Up and Vanished

12 | The Roommate

August 30, 2024 44m S4E12 Explicit
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Thank you so much for listening. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, Chapter 2.

I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. What did Jake tell you? It was about 1 o'clock p.m.
on Sunday when I saw him leave. The hallway was too dark to define what colors he was wearing.
Sunday. Sunday.
Christine, Jake is her cousin. The guy that lives with Joseph is her cousin.
Yeah. I don't like it.
I kind of get a creepy feeling about it. Is there anything there? I don't know.
I have not been able to interview Jake. I set up two interviews.
He's never showed up to either one. Joseph's roommate, Jake, completely dodged the first PI,

and his family was becoming increasingly suspicious of all of his behavior.

They discussed this with the Alaska State Troopers.

I know that the timeline doesn't make sense to you,

and we know that his roommate says he saw him.

People are mistaken. It could be that.

It could be that he came back in, forgot his phone,

but there's all these theories, but I don't have the answers, nobody does. The roommates Sunday, do you know what he said about that? Like, yes, I saw him, I spoke to him, I saw him driving away.
Like, what level of commitment do you think? They passed each other in the home. Inside the house, on Sunday.
Guys, I'll be happy to go talk to Jake again. The troopers, in an effort to eliminate suspects and ease the family's suspicions, paid a visit to Jake's house, a little less than two weeks after Joseph went missing.
The roommate was interviewed right away by the troopers. So I guess the troopers were just kind of doing their due diligence at first, right?

In a cursory way.

Brief interviews to try and get a better idea of what happened and how they should focus the search.

At 8.30 a.m., investigator Kevin and Trooper Smith

recorded a conversation with Jake at his apartment.

It's just really important for us to get this timeline figured out.

I mean, we don't think that anybody did anything wrong,

but what's really important to us, Jake, is getting these timelines figured out

because if we leave a gap in any of this time sequence

Thank you. I just want to know.
I need to know exactly what happened so I can fill that sequence because it's just important for me. You've got to understand that we're trying to help you pin this down because when we leave here and we don't have answers, everybody's going to say, what the hell? With a homicide investigator and a technical crimes investigator here, people know why we're here and they're like, holy shit, these guys are serious.
Why are they here? They don't call us in for these for just whimsical things. When you say you saw him at 1.30 on Sunday, no one else saw him after that.
No one saw him after you did. Let's call that last known alive type thing.
He didn't really talk to anybody after that. There was no communications.
There was no contact with anybody on his cell phone or anything after Saturday. And I guarantee the family is going to be asking questions.
The booze, the beer bottles and stuff, I give a damn about a beer bottle. I don't care.
It's just really important to have the facts. You're not going to get in any trouble for smoking weed, drinking, nothing.
The troopers had learned a key new detail in Joseph's case, and it began raising questions about Jake's sighting of Joseph on Sunday. The truck drove by your mom's on Sunday and didn't stop.
And that's unusual. Your mom said that that is highly unusual that he wouldn't stop.
Jake's mom claimed to have seen Joseph's truck driving very fast past their camp on Sunday, June 26,

around the same time that Jake says he saw Joseph at his house,

in over 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everyone.

Was he pissed off about something that day? He'd been upset about something? What's going on? That's where we're at. Jake, when was the last time that you were in the truck? The only time I ever got in it was to jumpstart my dad's car.

Okay.

When was that?

Really June.

June?

Okay.

Did you drive it at all that weekend?

He went missing?

No.

You were yet.

I don't think anybody did anything wrong.

I just need to know what they did.

That wasn't wrong, you feel me?

When you say you saw him at 1.30,

no one else saw him after that.

Really, I'm looking at it from Saturday on

as to where he was and what he was doing.

The roommate was interviewed,

told the troopers that he was and what he was doing.

The roommate was interviewed, told the troopers that he was gone on Saturday night with friends,

but that he saw Joseph the next morning

walking down the hallway in the house.

And this would have been Sunday?

Sunday morning after Joseph had stopped responding to anyone. So if that were true, Joseph would have been ignoring people.
Right. Which would be a little out of his character.
And then he was never heard from again. Joseph's last communication was to his fiancee Megan early in the morning on Saturday, June 25th.
Jake's version of events just didn't add up. download phone contents and go through them.
That'll help us establish your timeline. That's if you're willing to let me borrow your phone, set my equipment up right here, and I can just download the contents.
I mean, your phone could be your alibi, if that's something you're willing to do. I'm out for it.
I have to be at work in 10 minutes. 10 minutes? I have my equipment in the truck.
I can bring it in right now. Because if we can do this and get this to you, it's really good.
So if we can do that, get that phone back to you right away. Reluctantly, Jake agreed to let the state troopers conduct an analysis of his cell phone and download all of its data.
This is an iPhone 6, 6S? I believe it's a 6S. 6S, go ahead.
Jake went to work. The troopers got the data, returned his cell phone, and left no one back to Anchorage.
The troopers did download the contents of his phone, but they didn't look at the contents of his phone until they went back to Anchorage. What they found on his phone changed this investigation forever.
And then when they did look at the contents of his phone, they realized that he was texting friends, trying to get friends to create an alibi for him for Saturday night. Why would somebody be doing that? Obviously because he was trying to hide something.
Jake first told investigators that on Saturday, June 25th, he and two friends went bridge jumping until about 8 p.m. He then claimed he and his friends took a drive to a small town east of Nome called Solomon.
Then he returned home to his apartment in Nome around 1.30 in the morning. But on his cell phone, they found text messages where Jake was asking his friends to lie for him.
He told them he used them in a fake story for the state troopers and asked them to say they were with him. Jake, originally you told me that you went out for a drive.
And then I talked to your buddies and they said that didn't happen. And you told me that you specifically went for a drive that way.
And then they told me that they weren't with you or that didn't happen and then I talked to your buddies and they said that didn't happen. They told me that you specifically went for a drive that way.
And then they told me that they weren't with you or that didn't happen. And then I talked to you and I learned that you were out bridge jumping, which is what Tyler had told me.
But again, my issue is when confronted with, hey, what did you do last weekend, I wouldn't say I went for a drive someplace I wasn't. I would either not remember, but I wouldn't say I went for a drive someplace that wasn't you know I would either not remember but I wouldn't I wouldn't say I went for a drive I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do so that's that's what kind of alarms me a little Jake is to me it seems like either you're lying now because you're covering it covering up for something that you don't want to tell us that for or Or you were lying then, you know, when you told me that you went in a completely different

direction with two guys that you weren't with.

Jake lied about where he was, and he tried to get his friends to lie for him too.

But why would Jake need to lie in the first place?

After seeing Jake's texts, the state troopers talked to his friends, and they denied ever being with him. This then created a massive gap in Jake's timeline.
Where was Jake from 8 p.m. to 1.30 a.m.
on Saturday night? And why do you feel he had to lie about it? It doesn't sound like you're being 100% truthful with me. I just, I can't understand how somebody would know

right up until the point that they made it home.

But then you just hung out

for four hours, you didn't do anything else.

I dealt that man on a Saturday night.

There's something else that was going on

and I gotta feel that.

I still wonder why you told me the other day that you went out

to Solomon turned around.

I wonder why somebody would say that and then

point to two fellas who weren't there. Why would somebody come up with that? It's because I didn't know what to say.
It was like one of the first times I was going to say trooper. I was kind of nervous.
So Jake initially lied to the troopers about what he was doing and where he was on Saturday night. After the troopers interviewed his friends and confronted him about that deception, he told them that he wasn't used to talking to the troopers and he was nervous.
And then he says that he saw Joseph alive and well in the hallway of the home around 1.30 p.m. on Sunday.
And yet the trooper sergeant said he saw the truck at mile 44 between 1.30 and 2 p.m. I would view the trooper's observation as accurate.
That alone should have opened a murder investigation, right? Maybe he just panicked and made up a story. But why? There wasn't any need to.
Why is that time period even important to Jake at all? If he saw Joseph alive and well at his house the next day, who cares what you were doing Saturday night? Unless he's lying about a lot more than just that. What Jake was really doing between 8pm and 1.30am on Saturday night still remains a mystery.
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His roommate, you know, he says he didn't remember. The person I'm living with goes missing, and there's the largest manhunt in your state.
How do you not remember what you're doing that night? My BS detector goes up. Vishnu, Joseph's friend.
It's just, everything doesn't add up. The way Jake lied, all the inconsistencies.
His family is very nice, but always the last ones to see Joseph. Selena, Joseph's sister.
He saw him whenever somebody else witnessed the truck already planted out there on mile 44. Then his mother saw him drive by.
Then his uncle, Kevin Pascoya, saw his truck at Joseph's house. The various sightings of Joseph's truck on Saturday when he went missing are already very confusing.
But on Sunday, there are even more sightings. And not in the same place that everyone else claimed to see it the day before.
Stan Pascoya says he saw Joseph's truck at their apartment in Nome on Sunday at 11.30 a.m., again, 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everybody. And at the same time, other people claim they saw Joseph's truck 40-plus miles outside of Nome.
And then again on Sunday, Jake's own mom, Bonnie, and his stepdad, Kirk, claimed they saw his truck flying down Nome Council Road at a high rate of speed around 3.30 p.m. and added they found it strange that he didn't stop.
What is going on here?

All from this family, but all the other sightings from different people who aren't related, they don't connect. They're all different timings.
Andy interviewed Jake's stepdad, Kirk. Do you recall seeing Joseph at any point during the weekend that he disappeared? We were, last time I saw him was when he drove by camp on Sunday.
I'm not sure what the date of that would have been that weekend. We were working on the new addition there at camp, which is at mile 26 on the council road.
My wife and I were working on the deck, and we saw his pickup go just flying by. And she mentioned something like, oh, there goes Joseph.
And I looked up at the last second to see that blue truck go by. And I didn't really realize he had a blue truck, I guess.
I didn't really pay attention what he drove. So I just didn't think anything of the truck.
But we thought, I wonder why he didn't stop by because it was about time to eat. And normally he probably have stopped in to say hi but I'm assuming that was him in the truck I couldn't get a super good look at his face because he went by pretty fast but we just thought it was odd that he didn't stop in it just seemed like he was in a hurry to get somewhere it was I think around three o'clock in the afternoon or something like that I think we can figure you know you know, he's trying to get down there to go hiking, so he was just in a hurry to get down there.
Figured he'd do his hike and stop by on the way back or something is what we figured. So I want you to use a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being absolutely positive, like you're looking out at something, and 1 being not at all sure.
How sure are you using that scale that it was Joseph's truck that went by not the driver just

the truck a 10 because I looked at the vehicles went by and I didn't know at

that time that was Joseph's truck until later when Bonnie said that he was

driving that truck and then it was down there at the road that didn't know he

had a vehicle till then but but same one that was parked on there same exact one

Thank you. And Bonnie said that he was driving that truck, and then it was down there at the road.
I didn't even know he had a vehicle until then. But same one that was parked on there.
Yep, same exact one. Here's why that is so important.
There's really credible witnesses, multiple witnesses, who saw it parked in the same position, you know, backed in there. Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, 7 p.m.
and as late as 10.30 or 11 p.m., same position. And then two folks saw it at 10.45 a.m.
on Sunday. Sergeant Cross saw it there at 2.45 p.m.
Sunday. I think it was about 3 o'clock when we saw it go by.
Right. And then there's a whole issue of Stan saw it parked at the house.
Right.

And Jake saw him at like, I don't know what he said,

130 or something. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's weird.

That is, yeah. We've been thinking the same

thing. It's like we've been trying to add all this stuff up too.

Right.

What do you think the explanation is? Well, anything I can think of is maybe he came back into town, just made a quick run into town to get stuff, like maybe more fishing supplies or dry clothes or something and went back out. We were there till, I don't know, maybe eight o'clock or so at night and we were out working on the place.
So we had seen it go by again. And we were kind of expecting him to come by through and stop, but it never did come back through while we were there, so.
Was the driver the only occupant? Yeah, yep, only just one person in there. The other thing is, you know, his fiancée had left him all these messages.
Christine had left him messages, and so none of those got answered. Right.
And if he was backing down, that's a little unusual. That's odd.
He wouldn't have got his phone working. Yeah, he was pretty into responding to mine.
Yeah, he was a real responsible. Do you have any idea what he was doing out there at Ma 44? Once we found out he was missing, I think it was the next day or something, we just learned from everybody else that they assumed he was hiking, fishing, that he had wanted to climb that ridge.
So we just you know we went right to the search over here and we ended up becoming a part of it and learning what was going on and looking at the maps and then i was looking at that ridge and saying if i was doing this this is where i would have gone and what i would have done and that's kind of what the route he was going to take because it's the easiest least resistant yeah go down the road cross a bridge

i've climbed that ridge and paraglided off of that really before so it's a real easy climb and

and once i found out he liked to run ridges i said i bet he went right across the top and either

came down to the east fork and back or he went back those longer ridges which we flew extensively

with our own private airplane we flew for hours and hours and hours down there on that search

Thank you. or he went back those longer ridges which we flew extensively with our own private airplane we flew for hours and hours and hours down there on that search for days with our plane and didn't find you know not a trace of nothing you know with bear everybody's talking you know it's that very high barrier area very very high.
And we saw a lot of bears while we were doing the searches in that very area. I know they do bury their, what they kill, and it can be very hard to see.
Talking to hunters around here and stuff, they said they've been standing on a moose kill. That was a bear.
The only reason they saw it was there was a little bit of horn sticking up out of the dirt. They didn't even know they were standing on it they're standing on so i don't know i mean we could have passed him who knows how many times somewhere and not even known it if he was buried by a bear or something someone found a leg here a few weeks ago down in that area when they were very picking and so that started a whole rumor that you know they found a leg of joseph's leg but it was a i think it ended up being a reindeer leg, which I was pretty positive is probably what it was.
There was a, I don't know, we started some rumor about that Jake may have done something because they are roommates in the same house. I knew that obviously isn't anywhere close to ever happening because I know Jake very well and those two's ages were so far apart they just lived in the same house they really didn't hang out or anything they just were roommates in there.
It's about the only rumors I heard on that stuff everybody just thinks it's a bear probably a bear guy or something. I talked to Fish and Game, and they said there's never been a fatal bear mowing on the Seward Peninsula.
Not fatal. There's been mowlings.
There's a guy walking around. Right, right.
I didn't know he was getting married until this whole thing came about. People were there, and I met her and all that stuff i didn't i didn't know the details of his life like that like some other people did but i knew he was moving and he seemed really excited about it and he said he was going to miss us all and miss the kids and i'll miss our wednesday night dinners and stuff so what are your gut instincts about what happened to him part of me says it's a bear, just because this area and where he was and alone, not armed.
But another part of me just seems it's a little fishy because of how he was and how intelligent he was. And he did this kind of ridge running extensively, and he has pictures of being on top of everything around Nome all over the place.
So it's something he did regularly, and he knew how to do it, and he was very athletic. If it's not a bear, something just is not adding up with...
I know that traffic goes back and forth a lot with drugs and alcohol. I just got a weird, you it's just an odd feeling that somebody's got him somewhere and it's not there or we should have found something.
With that two weeks of extensive searching we should have come up with a shoe you know something to show that he was in that area. Do you recall Joseph ever talking about anyone that he was having problems with and known for whatever reason? No.
I never heard anything about anybody not liking him. You know, I've tried to call Jake 11 times late this afternoon and this evening, and every time the call fails because he's not accepting calls.
And when the first investigator came out here while the search was going on and everything, he tried to interview Jake a number of times. And each time, even though Jake said he would, he failed to call back.
And the guy even ran into him in a bar and talked to him, and he said he'd get with him and then never did. So, I mean, Jake really has probably the most relevant and important information of any of the people.

And even, you know, little details that he doesn't think might be important might fit with something else that we know in terms of the bigger picture. Do you have any idea why he's reluctant to speak with us? He's very, very quiet.
Jake's very quiet and kind of reserved. I don't know if he's just, you know, feeling weird because he's gone now and maybe he thinks everybody's blaming him for something when obviously he knows he didn't do anything or whatever.
I don't know, maybe something like that. I don't know.
Has he expressed any of that? Not to me, no. Okay.
Okay. I bet someone's got him somewhere else that bumped him on the road or...
We should have found something. Right.
With all that, we should have found something. You know, if somebody was drinking, you know, and then they don't want to get in trouble.
Get scared, don't know what to do. Right.
It's a big area. I mean, it's pretty easy, frankly, to get rid of a body out there.
There's nothing here, yeah. Right.
So. All right, this will be the end of the interview.
It's now 9 on 9 p.m. As Andy Clamser continued collecting the facts, it was starting to paint a really bizarre picture.
Joseph drops off the grid entirely on Saturday morning, and everyone who sees him afterwards is related. Christine, Jake, their uncle, Jake's mother, Bonnie, Jake's stepdad, Kirk.
How does any of this make sense? I feel pretty confident that Joseph's truck was being moved around on Sunday and given given Jake's statements and some of the other suspicious behavior by Jake, I feel pretty strongly that the most likely explanation for Joseph's disappearance is that someone has done something to him. After I interviewed Kirk, they were urging me to talk to Jake.

So I called Jake a bunch of times, like 11 times,

I think the first day I was there,

and he always had his phone set to not accept calls.

He continues to say that he observed Joseph coming out of his bedroom

about 1.30 p.m. on Sunday and leaving the house.
He claims that he never, never saw any guns at the house there that Joseph might have had, which struck me as, frankly, that didn't ring true to me because Joseph couldn't even latch the door to his room. You know, he had to keep the

door closed with a bungee cord. He had bought that Taurus pistol in March, and I just think

it's highly unlikely that Jake, staying in a bedroom right next to his, you know, wasn't aware

of that and never saw it. Jake denies that there was ever any friction between them about anything,

denies that there was any dispute about the internet which also doesn't ring true to me the whole issue of jake lying about his whereabouts and trying to create an alibi i mean jake said that he did that because he was nervous and he couldn't remember what he did that weekend i mean we have a situation where this, you know, all of this work that I've done is basically work that should have been done by the troopers. Well, you're in a situation where, for whatever reason, the troopers decided not to investigate this and to basically just close it out, and now they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case.

Did those troopers, the ABI guys when they came out, they were supposed to take the truck and

process it. Do you know if we have any results for that or if they did that? They didn't do that.

Light and everything you said, looking for blood or... They did not do that.
A lot of people have

commented that it was kind of a problem that the truck was left out there and so many people went

through it. It wasn't towed in and put in secure impound until just before the ABI guys got out

Thank you. It was kind of a problem that the truck was left out there and so many people went through it.
It wasn't towed in and put in secure impound until just before the ABI guys got out there.

And I think that was because the local troopers knew that that was something they should have done.

And so they did it at the last second so that when the ABI guys got out there,

they would have the vehicle in the secure impound at the police department there to look at it.

They didn't process the vehicle forensically for anything.

Back in Anchorage, my producer Mike and I were reading Andy's investigative reports,

learning all this information for the first time.

There's no proof of anything yet, but he was his roommate,

the person he was living with when Joseph went missing.

So it's not weird to talk to people about somebody you knew.

Yeah. I don't care what case we're doing.

I'm going to talk to the roommate of the person

who was one of the last people to see that person alive.

And so if he's weird about it, that will be weird.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's say he didn't do anything.
He did some weird things though, right? And so if we're coming in as outsiders trying to eliminate the red herrings, then we need to be able to eliminate some of the weird things he said and did. I just don't see the urgency of the roommate making up an alibi when you don't know he's not

coming back yet. Why are you assuming that you need an alibi for anything if he just disappeared?

Unless you know more than you're saying. The thing about doing a true crime podcast

and investigating it in real time

is that everything can change in an instant.

Last night, right before I was about to publish this episode,

I got a call from Joseph's sister, Selena.

Since 2016, she's managed a tip line for Joseph,

answering all the calls herself.

There hasn't been a new call on the tip line for years, until last night.

This is the real recording, but I changed the person's voice to protect them.

Hi, I'm Joseph.

Hi, I just was listening to the Pain Lindsey podcast. I have something to tell you about Christine Piscoia.
Yeah, what happened? An interaction that I had with her. It was after Joseph was missing in November of 2018.
Christine had borrowed a phone charger from my significant other at the time, but it was my charger. So I messaged her and I said, hey, do you still have my charger? Can I come get it? I went to her house and she was so drunk.
She was shit faced. She wouldn't stop crying.
She kept saying over and over, Joseph's dead. Joseph's dead.
Joseph's dead. I loved him.
It was a really weird interaction. And this week I was just listening to the podcast.
And it all clicked for me. I'm seeing how connected the Pascoya family is with all of this.
The only reason I feel comfortable even sharing this is because I left Nome now, and I know that Christine is going to know it was me who shared this information. I want you to tell Payne.
I'm gonna let Payne know turning it into the

troopers isn't gonna do anything. I do not trust the known police at all.
Did you know Jake? I did

I had a really rough time when I was a teenager

and

I shouldn't have been hanging out with the people I was hanging out with. And Jake was one of them.
I went to a party one night at his house. All of a sudden, he started talking about Joseph.
I didn't really hear what Jake was saying. But one of my friends did.
And they told me to go to bed now. You're too drunk.
And that was the last time I saw Jake.

I too made a tip line for both Joseph Balderas and Florence Lachpialik.

And there's a $50,000 reward.

For over a year, I never got a single call.

But then one night, all that changed.

Someone was trying to reach me.

Someone who doesn't want anyone to know who they are.

For me, it's created a sense of paranoia.

But the information they've continued to leak to me for months now

is intimate knowledge that only someone very close to this investigation

could ever possibly know.

So, despite my own fears, I'm choosing to be their friend. And this is where this season of the podcast is taking a permanent turn.
Because my newfound friend has a whole lot to say. Spring is all about new beginnings, and that includes your wellness routine.

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The second half of the basketball season is here, and the race to the playoffs continues on PrizePix, the best daily fantasy sports app to cash in on your favorite sports.

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Visit prizepix.com for restrictions and details. Hi, Payne.
I have a story. I think you'll find it interesting.
It was a couple months after Joseph went missing that summer in 2016. That night, I went to a house party.
It was at Jake's house, the same house where Joseph used to live. There was a bunch of people there.
We were all hanging out. But I only had one beer that night.

Something was off.

The vibe in that house was different to pain.

I could feel it.

It was late.

Everyone was drinking.

And there was a group of people crowded around in Jake's room.

I was standing in the doorway.

And Jake was sitting on his bed. He looked up at me.
He said, do you know who Joseph Balderas is? At first I was confused. I told Jake I never knew him.
The room got quiet, and Jake said he was my roommate, but now he's missing.

Then he turned his head and held both of his hands in the air.

I was scared.

He made a gesture, like he was holding a rifle,

and he pretended to look down the scope.

He stood there, frozen,

still pretending to hold a rifle in his hands,

just staring down the barrel.

Jake said, he's still missing.

The room got completely silent.

Pop. He pretended to pull the trigger like he fired the rifle.
It was terrifying. And his friend sitting next to him made no reaction at all.
None of them said anything. It was in that moment.
I knew I needed to get out of there. I left in a hurry and ran back to my house.
I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It's been eight years now, and I've never stopped thinking about that moment. I believe he had something to do with

Joseph's disappearance. There were other people there that night, and Jake's gesture didn't even

phase them. Would you like to-free episodes, you can do so by joining Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts,

or just go to tenderfootplus.com.

If you really want to engage in the conversation here, by all means, go join the Up and Vantage Discord.

I put a link to the Discord in the episode description.

Also, we're going to start releasing bonus content from this season, exclusively for Tinder Flip Plus subscribers.

So be on the lookout for some bonus stuff this week. Also, if you want to stalk me on Instagram, it's at painlindsay.
And if you're not already, you should definitely follow Up and Vanished on Instagram, at upandvanished. See you next week.
Thank you. in original music by makeup and vanity set mix and mastered by cooper skinner thank you to oren

rosenbaum and the team at uta beck media and marketing and the nord group special thanks to

all of the families and community members that spoke to the team additional information and

resources can be found in our show notes for more podcasts like up and vanished search tenderfoot tv

on your favorite podcast app or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.
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 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... 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.

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

Thank you. it doesn't make any sense.
He was a firefighter, a 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.