Back in 1995, LaMont Dottin was 21 years old and a freshman at Queens College when, one evening, he didn’t come home.

His mother went to the local police precinct to try to report him missing, and his name was added to a list of thousands of cases that the NYPD’s Missing Persons Squad was supposed to be investigating. Then his case fell through the cracks.

This is the final episode of The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island. Listen to all 8 stories in our podcast feed, tell a friend and share your thoughts with us on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook. @RadioDiaries 
 
Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to support independent creators like us. Thank you! <a href="https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr</a>

Back in 1995, LaMont Dottin was 21 years old and a freshman at Queens College when, one evening, he didn’t come home. His mother went to the local police precinct to try to report him missing, and his name was added to a list of thousands of cases that the NYPD’s Missing Persons Squad was supposed to be investigating. Then his case fell through the cracks. This is the final episode of The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island. Listen to all 8 stories in our podcast feed, tell a friend and share your thoughts with us on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook. @RadioDiaries Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to support independent creators like us. Thank you! https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr

Back in 1995, LaMont Dottin was 21 years old and a freshman at Queens College when, one evening, he didn’t come home.

His mother went to the local police precinct to try to report him missing, and his name was added to a list of thousands of cases that the NYPD’s Missing Persons Squad was supposed to be investigating. Then his case fell through the cracks.

This is the final episode of The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island. Listen to all 8 stories in our podcast feed, tell a friend and share your thoughts with us on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook. @RadioDiaries 
 
Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to support independent creators like us. Thank you! <a href="https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr</a>

The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin

Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx, is America’s largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a “potter’s field.” Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19. Many people buried there are shrouded in anonymity. The island has no headstones or plaques, just numbered markers. Simple pine coffins are stacked in mass graves. In many cases, explanations for how bodies came to be buried there are hard to find.\
\
Our series tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Some were lost in the system after their deaths, while others had been cut off from family and friends for years. One chose Hart Island as his final resting place. Each story is told by the people who knew them best, some of whom overcame tremendous obstacles to uncover what happened to their loved ones.

Society & Culture

Documentary

Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx, is America’s largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a “potter’s field.” Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19. Many people buried there are shrouded in anonymity. The island has no headstones or plaques, just numbered markers. Simple pine coffins are stacked in mass graves. In many cases, explanations for how bodies came to be buried there are hard to find.\ \ Our series tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Some were lost in the system after their deaths, while others had been cut off from family and friends for years. One chose Hart Island as his final resting place. Each story is told by the people who knew them best, some of whom overcame tremendous obstacles to uncover what happened to their loved ones.

Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx, is America’s largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a “potter’s field.” Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19.&nbsp;Many people buried there are shrouded in anonymity. The island has no headstones or plaques, just numbered markers. Simple pine coffins are stacked in mass graves. In many cases, explanations for how bodies came to be buried there are hard to find.\
\
Our series tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Some were lost in the system after their deaths, while others had been cut off from family and friends for years. One chose Hart Island as his final resting place. Each story is told by the people who knew them best, some of whom overcame tremendous obstacles to uncover what happened to their loved ones.

Share The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin

Sign up to save your podcasts

The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin

The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin

More shows like The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island

Radiolab

This American Life

Radio Diaries

The Truth

The Heart

Criminal

Dear Hank & John

The West Wing Weekly

The Daily

Ear Hustle

Uncover: Calls From a Killer

Everything is Alive

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster

Throughline

BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie

Articles of Interest

Over the Road

Home Cooking

Antiques Roadshow Detours

Maintenance Phase

Suave

The Ezra Klein Show

Normal Gossip

You Get A Podcast!

If Books Could Kill

Hang Up

The Recipe with Kenji and Deb

Never Post

My Mother Made Me

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative

Not All Propaganda Is Art

Ways of Hearing

Secrets