She Goes by Jane: A True Crime Podcast

She Goes by Jane: A True Crime Podcast

She Goes by Jane is a true crime podcast that focuses on the stories of missing women and unidentified women. Each episode explores unsolved disappearances and Jane Doe cases with deep research, historical context, and original poetry, featuring guest readings by actors and advocates. Unlike other true crime podcasts, we center the victims—not the killers. No gore. No gimmicks. Just the truth, told with care. Perfect for listeners who want ethical true crime storytelling about unsolved mysteries, missing persons, and cold cases.

  1. 18h ago

    The Missing Women of Pinellas County, Pt 1: Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson

    Three women disappeared from Pinellas County, Florida over the course of fifteen years.They came from different backgrounds. Their lives followed different paths. But their disappearances would eventually point investigators toward the same man.In 1974, Margaret Dash left home to buy medicine for a sick relative and never returned. In 1982, Retha Hiers drove out to buy laundry detergent and vanished. In 1989, college student Donyelle Johnson left for class but never arrived.Each woman left behind a family searching for answers. Decades later, investigators would come to suspect Cleveland Hill Jr., a married former minister and asphalt contractor with a documented history of violence who was repeatedly investigated but never charged in connection with their disappearances.This week, we examine the lives of Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson, the evidence that links their cases, and the unanswered questions that continue to haunt Pinellas County more than fifty years after Margaret first disappeared. 📍 Pinellas County, Florida📅 1974–1989If you have information about the disappearances of Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, or Donyelle Johnson, please contact the appropriate law enforcement agency. 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Malynda Hale. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook and Patreon. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT. More about Malynda Hale: Malynda Hale is an award-winning actress, filmmaker, singer-songwriter, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. Working across film, television, music, and digital media, her work explores themes of identity, humanity, faith, race, and emotional connection through cinematic storytelling and character-driven narratives. Most recently, she starred in the feature film Bull Street alongside Loretta Devine and Amy Madigan and made her directorial debut with the short film Curtain Call, which screened at festivals internationally including Bend Film Festival, GAZE International LGBTQIA Festival, and Middlebury NewFilmmakers Festival. Her second short film, Au Gratin, starring Tiffany Daniels, Loretta Devine, and Jay Donnell, was selected for the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and Wyoming International Film Festival, and will also screen at the LightReel Film Festival in Washington, D.C. and the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival in August, an Oscar-qualifying festival. She is also the founder of JMV Entertainment, a production company focused on developing film, television, and media projects rooted in meaningful storytelling. Before expanding into filmmaking, Malynda built a career as a singer-songwriter and performer, releasing multiple independent projects and opening for artists including Smokey Robinson and OTOWN. Her music has appeared on television, including CBS and Disney productions, and she has performed for audiences ranging from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the California Democratic Convention. Across every medium she works in, Malynda is passionate about telling stories that create empathy, challenge systems, and connect people more deeply to one another.

    The Missing Women of Pinellas County, Pt 1: Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson
  2. Jul 28

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 3: The Jane Does

    Law enforcement called some of San Diego's missing and murdered women "NHIs," short for No Humans Involved. It was police slang used to describe victims they believed didn't matter.By 1988, the number of women disappearing from San Diego County had become impossible to ignore. Years before, the sheriff had said there was not a disproportionate number of women, but by the time forty-three women were murdered or went missing, the public started pushing for answers. There would be few to find.In the final episode of our three-part series, we examine the investigation that became one of the largest homicide task forces in California history, the competing theories that shaped the search for answers, and the unidentified women who remain without names decades later. We also explore how police culture, public perception, and systemic failures influenced which victims received urgency and which did not.The women of El Cajon Boulevard were never one story. They were daughters, mothers, sisters, and friends whose lives intersected in a city that too often looked away.This is the final chapter of San Diego's Lost Women. 📍 San Diego, California  | 1980s - 1990s 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Jennifer Cox. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT. More about Jennifer Cox: Jennifer combines a glowing personality with outlandish humor to invent her own comedic style. She burst on the scene in 1995 with her excellent yet underrated performance as middle child "Jan Brady" in "The Brady Bunch" movies.

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 3: The Jane Does
  3. Jul 21

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 2: Mary Colette Rawlinson

    In October 1985, 19-year-old Mary Colette Rawlinson walked out of a home in San Diego, California, telling her boyfriend she'd be right back. She was never seen again. As more women disappeared from El Cajon Boulevard and the surrounding communities, investigators struggled to answer a troubling question: were these isolated crimes, or was someone hunting women across San Diego County? In Part Two of our three-part series, we widen the lens beyond a single case to examine the growing pattern of disappearances and murders targeting women living at the intersection of addiction, poverty, and survival sex work. Through the stories of Mary Colette Rawlinson and the women who vanished alongside her, we look at how fear spread through the community while families fought to convince authorities that their daughters deserved to be searched for. The mounting number of victims would eventually force law enforcement to confront the possibility that the cases were connected, but by then, many women were already gone. This is Part Two of our three-part series, San Diego's Lost Women. 📍 San Diego, California  | October 1985 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Lahna Turner. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT. More about Lahna Turner: Lahna Turner is a comedian, filmmaker, writer, producer, co-director, and published comic book author whose work spans stand-up, television, film, music, publishing, and documentary storytelling. For more than two decades, Lahna has built a loyal following with fearless comedy, sharp observations, and an unfiltered perspective on relationships, motherhood, grief, family, and the messy realities of life. Her credits include NBC, Comedy Central, Netflix, Hulu, VH1, Animal Planet, CMT, truTV, and SiriusXM. Known for blending stand-up with original music, Lahna’s one-hour special A Song About It and albums including If These Lips Could Talk, D!@k Jokes and Other Assorted Love Songs, and Limeade showcase her ability to find humor in life’s most uncomfortable truths. She is also the creator and published author of the four-book Pounds of Power comic series, and the producer and co-director of Come What May, the documentary chronicling the life, legacy, struggles, and impact of comedian Ralphie May. Whether on stage, on screen, or on the page, Lahna Turner tells stories that make people laugh, think, feel, and connect.

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 2: Mary Colette Rawlinson
  4. Jul 14

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 1: Cynthia Maine

    In the 1980s, dozens of women disappeared from San Diego, California. One of them was 26-year-old Cynthia Maine. Cynthia was a daughter, sister, mother, and woman trying to survive addiction while working along El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego’s notorious red light district. By 1986, she was rebuilding her life. She had found work as a waitress, but she was also serving as a police informant. Just months before she vanished, she had allegedly begun an affair with one of her police contacts.  Late in February, she told her family she was going to watch a movie.  She never came home. As investigators searched for Cynthia, few realized they were witnessing the beginning of one of the largest unsolved series of murders and disappearances in California history.  In the first episode of this three-part investigation, we examine Cynthia's disappearance alongside the murder of her friend Donna Gentile. Together, their stories reveal a hidden world of vice squads, confidential informants, police corruption, and the extraordinary risks faced by women living on the margins of San Diego in the mid-1980s. This series asks how so many women could disappear from one city and why so many of their cases remain unsolved decades later. 📍 San Diego, California  | February 1986 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Aimee Baker. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT.

    San Diego’s Lost Women, Episode 1: Cynthia Maine
  5. Jun 30

    The Disappearance of Ilonka Cann: A Coroner’s Jury Speaks

    On May 26, 1970, twenty-six-year-old Ilonka Cann vanished from the rural Pennsylvania farmhouse she shared with her husband and fifteen-month-old son. The day before, she had spoken with her parents in Ohio and talked about coming home for a visit that summer. She never made that trip. In the weeks and months that followed, investigators searched fields, ponds, and woodlots surrounding the isolated property where Ilonka was last believed to have been seen. Her family spent decades searching for answers as the case slowly faded from public memory. More than fifty years later, renewed interest in Ilonka's disappearance led to new searches, a coroner's inquest, and testimony that cast the events of May 1970 in a very different light. In 2024, a coroner's jury concluded that Ilonka Cann died by homicide at the hands of another person. This episode examines the disappearance of Ilonka Cann, the decades-long search for answers, and what it means when official recognition arrives generations after a woman goes missing. 📍 Huntington Mills, Pennsylvania  | May 26, 1970 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Aimee Baker. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT.

    The Disappearance of Ilonka Cann: A Coroner’s Jury Speaks
  6. Jun 23

    The Empty Seat: The Disappearance of Thora Chamberlain

    On November 2, 1945, fourteen-year-old Thora Chamberlain left school in Campbell, California, expecting to attend a football game that evening. Her friends saved her a seat. Thora never arrived. Witnesses later reported seeing her speaking with a man dressed as a serviceman before getting into his vehicle. Within weeks, investigators focused on Thomas McMonigle, a local laborer with a history of violence. Over the course of the investigation, McMonigle gave multiple confessions, led authorities to key pieces of evidence, and was ultimately convicted of Thora's murder. But investigators never found the one thing that mattered most. Thora herself. More than eighty years later, Thora Chamberlain remains one of California's earliest no-body homicide victims. Her body has never been recovered. In this episode, we examine the disappearance of Thora Chamberlain, the investigation that followed, and the evidence that secured a conviction despite the absence of a body. This is a story about loss, memory, and the empty seat left behind when a child never comes home. 📍 Campbell, California | November 2, 1945 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Aimee Baker. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT.

    The Empty Seat: The Disappearance of Thora Chamberlain
  7. Jun 16

    The Women Who Talk to the Dead: A Conversation with Katherine Schweit

    Most people assume that unidentified persons' cases are actively investigated, that somewhere, someone is still working to restore a name to the dead. But the reality is often far more complicated. This week, She Goes by Jane presents a special interview with author and former FBI agent Katherine Schweit about her new book, Women Who Talk to the Dead: The True Story of 200 Forgotten Murder Victims and the Relentless Pursuit of Justice by an FBI Agent and a Detroit Police Detective. Together, we discuss the unidentified dead of Detroit, the challenges of solving decades-old cases, and the investigators who refuse to let victims disappear into forgotten file boxes and evidence rooms. We also explore media neglect, institutional barriers, and the quiet, persistent work required to restore names and histories to those who have been lost. At the end of the episode, actress Mary Lynn Rajskub reads Aimée Baker's poem "Detroit, and Other Sorrows," a meditation on memory, absence, and the lives that remain even when names are forgotten. Because every unidentified person was once known. And every name returned is a story reclaimed. 📍 Detroit, Michigan  | 1950s-Present 📖 Featuring an original poem written in honor of one of Detroit’s formerly unidentified Jane Does read by Mary Lynn Rajskub. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook. 📚 Get Katherine’s book,The Women Who Talk to the Dead, now at Bookshop.org. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT. More about Katherine Schweit: Katherine Schweit is an author, attorney, former Chicago prosecutor, and career Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent who helped jail bank robbers, kidnappers, and domestic terrorists, while working daily with local police investigating and responding to mass casualty and active shooter incidents. A native of Detroit, Ms. Schweit earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University. She earned a law degree at DePaul University and joined the Cook County prosecutor’s office as an assistant state’s attorney. More about Mary Lynn Rajskub:Mary Lynn Rajskub is a comedian, actress and writer, best known for playing ‘Chloe’ on the Fox drama 24 and ‘Gail the Snail’ from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  This spring, Mary Lynn will co-star in the Netflix series, North of North, and she premiered her second hour-long stand-up special, Mary Lynn Rajskub: Road Gig, on YouTube in December.  Her book, FAME-ISH: My Life At The Edge Of Stardom, is a comedic look at Mary Lynn’s awkward and endearing missteps on the road to becoming fame-ish.

    The Women Who Talk to the Dead: A Conversation with Katherine Schweit
4
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46 Ratings

About

She Goes by Jane is a true crime podcast that focuses on the stories of missing women and unidentified women. Each episode explores unsolved disappearances and Jane Doe cases with deep research, historical context, and original poetry, featuring guest readings by actors and advocates. Unlike other true crime podcasts, we center the victims—not the killers. No gore. No gimmicks. Just the truth, told with care. Perfect for listeners who want ethical true crime storytelling about unsolved mysteries, missing persons, and cold cases.