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1:03

Hey, it's Payne here. I hope you're enjoying the new

1:05

season of Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun. If

1:08

you're all caught up through episode three, I'm sure

1:10

you have plenty of questions. And

1:13

today I'm going to break down this case in much more

1:15

detail in a roundtable discussion with

1:17

some of the producers behind the show. The

1:20

segment you're about to hear is a clip from my

1:22

weekly show called Talking to Death. Every

1:25

week after each new episode, I'll be giving

1:27

you an in-depth recap and a behind-the-scenes look

1:29

into my investigation this season. Exclusively

1:32

on my weekly show called Talking to Death,

1:35

which is out now on your podcast app and

1:37

completely free. But

1:39

I figured I'd give you a real example of what I mean right

1:41

here in the Up and Vanished feed. If

1:44

you're enjoying this season, you want to hear in-depth

1:46

discussions about the case, please go

1:48

subscribe and listen to my weekly show called Talking

1:50

to Death. Every

1:53

week I interview a new guest from

1:55

other podcasters, actors, comedians, and

1:57

journalists, all of us who share a mutual interest.

2:00

interest in true crime. Throughout

2:02

this whole season, every week, I'll be recapping

2:04

the latest episode in the intro portion of

2:06

Talking to Death. And

2:10

here's our discussion breaking down everything you've heard in Up

2:12

and Vanish so far. So

2:14

if you like it, please go subscribe to Talking

2:17

to Death on your podcast app and stay tuned

2:19

this Friday for episode 4 of Up and

2:21

Vanish in the Midnight Sun. Thanks,

2:24

see you soon. Episode

3:01

3 of Up and Vanish just came

3:03

out. It's got some

3:06

new revelations in it and it's

3:09

hard for me to even think objectively and

3:11

zoom out and answer what I

3:13

think anyone would even want to know. So

3:16

Dylan, I'm going to kick it to you

3:18

because you just listened to the episode and

3:20

you tell me what stands out as

3:23

like an objective listener, you think. Whoo,

3:25

what an action-packed episode. This one was

3:28

crazy. Start to finish. There's a lot

3:30

of information there. You talk to a

3:32

lot of different kinds of people. This

3:35

episode deals really heavily with law enforcement,

3:37

all these different departments of police

3:40

and state troopers and private investigators

3:42

and city hall. I

3:44

mean, what was your take on not only

3:47

dealing with these people but collecting all the information

3:49

and presenting it? I mean, how was that for

3:51

you? I mean, if

3:53

you look at all the other seasons of Up

3:55

and Vanished, I mean, maybe not

3:58

so much with season one. because that

4:00

was a wildly different story. But for the

4:02

most part, season two, three, other

4:05

shows I've been a part of, Dead and Gone, there

4:08

really isn't ever some super

4:11

strong narrative about the police

4:13

being corrupt or blatantly

4:17

not doing their job. And it's

4:19

just a thing that gets thrown around a lot in

4:21

true crime documentaries that

4:24

the police aren't doing

4:26

their job, they didn't do it or they did

4:29

it themselves or whatever. And so

4:31

I never really have bought too much into

4:33

that in the cases that I've been a

4:35

part of because it wasn't necessarily true. Now,

4:38

Tara Grinstead season one, there

4:40

was proof that there was a tip

4:42

that was submitted back

4:45

in 2005, not

4:47

too long after Tara went missing, that

4:49

was in the case file. And so

4:51

there was some real proof to

4:54

the fact that it

4:56

wasn't investigated to the fullest

4:58

degree. And you could

5:00

look at that as the reason why it

5:03

went unsolved for 10 plus years, right? But

5:06

in the other cases, for

5:08

the most part I've had pretty good relationships

5:10

with law enforcement. Season

5:12

two, Crystal

5:14

Risinger, the Colorado Bureau of

5:17

Investigation has always been

5:19

awesome. Even the

5:21

county sheriff's been great. Season

5:24

three, locally we never made

5:26

that much contact, but we

5:28

were able to establish a relationship with

5:31

the FBI through that. And though

5:33

they were hesitant at first, they ended

5:35

up going on record with us and actually having

5:37

a conversation about how they handle cases like that.

5:40

And let us actually ask them questions

5:42

about it. All that to say,

5:44

to me, this is

5:46

the first time that I've

5:48

ever really strongly felt

5:51

like the police are a

5:53

major problem in this case. And

5:57

I'm not saying it in the way of just...

6:00

pointing the finger like you

6:02

didn't do your job, I could do better. It's

6:05

literally not at all what I'm trying to say.

6:07

I'm just saying that I think if

6:09

you're trying to break down why Florence,

6:13

ophthalmics disappearance remains

6:15

unsolved. I

6:18

think it is extreme incompetence

6:20

from the known police department to

6:22

the point where

6:25

it makes you wonder what else is

6:27

going on. I get that it's

6:30

a hard place to live. I get

6:32

that there are a lack of

6:34

resources, but what I don't get

6:36

is that one of

6:38

those resources is the FBI and I have had email

6:43

correspondence with the FBI and

6:45

they told me that this case belongs to

6:49

the known police department. Therefore

6:51

they weren't even going to comment on it

6:54

to me. If you try to ask

6:56

any question to the known PD, one

6:59

they don't want to answer anything I have heard from

7:01

anyone who has gotten through to them. It's

7:04

as if they don't take it seriously or

7:06

even act like it's a case of theirs

7:08

at all. And having

7:11

looked into this for almost a year now, I

7:14

strongly believe that in the

7:16

early days, especially it was

7:19

a lack of care and effort and

7:21

just investigative work, basic investigative

7:24

work that allowed this case to get to the

7:26

point that it is today.

7:31

Yeah, that's

7:33

an interesting thing you said about the jurisdiction between the

7:35

FBI and known PD. This might be

7:38

a case where the boundary between these

7:40

jurisdictions is allowing a

7:42

crack to form and it seems like

7:44

this case and probably a lot of other

7:47

cases tend to just fall through

7:49

the crack. What do you have to say

7:51

about these jurisdictional lines? If you remember what

7:53

Andy Clams are the

7:56

private investigators, said

8:00

in this episode. He

8:02

mentioned that the known

8:04

police department's always been pretty disorganized

8:07

and if you hear what Sue's talking about it's

8:10

it's like a revolving door of new

8:13

people in and out. They

8:15

never really seem to keep a police chief

8:18

for very long and the

8:20

way that it works from my understanding is that

8:22

if the known

8:24

police department wants assistance then they can

8:26

request that from the FBI and the

8:28

FBI will come from Anchorage to help

8:31

out. But only if they request

8:34

it or in I guess if

8:36

there was some other scenario where the

8:38

FBI felt that there was something nefarious going

8:40

on or something and was doing their own

8:42

investigation into it. So they did do that

8:45

one time. In the first couple

8:47

weeks after Florence went missing they

8:49

did request help from the FBI

8:51

to help search and

8:53

they came out for a couple of days and to

8:55

my knowledge they've never been back since then but

8:58

that's because they were never asked to come

9:00

back and I think what's happened

9:02

is the FBI has never come

9:04

back because they didn't think they needed

9:06

their help or weren't considering

9:09

that and the

9:11

known PD never asked for help also never did anything

9:13

either. We touched on it in the

9:15

episode but known PD has a

9:17

very long history of

9:19

mismanagement. Well they've also killed

9:22

a girl before and this isn't the

9:24

same people so I'm not going to you know

9:27

make that kind of... none

9:30

of the people who worked there now were there or a

9:32

part of that right. But if

9:35

you're working for a department that has a dark history

9:37

like that where one of your former

9:40

officers murdered a Native woman

9:44

then I would just I

9:46

would think if I was ever a police

9:48

chief there that one

9:51

of my primary goals outside of serving

9:54

and protecting right would be to

9:56

regain the trust of the community

9:58

because the people before

10:01

me totally broke it. Right?

10:04

And from what I've seen and who people I've talked to

10:06

and the way they've been to us, it

10:09

doesn't seem like that matters at all

10:11

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match limited by state law. One

11:18

of the things I wanna mention is I think this

11:21

weirdly goes two different ways. I think

11:24

a big thing might be that the

11:26

Nome Police Department, I

11:28

don't think they're prepared

11:31

to handle a homicide investigation. I don't

11:33

think they have the tools or experience

11:35

to do that. And I

11:37

think it's weird that the ABI

11:40

or FBI has given them

11:43

responsibility over this case when I think the

11:45

FBI is better suited to

11:47

investigate a homicide and interrogate these people and

11:50

do these. I don't think Nome, it's a

11:52

small town. Any small town is never historically

11:55

good at investigating a homicide.

11:58

I think that where the. the case stands

12:01

today, that is

12:03

100% true. They don't

12:05

have the resources to solve this

12:07

now. I think

12:09

they did have the resources to solve

12:11

it then because it didn't,

12:14

they didn't find anything from the search

12:16

anyway. But there were

12:18

people, there were names, there were persons

12:21

of interest, that to my

12:23

knowledge and until proven wrong and I've

12:25

looked very hard

12:28

and I would love to be surprised by

12:30

this and find out that it actually is

12:33

true. But to my knowledge they've never even

12:36

interrogated any person of interest in this

12:38

case, even the person

12:40

who had her things. And

12:42

so that what

12:44

you missed the opportunity

12:48

to potentially solve this, you let a

12:50

case get cold because you didn't do

12:53

what I think

12:55

are basic steps in investigating

12:57

anything. And I think that because

12:59

it was missed then and by

13:02

different people, they set

13:04

the known PD up for future failure.

13:07

And now it's in a place where if

13:09

you have persons of interest that are way long

13:12

gone and other faraway places, yeah,

13:14

no shit you don't have the

13:16

resources to do that. We've

13:20

been met with that same challenge

13:22

and it's hard for us

13:24

when it's our full-time focus

13:26

and we don't have to do

13:29

their day-to-day. And so

13:32

I understand how it would be almost near

13:34

impossible now but that signals

13:36

to me they should be more

13:39

open and willing to cooperate and

13:42

just be an open book especially if you weren't

13:44

the ones who were there beforehand.

13:46

But there's a there's

13:49

an ego, there's all

13:51

the bad shit that you

13:54

could read about some cops, not all

13:56

cops but some cops, all

13:59

the fuck and markings of that are here. If

14:03

by some chance this episode makes

14:05

its way back to Nome PD

14:07

and someone's listening, do you have a message for them, something you'd

14:10

like them to hear? I'm open to

14:12

talk at any time. I

14:14

realize that you

14:16

don't want to. That's okay. It

14:19

was never my plan or intention

14:21

to have some

14:24

gotcha moment with you. I'm not

14:26

trying to point the finger

14:29

at anybody. Like I said before, none

14:32

of you were really even there when this happened, so

14:34

it's not even possible for me to do that. But

14:38

I think that when I

14:40

had that first conversation with Crockett a long

14:42

time ago now, I tried

14:44

to even tape that you didn't hear because I

14:46

cut it out. I

14:49

was telling him about the resources that I

14:51

thought I could help give

14:54

to them for them to use,

14:57

and there

14:59

was no interest in doing that. So

15:02

Nome PD, they're not the only

15:04

sheriffs in town, so to say.

15:07

Also Alaska State Troopers are a big deal there.

15:09

Both exist on Front Street, right

15:11

there in Nome. They each have their own department, their own

15:13

office space. Maybe this is

15:15

a good transition to start talking about Joseph Balderas

15:17

because Joseph's case is under the purview of AST.

15:21

How is it dealing with them and what's your take on them?

15:24

So because Joseph went

15:26

missing way outside of town, right,

15:29

it was miles and miles outside of

15:31

the actual downtown city. So

15:34

Flo went missing on West Beach, and

15:36

that's pretty close to the downtown area

15:38

of Nome, and that's within

15:41

the Nome Police jurisdiction. Cases

15:45

that are out in the wildlife

15:47

frontier of Alaska way outside

15:49

of the city, those are

15:51

cases that automatically get assigned to

15:53

the Alaska State Troopers from what

15:55

I've gathered. And so

15:58

because Joseph likely went... Missing

16:00

out there or at least it appears that he did

16:03

his truck was found out there It

16:06

appears to be the last place he

16:08

was unless something else happened but

16:11

on the surface This

16:13

would be a case that the Alaska State

16:15

troopers would take on because of that and

16:18

so I did have a brief conversation

16:20

with a trooper

16:22

who works in Nome

16:25

at the office there, I think

16:27

you guys were both there when we did that and she

16:32

was you know, she was open

16:34

enough More of a

16:36

conversation than we ever have with anyone at

16:38

known PD, but it

16:41

seemed to me like

16:44

Joseph's case specifically they

16:46

had completely wrapped up and decided

16:50

that it was a

16:52

bear even though we can't prove it was

16:55

in the end and I'm not saying

16:57

that I know what it is or not, but Andy

17:00

clams er has shared with me a lot

17:03

more details about his

17:05

disappearance that Weren't included

17:07

in the podcast episode in episode 3 yet

17:12

and There

17:14

are just some major unanswered questions that you

17:16

just can't ignore and we're gonna get to

17:18

that actually later on in the series It

17:21

comes back. I guess I could just say

17:23

this now, but we've been working with Andy

17:26

really ever since that first meeting with him

17:28

and he's been

17:30

a huge help for Florence's

17:34

investigation and Kind

17:36

of just navigating Alaska to begin with

17:39

and he's in the dude has so

17:41

many resources and expertise. He's He

17:44

was a Alaska cop

17:47

detective for 20 plus years,

17:50

so he's an ex-cop and

17:52

he gets it and so I Really

17:56

put a lot of credence into what he says and

17:59

he has literally hundreds of pages

18:01

of investigative work and interviews

18:03

and tape with people

18:06

in Joseph's case that he's given

18:08

us and we've scoured

18:12

for months and

18:14

there are just some major unanswered questions in

18:16

there that you cannot ignore and the

18:20

more I look into it

18:23

the fact that they

18:25

never found anything to me. Like they

18:28

didn't find his backpack or

18:30

a phone or a piece of clothing

18:32

or whatever right just

18:35

thinking logically if he

18:37

left his truck and walked out there

18:39

to the river how

18:42

far could someone actually

18:44

go like within reason right like

18:47

how how far could

18:49

he have possibly gone there's got to be like

18:51

a finite radius of what that is and they

18:53

searched that and searched way beyond that with dogs

18:56

it's like he just wasn't there if he

18:58

is there and they didn't find him that would

19:00

be tragic but it is so odd

19:03

that they didn't and I love

19:05

to search again but that coupled

19:09

with a few of the stories

19:11

about the roommate which we'll

19:13

get into later on in the series just

19:17

makes me think that there's something else going

19:19

on and it starts

19:21

to look and smell a lot like

19:23

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20:48

So Andy gives you a really

20:50

hot tip near the end of the episode. He

20:54

tells you that it may be worth, instead

20:56

of reaching out to NoamPD to NoaVale, it may

20:58

be worth overstepping them

21:00

and going straight to the

21:03

city manager at City Hall to get the information you're

21:05

looking for. How useful of a

21:07

tip was that? I mean, it worked. Props

21:10

to Andy because I did

21:12

not think that was going to work. I

21:15

had lost faith in everything after

21:17

that first exchange with NoamPD. But

21:20

damn, it worked. Then we got

21:22

an email again saying

21:26

that we're denied, even

21:28

though we've already been sent this. So

21:31

either they got their wires crossed and

21:33

thought that it wasn't sent, or

21:35

the person who sent it didn't say that

21:38

they sent it and pretended

21:40

like they didn't, or they

21:44

changed their mind and talked to NoamPD

21:46

or whoever it was and

21:49

wanted to basically say, even

21:52

though you have this, you can't have

21:54

it. But that's

21:56

not how it works in the real world.

21:59

And we do have it. And I'm

22:01

glad that we do because I don't

22:05

think that that

22:07

information is being used appropriately anywhere

22:09

else right now. So I'd

22:11

rather put it to good use. So the

22:13

saying that there is an

22:16

active and ongoing investigation into the

22:18

matter of Oregon John. When

22:21

they've never mentioned or named a

22:23

suspect ever. Now

22:25

we're making the jump

22:27

in assumption that they're referring

22:30

to Florence Ocpeyolik's case. And there's

22:32

a long list of things on

22:34

that report. Actually

22:37

missing person is on there. They use it. That was never talked about.

22:39

Yeah and I'll get into that in the next episode but I'll tell

22:41

you now. But

22:44

I mean there's 93 incidents

22:46

on that report and I wasn't about to read all

22:48

93 of them for you. I

22:51

just went from the bottom which

22:53

would be back to starting in

22:55

2016 which is when

22:57

I believe he moved there. And

23:00

I just started rattling

23:02

off going up the list closer and closer

23:04

to 2020. All

23:06

of the major charges that to me

23:09

stood out like they

23:11

were a problem. There's other

23:13

incidents in there that are

23:16

lesser offenses or even some exchanges that

23:19

I don't really fully understand what it

23:21

was because they don't really unpack it

23:23

all the way. But

23:26

in terms of trying

23:28

to understand the kind of person that you

23:30

may be dealing with I read

23:32

off in order going

23:34

closer and closer to the date

23:37

that Florence disappeared. And

23:40

we'll get into this more in the next episode and further on

23:42

in the series. But when this was

23:44

the main thing that I had on this person I

23:48

couldn't help but analyze it and

23:51

there was a pattern

23:53

I sort of saw where the

23:58

closer you got to… the

24:01

date of Florence's disappearance in

24:04

late August. There is a

24:08

genuine very

24:10

real uptick in his

24:13

run-ins with the law. It

24:15

just seems to get more and more and more

24:17

and worse and worse and then on

24:20

the day she went missing day after there

24:22

are two reports or two incident

24:24

reports and they're just little log

24:26

lines and it has

24:28

the names of the officers. There's two

24:30

different officers and all it

24:33

says is missing person. So

24:36

missing person, missing person meaning

24:38

that he was interacted with by

24:41

the known PD in

24:43

relation to Flo's disappearance. To

24:46

my knowledge that is the extent

24:48

of what

24:51

they've done investigating

24:54

Oregon John. I hope

24:56

that isn't true but I've

24:59

never heard about any sort of

25:01

in you know legitimate interrogation. I

25:04

think that what we're looking at in that document

25:07

is it. What can people expect from episode four?

25:09

Can you give us any little tidbits?

25:12

So far the narrative has been going

25:14

really just one way and

25:18

to me to me that's

25:21

always interesting whether it's me watching

25:23

a true crime documentary or listening

25:25

to a true crime podcast or

25:28

investigating a real true crime

25:30

myself. When all

25:33

things start pointing in one

25:35

direction really so quickly

25:38

it makes you want to step

25:40

back and reevaluate and

25:42

make sure that there's not just

25:45

a whole bunch of biases here that

25:47

are sending you this direction and

25:49

that it is correct. Then

25:52

there's the other part of me that comes out that really

25:55

truly to my core believes

25:58

that I think a majority of

26:00

the time it's always the simplest

26:02

answer not every

26:04

time but a majority of

26:07

the time maybe that's 51% but

26:09

in my experiences and what

26:12

I believe my opinion

26:15

is that sometimes

26:17

if it looks like a duck and walks

26:20

like a duck it's just a duck man

26:22

and in this case it

26:25

sent us directly to Oregon John now

26:27

in episode four we hear

26:30

for the first time another theory new

26:33

names emerge it

26:35

starts to paint a picture a clearer

26:38

picture of what may have transpired

26:40

that night but John

26:44

is still in that picture up

26:52

and vanished in the Midnight Sun is

26:54

a production of tundra foot TV in

26:57

association with Odyssey your host is Payne

26:59

Lindsay the show is written by Payne

27:01

Lindsay with additional assistance from Mike Rooney

27:03

executive producers are Donald Albright and

27:05

Payne Lindsay lead producer is Mike

27:08

Rooney along with producers Dylan Harrington

27:10

and Cooper Skinner editing by Mike

27:12

Rooney and Cooper Skinner with additional

27:14

editing by Dylan Harrington supervising producer

27:16

is Tracy Kaplan additional production by

27:19

Victoria McKenzie Alice Kniek Glenn and

27:21

Eric Kim Karna artwork by Rob

27:23

Sheridan original music and makeup and

27:25

vanity mix and mastered by

27:27

Cooper Skinner thank you to Orin Rosenbaum

27:30

and the team at UTA at comedian marketing

27:32

and the Nord Group special thanks to all

27:34

of the families and community members that's been

27:36

to the team additional information and

27:39

resources can be found in our

27:41

show notes for more podcasts like

27:43

up and vanished search tenderfoot TV

27:45

on your favorite podcast app or

27:47

visit us at tenderfoot.tv thanks for

27:49

listening