3 | Oregon Jon

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Speaker 8 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 10 I know there's going to be a twist, wasn't there?

Speaker 11 A massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 8 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and the New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.

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Speaker 25 Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 21 Previously, on Up and Vanished in the midnight sun.

Speaker 26 August 31st, 2020, a Florence Akbialik is reported missing.

Speaker 12 Do you feel like the police have done enough to solve her case?

Speaker 15 No.

Speaker 8 It feels and looks like they haven't done anything.

Speaker 26 If there's not some sort of accountability with the police department, this could easily get swept under the rug.

Speaker 26 She had reportedly last been seen on West Beach.

Speaker 6 And I have to be honest, I've gone to party at West Beach before.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 6 There's a lot of people that would migrate from the bars down to the beach.

Speaker 6 Somebody knows something and covered it up.

Speaker 26 And that beach is very popular for gold miners.

Speaker 11 But I do know that she was supposedly last seen with this guy.

Speaker 28 They found her things in his tent.

Speaker 26 The gentleman who owned the tent, the miner.

Speaker 26 This miner may have been involved.

Speaker 11 I don't know the guy's name.

Speaker 15 Where the guy went, I don't know.

Speaker 5 This guy, I just know he was a cab driver in town and a lot of people didn't like him.

Speaker 7 He was a drug dealer and then he was a cab driver for Checker Cab.

Speaker 4 He dropped everybody else off but her.

Speaker 10 And he says, you know what, I could have killed you and nobody would have known about it.

Speaker 5 This guy gives her some of Flo's clothes, but she's not there.

Speaker 29 Why would her belongings be there and her not be there?

Speaker 5 It's all part of the mystery, isn't it? Whether it was intentional or an effort to shut her up, she's clearly been murdered.

Speaker 15 Which bar was she at last?

Speaker 28 BOT.

Speaker 28 That's the one right on front street. It's the oldest bar downtown.

Speaker 28 She said, I got a guy in the bar saying throws at West Beach.

Speaker 30 There were problems with a cab driver and he followed me.

Speaker 4 He pulled out at night.

Speaker 30 This guy.

Speaker 30 His name starts with Jay.

Speaker 30 The man.

Speaker 30 This is a dangerous man.

Speaker 32 She'd been missing for two days.

Speaker 2 There was a man,

Speaker 32 and I kind of knew him because he was a cab driver.

Speaker 33 He was sitting here drinking, and he was talking about an incident that was going on with his girlfriend, and he was saying she'd gotten a restraining order on something, something, something.

Speaker 4 I turned around and said, oh, I seen her down at West Wheat.

Speaker 33 She was partying with some of the miners down there.

Speaker 32 And she had stopped by his tent and was talking to him.

Speaker 36 Her cell phone and she was being found outside of a tent.

Speaker 37 Her items were around his tent. One of the last people to see her, if not the last.

Speaker 37 You ever seen him since all this?

Speaker 12 He moved shortly after that. He took off.

Speaker 38 What was the name that you knew him by?

Speaker 33 Oregon John.

Speaker 37 What do you think happened to her?

Speaker 33 Pretty sure somebody murdered her.

Speaker 13 From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, I'm your host, Payne Lindsay, and this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun.

Speaker 14 In the case of Florence Akpialik's disappearance, the biggest lead I have is this mysterious gold miner who was camped along West Beach in Nome.

Speaker 35 He was reportedly seen by multiple witnesses taking Flo to and from West Beach on the night she vanished.

Speaker 13 And her personal belongings were found outside his tent the next morning.

Speaker 17 As of right now, here's what we know about him.

Speaker 20 He's a middle-aged white guy, potentially overweight, and in addition to being a freelance gold miner, he allegedly drove a cab in town.

Speaker 40 I heard multiple first-hand accounts of scary run-ins with the cab driver, who also fits this loose description.

Speaker 40 A friend of Flo's Aunt Wendy described an incident where she was picked up by a man in a cab, and he told her he could have killed her that night and gotten away with it.

Speaker 15 Another story from a lady I met at the local Board of Trade bar involved a cab driver of a similar description who allegedly was following her one night and threatened her with a knife.

Speaker 21 And a man meeting this same description told the bartender Naomi just two days after Florence went missing that she had gone to West Beach that night.

Speaker 13 And as far back as I can trace, it's the first time that anyone ever mentions that Florence went to West Beach.

Speaker 13 This is intimate knowledge that only someone who was with Flo that night she went missing could have possibly known.

Speaker 40 This same man at the bar was also a cab driver, and he admitted to the bartender that he was in fact with her that night on the beach, and the personal belongings they found were outside of his tent.

Speaker 13 According to the bartender Naomi, his nickname is Oregon John.

Speaker 24 And right now, above all else, he's my number one focus.

Speaker 41 What's Oregon John's real name?

Speaker 23 And where is he now?

Speaker 41 Upon replaying the recording of Naomi, there was one thing in particular that really stood out to me.

Speaker 22 The items found outside Oregon John's tent were her shoes, shirt, and jacket.

Speaker 13 But in that conversation at the bar, Oregon John added a new detail that I've never heard anywhere else in this case.

Speaker 43 He mentioned that he had Flo's cell phone.

Speaker 15 Why on earth would he say that, if it wasn't true?

Speaker 40 It's definitely not a good look, but it's also strange to me that there's no mention of her cell phone anywhere else.

Speaker 24 Did he really have her cell phone that night too?

Speaker 22 And if so, where the hell is it now?

Speaker 10 Do the police have it?

Speaker 22 Do the police even know about this stuff?

Speaker 15 The Nome Police Department has been a revolving door of police chiefs and investigators for years now.

Speaker 40 It seems that most people don't stick around for long.

Speaker 44 At the end of last year, the current chief retired, and for the first time in three years, the Gnome PD had no police chief at all.

Speaker 20 Instead, the lead investigator, a man named William Crockett, seemed to be unofficially filling that role.

Speaker 5 I don't know if he's Investigator Crockett or Officer Crockett, but he now has the case, even though he wasn't here at all during any of the search efforts.

Speaker 21 I met with Sue Steinecker again, a gnome local who's been here for decades and followed Flo's case from the very beginning.

Speaker 5 Now they've decided that she must have been killed by a bear because we can't find any sign of her at all.

Speaker 5 None of it makes, none of it makes sense.

Speaker 21 According to the last known conversation with the police department, they're running on a new theory now.

Speaker 5 We do have bears, grizzlies here.

Speaker 15 I mean, they are around.

Speaker 5 Every great once-in-a-while, one to come into this region closer to town. A bear kill, there would have been all kinds of signs.
It's not like they eat every last bone. That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 22 Bears are most certainly present in Nome, Alaska, but they rarely make their way into town.

Speaker 17 In 2022, Officer Curtis Warland was killed by a musk ox.

Speaker 40 trying to defend his dog from the animal.

Speaker 29 A musk ox is a huge bull-like mammal native to the Arctic region.

Speaker 23 They range from 400 to 900 pounds.

Speaker 40 It can run up to 37 miles per hour. And just like grizzly bears, the musk ox could be a very dangerous animal to encounter.

Speaker 18 But overall, these incidents are extremely rare.

Speaker 5 The other thing that doesn't make any sense to that is that we had people out searching all the time. If there had been a bear in the area, there would have been alerts.

Speaker 5 And it's just, it's very frustrating that the police department can say, well, we can't share anything with you because this is an active case.

Speaker 15 How active is it?

Speaker 5 It's a great way to cover your butt if you're not doing anything. Or if you've given up, now you're blaming it on a magical bear that cleans up neatly after itself.

Speaker 5 I feel she's clearly been murdered.

Speaker 20 There's a long history of strange disappearances in Gnome that continue to remain unsolved.

Speaker 5 There's a couple of unsolved murder mysteries that people have taken advantage of being able to get out of town.

Speaker 5 This is the same explanation they've used for Joseph Balderis because they can't find his body. Well, it must have been a bear.

Speaker 20 Four years before Florence went missing, in June of 2016, a man named Joseph Balderis disappeared.

Speaker 41 He didn't show up for work on a Monday morning, and upon checking his residence, he was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 19 The police theory on his case is the same thing, a bear attack.

Speaker 5 I mean, this seems to be the default explanation. And there's a lot of people not buying that line.

Speaker 25 At the entrance to the Aurora Inn Hotel in Nome, there was a missing poster for Joseph Balderis taped to the door.

Speaker 39 He was 36 years old when he disappeared.

Speaker 24 And just like Flo's case, there's no leads whatsoever.

Speaker 13 The man just vanished into thin air.

Speaker 5 His family is continuing to post reward signs. They told me they got very frustrated with the Nome Police Department and they hired their own private detective.

Speaker 5 They feel like his case is very suspicious.

Speaker 39 I did some more reading on Joseph and started drawing many similarities to Flo's case.

Speaker 24 Displeased with the Nome PD's handling of his case, his family decided to hire their own private investigator, a man named Andy Clamser.

Speaker 40 For years, this PI was traveling back and forth to Nome, conducting his own investigation.

Speaker 15 doing his own interviews.

Speaker 45 If there was anybody out there with more insight on how to privately investigate a disappearance in this town, it's got to be this guy.

Speaker 19 Investigating a missing person's case in the subarctic region of Alaska is a pretty unique thing.

Speaker 24 This is somebody I want on my team.

Speaker 40 So I tracked him down.

Speaker 47 When I think of an investigation like this, I think of it as a long hallway with a lot of doors off it.

Speaker 47 The idea is to travel down that hallway, go in every door, and check it out.

Speaker 47 You can go down rabbit holes and waste a lot of time.

Speaker 47 You really need the ability to look at all those other issues and figure out which of them warrant a lot of time to focus on what is important.

Speaker 24 In every case I've ever covered, there comes a point where your mind becomes scrambled with information overload. You start going down every avenue you find.

Speaker 21 checking off the boxes one by one, but sometimes you find yourself stuck in a loop.

Speaker 13 It's important to remember to zoom out and reset, or you might get lost in minute details that don't matter.

Speaker 47 For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to go missing a gnome.

Speaker 47 The number of missing people does not really match the population of the area.

Speaker 35 It is weird.

Speaker 47 It is weird. It is weird.
It's definitely wild country.

Speaker 47 There's a lot fewer people. Some people can't stand the winters because the winters are long.
I mean, it's a different feel up here in the winter.

Speaker 47 Much quieter, there's a lot fewer people.

Speaker 47 We have about six hours of daylight. I mean, so in the summer, it's light 20 hours out of the day.

Speaker 23 Speaking of that, I don't think I've slept since I've been here.

Speaker 21 The five-hour time difference is one thing.

Speaker 20 But when I look out my bedroom window at two in the morning, it looks like two in the afternoon.

Speaker 17 I've been here for almost a week now, and the only darkness I've experienced is with the blackout shade's drawn.

Speaker 47 Nome's unusual in that you've got these three long roads.

Speaker 47 Unlike other places in Alaska, you can go to Nome and take a vehicle way out in the middle of nowhere and do whatever you want to do, hunt, look for gold, whatever.

Speaker 47 And so that would create more missing people than other communities, I think.

Speaker 47 But once you turn up into the hills, There's nobody, there's nothing.

Speaker 47 It's open country.

Speaker 47 People don't live out there. People, you know, go back and forth on that road to council.
But other than that, there's nothing out there.

Speaker 21 When you start to venture outside the downtown area, you need to have your wits about you.

Speaker 19 If you get a flat tire, you could be there for days before another car drives by.

Speaker 19 Joseph Balderis was reported missing on June 27, 2016.

Speaker 21 And just like Flo, despite extensive search efforts, he too has never been found.

Speaker 47 One of Joseph's friends contacted me early on.

Speaker 47 After talking to friends of Joseph's,

Speaker 47 it wasn't making sense.

Speaker 47 His fiancé was alarmed right away.

Speaker 47 His usual practice was to stay in touch with her multiple times a day.

Speaker 47 Joseph wasn't responding to anything, and nobody had seen him other than the roommate.

Speaker 47 So for him to not respond to her messages was very unusual.

Speaker 47 For him to just disappear, not reappear in town was very unusual.

Speaker 15 According to Joseph's friends, he was a very skilled runner and outdoorsman who loved camping and fishing out in the elements.

Speaker 13 He was reported missing on the 27th, and then the next day, his truck was found abandoned at the mile 44 marker of Nome Council Road, way outside of town.

Speaker 47 The first sighting of his truck out there was at 10.45 a.m.

Speaker 46 Inside the vehicle, they found his backpack.

Speaker 15 It contained bug spray and some fishing lures, and on the floorboard, a pair of waders and some boots.

Speaker 15 His truck was found parked backed into a pullout.

Speaker 47 It became a very big deal in Nome quickly.

Speaker 24 Close by, there appeared to be footprints leading into the woods to a nearby river.

Speaker 16 But Joseph himself was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 47 They had done a lot in terms of searching. Helicopters and airplanes.
I think they had the Coast Guard helping.

Speaker 47 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 27 If Flo or Joseph were attacked by a bear, You'd think there'd be some evidence of that.

Speaker 15 Bears don't eat backpacks, clothing, or cell

Speaker 47 Those pieces weren't fitting together. Frankly, it would be pretty unusual for somebody to get attacked by a bear and then never found.

Speaker 47 That would be unusual.

Speaker 47 That scenario that he was attacked by a bear, somehow the body was hidden, that just seemed unlikely. And so it was worth looking into.

Speaker 47 The more you look into it,

Speaker 47 the more unanswered questions and red flags there were.

Speaker 21 Through Andy's investigation, there seemed to be some red flags of his own.

Speaker 21 A suspicious alibi from his roommate, strange text messages to his fiancé, and some associates in his life that weren't being very forthcoming about some of the details of their last interactions with him.

Speaker 47 There's other things that point in another direction.

Speaker 47 If you look at everything in total, the theory that he was a victim of animal predation or that he had an accident out there, he fell or something, and they just didn't find the body, that is less likely than the scenario where somebody killed him.

Speaker 47 The normal course of action would be to do in-depth interviews with all of his friends and associates and family members. You would do a normal homicide investigation.

Speaker 47 And that never happened in this case.

Speaker 47 Nome PD is just a constant churn. It's a weird department.
For whatever reason, it's just unstable.

Speaker 47 They don't pay enough for people to go out there and actually stay.

Speaker 47 There's no transparency. They want to defend what they did or didn't do.

Speaker 47 Nobody's off limits. The more people you talk to, the better.

Speaker 40 I think it was time that I met with the known police department myself. But I didn't necessarily have high hopes.

Speaker 21 Andy left me with some parting advice.

Speaker 47 Anywhere in rural Alaska, you're better off going through City Hall.

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Speaker 19 I met up with Flo's sister Blair, and we discussed her interactions with Gnome PD over the years.

Speaker 43 years.

Speaker 20 Investigator William Crockett seems to be the head man in charge today.

Speaker 16 Have you ever talked to Crockett before?

Speaker 34 I have several times.

Speaker 25 What have your exchanges been like with him?

Speaker 34 The last conversation was very upsetting. I seen him in April.
He said he wanted wanted to talk to me. And I said, about what?

Speaker 34 He said, about Lowell's case. And then I called him.
I called three times and left two messages.

Speaker 34 And then he never returned my call.

Speaker 21 She's tried on numerous occasions to make meaningful contact with Investigator Crockett from the Noam Police Department.

Speaker 19 But every time, she's been shut down.

Speaker 16 A few days after we talked, she tried calling him again.

Speaker 15 I call and they answer and they say They haven't seen you in the office yet.

Speaker 15 He's not here. Would you like to leave a message?

Speaker 1 I left several messages. I want to speak to him.

Speaker 15 I think you should go to the police department because then they'll know that this is happening.

Speaker 5 If they knew it was happening, maybe they'd get a little more motivated

Speaker 5 or come up with another. Maybe it was a dinosaur that killed her.

Speaker 19 So I went to the known police department myself to try and figure out what the hell is going on here.

Speaker 25 Is the police chief in today?

Speaker 1 No, he is out at the office this week.

Speaker 35 Let me ask who you folks here and what you're burning.

Speaker 40 I spoke to an officer through a bulletproof glass window using a speaker box.

Speaker 45 We're here to discuss some missing persons cases.

Speaker 1 Please hold.

Speaker 40 Then Investigator Crockett emerged from the back.

Speaker 35 Hello. Hey, you doing?

Speaker 45 Payne.

Speaker 25 Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Speaker 50 Is there a chance we can do tomorrow?

Speaker 14 Potentially, yeah.

Speaker 51 Okay, if we can get something tomorrow, that would I'd be more than happy to sit down with you guys.

Speaker 11 I just, if I've got administrative stuff I got to wrap up here in a bit, but

Speaker 40 he kept his foot on the door, casually leaning back against it.

Speaker 21 I don't think we're getting the invite to his office.

Speaker 51 What time would work best for you guys?

Speaker 45 I mean, really, anytime tomorrow would be okay.

Speaker 35 Is earlier midday better for you?

Speaker 15 Let's shoot for earlier in the morning.

Speaker 51 You know, we'll talk then and then we'll

Speaker 11 make a decision.

Speaker 51 I know you guys are out of Atlanta for some kind of podcast.

Speaker 45 Yeah, so just call a station or

Speaker 35 awesome. Thanks again, man.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 40 He agreed to meet with me the following morning, so I cleared my schedule.

Speaker 13 And just like he asked me to, I called the station before we arrived.

Speaker 49 No police department can help you.

Speaker 16 Yes, I'm calling for Deputy Chief Crockett.

Speaker 49 I miss who's calling. What is Gurding?

Speaker 24 This is Payne Lindsay. I'm a journalist from Atlanta.

Speaker 14 I spoke with him yesterday briefly about possibly meeting today.

Speaker 47 Give me one second, please. Sure.

Speaker 49 Thanks, Roland. I appreciate that.
He is unavailable for the rest of the day.

Speaker 35 Could I take a message?

Speaker 25 Is he not there?

Speaker 49 I wasn't able to reach him. I'm not sure what he's got going on right now.

Speaker 20 Okay. Do you know when he might be in again?

Speaker 49 I'm not sure. If you'd like, you can try calling back tomorrow.

Speaker 15 Tomorrow, huh?

Speaker 22 Do we get free beer tomorrow, too?

Speaker 17 I don't think tomorrow is happening.

Speaker 17 Now they've gotten on my nerves.

Speaker 39 And I can be quite persistent when I'm like this.

Speaker 13 So I tried them again the next day.

Speaker 23 Is their landline disconnected now?

Speaker 10 This is frustrating.

Speaker 12 Hello, you have reached the city of Gnome.

Speaker 12 Please listen to the following options and make your selection at any time.

Speaker 50 To leave a message, press zero for the operator.

Speaker 35 Wait while I transfer your call.

Speaker 12 Hello, you've reached the city of Gnome.

Speaker 15 We are currently unavailable at the moment.

Speaker 6 Hang up or press down for more options.

Speaker 20 Okay, I think I'm getting the message.

Speaker 21 It's clear the Nome Police Department have no interest in talking to the podcaster from Atlanta.

Speaker 13 That's fine.

Speaker 22 I got a backup plan.

Speaker 39 The private investigator Andy Clamser warned me of this, and his advice was to reach out to the city manager's office.

Speaker 29 My number one focus right now is finding the identity of Oregon John.

Speaker 13 This was going to be a Hail Mary, but I requested any documents of police interactions with a man named Oregon John.

Speaker 52 So, the city manager would be an ideal person to speak with.

Speaker 52 Our actual city manager is out of town for a week.

Speaker 47 We've got an

Speaker 52 acting city manager in his place.

Speaker 47 So John J O H N.

Speaker 49 Records requests with governments, they can be months long.

Speaker 26 Just depends on what the requester is requesting.

Speaker 40 For now, it seemed like that was the most I could do. Fingers crossed, that there's some record of an Oregon John.

Speaker 17 And fingers crossed, they even fucking look for it.

Speaker 15 But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Speaker 24 Until then, it's back to the drawing board.

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Speaker 40 I need to learn more about Florence Akpiala herself.

Speaker 15 What was she like as a person?

Speaker 19 Her friend Deila connected me to two friends of hers in Anchorage, Evelyn and Deanna.

Speaker 7 We were both living in Teller,

Speaker 7 which is like 72 miles away from Nome.

Speaker 7 Her laugh was just like unique.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Like I could hear it now.

Speaker 7 Both of our parents come from Wells. Our families are from the same little village.

Speaker 7 Lo's family is from Wells and the Little Diamede Island.

Speaker 7 All three of us worked at the hospital together. Yeah.
In different departments, but you know, we would see each other all the time.

Speaker 7 We would go to the beach or we would take a drive inland to go picking for greens or tundra berries.

Speaker 15 A lot of my memories revolve around that.

Speaker 7 It's a lot harder to get good groceries up north and even before that was a thing, Alaska natives relied on the land to sustain themselves. And she was really enthusiastic about that.

Speaker 7 There was a time where I hung out with her in high school. I was Being a little mischief teenager.

Speaker 7 I lived with my older brother and his wife at the time and I was afraid to go home and then Flo was just like let's go pick berries so eight in the morning we went to the tundra and started berry picking.

Speaker 7 I feel like she always looked after me and like tried to give me advice and

Speaker 7 she would bring me desserts or like muktuk which is a whale.

Speaker 7 That's a really good memory that I always think about her. Like she was so

Speaker 7 she was thoughtful. Yeah.

Speaker 7 I've been a single mom for a while now.

Speaker 7 Her daughter and my daughter are about the same age. And what I really, really enjoyed about her is that she was very vocal, but she was also quick to let me know what resources were available to me.

Speaker 7 She was quick to look after people. She was also quick to give advice.
She would do it without judgment too.

Speaker 7 She's always thinking about what's best for her daughter.

Speaker 7 She always talked to her daughter Alethea. Like she would talk her through things.

Speaker 7 Her daughter is very smart.

Speaker 7 She's very talkative. Like I think that's what her mom taught her.
Like she would just talk her through things and read to her.

Speaker 7 She would take the time to explain things to her or she would teach her about our subsistence. I think that was really sweet.
She was a really good mom.

Speaker 7 It was really encouraging like that.

Speaker 7 Like if we didn't understand something about subsistence, you know, she would talk to us about that or she would show us what to do, especially when it comes to like picking greens or, you know, egg hunting.

Speaker 7 Like she'd just be like, you can do it. Come on.

Speaker 34 Like

Speaker 7 just don't be too like don't be afraid. Just

Speaker 15 let's go.

Speaker 7 Like she had a lot of knowledge, I guess, like more than I did.

Speaker 7 And she just loved subsistence. So

Speaker 15 I was shocked and like

Speaker 7 it just

Speaker 7 still feels unbelievable to this day like

Speaker 7 how can you just be missing and I don't know if there's any leads, I don't know what's going on, but it's

Speaker 7 been so long and

Speaker 7 it's just still unbelievable to me.

Speaker 7 She's not the type to just leave her daughter. Yeah.
You know, a lot of our memories too involving Flow, her daughter was always right there too. Same with my daughter.

Speaker 7 We have the healthy with our kids. But she was never the type to just,

Speaker 7 you know, when she had first gone missing, like we all knew that. Like she was not the type to just leave her daughter like that

Speaker 7 that was her pride and joy

Speaker 7 for the first week we're like what i felt was

Speaker 7 like she has to be somewhere

Speaker 7 she has to be with someone maybe

Speaker 7 she took a little break I can't remember at what point it was in the case, but like it just blew my mind that, you know, when the story started coming out about who saw her last, after that week, you know, it was just,

Speaker 7 it felt surreal because she wouldn't just leave her daughter or her family like that.

Speaker 7 When they started searching the beaches for her, because you know, it came out that so-and-so said that they saw her walking on the beach or hanging out with someone on the beach.

Speaker 7 And when they started taking the search and rescue to the beaches of Nome and up the coastline is when

Speaker 7 like it clicked.

Speaker 7 I don't think she's gonna come back or maybe something

Speaker 7 really bad had happened to her.

Speaker 7 It was like a heart-sinking feeling like this is actually real. Like she's actually missing.
She's not just taking a break or she's not just like hiding.

Speaker 7 Like they're actually searching outside for her.

Speaker 7 You have to understand where we're coming from because this this is Alaska. We have a really harsh environment.

Speaker 7 It's really pretty, but there's only so long that you can be outside with the right resources.

Speaker 7 Our water is rough too, and then the tundra is hard to walk on and it starts to click in when you realize that they are searching outside

Speaker 7 the places that they are searching. Then you start thinking like she's not coming back.
What happened to her? Who did this to her?

Speaker 7 Why is she missing?

Speaker 7 especially because she has a daughter that's when it started clicking for me that she's not coming back

Speaker 7 after time passed and there was no success in finding her

Speaker 7 it was just a big

Speaker 7 like sinking feeling

Speaker 7 or like a slap in the face

Speaker 7 Like she's just not here right now.

Speaker 7 It's just really unbelievable, like unimaginable.

Speaker 7 Yeah, because you don't know. You start questioning, like, if

Speaker 7 she's out in.

Speaker 7 Like, what's going on here? Yeah, if she's out in the elements, like, is she warm? What's like, will they find her?

Speaker 7 It's kind of like breathtaking.

Speaker 7 You can't

Speaker 7 breathe. And you start thinking about, like, has she eaten? Is she still alive? Is she well clothed?

Speaker 7 She just can't be gone.

Speaker 7 Especially because at that point I was living here. And, you know, I kept thinking about my sister and Flo and all of us hanging out.

Speaker 7 Like, I wanted to be there, but I, you know, I am here with my daughter.

Speaker 7 So there wasn't much I could do from here besides trying to process my emotions or hoping that they'll pick up on a lead in this case while they're searching for her.

Speaker 7 But it's just like all of that piled on together just gives you anxiety.

Speaker 7 You're in a town with 3,000 people.

Speaker 7 You're telling me no one saw anything, no one has come forward.

Speaker 7 I mean I get it that it's a vast land out there outside of the town, but this is a town, a small town. Someone had to have seen something.

Speaker 7 You know, everybody talks to each other, everybody knows each other, and

Speaker 7 no one has come forward with anything solid.

Speaker 7 It's just, it's been three years.

Speaker 7 There's nothing at all.

Speaker 7 This is one of our own.

Speaker 7 Why would anyone think that it's okay to harm someone else or take someone away from their family and friends?

Speaker 7 You took a mother away from her child, sister and aunt away from her family. A daughter.
You took a daughter away from her parents.

Speaker 7 You took a beautiful person from this earth.

Speaker 7 You did that.

Speaker 7 Why would you think that's okay?

Speaker 7 Why would you prey on someone who's very innocent and loving and caring?

Speaker 7 Why?

Speaker 7 Why would you do that?

Speaker 7 I hope you feel horrible and you feel guilty.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 15 I love you.

Speaker 7 It's okay.

Speaker 7 I just hope

Speaker 7 they feel guilty and horrible that they just can't live with this anymore. And

Speaker 7 they just come forward.

Speaker 1 I hope.

Speaker 7 that we find something that will open this case back up or they find something significant to reopen it And I hope you

Speaker 7 get what you deserve. And I hope we can figure out who you are

Speaker 39 In terms of my investigation, it was starting to feel like I had a serious roadblock.

Speaker 13 Flo was last seen with a man named Oregon John.

Speaker 40 He had her personal belongings, potentially her cell phone,

Speaker 17 and apparently he fled town a long time ago.

Speaker 40 If this man holds the key to what happened to her that night, then I need to talk to him.

Speaker 23 A week or so went by, and one morning I woke up to an email that I never expected to see.

Speaker 38 You are not going to believe what the Nome City Hall just sent back to us.

Speaker 45 You are not going to believe it.

Speaker 24 I couldn't actually believe it. The city's office sent me a detailed report of every police interaction with Oregon John.

Speaker 25 They gave us a report.

Speaker 38 What's more shocking is what is in this fucking report.

Speaker 35 But then we got another email.

Speaker 41 And this one was from the Nome Police Department.

Speaker 16 I guess they do still work there.

Speaker 21 In addition to the police report on Oregon John that we graciously received from the City Hall, we received a lovely letter from the Nome PD as well.

Speaker 14 It reads, Dear Sir,

Speaker 19 the City of Nome is in receipt of your records request.

Speaker 21 As there is an active and ongoing investigation into this matter, your request is hereby denied.

Speaker 22 You're kidding me.

Speaker 48 We already have it.

Speaker 29 Do they know that we have it?

Speaker 14 Is this like a fuck you?

Speaker 21 In their denial letter, they state there is an active and ongoing investigation into Oregon John.

Speaker 13 I never once mentioned Flo's disappearance.

Speaker 29 in any of my requests. I got an email here from the city hall, an official document from the Nome Police Department with all the interactions with Oregon John.

Speaker 14 But what is even more interesting is what's inside this report.

Speaker 23 I have his full name now, but for the time being, I'm still going to call him Oregon John.

Speaker 15 Race, white.

Speaker 15 Sex, male.

Speaker 22 Age, 52.

Speaker 16 Weight, 270.

Speaker 20 Additional remarks from the Nome PD, October 2nd, 2020.

Speaker 21 Quote, John has made threats to the Nome Police Department if any law enforcement approaches his tent on West Beach.

Speaker 16 But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 29 In this report, there are 93 incidents.

Speaker 21 And yes, you heard me correctly.

Speaker 29 93.

Speaker 10 Disorderly conduct, vehicle theft, assault third degree, cruelty to animals, harassment, probation violation,

Speaker 10 theft second degree, property theft, harassment, theft, second degree, assault, third degree, assault, fourth degree, assault, third degree, cruelty to animals, sexual assault, first degree,

Speaker 40 probation violation, criminal trespass, assault, fourth degree,

Speaker 14 sexual assault, first degree.

Speaker 41 Known aliases.

Speaker 13 Oregon John.

Speaker 40 This is a real-time investigation.

Speaker 46 If you want to dig even deeper into the case, go check out my weekly show called Talking to Death.

Speaker 16 In the latest episode that dropped today, I break down episode 3 in a conversation with the producers who helped put this show together.

Speaker 46 It's an in-depth look like I've never done before, exclusively on my weekly show called Talking to Death, which is out right now.

Speaker 16 Go check out the latest episode featuring Sarah Turney.

Speaker 2 Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is a production of Tenderfoot 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 Lindsay.

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 Quintana.
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 30 Heather is a nurse practitioner from United Healthcare.

Speaker 6 We meet patients wherever they live.

Speaker 30 During a house call, she found Jack had an issue.

Speaker 6 Jack's blood pressure was dangerously high.

Speaker 10 It was 217 over 110.

Speaker 4 So they got Jack to the hospital and got him the help he needed.

Speaker 6 He had had a stamp placed in his heart, preventing a massive heart attack.

Speaker 10 If it wasn't for my guardian angels, I wouldn't be here.

Speaker 30 Hear more stories like Jack's at unitedhealthcare.com. Benefits, features, and/or devices vary by plan area, limitation, and exclusions apply.

Speaker 50 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 50 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 50 Listen to Chameleon, wherever you get your podcasts.