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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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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
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