3 | Oregon Jon

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0:50There have always been and continues to be mixed messages about COVID. But over 7 million lives have been lost with no real accountability. My name is Payne Lindsey and this is Leaked. A deep dive to uncover answers about COVID-19. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is released every Friday and brought to you absolutely free. But for ad-free listening, exclusive bonuses, and early access starting next week, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts.

1:31you're listening to up and vanished in the midnight sun a production of tenderfoot tv in association with odyssey the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating this podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone listener discretion is advised

2:08Previously on Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun. August 31st, 2020, Florence Akbialik is reported missing. Do you feel like the police have done enough to solve her case? No. It feels and looks like they haven't done anything. If there's not some sort of accountability with the police department, this could easily get swept under the rug. She had reportedly last been seen on West Beach. And I have to be honest, I've gone to party at West Beach before. Okay. There's a lot of people that would migrate from the bars down to the beach. Somebody knows something and covered it up. That beach is very popular for gold miners.

2:59But I do know that she was supposedly last seen with this guy. They found her things in his tent. The gentleman who owned the tent, the miner, this miner may have been involved. I don't know the guy's name. Where the guy went, I don't know. This guy, I just know he was a cab driver in town and a lot of people didn't like him. He was a drug dealer and then he was a cab driver for Checker Cab. He dropped everybody else off but her. And he says, you know what, I could have killed you and nobody would have known about it. This guy gives her some of Flo's clothes, but she's not there. Why would her belongings be there and her not be there?

3:53It's all part of the mystery, isn't it? Whether it was intentional or an effort to shut her up, she's clearly been murdered. Which bar was she at last? B.O.T. That's the one right on Front Street. It's the oldest bar downtown. She said, I got a guy in the bar saying, Flo, is that West Beach? There was problems with a cab driver and he followed me. He pulled out a knife. This guy, his name starts with J. The man is a dangerous man. She'd been missing for two days. There was a man, and I kind of knew him because he was a cab driver. He was sitting here drinking and he was talking about an incident that was going on with his girlfriend.

4:45And he was saying she'd gotten a restraining order on something, something, something. He turned around and said, I seen her down West Week. She was partying with some of the miners down there. And she had stopped by his tent and was talking to him. Her cell phone and shoes being found outside of a tent. Her items were around his tent. One of the last people to see her, if not the last. You ever seen him since all those? He moved shortly after that. He took off. What was the name that you knew him about?

5:17Oregon John. What do you think happened to her? Pretty sure somebody murdered her.

5:46From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, I'm your host Payne Lindsey, and this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun.

6:04In the case of Florence Okpialik's disappearance, the biggest lead I have is this mysterious gold miner who was camped along West Beach in Nome. He was reportedly seen by multiple witnesses taking flow to and from West Beach on the night she vanished, and her personal belongings were found outside his tent the next morning. As of right now, here's what we know about him. He's a middle-aged white guy, potentially overweight, and in addition to being a freelance gold miner, he allegedly drove a cab in town. I heard multiple first-hand accounts of scary run-ins with the cab driver, who also fits this loose description.

6:46A friend of Flo's Aunt Wendy described an incident where she was picked up by a man in a cab, and he told her he could have killed her that night and gotten away with it. Another story from a lady I met at the local board of trade bar involved a cab driver of a similar description, who allegedly was following her one night, and threatened her with a knife. And a man meeting the same description told the bartender Naomi, just two days after Florence went missing, that she had gone to West Beach that night. and as far back as I can trace, it's the first time that anyone ever mentions that Florence went to West Beach.

7:21This is intimate knowledge that only someone who was with Flo that night she went missing could have possibly known. This same man at the bar was also a cab driver and he admitted to the bartender that he was in fact with her that night on the beach and the personal belongings they found were outside of his tent. According to the bartender Naomi, his nickname is Oregon John. And right now, above all else, he's my number one focus. What's Oregon John's real name? And where is he now? Upon replaying the recording of Naomi, there was one thing in particular that really stood out to me. She had stopped by his tent and was talking to him.

8:05Her cell phone and shoes being found outside of a tent. According to every missing persons flyer for Florence, in every personal account I've ever heard from her family, the items found outside Oregon John's tent were her shoes, shirt, and jacket. But in that conversation at the bar, Oregon John added a new detail that I've never heard anywhere else in this case. Her cell phone and shoes being found outside of a tent. He mentioned that he had Flo's cell phone. Why on earth would he say that if it wasn't true? It's definitely not a good look, but it's also strange to me that there's no mention of her cell phone anywhere else.

8:42Did he really have her cell phone that night too? And if so, where the hell is it now? Do the police have it? Do the police even know about this stuff? The Gnome Police Department has been a revolving door of police chiefs and investigators for years now. It seems that most people don't stick around for long. At the end of last year, the current chief retired, and for the first time in three years, the known PD had no police chief at all. Instead, the lead investigator, a man named William Crockett, seemed to be unofficially filling that role. I don't know if he's Investigator Crockett or Officer Crockett, but he now has the case, even though he wasn't here at all during any of the search efforts.

9:24I met with Sue Steinacher again, a known local who's been here for decades, and followed Flo's case from the very beginning. Now they've decided that she must have been killed by a bear. because we can't find any sign of her at all. None of it makes, none of it makes sense. According to the last known conversation with the police department, they're running on a new theory now. We do have bears, grizzlies here. I mean, they are around. Every great once in a while, one will come into this region, closer to town. A bear kill, there would have been all kinds of signs. It's not like they eat every last bone.

10:07That doesn't make any sense. Bears are most certainly present in Nome, Alaska, but they rarely make their way into town. In 2022, Officer Curtis Worland was killed by a muskox, trying to defend his dog from the animal. A muskox is a huge, bull-like mammal, native to the Arctic region. They range from 400 to 900 pounds. It can run up to 37 miles per hour. And just like grizzly bears, the musk ox can be a very dangerous animal to encounter. But overall, these incidents are extremely rare. The other thing that doesn't make any sense to that is that we had people out searching all the time. If there had been a bear in the area, there would have been alerts.

10:53And it's just, it's very frustrating that the police department can say, well, we can't share anything with you because this is an active case. How active is it? It's a great way to cover your butt if you're not doing anything. Or if you've given up. Now you're blaming it on a magical bear that cleans up neatly after itself. I feel she's clearly been murdered. There's a long history of strange disappearances in Nome that continue to remain unsolved. There's a couple of unsolved murder mysteries that people have taken advantage of being able to get out of town. This is the same explanation they've used for Joseph Balderas because they can't find his body.

11:36Well, it must have been a bear. Four years before Florence went missing, in June of 2016, a man named Joseph Balderas disappeared. He didn't show up for work on a Monday morning. And upon checking his residence, he was nowhere to be found. The police theory on his case is the same thing. A bear attack. I mean, this seems to be the default explanation. And there's a lot of people not buying that line. At the entrance to the Aurora Inn Hotel in Nome, there was a missing poster for Joseph Balderas taped to the door. He was 36 years old when he disappeared. And just like Flo's case, there's no leads whatsoever.

12:14The man just vanished into thin air. His family is continuing to post reward signs. They told me they got very frustrated with the Nome Police Department and they hired our own private detective. They feel like his case is very suspicious. I did some more reading on Joseph and started drawing many similarities to Flo's case. Displeased with the Nome PD's handling of his case, his family decided to hire their own private investigator, a man named Andy Clamser. For years, this PI was traveling back and forth to Nome, conducting his own investigation. doing his own interviews. If there was anybody out there with more insight on how to privately investigate a disappearance in this town, it's got to be this guy.

13:00Investigating a missing persons case in the subarctic region of Alaska is a pretty unique thing. This is somebody I want on my team. So I tracked him down. When I think of an investigation like this, I think of it as a long hallway with a lot of doors off it. The idea is to travel down that hallway, go in every door, and check it out. You can go down rabbit holes and waste a lot of time. You really need the ability to look at all those other issues and figure out which of them warrant a lot of time to focus on what is important. In every case I've ever covered, there comes a point where your mind becomes scrambled with information overload.

13:46You start going down every avenue you find, checking off the boxes one by one. But sometimes you find yourself stuck in a loop. It's important to remember to zoom out and reset, or you might get lost in minute details that don't matter. For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to go missing a gnome. The number of missing people does not really match the population of the area. It is weird. It is weird. It is weird. It's definitely wild country. There's a lot fewer people. Some people can't stand the winters because the winters are long. I mean, it's a different feel up here in the winter. Much quieter.

14:28There's a lot fewer people. We have about six hours of daylight. I mean, so in the summer, it's light 20 hours out of the day. Speaking of that, I don't think I've slept since I've been here. The five-hour time difference is one thing. But when I look out my bedroom window at 2 in the morning, it looks like 2 in the afternoon. I've been here for almost a week now, and the only darkness I've experienced is with the blackout shades drawn. Gnome's unusual in that you've got these three long roads. Unlike other places in Alaska, you can go to Gnome and take a vehicle way out in the middle of nowhere and do whatever you want to do, hunt, look for gold, whatever.

15:11And so that would create more missing people than other communities, I think. But once you turn up into the hills, there's nobody, there's nothing. It's open country. People don't live out there. People, you know, go back and forth on that road to council. But other than that, there's nothing out there. When you start to venture outside the downtown area, you need to have your wits of value. If you get a flat tire, you could be there for days before another car drives by. Joseph Balderas was reported missing on June 27, 2016. And just like Flo, despite extensive search efforts, he too has never been found.

15:55One of Joseph's friends contacted me early on. After talking to friends of Joseph's, it wasn't making sense. His fiancée was alarmed right away. His usual practice was to stay in touch with her multiple times a day. Joseph wasn't responding to anything, and nobody had seen him other than the roommate. So for him to not respond to her messages was very unusual. For him to just disappear, not reappear in town, was very unusual. According to Joseph's friends, he was a very skilled runner and outdoorsman who loved camping and fishing out in the elements. He was reported missing on the 27th, and then the next day, his truck was found, abandoned, at the mile 44 marker of Nome Council Road, way outside of town.

16:55The first sighting of his truck out there was at 10.45 a.m. Inside the vehicle, they found his backpack. It contained bug spray and some fishing lures. And on the floorboard, a pair of waders and some boots. His truck was found parked, backed into a pullout. It became a very big deal in Nome quickly. Close by, there appeared to be footprints, leading into the woods to a nearby river. But Joseph himself was nowhere to be found. They had done a lot in terms of searching. helicopters and airplanes. I think they had the Coast Guard helping. The state's conclusion, he had been attacked by a bear or had some kind of accident, and they just didn't find the body.

17:47If Flo or Joseph were attacked by a bear, you'd think there'd be some evidence of that. Bears don't eat backpacks, clothing, or cell phones. Those pieces weren't fitting together. Frankly, it would be pretty unusual for somebody to get attacked by a bear and then never found. That would be unusual. That scenario that he was attacked by a bear, somehow the body was hidden, that just seemed unlikely. And so it was worth looking into. The more you look into it, the more unanswered questions and red flags there were. Through Andy's investigation, there seemed to be some red flags of his own. A suspicious alibi from his roommate, strange text messages to his fiancée, and some associates in his life that weren't being very forthcoming about some of the details of their last interactions with him.

18:48There's other things that point in another direction. If you look at everything in total, the theory that he was a victim of animal predation or that he had an accident out there, he fell or something, and they just didn't find the body, that is less likely than the scenario where somebody killed him.

19:15The normal course of action would be to do in-depth interviews with all of his friends and associates and family members. You would do a normal homicide investigation. And that never happened in this case. Gnome PD is just a constant churn. It's a weird department. For whatever reason, it's just unstable. They don't pay enough for people to go out there and actually stay. There's no transparency. They want to defend what they did or didn't do. Nobody's off limits. The more people you talk to, the better. I think it was time that I met with the known police department myself. But I didn't necessarily have high hopes.

20:05Andy left me with some parting advice. anywhere in rural Alaska, you're better off going through City Hall.

20:23Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS. I met up with Flo's sister, Blair, and we discussed her interactions with Gnome PD over the years. They never listen. We don't know who's having a case at the time.

21:06It was somebody shooting every week. They didn't listen to us. Investigator William Crockett seems to be the head man in charge today. Have you ever talked to Crockett before? I have several times. What have your exchanges been like with him? The last conversation was very upsetting. I seen him in April. He said he wanted to talk to me. And I said, about what? He said, about those keys. And then I called him. I called three times and left two messages. And then he never returned my call. She's tried on numerous occasions to make meaningful contact with investigator Crockett from the known police department.

21:50But every time, she's been shut down. A few days after we talked, she tried calling him again.

22:11I think you should go to the police department because then they'll know that this is happening. If they knew it was happening, maybe they'd get a little more motivated. Or come up with another, maybe it was a dinosaur that killed her. So I went to the known police department myself to try and figure out what the hell is going on here. Is the police chief in today? No, he is out to the office this week. May I ask you folks here? I don't know what you're guarding. I spoke to an officer through a bulletproof glass window using a speaker box. We're here to discuss some missing persons cases. Please hold.

22:55Then investigator Crockett emerged from the back. Hello. Hey, how you doing? Hey, Payne. Payne, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Is there a chance we can do tomorrow? Potentially, yeah. Okay, if we can get something tomorrow, that would I be more than happy to sit down with you guys. I just, if I've got administrative stuff, I've got to wrap up here in a bit. He kept his foot on the door, casually leaning back against it. I don't think we're getting the invite to his office. What time would work best for you guys? I mean, really, any time tomorrow would be okay. Is earlier, midday better for you?

23:34It's probably, let's shoot for earlier in the morning. You know, we'll talk then, and then we'll make a decision. I know you guys are out of Atlanta for some kind of podcast. Yeah, yeah. So just call the station or? Yes. Awesome. Thanks again, man. I appreciate it.

23:54He agreed to meet with me the following morning, so I cleared my schedule. And just like he asked me to, I called the station before we arrived.

24:06No, police department can help you. Yes, I'm calling for Deputy Chief Crockett. The minister who's calling you, what is your hurting? This is Payne Lindsey. I'm a journalist from Atlanta. I spoke with him yesterday briefly about possibly meeting today. Give me one second, please. Sure.

24:30Thanks for holding. I appreciate that. He is unavailable for the rest of the day. Could I take a message? Is he not there? I wasn't able to reach him. I'm not sure what he's got going on right now. Okay. Do you know when he might be in again? I'm not sure. If you'd like, you can try calling back tomorrow. Tomorrow, huh? Do we get free beer tomorrow, too? I don't think tomorrow is happening.

25:06Now they've gotten on my nerves. And I can be quite persistent when I'm like this. So I tried them again the next day.

25:24Okay, what the fuck? Is their landline disconnected now? This is frustrating.