Wadesboro, North Carolina, is a town where life moves slowly, where everyone knows everyone—or at least thinks they do. Nestled in Anson County, this rural community is surrounded by dense woods and winding creeks, the kind of place where secrets could linger for years, hidden in plain sight. On the night of August 22, 2021, a trail camera set up behind the National Guard Armory on Anson High School Road caught something it wasn’t meant to see. A grainy image, timestamped at 1:30 a.m., showed the lower half of a woman moving through the forest—barefoot, shirtless, wearing only a bra and mud-streaked leggings. The woman appeared disoriented, as if she were lost or on the run.
Three hours later, at 4:30 a.m., she reappeared on the camera. This time, she was leaning heavily on a stick, her movements slow and labored, her leggings caked in muck. The woods around her were dark and silent, and the camera captured her as she disappeared into the shadows, never to be seen on film again.
The unsettling footage would remain a mystery until May 2022, when surveyors discovered skeletal remains in the same wooded area. The remains, dressed in fragments of the same clothing seen in the trail cam images, were quickly linked to the unidentified woman, now known as Anson County Jane Doe. But identifying her would prove to be an uphill battle in a town where resources are stretched thin and answers come slowly.
The Investigation
When the remains were found, it sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community of Wadesboro. It was a place where strangers stand out, and everyone had an opinion on the strange woman seen wandering the woods. Initial identification efforts zeroed in on April Michelle Reed, a 36-year-old woman who went missing from Lenoir, North Carolina, six months before the trail camera footage was taken. April had told friends she was heading to Myrtle Beach but never arrived. The physical similarities were striking, and the timeline matched up perfectly. But in January 2024, dental comparisons ruled her out as a match, leaving investigators back at square one.
The focus then shifted to Amber Johnston, a missing mother of five from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Amber’s story was one of struggle and survival; she had left an ex-boyfriend in Arizona, planning to return to her family, but never made it home. A devoted mother, Amber would never have left her children behind voluntarily, Sharon Johnston, her own mother, insisted. Amber’s last known movements were traced to a Greyhound bus station in Winston-Salem, not far from Wadesboro. Sharon has spent countless hours poring over the trail camera images, convinced that the woman captured is her daughter. “I am certain the side view alone is Amber,” she says. But despite Sharon’s unwavering belief, dental comparisons have yet to definitively confirm or exclude Amber as Jane Doe.
The case took another twist in February 2022, when local rabbit hunters found a backpack in the woods, not far from where Jane Doe’s remains would later be discovered. They rummaged through it, taking cash before leaving it behind, unaware of its potential significance. By the time authorities caught wind, the backpack was long gone, and with it, any critical clues it might have contained. Despite efforts to locate the hunters and the bag, the trail went cold, leaving investigators with more questions than answers.
The Unresolved Ending
Wadesboro is a town that prides itself on community, but this case has shaken its sense of safety. As the seasons changed and more time passed, the questions only grew louder. Why was Jane Doe alone in the woods that night? Why was she only partially clothed? Speculation ran wild—some believed she was fleeing a dangerous situation, others thought she had suffered a mental breakdown, lost in the wilderness and unable to find her way out.
The community has rallied around the case, driven in part by the haunting images of Jane Doe’s last moments. Locals talk about her in hushed tones, the mystery seeping into conversations at the local diner, the grocery store, the church. It’s a story that refuses to let go. Local sheriff’s deputies, overwhelmed and underfunded, have struggled to keep up with the influx of tips, each one offering a new theory but no solid answers. In January 2024, Jane Doe’s case was uploaded to NamUs, a national database for missing and unidentified persons, but despite renewed interest, the mystery remains unsolved.
Sharon Johnston has grown weary but remains determined. She talks about Amber constantly, recounting her daughter’s life with pride and pain. “Even if this isn’t my Amber, this woman deserves to have her name back,” Sharon says, her voice tinged with the exhaustion of years spent searching for answers. To her, Jane Doe isn’t just a stranger lost in the woods—she’s a symbol of every missing person whose story has slipped through the cracks, every mother’s worst fear made real.
As Wadesboro waits for closure, the woods behind the armory stand as a stark reminder of what’s been lost. Jane Doe’s presence lingers—a ghostly figure frozen in those trail cam images, forever wandering through the night. The residents of this quiet town continue to live their lives, but there’s an unease that hangs in the air, a sense that the story is far from over. Who was she? How did she end up here? And why, in a place where everyone knows everyone, does no one seem to know her?
The answers remain elusive, wrapped in the dense fog of Wadesboro’s woods, waiting to be uncovered. Until then, the people of this small town can only wonder and watch, haunted by a mystery that refuses to fade.
Deep Lore 