Sep 30, 2026 · 49 min · 19 segments
In 2003, the body of an unidentified teenage girl was found stuffed in a bag behind a restaurant. In hopes to identify her, a forensic sculptor created a reconstruction of her face, based on her…
Harold DowI think it haunts me a lot.
I think it haunts everybody that's worked on this case.
Like any good homicide detective, Sergeant Scott Dudek can sometimes get a little obsessed with his cases, but this case troubles him more than any other.
She's just a child, and no one knows who she is.
[siren blaring] If anybody deserves everything you got and then 50% more than that, it'd be a child.
[somber music] A 22-year veteran of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department in Northern California, Dudek has solved his share of gruesome crimes, but murders are rare in the suburban community of Castro Valley.
It's a beautiful community.
It's about 75,000 people.
It's, uh, middle to upper middle class, most of it.
Um, not a lot of crime, not a lot of violent crime especially, so very nice area.
[tense music] So what he saw the night of May 1st, 2003, was especially shocking, even to a seasoned detective, the body of a young girl murdered, stuffed into a trash bag, and discarded behind a restaurant.
If you go behind this tree right here, her body was down here by the cyclone fence.
She had been dead for about 10 days, so it was fairly well decomposed.
decomposed.And the way she died, with a rag in her throat, suggests someone may have wanted to silence her.
You know, there had to be something very, very terrible, obviously, that went on for her ultimately to be killed.
Maybe she was a witness to something.
[suspenseful music] What usually happens when you find an unidentified murder victim?
Normally, for us, within the first 24 to 48 hours, we know who they are, either by looking at missing persons reports or having a parent contact us.
Because her body was so badly decomposed, a local artist did the best she could to give her a face.
I think it haunts me a lot.
I think it haunts everybody that's worked on this case.
Like any good homicide detective, Sergeant Scott Dudek can sometimes get a little obsessed with his cases, but this case troubles him more than any other.
She's just a child, and no one knows who she is.
[siren blaring] If anybody deserves everything you got and then 50% more than that, it'd be a child.
[somber music] A 22-year veteran of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department in Northern California, Dudek has solved his share of gruesome crimes, but murders are rare in the suburban community of Castro Valley.
It's a beautiful community.
It's about 75,000 people.
It's, uh, middle to upper middle class, most of it.
Um, not a lot of crime, not a lot of violent crime especially, so very nice area.
[tense music] So what he saw the night of May 1st, 2003, was especially shocking, even to a seasoned detective, the body of a young girl murdered, stuffed into a trash bag, and discarded behind a restaurant.
If you go behind this tree right here, her body was down here by the cyclone fence.
She had been dead for about 10 days, so it was fairly well decomposed.
decomposed.And the way she died, with a rag in her throat, suggests someone may have wanted to silence her.
You know, there had to be something very, very terrible, obviously, that went on for her ultimately to be killed.
Maybe she was a witness to something.
[suspenseful music] What usually happens when you find an unidentified murder victim?
Normally, for us, within the first 24 to 48 hours, we know who they are, either by looking at missing persons reports or having a parent contact us.
Because her body was so badly decomposed, a local artist did the best she could to give her a face.
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