responsible.
[4:35] Investigators now believe that Karl was eliminated by his own
[4:39] mother and her boyfriend during that fateful 1972 trip.
[4:44] In light of the family's statements and other evidence,
[4:47] police suspect that Vera Bryant and James Hedgepeth inflicted
[4:52] the trauma and left Carl's body in the Virginia Creek.
[4:56] Disturbingly, they also believe that baby James, who was only an
[5:00] infant, likely also met a similar fate around the same
[5:04] time. Since he never reappeared
[5:07] either. The exact events of that trip
[5:10] may never be fully known, but it's now clear that both
[5:13] children met a tragic end. Hedgepeth, who had a prior
[5:19] conviction for taking someone's life, undoubtedly raised red
[5:23] flags for investigators. In retrospect, however, neither
[5:27] he nor Vera can be brought to justice, as they had both
[5:31] perished decades ago. What remains is an effort to
[5:35] find any trace of little James. Junior Fairfax County
[5:41] authorities have asked other agencies in the public to be on
[5:44] the lookout for any unidentified remains from the 1970s that
[5:48] might actually be young James. They suspect his remains could
[5:52] have been left somewhere along the route between Philadelphia
[5:55] and Middlesex County, Virginia, which is the route the couple
[5:58] traveled in 1972. There are no words that can
[6:04] soften the blow of the story of these innocent kids, but the
[6:07] horror of what happened is compounded by the silence that
[6:10] followed their own family failed them by never reporting them
[6:14] missing, by never demanding answers, and by never following
[6:19] up when they vanished. That absence of action left Carl
[6:23] Nameless in a grave for over 5 decades, robbed of justice and
[6:28] recognition, and ultimately let the perpetrators escape from
[6:32] justice. It's a failure so profound it
[6:35] defies understanding since it's essentially an additional
[6:39] betrayal on top of the ultimate betrayal the children
[6:42] experienced at the hands of Bryant and Hedgepeth.
[6:49] In December 1980, hunters in a Florida forest stumbled upon a
[6:53] shallow grave, unaware they had just uncovered the tragic
[6:56] conclusion to a family mystery. Bones lay scattered in the
[7:01] underbrush, disturbed by wildlife, and for decades, the
[7:05] victim's identity remained unknown.
[7:09] Meanwhile, a family in Texas was left with agonizing questions
[7:13] after their daughter, Carol Skidmore, vanished during a 1977
[7:17] road trip. Now, nearly half a century
[7:20] later, modern DNA technology and detective work have finally
[7:24] given Carol's story a potentially solved ending.
[7:30] Carol Skidmore was a 26 year old wife and mother from Sealy, TX.
[7:35] On March 29th, 1977, she set off on an Interstate trip with her
[7:40] husband James Skidmore and her five year old son, Lyndale
[7:45] Mahaffey. The couple hoped the journey to
[7:49] visit James's parents in Rossville, GA would help mend
[7:52] their troubled one year marriage.
[7:55] Carol's family grew concerned when weeks passed with only one
[7:59] brief phone call. On April 9th, 1977, Carol told
[8:04] her parents she wasn't sure when they'd be back, a sign that all
[8:08] was not well. That was the last time anyone
[8:11] heard her voice and confirmed that she was alive.
[8:16] What followed was a string of grim discoveries spanning
[8:19] multiple states. In May 1977, the body of a young
[8:24] boy was found floating in Parksville Lake, Tennessee.
[8:28] He was wrapped in plastic and weighed down with heavy rock,
[8:31] indicating obvious signs of a deliberate drowning.
[8:35] Investigators suspected it might be Carol's son Lynn, and sadly,
[8:40] the FBI confirmed the boy's identity in June 1977.
[8:45] Just as that confirmation came another shock.
[8:49] On June 1st, 1977, James Skidmore was found deceased in a
[8:55] motel room in Harrison, AR. Based on the evidence, it was
[8:59] determined that he was responsible for that specific
[9:02] act, and he left behind a note talking about his regrets in
[9:06] general terms. With James deceased and Lynn
[9:10] slaying now evident, investigators launched a
[9:13] desperate search for Carol, but she was nowhere to be found.
[9:18] For a time, Carol Skidmore became a missing person case,
[9:22] her fate a haunting question mark for her loved ones and law
[9:25] enforcement alike. Unbeknownst to Carol's family,
[9:31] the answer to her disappearance had already been unearthed by
[9:34] chance. Three years after she vanished.
[9:37] In December 1983, hunters trekking through woods near
[9:42] Fountain in Florida came across human skeletal remains in a
[9:46] shallow grave. The remains had been there long
[9:50] enough that animals had disturbed the sight, scattering
[9:53] some of the bones around the forest floor.
[9:56] Investigators with the Bay County Sheriff's Office were
[9:59] called in and noted signs of foul play, including damage to
[10:04] the clothing found with the skeleton.
[10:07] The body was sent for forensic examination, and she was ruled
[10:11] out as being a number of local missing women.
[10:16] For the next 45 years, the two cases, Carol's 1977
[10:21] disappearance and the unidentified remains found in
[10:24] 1980, lingered in limbo. Carol was officially listed as a
[10:29] missing person in Georgia and Texas, and her family held out
[10:33] hope for answers. Over the years, relatives
[10:36] provided DNA samples to databases, praying for a match
[10:40] if her body was ever found in Florida.
[10:43] Detectives periodically revisited the Jane Doe file from
[10:47] Bay County, but with the forensic technology of the 20th
[10:50] century, there was little they could do.
[10:54] The cases of Carol Skidmore and the nameless remains and
[10:58] Fountain existed in parallel, but it would take leaps and
[11:02] forensic science to prove any connection between the two.
[11:07] In 2023, the Cold Case Unit took a fresh look at the Fountain
[11:12] Jane Doe. The remains were exhumed and a
[11:15] crucial piece of evidence, one of the victims teeth, was
[11:18] submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
[11:21] for DNA testing. Extracting DNA from a decades
[11:25] old tooth was challenging, but the lab successfully developed
[11:28] adna profile unique to the unknown woman.
[11:32] This profile was then uploaded to the CODIS system, a national
[11:36] database of DNA profiles, and the breakthrough came almost
[11:40] immediately. 2 individuals in Texas had genetic markers in
[11:45] common with the mystery woman. These two people turned out to
[11:49] be siblings who years earlier had volunteered their biological
[11:53] data in hopes of finding their missing sister.
[11:58] That sister was Carol Skidmore, who had vanished in 1977.
[12:05] With the identity confirmed, investigators could finally
[12:08] piece together the full story of what happened to Carol.
[12:12] The evidence now painted a tragic picture consistent with
[12:15] what detectives long suspected. Carol had been slain back in
[12:20] 1977, likely at the hands of her own husband.
[12:24] Bay County Sheriff's officials believe James Skidmore
[12:27] eliminated his wife and then buried her body in that shallow
[12:31] grave in Florida. At some point he also did the
[12:35] same to little Lynn, dumping his weighted down body in a
[12:39] Tennessee lake before James himself perished in that motel
[12:43] room. At present, this theory remains
[12:48] all but confirmed, though police are still attempting to put all
[12:51] the pieces of the puzzle together and determine if others
[12:55] were involved. Hey everyone, Jimmy here as
[13:01] usual, with a big shout out to all subscribers, YouTube members
[13:04] and patrons. Now let's get back to business.
[13:11] 1 Spring morning in 2021. Cassie Sheets, a young West
[13:15] Virginia mother of three, set out on a hike with two friends
[13:19] in the Spruce Knob area of Monongahela National Forest.
[13:23] Spruce Knob, the state's highest peak, is known for its remote
[13:27] winding trails, and the trio hoped for adventure.
[13:31] But by the next day, Cassie's two hiking companions had
[13:34] emerged from the forest alone and Cassie had vanished without
[13:38] a trace. Cassie's trip on March 11th,
[13:43] 2021 was unusual from the start. According to her mother, Cassie
[13:49] wasn't an avid hiker and rarely visited Spruce Knob.
[13:53] Yet that day she accompanied 2 male friends, one of them an
[13:58] ex-boyfriend, into the mountains, reportedly to show
[14:01] them something in the area. Not long after the hike began,
[14:07] all three individuals were reported missing when they
[14:10] failed to return as expected. By the morning of March 12th,
[14:15] searchers located the two men, but Cassie was nowhere to be
[14:19] found. One friend was discovered
[14:23] waiting by a vehicle and the other wandered out of the woods,
[14:27] cold and tired. They told authorities A
[14:31] perplexing story. The group had become separated
[14:34] after hearing a mysterious noise in the woods, during which one
[14:38] of the men fell or was injured. In the confusion of that moment,
[14:43] Cassie allegedly went missing. Her mother found the men's story
[14:48] implausible. She knew Cassie would never
[14:50] wander off alone, especially since Cassie was afraid of the
[14:55] dark. In the days after Cassie
[15:00] vanished, authorities scoured the Spruce Knob area with
[15:03] helicopters, cadaver dogs and ground teams, but found no trace
[15:07] of her. The search concentrated near the
[15:10] trails where she was last seen, yet no footprints, clothing or
[15:15] other clues turned up. Meanwhile, Cassie's family and
[15:20] local volunteers organized their own searches in the unforgiving
[15:23] terrain, refusing to give up as weeks turned into months, they
[15:28] combed woods and hollows beyond the official search zone, hoping
[15:32] for any hint of Cassie. But every effort met with
[15:35] heartbreak, and not a single piece of evidence was ever
[15:38] found. Nine months after Cassie
[15:43] disappeared, a grim discovery finally brought a measure of
[15:46] closure. On December 29th, 2021, a pair
[15:51] of hunters trekking through a remote section of the
[15:54] Monongahela National Forest stumbled upon skeletal human
[15:58] remains. The remains were found deep in
[16:01] the northern Seneca Creek area, an isolated wilderness some
[16:05] distance from the original search zone.
[16:08] Investigators noted that the scene was undisturbed.
[16:11] The bones lay on the ground, not buried or concealed in any way.
[16:17] Scattered nearby were personal items that seemed eerily
[16:20] familiar, articles of clothing matching what Cassie was last
[16:24] seen wearing and a set of keys believed to be hers.
[16:29] Based on these items, authorities strongly suspected
[16:32] the remains belong to Cassie Sheets, though official
[16:36] confirmation would require forensic analysis.
[16:42] The discovery site also raised significant new questions.
[16:45] It lay roughly 8 miles away from the area near Spruce Knob that
[16:49] police had initially scoured, and she was a novice hiker.
[16:53] The terrain in between was rugged, with ravines and back
[16:57] roads that would be challenging to traverse on foot.
[17:01] To Cassie's family, it seemed implausible that she simply
[17:04] wandered that distance by accident.
[17:08] This location disparity became a central point of contention
[17:11] between the official investigation and the family's
[17:14] suspicions. Following the recovery of the
[17:19] remains, law enforcement faced the task of determining what
[17:22] happened to Cassie. The West Virginia State Police
[17:26] enlisted A forensic anthropologist to examine the
[17:30] bones for any signs of injury or violence.
[17:33] There were no indications of blunt force trauma or foul play
[17:36] on the remains. In other words, Cassie's
[17:40] skeleton didn't show evidence of an attack or any other form of
[17:43] violence without obvious trauma. Investigators leaned toward the
[17:48] theory that her passing may have been a tragic accident or due to
[17:52] natural causes like hypothermia. By mid 2024, authorities
[17:58] publicly stated that pending final DNA confirmation, they
[18:02] intended to close the case with no criminal charges filed to
[18:06] them. The facts suggested that Cassie
[18:09] likely got lost or injured in the wilderness and that her two
[18:13] companions found safe the next day weren't responsible for her
[18:18] demise. West Virginia's medical
[18:22] Examiner's office faced ADNA testing backlog, meaning it took
[18:26] until January 2025 to officially confirm that the bones found
[18:31] belong to Cassie. With that confirmation, the
[18:34] missing persons case officially became a closed incident
[18:37] involving A deceased individual who had been located.
[18:41] However, despite this official closure, many continue to wonder
[18:45] what actually happened to Cassie at the Monongahela National
[18:48] Forest. For over 30 years, the Arizona
[18:55] desert kept its secret the identity of a missing 15 year
[18:59] old girl known only as Apache Junction Jane Doe.
[19:04] In 1992, a man walking his dog stumbled upon the remains of an
[19:09] unidentified young female in a remote area of Apache Junction,
[19:13] AZ. No one knew her name or how she
[19:17] ended up over 40 miles from home, and her identity remained
[19:20] a mystery for decades. Thanks to a relentless
[19:24] investigation and breakthroughs in DNA technology, she's finally
[19:29] gotten her name back. She's Melody Harrison, a 15 year
[19:33] old who disappeared from Phoenix in June 1992.
[19:37] But with her identification, yet another mystery still needs to
[19:40] be solved. Melody Harrison was a high
[19:45] achieving freshman at South Mountain High School in Phoenix.
[19:48] She was well liked by her peers and according to them, she
[19:52] wasn't the type to run away, at least not permanently.
[19:56] In June 1992, after an argument with her older sister, Melody
[20:02] left home on foot to cool off and would never be seen again.
[20:07] Her sudden disappearance was deeply concerning to her family.
[20:11] Although she had briefly run off for a couple hours before, she
[20:15] always returned. So when night fell and Melody
[20:19] still had not returned, her loved ones knew something was
[20:22] wrong. They reported the 15 year old
[20:26] missing to Phoenix police. Who initially dismissed her case
[20:30] as a teenage runaway situation. Over the next few years, various
[20:37] people claim to have spotted Melody in multiple places, which
[20:41] led her family to believe she might have intentionally started
[20:44] a new life in 1996. Acting on that hope, they even
[20:49] had Melody removed from the missing persons database,
[20:52] convinced she was still alive somewhere.
[20:55] Unbeknownst to them, Melody was already gone and had been since
[20:59] the summer of 1992. On August 6th, 1992, two months
[21:07] after Melody vanished, a man discovered human remains in the
[21:11] open desert near the intersection of Idaho Road and
[21:14] Baseline Rd. in Apache Junction. The body was badly decomposed,
[21:19] mostly skeletal, indicating it had been out in the elements for
[21:23] several weeks at minimum. There were a few clues at the
[21:27] scene, including the victim's clothing and a couple of
[21:30] personal items, including one which would later let her family
[21:34] identify her. She wore A-Team gear, T-shirt
[21:37] with soccer ball graphics, cut off Levi's denim shorts, and a
[21:41] gold ring with a nugget design on her left ring finger.
[21:46] In one pocket, investigators found a Phoenix Transit token
[21:50] inscribed valid for one student fare, suggesting the
[21:55] unidentified girl was indeed a student from the Phoenix area.
[22:00] These items hinted at her identity, but at the time, no
[22:03] one connected this Jane Doe to Melody.
[22:08] Authorities estimated the Jane Doe to be around 16 to 18 years
[22:12] old, slightly older than Melody's actual age, and no
[22:16] definitive reason for her passing could be determined from
[22:19] the remains. However, despite this finding,
[22:23] foul play was strongly suspected.
[22:26] The remote location and circumstances implied she hadn't
[22:29] perished by accident, and investigators suspected her body
[22:33] had been dumped in the desert. Investigators collected what
[22:37] evidence they could at the scene.
[22:39] Unfortunately, with no name and few leads, the case went cold.
[22:44] For years, the young victim was known only as Apache Junction
[22:48] Jane Doe, and her case file gathered dust while Melody's
[22:52] family held on to their false hope.
[22:57] The turning point came with the improvement in forensic genetic
[23:00] technology. In 2018, the authorities
[23:04] partnered with the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, which specializes
[23:08] in using DNA databases to identify unknown victims.
[23:14] The Jane Doe's DNA was painstakingly analyzed and
[23:17] uploaded to genealogy websites, and volunteer genealogists built
[23:22] out her family tree. Notably, it was found that she
[23:26] had a somewhat uncommon mixed background, with one parent
[23:29] being of African American and German ancestry, with the other
[23:33] being Mexican. And yeah, I realize now that I
[23:36] said that this is uncommon. I'm going to get 10 people in
[23:39] the comments saying that this is their exact background.
[23:44] Notably, gaps in the genealogical database records
[23:48] indicated that one of the young woman's parents had been
[23:50] adopted, complicating the usage of this technique.
[23:56] Finally, by 2023, the DNA Doe Project genealogist pinpointed a
[24:02] potential family for the Apache Junction Jane Doe, a close DNA
[24:07] match. A first cousin LED investigators
[24:10] to Melody's mother and sister in Phoenix, and they were able to
[24:14] quickly confirm her identity because of a ring Melody was
[24:17] wearing. With Melody Harrison's identity
[24:22] solved, attention turned to unraveling how she perished and
[24:25] who might have been involved. Some relatives wondered early on
[24:29] if Melody's boyfriend at the time, whom the family never
[24:32] approved of, could have had something to do with her
[24:35] passing. However, no evidence has
[24:38] surfaced implicating anyone from her personal life.
[24:43] Given that Melody likely perished around the time she
[24:46] went missing in 1992, authorities have also re
[24:50] examined the broader context of that era.
[24:54] The early 1990s in Phoenix were a dangerous time for young
[24:58] women, with two confirmed serial predators active and praying on
[25:03] targets who were Melody's age. These two perpetrators slew at
[25:07] least five women in Phoenix between 1991 and 1993, though
[25:13] the true extent of their deeds isn't fully known.
[25:18] Notably, in 2025, the Arizona Attorney General's Office
[25:22] launched a new cold case unit, with Melody's mystery among its
[25:26] first priorities. Today, police are actively
[25:30] seeking the public's help to finally piece together Melody's
[25:34] last days and bring the person responsible to justice.
[25:38] They urge anyone who remembers a girl matching Melody's
[25:41] description in the summer of 1992 to come forward.
[25:47] Even details about her circle of friends or acquaintances back
[25:50] then could prove fundamental to the case.
[25:53] After all these years, investigators stress that no tip
[25:56] is too small, and one tiny thread could unravel the mystery
[26:00] and give Melody Harrison the justice she deserves.
[26:08] On July 18th, 1980, a grisly discovery shattered the piece at
[26:13] a California high school. At Westlake High School in
[26:17] Thousand Oaks, maintenance workers found the body of a
[26:20] young woman dumped near the parking lot.
[26:23] She lay on a dirt slope by the football field, clad in a white
[26:27] T-shirt and red pants with black high heeled shoes tossed into
[26:31] the nearby brush. Evidence on the concrete
[26:34] suggested she had been slain elsewhere and dragged to that
[26:38] spot. It was July 18th, 1980, the
[26:42] beginning of a haunting mystery surrounding an unidentified
[26:45] victim now known only as the Ventura County Jane Doe.
[26:52] Police determined the victim was a petite young woman of Hispanic
[26:56] and or Native American heritage. Tragically, she was about four
[27:00] to five months pregnant when she was slain, and evidence showed
[27:04] that she had given birth at least once prior.
[27:08] An autopsy showed that she had been subject to an indecent
[27:11] assault before the attacker finished her off.
[27:14] Bruises and defensive cuts on her arms and hands told
[27:17] investigators that she fought her attacker fiercely, doing
[27:21] everything she could to survive. In those moments, investigators
[27:27] faced an immediate challenge. Without an identity for the
[27:30] victim, leads were scarce. They canvassed the area for
[27:34] witnesses, and a motorist reported seeing a woman who
[27:37] matched the victim's description hitchhiking near a freeway the
[27:40] night before. This raised a theory that the
[27:43] Jane Doe might have been a hitchhiker or traveller picked
[27:46] up by the perpetrator. However, that tip LED nowhere
[27:50] conclusive. The crime scene itself, a school
[27:54] parking area in a suburb, revealed no personal belongings
[27:58] or identification. By the end of 1980, the trail
[28:02] had gone cold and would remain that way for decades.
[28:08] In 2012, detectives revisiting the cold case turned to DNA.
[28:14] The perpetrator had left traces of himself, notably foreign DNA,
[28:19] under the victim's fingernails from her desperate struggle.
[28:22] Modern forensic testing yielded ADNA profile of an unknown male,
[28:27] which was uploaded to the national CODIS database in 2013.
[28:32] The cold case got a huge break when the evidence matched an
[28:35] inmate in a California prison, Wilson Chust.
[28:41] While he had never been on the cops radar, Chust was far from a
[28:45] random suspect. He was a convicted violent felon
[28:49] with a history of crimes involving abductions.
[28:52] In fact, records showed he had been paroled in June 1980, just
[28:57] weeks before the Jane Doe's slaying, and by September 1980,
[29:01] he was arrested again for unrelated crimes against women.
[29:06] The DNA hit linked chest not only to the Ventura County Jane
[29:09] Doe, but also to another unsolved 1980 slaying of a young
[29:14] woman in Kern County. Notably, both women had
[29:19] significant Indigenous ancestry, suggesting that this was part of
[29:23] his victim profile. In 2015, he was formally charged
[29:29] with the 1980 attacks, but despite overwhelming evidence,
[29:33] he denied any involvement, offering no information about
[29:36] the victims identities. The case went to trial in 2018,
[29:42] 38 years after the crimes, and despite both women being
[29:46] unidentified, he was found guilty on both charges.
[29:51] In the years following, one of the women was identified as
[29:54] Shirley Suzay, a Cree woman from Alberta in Canada.
[29:59] However, the Ventura County Jane Doe remained unidentified.
[30:05] In 2018, the Ventura County Sheriff's Office partnered with
[30:09] the DNA Doe Project. They extracted the victim's DNA
[30:13] and used it to search genealogy databases for family matches,
[30:18] and the results were intriguing. Her DNA pointed toward an
[30:22] indigenous Mexican or Central American background, which
[30:25] aligned with her physical traits and the initial anthropological
[30:29] assessment. Genetic genealogy soon linked
[30:34] the unknown woman to distant cousins.
[30:37] They traced family roots to Zacatecas, Mexico, and
[30:40] discovered very distant cousins who lived in the Los Angeles
[30:43] area. This strongly suggests that the
[30:46] Jane Doe or her immediate family may have come from that region
[30:50] and later settled in Southern California.
[30:55] A major development came in 2021 when genealogists managed to
[30:59] identify the father of the Jane Doe's unborn baby.
[31:02] He turned out to be a man from Honduras who had been living in
[31:06] Los Angeles around 1980. Detectives were able to locate
[31:10] and interview him, and he confirmed he had a relationship
[31:14] with a young woman around that time, but he didn't know her
[31:17] full identity. Unfortunately, he couldn't give
[31:21] much in the way of biographical details about her either, though
[31:25] he does appear to have confirmed that she wasn't born in America.
[31:31] Notably, the authorities don't believe he was involved in the
[31:34] Jane Doe's passing in any way whatsoever, and continue to
[31:37] believe the convicted perpetrator acted alone.
[31:41] Still, personally, I find it quite unusual that this man
[31:46] claims to have been in a relationship with this woman,
[31:49] yet couldn't even remember the most basic biographical details
[31:52] about her. I would expect that he would
[31:55] have at least been able to remember a first name or where
[31:58] she was originally from, or anything, rather than simply
[32:02] nothing. At any rate, all these clues
[32:08] have shaped working theories about who the Jane Doe was.
[32:12] She might have left home as a teenager or young adult, which
[32:15] could be why no immediate family reported her missing.
[32:19] The hitchhiking report supports the idea that she was transient
[32:22] or travelling when she crossed paths with chest.
[32:26] It's possible her relatives back in Mexico or elsewhere didn't
[32:29] know where to start searching when she vanished.
[32:33] This has led to the speculative idea that there may be a
[32:36] parallel missing persons investigation in Mexico or
[32:40] elsewhere for this young woman. One of the most haunting aspects
[32:46] of the Ventura County Jane Doe case is that she wasn't just a
[32:50] pregnant woman when she was slain.
[32:52] She had also given birth to at least one child before her
[32:55] passing. The autopsy revealed evidence of
[32:59] a prior cesarean scar, which indicated that she delivered a
[33:03] child years earlier. That fact deepens the tragedy
[33:07] but also provides investigators with a potential path forward.
[33:12] If that earlier child survived and is still alive today, they
[33:16] may carry the crucial genetic link that could finally unlock
[33:19] this Jane Doe's identity. After all, genetic genealogy
[33:24] thrives on locating close relatives, and a direct
[33:27] descendant represents the most definitive match.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.