17 | Bad Blood

24:32So he's dead. He's dead somewhere. So he was pulling him. Joe. People don't believe in that stuff. When you're guilty, when you do something, you can take months, days, months, we put it out here, whatever, but it won't be one day. His spirit is still alive. But they never say what happened to him. Because his brother found his time. I look back at the obituary and they never said how he died. No, they don't what's it. When he shot himself or whatever he did himself. Because he's the only one who saw the body. By the time he called, you know, they never say it. Never. Kevin's cause of death remains a mystery.

25:22Nothing about it in his obituary. But what is known is that the first to arrive to the scene were his family members, not the paramedics. Plenty of rumors floating around out there about this. Nothing concrete, but the story is always the same. Rumors of a crown liquor bottle, pills, and some sort of suicide note. Again, all just rumors. But what I can say is that I heard from a paramedic who was at the scene hours after the family had been there. The one thing they recalled was the smell. And sorry to be graphic, but they felt the smell indicated to them that he had been deceased for much longer than he was reported missing for.

26:04Almost like he was put there. Just someone's observation. But it all feels eerily close and similar to Joseph Balderas. I was a radiologist up there in Nome for 16 years, from 1998 until 2015. And I think there's a lot of good cops, but there's also some bad ones, and they seem to be in a position of power. And there's so many problems up there. It's so easy for people to get away with stuff. People escaping, people running away from stuff, come to Nome because it's so far removed. Often bad people or people with bad intentions, they can come up into Nome and they can get away with stuff. Drugs.

26:50Drugs are big up there. You can sell a pill of OxyContin on the streets in St. Lawrence Island, Gamble or Savunga. Huge. I mean, alcohol makes a lot of money in these small, isolated communities with drugs even more. It's big business. Nome is a hub for 15 surrounding villages over an area the size of Ohio. People with bad intentions, they can come up into Nome and they can get away with stuff. People just don't want to speak. Tight-lipped.

27:28People share stuff with me. Then I get back with them to follow up, like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said this. There's a lot of good people up there, but there's a dark side. The corruption there goes all the way up to the mayor. Back in the early 90s, he was famous for his coke parties. Cocaine. Oh, everybody knows that. Cocaine is illegal, so it means he had to be getting it from drug dealers, which means he had the connections. A retired state of Alaska Medicaid fraud investigator said if the mayor was ever fully investigated, audited, there'd be enough financial fraud to put him behind bars for a long time.

28:15There's something wrong. I'm suspicious and other people I've talked to are that he knows what's going on in that town. I personally would not be surprised if he knows what happened to Florence and what happened to Boulder. There's a good old boy network up there. They rub each other's back and do all kinds of stuff. And the corruption is at the very top, exploits vulnerable people.

28:45You can get into power up there and you just realize that you can get away with so much. Because the people that you can control, people that grew up there, they lived there in Nome, their families are there, their job is there, their kids are there, they can't go anywhere. They can't speak up against these power structures and that's why the hospital there is so corrupt. I was the radiologist at the hospital in Nome, basically the only medical specialist in town. The CEO at the time was a sexual predator. The first person I found out he groped was my radiology director. Reaching under the blouse, grabbing the breast, and then two other women in radiology were also groped, breasts and crotches.

29:29I brought all three of these women to go to the police and make a statement. This is sexual assault. It's crime. I have their names, I've talked with them, and I went with them to the police. The police chief at the time, police chief in Nome, and an investigation was started. I called the medical director in to my office. The hospital immediately went into cover-up mode. The CEO lasted three days. It was reported that he had tendered his resignation. That's a euphemism for, you know, being fired, but it was a tendered resignation. Once he attended his resignation, Carol Pascoya was appointed acting CEO.

30:11Did you talk to Carol? I'll get to them. Carol Pascoya became the acting CEO, and everyone in the hospital was told not to talk about this. The CEO groped these women outside the hospital, so what happens outside the hospital stays outside the hospital. It doesn't come in in the hospital. We were not supposed to talk about it. Three sexual assaults. These are crimes. You don't turn the page on crimes. Sexual assaults are felonies, by the way. You idiot. Lonnie Pascoya. Did you ever talk to Lonnie? He was a state trooper, and he's now in charge of missing and murdered indigenous people. Carol Pascoya, grandmother of Jake and Christine, and the mother of Kevin.

30:57She also has a son, Lonnie Pascoya, who was appointed as the lead MMIW investigator for the entire state. I emailed Lonnie all the way back in January, before this podcast was even out, saying, Your work with MMIW is really strong and admirable. We're doing a podcast about Florence Okpialik, and we'd love to talk to you. Nine months later, I've yet to get a response. Lonnie Pascoya is a retired state trooper. his mother, Carol Pascoya, obstructed a police investigation in multiple assaults. What if Lonnie's investigations take him anywhere close to his mother or to the mayor? He's going to have a conflict of interest.

31:39I don't know where you look. They're all tied together. And they're covering for each other. They tried to run me out of town for years. I stirred the pot by reporting a crime, which you don't do. Because they like to handle things in-house. I finally just left on my own because I just got tired of the corruption up there. I had no respect for anybody. The Pascoyas. There was that one Pascoya, Kevin Pascoya, I think. Joseph Boldares was having a relationship with Christine. Kevin Pascoya knew something or was mad, but there's something going on there. Lonnie might be okay, but, I mean, is he going to go against his mother and the mayor?

32:23No. You got all these people and none of them are going to want to talk because pull one domino out and the whole thing collapses. There's a den of darkness and corruption up there and you got to give people information. If you hear that something's happening, somebody's being hurt or taken advantage of or abused or stolen from, you don't just look the other way. Too many people were aware of this stuff. They're aware that this person's covering this up. They're aware that this person did this, and they don't say anything. And eventually you're going to get to the dark clit that's going to be very tight-knit, and that's where it's going to take law enforcement or somebody to turn these people against each other.

33:07I mean, if somebody said, who interacted with Joseph? What happened? What vehicles were there besides his truck? Somebody knows. It's like when you take down a serial killer, They give you information about all the other unsolved cases that they were involved in. Lonnie has seen the worst in society and he has seen the best in society. On September 19, 2022, Lonnie was hired back to the Alaska State Trooper Investigation in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Unit. Lonnie did a Zoom interview call with students last year. His goal as an investigator in this unit is to solve as many cases as possible.

33:51Thank you, and at this time, I will turn it over to Lonnie. Thanks for inviting me today. I guess the one thing that wasn't said earlier is I got four brothers and two sisters and a gazillion cousins, aunts and uncles. Of course, I think my mother's online, so she's probably chuckling by now. At the end of the interview, students asked questions. And so did his mom, Carol. Carol asks, at what point or when do you get involved with either a missing or murdered person? Missing persons from this area have been missing for years. That's my mother. Mom, I guess it's the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

34:34When you speak up about it and you call and call and ask and say, I think I have more information, then I'll get involved. Well, the phone's still ringing. Is a two-hour conversation with the last person to have seen Florence Okpeolek alive new enough information? Considering the fact he had her belongings in his tent, was never officially interviewed by police, and claims that she was murdered and put inside a barrel under a meth dealer's house in Nome? Eventually, I think we'll get to some of these cases that are not necessarily more popular, but have been publicized more out there. We're ready when you are.

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37:40Nome has had a dark history for a long time now. Long before I began investigating, a journalist by the name of Victoria McKenzie traveled to Nome to conduct her own investigation into the police department. I was working as a deputy editor for the Center on Media, Crime, and Justice in New York. I started looking into Nome and long history of public complaints about mistreatment, of Alaska Native people by police. Decade after decade, you'd hear calls by Native institutions calling for a civil rights investigation of civil rights violations and also an outside investigation of these deaths and disappearances.

38:20Women and girls in Alaska faced four times the national average of homicides. I felt it was really underreported. Around that same time, National Native News had a short report about a group of Alaska Native women who came out saying that, look, we reported serious sexual assaults to local police and they did nothing. They're not taking our cases seriously. I met Victoria in person in New York City. She recalled her experience in Nome and what she uncovered during the months she stayed there. A group of Alaska Native women had banded together seeking justice for sexual assaults that were not being investigated.

38:58What they were all saying is that they needed data to prove what was going on. They had asked for this data from the state, and it wasn't forthcoming. People wanted data on native victimization, data that tracks cases from first report through to prosecution outcome, if there's any. They'd been working for three years behind the scenes to improve police response to sexual assaults. Police interviews were really victim-blaming. In 2018, you didn't only have this one group of women, but other community members were really upset about specific incidents with police. Police officer was convicted of punching an Alaska Native woman in his custody.

39:40He continued to work in the department afterwards. There were concerns about another officer giving unauthorized ride-alongs to underage girls. And that really echoed back to what happened with Owens. Back in 2003, Nome police officer Matthew Owens was convicted for the murder of 19-year-old Sonia Ivanov. His inappropriate behavior towards Native women had been reported for a long time before then. But the Nome police department did absolutely nothing about it. They knew he was riding around, patrolling in his police cruiser, picking up young women. And at the same time, you had a 911 operator.

40:24An Alaska Native woman who was sexually assaulted reported her own assault and nothing happened. She came out in the news saying that she reported her own rape to her lieutenant, her colleague and friend, Lieutenant Nick Harvey. And he did nothing for a year. He had been the ranking officer for a long time in charge of investigations. He didn't create a call for service or a police report. And meanwhile, he told her he was working on the case. John Papasadora, who had been with the Nome Police Department since 2007, you did see him in the news talking about the lack of financial resources for policing and the high turnover rates.

41:05Obviously, they were turning people away. If he's saying, you know, we don't have enough resources. But was that the whole story? I spoke with people who had worked under him in the department. One was a sergeant, Sergeant Stotts. He had conducted his own investigations, he said, of Lieutenant Harvey. He felt that Harvey had been promoted without any reason to do so, and that he, Stotts, had experienced retaliation every time he tried to report nonsense. What he called shoddy police work, not going out on serious sexual assaults, serious felony assaults, and also what he called like good old boy network.

41:43What he eventually did was quit, file a complaint, and that's before the 911 operator was assaulted. She had reported her rape to Lieutenant Nick Harvey, and he did nothing about it for a year. And then the chief knew about it too. The ACLU filed this equal protection suit on behalf of the 911 operator. Known police eventually settled the lawsuit for$750 ,000. I can't say why there was never a report made or a call for service made. You'd have to ask them. They didn't really respond either. So the complaint was on behalf of this one 911 operator who's Alaska Native, being part of a pattern and practice of discrimination against Alaska Natives and against women in Nome.

42:29She was looking for vindication of her own rights to equal protection, but also all of the other women in Nome. didn't feel safe anymore for valid reasons. It stalled for a long time because the city wouldn't turn over discovery. They had to get a court order to turn over discovery. And still, after the court order, they didn't give it. I've heard from the police officer who was hired to replace Matthew Clay Owens. She had been ordered several times to drop cases of sexual assaults for reasons like, oh, the victim had been drinking, the victim, a 14-year-old girl, was not a virgin, or, oh, I know the suspect, he's a good guy, he doesn't have sex with minors, he only takes, you know, he gets adults drunk and takes them out to the tundra and has sex with them.

43:21She was the lone female officer at the time. She was trying to investigate sexual assaults, sexual assaults against minors, sexual assaults against adults, and, you know, was having this experience over and over again. She had written a lengthy document to every single city council member when she left, turned over documentation on falsified reports, everything she had seen going on there. The city knew what was going on. There's just no way to deny that. It was overwhelming, and I was really aware of how traumatizing it was for people to talk to me. There were people who, you know, withdrew from the whole story process.

44:02I had sources who had a mental health crisis and didn't want to continue. And we have the numbers to show what was happening. We have the police reports and the lack of police reports to show what's happening. We have the medical reports to show what's happening. It's lazy to just go up to somebody and have them cry into a microphone. I spoke to the former 911 operator on the phone.

44:54I love Victoria. bear had gotten him. One remark that he did make to me was, do you think I'm stupid? And I'm like, well, you know, it's kind of common sense. If a bear had gotten him, where's his shoes? Where's his toys? This is why I was a dispatcher. These were conversations that I walked in on. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that policing in Alaska has never changed. Despite new money, new investigators, lawsuits, initiatives, the good old boys have remained in place. Florence Okpialik? Mm-hmm. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I talked to you about that one, too.

45:41Florence Okpialik, a native gal, disappeared from the West Beach there. You know what her last words were? They picked it up off her cell phone. Her last words were, there's four of them in the bushes. and it doesn't look good.

45:59I told the troopers up there, you need to get a hold of her phone and do a forensic thing. She was hanging out with some guy named Oregon John, a meth guy, I guess, who was supplying her with meth, and she was into drugs. I called to talk to the investigator up there at NPD. We talked about Oregon John, and he thought that Oregon John was the main suspect. Why would the lead MMIW investigator for the entire state of Alaska completely disregard Florence Okpeolek's disappearance?

46:41It's time to revisit the disappearance of Florence Okpeolek. There is a recognition amongst the Native community that they have not been always treated very well in Nome. Nome has this very different history, and yet Native people have been here and been part of Nome's history from the very beginning. Flo hadn't come home one night. She'd been taken down to some of these tent camps. Blair went down the beach to try to find her sister. This guy gives her some of Flo's clothes, but she's not there. I just know he was a cab driver in town and a lot of people didn't like him. Well, we know who this guy is.

47:33He goes by Oregon John. Whether it was intentional or an effort to shut her up, she's clearly been murdered. The cat's coming out of the bag. There are other names in this case. I don't know these people, but you don't hear anything good about a fellow named Mike McGowan or Paul Benchoff Jr. Alongside Org and John, two other men have been named. Rumors are they're into meth. There's different stories that there's other people involved with John Girton. and Michael McGowan is one of them. He was a druggie. I had previously censored their names, but no longer. They were Paul Benchoff and Michael McGowan.

48:22If somebody abducts us, scratch them, pull our hair out, leave as much evidence as you can behind it, and rely on the public to find them. Not the police department, because they're not capable or willing to. I've got a couple friends who were beaten up by them, but they were too scared to go forward. Blair, Flo's sister. Do you know who she was with? John Curtin. And who were the other guys? Paul Benchoff. Yeah. Michael McCowan.

48:57He was standing by John Curtin's son a couple days later. He got busted for drugs. Who did? This guy? Yeah, this guy.

49:08If you had the names of these people, why aren't the police doing anything about it? They never listen. They don't listen to us.

49:20You know, why didn't the police talk to all these people?

49:29The theory that I think the city wanted to work on was that she'd gotten really drunk, left the tents, tried to walk back to Dome, and passed out and died of hypothermia somewhere. Until a body's found, every search starts where the person was last seen. Why would her belongings be there and her not be there? It's all part of the mystery, isn't it? Well, they may have been known for their gold, but they're also known for their drugs, so... They're not old miners, they're troublemakers. I think the drug dealers got away with murder.

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52:34In late October 2020, just two months after Florence went missing, the Alaska State Troopers, alongside the FBI, conducted a large-scale drug bust in Nome. seizing heroin and methamphetamine, resulting in the arrests of eight people. And two of those people were Paul Benchoff and Michael McGowan. When I spoke to the former 911 operator for MPD, who was sexually assaulted and sued the department, she recalled a peculiar incident that transpired shortly after Joseph went missing. It was right around the time that Joseph had gone missing. Every time I brought it up at work,

53:40It's time to start piecing this all together. I have Christine Pascoya's phone records for that weekend, and in it, there are numerous calls to a random phone number during the day Friday, Friday night, again after midnight, and around 6 a.m. on Saturday. All these calls to a random guy she's not even friends with on Facebook. A man named Tom Vaden. This is Josie, a local gnome, who has helped Josie's family with the investigation for years. Looking at Christine Pascuia's phone records, several phone calls back and forth to that number early in the evening, then late in the evening. Tom Baden, volunteer ambulance department, EMT, also a professional bear hunting guide.

54:35I remember thinking, did Joseph get hurt? Did Christine call Tom Baden to get medical assistance? It bothered me so much that I called him. I said, Tom, why would Christine be calling you at these times of the morning, the morning that Joseph disappeared? He said, well, that was my old home phone number, the landline. He was married at the time. They had slid up. Apparently, she kept the house and the phone number, the landline. And what Tom Baden had said was, that was my old house, that was my old landline, and it was a known drug house. I've seen these messages myself. So, essentially, the number Christine was calling all hours of the night Joseph went missing was a landline number.

55:31and it belonged to a house not too far from where Joseph lived, a house known amongst the locals as the drug-dealing house. If they were up till 2, 3 in the morning and then somebody calls at 6.51 in the morning and then at 9.30 in the morning, all those phone calls at strange hours just said to me, like, somebody was up all night and I just thought, you know, were they... I don't know. I never knew Joseph to be into drugs. And I don't, none of them, have I known them to be into drugs? But you just never know, right?

56:10The timing of it all. Things are pretty consistent up until the time. Kim says she left them for breakers. She took a cab ride home. And then it was just Joseph and Christine.

56:26Maybe they went out that night to talk about him moving to Juneau and he was going to be getting married to Megan and maybe it was accidental after all, but whether it was between Jake and Christine, Kevin swooped in and maybe it was accidental after all. It was a known drug house. Both Florence Ogpialik and Joseph Balderas disappeared under very different circumstances, But two years into this investigation, I've found an uncanny connection they both have. Joseph was last seen with Christine, and apparently she went to the beach with him the next day. But other than that, it's only members of the Pascuia family themselves who claim to have seen Joseph anywhere.

57:10Christine and Joseph were together past 2 a.m. on Friday night, and Christine made six or more phone calls to a landline number linked to a house in town known for its drug dealing. Who was living in the house at that time? Were they selling drugs that night? I found a man who was living there. During the time of both Joseph and Florence's disappearance, who in October of 2020 was arrested for distribution of narcotics in Nome, a man who is now on the run with an active warrant for his arrest, a man named Michael McGowan, the same man named as an associate of Oregon John on the night of Flo's disappearance.

57:49I don't know these people, but you don't hear anything good about a fellow named Mike McGowan. Rumors are they're into meth. Other people involved with John Gerton. Michael McGowan is one of them. He was a druggie. Do you know who she was with? John Gerton. And who are the other guys? Michael McGowan.

58:16We've talked to Oregon John. who said some weird things to say the least, and also some accusations of his own. I believe that most of what John told me is a lie. But tucked away deep in there, there may just be a few kernels of truth. Remember what John said? And a girl come and hung out in my tent one night, and she walked off somewhere, and somebody kidnapped her and murdered her. The whole town thought I murdered her. The FBI had to come in, they cleared me. They found her buried under the dude's house, the meth dealer, and they thought I did it, so I bounced. I was the last person to see her alive, besides the guy that killed her.

58:58Besides Michael McGowan? What else does John know that he's not saying? Since part one of this season, I've been sent hundreds of emails about Oregon John. He was a cab driver in Nome before Florence went missing. And one person had a terrifying experience during one of those cab rides. and they sent me a video of it.

59:46This is too much drama for your mama. I don't think this has been going on for the last half time. Five people came over trying to beat me up because I called the cop when I did beating his wife. They came from so much like that over the way I was. Check your cap. What the fuck? Yeah, it's going to be a while. I'm the only cap. The other one just left on me. I don't know where it is. Check your cap. With Michael McGowan on the run, I need to try and talk to Oregon John again. But this time, as the real me.

1:00:35Hello?

1:00:39John. Yeah. Yes. This is Payne Lindsey. Okay. Payne Lindsey. I'm the podcast guy. Oh.

1:00:55How's it going? Same shit, different day. Question for you. Would you ever be down to sit down one-on-one and just talk to me about everything?

1:01:14We can set the terms and, you know, make it comfortable for both of us, you know. You know, all I have is the truth. You know, that's it. Well, let's talk about that. We'll meet up. We'll talk and we'll set something up. I appreciate this. Got some stories for you. You have no idea.

1:01:44One of the hardest parts about doing this investigation in real time as the podcast is coming out is the game of chess we're playing in the background. When do we say certain things that we know? And I've decided it's time to reveal some details I think the community itself could help us with. Weeks after Joseph Balderas went missing, on June 25th, his credit card was used five different times, in Nome, on July 8th, 9th, 11th, 13th, and 14th. This was literally while his family was in Nome searching for him. Somebody had his credit card and was using it. Joseph's mother was able to track down the physical receipts from the store, where all these purchases were made.

1:02:33It's called Bonanza Express, a convenience store on the corner next to where Joseph used to live. I have the dates of birth of these alleged individuals who made these purchases because they're on the receipts. But after investigating this to the fullest extent, it seems likely that whoever was working the counter just punched in random dates. And that happens. But the purchases that were made each time were always the same things. Here's what they were. 12-ounce cans of Red Bull. Pretty common. 16-ounce cans of a monster energy drink called Mad Dog. A lighter. And every time, boxes and boxes of menthol cigarettes of the brand Kool.

1:03:21K-O-O-L. So, I'm asking the community. Who smoked Kool menthol cigarettes in Nome, Alaska in the summer of 2016? Not everyone, I'm sure, but we're looking for you, and we're going to find you. We're going to take one more break, simply so we can continue this investigation into both of these cases. But this season as a whole is far from over, and we're coming back with a final installment in just a few months. The community engagement this season has been amazing. And as a team, we want to thank all of you for your support. On November 10th in Atlanta, Georgia, I'll be hosting an Up and Vanished live event.

1:04:08And all the ticket proceeds will be donated back to the family's reward fund. So if you're in Atlanta or you want to make the drive or flight there, come see me on November 10th at Terminal West. I'd love to meet you all in person and discuss these cases in a much deeper way. I'll be sharing exclusive video interviews from the season, tape that has not yet been released, and give you a complete behind-the-scenes look of our investigation. We'd love to see you. If you want to come, you can get tickets now by going to upandvanished.com slash tickets. This is a one-night event only, November 10th in Atlanta.

1:04:48and you can get tickets now by going to upandvanish.com slash tickets. The link is also in the description. All proceeds from the show are being donated back to the family's reward fund. We'll be back soon with the third and final installment of this season. But if you want a sneak peek of what's to come, come see us in Atlanta, November 10th at Terminal West. Link to tickets are in the description. Just go to upandvanish.com slash tickets. Thanks for listening. See you soon.

1:05:47Lead producer is Mike Rooney, along with producers Dylan Harrington and Cooper Skinner. Editing by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner, with additional editing by Dylan Harrington. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Victoria McKenzie, Alice Kanik-Glen, and Eric Quintana. Artwork by Rob Sheridan. 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.

1:06:22For more podcasts like Up and Vanished, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.

1:07:00The Limu Emu need at libertymutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts. In 2007, a man was murdered in a quiet Memphis suburb. The case was closed fast, maybe too fast. I've spent the past year retracing the investigation, following the evidence and the lives that were forever changed. What I found wasn't just a case. It was a story too important to stay buried. I'm Stephanie Tinsley, and this is Everything They Missed, a new true crime investigation. Episodes drop weekly. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.