17 | Bad Blood

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Snitch City brings you inside the secret world of police informants through one small city at the forefront of America's drug war, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Over the last two decades, the 250-member New Bedford Police Department has been the poster child for informant misconduct.
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Follow Spotlight, Snitch City, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now. Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is intended for mature audiences and may include topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder.
The names

of survivors have been changed for anonymity purposes. Testimony shared by guests of the show

is their own and does not reflect the views of Tenderfoot TV or Odyssey. Thank you so much for

listening. Jake lied to the state troopers on multiple occasions about his whereabouts on the weekend Joseph went missing.
And so did Tyler, his friend. Jake told the police he stayed in his house playing video games all night, when in fact, he was at a party at a bonfire until at least 4 or 5 a.m.

We have video proof of that.

But why would Jake lie about that?

The I don't remember excuse gets a lot flimsier

when he's being asked to recall

the night he first met his summer girlfriend, Leah,

the first time he kissed her and exchanged numbers.

Somehow, that's either all a blur to him

or he's withholding information for a reason.

I told him. the first time he kissed her and exchanged numbers.
Somehow, that's either all a blur to him, or he's withholding information for a reason. I talked to his 2016 summer girlfriend, Leah, for several hours, and she recalled to the best of her memory what happened that summer.
She left Nome in August 2016 and went back home to Florida. This is when the very first episode of Up and Vanish came out about Tara Grinstead.
And I kid you not, she started listening to the podcast. And she has been ever since.
When Joseph's case merged into the picture this season, she reached out to me, a little freaked out. Were you already listening to Up and Vanish? Payne, yes.
I was obsessed with Tara Grinstead season.

I went to Alaska in 2016,

so then when you put out this GNOME season,

I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

Worlds collide.

I've got this group message with four other girls I spent the summer with.

We were just outsiders in GNOME.

There's a lot more that you're putting out now that we had no idea when we were there. Sometimes it hits a little close to home and I'm like, take a step back and kind of process.
We met June 25th at that party and then Jake and I coupled off pretty quickly. We had just like a little summer fling.
It was nothing serious. We didn't talk after I left that summer, but him and I were involved.
Saturday morning, the 25th, what did you do that day? And then when were you with Jake? For how long? And what did y'all do? I'm so thankful. I wrote what I did every single day that summer in a journal.

Otherwise, I would have no idea.

We were at a party the night before,

so I think we went to a house party.

There was a bulldog that I pet,

and then everyone went to the bars, and I went home.

Saturday morning, we were all kind of hungover.

We went bridge jumping earlier that day.

I have pictures from that on June 25th, but we did not go with Jake because I met him that night at the party. So I meet Jake at this party.
Everyone's drunk. All the girls, the interns I've lived with, we all left together and all six of us were there.
We went to the party. The picture I sent you was from 1 a.m.,

and I know there was at least 30 more minutes after that

that I would have talked to Jake.

So Leah meets Jake at this party on Saturday night.

They kiss and exchange numbers.

She took several pictures and videos from the party,

but you can clearly see Jake himself in the background.

Around 2 a.m. or so, she leaves the party

and goes back home with her girlfriends. She goes to sleep, and when she wakes up the next morning, she sees a text message from Jake that he sent to her while she was sleeping.
And he texted me and was asking if he'd come over. He didn't come over, because I was drunk.
I literally was completely asleep, and it was like the next morning I saw that he had texted me and tried to come over. It had to have been like 3, 4, 5 a.m.
A friend named Cam remembers dropping Jake off at Leah's house around 5 a.m. Did he just knock on her door, then turn around and walk home? So many people saw you at this party.
Why are you not coming out and saying that you were there

and that's what you did?

I really have a hard time believing that he did anything

leading up to the point when he met me and kissed me

because it was just so normal.

It's like, why would you do that

and then go to this big open party?

But then on the other hand,

even if you were blackout drunk

and don't remember being at that party

and people are asking you your alibi, why not just say you're there? Okay, so per my journal, I'm so thankful I wrote what I did every single day that summer in a journal. Otherwise, I would have no idea.
So we met the Saturday party, June 25th.

June 25th.

We met June 25th at that man camp party.

The first time that I saw him a few days later when we were sober,

during the week, he had told me at some point,

my roommate's a missing person.

And I was like, that's weird.

First he told me they took all my guns, they searched the house. There's caution tape on the door.
My roommate's missing. It was very nonchalant.
They took all my guns. He took all his guns? What do you mean? He told me that during the week.
He was saying like, yeah, my roommate's a missing person. The cops took my guns.
Do you remember him like specifically saying that they took his guns? Yes, he said the cops, they took my guns. They, yeah.
More than one gun? He used that term. That is clear in my head.
But I don't know if he meant multiple, but that is what he said. Yeah.
Did he make it sound like, they took my guns, I don't have them back yet? Yeah. Interesting.
It is interesting. I know for a fact that Jake had told me that before July 1st.
When did the cops first go there? Not July 1st, right? He made that statement to me before July 1st. Jake told Leah that the cops took his guns, plural, before the cops had even been to his house and seen a gun in the first place.
They didn't even notice the rifle in the house until July 3rd. They took it before then.
By the first was the house party, so he had already told me that we had the missing person conversation before then. It was when he told me his roommate was missing that he said, yeah, no, like they're interviewing me.
They took my guns. Maybe someone did take the gun, but it just wasn't the police.
Monday was the 27th. I saw him for the first time sober on Monday.
Sober on Monday. So we hung out on the 29th for the first time longer, and that could have been when he told me.
It was either... It was probably the 29th that he told me that, but it was between June 27th and July 1st.
It seems pretty early for Jake to be saying that. Who knows? It's weird, though.

Jake had a party.

He had a party that we all went over to the house for the first time.

He gave us a house tour.

And at the house party, he's like, see, I told you, there's the room.

I feel kind of stupid in hindsight.

When someone tells you their roommate's missing,

you would start to question and pick up on the fact that,

oh, you're not involved in the search. You don't ever talk about it.
That in and of itself is weird. But at the time, we were just naive.
Everyone just said, it's Alaska, people go missing. It happens all the time.
I do have to tell you this. Later on in the night, it did freak me out in the moment, but I continued to hang out with him and not think anything of it.
But during that house party, people didn't have anywhere to sleep. And he went into Joseph's room and got a pillow from Joseph's room for people.
I remember all of us just being like, did he just go into the crime scene and take a pillow? And some people started laughing. To us, we were just like, that's really weird.
He went into that room and got a pillow for someone to sleep on. Leah sent me her journal entries for that summer.
She wrote down what she did nearly every single day. And from her perspective, it's likely the most authentic timeline we have.
He never wanted to talk about it back then. Did you try and he didn't? Yeah, oh my God, I would ask.
I would ask all the time. Like what? I would just bring it up casually because it's like a main thing happening that summer.
You know, I would just say like, gosh, I still just can't believe they haven't found that guy. Like I would make that comment.
I would just be saying that out loud. And then at one point, we were on a hike once and we were off on our own.
I don't know if you asked me, I think someone had bad blood. Somebody had bad blood.
And I was like, what, what, what do you mean by that? That's the first time I'd ever heard anyone insinuate that it was not a bear. And he just completely changed the subject after that.
He's like, nothing, I don't know.

I'm like, you just said that you think someone had bad blood with this missing person.

That means you think it could have been a murder.

I told Leah that Bonnie, Jake's mom, had first brought her name up to the PI Andy Clamser.

Wait, Bonnie said that to Jake?

Yeah, find the Bonnie clip.

But Bonnie brought you up.

What the fuck?

I never met her. That is, wait.
That's really weird to me. Wait, so what you're telling me is Bonnie gave Jake the heads up that the investigator knew about me? That makes absolutely zero sense to me.
Payne, literally, thank you so much for playing that for me.

You don't know how much that means.

It's a lot to process.

The fact that the only people that have seen Joseph

or have communication with Joseph are all related past a certain point.

It's freaking weird that I met him that Saturday night. I have to take, like, probably the rest of the night and week to process that.
Leah and I have continued to stay in communication, and slowly but surely, more details about that summer have come to light. She left Noam in August 2016

back to Florida, and she's never talked to Jake or been back to Noam since. But the group of girls

she was with that summer have collectively pulled together all their information, phone data,

photos, video, and it's building a much clearer picture. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, Chapter 2.

I'm your host, Payne Lindsey.

In 2018, two years after Joseph went missing, his family petitioned with the state of Alaska

to officially declare him deceased. A presumptive death hearing was held in the Nome courthouse, and several people were subpoenaed to testify under oath.
One of them was Christine. My full name is Christine Anne Pascua, C-H-R-I-S-T-A-N-E-A-N-N-P-I-S-C-O-Y-A.
Can you just begin by generally introducing yourself, just your age, where you live, what you do in the community? Can you kind of just explain how you met Joseph and just generally the nature of your relationship? I first met Joseph when he started his first year as a, you know, working here. That's when I first met him.
And then as the time went on, we started talking more and just becoming more friends and just talking. I did start to invite him over to my grandmother's place for traditional Eskimo food to see if he would like it and he did so he kept he wouldn't go all the time but he went occasionally and so we just as time went on we just talked more and hung out more and did stuff.
It sounds like Joseph spent some time with you and your family on a somewhat regular basis back there. Can you kind of just explain if you know what Joseph's hobbies were, what he liked to do with his free time? He was an avid runner.
He ran a lot, and I think almost every day he said he'd either run or bike, because he had a bike until it broke, I guess. But he would run.
He liked being in the outdoors. He liked going for hikes.
He liked, you know, fishing and being in the outdoors overall. So how would you describe Joseph's personality and his demeanor? Was he, well, go ahead.
He used to think he was funny, but it came out more as a lawyer type of funny, I guess, to explain. We did bicker, but it was like a sibling bicker.
It wasn't a, oh, I'm going to be mad at you because I want to, but we always found something to disagree on and agree that we disagree. So overall, he just was a very generous person, you know, friendly.
So I didn't believe that he was crazy or that he was, I don't know, you know, he was normal. Did you ever see him go through periods of depression or anxiety or anything that would cause you concern? I think the only thing is, like, he was here for two years and he was going on to a new adventure and I don't know if it just was something new that he hadn't done in the last

two years. I'd probably just say it would be a slight anxious but nothing to give me a red flag that he was depressed or anything.
I didn't get that. So I've been questioned by fleas, AST, investigators, attorneys, private investigators, and they've all asked me what do I think happened to him, could this have happened, I said at the time, because I think the last interview I did was with a private investigator, but they had all asked me what do I think happened, or what do I feel like happened?

And I said, at the time, I said,

once I start to believe that something happened to him,

that's when I lose hope that we won't find him.

And they were like, well, do you think he was murdered?

Do you think he left?

I said, I don't know. I can't say.
All I know is I don't know where he's at. But the second I start believing in something happened to him, then that's when I lose hope.
And so they understood. And I don't know.
He's somewhere. He's missing.
I don't know. So I can't say what happened to him because I don't know.
He's somewhere he's missing. I don't know.
So I can't say what happened to him because I don't know. And I don't want to start to believe in something that I don't know what happened.
Those are all my questions. Thank you, Chris.
Clearly, something happened to Joseph.

The state of Alaska officially declared Joseph Balderas as deceased,

and a death certificate was issued to his family.

There was a weapon involved.

When a trooper went in to the room, he didn't see anything.

And then all of a sudden, when he goes back into the room, there was a rifle. Inside Joseph's room? Are you solid on that? Which officer? Smith and Strobel.
They found a rifle in his room. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything with that.
No, no, this is not a criminal case. It's all public information.
They have to turn it all over. They just haven't yet.
The two investigators and I sat down, and they were focusing in on the rifle. And it showed up.
Jake's uncle put it there, Kevin. The disappearing and reappearing rifle in Jake's house.
It was said that Jake's uncle, Kevin, was moving it around. Kevin would be his uncle.
And he was on the search. What's the uncle's name? Kevin Piscoya.
P-I-S-C-O-Y-A. Yep.
Former police officer. Got fired.
You said that Kevin Piscoya is a former officer that was fired. His brother is a state trooper in Fairbanks.
And he was heavily involved in the search? Probably about four days. What area was he searching? All over.
Is there a record of where he went? No, because he was in various groups. Why would he place a gun in somebody else's room after the guy went missing? Confiscated a gun out of that room.
The other two troopers that came in from Anchorage. And they told you not to tell anybody? Why would they tell you not to tell anyone? Did you guys go to school with Kevin? He was in our, not in our class, but he was below us.
Tell me a little bit about him. I think he had a little drinking problem.
He's rough around the edges. That's narcissistic.
You may recall from earlier that during the search, it was reported that Kevin Pascoya was driving his ATV over footprints and tracks in the woods, obstructing the path of the canine search dogs. Jake told Leah his guns were missing before the police even knew there was a gun in the first place.
And maybe Jake's telling the truth about that. Maybe Kevin did take it and then place it back there.
Here's a recording of an old acquaintance of Kevin Pascoya. Maybe he's gonna come out.
He's gonna come out. Things gonna come out.
They're all cops. Ex-cops.
Kevin. Kevin was a, he was a policeman too.
Kevin was a good friend of mine. It's gonna come out.
You know, there's a lot of things that I always been talking about and now I started that thing coming out because, you know, when you're in the bar, you always listen. People talk.
People talk too much when they're drinking. But I know a lot.
I know a lot. When Selena was here, his sister, I'm a good friend with her.
I'm in touch with Selena and her mom. When they come to Nome, they go to Nome.
I even had a dinner. And that's how I find out a lot of things about the case.
And I knew what was going to happen to Kevin in those days. And Kevin told me one day, I went there with Bordera's mom and dad and Tracy and Joe's mom and sister, Selena, and they're here, they want to see you, and they want to say hi.
I go there, and they grab a table, they were sitting on the and I... And Kevin goes there and sees me sitting with them.

And he look at me.

I was very uncomfortable there.

I go like, and they keep insane, looking like, oh, shit, you know?

That next weekend, Kevin went to shoot dark.

He looked at me, he said, hey, I saw my brother, and grabbed my hand.

Pulled me to his heart like that.

I love you, you know, I love you, right?

He said, oh, I know you love me. I love you too.
You know that.

He always did high-five me, he always high-fived me, but he never hugged me.

And I was just very uncomfortable the whole time.

He looked at me and looked at him.

I was watching him all the time.

It's, you know, things happen for a reason. And the way he died, it was weird, man.
It was weird. On October 3rd, 2021, Kevin Pascoya went missing.
Then later that day, he was found deceased in his vehicle around mile 37 of Council Road, not too far from where they found Joseph say it. When he shot himself or whatever he did himself.
Because he's the only one who saw the body. They did how he paid him.
By the time he called, you know, they never said him. Never.
Kevin's cause of death remains a mystery. Nothing about it in his obituary.
But what is known is that the first to arrive to the scene were his family members, not the paramedics. Plenty of rumors floating around out there about this.
Nothing concrete, but the story is always the same. Rumors of a Crown liquor bottle, pills, and some sort of suicide note.
Again, all just rumors. But what I can say is that I heard from a paramedic who was at the scene hours after the family had been there.
The one thing they recalled was the smell. And sorry to be graphic, but they felt the smell indicated to them that he had been deceased for much longer than he was reported missing for.
Almost like he was put there. Just someone's observation.
But it all feels eerily close and similar to Joseph Balderas. I was a radiologist up there in Nome for 16 years, from 1998 until 2015.
And I think there's a lot of good cops,

but there's also some bad ones,

and they seem to be in a position of power.

And there's so many problems up there.

It's so easy for people to get away with stuff.

People escaping, people running away from stuff,

come to Nome because it's so far removed.

There's often bad people or people with bad intentions,

they can come up into Nome and they can get away with stuff.

Drugs.

Drugs are big up there.

Which you can sell a pill of OxyContin on the streets

in St. Lawrence Island, Gamble or Savunga.

Huge.

I mean, alcohol makes a lot of money

in these small, isolated communities with drugs even more.

It's big business.

Gnome is a hub for 15 surrounding villages

over an area the size of Ohio.

People with bad intentions, they can come up into Gnome

and they can get away with stuff.

People just don't want to speak. Tight-lipped.
People share stuff with me. Then I get back with them to follow up.
Like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said this. There's a lot of good people up there, but there's a dark side.
The corruption there goes all the way up to the mayor. Back in the early 90s, he was famous for his coke parties.
Cocaine, oh, everybody knows that. Cocaine is illegal, so it means he had to be getting it from drug dealers, which means he had the connections.
A retired state of Alaska The Medicaid fraud investigator said if the mayor was ever fully investigated, audited, there'd be enough financial fraud to put him behind bars for a long time. There's something wrong.
I'm suspicious, and other people I've talked to are, that he knows what's going on in that town.

I personally would not be surprised if he knows what happened to Florence and what happened to Boulderes. There's a good old boy network up there.
They rub each other's back and do all kinds of stuff. And the corruption is at the very top, exploits vulnerable people.
you get into power up there and you just realize that you can get away with so much. Because the people that you can control, people that grew up there, they lived there in Nome, their families are there, their job is there, their kids are there, they can't go anywhere.
They can't speak up against these power structures and that's why the hospital there is so corrupt. I was the radiologist at the hospital in Nome, basically the only medical specialist in town.
The CEO at the time was a sexual predator. First person I found out he groped was my radiology director, reaching under the blouse and grabbing the breast.
Then two other women in radiology were also groped, breasts and crotches. I brought all three of these women to go to the police and make a statement.
This is sexual assault. It's crime.
I have their names. I've talked with them, and I went with them to the police.
The police chief at the time, police chief in Nome, and an investigation was started. I called the medical director in to my office.
The hospital immediately went into cover-up mode. The CEO lasted three days.
It was reported that he had tendered his resignation. That's a euphemism for, you know, being fired, but it was a tendered resignation.
Once he tendered his resignation, Carol Pascoya was appointed acting CEO. Did you talk to Carol? I'll get to them.
Carol Pascoya became the acting CEO, and everyone in the hospital was told not to talk about this. The CEO groped these women outside the hospital.
So what happens outside the hospital stays outside the hospital. It doesn't come in in the hospital.
We were not supposed to talk about it. Three sexual assaults.
These are crimes. You don't turn the page on crimes.
Sexual assaults are felonies, by the way, You idiot. Lonnie Pascoya.
Did you ever talk to Lonnie? He was a state trooper, and he's now in charge of missing and murdered indigenous people. Carol Pascoya, grandmother of Jake and Christine, and the mother of Kevin.
She also has a son, Lonnie Pascoya, who was appointed as the lead MMIW investigator for the entire state. I emailed Lonnie all the way back in January, before this podcast was even out, saying, Your work with MMIW is really strong and admirable.
We're doing a podcast about Florence Okpialik, and we'd love to talk to you. Nine months later, I've yet to get a response.
Lonnie Pascoya is a retired state trooper. His mother, Carol Pascoya, obstructed a police investigation in multiple assaults.
What if Lonnie's investigations take him anywhere close to his mother or to the mayor? He's going to have a conflict of interest. I don't know where you look.
They're all tied together. And they're covering for each other.
They tried to run me out of town for years. I stirred the pot by reporting a crime, which you don't do, because they like to handle things in-house.
I finally just left on my own, because I just got tired of the corruption up there. I had no respect for anybody.
The Pascoyas, there was that one Pascoya, Kevin Pascoya, I think.

Joseph Baldaris was having a relationship with Christine.

Kevin Pascoya knew something or was mad,

but there's something going on there.

Lonnie might be okay, but I mean,

is he gonna go against his mother and the mayor? No. You got all these people in there.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but I mean, is he gonna go against his mother and the mayor? No. You got all these people in there.
None of them are gonna want to talk because pull one domino out and the whole thing collapses. There's a din of darkness and corruption up there and you got to give people information.
If you hear that something's happening, somebody's being hurt or taken advantage of or abused or stolen from, you don't just look the other way. Too many people were aware of this stuff.
They're aware that this person's covering this up. They're aware that this person did this, and they don't say anything.
And eventually, you're going to get to the dark clit that's going to be very tight-knit, and that's where it's going to take law enforcement or somebody to turn these people against each other. I mean, if somebody said, who interacted with Joseph? What happened? What vehicles were there besides his truck? Somebody knows.
It's like when you take down a serial killer, they give you information about all the other unsolved cases that they were involved in. Lonnie has seen the worst in society and he has seen the best in society.
On September 19, 2022, Lonnie was hired back to the Alaska State Trooper Investigation in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Unit. Lonnie did a Zoom interview call with students last year.
His goal as an investigator in this unit is to solve as many cases as possible. Thank you, and at this time, I will turn it over to Lonnie.
Thanks for inviting me today. I guess the one thing that wasn't said earlier is I got four brothers and two sisters and a gazillion cousins, aunts and uncles.
Of course, I think my mother's online, so she's probably chuckling by now. At the end of the interview, students ask questions.
And so did his mom, Carol. Carol asks, at what point or when do you get involved with either a missing or murdered person? Missing persons from this area have been missing for years.
That's my mother. Mom, I guess it's a squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? When you speak up about it and you call and call and ask and say, I think I have more information, then I'll get involved.
Well, the phone's still ringing. Is a two-hour conversation with the last person to have seen Florence Okpeolek alive new enough information? Considering the fact he had her belongings in his tent, was never officially interviewed by police, and claims that she was murdered and put inside a barrel under a meth dealer's house in Nome?

Eventually, I think we'll get to some of these cases that are not necessarily more popular,

but have been publicized more out there.

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We can't wait to hear from you. Noam has had a dark history for a long time now.
Long before I began investigating, a journalist by the name of Victoria McKenzie traveled to Noam to conduct her own investigation into the police department. I was working as a deputy editor for the Center on Media, Crime, and Justice in New York.
I started looking into Nome and long history of public complaints about mistreatment of Alaska Native people by police. Decade after decade, you'd hear calls by Native institutions calling for a civil rights investigation of civil rights violations and also an outside investigation of these deaths and disappearances.
Women and girls in Alaska faced four times the national average of homicides. I felt it was really underreported.
Around that same time, National Native News had a short report about a group of Alaska Native women

who came out saying that, look, we reported serious sexual assaults to local police and they did nothing.

They're not taking our cases seriously.

I met Victoria in person in New York City.

She recalled her experience in Nome and what she uncovered during the months she stayed there.

A group of Alaska Native women had banded together seeking justice for sexual assaults that were not being investigated. What they were all saying is that they needed data to prove what was going on.
They had asked for this data from the state and it wasn't forthcoming. People wanted data on Native victimization, data that tracks cases from first report through to prosecution outcome, if there's any.
They'd been working for three years behind the scenes to improve police response to sexual assaults. Police interviews were really victim blaming.
In 2018, you didn't only have this one group of women, but other community members were really upset about specific incidents with police. Police officer was convicted of punching an Alaska Native woman in his custody.
He continued to work in the department afterwards. There were concerns about another officer giving unauthorized ride-alongs to underage girls.
And that really echoed back to what happened with Owens.

Back in 2003,

known police officer Matthew Owens was convicted for the murder of 19-year-old Sonia Ivanov.

His inappropriate behavior towards Native women

had been reported for a long time before then.

But the known police department

did absolutely nothing about it.

They knew he was riding around, patrolling in his police cruiser, picking up young women. And at the same time, you had a 911 operator.
An Alaska Native woman who was sexually assaulted reported her own assault and nothing happened. She came out in the news saying that she reported her own rape to her lieutenant, her colleague and friend, Lieutenant Nick Harvey, and he did nothing for a year.
He'd been the ranking officer for a long time in charge of investigations. He didn't create a call for service or a police report, and meanwhile he told her he was working on the case.
John Papasadora, who had been with the Nome Police Department since 2007, you did see him in the news talking about the lack of financial resources for policing and the high turnover rates. Obviously, they were turning people away.
If he's saying, you know, we don't have enough resources. But was that the whole story? I spoke with people who had worked under him in the department.
One was a sergeant, Sergeant Stotts. He had conducted his own investigations, he said, of Lieutenant Harvey.
He felt that Harvey had been promoted without any reason to do so, and that he, Stotts, had experienced retaliation every time he tried to report nonsense. What he called shoddy police work, not going out on serious sexual assaults, serious felony assaults, and also what he called like good old boy network.
What he eventually did was quit, file a complaint, and that's before the 911 operator was assaulted. She had reported her rape to Lieutenant Nick Harvey and he did nothing about it for a year.
And then the chief knew about it too. The ACLU filed this equal protection suit on behalf of the 911 operator.
Nome police eventually settled the lawsuit for $750,000. I can't say why there was never a report made or a call for service made.
You'd have to ask them.

They didn't really respond either.

So the complaint was on behalf of this one 911 operator who's Alaska Native,

being part of a pattern and practice of discrimination against Alaska Natives and against women in Nome.

She was looking for vindication of her own rights to equal protection, but also all of the other women in Nome.

Didn't feel safe anymore. For valid reasons.
It stalled for a long time because the city wouldn't turn over Discovery. They had to get a court order to turn over Discovery.
And still, after the court order, they didn't give it. I've heard from the police officer who was hired to replace Matthew Clay Owens.
She had been ordered several times to drop cases of sexual assaults for reasons like, oh, the victim had been drinking, the victim, a 14-year-old girl, was not a virgin, or, oh, I know the suspect, he's a good guy, he doesn't have sex with minors he only takes you know he gets adults drunk and takes him out to the tundra and has sex with him she was the lone female officer at the time she was trying to investigate sexual assaults sexual assaults against minors sexual assaults against adults and you, was having this experience over and over again.

She had written a lengthy document to every single city council member when she left, turned over documentation on falsified reports, everything she had seen going on there. The city knew what was going on.
There's just no way to deny that. It was overwhelming, and I was really aware of how traumatizing it was for people to talk to me.
There were people who withdrew from the whole story process. I had sources who had a mental health crisis and didn't want to continue.
And we have the numbers to show what was happening. We have the police reports and the lack of police reports to show what's happening.
We have the medical reports to show what's happening. It's lazy to just go up to somebody and have them cry into a microphone.
I spoke to the former 911 operator on the phone. I love Victoria.
She helped me with my case and MPD.

I really appreciate what you guys are doing for all bears and grown families.

I really appreciate that.

I do remember the day that Joseph went missing.

I was still a dispatcher at that time.

The chief of police, he was very adamant that a bear had gotten him.

One remark that he did make to me was, do you think I'm stupid?

And I'm like, well, you know, it's kind of common sense.

If a bear had gotten him, where's his shoes? Where's his shoes?

This is why I was a dispatcher. realize that policing in Alaska has never changed.

Despite new money, new investigators, lawsuits, initiatives, the good old boys have remained in place.

Florence Okpialik? Oh, interesting. Yeah, I talked to you, have remained in place.
Florence Oak Pialik?

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I talked to you about that one, too.

Florence Oak Pialik, a native gal, disappeared from the West Beach there.

You know what her last words were?

They picked it up off her cell phone.

Her last words were,

There's four of them in the bushes bushes and it doesn't look good. I told the troopers up there, you need to get a hold of her phone and do a forensic thing.
She was hanging out with some guy named Oregon John, a meth guy, I guess, and he was supplying her with meth and she was into drugs. I called to talk to the investigator up there at NPD.

We talked about Oregon John, and he thought that Oregon John was the main suspect.

Why would the lead MMIW investigator for the entire state of Alaska completely disregard Florence Okpeialik's disappearance. It's time to revisit the disappearance of Florence Okpialik.
There is a recognition amongst the Native community that they have not been always treated very well in Nome. Nome has this very different history, and yet Native people have been here and been part of Nome's history from the very beginning.
Flo hadn't come home one night. She'd been taken down to some of these tent camps.
Blair went down the beach to try to find her sister. This guy gives her some of Flo's clothes, but she's not there.
I just know he was a cab driver in town, and a lot of people didn't like him. Well, we know who this guy is.

He goes by Oregon John.

Whether it was intentional or an effort to shut her up,

she's clearly been murdered.

The cat's coming out of the bag.

There are other names in this case.

I don't know these people,

but you don't hear anything good

about a fellow named Mike McGowan

or Paul Benchoff Jr.

Alongside Oregon John, two other men have been named.

Rumors are they're into meth.

There's different stories that there's other people involved with John Gerton.

Michael McGowan is one of them. He was a druggie.

I had previously censored their names, but no longer. They were Paul Benchoff and Michael McGowan.
If somebody abducts us, scratch them, pull our hair out, leave as much evidence as you can behind it, rely on the public to find them. Not the police department, because they're not capable or willing to.
I've got a couple friends who were beaten up by them, but they were too scared to go forward. Blair, Flo's sister.
Do you know who she was with? John Curtin. And who are the other guys? Paul Benchoff.
Yeah. Michael McCowan.

He was standing by John Gordon's Senate a couple days later.

He got busted for drugs.

Who did? This guy?

Yeah, this guy.

If you had the names of these people,

why aren't the police doing anything about it? They never listened. They didn't listen to us.
You know, why didn't the police talk to all these people? The theory that I think the city wanted to work on was that she'd gotten really drunk, left the tents, tried to walk back to Dome, and passed out and died of hypothermia somewhere. Until a body's found, every search starts where the person was last seen.
Why would her belongings be there and her not be there? It's all part of the mystery, isn't it?

Well, they may have been known for their gold,

but they're also known for their drugs, so...

They're not old miners, they're troublemakers.

I think the drug dealers got away with murder.

In late October 2020, just two months after Florence went missing,

the Alaska State Troopers, alongside FBI conducted a large-scale drug bust in Nome, seizing heroin and methamphetamine, resulting in the arrests of eight people. And two of those people were Paul Benchoff and Michael McGowan.
When I spoke to the former 911 operator for NPD, who was sexually assaulted and sued the

department, she recalled a peculiar incident that transpired shortly after Joseph went

missing.

It was right around the time Joseph had gone with me.

Every time I brought it up at work, every time it was brought up, Kevin would show up right there behind my back breathing over. Just getting those heebie-jeebies, just that creepy feeling from him.
I was told by the manager then, don't talk about it. It pondered my mind.
I really do think it was Kevin. It's time to start piecing this all together.
I have Christine Pascoya's phone records for that weekend, and in it, there are numerous calls to a random phone number during the day Friday, Friday night, again after midnight, and around 6 a.m. on Saturday.
All these calls to a random guy she's not even friends with on Facebook. A man named Tom Vaden.
This is Josie, a local gnome who has helped Josie's family with the investigation for years. Looking at Christine Pascuia's phone records, several phone calls back and forth to that number early in the evening, then late in the evening.
Tom Baden, volunteer ambulance department, EMT, also a professional bear hunting guide. I remember thinking, did Joseph get hurt? Did Christine call Tom Baden to get medical assistance? It bothered me so much that I called him.
I said, Tom, why would Christine be calling you at these times of the morning, the morning that Joseph disappeared? He said, well, that was my old home phone number, the landline. He was married at the time.
They had split up. Apparently, she kept the house and the phone number, the landline.
And what Tom Baden had said was, that was my old house. That was my old landline.
And it was a known drug house.

I've seen these messages myself.

So essentially, the number Christine was calling all hours of the night Joseph went missing

was a landline number.

And it belonged to a house

not too far from where Joseph lived.

A house known amongst the locals as the drug dealing house. If they were up till 2, 3 in the morning and then somebody calls at 6.51 in the morning and then at 9.30 in the morning, all those phone calls at strange hours just said to me like somebody was up all night and I just thought, you know, were they, I don't know.
I never knew Joseph to be into drugs. And I don't, none of them have I known them to be into drugs.
But you just never know, right? The timing of it all. Things are pretty consistent up until the time.
Kim says she left them for breakers. She took a cab ride home.
And then it was just Joseph and Christine. Maybe they went out that night to talk about him moving to Juneau.
And he was going to be getting married to Megan. And maybe it was accidental after all.
But whether it was between Jake and Christine, Kevin swooped in, and maybe it was accidental after all. It was a known drug house.
Both Florence Okpialik and Joseph Balderas disappeared under very different circumstances. But two years into this investigation, I've found an uncanny connection they both have.
Joseph was last seen with Christine, and apparently she went to the beach with him the next day. But other than that, it's only members of the Pascuia family themselves who claim to have seen Joseph anywhere.
Christine and Joseph were together past 2 a.m. on Friday night, and Christine made six or more phone calls to a landline number linked to

a house in town known for its drug dealing. Who was living in the house at that time? Were they selling drugs that night? I found a man who was living there during the time of both Joseph and Florence's disappearance, who in October of 2020 was arrested for distribution of narcotics in Nome, a man who is now on the run with an active warrant for his arrest, a man named Michael McGowan, the same man named as an associate of Oregon John on the night of Flo's disappearance.
I don't know these people, but you don't hear anything good about a fellow named Mike McGowan. Rumors are they're into meth.

Other people involved with John Gertin. Michael McGowan is one of them.
He was a druggie. Do you know who she was with? John Gerton.
And who are the other guys? Michael McGowan. We've talked to Oregon John, who said some weird things to say the least, and also some accusations of his own.
I believe that most of what John told me is a lie. But tucked away deep in there, there may just be a few kernels of truth.
Remember what John said? And a girl came and hung out in my tent one night and she walked off somewhere and somebody kidnapped her and murdered her the whole town thought i murdered her the fbi had to come in they cleared me they found her buried under the dude's house the meth dealer and they thought i did it so i bounced i was the last person to see her alive, besides the guy that killed her. Besides Michael McGowan?

What else does John know that he's not saying?

Since part one of this season,

I've been sent hundreds of emails about Oregon John.

He was a cab driver in Nome before Florence went missing.

And one person had a terrifying experience

during one of those cab rides.

And they sent me a video of it

fuck you and the ass with a chainsaw no i didn't i was trying to tell you to get out of my way

because you won't listen to these things because you're too drunk and don't belong to sleep

yeah well you know what you're still walking home ain't you bitch. Yeah you are.
Holy moly It's too much drama for your mama. No no this has been going on since the last half hour.
Five people came over trying to beat me up because I called the cops when I did beating his wife. They came from so much like that over the way I was.
Check your cap. What the fuck? Yeah, it's going to

be a while. I'm the only cap.
The other one just left on me. I don't know where it is.

Check your cap.

With Michael McGowan on the run.

I need to try and talk to Oregon John again,

but this time as the real me.

Hello? John. Yeah.
Yes. This is Payne Lindsey.
Okay. Payne Lindsey.
I'm the podcast guy. Oh.
How's it going? Same shit, different day Question for you Would you ever be down to sit down One on one and just talk to me about everything? Um We can set the terms and Make it comfortable for make it comfortable for both of us, you know.

You know, all I have is the truth.

You know, that's it.

Well, let's talk about that.

We'll meet up.

We'll talk and we'll set something up.

I appreciate this.

Got some stories for you. You have no idea.
One of the hardest parts about doing this investigation in real time as the podcast is coming out is the game of chess we're playing in the background. When do we say certain things that we know? And I've decided it's time to reveal some details I think the community itself could help us with.
Weeks after Joseph Balderas went missing, on June 25th, his credit card was used five different times in Nome on July 8th, 9th, 11th, 13th, and 14th. This was literally while his family was in Nome searching for him.
Somebody had his credit card and was using it. Joseph's mother was able to track down the physical receipts from the store, where all these purchases were made.
It's called Bonanza Express, a convenience store on the corner next to where

Joseph used to live. I have the dates of birth of these alleged individuals who made these purchases because they're on the receipts.
But after investigating this to the fullest extent, it seems likely that whoever was working the counter just punched in random dates. And that happens

But the purchases that were made

Each time

Were always the same things. Here's what they were.
12-ounce cans of Red Bull. Pretty common.
16-ounce cans of a monster energy drink called Mad Dog. A lighter.
And every time, boxes and boxes of menthol cigarettes of the brand Cool, K-O-O-L. So, I'm asking the community, who smoked Cool Menthol cigarettes in Nome, Alaska in the summer of 2016? Not everyone, I'm sure, but we're looking for you, and we're going looking for you And we're going to find you We're going to take one more break Simply so we can continue this investigation Into both of these cases But this season as a whole is far from over And we're coming back with a final installment In just a few months The community engagement this season has been.
And as a team, we want to thank all of you for your support. On November 10th in Atlanta, Georgia, I'll be hosting an Up and Vanished live event.
And all of the ticket proceeds will be donated back to the family's reward fund. So if you're in Atlanta or you want to make the drive or flight there, come see me on November 10th at Terminal West.
I'd love to meet you all in person and discuss these cases in a much deeper way. I'll be sharing exclusive video interviews from the season, tape that has not yet been released, and give you a complete behind-the-scenes look of our investigation.
We'd love to see you. If you want to come, you can get tickets now by going to upandvanished.com slash tickets.
This is a one-night event only, November 10th in Atlanta. And you can get tickets now by going to upandvanished.com slash tickets.
The link is also in the description. All proceeds from the show are being donated back to the family's reward fund.

We'll be back soon with the third and final installment of this season.

But if you want a sneak peek of what's to come, come see us in Atlanta, November 10th at Terminal West.

Link to tickets are in the description.

Just go to UpandVanish.com slash tickets.

Thanks for listening. See you soon.
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...
Thank you. and Marketing, and The Nord Group.
Special thanks to all of the families and community members that spoke to the team. Additional information and resources can be found in our show notes.

For more podcasts like Up and Vanished, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast 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 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 gonna 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. That's Red Rum, murder backwards, R-E-D-R-U-M, true crime.
Well, I just found out that my dad lived a secret life as a hitman for the Chicago Mafia for all these years. It doesn't make any sense.
He was a firefighter paramedic. How the hell can he be a hitman? I need answers.
So I am currently on a plane back to Chicago to interview everybody. Anybody that knows anything about this.

I'm in shock.

This is absolutely insane.

I just don't understand.

I need to figure this out.

The shocking new true crime series, Crook County, from Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts is available now.

Binge the entire series for free on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.