True crime meets forensic science in the What Remains podcast from WRAL Studios. With no ID, human skeletal remains often end up at medical examiners’ offices where they sit in storage closets for years, gathering dust as evidence slowly disappears. These are some of the most difficult cold cases to crack. Unsolved murders. Missing people never identified. Families without answers. Every year in the United States there are 600,000 missing person reports and 4,400 sets of unidentified human remains are found. But matching the remains to the missing people is not an easy task. Meet the passionate scientists, investigators and volunteers dedicating thei...
Latest episodes
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29 min
Seeking Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls
Indigenous woman are ten times more likely to be murdered than the rest of the population in some parts of the US. More than 4 in 5 indigenous women experience violence in their li…
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26 min
Crowdfunding Cold Cases
Carla Davis isn’t your typical American living the good life in Dubai. While we sleep, she teases the knots out of stubborn cold cases as a self-taught forensic genealogist. But sh…
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27 min
The Disappearance of Brittanee Drexel
17-year-old Brittanee Drexel went against her mother’s orders and traveled from New York to Myrtle Beach for spring break 2009. She disappeared on a crowded street and was never se…
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30 min
The Disappearance of Brittanee Drexel
17-year-old Brittanee Drexel went against her mother’s orders and traveled from New York to Myrtle Beach for spring break 2009. She disappeared on a crowded street and was never se…
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24 min
Forty Years and Counting
Two men, with no connection, were both found dead in rural Chatham County, North Carolina more than forty years ago. To complicate matters, one man’s head and hands were removed to…
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27 min
Forty Years and Counting
Two men, with no connection, were both found dead in rural Chatham County, North Carolina more than forty years ago. To complicate matters, one man’s head and hands were removed to…
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24 min
Isotope Analysis | It’s in the Water
You know the phrase, you are what you eat? Well, it’s true. Isotopes from the water we drink and the water in the food we eat can tell scientists where we live, and where we have t…
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27 min
Isotope Analysis | It’s in the Water
You know the phrase, you are what you eat? Well, it’s true. Isotopes from the water we drink and the water in the food we eat can tell scientists where we live, and where we have t…
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31 min
The Somerton Man
What do you do with a cold case that happened a lifetime ago when things like DNA testing and forensic genealogy didn’t exist? If you’re a professor at Adelaide University in South…
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34 min
The Somerton Man
What do you do with a cold case that happened a lifetime ago when things like DNA testing and forensic genealogy didn’t exist? If you’re a professor at Adelaide University in South…
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31 min
“Little Miss Nobody” The Abduction and Murder of Sharon Lee Gallegos
When a child’s remains are found in a remote area of Yavapai County, Arizona in 1960, the community comes together to bury the child with a card that reads “Little Miss Nobody. God…
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33 min
“Little Miss Nobody” The Abduction and Murder of Sharon Lee Gallegos
When a child’s remains are found in a remote area of Yavapai County, Arizona in 1960, the community comes together to bury the child with a card that reads “Little Miss Nobody. God…
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36 min
A Lost Father and a Father’s Loss
Two families in Texas, grieving after separate tragedies, decided something needed to change. Alice Almendarez’s father, John, disappeared when she was just 16. She spent her later…
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38 min
A Lost Father and a Father’s Loss
Two families in Texas, grieving after separate tragedies, decided something needed to change. Alice Almendarez’s father, John, disappeared when she was just 16. She spent her later…
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34 min
Paying the Price for DNA Testing
An unidentified man is found dead in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2010 in a rough part of town. Leads dry up quickly. The case goes cold. That is until one cold case investigator t…
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30 min
Paying the Price for DNA Testing
An unidentified man is found dead in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2010 in a rough part of town. Leads dry up quickly. The case goes cold. That is until one cold case investigator t…
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31 min
Resolution | One of North Carolina's Oldest Cold Cases
In 1975, Priscilla Blevins vanished from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her parents reported their adult daughter’s disappearance to the police, but investigators didn’t se…
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28 min
Resolution | One of North Carolina's Oldest Cold Cases
In 1975, Priscilla Blevins vanished from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her parents reported their adult daughter’s disappearance to the police, but investigators didn’t se…
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31 min
A Murder Trial Without A Body
What is justice? For some people, it’s finding the missing remains of the person they love. For others, it’s convicting the person responsible for taking a life. Sometimes, it’s bo…
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28 min
A Murder Trial Without A Body
What is justice? For some people, it’s finding the missing remains of the person they love. For others, it’s convicting the person responsible for taking a life. Sometimes, it’s bo…