9 | Where The Kings Might Be

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Speaker 2 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.

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Speaker 2 Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 2 Hello?

Speaker 1 I'm fucking scared.

Speaker 1 I'm so scared.

Speaker 14 Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you.

Speaker 1 They found her head. They fucking found her head.

Speaker 1 They called me on my phone and said that the fisherman's cousins hook out and then he pulled the fucking head in.

Speaker 1 Should I have to go identify her?

Speaker 1 Okay, we'll just... I'm so fucking scared.

Speaker 23 It's okay. I know.
I know.

Speaker 1 It's very scary. I'm so fucking scared.

Speaker 1 I wanna be by myself.

Speaker 1 I need somebody. I ain't somebody because I can't be by myself.

Speaker 23 Okay, um, where's your brother at? Why don't you call your brother and and tell him what you told me?

Speaker 1 He's not answering. No response.
He's not answering. I'm gonna fucking go crazy.
Why by mainstop right now

Speaker 9 okay um

Speaker 23 i i just got a call from blair she's really upset she said that they found a head in the water and they think that it it might be flow and they want her to

Speaker 23 they want her to go identify it that that's all that I know. So I said I would call you, and I don't know any more details than that.
Okay.

Speaker 24 Okay.

Speaker 1 Thank you for calling.

Speaker 27 Every single part of a missing person's case is a tragedy.

Speaker 29 The weight of this kind of loss, I truly cannot imagine.

Speaker 32 The searching, the not knowing, and the constant fear of finding out the worst.

Speaker 30 A few months ago, I had just flown back from Alaska, and I met my younger brother Mason at a local bar in Atlanta for a beer.

Speaker 27 The first question he asked me was, how's the case going?

Speaker 36 By the time the beers hit the table, I checked my phone.

Speaker 37 And I noticed five missed calls from Blair, Flo's sister.

Speaker 10 This was unusual.

Speaker 33 I had an awful gut feeling.

Speaker 10 I stepped away into the bathroom and called her back.

Speaker 30 15 minutes later, I'm back sitting next to my brother, who's looking at me like I'm insane. And all I could say was, you're not going to believe what just happened.

Speaker 34 What my instincts told me was that Blair was seriously in distress and something bad had really happened here.

Speaker 29 So I started calling other friends and family at Florence for them to find Blair as soon as possible to figure out what happens next.

Speaker 25 Throughout the next several hours, I received various texts, anxiously awaiting some form of update.

Speaker 10 Who told her this? Are the police involved?

Speaker 31 Was it a real human head they found in the water?

Speaker 10 Is this Florence Akpialik's body?

Speaker 18 Then things became a little muddier,

Speaker 18 and that skeptic part of my brain kicked in.

Speaker 14 Did anyone actually find anything at all?

Speaker 41 The rumor mill in a small town like Nome, Alaska is incomparable to almost any other town in the lower 48. And I've seen my fair share of unsolved murders in small-town America.

Speaker 16 Osilla, Georgia, Crestone, Colorado, Browning, Montana.

Speaker 34 But Nome is different, much more isolated from the rest of the world.

Speaker 29 And sometimes people simply start saying shit.

Speaker 42 And most of the time, it's hurtful, negative, and false.

Speaker 33 The tricky part is, sometimes they're telling the truth.

Speaker 44 It's so easy for it to get lost in the sea of white noise.

Speaker 30 The following morning, I was up at 6 a.m.

Speaker 42 sharp in full investigation mode,

Speaker 18 calling and texting everyone I could think of.

Speaker 37 Also, being conscious that a false alarm like this

Speaker 28 is devastating.

Speaker 29 Ultimately, I did find the truth.

Speaker 41 No head was found in the water.

Speaker 30 No body either.

Speaker 10 No clothing.

Speaker 31 Nothing at all actually.

Speaker 32 Just a couple of drunk townies spreading lies to Flo's sister, arguably in her most vulnerable state.

Speaker 18 When the cat's out of the bag that someone, anyone serious at all, is actively pursuing the truth in a disappearance, people start to act strangely.

Speaker 29 Sometimes it's almost like people can't help themselves and have to say something no matter how nonsensical it is.

Speaker 15 And other times, people are intentionally making up false rumors to throw off an investigation.

Speaker 38 In this case, I think we're dealing with the latter.

Speaker 13 Needless to say, things are complicated.

Speaker 35 The trickiest part in navigating a true crime investigation of this nature is knowing when to divulge what information and when,

Speaker 10 and what to do with all the tips we're receiving literally daily in the meantime.

Speaker 37 You can't keep chasing all the white rabbits,

Speaker 38 but you can't ignore them either. And right now, I'm sitting on a mountain of information, and I'm hoping that somewhere in there is a real answer.

Speaker 10 So, it's been a while.

Speaker 45 I know I said June, and now it's August.

Speaker 10 I'm sorry.

Speaker 39 It's also been a while since Florence Akpialik went missing missing and Joseph Balderis.

Speaker 34 1,435 days since Flo went missing.

Speaker 35 2,963 since Joseph did.

Speaker 29 And I'm emphasizing this truly because of how dumbfounded I've become by the lack of response in both of these cases by law enforcement themselves.

Speaker 15 Whether it be the Alaska State Troopers, the NOAA police, or even the FBI.

Speaker 32 But to be honest with you, I never thought they'd help solve these cases to begin with. If a loved one goes missing,

Speaker 37 no one's first thought is a podcast being a real thing.

Speaker 32 It's the law enforcement that should be doing interviewing, not investigative journalists, not private investigators.

Speaker 34 You can give people authority, but you can't make them care.

Speaker 30 So let's zoom out for a second.

Speaker 30 A lot, and I mean a lot, has happened since we left off.

Speaker 31 And my brain feels scrambled.

Speaker 34 But maybe this is what it feels like when you're starting to get close to something.

Speaker 18 You can feel it, blurry in the moment, but slowly it all starts to come into focus.

Speaker 42 And maybe it's just the wishful thinking in me, that magical thinking.

Speaker 30 Or maybe sometimes you just strike at the right time.

Speaker 8 I came to Nome, Alaska, with zero expectations, but from the second I touched down there, I knew in my gut there was a serious problem with their law enforcement.

Speaker 44 Frankly, I don't care why these cases are unsolved.

Speaker 38 That's a different investigation altogether.

Speaker 30 I'm not here to poke at their mishaps, pitfalls, and any mistakes that were made.

Speaker 30 But what I do care about, and what my stubborn self can care a little too much about sometimes, is someone standing in the way of finding the truth.

Speaker 30 We're either going around you or through you.

Speaker 30 I have a team of some of my very best friends.

Speaker 31 Day in and day out, night after night, we've never stopped dissecting these cases.

Speaker 36 And the break that we took was just what we needed for the dust to settle and for the case to start breathing again.

Speaker 30 And so, let's dive right into it.

Speaker 16 But first,

Speaker 4 let's recap where we left off.

Speaker 46 This guy, I just know he was a cab driver in town and a lot of people didn't like him.

Speaker 46 He was a cab driver for Techer Cab.

Speaker 47 He dropped everybody else off but her and he says you know what i could have killed you and nobody would have known about it

Speaker 48 the gentleman who owned the tent the miner this miner may have been involved

Speaker 10 we just didn't have the help that we needed to find her

Speaker 2 why aren't the police doing anything

Speaker 49 there was a man he was sitting here drinking and he was talking about I seen her down Westweek. She was partying with some of the miners down there.

Speaker 52 Do you feel like the police have done enough to solve her case?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 46 It feels and looks like they haven't done anything.

Speaker 48 The number of missing people does not really match the population of the area.

Speaker 28 Is the police chief in today?

Speaker 52 No, he is out to the office this week. Massacre you folks heard and watch burning.

Speaker 28 Records requests with governments.

Speaker 23 They can be months long.

Speaker 24 He pulled out at night.

Speaker 24 The sky though.

Speaker 2 His name starts with Jane.

Speaker 10 You're in a town with 3,000 people.

Speaker 10 You're telling me no one saw anything? No one has come forward.

Speaker 10 I don't even know his last name.

Speaker 52 What was the name that you knew her buddy?

Speaker 49 Oregon John.

Speaker 35 I was the last person seen her alive, besides the guy that killed her.

Speaker 35 dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

Speaker 35 Dun dun dun dun dun da

Speaker 35 da da dun Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

Speaker 35 dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

Speaker 18 As a listener, you need to know that there have been two things going on here.

Speaker 25 I've talked a lot about serendipity, and I don't know what it all means, but sometimes weird shit just happens.

Speaker 33 Stuff you can't really explain.

Speaker 32 You may recall from episode 1 of this season, the email I received from Deila about Florence Akpialik's case, after we were looking into it and before we ever told a soul about this season at all.

Speaker 32 I also received another email.

Speaker 24 Hi, I'm the attorney for Joseph Balderis's family. Joseph went missing under suspicious circumstances in Nome, Alaska during the summer of 2016.

Speaker 24 The Alaska State Troopers treated it as a lost hiker case and barely conducted an investigation. We're at a dead end with our investigation, which is why why I'm reaching out to you.

Speaker 24 We hired a private investigator. His name is Andy Klamser.

Speaker 48 One of Joseph's friends contacted me early on. Everybody was pretty consistent about what they said about Joseph.

Speaker 48 Charismatic, smart, loved Alaska, planning to get married.

Speaker 48 You're dealing with basically a successful professional person who just vanishes.

Speaker 27 The reality is, our investigation into the disappearance of Florence Akpialik and Joseph Balderis started on the very same day.

Speaker 15 Let's go back in time two years ago.

Speaker 24 Hi, it's Katie.

Speaker 5 Hey, Katie, it's Payne.

Speaker 15 I received an email from a woman named Katie.

Speaker 18 She's an attorney and a family friend of Joseph's.

Speaker 24 I'm good friends with Joseph where I was, and we all just really did anything we could think of to try to figure out what happened to Joseph.

Speaker 24 I think the first goal is to find him, to give his family some peace, and the second goal would be to figure out what happened. I reached out to you.

Speaker 24 Andy Clanzer was our private investigator, put a lot of resources into using him.

Speaker 34 We were immediately blessed with the years of hard work put in by Joseph's family and numerous private investigators.

Speaker 34 And they sent us more documents, audio, video, in-depth records and files, than I've personally ever seen.

Speaker 15 This gave us an amazing vantage point from the beginning.

Speaker 30 And the more we looked into Joseph's case, the more Flo's case became intertwined.

Speaker 24 As you peel back a layer, there's something new that's odd and doesn't make sense.

Speaker 24 I'm an attorney. I worked in the DA's office in Anchorage for a couple of years.
I wasn't anti-law enforcement. I wanted to support the troopers and think they were doing a good job.

Speaker 24 The troopers did such a shitty investigation.

Speaker 34 In the early weeks after Joseph disappeared, she helped connect the dots, working pro bono, finding trusted private investigators, doing all the work that law enforcement didn't.

Speaker 30 Andy Klamser, who you've heard before on the podcast, took on this case full time, and he's been investigating it for years now.

Speaker 10 His truck was found parked backed into a pullout.

Speaker 48 It became a very big deal in Nome quickly. It's really unusual to not find the body, especially since they had a half dozen different teams of tracking dogs out there.

Speaker 48 If he got attacked by a bear, that would have been super messy. You'd think that the dogs would have found that.

Speaker 48 And bears don't eat backpacks.

Speaker 30 When they heard the news he was missing, Joseph's friends and family frantically made their way to Nome, spearheading the search efforts.

Speaker 7 For days on end, with the help of helicopters, planes, search dogs, and dozens of individuals on the ground, their search ultimately yielded nothing.

Speaker 36 In the eyes of Joseph's sister, Selena, this just wasn't sitting well.

Speaker 34 And before long, like everyone else, she began to hear other twisted tales of what may have really happened.

Speaker 18 On their last day in town, Joseph's sister Selena and several family friends all met with the Alaska State Troopers at their office in Nome.

Speaker 43 Selena recorded their conversation.

Speaker 25 This is from eight years ago, right after Joseph went missing.

Speaker 52 I'm trying to coordinate and getting dogs in and out, and I'm still collecting the maps and we're doing that. And again,

Speaker 52 we're limited. You know,

Speaker 52 there's only so much of us and we want to find it. I go to a scene to investigate a domestic violence assault.
My report's not written by the time I get back to jail. I have to do it later.

Speaker 52 That's basically what I'm telling you.

Speaker 56 The documentation part is so important for us because

Speaker 57 we're humans.

Speaker 56 We happen to be troopers.

Speaker 50 And we forget things.

Speaker 52 I paid Trooper Stroble to come in on his day off to document what he did for those two days.

Speaker 50 He came in on his Saturday, was sitting in here going through the log, seeing who was here,

Speaker 52 and sitting in his computer and typing.

Speaker 56 And he typed for probably four hours.

Speaker 58 Yeah.

Speaker 47 So was that it of the investigation?

Speaker 50 Well, no.

Speaker 57 No,

Speaker 52 we follow up every single lead.

Speaker 57 Every single lead that comes to us, we follow it up.

Speaker 52 And

Speaker 49 we're not trying to attack y'all at all because I kind of feel like y'all are feeling feeling like we are, and we're not, we're just trying to get desperate as well.

Speaker 56 You're reaching for information,

Speaker 59 we don't have much time here, we're desperate, we want to know what happened to our brother, and we need to know now.

Speaker 50 I understand.

Speaker 59 And we, even if my brother isn't alive,

Speaker 2 we need to find him,

Speaker 58 you know. So, even if he's not alive, we want him back,

Speaker 58 so we need to do anything we can. That's why we're asking all these questions.

Speaker 27 The Balderis family was living a nightmare, having traveled across the entire country searching for Joseph and yielding nothing.

Speaker 28 Then being faced with the reality that they're going to have to go back home soon without Joseph, without answers, and now a shit ton more questions.

Speaker 57 Unfortunately, we're trying to explain to you

Speaker 50 the Department of Public Safety's position.

Speaker 57 We've had to call off searches before when we didn't want to. But the decision is made not just from a standpoint of the time, but the lack of clues.

Speaker 52 Here's the thing, the lack of clues is in itself a clue.

Speaker 57 What kind of clue is it? Well, we need to figure that out. We need to take five steps back and shake it off and revisit.

Speaker 56 And it starts by starting from the beginning.

Speaker 48 The state's conclusion he had been attacked by a bear or had some kind of accident and they just didn't find the body.

Speaker 48 That scenario that he was attacked by a bear, somehow the body was hidden, those pieces weren't fitting together.

Speaker 10 Look, it's Alaska.

Speaker 40 It's gnome, Alaska.

Speaker 30 Population 3,000. There is clearly some serious wildlife out there.
The state of Alaska alone is home to approximately 30,000 grizzly bears.

Speaker 37 Between the year 2000 and 2017, there were seven recorded fatalities from grizzly bear attacks.

Speaker 34 While these fatal encounters most certainly have occurred and do occur, statistically, they're exceedingly rare.

Speaker 37 Grizzly bears are scary, powerful creatures, and they can most certainly kill you.

Speaker 30 They usually leave behind a familiar, chaotic, and graphic scene.

Speaker 33 Human remains are usually scattered about, personal belongings left damaged, and there's general signs of a struggle, like disturbed vegetation, blood, bear tracks.

Speaker 7 These things are almost always found at the scene.

Speaker 30 But for Joseph, however, he just simply vanished.

Speaker 32 If he did die by a bear attack, then the bear itself left not one trace of it.

Speaker 39 Being killed by a bear is already a statistical anomaly.

Speaker 38 But this is an even bigger one.

Speaker 46 Joseph does go camping and he goes hiking and he he's very smart. He's not stupid.
He's traveled all over the world.

Speaker 60 Also what's so weird is on his tablet there was so much

Speaker 60 like information about bear safety.

Speaker 50 There was.

Speaker 30 Joseph Balderis carried an extreme love and respect for wildlife.

Speaker 38 Joseph was also someone who understood and respected both the beauty and power of Mother Nature.

Speaker 18 A few summers before he went missing, he documented a trip to Alaska with his brother and friends.

Speaker 61 Welcome to Alaska.

Speaker 61 This is it. This is my little piece of home here.

Speaker 61 That's open ocean out there.

Speaker 61 I don't know if you can tell

Speaker 61 the waves and some pretty good sized swells.

Speaker 61 I'm not gonna be out here too long. I just wanted to come get a picture of it in video.

Speaker 61 You can certainly feel the magnitude of the ocean when you're on this.

Speaker 61 You don't really want to fuck around out there, gives me the heebie-jeebies just being there here.

Speaker 62 Cruise ship

Speaker 53 on this camera. Yeah, I can't get that good of a zoom on it.

Speaker 61 Is that an Australian boat?

Speaker 61 Russia, huh, Joseph? Well, that one we saw in this town. Remember, it was from Russia.
You see, there were beautiful women on there.

Speaker 62 That's neat.

Speaker 62 Hey, Buffalo!

Speaker 62 Sublime turn. But that was good.

Speaker 1 You having fun?

Speaker 1 Are you having fun? Get that shit out of my face.

Speaker 1 We're all angry.

Speaker 27 He knew how to have a good good time,

Speaker 36 but he also knew how to stay safe.

Speaker 48 The more you look into it,

Speaker 48 the more unanswered questions and red flags there were.

Speaker 55 There's some very suspicious things.

Speaker 48 His fiancé was alarmed right away.

Speaker 48 His usual practice was to stay in touch with her multiple times a day. Joseph wasn't responding to anything, So for him to not respond to her messages was very unusual.

Speaker 8 Joseph was just weeks away from moving to Juneau, Alaska to reunite with his fiancée, Megan, right before he disappeared.

Speaker 46 He's talked to me about her. He was very in love with her.
He would text her right away. She sent us all the messages.
I mean, they're like, there is no wait time.

Speaker 46 If she messaged him, he messaged her right back.

Speaker 22 Good morning, Meg. I hope you have a good Friday.
In fact, I know you will.

Speaker 22 I'm sure Cafe Internationale is going to be hopping today, and I'm sure you're going to have a good lunch, and I'm sure you're going to have good walks and a good hike.

Speaker 22 But I just wanted to say also that I love you, and have a great day, babe. Bye.

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Speaker 22 I love you, Megan Renee, and I hope you have a great day. Bye, my love.

Speaker 16 This is Joseph.

Speaker 43 He would send these to his fiancée Megan pretty often.

Speaker 32 Random voice notes in between all their texts and calls.

Speaker 22 Hey, good morning, Meg. I hope you slept well.
I know I slept a little bit better. Gets sleeper, but it's a nice day out here.
I hope you have a nice day, and I look forward to talking to you later.

Speaker 22 All right. Bye, love.

Speaker 22 Megan, I love you, and I want you to have a great day today. And I hope you know, why I know that you know that you're the most amazing person in the world to me.
Bye my love.

Speaker 27 With his family's permission, we did our best to recreate Joseph's voice to take you through his text communication with his fiancée Megan leading all the way up to the day that he vanished.

Speaker 34 Megan and Joseph mostly texted on WhatsApp and they would do this throughout the day, every day.

Speaker 36 never taking too long to respond to each other.

Speaker 10 They were clearly in love.

Speaker 22 I just had pizza again tonight. But it was so good.
Love you.

Speaker 64 Oh, baby, you're cute. I'm on my nightly stroll.

Speaker 22 I would whistle at you if I saw you. I had dinner with the judge and co-workers.
Fun night, but I'm beat.

Speaker 64 We can talk tomorrow, honey. You should get some shut eye.

Speaker 64 Love you.

Speaker 22 Well, I'd like to talk for a little bit. At least say goodnight.
I'm not going to sleep. It's not even nine.

Speaker 64 Okay, me too.

Speaker 22 I love you, Meg. Easily, our earliest hour to get off the phone.
Good night, love.

Speaker 64 Love you, JoJo.

Speaker 22 Good night, my love.

Speaker 64 Love you, my darling. Forever.

Speaker 64 Here's a song for you, Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac. Love you more than anything.
Have the best day ever.

Speaker 22 I love you, baby. You mean everything to me.
I love the song, too. Gonna listen to it on the way to work.

Speaker 30 On Monday, June 27th, 2016, Joseph did not show up for work in the morning, and he was officially reported missing.

Speaker 65 So sometime between Friday, June 24th and Sunday, June 26th, something

Speaker 10 happened.

Speaker 19 Thursday night, June 23rd.

Speaker 22 I love you, Megan Renee, more than anything.

Speaker 19 Friday, June 24th.

Speaker 25 The start of the weekend, he ultimately disappeared.

Speaker 22 First salmon of 2016.

Speaker 22 Pink, and obviously first fillet job on the beach in 2016.

Speaker 27 He sent Megan a picture of some fresh salmon he had caught.

Speaker 64 Thanks for the call, baby.

Speaker 49 Loved hearing your voice.

Speaker 64 You are the love of my life.

Speaker 22 I love you. You're the most beautiful woman in the world, my my love.
I'm heading back out. Sweet dreams.

Speaker 64 And you are the most handsome man in the world, my love.

Speaker 47 Sweet dreams. Have fun.

Speaker 53 Thinking of you.

Speaker 64 Are you home, safe?

Speaker 64 I love you.

Speaker 19 Saturday morning, June 25th.

Speaker 18 Around 9.30 in the morning.

Speaker 22 Yep.

Speaker 22 Probably gonna head back out later to another river where the the kings might be.

Speaker 22 Love you, Meg.

Speaker 14 This is Joseph's last outgoing message to his fiancée, Megan.

Speaker 26 Since then, he has not opened or read any other message that was sent to him.

Speaker 64 Love you so much, baby. I dreamt of you all night.

Speaker 64 Couch shopping, wish you were here.

Speaker 64 Good night. Love you so much.

Speaker 64 I'm honestly getting a little worried now because I haven't heard from you and I can't sleep. Please text when you can and let me know you're safe.
I'm worried.

Speaker 10 Because we don't know what happened to Joseph, we don't know when it happened either.

Speaker 27 In my mind, answering the second question is our first order of business.

Speaker 26 Accurately stitching together his last moves has been an exhaustingly tedious task, but with the help of original eyewitness testimony and Joseph's cell phone records, we've been able to pinpoint an approximate time that things start to get a little weird.

Speaker 30 Not long after Joseph went missing, the first first PI the family hired traveled to Nome to conduct his own interviews, gathering statements from people who knew him.

Speaker 30 This is the earliest account we have on record.

Speaker 51 Today's date is July 28th. It's Thursday, 2016, approximately 7:05 p.m.
Alaska time, in the matter of Joseph Balderas. If everybody can announce who's on the phone, Selena, if you could start.

Speaker 7 The PI held a phone conference with Joseph's friends and family.

Speaker 10 Christine is important because she's the last person that we know saw Joseph alive.

Speaker 10 So she's a really important figure.

Speaker 50 Yes, yeah. We've been looking at her, putting together timeline with her.

Speaker 18 The first private investigator keyed in on a woman named Christine, a friend of Joseph's who lived in Nome.

Speaker 27 According to witness statements and Christine's own personal testimony, she is the last person to have seen him alive that weekend.

Speaker 19 Late in the evening, on Friday, June 24th, Joseph was alive and well.

Speaker 39 We know this with great certainty, based on the text with his fiancé, and more importantly, a phone call he placed to Megan earlier that night.

Speaker 39 Sometime after Joseph spoke to Megan on the phone, he allegedly goes downtown to the local bars in Nome.

Speaker 18 At around midnight that Friday night, he meets up with his friend Christine.

Speaker 37 According to Christine, Her sister Kim was there also, making it two eyewitness accounts.

Speaker 39 Whatever happened to Joseph happened after midnight on Friday, June 24th.

Speaker 30 Over the course of the next few hours, Joseph's timeline starts to get a little confusing.

Speaker 25 The first private investigator interviewed Christine just a few weeks after he went missing.

Speaker 60 The purpose in me talking with you is I'm trying to kind of nail down his last steps to see if there's any way that I can put together some type of timeline.

Speaker 60 And I'm just going to give you these dates in case you forgot.

Speaker 60 June 24th, 25th, and 26th were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The 27th was a Monday, okay? Is that your understanding too?

Speaker 50 Yeah.

Speaker 60 I have a hard time remembering what I ate for breakfast, so I know looking back a couple of weeks can be tough sometimes.

Speaker 60 You went out with Joseph on Friday? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 49 Or Saturday?

Speaker 49 It was Friday because he texted me about 12.15, asked what I was doing. And so I called him.
He's like, well, I'm just getting some food.

Speaker 49 I was just wondering if he he wanted to go out and have a few drinks. I said, okay, well, we're not quite leaving yet.
And I don't think we met up with him until about one o'clock.

Speaker 60 One o'clock in the morning? Yeah. So technically Saturday.

Speaker 50 Yeah.

Speaker 60 And Polaris was the first place you went to?

Speaker 49 Yeah, we met up with him at Polaris.

Speaker 15 Who's we?

Speaker 49 Me, Kim, and Joseph.

Speaker 49 My sister and I met up with him.

Speaker 49 And we only stayed there probably for a shot and a drink, a shot and a beer.

Speaker 49 And then we went to...

Speaker 60 And a shot and a beer takes about how long for you guys?

Speaker 49 We were probably there for

Speaker 49 20 minutes. And then after that, we just started visiting with people.
And I don't know what he did after, but I know Kim and I had went to BOT.

Speaker 36 So according to Christine's testimony here, Their nights started at a local bar downtown called Tolera's.

Speaker 16 She was there at the bar with Joseph alongside her sister, Kim.

Speaker 25 They had a shot and a beer and eventually moved down the street to a different bar, a bar called Breakers.

Speaker 29 BOT is the nickname for a bar downtown called the Board of Trade.

Speaker 39 You might remember this from Flo's case.

Speaker 60 Let me back up a little bit. When you guys were at Polaris, was there anybody else that you can remember him talking to or?

Speaker 49 No, he was just there talking to us.

Speaker 60 How late do you think you were out that night?

Speaker 49 Until bar break.

Speaker 47 When's that?

Speaker 49 2.45.

Speaker 60 And would you have been at BOT at that time then? Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to estimate the time you were at Breakers for how long?

Speaker 49 Probably would say about a half an hour.

Speaker 60 So about till 2 o'clock?

Speaker 49 Yeah, because usually that's when people head to BOT.

Speaker 60 So as far as this case is concerned, you would have no know-abouts really where he went that night after two?

Speaker 49 No.

Speaker 49 Okay. Because I mean, I didn't text him, but I didn't call to check on him either, because usually he goes home.
I mean, I've never known him to go to an after-party.

Speaker 49 I mean, we didn't drink a lot all the time together, but I can know that he's not one to go out and party because of his job.

Speaker 49 And so

Speaker 49 I

Speaker 49 would say he probably went home.

Speaker 30 Backing up here for just a second, Christine initially meets Joseph at Polaris with her sister Kim for a shot and a beer.

Speaker 35 They eventually move to a bar called Breakers.

Speaker 45 And from there, she parts ways with Joseph, and Christine and her sister Kim go to the BOT bar, Board of Trade, just Christine and her sister, without Joseph.

Speaker 39 After interviewing Christine, the private investigator talked to her sister Kim in a separate room, an attempt to gather her recollection of that night.

Speaker 7 And this is when things get way more confusing.

Speaker 15 Or may I even say concerning.

Speaker 54 Hey, Kim, I was hoping to chat with you.

Speaker 60 My name's Link. Nice to meet you.
Okay, so Friday night, you and your sister go out. Take me from there.

Speaker 50 Where do you go and what time?

Speaker 49 We went to Polaris

Speaker 49 and then we must have been there for

Speaker 49 like half an hour maybe.

Speaker 50 Who's we?

Speaker 47 Me and her.

Speaker 60 Just you and her? Yeah.

Speaker 49 She said Joseph was on his way over, and I said, okay.

Speaker 49 And then he comes and gets a beer.

Speaker 60 Do you know about what time he showed up?

Speaker 49 Like 12:30, maybe?

Speaker 49 And then

Speaker 49 he had a beer, then we went over to Breakers, and we stayed there till about 2:30,

Speaker 49 and then I came home.

Speaker 10 They met Joseph at Polaris, then they moved to a bar called Breakers. Got it.
But then, according to Kim, she goes home by herself.

Speaker 35 leaving Joseph and Christine together.

Speaker 30 And she never mentions or remembers going out to the BOT bar.

Speaker 60 Do you ever remember going to the BOT that night?

Speaker 54 Did you? Could you have or not?

Speaker 49 I don't think we did that night.

Speaker 49 I usually tend to try to not go to BOT because I usually see people I don't want to see.

Speaker 49 So I don't think we did.

Speaker 49 He was there, he was only there with us at Polaris and then at Breakers. You know, it was just,

Speaker 49 that's where we hung out most of the night. And then him and Chrissy,

Speaker 49 I really felt like the third will.

Speaker 60 But was he were he and Chrissy kind of kissy-kissy, boyfriend, girlfriend, hold-hands type relationship, or just more brother-sister type relationship?

Speaker 49 I thought about that they were like boyfriend, girlfriend.

Speaker 10 I separated Christine and Kim into separate bedrooms. Yeah.
Did you hear how different their testimonies were? Their statements?

Speaker 11 Yeah,

Speaker 57 those were the red flags that came up across, you know, every

Speaker 50 hit every red flag, I guess.

Speaker 39 Both Christine and Kim have very different recollections of that night.

Speaker 65 And hey, sometimes after a night of drinking, that can happen.

Speaker 34 Did we go here or there?

Speaker 10 Or what was the last spot?

Speaker 30 But when someone goes missing afterwards, These details become extremely important.

Speaker 13 In Christine's version, they parted ways with Joseph after the second bar called Breakers, and she spent the rest of her night with her sister Kim at the BOT bar.

Speaker 7 But Kim says she went to Polaris, then Breakers, and then went home afterwards by herself.

Speaker 10 Just her.

Speaker 25 Leaving Joseph and Christine together.

Speaker 30 Kim also seemed to have a different viewpoint on Christine and Joseph's relationship.

Speaker 49 I thought about that they were like boyfriend, girlfriend.

Speaker 49 But christine claims they were only friends so you guys were never boyfriend girlfriend then no we were just friends we're good friends my family adopted him we took him right in he fit right in and my family thought we should date but him and i just friends better off friends

Speaker 34 the differing accounts of friday night are indeed confusing but they could also mean absolutely nothing

Speaker 44 let's fast forward a few hours to the following morning Saturday, June 25th, 2016.

Speaker 30 The PI asked Christine about the next day.

Speaker 60 The next day, about what time did you call him on Saturday?

Speaker 49 About 10.30.

Speaker 60 So at 10.27.

Speaker 49 It was about 10.27.

Speaker 60 You called him and said.

Speaker 49 We just talked about just generally whatever. I mean, there's really no specific, you know, okay, well, what are you going to do today? Well, I'm going to go to the beach and it's nice out.

Speaker 49 I'm going to eat. I'm going to shower.
I'm going to clean up and then take the kids to the beach.

Speaker 54 About how long did you guys talk for?

Speaker 49 Probably about 20 to 25 minutes. Nothing specific, just real, like him and I were always real random.
Whatever came up is whatever we talked about.

Speaker 56 Right.

Speaker 60 You don't remember any specific statements he ever made of I'm going here, I'm going to do this or that?

Speaker 49 No, we talked about that at the beach. And so 1027 was when I first talked to him that day.
And then I got, I showered, I cleaned up, and then I called him.

Speaker 33 The following morning, Christine makes a phone call to Joseph's cell phone at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Speaker 38 Joseph's family provided us his cell phone records, which list out all ingoing and outgoing calls and texts, and the length of the calls.

Speaker 14 The contents of the text messages themselves aren't logged.

Speaker 5 According to Joseph's cell phone records, the call Christine made to his phone that Saturday morning lasted 27 minutes.

Speaker 10 So, not a quick call.

Speaker 49 I know I called him before 12.15 because it was about 1218 is when I called him and he said he was coming to the beach. I said okay well I'm already here.
This is where I'm at. Look for my truck.

Speaker 49 He's like okay well I'll have my blue truck.

Speaker 49 I said okay I'll see you and then a few minutes went by and then he came down there and then we were there probably until about 230 ish, quarter to three because by then it started getting really hot.

Speaker 60 Was he pretty hungover?

Speaker 49 And it didn't seem like it.

Speaker 54 So you hung out at each beach for approximately how long?

Speaker 49 Probably about until 2.30, quarter to three, just about two hours.

Speaker 49 We let the kids play,

Speaker 49 just hung out. And so I asked him what he was going to do because I was like, well, it's nice out.
I'm going to get ready. I'm going to get things and go to camp.
You're welcome to go if you want.

Speaker 49 My grand's camp. And I was like, well, what are you going to do? He's like, well, I'm going to go fishing.

Speaker 49 And at that time, I didn't think there was any fish, but that's just my judgment because there's usually not. He's like, well, I'm going to go fishing.
I said, where?

Speaker 49 He's like, at the mouth, at Nome River Mouth. I said, okay.

Speaker 49 so you don't want to go to camp? He's like, no. I said, why are you going to go fishing? There's really no fish.
You just get to go and look. He's like, well, I'll just go and look.

Speaker 60 Fishing where?

Speaker 49 At the mouth of the Nome River.

Speaker 49 And I kind of was like, why? There's no fish. He's like, I'm just going to go look.
So I said, okay.

Speaker 49 And then that was up.

Speaker 65 Christine claims Joseph drove to meet her at the beach.

Speaker 4 Joseph stayed there at the beach with her until about 2.45 p.m.

Speaker 10 A little over two hours.

Speaker 39 At the time, Christine had her kids with her, as well as her sister Kim's kids, and apparently they were on the beach together with Joseph.

Speaker 32 These kids were pretty young, between four and five years old.

Speaker 34 She then invites him to go to her family's camp with her for a get-together they were having, but Joseph declines, and he tells Christine that he's going fishing at the mouth of the Nome River.

Speaker 34 Then Joseph gets in his truck, drives away, and was never seen again.

Speaker 32 Here's Joseph's sister, Selena.

Speaker 46 So it's just kind of weird that he partied all night, like literally till the wee hours and then he gets up early and wants to go fishing.

Speaker 50 Kind of weird.

Speaker 32 No other eyewitnesses could place Joseph on the beach that day, despite the beach area itself being widely visible from the road and the general public.

Speaker 49 I left before him and so I don't know which direction he went after that.

Speaker 60 Anything else you can think of that might be important?

Speaker 49 I've been trying to think, but I have no idea.

Speaker 49 Angry,

Speaker 49 mad, but

Speaker 47 I don't know where he is or

Speaker 60 was he upset about anything?

Speaker 49 Not that I know of because he was excited that he had mentioned to me before, not the same weekend, but had mentioned to me before that him and Megan were going to get married.

Speaker 49 I said, okay, well, I started asking questions. I said, how long have you been dating?

Speaker 49 How did you meet her? What do you guys plan to do? Because he was moving to Juneau because his term was done here in August. And he seemed excited about it.

Speaker 49 And I said, okay, well, you guys have, let's see, you've been single for six years, right? He's like, yeah.

Speaker 49 And now you've been dating for what, six months-ish?

Speaker 49 Yeah. You know, it was five months, six months.
And I was like, and you're going to get married? I was like, don't you think that's a little dumb, Joseph?

Speaker 60 So in your mind, you know, the question I asked you earlier is, do you have any idea what happened?

Speaker 60 So in your mind, one of the options that you don't think happened is he just walked off and just on purpose, just trying to disappear. You don't think to do that?

Speaker 47 I don't know why he would do that.

Speaker 49 Yeah. I don't see why, I mean,

Speaker 49 I don't think so.

Speaker 60 So you essentially are concluding that...

Speaker 60 Well, you couldn't really get lost out there, but you're thinking maybe that nature had a role in this?

Speaker 49 I have no idea. I mean, I'm still having faith that he's out there somewhere.

Speaker 10 Bear with me for a second.

Speaker 30 Saturday morning, Christine calls Joseph's cell phone in a call that lasts 27 minutes.

Speaker 32 She doesn't remember what they talked about.

Speaker 34 She places another call to Joseph sometime after 12 p.m.

Speaker 39 noon.

Speaker 38 And then they meet up at the beach and stay there for about two hours.

Speaker 32 Sometime after 2.45 p.m., Joseph hops in his truck and drives off to go fishing, but no one has seen him since then.

Speaker 34 Looking through Joseph's cell phone records, something about that Saturday meeting at the beach that apparently lasted over two hours didn't really make sense to me. Here's why.

Speaker 30 I can see the call Christine made to him at 10.36 a.m., a 27 minute call. Then, at 12.46 p.m., Christine calls Joseph's phone again.
This call lasted about a minute and five seconds.

Speaker 65 Based on Christine's account, this would presumably be the call she made where Joseph agrees to meet her at the beach.

Speaker 32 And if they spent over two hours there, then Joseph must have arrived at the beach pretty quickly after this 12.46 p.m.

Speaker 35 call.

Speaker 32 But here's what his records show.

Speaker 30 After Christine's call at 12.46 p.m., Christine texts Joseph at 12.55 p.m.

Speaker 28 Then she texts Joseph again at 1 p.m.

Speaker 37 Then she calls Joseph a third time at 1.18 p.m.

Speaker 36 A call that lasted 48 seconds.

Speaker 7 This is about 45 minutes to an hour after Joseph is supposed to have already been at the beach with her.

Speaker 65 Maybe her times are off.

Speaker 39 But then, at 1.32 p.m., Christine again texts Joseph.

Speaker 28 By this point, if what she's saying is true, Joseph should most certainly be at the beach already, especially if they stayed there for over two hours like she says, and that he left no later than 2.45pm to go fishing.

Speaker 30 So, in conclusion, we're pretty much missing an entire hour here.

Speaker 30 Either that, or Christine was calling and texting Joseph when they were together at the beach, when she was literally right right in front of him.

Speaker 10 I just don't like it.

Speaker 30 We only have Joseph's phone records to go off of.

Speaker 39 Joseph's actual cell phone is missing along with him.

Speaker 29 So the only way we could find out more about what they were talking about that day is from Christine's phone.

Speaker 43 The private investigator asked Christine if she could supply the text to his family.

Speaker 59 Do you still have the text that you can

Speaker 54 refer to?

Speaker 49 I had to restore my phone because the passcode got disabled. I was not very happy.

Speaker 46 But we didn't get to see those texts.

Speaker 49 My brother disabled my phone. He messed with my pin, you know.
That night? No, that day. That Sunday.

Speaker 10 Oh no.

Speaker 49 And so I was so mad because I mean everything I had was, you know, the text messages, the call logs, they were still there.

Speaker 49 And then he disabled it and I couldn't remember my pin code because on you know on the iPhones I could use my thumb. And so that's what I was using.
And so he disabled it.

Speaker 49 So every pin code I thought I thought it would be, I used, and it wasn't. So it ended up disabling it.
And then I had to connect to iTunes to restore it.

Speaker 34 Her phone was completely wiped on Sunday.

Speaker 7 I don't work at the Apple Store or Genius Bar, but I'm loosely familiar with what she's talking about.

Speaker 39 If you try to put in the wrong pin code enough times on an iPhone, Eventually, after a while, it will lock you out of the phone forever.

Speaker 10 Then you'll have to plug it into your computer to reset and restore it to its last saved moment on iCloud so her phone is erased immediately after Joseph disappears her entire phone is erased that is

Speaker 10 a little bit kind of concerning you know that that that that leads you to kind of lean towards the idea that maybe she I highly doubt no I've met her yeah she's she's definitely lying and her account of the phone lock for instance is actually impossible 29 year old brother was taking a picture and locked her phone.

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 10 that's not true.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 That cannot be true.

Speaker 47 She said her brother, I believe it was her brother, did something with, you know, you have your code to get into it.

Speaker 47 And then he did it so many times that she had to factory reset it, which didn't make any sense. That's not how, you know, that's not what happens.
So it was just this like really flimsy excuse.

Speaker 49 Very weird timing for sure.

Speaker 39 On every iPhone, you can take a picture without having to unlock it.

Speaker 31 There's literally a camera icon on the bottom right of the home screen.

Speaker 49 I don't know why it didn't back up because I have it automatically synced to iCloud as a backup and it didn't.

Speaker 49 And so when I went to restore my phone Sunday night, I had to create it as a new one. So all the text messages, all the call logs, everything I had on my phone was gone.

Speaker 60 But even if you created as a new one, your iCloud didn't save all your old data?

Speaker 49 No, nothing came up to ask me if I wanted to pick this date. You know, how you can go back and say, okay, back it up to this day.

Speaker 49 It never did ask me. It just asked if I wanted to set it up as a new one or whatever the other option was on iTunes.

Speaker 49 One, that's not the laptop that I... I didn't sync this to a laptop because my laptop's gone.
And so I didn't sync it to that one because that one didn't have iTunes.

Speaker 49 I had to download iTunes Sunday to restore it.

Speaker 30 Regardless of why or how Christine had to completely restore her phone that day, it's just a major red flag, plain and simple.

Speaker 7 Sometimes it can be really easy to nitpick the small details in a case like this, or hyper-analyze someone's behavior.

Speaker 30 But when you start adding up all these other weird things about Christine's account that weekend, her sister's completely different recollection of Friday night, phone records that don't match the narrative, and the possibility that her and Joseph were more than just friends, this starts to become something you should not and cannot ignore.

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Speaker 30 trying to make sense of it all is maddening.

Speaker 18 The reality is, we simply need more information.

Speaker 29 So we kept digging, going through files and papers, all provided by the private investigators and Joseph's family.

Speaker 30 Before Christine was ever interviewed by the private investigator, she was initially interviewed by the Alaska State Troopers.

Speaker 38 We got our hands on the official police report.

Speaker 28 According to the official police report, Christine claims that she was with Joseph at the beach on Saturday from approximately 2.45 p.m.

Speaker 32 to 3.15 p.m.

Speaker 10 Wait, what?

Speaker 32 Christine told the PI she was with him for over two hours and that he left the beach no later than 2.45.

Speaker 32 So was she with Joseph for 30 minutes or two hours?

Speaker 34 And did he leave the beach at 2.45 or is that when he got there?

Speaker 10 There now feels to be way more than just a lot wrong with Christine's story. But why?

Speaker 10 That's a question that's always bothered Joseph's family.

Speaker 30 And one thing you'll learn about the Balderises is their fighters.

Speaker 25 Their investigation has never stopped.

Speaker 39 Three years later, Joseph's sister Selena managed to get her hands on another set of phone records, Christine's phone records, and they make things even more puzzling than they already are.

Speaker 30 Just like Joseph's phone logs, they don't show the contents of their text, but I can see way further back in their communication.

Speaker 27 Going back several months, Between April 29th, 2016, and June 24th, 2016, the night she met Joseph at the bar, Christine never once called Joseph.

Speaker 31 Literally, not one time.

Speaker 10 Only text.

Speaker 30 But she texted him frequently.

Speaker 34 Then, all of a sudden, starting that Friday night, Christine calls Joseph a total of 16 times in a period of less than 24 hours.

Speaker 18 Then, he goes missing.

Speaker 45 What is the deal here?

Speaker 33 And what about Joseph's last message to his fiancée Megan that morning?

Speaker 8 Around 9.30 a.m., he allegedly texts his fiancée Megan via WhatsApp, saying,

Speaker 22 Yup, probably gonna head back out later to another river where the kings might be.

Speaker 22 Love you, Meg.

Speaker 7 And then from that exact moment forward, he never opens or reads any more of her messages.

Speaker 33 By any account of Christine's story, Joseph didn't leave to go fishing until at least 2.45 p.m.

Speaker 34 or even as late as 3.30.

Speaker 33 Meaning, Joseph was still in town, town, in Nome, with cell service.

Speaker 10 But for over five hours, he didn't even read or open his fiancé's messages.

Speaker 10 This was completely out of character for him.

Speaker 34 I asked the private investigator Andy Klamser to put me in touch with Megan, Joseph's former fiancé,

Speaker 35 to ask her about those messages.

Speaker 39 And the very first thing she told me has sent me down an entirely new rabbit hole.

Speaker 64 The tone and nuance of his last text message to me on Saturday morning just seemed different.

Speaker 64 He said, love you, instead of I love you.

Speaker 64 It just seemed strange.

Speaker 64 I don't think it was really him.

Speaker 15 Coming this season in chapter two of Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun.

Speaker 53 There was also an issue with apparently texting your friends to try and get them to create an alibi. I was just nervous and I didn't know how to deal with it.
I was trying to save my skin.

Speaker 50 Save your skin from what, though?

Speaker 52 It's not like you were doing anything wrong.

Speaker 48 The roommate lied about his whereabouts on Saturday night.

Speaker 10 Pain,

Speaker 10 I have a video. It has to do with Balderas.

Speaker 10 I'm scared.

Speaker 1 Trust me.

Speaker 2 Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is a production of Tunderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your host is Payne Lindsay.

Speaker 2 The show is written by Payne Lindsay with additional assistance from Mike Rooney. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey.

Speaker 2 Lead producer is Mike Rooney, along with producers Dylan Harrington and Cooper Skinner. Editing by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner with additional editing by Dylan Harrington.

Speaker 2 Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Victoria McKenzie, Alice Kanik Glenn, and Eric Kintana.
Artwork by Rob Sheridan. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.

Speaker 2 Mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 For more podcasts like Up and Vanished, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 21 This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

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Speaker 66 Every story has layers, and sometimes the truth hides in plain sight. I'm Josh Dean, host of Chameleon, the podcast about people who transform, deceive, and survive.

Speaker 66 From con artists to unbelievable yet true occurrences, we dive into stories where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Because to understand the world, you sometimes have to change the way you see it.

Speaker 55 Listen to Chameleon, wherever you get your podcasts.