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Speaker 1: It was August two thousand and five. Tanett Jackson and

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Speaker 1: her husband Hardy lived with their four children in a

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Speaker 1: small house in Biloxi, Mississippi. The Jacksons and their neighbors

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Speaker 1: had seen their fair share of hurricanes and prepared like

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Speaker 1: they would for any other storm, but no one was

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Speaker 1: prepared for Katrina. In a matter of hours, Tonet's name

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Speaker 1: would be added to the list of twelve thousand missing people.

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Speaker 1: This is America's crime lab. I'm Alan Lance Lesser. Coroner's

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Speaker 1: offices around the country are filled with boxes of unidentified

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Speaker 1: human remains. We've talked about this many times on the show.

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Speaker 1: These boxes represent dead ends, times when traditional DNA testing

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Speaker 1: didn't work. Meanwhile, there are families who never stopped looking

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Speaker 1: for their lost loved one who might have ended up

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Speaker 1: in one of those boxes without a name. Today, we

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Speaker 1: talk with someone who's been trying to solve this problem

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Speaker 1: to learn about her experience as someone with a very

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Speaker 1: unusual job and a special role when it comes to

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Speaker 1: iding mysterious remains.

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Speaker 2: Bones, they're not really viewed as people because they don't

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Speaker 2: have soft tissue. They're not visually recognizable as a human,

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Speaker 2: and then sometimes the investigation is not prioritized.

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Speaker 1: Anastasia Holobinko is a forensic anthropologist, which means she steps

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Speaker 1: in when law enforcement runs out of leads. Think Temperance

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Speaker 1: Brennan from the TV show Bones, studying skeletal remains to

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Speaker 1: find clues about things like gender and biogeographical ancestry. For

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Speaker 1: nine years, Anastasia worked for the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office.

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Speaker 1: This year she joined AUTHRAM as the Special Projects coordinator

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Speaker 1: for Anthropology. In college, Anastasia thought she might study marine

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Speaker 1: mammals until she took an elective course in forensic anthropology

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Speaker 1: that changed her life.

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Speaker 2: I actually got my first look at human bones, and

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Speaker 2: I was just fascinated, fascinated and particularly viewing the skull.

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Speaker 3: That's a person.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know what that person looked like

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Speaker 2: in real life, but that skull represents a human.

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Speaker 1: One of Anastasia's first cases using forensic anthropology involved a

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Speaker 1: lost boter on Lake Erie. The body was discovered one

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Speaker 1: spring as the ice on the lake thought out.

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Speaker 2: So that was really my first autopsy, seeing what that

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Speaker 2: body look like. And I have to say I used

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Speaker 2: vis under my nose because the odor is something and

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Speaker 2: I think you either get used to it completely or

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Speaker 2: you don't. And it's something that I still am struck

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Speaker 2: by the fact that I haven't completely gotten used to it.

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Speaker 1: By twenty sixteen, Anastasia was working in Mississippi's Medical Examiner's office,

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Speaker 1: where she faced the state's long backlog of unidentified remains cases.

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Speaker 1: When she first learned about OUTHRAM, she was intrigued. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the problem wasn't that these cases were impossible to solve,

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Speaker 1: Maybe they just needed new technology. At AUTHRAM, Kristin Middelman

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Speaker 1: shared an interest in clearing Mississippi's backlog. She knew the

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Speaker 1: science was there, but she was facing a different obstacle money.

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Speaker 1: There were no funds to work the cases. Then a

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Speaker 1: Mississippi native, Carla Davis, offered to fund the project. Carla

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Speaker 1: had spent years researching DNA and family trees for adoptees,

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Speaker 1: and she later joined AUTHRAM to lead their genetic genealogy,

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Speaker 1: but before that, she was compelled to help identify remains

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Speaker 1: in her own state with her own money. Now with

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Speaker 1: Carla involved, they could begin to tackle the backlog of

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Speaker 1: unidentified human remains at the Medical Examiner's office. At the time,

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Speaker 1: there were forty three unidentified remains cases on the back burner.

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Speaker 1: People had assumed that technology was the limiting factor and

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Speaker 1: that many cases were just unsolvable. See anthropologists would measure

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Speaker 1: features of the skull or skeleton to try and figure

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Speaker 1: out clues about where someone was from. That was helpful,

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Speaker 1: but it was also inexact, and in tough cases, it

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Speaker 1: didn't give investigators enough information. Now Authroom's technology offered a

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Speaker 1: way to look at tens of thousands of DNA markers

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Speaker 1: and compare them to other people with well documented family

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Speaker 1: histories think big family trees. Kristen was confident that this

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Speaker 1: would reveal a much clearer picture of an unknown person's origins,

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Speaker 1: but looking at the Mississippi remains, there was a problem.

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Speaker 1: In many cases, all that was left were bones, some

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Speaker 1: completely stripped of DNA before they were shelved years ago.

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Speaker 4: The Mississippi bones are difficult to work with for a

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Speaker 4: couple reasons. A lot of them have been cleaned off

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Speaker 4: with detergents that make it more difficult to do DNA

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Speaker 4: testing because back then, advanced DNA testing wasn't a thing.

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Speaker 4: Even DNA testing might not have been a thing, And

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Speaker 4: so what they did is they washed these bones boil them,

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Speaker 4: use detergents so that they can clean them to be

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Speaker 4: able to better look at them, not knowing that you know,

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Speaker 4: decades later DNA testing would be able to give them

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Speaker 4: the answer. But the worst thing you can do to

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Speaker 4: DNA is boil it or wash it with a detergent.

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Speaker 1: On top of that, Unlike most states, Mississippi's backlog included

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Speaker 1: a lot of Hurricane Katrina victims.

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Speaker 4: Katrina victims, as you can imagine, there would be a

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Speaker 4: lot of contamination there that make the DNA testing a

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Speaker 4: little bit more difficult. There's a lot of degradation because

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Speaker 4: a lot of them were left in water or out

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Speaker 4: in field for decades and decades and decades.

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Speaker 1: This is where Authurm's tech may be able to help.

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Speaker 1: Kristen and Anastasia started working together to start. They had

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Speaker 1: a particular Jane Doe in mind, and they had a

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Speaker 1: hunch that their name might be Toannette Jackson.

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Speaker 2: There are several that really I will remember for a

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Speaker 2: very long time. That would be one of those cases.

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Speaker 2: Tonette Jackson and her husband were trying to seek refuge

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Speaker 2: in their house on their property and she was swept

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Speaker 2: away during the storm.

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Speaker 1: Tenette and Hardy Jackson were climbing up to their attic

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Speaker 1: to escape the rising water when a twenty foot wave

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Speaker 1: crashed into their home and split the house in two.

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Speaker 1: Hardy clung to a tree with one hand and held

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Speaker 1: on to Toennette with the other. When Tinette realized Hardy

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to hold her for much longer, she

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Speaker 1: made him promise to take care of their children and grandchildren.

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Speaker 1: Then they let go.

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Speaker 2: When the storm cleared and people were coming out onto

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Speaker 2: the streets, a reporter came across mister Jackson, who was

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Speaker 2: visibly distraught, and she was able to talk to him

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Speaker 2: about his story.

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Speaker 1: Reporter Jennifer Merley from w k RG, a local CBS affiliate,

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Speaker 1: saw mister Jackson walking with his two young sons. After

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Speaker 1: he told her about his wife's disappearance, the reporter asked

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Speaker 1: him to describe her so people could keep an eye out.

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Speaker 5: What's your wife's name in case we can put this

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Speaker 5: out there. Tell that Jackson?

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Speaker 2: Okay?

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Speaker 5: And what's your name? Part of Jackson? Where are you

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Speaker 5: guys going? We gotta nowhere to.

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Speaker 1: Go, no web go.

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Speaker 5: I'm love. That's all I hed. That's all I had.

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Speaker 1: In the video, the reporter does something you don't see

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Speaker 1: on TV. As she holds the microphone to Hardy Jackson,

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Speaker 1: listening to him, she starts to cry at the end.

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Speaker 1: When she turns the story back to the news anchors,

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Speaker 1: they seem speechless behind their desk. I think we need

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Speaker 1: to go to a break, one of them says, and

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Speaker 1: then bursts into tears.

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Speaker 5: I think we need to go to our break. We'll

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Speaker 5: return with more in just a moment.

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Speaker 1: Weeks later, in the neighboring community of Saint Martin's, a

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Speaker 1: search crew located a body. It was in between the

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Speaker 1: slabs where two houses once stood.

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Speaker 2: They believed them to be those of miss Jackson, but

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Speaker 2: there were technical difficulties in achieving an identification.

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Speaker 5: Was this Tenette.

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Speaker 1: No one could tell for sure, and her remains were

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Speaker 1: buried as a Jane Doe, but Tannette's husband, Hardy Jackson,

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Speaker 1: never stopped looking. Nineteen years after Hurricane Katrina swept to

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Speaker 1: net Jackson away, Anastasia took up the case. The Mississippi

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Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation decided to exhumem two bodies that were

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Speaker 1: buried as unidentified individuals in the wake of Katrina, one

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Speaker 1: man and one woman. A Jane Doe.

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Speaker 2: I took samples from both sets of remains to send

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Speaker 2: to AUTHRM.

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Speaker 4: I do know that there was a lot of bacterial

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Speaker 4: non human DNA there in her sample specifically, and if

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Speaker 4: you don't have purpose built methods to filter that stuff

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Speaker 4: out genome sequencing sequences, everything plant DNA, bacterial DNA, anyone

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Speaker 4: else's DNA that may have touched those remains, it's super powerful.

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Speaker 4: But if you have markers from all of these genomes,

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Speaker 4: you actually aren't going to get any relatives because they're

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Speaker 4: all mixed together.

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Speaker 1: By selectively analyzing the human genetic material hidden among DNA

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Speaker 1: from non human sources, Authorne was able to reveal the

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Speaker 1: truth about Jane Doe's remains. These remains did belong to

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Speaker 1: Tenette Jackson, the woman who hadn't been seen since a

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Speaker 1: twenty foot wave tore her away from her husband.

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Speaker 3: And so it came full circle.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Hardy, her husband had passed away a few years earlier.

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Speaker 1: He never got to hear the news, but Tinett's.

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Speaker 4: Family did, and he did spend the rest of his

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Speaker 4: days keeping his promise to her and looking for her.

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Speaker 1: This was just one of dozens of cases that were

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Speaker 1: so through Anastasia's partnership with authram for the Mississippi backlog,

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't long before Anastasia discovered another hurdle. Before

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Speaker 1: she arrived at the Mississippi Medical Examiner's office, Mississippi had

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Speaker 1: relied on universities or forensic anthropologists who were out of

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Speaker 1: state for help with investigations, and when she tried to

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Speaker 1: get a full picture of how many unidentified remains were

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Speaker 1: actually in state custody, she realized something. Mississippi's remains were

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Speaker 1: sitting in university labs and storage rooms all across the South.

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Speaker 1: So she started making calls to nearby universities slowly and

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Speaker 1: sometimes with a lot of pushback. They agreed to send

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Speaker 1: them back. One box of remains they got back posed

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Speaker 1: a new problem. The remains were recovered in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: but when Anastasia looked at them, it was clear they

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Speaker 1: were much older. She dated them to the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: and she didn't have much else.

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Speaker 2: It was an incomplete case that I received, meaning not

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Speaker 2: all of the skill. Little elements were present, and there

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Speaker 2: were some personal effects, but there was no documentation with

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Speaker 2: the remains.

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Speaker 1: But the big problem was they weren't sure when this

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Speaker 1: person went missing. This made it harder to know which

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Speaker 1: generation this person might belong to on a family tree.

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Speaker 1: Anastasia sent the evidence to Athram. Their scientists were able

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Speaker 1: to build a genealogical profile that was used to conduct

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Speaker 1: genealogical research. This helped them identify Luther Ezelle.

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Speaker 4: They realized that he was born in nineteen thirteen. I

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Speaker 4: believe he was a father to six children. He was married,

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Speaker 4: He loved fishing, and went missing in nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 2: And he lived in California and traveled cross country in

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Speaker 2: his vehicle to assist a family member with a move

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Speaker 2: and somewhere around Mississippi. He checked in with his family,

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Speaker 2: but then was not heard from again, and they hired

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Speaker 2: private investigators.

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Speaker 3: Then they searched for their father for decades.

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Speaker 4: And I know that he was a family man that

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Speaker 4: his family honestly thought, really loved being a family man,

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Speaker 4: and then one day he was gone.

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Speaker 1: Thirty two years after he disappeared, Anastasia contacted Luther Eazell's family.

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Speaker 1: She returned to the few personal belongings found with his body.

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Speaker 4: I know his daughters were really really happy to hear

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Speaker 4: from us and figure out what happened.

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Speaker 5: To their father.

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Speaker 4: I think this is one of those cases where they

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Speaker 4: weren't sure if he just left and decided not to

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Speaker 4: come back to the family, and now they have answers

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Speaker 4: and they know that that's not what happened.

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Speaker 1: We still don't know exactly what happened to Luther during

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Speaker 1: that cross country trip, why he died, or how his

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Speaker 1: body ended up where it did, but at least his

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Speaker 1: family has some closure. They know he didn't stay away

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Speaker 1: on purpose, they know where he is now. Now, the

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Speaker 1: story of Luther Usel unveils another surprising part of how

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Speaker 1: unidentified bodies are treated, because if Anastasia hadn't gotten his

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Speaker 1: remains back from that university lab, what would have happened

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Speaker 1: to him?

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Speaker 2: Probably the long term use of unidentified human remains as

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Speaker 2: teaching specimens.

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Speaker 1: This kind of blew my mind because I had no

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Speaker 1: idea that a body found without any idea might end

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Speaker 1: up as a classroom tool.

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Speaker 2: And we're not talking about legitimate or official anatomical donations

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Speaker 2: where the individual has signed off on donation of his

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Speaker 2: or her body to a teaching institution or maybe the

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Speaker 2: next of kin authorizing this donation.

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Speaker 1: Teaching specimens now, typically when people donate their bodies to science.

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Speaker 1: They're donating a cadaver, a complete body with skin and

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Speaker 1: tissue and organs. When the cadaver is no longer needed

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Speaker 1: as a teaching tool, most medical schools return the bodies

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Speaker 1: to families for burial or cremation. This means that medical

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Speaker 1: schools do have cadavers, but they don't have a lot

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Speaker 1: of access to skeletal remains. In the past, since unidentified

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Speaker 1: human remains were more difficult to ident identify, and since

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Speaker 1: universities needed skeletal remains for teaching purposes and law enforcement

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Speaker 1: wasn't clamoring for the remains to be returned, universities and

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Speaker 1: historical institutions may have been using unidentified remains to teach students,

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Speaker 1: remains that really should be returned to the state and

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Speaker 1: ultimately families.

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Speaker 2: I can't speculate as to what would goes through people's minds.

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Speaker 2: The explanation that, well, we don't have advanced technology, so

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Speaker 2: we can't identify this person, so why even try with

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Speaker 2: the technology we have nowadays, many practitioners or professors, they

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Speaker 2: have changed their outlook over the years and as well

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Speaker 2: as the development of standards. But really, until the death

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Speaker 2: investigation systems became more structured.

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Speaker 5: I'm not.

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Speaker 3: Surprised that this sort of thing happened.

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Speaker 1: There's been a reckoning of sorts. Many universe, city systems

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Speaker 1: and cultural institutions are taking a closer look at their

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Speaker 1: skeletal remains collections. State police are also asking universities to

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Speaker 1: check their storage rooms for unidentified remains, and then you

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Speaker 1: have medical examiner's offices calling universities to see if unidentified

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Speaker 1: remains are sitting on their shelves, like what Anastasia has

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Speaker 1: been doing, because there is no need to wait. The

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Speaker 1: technology exists to solve the puzzle. Kristin, Anastasia and Carla

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Speaker 1: started with forty three unidentified remains cases in Mississippi, and

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Speaker 1: since then they've helped identify most of them. But in

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Speaker 1: the meantime, the backlog has continued to grow. As of

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Speaker 1: September twenty twenty five, there are sixty nine new unidentified

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Speaker 1: remains cases waiting to be solved in Mississippi. But this

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Speaker 1: growth doesn't reflect neglect, it reflects renewed hope. Kristin says

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Speaker 1: more people in the state are submitting cases for review

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Speaker 1: because of the success the teams had. Anastasia has appeared

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Speaker 1: before many state legislatures. She wants them to know that

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Speaker 1: there's a solution and that solving cases is a choice.

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Speaker 1: Some states are beginning to get on board.

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Speaker 2: There are thousands, tens of thousands of unidentified human remains cases.

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Speaker 2: It can become so overwhelming, but I think most of

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Speaker 2: us who do this type of work are very good

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Speaker 2: at compartmentalizing. And of course if you're not good at compartmentalizing,

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Speaker 2: then you become much more proficient at it through this work.

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Speaker 2: But it really is just it's moving forward, one name

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Speaker 2: at a time.

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Speaker 1: Anastasia Julobinko is a former forensic anthropologist for the State

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Speaker 1: of Mississippi, now now a special Projects coordinator in Anthropology

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Speaker 1: at Authrum.

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Speaker 5: America's Crime Lab.

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Speaker 1: Is produced by Rococo Punch for Kaleidoscope. Erica Lance is

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Speaker 1: our story editor and sound design is by David Woji.

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Speaker 1: Our producing team is Catherine Fenalosa, Emily Foreman, and Jessica Albert.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hadigadour and David

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Speaker 1: and Kristin Middleman and from iHeart Katrina Norville and Ali Perry.

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Speaker 5: Special thanks to Connell.

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Speaker 1: Byrne Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etour, Nathan Etowski, John Burbank,

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Speaker 1: and the entire team at AUTHRM.

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Speaker 5: I'm Alan Lance Lesser. Thanks for listening. Bobo bo Bo