Up and Vanished - 13 | To Risk, We Must

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

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Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is released every Thursday and brought to you absolutely free. But for ad-free listening and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is intended for mature audiences and may include topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder. The names of survivors have been changed for anonymity purposes. Testimony shared by guests of the show is their own

and does not reflect the views of Tenderfoot TV or Odyssey. Thank you so much for listening. To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. Weep is to risk appearing sentiments. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk expressing our true self. To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk despair.

To try at all is to risk failure. But to risk we must. Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man, the woman who risk nothing, does nothing, has has nothing and is nothing I'm taking a risk are you willing to take a risk to pain From From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in The Midnight Sun, Chapter 2. I'm your host, Payne Lindsay. The weekend Joseph went missing has slowly become full of major contradictions.

And here's the thing, people do forget things or they simply misremember. But when these discrepancies continue mounting and begin to form a pattern, it begs the question, is someone actually lying? And if they are, at this point, eight years later, I want a pretty damn good reason why. And so does Joseph's family. And directly in the middle of all things that didn't make sense was Joseph's roommate, Jake.

The roommate was interviewed, told the troopers that he was gone on Saturday night with friends, but that he saw Joseph the next morning walking down the hallway in the house. And this would have been Sunday? Sunday morning after Joseph had stopped responding to anyone. So if that were true, Joseph would have been ignoring people. Right. Which would be a little out of his character. And that he was never heard from again. When you say you saw him at 1.30,

no one else saw him after that. Really, I'm looking at from Saturday on as to where he was and where he was going. The state troopers found this ship pretty weird too. I have the ability and the equipment to download phone contents and go through them and that will help us establish a timeline. That's if you're willing to let me bar your phone, set my equipment up right here, and I can download the contents.

They were suspicious. It did make sense to them. But they offered Jake a way to clear himself. The troopers did download the contents of his phone, but they didn't look at the contents of his phone until they went back to Anchorage. And then when they did look at the contents of his phone, they realized that he was texting friends, trying to get friends to create an alibi for him for Saturday night.

Why would somebody be doing that? Obviously because he was trying to hide something. If Jake saw Joseph alive and well on Sunday afternoon, then why would Jake even need to lie about Saturday to begin with? If Jake was hiding something, well, what exactly could it be? Take originally you told me that you went out for a drive and then I talked to your buddies and they said that didn't happen They told me to choose specifically for a drive that way and then they told me that they weren't with you or that didn't happen When confronted with hey, what did you do last week? And I wouldn't say I went for a drive someplace I wasn't you know I would either not remember but I wouldn't I wouldn't say I went for a drive I

wouldn't help with something I didn't do no I just I can't I can't understand how somebody would know right up until the point that they made it home but then you just hung out for four hours you didn't do anything else I know that man on a Saturday night to me it seems like either you're lying now because you're covering it, covering it for something that you don't want to tell us about for, or you were lying then. In a murder investigation,

you have to make sense of these kinds of things. I mean, come on. If you lie to the cops in a murder investigation, you're making yourself look suspicious. The whole issue of Jake lying about his whereabouts and trying to create an alibi. I mean, Jake said that he did that because he was nervous and he couldn't remember what he did that weekend. I mean, we have a situation where all of this work that I've done is basically work that should have been done by the troopers.

And now they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case. If I worked in law enforcement, which I do not, I could only imagine that if a true crime podcaster came poking around my case, it'd be pretty annoying. I'd probably hate me too. But I also imagine that I'd probably reflect on my own investigation as an officer. I didn't come to Nome to talk about solved cases. I came here because the families told me law enforcement wasn't doing anything

anymore. All I can do is ask questions and try to find out myself. But things got off to a pretty rocky start. Within the first 30 seconds I stepped into the known PD office, I introduced myself as someone who was trying to help by the request of the victim's families. But the investigator was immediately on the defense, playing silly, like they don't even know what a journalist is.

And when I finally arranged a meeting with this investigator, the dude bailed. That's just the truth. And if you were me, you'd probably start to think, hey, I think the family might be right here. Here's an interview from the first time I met Selena, truth of sister, and his mother, Nelda. We had a lot of people coming to us in the beginning, a lot.

We didn't want to do anything that people are just going to put a story out there. You actually go, you actually look for answers. So that is the only reason why we decided to do this podcast. I know a lot of people know what happened to him. Everybody's scared of law enforcement. They do away with people all the time. There's so many missing people unknown. I do not think at all that Joseph's death was an accident.

No, that he was murdered. Why did they not look into everything? It sounds terrible. Sometimes I feel like law enforcement knows what happened. Why would they not be telling you? They don't want to step on anybody's toes either. It's very terrible and I feel bad because I love my brother so much. For a while there it really was hard to live life. It was just constantly in your mind and you just feel so guilty

that you know that something happened to him and there's nothing we can do. We can't find him. We've gone to the governor. We've talked to the FBI. We've gone everywhere. We've talked to representatives. We've done so many things, and it's always a dead end.

My mom cries for my brother every single day. I do feel like all the answers are there but we don't know how to find them. We need somebody like you guys to put the pieces together. Sometimes I feel like some of the troopers did think that he was murdered. We don't even call anymore. Cause there's always nothing. When I was back in Nome, I stopped by the Alaska State Trooper's office, located right downtown on Front Street.

And after buzzing the doorbell for a few minutes, a trooper finally opened the door for us. We're journalists from Atlanta. Who from the troopers here in Nome could speak to us about Baldera's case? I mean, I guess I'm not sure. I mean, any one trooper can talk to you, but I don't know how productive I would be. You know what I mean? We're not. I don't even... I remember it happening but I don't... I wasn't paying attention because I was strictly involved with investigating other cases.

Sure, but if it's still the Trooper's case I'd love to speak to someone who could... Do you have like a card or something? Yeah, a card, yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm not sure. I don't know how much of a quality interview any of us would get, really. Is there like a particular agent who is in charge of this case now? There's no case officer anymore, really. I mean, it kind of depends. If a call comes in and someone has information, then it would usually come either, well, depends on who gets it, I mean, and then we would follow up on the information that's provided. So there really isn't an investigator here

for cases like that? No. OK, interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the passenger seat belt. OK, almost there. Just start rolling now. Be ready. We're moving. It all started in the small south Georgia town of Osila,

then the remote town of Crestone, Colorado, followed by the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwest Montana, which finally brings me here on my fourth plane ride in the last 18 hours. An entire world away from home. Descending on a new location for a new case. Being on the road investigating true crime cases can be absolutely grueling. Especially if you aren't prepared and hydrated. I choose Liquid IV with three times the electrolytes

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Which one? Lemon, lime, acai berry. Uh, bring both. It's gonna be a long drive. As we head towards Alaska's unforgiving terrain, staying sharp is crucial. That's why I rely on liquid IV, for easy, convenient hydration.

I just tear, pour, and enjoy. One stick plus 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. So you're sure he's going to be there? Yes, you just confirmed. He does not know that we're coming. How far are we? About five minutes. As the midnight sun falls, I can feel the tension building.

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In last week's episode, you heard an interview with a man named Kirk, Jake's stepdad, who claims he saw Joseph's truck fly by their camp on Sunday afternoon. A story that seems pretty strange, given everything else we know about Joseph and how he stopped responding to people on Saturday morning on that same day Andy also interviewed Kirk's wife Bonnie who is apparently also there when they saw the truck Bonnie is also Jake's mother All right, this would be an interview between Andy clams are and Bonnie Reynolds It's the 29th of September 2016 at times now 9 o'clock09 p.m. and we're at Bonnie's home in Nome. Can you tell me how well you knew Joseph and how you met him? I met him

through my niece Christine Pascoya. She was working at the courthouse and my mom would have a Wednesday night dinner where they have Eskimo food and she ended up bringing Joseph over there. That's where we met him. Tell me your general impressions of Joseph. He was a very, very nice guy. Very friendly.

And all the times that we would have dinner at my mom's or see him in passing, he was always very, very nice. Do you recall seeing him at any point during the weekend that he disappeared? The weekend? That was the weekend of the June 25th. What? That was it. Oh, okay, it's out there. June 20. Right.

Oh, it's out there. That had to be this the Sunday. We were at camp. And I'd seen his vehicle drive by. We were outside working on the edition at camp and I remember saying to Kirk, I mean he didn't stop. About what time was that? That had to be maybe 40 to 50. Was it faster than normal? No. How sure are you that it was Joseph driving? I don't know if it was, I couldn't tell you if it was Joseph or not, but I know it was his car. I went between the glare and the way, I don't even think the sun was shining, but with the glare I couldn't tell if it was him or not. Was there just one person in the car? I couldn't tell you that either. And the truck didn't go back by? No, and that was my thought was, okay, well, maybe he'll stop by on the way home.

So did Jake mention to you seeing Joseph at the house Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon? When I first had asked him on Monday, I got a call from the courthouse and they knew that Jake and Joseph lived in my mom's house. They had asked me, hey, can you call Jake and see maybe when the last time you saw Joseph? Because he hasn't shown up to work. It's not like him to not show up. So when I had called Jake and asked him, he said it had to be around 1. And it was just in passing. Remember anything else he said? He, and I said, well, do you remember what he was wearing?

He said, no, I mean, we didn't really even talk that much. I mean, the age gap was, is, you know, so big that they didn't really hang out. Jake's still the young kid right it's Dan seemed pretty certain that he saw the truck parked at the house on Sunday morning when he's on his way to the airport yes so it wasn't like a maybe no no and it kind of surprised me because Joseph had been there for a while and I guess he just didn't notice you know but that truck

was there mm-hmm and so he asked whose truck is that yep do you know of anyone else who saw Joseph on Sunday I don't know that anybody else saw him. Do you know of anybody who might have seen him on Saturday night? Other than Christine in that afternoon when they were at the beach, I don't know that either. I don't know who. One of the things that's odd is that Megan had called him and left messages and texts to him and Christine had called him a number of times and left messages and texts. If he came back to Nome, it would be very unlike him to not return any of those. Right.

When she came down to Camp Saturday, she had mentioned that she had called Joseph because she called him back after they were hanging out at the beach to tell him, hey, you know, we're going to camp, we're having a big dinner, a barbecue, why don't you come down? And that's when she said that she left him a message because he didn't answer. About come stopping by the camp. Right. Was Jake out at that dinner? No.

Any idea what he was doing on Saturday night? I don't know. Any idea when he got home Saturday night? No. Do you think it's possible that someone did something to Joseph versus a bear getting him? I think with a bear, you know, listening to a lot of the elders talk, I think with a bear, they're not going to eat clothing or shoes or backpacks. I know when he was running, he'd always have his backpack on him.

I mean, even in town, I'd see him running with his backpack. I think there would have been some something come off of him. I've heard of people standing on you know a buried animal or something and not even knowing. And not realizing it? Yeah, not realizing it. I've never seen you, anything. Okay, Ashley. Yeah. It's just hard to imagine nobody finding anything. Right. You know, it's just... And that was one of the things that we, you know, as we're flying around down there, we would do grids up and down that whole area.

And that's what I was looking for, for, you know, a new bear dig. Where, you know, the ground was obviously torn up. Right. Yep. And not seeing really much of anything. Have you heard any rumors about what might have happened to him? There are, there were rumors, especially after absolutely nothing, you know, no evidence, no nothing was found. There were a lot of rumors that both my mom and I had heard was that because Jake was his roommate, there's no evidence, a lot of rumors were that Jake did something to him.

And that's one of the things that, you know, we don't want to contribute to that kind of stuff, you know. Right. And I mean, these rumors went as far as, as you know Jake got into drugs and was seen in and out of drug houses him and his girlfriend and Joseph found out and he questioned him about it and got into it whatever and Jake ended up doing something. I mean, that's how Basically just people making up right right

And Joseph so it doesn't sound like he talked much about his relationship with Meg That looks with you guys not with me I know Christine had known about her Right, but I didn't know anything about it. I talked with Christine today. She's still very You know emotional and sensitive about all this. Yeah, yep, she is. She's, she, I mean it's funny but not funny, but she gets anxiety very easily. And you know, when she had talked to the troopers,

you know, back when this was going on, and then the ABI guy came up and talked to him also, she had a tough time talking about it. And the problem is that Jake probably has the most relevant and important information of anybody and even little details that he may not recognize as significant could fit with other facts that we know about and help in sort of solving this mystery. Do you have any sense of why he doesn't want to speak with us? I think with Jake, even with talking to me, you know talking about, you know,

what did Joseph say, what was he wearing, you remember what time? You know, trying to pull details out from him. I think he would get really irritated that a lot of people were asking him. And he finally just told me, was, we're just roommates. We just lived in the same house. Period. We didn't hang out. We didn't even talk. We barely even said hi to each other. I tried to call Jake 11 times this afternoon and this evening, and each time the call failed because he wasn't accepting calls. And the first investigator that came out here during the search had tried to interview Jake a number of times. And he said that Jake would agree to speak with him and then not show up or not return the call. And he even ran into him in a bar one night and he said he would talk with him and then, you know, didn't.

He's still a kid. He's still learning how to be a grown up. The private investigator Andy Clamzer had a mounting list of red flags after seemingly every interview he did. And at this point in time, the biggest question mark was Joseph's roommate, Jake, the lying, the trying to create alibis, the disappearing and reappearing rifle that was inside his apartment. And he also called this dude 11 times, no answer. He continues to say that he observed Joseph

coming out of his bedroom about 1.30 p.m. on Sunday and leaving the house. He claims that he never saw any guns at the house there that Joseph might have had, which struck me as frankly that didn't ring true to me because Joseph couldn't even latch the door to his room. He had to keep the door closed with a bungee cord. He had bought that Taurus pistol in March, and I just think it's highly unlikely that Jake, staying in a bedroom right next to his, wasn't aware of that and never saw it. I feel pretty strongly that the most likely explanation for Joseph's disappearance is that someone has done something to him.

So I called Jake a bunch of times, like 11 times, I think the first day I was there, and he always had his phone set to not accept calls. Immensely frustrating for the family, considering Jake is the last person to have seen Joseph alive, if he's actually telling the truth about that one. His roommate literally just vanished, and he didn't even seem interested in knowing

why or how. He wanted nothing to do with it at all. But eventually, Andy just stopped taking no for an answer. He had limited time in Nome, and he wasn't going to leave there without trying to talk to Jake. So he went to his house. This is the tape from his surprise visit. I'm going to go get some food. Hey. Hey. Sorry about that. It got away. No problem. So when the rifle got dropped off here, was it in the case or outside of a case? I have a case, my uncle actually gave me that.

Okay. Here's your rifle. Here. Okay. Hi, Uncle Barbara for bear hunting. Did he get anything? Was that Kevin or? Yeah. I think he might have gotten like a caribou with it.

Not too sure. My friend Howard took me out too. You don't do much shooting or hunting? No. When did they mount the scope on it? Oh, I got it from him. Oh really? So when he won the rifle, it came with a scope, huh? I think so.

That's pretty nice. It's a nice item. Yeah, it's too bad that your uncle didn the rifle and then letting me keep it? I don't know when that would be. I mean could you just do it right now, just cycle one through? Basically just load it and put one in the chamber and then eject You got the bolt in there, Cap? Yeah, you got the bolt in there. That's it. Do you want any handguns? No. Do you want any handguns? No. Because you didn't have a 44 right? I don't know why one was missing out of it that's kind of weird but...

Which room was Joseph's in here? Which room was Joseph's in here? Are there any bedrooms on the first floor? No, this is the room that the lock and ammo was found in. And my rifle was found. Like a pantry. So I heard him open it and then he closed it, latched it. Is anybody staying in there now? Did he leave any of his stuff here?

Or did they take everything? They took everything. Maybe I'll take a few pictures real quick showing the latch, the bungee cord. And then which room is yours? I want the ch ship door here. Right here? Okay. So it was basically right next door.

Yeah, and the door is open. I saw him walk right here. So when you saw him, he would have been headed out. Yeah. Alright, I'm Dan Tbersky. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around.

She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. Like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down-low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical.

You're, oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. The tremendous efforts of Joseph's family, friends, and the private investigators they hired is what I believe will ultimately solve this case. Looking back eight years to right now, we have an unreal vantage point. They gave us hundreds and hundreds of documents. And I told Selena the first time I met her

how hugely important this was. You guys have done an incredible job, like seriously. This is the most information I've ever had for a single case. Really? I do feel like all the answers are there, but we don't know how to find them. We need somebody like you guys to put the pieces together.

His family was confident there was foul play here. I know that a lot of people know because we've heard so many rumors. A lot of rumors aren't true. One of those rumors is right. So it's really hard. We're just gonna take all this information. We're gonna tell the whole world.

We're just gonna take all this information, we're gonna tell the whole world. No more secrets anymore. So either they're gonna start turning on each other, the police are gonna start doing their job, or we're gonna find out that somebody has been lying or is corrupt. Yeah. I've known Jake since we were kids. He was a good kid. He loved swimming. I've known Jake since we were kids. He was a good kid. He loved swimming.

He did well in school and even went to college. But things changed. He quit school, he got into drugs, and started hanging out with a different crowd. It was tough to see him go down that path. Shortly after Joseph disappeared, something really strange happened. Jake's mom and stepdad got involved in a debriefing of the case. I thought a debriefing was only for immediate family. It didn't make sense to me.

The thing is, I know Jake very well. Jake's part of a tight-knit group of friends. They've been together forever, and I can tell you that after Joseph went missing, Jake started acting weird. Drugs. Heroin this time. The people I know don't want to talk about this. They don't want anything to do with it.

At a party one night that summer, someone called Jake the killer. He snapped, went psycho. It's like people can only keep something like that inside for so long, before it starts to eat away at them. I can promise you, my source is very close to Jake. Very close. They told me that Jake admitted to doing something to Joseph. And he said it clearly.

It's been a very long time now. Can Jake still trust all of his friends? What do you think, Payne? Thanks for listening for ad free content. Go subscribe to Tinder foot plus on Apple podcasts. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's at pain Lindsay and up and vanished is at up and vanished. Not that hard to forget. I got lucky with those handles.

Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your host is Payne Lindsay. The show is written by Payne Lindsay with additional assistance from Mike Rooney. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Lead producer is Mike Rooney along with producers Dylan Albright and Payne Lindsay. Lead producer is Mike Rune, along with producers Dylan Harrington and Cooper Skinner. Editing by Mike Rune and Cooper Skinner, with additional editing by Dylan Harrington. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Victoria McKenzie, Alice Konick Glenn, and Eric Quintana. Artwork by Rob Sheridan,

original music by Makeup and Vanity Set, mix and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group. Special thanks to all of the families and community members that spoke to the team. Additional information and resources can be found in our show notes. For more podcasts like Up and Vanished,

search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.