Imagine that your loved one went missing and you never found out what happened to him or her. Or that a body was found, and no one could identify it. Even in today’s tech-savvy age, people disappear. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, there are more than 10,000 unidentified dead people in the United States – tucked away in morgues or buried in pauper’s graves. The FBI estimates that some 80,000 people are missing on any given day. So what keeps authorities from connecting missing people to Jane and John Does? On the next episode of Reveal, a new investigation looks into the cases of people who have remained unidentified for decades, and we hear from the families they left behind. We examine how the disorganization, neglect and indifference of state and local authorities – police, medical examiners and others – contribute to the problem.
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