13 | To Risk, We Must

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2:16Up 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.

2:51To laugh is to risk appearing before. To weep is to risk appearing sentiments. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk expressing our true self. To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk failure. But to risk, we must. Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man, the woman who risk nothing, does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

4:08I'm taking a risk. Are you willing to take a risk too, pain?

4:42señor licARIANCE verkуд TINDRAFOOT TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, Chapter 2. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey.

5:00The weekend Joseph went missing has slowly become full of major contradictions. And here's the thing. People do forget things, or they simply misremember. But when these discrepancies continue mounting and begin to form a pattern. It begs the question, is someone actually lying? And if they are, at this point, eight years later, I want a pretty damn good reason why. And so does Joseph's family. And directly in the middle of all things that didn't make sense was Joseph's roommate, Jake. 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.

5:50And 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.

6:22The state troopers found this ship pretty weird too.

6:35set my equipment up right here, and I could just download the contents. They were suspicious. It didn't make sense to them. But they offered Jake a way to clear himself. 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. 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. If Jake saw Joseph alive and well on Sunday afternoon, then why would Jake even need to lie about Saturday to begin with?

7:18If Jake was hiding something, well, what exactly could it be? 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. and then they told me that they weren't with you or that didn't happen. 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. I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do. I can't understand how somebody would know right up until the point that they made it home.

7:55But then you just hung out for four hours, you didn't do anything else? I dealt with that man on a Saturday night. 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. In a murder investigation, you have to make sense of these kinds of things. I mean, come on. If you lie to the cops in a murder investigation, you're making yourself look suspicious. 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.

8:35I 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. And now they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case.

8:56If I worked in law enforcement, which I do not, I could only imagine that if a true crime podcaster came poking around my case, it'd be pretty annoying. I'd probably hate me too. But I also imagine that I'd probably reflect on my own investigation as an officer. I didn't come to Nome to talk about solved cases. I came here because the families told me law enforcement wasn't doing anything anymore. All I can do is ask questions and try to find out myself. But things got off to a pretty rocky start. Within the first 30 seconds, I stepped into the known PD office. I introduced myself as someone who was trying to help by the request of the victim's families.

9:39But the investigator was immediately on the defense, playing silly, like they don't even know what a journalist is. And when I finally arranged a meeting with this investigator, the dude bailed. That's just the truth. And if you were me, you'd probably start to think, hey, I think the family might be right here. Here's an interview from the first time I met Selena, Joseph's sister, and his mother, Nelda.

10:09We had a lot of people coming to us in the beginning, a lot. We didn't want to do anything that people are just going to put a story out there. You actually go, you actually look for answers. So that is the only reason why we decided to do this podcast.

10:28I know a lot of people know what happened to him. Everybody's scared of law enforcement. They do away with people all the time. There's so many missing people in Nome. I do not think at all that Joseph's death was an accident. Know that he was murdered. Why did they not look into everything? It sounds terrible. Sometimes I feel like law enforcement knows what happened. Why would they not be telling you? They don't want to step on anybody's toes either. it's very terrible and I feel bad because I love my brother so much for a while there really was hard to live life it was just constantly in your mind and you just feel so guilty that you know that something happened to him and there's nothing we can do we can't find him we've gone to the governor we've talked to the FBI we've gone everywhere we've talked to um representatives We've done so many things and it's always a dead end.

11:41My mom cries for my brother every single day. I do feel like all the answers are there, but we don't know how to find them. We need somebody like you guys to put the pieces together. Sometimes I feel like some of the troopers did think that he was murdered. We don't even call anymore. because there's always nothing.

12:10When I was back in Nome, I stopped by the Alaska State Trooper's office, located right downtown on Front Street. And after buzzing the doorbell for a few minutes, a trooper finally opened the door for us. We're journalists from Atlanta. Who from the troopers here in Nome could speak to us about Baldera's case?

12:34I mean, I guess I'm not sure. I mean, any one trooper can talk to you, but I don't know how productive that would be. You know what I mean? We're not... I don't even... I remember it happening, but I don't... I wasn't paying attention because I was strictly involved with investigating other cases. Sure, but if it's still the trooper's case, I'd love to speak to someone who could... Do you have like a card or something? Yeah, a card, yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm not sure. I don't know how much of a quality interview any of us would get, really. Is there, like, a particular agent who is in charge of this case now?

13:13There's no case officer anymore, really. I mean, it kind of depends. If a call comes in and someone has information, then it would usually come either... Well, it depends on who gets it, I mean, and then we would follow up on the information that's provided. So there really isn't an investigator here? For cases like that? No. Okay. Interesting.

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14:18Let's do this. One of the best Marvel movies of all time is now streaming on Disney Plus. Hey, you weren't listening to me. I said, Thunderbolts, The New Avengers is now streaming on Disney Plus. Meet the new Avengers. That's cool, man. Marvel Studios, Thunderbolts, the new Avengers, rated PG-13. Now streaming on, you guessed it, Disney+. In last week's episode, you heard an interview with a man named Kirk, Jake's stepdad, who claims he saw Joseph's truck fly by their camp on Sunday afternoon. A story that seems pretty strange, given everything else we know about Joseph and how he stopped responding to people on Saturday morning.

14:58On that same day, Andy also interviewed Kirk's wife, Bonnie, who was apparently also there when they saw the truck. Bonnie is also Jake's mother. All right, this will be an interview between Andy Klamzer and Bonnie Reynolds. It's the 29th of September, 2016. The time's now 9.09 p.m., and we're at Bonnie's home in Nome. Can you tell me how well you knew Joseph and how you met him? I met him through my niece, Christine Pascoya. She was working at the courthouse, and my mom would have a Wednesday night dinner where they have Eskimo food, and she ended up bringing Joseph over there, and that's where we met him.

15:43Tell me your general impressions of Joseph. He was a very, very nice guy, very friendly. you know and all the times that we would have dinner at my mom's or see him in passing he was always very very nice. Do you recall seeing him at any point during the weekend that he disappeared? The weekend? That was the weekend of the June 25th. Hi. That were made. Oh, I thought there.

16:22That had to be the Sunday. We were at camp, and I'd seen his vehicle drive by. We were outside working on the addition at camp, and I remember saying to Kirk, How do you mean he didn't stop?

16:45About what time was that? That had to be around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, probably. How fast was he going? I guess it would have to be maybe 40 to 50. Was it faster than normal? Nope. How sure are you that it was Joseph? driving? I don't know if it was. I couldn't tell you if it was Joseph or not, but I know it was his car. I went between the glare and the way I don't even think the sun was shining, but with the glare, I couldn't tell if it was him or not. Was there just one person in the car? I couldn't tell you that either. And the truck didn't go back by? No, and that's that was my thought was, okay, well, maybe he'll stop by on the way home.

17:41So did Jake mention to you seeing Joseph at the house Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon? When I first had asked him on Monday, I got a call from the courthouse, and they knew that Jake and Joseph lived in my mom's house. They had asked me, hey, you know, can you call Jake and see maybe when the last time you saw Joseph? Because he hasn't shown up to work. It's not like him to not show up. So when I had called Jake and asked him, he said it had to be around one, and it was just in passing. Remember anything else he said? He, and I said, well, do you remember what he was wearing? He said, no, I mean, we didn't really even talk that much.

18:26I mean, the age gap was, you know, so big that they didn't really hang out. I mean, Jake's still a young kid. Right.

18:43Did Stan seem pretty certain that he saw the truck parked at the house on Sunday morning when he was on his way to the airport? Yes. So it wasn't like a maybe? No, no. No, and it kind of surprised me because Joseph had been there for a while, and I guess he just didn't notice, you know, that that truck was there. And so he asked whose truck is that? Yep. Do you know of anyone else who saw Joseph on Sunday? I don't know that anybody else saw him. Do you know of anybody who might have seen him on Saturday night? other than christine in that afternoon when they were at the beach i don't know that either i don't know who one of the things is odd is that megan had called him and left messages and texted him and christine had called him a number of times and left messages and texts and if he came back to know him it would be very unlike him to not return any of those right when she came down to camp Saturday, she had mentioned that she had called Joseph because they were, they, she called him back after they were hanging out at the beach to tell him, hey, you know, we're going to camp.

19:57We're having a big dinner or barbecue. Why don't you come down? And that's when she said that he, she left him a message because he didn't answer. About come stopping by the camp. Right. Was Jake out at that dinner?

20:14No. Any idea what he was doing on Saturday night? I don't know. Any idea when he got home Saturday night? No. Do you think it's possible that someone did something to Joseph versus a bear getting him? I think with a bear, you know, listening to a lot of the elders talk, I think with a bear, they're not going to eat clothing or shoes or backpacks. I know when he was running, he'd always have his backpack on him. I mean, even in town, I'd see him running with his backpack. I think there would have been something come off of him. I've heard of people standing on a buried animal or something and not even knowing.

21:07And not realizing it? Yeah, not realizing it. Oh, really? I've never seen anything. A cache? Yeah. It's just hard to imagine nobody finding anything. Right. You know, it's just... And that was one of the things that we, you know, as we're flying around down there, we would do grids up and down that whole area. And that's what I was looking for, for, you know, a new bear dig. Where, you know, the ground was obviously torn up. Right. And not seeing really much of anything. Have you heard any rumors about what might have happened to him? There are, there were rumors, especially after absolutely nothing, you know, no evidence, no nothing was found.

21:53There were a lot of rumors that both my mom and I had heard was that because Jake was his roommate, there's no evidence. A lot of rumors were that Jake did something to him. And that's one of the things that, you know, we don't want to contribute to that kind of stuff, you know. Right. Right, and I mean, these rumors went as far as, you know, Jake got into drugs and was seen in and out of drug houses, him and his girlfriend, and Joseph found out, and he questioned him about it and got into it, whatever, and Jake ended up doing something. I mean, that's how... Basically, just people making up stuff.

22:34Right, right. So it doesn't sound like he talked much about his relationship with Meg, at least with you guys. Not with me. I know Christine had known about her. Right. But I didn't know anything about it. I talked with Christine today. She's still very, you know, emotional and sensitive about all this. Yeah. Yep, she is. She, I mean, it's funny, but not funny, but she gets anxiety very easily. And, you know, when she had talked to the troopers, you know, back when this was going on, and then the ABI guy came up and talked to him also. She had a tough time talking about it. And the problem is that Jake probably has the most relevant and important information of anybody and even little details that he may not recognize as significant could fit with other facts that we know about and help in sort of solving this mystery.

23:35Do you have any sense of why he doesn't want to speak with us?

23:42I think with Jake, even with talking to me, talking about what did Joseph say, what was he wearing, do you remember what time, trying to pull details out from him. I think he would get really irritated that a lot of people were asking him, and he finally just told me, Liz, we're just roommates. We just lived in the same house, period. We didn't hang out. We didn't even talk. We barely even said hi to each other. I tried to call Jake 11 times this afternoon and this evening, and each time the call failed because he wasn't accepting calls. And the first investigator that came out here during the search had tried to interview Jake a number of times, and he said that Jake would agree to speak with him and then not show up or not return the call and even ran into him in a bar one night and he said he would talk with him and then, you know, didn't.

24:53He's still a kid. He's still learning how to be a grown-up.

25:01The private investigator Andy Klamzer had a mounting list of red flags after seemingly every interview he did. And at this point in time, the biggest question mark was Joseph's roommate, Jake. The lying, the trying to create alibis, the disappearing and reappearing rifle that was inside his apartment. And he also called this dude 11 times. No answer. 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.