Inside Up and Vanished: In The Midnight Sun

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0:51Go to Quince.com slash Vanished Weekly for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash vanished weekly to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash vanished weekly. Where did COVID-19 really come from? And I don't mean some conspiracy here. Science and the truth are not beholden to any religion or political party. There 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.

1:42Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Before we get started, I have a new show to tell you about from the Up and Banish team. It's called Status Untraced. Check out this clip, and stick around until the end of the episode for the official trailer. I should return mid-September or so. If I'm not back by then, don't look for me. And it was one thing that kind of made me feel weird about whenever he'd talk about his plans for India. And the more I've thought about it, especially over the years, it almost seemed like he was preparing for something because he wanted to be famous. He made that openly clear like that was his end goal.

2:28And it was just weird as I thought about it more and more, just how he was trying to visit everybody before he went on this one last big trip where he was trying to find himself. Like he was saying his goodbyes to everybody and then just disappears.

2:52Hey listeners, welcome back to Inside Tenderfoot TV. Today, we're going inside the latest season of Up and Vanished, in the midnight sun. I'm Laura Benson from the Tenderfoot team, and I'll be sitting down with Payne Lindsay, creator and host of this award-winning show. Join us as we hear what it was really like investigating the case of missing Alaskan native Florence Okpilak. grueling travel, uncooperative law enforcement, and dangerous catfishing operations made this investigation particularly worth unpacking. Dive a little deeper with Payne into what you can expect in the next installment of Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun.

3:32Payne, can you tell me what made working on this story different from the other cases that you've worked on? I think the first thing that stands out is where it's located geographically. I think it's the furthest away from my home in Atlanta I've ever been and still been inside the United States. Just a completely different environment out there in Alaska and Nome specifically is different than most parts in Alaska itself because of where it's located and how you can get there. There's no roads leading there. The only way in and out are these two flights a day on these small planes, or you're taking a boat.

4:13And it's just a tiny town on the edge of the water. And it just kind of feels like you're on the edge of the earth up there, way north on the Arctic Circle. That was a one-of-a-kind experience for me. So I think that stands out the most right away. It's just where these cases took place. Yeah. Okay. So given how far removed it is for you and from your life, what compelled you to actually choose this case to pursue? Because I'm sure there are thousands of other options that you had that would have been stateside. Can you talk a little more about that? Yeah. I mean, I think that ever since season one of Up and Vanished, this show became a platform and we've been able to create subsequent seasons.

4:59For me, it's become, I guess the way I put it is I look at Up and Vanish, the podcast now, as also a resource and tool for the victims' families, the community. And I feel like as a true crime podcast, we can offer the most support and help to potentially move the needle and find new information in a case that is largely uncovered in the media. And missing indigenous women has for a long time been not covered as much in mainstream media. And it's been a really large issue happening right under our nose. To me, it's an opportunity to shine a spotlight on that and try our best to make any difference that we can by giving the attention to families that haven't been getting it.

5:56And I think that just from the jump, that's a great place to be. And it's amazing that the podcast can even do that. And so really, since season one, the victims in all the missing persons cases have been victims that are usually not covered as much in the mainstream media. And I think that that's been a theme since 2017 that we want to continue. A follow up to that, since you're going really outside of your own community, and you're diving into these other worlds in this show and in other shows, can you talk a little bit about how you establish trust with the people that you're going to be interviewing with the families of the victims, attempted trust with law enforcement?

6:39Can you talk about that process and your approach? Yeah, I mean, I think that people are different everywhere. But I also think that we're also a lot the same everywhere. Even if you don't even speak literally the same language, I think that if you're going to a place as an outsider, and you're aware of that, just be conscious of it and be willing to learn and be willing to be patient and understand things that you may not know. And just listen. And I think that that universally translates. When I'm going to a place like Nome, Alaska, and I'm talking to the family of Florence Okpialik, who is a local Alaska Native woman, I'm learning for the first time a lot about that culture and about how people grew up here and what it's like to live here.

7:32And I think it's okay to ask questions sincerely, and you don't have to know the answers all the time. I did as much research as I could. But that would never inform me as much as talking to somebody in real life would. And so I go there willing to learn. And if I'm talking to people about super vulnerable topics, then I feel like I want to offer myself as available to talk about similar topics. If I want you to be vulnerable with me, then I'm going to be vulnerable with you. And so that's really how I establish trust is just by being for real. I think for a lot of people, they get that, that they can see that regardless of whether or not they're hesitant or scared.

8:19I think universally people can recognize when other people are being real and sincere. And I've just leaned into that. And I think that for the most part, that's always been a good thing and worked out. just being truthful, being honest, being real about your objective and being willing to listen and give a part of yourself too if you're asking somebody else to do that. So is there a lot of conversation and interview that happens before you actually start recording and rolling when you're talking to victim families? Well, to be honest, we're always rolling because we just learned that that's the way to go because you learn the hard way.

8:58Usually, unless it's a super professional setting where it's lights, camera, action, there's not like a 3, 2, 1, we're rolling. Also, that kind of feels a little bit like we're making you more nervous. We try to keep it casual. And if you hear a eight-minute conversation on the podcast, there's a good chance that nine times out of 10, that was eight minutes from two hours, right? We've talked about all kinds of things and gotten to the point where we're both more comfortable with each other to get to a point to talk about these specific details or recall these memories or develop an articulate thought about something.

9:46And so, yeah, there's a lot of conversations that happen every single time that you don't hear on the podcasts because the content itself isn't necessarily relevant, but it's very relevant to the relationships that we're establishing and as people in real life. Yeah, absolutely. So since you're in these very emotionally charged conversations with people, how do you personally maintain neutrality during an interview? Or do you even? Do you find yourself getting really pulled in? Can you talk about that experience? I think it depends on the subject matter specifically, who it is that I'm talking to specifically.

10:27But when you're dealing with true crime content, you're talking about murder, you're talking about death, you're talking about tragedy, you're talking about bad people, people who are suffering. Those are aspects of this that are really dark, sad, and unfortunate. it. And so there's a lot of navigating that. And there is a level of objectivity that I consciously put forth to myself, really more so in the way that... And this is just as an analogy only, like a therapist would or something, right? We're like, if you're unpacking something that was trauma-related, right? Which I've even done before to a therapist, they're mostly just listening, right?

11:12And they're not really giving you too much or commenting on the way that you feel or how you're remembering it, etc. Because it isn't about that. It's really about you unleashing how you feel about something. And so I'm always trying to be respectful of that. And a lot of times that means just saying less and in the right moments offering words of support or, Or I'll give them my opinion if I think that they're doing a really good job at something that they feel like they're not. I see that the other way, just as encouragement. And then if you're talking about someone who's more of a suspect, that's a whole different story.

11:54I approach that a little bit more hard-nosed. Actually, not a little bit, a lot of it. And that's what that calls for. But when you're dealing with people who've experienced the tragedy, really the floor is all theirs. and I just try to consciously remain in an active listening state that they can feel and see. They can see me listening and hearing that and understanding that and they get that validation of, okay, he heard me, right? Most of the time, I feel like that's what you want when you're unpacking something like that. It's just, can I be heard, right? And that's real. And I feel the same way if I'm ever doing that.

12:36So that's what I try to consciously do in those kinds of scenarios. Is that a skill that you have learned and developed and worked on throughout working on Up and Vanished? Or is that something that you actually kind of a character trait that you've had your whole life? It's a skill that I've been working on, still working on, and developing my whole life, podcast or not. There are plenty of examples that I won't even bring up about a past relationship or something, right? Where active listening is just... These are things that in everyday life, people care about and feeling understood and heard and things that I value a lot.

13:25And so a lot of it stems from how I felt when I didn't feel like I was heard or what it literally was that made me feel that way. And these are not completely just set in stone rulebook rules. It's just people skills and adapting to who you're talking to and being willing to understand them if they're different than you or if they feel differently about different things. And just also being consciously aware of that too. And so I think the podcast, Up and Vanished especially, And just talking to all these people over the years, strangers, where I've felt majorly uncomfortable a lot of the time and just didn't outwardly show it, it has taught me to be less scared about it and more confident in the way that I'm being perceived by somebody and not being too scared to say things or ask things.

14:26because most people want to tell you if they trust you and that's why they're there in the first place. I'm still always trying to get better at that. And there's days where it's a lot harder because I'm tired or it's just like anyone else in life, whatever you're doing. But that's a tool that I'm always sharpening that I didn't come out of the womb being good at. I just became more consciously aware of it over the years. And I think that doing Up and Vanish and talking to so many people over the years helped me get a little better at that and see things in a slightly different light than maybe I didn't see exactly years ago.

15:04Yeah. Okay. You touched a little bit on the difference between, you know, talking to families and talking to suspects and the discomfort a bit. When I was listening to the show, I was legitimately scared for your safety a couple of times, especially as you're, you know, using this old Facebook profile and you're getting these videos from John, from Oregon John of guns, like showing his guns off to you. You're also in this really remote town with no roads. You've kind of established that maybe the police department is corrupt. Can you talk about just the experience you had going to meet John or maybe going into some of these more kind of sketchy scenarios and having those conversations?

15:46Yeah, I really tried to, in this season, for that particular interview and everything that built up to that happening. Try to pull the curtain back a little bit for everybody for you to see sort of the paranoia and the live active discussions. Because all that stuff was real, is real, and is kind of what you may not see if we just jump cut it to me in a bar with Oregon John. Right. But yeah, I would say that in this scenario, I was well aware of the risk. But I also knew that if we planned this properly, that we could minimize that risk. And that really started with being ahead on everything, being there before he thought we were there, having scouted this place and being there hours before, having a backup plan for this, a backup plan for that.

16:42And most of those things never even had to come into play. But knowing that we had that in the back of my head allowed me to, I think, even be a little bit more confident there in the moment because it was all this buildup about Oregon John and whether I should approach him as this guy or myself and getting him at this bar. And that was crazy and stressful and scary in itself. But then once we're finally there, it felt like for a brief moment, hey, we did it. But hey, we've done actually nothing. Because now I'm here and he thinks I'm somebody else. How do I start bringing up this missing persons case without sounding suspicious?

17:27Okay, we've talked about it once. How do I bring it up again? Why am I so interested in this? Actually, when you hear that, I was there at the bar for two hours. And I think in the podcast, it was probably about 15 minutes or so that you And that was really over the course of two hours of me talking about other things and then slowly going back to that. So it didn't seem weird, which that was the first time I've ever done that, where I was posing as somebody else and had the fear of him discovering that and getting mad or violent or whatever. Right. But we were in a public place. And so I kind of had to just tune out a little bit.

18:04it was one of those things where, you know, look in the mirror, why are we doing this? If I'm too scared to do this, like on that day, which is totally rational and totally okay, I feel like maybe I shouldn't be making podcasts like this then. It's not every true crime podcast has to go knock on the bad guy's door. but that's what I want to do to find answers or what I'm willing to do. And if I back down now, it feels like I got so far, I could just see a family member saying, why didn't you talk to him? And I'm just going to say, I was scared. So why are you doing this? So I leaned into that the most.

18:53And plus, we had Mike, Dylan, Cooper there. So we had some muscle if it went down. Not really, but... Bunch of podcast guys. A bunch of podcast dorks in the back. But yeah, that was a totally different beast. And in that scenario, the way I'm approaching it is stick to the plan. Don't get too distracted. Ask the questions. Right. Ask it again. again it's different if they know who you are because you can ask it in different ways and do it repeatedly but in this case i had to go back and forth from talking about other things back to what's up with flow and details about that and really just not every time i asked about it again i was thinking is this the time he thinks it's weird is this the time that he's like why why are you so interested in that who are you really and then he even brought up at one point this podcast person.

19:52And for a brief moment and sitting there, I thought, shit, is he just calling me out? Is he saying, I know who you are? I'm going to pretend like that's not the case and keep going. And I realized, no, actually, he doesn't think I'm that person. But I just kind of just staying tunnel vision in that moment. And then when we're done, when we leave and we're back in our safe place, I'm like, holy shit, what just happened? And I don't remember some of the stuff. Let's go listen back to what what was said. But in the moment, it was just laser focus on why we're here. Don't regret not asking these questions.

20:29This is your only chance. Right. Well, and it seemed like he volunteered a lot of information, right? Wasn't he the first person that brought up Florence's disappearance initially? Like, was he bragging or what initiated his kind of opening up about that? It seemed really pretty wild to me that he would just meet the stranger on the internet and then dive right in. Or was that deep in the conversation? It was early on that we got there, actually. Wow. and that was one of the biggest puzzles we were trying to solve is how do we get there in the conversation and to me the i thought the easiest way to do that would be if we could get to gnome then we can get to that part of the conversation and i didn't even have to bring up gnome but we already had a backstory in our heads that we were very familiar with gnome and so we can talk about gnome and if you talk about gnome long enough he's going to talk about what he did there why he left.

21:25And so we were talking about places in Alaska. He brought up Nome. The second he did, I stayed on Nome. That's when he just opened up about that stuff. I didn't have to ask him anything about those details. I think because it unfolded that way is why he continued to tell more because I never plucked that out of him initially. He offered that. And from his perspective, that was a surprise to me. And I was very curious about that. And so me asking more questions would be valid in that scenario. And so I just leaned into that. But I was definitely

22:06happily surprised that he did offer so much. And it makes me wonder exactly where his subconscious was. It almost felt a little bit like to me. He wanted to get these things off his chest, whatever version of the story he was telling, true or not. Part of him wanted to say stuff about this because he probably hasn't said much about it to many people. Since this is a real-time investigation and we all want to know what's going on with Oric and John, you had a great cliffhanger right at the end of the final episode of the season. where you call him up as yourself because he does figure out who you are after you leave.

22:48Can you give us a little sneak peek without giving anything away? Do you get a hold of him again? Well, to not spoil anything, which is going to be a very unfun answer, I'll just put it this way. He knows who I am and we're not done yet. Tune in in June. All right. Right, exactly. The holidays are coming. The mornings are cold. and honestly, I just want my wardrobe to work. That's why I've been all about Quince. Their Mongolian cashmere sweaters, only 50 bucks. They're ridiculously soft and they look way more expensive than they are. The down jacket I grabbed from Quince has been my go-to this season.

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24:41I'm really interested in how you related Florence's case to Joseph Balderas's case. Why, of all of the cases that happen, why do you think those two are so closely linked? How did those become these tandem investigations for you? Well, if you're in Nome and you just walk the downtown front street for five minutes, If you see a missing poster for Florence, within the same 30 seconds, you're going to see a missing poster for Joseph. They're the two most recent suspicious unsolved missing persons cases in Nome of young people who just completely vanished. And there are no answers at all. And so because of that, they are closely linked because why did two people go missing?

25:40in this town of 3 ,000 people and there's zero answers and there's posters everywhere and no one knows shit about it, right? Also, just like Flo's family had reached out to me on email, Jose's family also did the same thing. And that quickly sort of jumpstarted a relationship with his sister and I and eventually met his mother and his family. and she was aware of this podcast just like Diayla was and they understood the value that this could bring and they wanted us to cover their loved one's story in the way that they've heard before. That allows us to go straight into doing that, right? But otherwise, if there's a case that I just found on the internet that I wanted to do a story on, then the first thing I'm doing is reaching out to the family and explaining what this is and asking them if they would want to do something like that.

26:51In this scenario, they reached out to me being fully aware of what Up and Vanished is and asked if we would cover their missing persons cases. And so that really jumpstarts us and puts us in a great spot to be able to go straight into the whole point of this, which is finding new information and hopefully trying to find out what happened and who's responsible if it's a murder. Right. So can we expect to hear a lot more about his case in the June installment? Yes, we have been researching and investigating Joseph's case for a long time, pretty much since the very beginning. And we have so much information, new information on his case, which is really kind of why we decided to break it up into two parts like this.

27:42because we wanted to be able to give both cases an authentic focus. It's hard to do both at the exact same time. But eventually, they dovetailed together because of how small Noam is and how the departments relate and how this person is the same person over here. And in part two of Midnight Sun, And we're diving just as deep as we did in Florence's case, into Joseph's case. And we have tons of interviews and a lot of new information, new leads and persons of interest that are still out there. And we're also still doing the same with Florence's case. But yeah, you'll expect to hear every single detail about Joseph Balderas' missing persons case throughout the next part.

28:35And you're heading back up there, right? To continue to do more research? Yes. A lot of people we've already talked to. There are some individuals that we have not yet had the face-to-face that we need to have. And a few other people we need to see in person that want to offer us information in that way. And so we're going back there to do that and really try to tie up loose ends and put the pressure on the individuals we think are likely involved and put them on the spot a little bit and try to get people talking. And that is easier to do when you're at their doorstep. and instead of calling from a number that they're just going to not answer or hang up on you on.

29:33Right. So what has been the most challenging part of making this season of the show? Is it the logistics or is there another element? The logistics has been challenging. Doing 12 plus hours of traveling to get anywhere, multiple flights, cars, all that stuff. I mean, it can be exhausting. And it feels like once you finally touch down that you've done work, but you've done nothing. It's the same thing as you being at your house, except you're not. You're here. So you still have to go do everything. So that has always been a challenge in that way, just because it can be draining to do that much moving around.

30:17And just with a small town, it's harder to navigate the intricacies of the local relationships and the politics and the rumor mill and being careful of what we say and that going over here. And I think mostly, which is just in every missing person's case that we've investigated, it's just heavy material. It's heavy real life. Hearing it in the podcast or watching it on Netflix is just a tiny little teaspoon of what it is really like to talk to people in real life about something tragic like this. And being in a position where you're trying to generate new information and talking to a lot of people who may not want to talk to you at all.