12 | The Roommate

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2:55audiences 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.

3:39From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, Chapter 2. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey.

3:57What 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. 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.

4:39I 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.

4:55The 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. You 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.

5:23The 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 that happened, people are going to fill it with whatever they want.

5:59The 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. 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.

6:30When 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 live 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.

7:14and 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.

8:00Jake, when was the last time that you were in the truck?

8:08The only time I ever got in it was to jump start my dad's car. Okay. When was that?

8:19Really June. June? Okay. Did you drive it at all that weekend? You 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?

8:36When 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.

8:51The 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 fiancée, Megan, early in the morning on Saturday, June 25th. Jake's version of events just didn't add up. There's something else I want to ask you, and this is completely up to you.

9:32This is another step we want to take to try to eliminate any suspicion of you. I've got an iPhone. All these guys have iPhones. We call, we text, we use the internet data, that kind of stuff. 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 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 4-H. I have to be at work in 10 minutes. 10 minutes? I have my equipment in the truck.

10:07I can bring it in right now. Because if we can do this and get this to you, that would be because we're leaving. 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. Is this an iPhone 6? 6S? I believe it's a 6S. 6S. Jake went to work, the troopers got the data, returned his cell phone, and left Noam 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.

10:47And 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.

11:33He 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 home for a try. 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.

12:11I 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, Jake, is to me it seems like either you're lying now because you're covering it, covering it for something that you don't want to tell us that for, 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 text, the state troopers talked to his friends, and they denied ever being with him.

12:51This 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. You know, there was something else that was going on, and I got to 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 fellows who weren't there.

13:32Why would somebody come up with that? I'm a Trooper, I didn't know what to say. It was like one of the first times I was going to say Trooper, it was kind of different.

13:47So 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. it. That alone should have opened a murder investigation, right? Maybe he just panicked and made up a story.

14:37But 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 8 p.m. and 1.30 a.m. on Saturday night still remains a mystery.

15:38We'll be right back.

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16:32His 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.

17:10Then his mother saw him drive by.

17:17Then 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.

18:11and 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.

18:58And 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 to what he drove. So I just didn't think anything of the truck. But we thought, I wonder why he didn't stop by it because it was about time to eat. Normally he probably would 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.

19:31It was, I think, around 3 o 'clock in the afternoon or something like that. I think 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. 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 when I'm buying. 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.

20:15I didn't even know he had a vehicle until then. But same one that was parked on there. 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. And Jake saw him at like, I don't know what he said, 130 or something.

21:02Yeah. Yeah. So that's weird. It is, yeah. We've been thinking the same thing. It's like we've been trying to add all this stuff up too. We're like, what?

21:18What do you think the explanation is? the only thing i can think of is maybe he came back into town just made a quick run into town to get stuff like more maybe more fishing supplies or dry clothes or something 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 by again 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 was the driver the only occupant Yeah. Yep, only just one person in there.

22:00The 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 for him. That's odd. He wouldn't have got his phone working. Yeah, he was pretty into responding to mine. Yeah, he was a little responsible. Do you have any idea what he was doing out there at mile 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.

22:40We 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 is the easiest, least resistant. Yeah. Go down the road, cross a bridge. I've climbed that ridge and paraglided off of that before. So it's a real easy climb. 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.