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Naming the Dead: The Hitchhiker (S1E1)

November 6, 2025·43 min·4 clips

Scott McCord opens a box on his first day as coroner to find skeletal remains, igniting a 14-year quest for justice.

This episode reviews the National Geographic series "Naming the Dead," focusing on its first episode about two unidentified victims of serial killer Larry Eyler. Hosts Patrick Hines and Gillian Pensavalle provide their comedic and emotional commentary on the documentary. The episode centers on the efforts to identify "Adam" and "Brad," two young men murdered by Eyler, known as the "Highway Killer," in 1983. Newton County Coroner Scott McCord discovered boxes of their skeletal remains on his first day in office in 2008. McCord gave the victims the names Adam and Brad to humanize them and, with his daughter, distributed flyers with composite sketches across a 60-mile radius. After seven years with no leads, McCord held a funeral and placed the remains in a local mausoleum. A breakthrough came when the DNA Doe Project used genetic genealogy to identify Brad as John Brandenburg, Jr. The team then focused on Adam, facing the challenge that only 5% of the DNA from his remains was human due to microbial contamination. Forensic scientist Dr. Kelly Harkins Kincaid employed a new technique to increase the human DNA yield from 5% to 80%. The investigation revealed Larry Eyler targeted young men, often staging scenes to exploit biases against gay victims. Attorney Kathleen Zellner, who represented Eyler, secured a detailed handwritten confession from him in the 1980s, which included the location where he picked up Adam. This clue suggested Adam was hitchhiking toward Chicago, guiding genealogists to focus on families there. The genealogical team, including former police officer Janelle Daniels, traced a DNA match of just 3.2%, indicating a distant relative. They painstakingly built a family tree back three generations, initially hitting a dead end with a woman who was not Adam's mother. A key discovery was that a branch of the family had changed their surnames to El-Amin for religious reasons, explaining the lack of records. The team contacted Tariq El-Amin Jr., who revealed a cousin, Ikra, had an older brother who went missing in the early 1980s. The hosts express awe at the dedication of volunteers using cutting-edge science to solve decades-old cases. They highlight the emotional complexity of delivering closure to families who may have lived with uncertainty for years. The tone is conversational, humorous, and deeply empathetic, balancing comedic asides with sincere admiration for the investigators. True crime fans interested in forensic genealogy and victim-centered stories will appreciate this episode. Listeners preferring fast-paced narratives or graphic crime details might find the detailed genealogical process slow.

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