12 | The Roommate

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Speaker 2 Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is intended for mature audiences and may include topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 4 From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, Chapter 2.

Speaker 9 I'm your host, Payne Lindsay.

Speaker 10 What did Jake tell you?

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 12 Sunday. Sunday.

Speaker 13 Christine, Jake is her cousin. The guy that lives with Joseph is her cousin.

Speaker 13 I don't like it.

Speaker 13 I kind of get a creepy feeling about it. Is there anything there? I don't know.

Speaker 12 I have not been able to interview Jake.

Speaker 13 I set up two interviews. He's never showed up to either one.

Speaker 4 Joseph's roommate Jake completely dodged the first PI, and his family was becoming increasingly suspicious of all of his behavior.

Speaker 8 They discussed this with the Alaska State Troopers.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 There's all these theories, but I don't have the answers. Nobody does.

Speaker 1 The roommates Sunday.

Speaker 17 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?

Speaker 17 They passed each other in the home, inside the house, on Sunday.

Speaker 16 Guys, I'll be happy to go talk to Jake again.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 20 The roommate was interviewed right away by the troopers.

Speaker 22 Second, the troopers were just kind of doing their due diligence at first, right?

Speaker 20 In a cursory way. Brief interviews to try and get a better idea of what happened and how they should focus the search.

Speaker 4 At 8.30 a.m., investigator Kevin and Trooper Smith recorded a conversation with Jake at his apartment.

Speaker 24 It's just really important for us to get this timeline figured out.

Speaker 24 I mean, we don't think that anybody did anything wrong, but what's really important us is getting these timelines figured out because if we leave a gap in any of this time sequence that happened, people are going to fill it with whatever they want.

Speaker 24 The booze, the beer bottles, and stuff, I give a damn about a beer bottle. I don't care.

Speaker 24 It's just really important to have the facts. 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.

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 22 Why are they here?

Speaker 24 They don't call us in for these for just whimsical thing.

Speaker 24 When you say you saw him at 1.30

Speaker 24 on Sunday,

Speaker 24 no one else saw him after that.

Speaker 24 No one saw him after you did.

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 24 And I guarantee you, the family is going to be asking questions.

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 24 You're not going to get in any trouble for smoking weed, drinking, nothing.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 24 The truck drove by your mom's

Speaker 24 on Sunday. On Sunday, it didn't stop.

Speaker 24 And that's unusual. Your mom said that that is highly unusual that he wouldn't stop.

Speaker 4 Jake's mom claimed to have seen Joseph's truck driving very fast past their camp on Sunday, June 26th, around the same time that Jake says he saw Joseph at his house.

Speaker 19 In over 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everyone,

Speaker 24 was he pissed off about something that day?

Speaker 24 Has he been upset about something? What's going on? That's where we're at.

Speaker 24 Jake, when was the last time that you were in the truck?

Speaker 24 The only time I ever got in it was to jumpstart my dad's car. Okay.

Speaker 24 When was that?

Speaker 1 Really, Jim? Joe? Okay.

Speaker 24 Did you drive in at all that weekend? He went missing? No.

Speaker 24 You worry that?

Speaker 24 I don't think anybody did anything wrong. I just need to know what they did.

Speaker 24 That wasn't wrong. You feel me?

Speaker 25 When you say you saw him at 1:30,

Speaker 24 no one else saw him after that.

Speaker 24 Really, I'm looking at it from Saturday on as to where he was while he was going.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 22 And this would have been Sunday.

Speaker 20 Sunday morning after Joseph had stopped responding to anyone.

Speaker 21 So if that were true, Joseph would have been ignoring people.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 21 Which would be a little out of his character.

Speaker 20 And then he was never heard from again.

Speaker 19 Joseph's last communication was to his fiancée Megan early in the morning on Saturday, June 25th.

Speaker 6 Jake's version of events just didn't add up.

Speaker 24 There's something else I want to ask you, and this is completely up to you. This is another step we want to take to try to eliminate any suspicion of you.
I've got an iPhone.

Speaker 24 All you guys have iPhones. We call, we text, we use the internet data, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 24 I have the ability and the equipment to download phone contents and go through them, and that'll help us establish a timeline. That's if you're willing to let me unborrow your phone.

Speaker 24 I 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.

Speaker 24 I'm all for it. I have to be at work in 10 minutes.
10 minutes?

Speaker 24 I have my equipment in the truck. I can bring it in right now.
Because if we can do this, get this to you and be done with it. That would be really good.

Speaker 24 So, if we can do that, get that phone back to you right away.

Speaker 8 Reluctantly, Jake agreed to let the state troopers conduct an analysis of his cell phone and download all of its data.

Speaker 24 This is a F06 6S? I believe it's a 6S. 6S of this.

Speaker 4 Jake went to work.

Speaker 7 The troopers got the data, returned his cell phone, and left Noam back to Anchorage.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 4 What they found on his phone changed this investigation forever.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 22 Why would somebody be doing that?

Speaker 20 Obviously, because he was trying to hide something.

Speaker 7 Jake first told investigators that on Saturday, June 25th, he and two friends went bridge jumping.

Speaker 26 until about 8 p.m.

Speaker 4 He then claimed he and his friends took a drive to a small town east of Nome called Solomon.

Speaker 9 Then he returned home to his apartment in Nome around 1.30 in the morning.

Speaker 4 But on his cell phone, they found text messages where Jake was asking his friends to lie for him.

Speaker 15 He told them he used them in a fake story for the state troopers and asked them to say they were with him.

Speaker 24 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.
They told me that you specifically went for a drive that way.

Speaker 24 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,

Speaker 24 which is what Tyler had told me. But again, my issue is when confronted with, hey, what did you do last weekend?

Speaker 24 I wouldn't say I went for a drive someplace I wasn't.

Speaker 24 I would either not remember, but I wouldn't say I went for a drive. I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do.
So that's what kind of alarms me a little, little Jake is

Speaker 24 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 about for, or you were lying then, you know, when you told me that you weren't, went in a completely different direction with two guys that you weren't with.

Speaker 19 Jake lied about where he was and he tried to get his friends to lie for him too.

Speaker 9 But why would Jake need to lie in the first place?

Speaker 15 After seeing Jake's texts, the state troopers talked to his friends, and they denied ever being with him.

Speaker 4 This then created a massive gap in Jake's timeline. Where was Jake from 8 p.m.

Speaker 6 to 1.30 a.m.

Speaker 4 on Saturday night?

Speaker 15 And why did he feel he had to lie about it?

Speaker 24 It doesn't sound like you're being 100% truthful with me.

Speaker 24 I can't understand how somebody would

Speaker 24 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 don't that man on a Saturday night.

Speaker 24 You know, 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.

Speaker 24 I wonder why somebody would say that and then point to two fellas who weren't there. Why would somebody come up with that?

Speaker 24 Mostly because I didn't know what to say. This is like one of the first times I've got to say, Shoe Bears kind of get invisible.

Speaker 20 So, Jake initially lied to the troopers about what he was doing and where he was on Saturday night.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 20 And then he says that he saw Joseph alive and well in the hallway of the home around 1.30 p.m. on Sunday.

Speaker 20 And yet the trooper sergeant said he saw the truck at mile 44 between 1.30 and 2 p.m.

Speaker 20 I would view the trooper's observation as accurate.

Speaker 20 That alone should have opened a murder investigation, right?

Speaker 19 Maybe he just panicked and made up a story.

Speaker 12 But why?

Speaker 6 There wasn't any need to.

Speaker 4 Why is that time period even important to Jake at all?

Speaker 19 If he saw Joseph alive and well at his house the next day, who cares what you were doing Saturday night?

Speaker 6 Unless he's lying about a lot more than just that.

Speaker 6 What Jake was really doing between 8 p.m. and 1.30 a.m.

Speaker 19 on Saturday night still remains a mystery.

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Speaker 37 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.

Speaker 24 How do you not remember what you're doing that night?

Speaker 37 My BS detector goes up.

Speaker 26 Vishnu, Joseph's friend.

Speaker 38 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.

Speaker 26 Selena, Joseph's sister.

Speaker 38 He saw him whenever somebody else witnessed the truck already planted out there on mile 44.

Speaker 38 Then his mother saw him drive by.

Speaker 38 Then his uncle, Kevin Pescoia, saw his truck at Joseph's house.

Speaker 7 The various sightings of Joseph's truck on Saturday when he went missing are already very confusing.

Speaker 19 But on Sunday, there are even more sightings,

Speaker 4 and not in the same place that everyone else claimed to see it the day before.

Speaker 9 Stan Pescoia says he saw Joseph's truck at their apartment in Nome on Sunday at 11.30 a.m.

Speaker 15 Again, 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everybody.

Speaker 6 And at the same time, other people claim they saw Joseph's truck 40 plus miles outside of Nome.

Speaker 6 And then again on Sunday, Jake's own mom, Bonnie, and his stepdad, Kirk, claim they saw his truck flying down Nome Council Road.

Speaker 4 at a high rate of speed around 3 30 p.m and added they found it strange that he didn't stop

Speaker 9 what is going on here

Speaker 38 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

Speaker 10 andy interviewed jake's stepdad kirk do you recall seeing joseph at any point during the weekend that he disappeared we were uh last time

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 25 We were working on the new addition there at camp, which is at mile 26 on the council road.

Speaker 25 My wife and I were working on the deck and we saw his pickup go just flying by

Speaker 25 and she mentioned something like, oh, there goes Joseph. And I looked up at the last second to see that blue truck go by.

Speaker 25 And I didn't really realize he had a blue truck, I guess. I didn't really pay attention to what he drove.
So I just didn't think anything of the truck.

Speaker 25 But we thought, I wonder why he didn't stop by, because because it was about time to eat and normally he probably would have stopped in to say hi but I'm assuming that was him in the truck.

Speaker 25 I couldn't get a super good look at his face because he went by pretty fast, but

Speaker 25 we just thought it was odd that he didn't stop in.

Speaker 25 It just seemed like he was in a hurry to get somewhere. It was I think around 3 o'clock in the afternoon or something like that.

Speaker 25 Anything we can figure, you know, he's trying to get down there to go hiking, so he was just, you know, in a hurry to get down there.

Speaker 10 Figure 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 one to ten scale with ten being absolutely positive like you're looking out at something and one being not at all sure

Speaker 10 how sure are you using that scale that it was joseph's truck that went by not the driver just the truck

Speaker 25 a 10.

Speaker 25 because i i looked at the vehicle as went by and

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 25 I didn't even know he had a vehicle until then, but

Speaker 28 same one that was parked on there.

Speaker 25 Same exact one.

Speaker 28 Here's why that is so important.

Speaker 10 There's really credible witnesses, multiple witnesses, who saw it parked in the same position, you know, backed in there, you know, Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, 7 p.m., and as late as 10:30 or 11 p.m., same position.

Speaker 10 And then two folks saw it at 10.45 a.m. on on Sunday.
Sergeant Cross saw it there at 2.45 p.m. Sunday.

Speaker 25 It was about 3 o'clock when we saw it go by.

Speaker 14 Right.

Speaker 10 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, 1.30 or something.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 25 Yeah.

Speaker 23 So that's weird.

Speaker 25 That is, yeah. We've been thinking the same thing.
It was like, we've been trying to add all this stuff up, too. And we're like, what?

Speaker 10 What do you think the explanation is?

Speaker 25 The only thing I can think of is maybe he came back into town, just made a quick run into town to get stuff,

Speaker 25 maybe more fishing supplies or dry clothes or something, and went back out. We were there till, I don't know, maybe 8 o'clock or so at night.

Speaker 25 We were out working on the place, so we would have seen it go

Speaker 25 by again.

Speaker 25 And we were kind of expecting him to come by through and and stop but you know it never did come back through while we were there so

Speaker 12 was the driver the only occupant

Speaker 10 yeah

Speaker 25 yep only just one person there

Speaker 10 the other thing is that you know his his fiancé had left him the all these messages Christine had left him messages and so none of those got answered and if he was back in town that's a little that's a little unusual that's odd he wouldn't have got his phone broken working.

Speaker 10 Yeah, he was pretty into responding to the market.

Speaker 25 Yeah, he was a little responsible.

Speaker 10 Do you have any idea what he was doing out there at Mile 44?

Speaker 25 Once we found out he was missing, I think it was the next day or something,

Speaker 25 we just learned from everybody else that they assumed he was hiking, fishing, that he had wanted to climb that ridge.

Speaker 25 So we just, you know, we went right to the search over here. We ended up being coming a part of it and learning what was going on and

Speaker 25 looking at the maps and then

Speaker 25 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 is the easiest to have the 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.

Speaker 25 We flew for hours and hours and hours down there on that search for days with our plane.

Speaker 25 And didn't find

Speaker 25 trace of nothing.

Speaker 25 You know, with bear, everybody's talking, you know, it's a very high bear area, very high.

Speaker 25 And we saw a lot of bears while we were doing the searches in that very area.

Speaker 25 And I know they do

Speaker 21 bury their,

Speaker 25 what they kill and it can be very hard to see talking to hunters around here and stuff who they said they've been standing on a moose kill that was buried the only reason they saw it was there's a little bit of horn sticking up out of the dirt and they didn't even know they were standing on it 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

Speaker 25 someone found a leg here a few weeks ago down in that area when they were berry 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

Speaker 18 there was a

Speaker 25 I don't know who started some rumor about you know Jake may have done something because they are roommates in the same house and

Speaker 25 I knew that obviously isn't anywhere close to ever happening because I know Jake very well and

Speaker 25 Those two's ages were so far apart they just lived in the same house. They really didn't hang out or or anything.
They just were roommates in there

Speaker 25 That's about the only rumors

Speaker 25 I heard on that stuff. Everybody just thinks it's a bear probably a bear got him or something

Speaker 10 I talked to fishing game and they said there's never been a fatal bear mowing on the Seward Peninsula.

Speaker 25 Not fatal.

Speaker 1 There's a guy walking around

Speaker 25 I didn't know he was getting married until this whole thing came about and people were there and I met her and all that stuff.

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 25 We'll miss our Wednesday night dinners and stuff.

Speaker 10 So what are your gut instincts about what happened to him?

Speaker 25 Part of me says it's a bear, just because this area and where he was and alone, not armed.

Speaker 25 But another part of me just seems it's a little fishy because of how he was and how intelligent he was

Speaker 25 and he did this kind of ridge running extensively and he has pictures of being on the 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

Speaker 25 But it's not a bear something just is not adding up with.

Speaker 25 I know that traffic goes back and forth a lot with drugs and alcohol.

Speaker 25 I just got a weird, you know, it's just an odd feeling that somebody's got him somewhere and it's not there or we should have found something.

Speaker 25 With that two weeks of extensive searching, we should have come up with a shoe, you know, something

Speaker 25 to show that he was in that area.

Speaker 10 Do you recall Joseph ever talking about anyone that he was having problems with and known for whatever reason?

Speaker 25 Nope. I never heard anything about anybody not liking him.

Speaker 10 You know, I've tried to call Jake 11 times late this afternoon, this evening, and every time the call fails because he's not accepting calls.

Speaker 10 And when the first investigator came out here while the search was going on and everything,

Speaker 10 he tried to interview Jake a number of times and each time, even though Jake said he would, he failed to call back.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 So, I mean, Jake really has probably the most relevant and important information of any of the people.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Do you have any idea why he's reluctant to speak with us?

Speaker 25 He's very, very quiet. Jake's very quiet and

Speaker 25 kind of reserved. I don't know if he's just,

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 25 Maybe something like that. I don't know.

Speaker 28 Has he expressed any of that?

Speaker 25 Not to me, no.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 25 I bet someone's got him somewhere else that

Speaker 25 bumped him on the road or

Speaker 25 we should have found something.

Speaker 10 Right. With all that.
You know, somebody was drinking, you know, and then they're scared.

Speaker 14 They don't know what to do.

Speaker 25 Right. It's a big area.

Speaker 10 I mean, it's it's pretty easy frankly to get rid of a body out there you know nothing here yeah right

Speaker 25 so

Speaker 10 all right this will be the end of the interview it's now 9 09 p.m

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 19 christine jake their uncle jake's mother Bonnie, Jake's stepdad, Kirk. How does any of this make sense?

Speaker 28 I feel pretty confident that Joseph's truck was being moved around on Sunday, and given Jake's statements and some of the other suspicious behavior by Jake,

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 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

Speaker 28 never saw 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.

Speaker 28 You know, he had to keep the door closed with a bungee cord.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 The whole issue of Jake lying about his whereabouts and trying to create an alibi.

Speaker 28 I mean, Jake said that he did that because he was nervous and he couldn't remember what he did that weekend.

Speaker 28 I mean we have a situation where all of this, you know, all of this work that I've done is basically work that should have been done by the troopers.

Speaker 28 But 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.

Speaker 18 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?

Speaker 14 They didn't do that.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 28 They didn't process the vehicle forensically for anything.

Speaker 15 Back in Anchorage, my producer Mike and I were reading Andy's investigative reports, learning all this information for the first time.

Speaker 40 There's no proof of anything yet, but he was his roommate, person he was living with when Joseph went missing, so it's not weird to talk to people about somebody you knew.

Speaker 21 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.

Speaker 22 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?

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 22 I just don't see the urgency of the roommate making up an alibi

Speaker 22 when you don't know he's not coming back yet. Why are you assuming that you need an alibi for anything?

Speaker 8 If he just disappeared,

Speaker 22 unless you know more than you're saying.

Speaker 4 The thing about doing a true crime podcast and investigating it in real time is that everything can change in an instant.

Speaker 8 Last night, right before I was about to publish this episode, I got a call from Joseph's sister, Selena.

Speaker 9 Since 2016, she's managed a tip line for Joseph, answering all the calls herself.

Speaker 6 There hasn't been a new call on the tip line for years.

Speaker 26 Until last night.

Speaker 19 This is the real recording, but I changed the person's voice to protect them.

Speaker 24 Yeah, what happened?

Speaker 24 An interaction that I had with her.

Speaker 24 It was after Joseph was missing in November of 2018.

Speaker 24 Christine had borrowed a phone charger from my significant other at the time.

Speaker 1 But it was my charger.

Speaker 41 So I messaged her and I said, hey, do you still have my charger? Can I come get it?

Speaker 1 I went to her house and she was so drunk.

Speaker 41 She was shit-faced.

Speaker 1 She wouldn't stop crying.

Speaker 1 She kept saying over and over,

Speaker 1 Joseph's dead. Joseph's dead.

Speaker 1 Joseph's dead.

Speaker 1 I loved him.

Speaker 1 It was a really weird interaction.

Speaker 1 And this week I was just listening to the podcast and it all clicked for me.

Speaker 41 I'm seeing how connected the Peskoya family is with all of this.

Speaker 41 The only reason I feel comfortable comfortable even sharing this is because I left Gnome now, and I know that Christine is going to know it was me who shared this information.

Speaker 41 I want you to tell Payne.

Speaker 24 I'm gonna let Payne know

Speaker 24 turning into the troopers isn't gonna do anything.

Speaker 24 I do not trust the Gnome police at all.

Speaker 24 Did you know Jake?

Speaker 24 I did.

Speaker 24 I had a really rough time when I was a teenager.

Speaker 24 And

Speaker 24 I shouldn't have been hanging out with the people I was hanging out with.

Speaker 24 And Jake was one of them.

Speaker 24 I went to a party one night at his house. All of a sudden, he started talking about Joseph.

Speaker 24 I didn't really hear what Jake was saying.

Speaker 24 But one of my friends did.

Speaker 24 And they told me to go to bed now.

Speaker 24 You're too drunk.

Speaker 24 And that was the last time I saw Jake.

Speaker 9 I too made a tip line for both Joseph Balderis and Florence Lachpialik.

Speaker 9 And there's a $50,000 reward.

Speaker 9 For over a year, I never got a single call.

Speaker 9 But then one night, all that changed.

Speaker 4 Someone was trying to reach me.

Speaker 9 Someone who doesn't want anyone to know who they are.

Speaker 6 For me, it's created a sense of paranoia.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 15 So, despite my own fears, I'm choosing to be their friend.

Speaker 19 And this is where this season of the podcast is taking a permanent turn.

Speaker 4 Because my newfound friend has a whole lot to say.

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Speaker 1 Hi Payne. I have a story.
I think you'll find it interesting.

Speaker 1 It was a couple months after Joseph went missing that summer in 2016.

Speaker 1 That night, I went to a house party. It was at Jake's house, the same house where Joseph used to live.

Speaker 1 There was a bunch of people there. We were all hanging out.
But I only had one beer that night. Something was off.

Speaker 1 The vibe in that house was different to pain.

Speaker 1 I could feel it.

Speaker 1 It was late. Everyone was drinking, and there was a group of people crowded around in Jake's room.

Speaker 1 I was standing in the doorway, and Jake was sitting on his bed.

Speaker 1 He looked up at me. He said, do you know who Joseph Balderis is?

Speaker 1 At first, I was confused. I told Jake I never knew him.

Speaker 1 The room got quiet, and Jake said, he was my roommate, but now he's missing.

Speaker 1 Then he turned his head and held both of his hands in the air.

Speaker 1 I was scared.

Speaker 1 He made a gesture, like he was holding a rifle.

Speaker 1 And he pretended to look down the scope.

Speaker 1 He stood there, frozen, still pretending to hold a rifle in his hands, just staring down the barrel.

Speaker 1 Jake said, he's still missing.

Speaker 1 The room got completely silent.

Speaker 1 Pop.

Speaker 1 He pretended to pull the trigger, like he fired the rifle.

Speaker 1 It was terrifying.

Speaker 1 And his friend sitting next to him made no reaction at all.

Speaker 1 None of them said anything.

Speaker 1 It was in that moment I knew I needed to get out of there.

Speaker 1 I left in a hurry and ran back to my house.

Speaker 1 I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It's been eight years now,

Speaker 1 and I've never stopped thinking about that moment.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Would you like to know their names, Payne?

Speaker 9 If you want ad-free episodes, you can do so by joining Tinderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or just go to Tinderfootplus.com.

Speaker 19 If you really want to engage in the conversation here, by all means, go join the Up and Vanished Discord.

Speaker 9 I put a link to the Discord in the episode description.

Speaker 4 Also, we're going to start releasing bonus content from this season exclusively for Tinderfoot Plus subscribers.

Speaker 15 So be on the lookout for some bonus stuff this week.

Speaker 6 Also, if you want to stalk me on Instagram, it's at PainLindsy. And if you're not already, you should definitely follow up and Vanish on Instagram at Up and Vanished.

Speaker 4 See you next week.

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

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