(Bonus) Payne Lindsey breaks down the case so far on Talking To Death

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Hey, it's Payne here. I hope you're enjoying the new season of Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun.
If you're all caught up through episode three, I'm sure you have plenty of questions. And today I'm going to break down this case in much more detail, in a roundtable discussion with some of the producers behind the show.
The segment you're about to hear is a clip from my weekly show called Talking to Death. Every week after each new episode, I'll be giving you an in-depth recap and a behind-the-scenes look into my investigation this season, exclusively on my weekly show called Talking to Death, which is out now on your podcast app and completely free.
But I figured I'd give you a real example of what I mean, right here in the Up and Vantage feed. If you're enjoying this season, you want to hear in-depth discussions about the case, please go subscribe and listen to my weekly show called Talking to Death.
Every week I interview a new guest from other podcasters, actors, comedians, and journalists, all of us who

share a mutual interest in true crime.

Throughout this whole season, every week, I'll be recapping the latest episode in the

intro portion of Talking to Death.

And here's our discussion breaking down everything you've heard in Up and Vanish so far.

So if you like it, please go subscribe to Talking to Death on your podcast app, and

stay tuned this Friday for episode four of Up and Vanish in the Midnight Sun.

Thanks. See you soon.
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Episode 3 of Up and Vanish just came out. It's got some new revelations in it, and it's hard for me to even think objectively and zoom out and answer what I think anyone would even want to know.
So Dylan, I'm going to kick it to you, because just listened to the episode and you tell me what stands out as like an objective listener, you think. What an action packed episode.
This one was, it was crazy, you know, start to finish. It's, there's a lot of information there.
You talk to a lot of different kinds of people. This episode deals really heavily with law enforcement, all these different departments of, you know, police and state troopers and private investigators and city hall.
I mean, what was your take on, you know, not only dealing with these people, but collecting all the information and presenting it? I mean, how was that for you? I mean, if you look at all the other seasons of Up and Vanished, I mean, maybe not so much with season one because that was a wildly different story. But for the most part, season two, three, other shows I've been a part of, Dead and Gone, there really isn't ever some super strong narrative about the police being corrupt or blatantly not doing their job.
And it's just a thing that gets thrown around a lot in true crime documentaries that, you know, the police aren't doing their job, they didn't do it, or they did it themselves or whatever. And so I never really have bought too much into that in the cases that I've been a part of because it wasn't necessarily true.
Now, Tara Grinstead season one, there was proof that there was a tip that was submitted back in 2005, not too long after Tara went missing, that was in the case file. And so there was some real proof to the fact that it wasn't investigated to the fullest degree.

And you could look at that as the reason why it went unsolved for 10 plus years, right?

But in the other cases, for the most part, I've had pretty good relationships with law enforcement.

Season two, Crystal Reisinger, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has always been awesome. Even the county sheriff's been great.
Season three, locally, we never made that much contact, but we were able to establish a relationship with the FBI through that. And though they were hesitant at first, they ended up going on record with us and actually having a conversation about how they handle cases like that and let us actually ask them questions about it.
All that to say, to me, this is the first time that I've ever really strongly felt like the police are a major problem in this case. And I'm not saying it in the way of just pointing the finger like,

you didn't do your job, I could do better. It's literally not at all what I'm trying to say.

I'm just saying that I think if you're trying to break down why Florence Okpeolek's disappearance remains unsolved, I think it is extreme incompetence from the known police department to the point where it makes you wonder what else is going on. I get that it's a hard place to live.
I get that there are a lack of resources. But what I don't get is that One of those resources is the FBI.
And I have had email correspondence with the FBI, and they told me that this case belongs to the Nome Police Department. Therefore, they weren't even going to comment on it to me.
If you try to ask any question to the N known PD, one, they don't want to answer.

And anything I've heard from anyone who has gotten through to them, it's as if they don't take it seriously or even act like it's a case of theirs at all. and having looked into this for almost a year now,

I strongly believe that in the early days especially,

it was a lack of care and effort and just investigative work, basic investigative work, that allowed this case to get to the point that it is today. Yeah, that's an interesting thing you said about the jurisdiction between the FBI and GNOME PD.
This might be a case where the boundary between these jurisdictions is allowing a crack to form. And it seems like this case and probably a lot of other cases tend to just fall through the crack.
What do you have to say about these jurisdictional lines? I mean, if you remember what Andy Clamser, the private investigator said in this episode, he mentioned that the known police department has always been pretty disorganized. And if you hear what Sue's talking about, it's like a revolving door of new people in and out.
They never really seem to keep a police chief for very long. And the way that it works from my understanding is that if the known police department wants assistance, then they can request that from the FBI and the FBI will come from Anchorage to help out.
But only if they request it or in, I guess, if there was some other scenario where the FBI felt that there was something nefarious going on or something and was doing their own investigation into it. So they did do that one time.
In the first couple of weeks after Florence went missing, they did request help from the FBI to help search. And they came out for a couple of days.
And to my knowledge, they've never been back since then. But that's because they were never asked to come back and i think what's happened is the fbi has never come

back because they didn't think they needed their help or weren't considering that and the gnome pd

never asked for help also never did anything either we touched on it in the episode but

gnome pd has a very long history of mismanagement. Well, they've also killed a girl before.
And this isn't the same people, so I'm not going to, you know, make that kind of... None of the people who work there now were there or a part of that, right? But if you're working for a department that has a dark history like that, where one of your former officers murdered a native woman, then I would think if I was ever a police chief there, that one of my primary goals outside of serving and protecting would be to regain the trust of the community because the people before me totally broke it, right? And from what I've seen and who people I've talked to and the way they've been to us, it doesn't seem like that matters at all or has ever been a factor to them.
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One of the things I want to mention is I think this weirdly goes two different ways. I think a big thing might be that the Nome Police Department, I don't think they're prepared to handle a homicide investigation.
I don't think they have the tools or experience to do that. And I think it's weird that the ABI or FBI has given them responsibility over this case when I think the FBI is better suited to investigate a homicide and interrogate these people and do these.
I don't think Nome, it's a small town. Any small town is never historically good at investigating a homicide.
I mean, I think that where the case stands today, that is 100% true. They don't have the resources to solve this now.
I think they did have the resources to solve it then because they didn't find anything from the search anyway. But there were people, there were names, there were persons of interest that to my knowledge and until proven wrong, and I've looked very hard and I would, I would love to be surprised by this and find out that it actually is true.
But to my knowledge, they've never even interrogated any person of interest in this case, even the person who had her thanks. And so you missed the opportunity to potentially solve this.
You let a case get cold because you didn't do what I think are basic steps in investigating anything. And I think that because it was missed then and by different people, they set the known PD up for future failure.
And now it's in a place where if you have persons of interest that are way long gone in other faraway places, yeah, no shit, you don't have the resources to do that. We've been met with that same challenge and it's hard for us when it's our full-time focus and we don't have to do their day-to-day.
And so I understand how it would be almost near impossible now, but that signals to me that they should be more open and willing to cooperate and just be an open book, especially if you weren't the ones who were there beforehand. But there's a there's an ego.
There's a there's all the bad shit that you could read about some cops, not all cops, but some cops cops all the fucking markings of that are here

if by some chance this episode makes its way back to gnome pd and someone's listening do you have a message for them something you'd like them to hear i'm open to talk at any time i i realize that you don't want to.

That's okay.

It was never my plan or intention to have some gotcha moment with you. I'm not trying to point the finger at anybody.
And like I said before, none of you were really even there when this happened. So it's not even possible for me to do that.
But i think that you know when i had that first conversation

with crockett a long time ago now i tried even tape that you didn't hear because i cut it out

i i was telling him about the resources that i thought i could help give to them for them to use

and i just there was no interest in doing that so gnomeome PD, they're not the only, uh, the only sheriffs in town, so to say. Also, Alaska state troopers are a big deal there.
Both exist on front street, right there in Nome. They each have their own department, their own office space.
Uh, maybe this is a good transition to start talking about Joseph Balderas because Joseph's case is under the purview of AST. How is it dealing with them and what's your take on them? So because Joseph went missing way outside of town, right? It was miles and miles outside of the actual downtown city.
So Flo went missing on West Beach and that's pretty close to the downtown area of Nome. And that's within the Nome police jurisdiction.
Cases that are out in the wildlife frontier of Alaska, way outside of the city, those are cases that automatically get assigned to the Alaska state troopers from what I've gathered. And so because Joseph likely went missing out there, or at least it appears that he did, his truck was found out there.
It appears to be the last place he was unless something else happened. But on the surface, this would be a case that the Alaska State troopers would take on because of that.
And so I did have a brief

conversation with a trooper who works in Nome at the office there. I think you guys were both there when we did that.
And she was, you know, she was open enough, more of a conversation than we ever have with anyone at known PD, but it seemed to me like Joseph's case specifically, they had completely wrapped up and decided that it was a bear, even though we can't prove it was in the end. And I'm not saying that I know what it is or not, but Andy Clamser has shared with me a lot more details about his disappearance that weren't included in the podcast episode in episode three yet.
And there are just some major unanswered questions that you just can't ignore. And we're going to get to that actually later on in the series.
It comes back. I guess I could just say this now, but we've been working with Andy really ever since that first meeting with him.
And he's been a huge help for Florence's investigation and kind of just navigating Alaska to begin with. and he's, and the dude has so many resources and expertise.
He's, he was a Alaska cop detective for 20 plus years. So he's an ex cop and he gets it.
And so I really put a lot of credence into what he says. And he has literally hundreds of pages of investigative work and interviews and tape with people in Joseph's case that he's given us.
And we've scoured for months. And there are just some major unanswered questions in there that you cannot ignore.
and the more I look into it,

the fact that they never found anything to me, like they didn't find his backpack or a phone or a piece of clothing or whatever, right? Just thinking logically, if he left his truck and walked out there to the river,

how far could someone actually go? Like within reason, right? How far could he have possibly gone? There's got to be like a finite radius of what that is. And they searched that and searched way beyond that with dogs.
It's like he just wasn't there. If he is there and they didn't find him, that would be tragic.
But it is so odd that they didn't. And I'd love to search again, but that coupled with a few of the stories about the roommate, which we'll get into later on in the series, just makes me think that there's something else going on.
and it starts to look and smell a lot like Florence's disappearance really. Do you say data or data? My family says data and I've noticed it's a word we use a lot because data is something we rely on.
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So Andy gives you a really hot tip near the end of the episode. He tells you that it may be worth, instead of reaching out to Nome PD to no avail, it may be worth overstepping them and going straight to the city manager at City Hall to get the information you're looking for.
How useful of a tip was that? I mean, it worked. Props to Andy, that i did not think that was going to work um i had lost faith in everything after that first exchange with no mpd but damn it worked then we got an email again saying that we're denied even though we've already been sent this.
So either they got their wires crossed and thought that it wasn't sent or the person who sent it didn't say that they sent it and pretended like they didn't or they changed their mind and talked to known pd or whoever it was and wanted to basically say even though you you have this, you can't have it. But that's not how it works in the real world.
And we do have it. And I'm glad that we do, because I don't think that that information is being used appropriately anywhere else right now.
So I'd rather put it to good use.

So they're saying that there is an active and ongoing investigation

into the matter of Oregon John.

When they've never mentioned or named a suspect ever.

Now we're making the jump and assumption

that they're referring to Florence Okpeolog's case.

And there's a long list of things on that report. Actually, missing person is on there.
That was never talked about. Yeah, and I'll get into that in the next episode, but I'll tell you now.
But I mean, there's 93 incidents on that report, and I wasn't about to read all 93 of them for you. I just went from the bottom, which would be back to starting in 2016, which is when I believe he moved there.
And I just started rattling off, going up the list closer and closer to 2020, all of the major charges that to me stood out like they were a problem. There's other incidents in there that are lesser offenses or even some exchanges that I don't really fully understand what it was because they don't really unpack it all the way.
But in terms of trying to understand the kind of person that you may be dealing with, I read off in order going closer and closer to the date that Florence disappeared. And we'll get into this more in the next episode and further on in the series.
but when this was the main thing that I had on this person, I couldn't help but analyze it.

And there was a pattern I sort of saw where the closer you got to the date of Florence's disappearance in late August, there is a genuine, very real uptick in his run-ins with the law. It just seems to get more and more and more and worse and worse.
And then on the day she went missing, day after, there are two reports or two incident reports, and they're just little log lines. And it has the names of the officers.
And there's two different officers. And all it says is missing person.

So missing person. So missing person, missing person, meaning that he was interacted with by the known PD in relation to Flo's disappearance.
To my knowledge, that is the extent of what they've done investigating Oregon John I hope that isn't true but I've never heard about any sort of in you know legitimate interrogation I think that what we're looking at in that document is it what can people expect from episode four can you give us any little tidbits so far the narrative has been going really just one way and to me to me that's always interesting whether it's me watching a true crime documentary or listening to a true crime podcast or investigating a real true crime, when all things start pointing in one direction really so quickly, it makes you want to step back and reevaluate and make sure that there's not just a whole bunch of biases here that are sending you this direction and that it is correct. Then there's the other part of me that

comes out that really truly to my core believes that I think a majority of the time, it's always the simplest answer. Not every time, but a majority of the time, maybe that's 51%.
But in my experiences and what I believe, my opinion, is that sometimes if it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it's just a duck, man. And in this case, it sent us directly to Oregon John.
Now, in episode four, we hear for the first time another theory.

New names emerge.

It starts to paint a picture, a clearer picture of what may have transpired that night. But John is still in that picture.
Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun

is a production of Tenderfoot TV

and Association. 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 Harrington and Cooper Skinner.
Editing by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner, with additional editing by Dylan Harrington. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan.
Additional production by Victoria McKenzie, Alice Kanik-Glen, 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.

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Thanks for listening.

Hi, I'm Grace, host of Red Rum True Crime Podcast.

These cases focus on the true victims of crime.

Why not jump in at episode 114,

the tragic murder of Jasmine and Aaliyah.

The main suspect in this case gave an extremely bizarre interview to a number of press reporters whilst he was drunk

and we'll be right back. the tragic murder of Jasmine and Aaliyah.
The main suspect in this case gave an extremely bizarre interview to a number of press reporters whilst he was drunk and reportedly high. He speaks about an awful lot on camera and has this completely inappropriate laughing and chuckling response when talking about the case.
He may even have thought he was going to get away with the double murder he'd been accused of, but what he didn't know was that two undercover officers were on their way to catch him out,

and he easily and willingly took the bait.

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Just search Red Rum True Crime.