Q&A 9.26.24

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1:22There's something here in this house. Something out of this world. There was a woman moving through the hall. I stepped back and I was completely alone. Radio Rental is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is released every Thursday and brought to you absolutely free. But for ad-free listening and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts.

1:56Up 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.

2:48Welcome to a new episode of Up and Vanished. This episode is going to be a question and answer episode We've collected a lot of your questions And we're going to do our best to have Payne and Mike and myself occasionally answer them And give you the best answers that we can With what we can tell Obviously there are still a lot of moving pieces And there are a lot of things that we can't talk about yet But we're happy to answer as many questions as we can So I'd love to introduce the one and only Payne Lindsay and Mike Rooney We're just going to start here at the top of our list And we're just going to work our way down Answer as many as we can So first question.

3:21Hey, Payne, you spent a lot of time focusing on Oregon John, and I think some of it is warranted. But are there any other suspects, persons of interest? organ john is front and center of flo's case because as far as we know he's the last person to see her alive just plain and simple had her belongings in his tent there are definitely other people names that have been brought up we have censored a few of them and we've talked to a few of them. No matter how you slice it, his name comes up in the story no matter what that night when Flo went missing, and he remains at the center of the investigation.

4:06But there are other people that we are aware of and other theories that also involve John himself that we've been looking into as well. And just to clarify for everyone, the first eight episodes were mostly about Florence. And as a listener, it might sound like we have stopped investigating her case, but it's truly exactly the opposite. We plan on doing a lot more episodes of this season, and there will be a third installment of this season that shifts the focus back to Flo's investigation and continues on with Joseph's as well. Yeah, that's probably the most often asked question that we get is that, did we forget about anyone?

4:59And it's like, no, we didn't. Yeah, quite the contrary. I've learned more about Flo's case in the last couple of months than I have in the last two years. So, and you'll hear all of that. so this next question comes from christine how far in advance do you start working on a case before production begins on the podcast did you know from the beginning flow's disappearance would be the subject of the next season and if not at what point is that decision made we work pretty far in advance because we know as soon as like once the podcast is out the cat's out of the bag and our investigating strategy has to change completely.

5:44We worked for, I want to say almost close to a year on Flo and Joseph's cases. Before the podcast came out, we were in Nome. No one besides the people that we talked to and interviewed really knew what we were doing there so we didn't stick out like that we definitely would now i believe but we can't we made a conscious collective decision to cover both of these cases this season right from the get-go after receiving the emails from their families and just doing some of our own preliminary research yeah the stars kind of aligned because not only were these families reaching out but one of the the sound designer the guy who makes the masters cooper who's not here right now he's actually from alaska so that was a little more incentive right for you to go to alaska and do a story in or do cases in alaska yeah he first showed me the story and we have thousands of emails in the up and vanish inbox tenderfoot inbox just everywhere right and i just typed in gnome and there were two emails and they were from the families.

7:00And to me, that was like a stars aligning moment. And it just looked like there was a lot of bad stuff happening in this place. And the families were familiar with this podcast and wanted our help to put it in the spotlight and try to find out as much as we could. this next question comes from Maxime I'm just curious when you and your production team go and meet someone that could be dangerous like Oregon John do you have some sort of protection with you it depends on what you mean by protection I mean we actually debated yeah not bodyguards if that's what you're referring to we actually debated a lot on whether or not we should be armed in certain situations this season specifically uh the state of alaska seems to be pretty loose on guns out there really like we try to protect ourselves in being 10 steps ahead um and thinking about every worst case scenario and if it goes this way we have a plan for it and if it goes that way we have a plan for it and so when meeting someone like Oregon John, that was probably the craziest thing we've all collectively done thus far.

8:27And we didn't know how that would go or if it would even go. But we knew that if we were in a public place and out in the open, there was only so much that could happen in all likelihood but still a very scary real risk that we were taking and you know took took very seriously because we were we're not trying to get hurt out here either so right and honestly it's it's just it feels a little icky googling like how do you get on a plane with a gun like that never felt yeah it's like we were trying to avoid it like bringing that thought into the mix just sort of almost creates this, you know, like war scenario that we're, we're just simply trying to ask questions.

9:19And so we're not trying to combat anybody. If anything, we're deescalating from the start, or at least trying to. Yeah. And I think bringing a gun to any situation is just, you're, you're asking to escalate it. Like you're saying, this is more of just asking questions just trying to get someone on the record bringing a gun to that kind of situation is probably like you're putting some weird not intentions in your head but you know you're putting it out there yeah you're being a little more paranoid so i remember we quickly abandoned the idea of like traveling with a gun or any it's like yeah are we planning on using it it's like i hope i hope not right so um i think there's a lot to be said about the element of surprise.

10:05And when something happens all of a sudden, if you just pop up somewhere and randomly start talking to somebody and interviewing them or ask them questions about a case, there's a moment where they're still figuring out what's going on and you already know exactly what's going on, regardless of how nervous I am. They're still piecing it together. And by the time they are or do it all, it's over sometimes in situations and in some situations like that. This question comes from Lauren. She wants to know how much time passed from when you first reached out to Oregon John to when you actually met him.

10:47I want to say about eight months. I sent a message on Facebook from this fake Facebook account that I have way, way early on. And he actually responded to me. And I just kind of acted like he might know who I am or something. Or just, you know, I think I said something like, how's Alaska been? Or I don't know, something like that. And he responded probably like eight months later, when we were on the mission to find out where he was and go and try to actually interview him is when we kind of were in the dilemma of do we approach him this way or that way? And so regardless, I started messaging him again from that same account, just being friendly, also to try to find out where he was, because we didn't really know and no one knew.

11:42So I think planting the seed of that first message eight months earlier is why he probably met with us in the first place I think that it would have been way more sus looking if we just came out of the woodwork and said hey do you want to meet tomorrow just out of the blue it was really a puzzle that ultimately you figured out paying how to find him um which I don't know if you want to talk about But yeah, just we were racking our brains for days trying to figure out where he was going to be, when. Yeah. And we had several other plans ready to go and then realize that that's not going to work.

12:26Oh, wow. He's not even going to be there. So where is he going to be? We're not going to go to his house. And so like, how do we meet him out in public? and I mean you heard all that in the Finding John episode but yeah we really did not know what to expect but I think that the original Facebook message I sent about eight months prior is what brought some validity to in his eyes of why he should meet this stranger. Toyota-thon is on, so stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year-end deals on the cars, trucks, and SUVs known for their legendary reliability, like the stylish and efficient Camry, the ready-for-anything RAV4, or check out a rough-and-rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers.

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14:37Go to quince.com slash upandvanished for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash upandvanished. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash upandvanished. Sabrina asks, now that the podcast is out, does Oregon John know who you are? Oregon John most certainly knows who I am. Hi, John. Yeah, we knew that eventually that was going to happen, right? Just based on past experiences, you know, V-Dog, one of the main persons of interest in season three, Ashley's case. Cooper and I flew out specifically to Montana one week to go find him and talk to him.

15:33And if you recall, it didn't go over that well. He didn't want to talk, right? And looking back, that was a more dangerous situation than Oregon John. Because we were up on this hill, way out in the middle of nowhere. And I was in his house waiting for him to come upstairs, just making small talk with his roommate. Once he learned why I was there and what I wanted to talk about, he was pretty pissed about it. And just kind of reflecting back on that, you know, I asked as many questions as I could as I was walking out the door, as he's asking me to leave his property and doing all those things.

16:16But you can only learn so much in a couple of minutes. He's like being defensive. And he's, it's not an actual interview or conversation that you could yield a lot of beneficial evidence from if there was any to be found. During your conversation with Oregon John at the bar, he mentions this crazy theory that her body was stuffed in a barrel on some meth dealer's property. So the question is, Danielle asks, is there any validity to that theory? And have you heard that from anyone else? He's the only person I've heard tell a story like that. I've heard like the specific being in a barrel in someone's house.

17:01No one else that I've talked to at all has made that bold of a claim or assertion. maybe if you look back, John claims that she's dead, murdered, and knows who did it. No one has said that besides him. And so I don't believe that story. But I think we know some of the people he might have been referring to in that narrative they gave to us. But my gut is that he just said that because he wanted to move on in the conversation. And you got to remember, we were at the bar with John for over two hours. And we didn't just talk about Gnome and Florence the whole time, because that would have been very weird.

17:54It naturally came up in conversation super early when he talked about gold mining and Gnome. And then we just kind of kept it going and why why'd you leave and so really the the hardest part of that conversation was trying to find ways to go back to that conversation again when he wanted to talk about other things yeah he really wanted to talk about guns and his wife and not about gnome but yeah i think you're right i think he was trying to put like some finality on it where he was even saying like the FBI solved it or found the guy yeah he's like that's over yeah that was that's what I got out of that was that yeah she was murdered and put in a barrel and it's under this meth dealer's house and you know they thought it was me but you know but they they solved it it's good now because we were playing dumb like we don't like we don't know shit about this case but I think he said that just to, yeah, like you said, Mike, to close it out and move on.

18:57Will any of the footage or audio tape of John be admissible for the FBI or the known police? Admissible, I think that only refers to the courtroom. If a judge finds this tape admissible based on XYZ, I'm not an expert in that area. I think in terms of a police investigation, absolutely. If there's a recording of somebody that says something suspicious or slips out some sort of admission of something, then police always use that kind of stuff. Whitney says, what made you want to go deeper into your own experience while making this season? I really love hearing more about your own emotions, feelings, experiences while tackling this case.

19:49Well, first of all, thank you because Reddit does not. To me, the experience is so bizarre and so real. And sometimes in an episode, it can sound super cinematic and almost in some way, maybe take away from the reality of it all. And so just kind of reflecting back on three seasons of Up and Vanished, I wanted to kind of pull the curtain back a little bit more and let you hear some of those inside conversations, the stuff that happens before and after, and take you into my head in a moment just to take you there as close as I can. because that's what we experienced. That's how I experienced it.

20:43And I think that it shows how high the stakes really are and is also a reminder of how real these people's lives are. And that to me is of utmost importance. Yeah, I think it's a reflection of, you know, your evolution as like a, you know, podcast host. I can already see someone on Reddit or somewhere. There he goes, patting himself on the back again. So go ahead and shut up. But I like the question, and I appreciate that you appreciated that part of In the Midnight Sun. I wanted to let you in a little bit more. You can view that, hear that. However, I can't control that. But for me, sincerely, it was being more vulnerable.

21:38And I felt like that's important in stories like this to give you as much context as possible and also help gain trust with other people. You know, just being real and being real with them and not being afraid to show what's going on. Mickey asks, what's the hardest part about creating a podcast in Alaska? Do the locals seem receptive to you solving this case? And honestly, like 99 % of the people in Gnome, from my experience that I've talked to, were super helpful. They wanted to talk, even if they were nervous or scared. They overcame it. and they were willing to do whatever they had to do to get this story out there on a bigger platform because it affects their everyday life.

22:38There's only a handful of people that have been weird about talking to us. And no one has the obligation to talk to any journalist or podcaster at all. and it doesn't mean that you're suspicious or guilty if you don't but i would say honestly 99 of the people in gnome have met us mostly with open arms there's been some hesitation but we've you know worked at gaining that trust and there are people who are just saying fuck off um but that's everywhere. Yeah. I think a cool thing about Noam is they're very aware of these cases. And if you talk to anyone about Florence's case, they'll probably bring up Joseph's case, or they'll probably bring up Sonia Ivanov.

23:30They don't want these things happening in their town. And if you talk to him about Joseph's case, they'll bring up Florence's case. They're very aware of this. And they know there's been some wrongdoings that I don't think anyone in the town wants repeated. Yeah, they're also perplexed as to why the police have not solved these cases. And for a lot of people who live there, that reality is way different. To live in that and to not feel like you can trust law enforcement on a daily basis, I can't imagine what that's like, especially in a place like Nome isolated and far out there Shannon asks what's up with the Discord?

24:16how's that working out for you? the Discord is insane we knew it would be if you've been a long time listener of Up and Vanished if you were there in the beginning 2016, 2017 we had a discussion board that was really really active and the suspects and the community were all up in there and it was a crazy place because everyone's kind of hiding behind a username and there's a level everyone's pretty much anonymous unless they say who they are or prove who they are or someone comes out of the woodwork and proves to us that that is who that is. And really, it's an investigative tool. It's not really like a fan club group or discussion.

25:16It's a place where people can speak anonymously and a place where we can hopefully find new leads. and try to control the chaos as much as possible. Yeah, it turns into a lot of fighting almost every time we do this, which is a bummer. I know. But it's going to happen no matter what. Yeah, people just get, I mean, they're going to get pissed. And so, yeah, there's a lot of babysitting that happens as well. And, you know, not knowing who to trust in there as a moderator or whoever, and people just making things up out in the open and shifting things in directions that it shouldn't be going in. But the good thing that comes out of all of it, the silver lining, is that we see all this.

26:16We're logging all of this. And I know for a fact there's been some people in the discord who are purposefully making shit up because they're guilty of something. I guess that's kind of the, uh, the double-edged sword of anonymity, you know, like you can get really great tips because people aren't afraid to come forward, but you also get a lot of just like assholes who are just stirring up drama just for the sake of drama, you know? Absolutely. So it's, it's hard to sift through that, but I feel like we're doing a good job with the amount of people who are in there and we're finding good information and maybe finding new leads.

26:54Who knows? Definitely. Trolls will come out no matter what. There's always trolls. Yeah. Trolls be out there. They find those discords. So a bunch of people are asking about Joseph's cell phone when he went missing. Was his cell phone recovered? Was there information that was recovered from that that's been useful to the investigation? We haven't really discussed it in the podcast but what can you say about that yeah uh they never found joseph's phone unfortunately and the cell towers there i think what i've seen from the private investigators homework and investigation is that there's really only one tower one cell tower in gnome so there's no way to like triangulate any kind of location of where he was during that weekend so yeah there's not much to go off there.

27:43Yeah. Yeah. All the information we have in regards to Joseph's phone are from his actual cell phone records themselves. And unfortunately, they don't have a detailed spell out of what his text messages were saying. We know his WhatsApp messages to his fiance because we have her ends of the conversation. But unfortunately, we don't have Christine's because she wiped her phone or something. Yeah. So getting more into the specifics of some of the people surrounding the case, a bunch of people are asking about Joseph's fiance, Megid Ryder. What can you tell us about her? She hasn't really played a main part in the podcast per se, but is there anything going on behind the scenes with her?

28:31yeah i mean personally i i talked to the families a lot meg being one of them she's been an active participant behind the scenes regardless of whether or not you've heard like a full interview from her or something but she's the one who gave us all of the voice notes you you heard of joseph's real voice and has worked in tandem with the family and his entire friend circle since day one and spearheading trying to find out what happened to him and so we talked to a lot of people her included that are close to the victims even if you don't hear interviews with them per se. So another question that's come up a few times, people are really curious about Joseph's credit card statements.

29:31One of the things you figured out in the podcast was that his credit card was used after he had disappeared. Are there going to be any new updates on that? And is there any plan to try to investigate that any further? Yes. So we've done a lot of homework on that specific thing and I've been trying my hardest to pinpoint particular items that were purchased at the Bonanza Express and I have the birth dates of the individual who made the purchases who bought this stuff but in all likelihood it seems like the birthdays that were punched in was just like if you went to your local supermarket and they're like, oh, you're over 21.

30:21And they just go boop, boop, boop, boop. And just put in a random birthday. But we do know who those individuals are. I think that they're completely unrelated. But we know specific items that were purchased that were purchased repeatedly on different days. So likely the same person or group of people buying this stuff. And we've done our best to try to find out who would have bought those things without letting the cat out of the bag. But we also plan on, based on how much further we get, just straight up telling you guys. Because I think that the community itself could answer that question. if we just tell them specifically what it is.

31:15So definitely more to come on that. And that was the cliffhanger of the first installment. But we've learned a lot about the credit card issue. There's stuff about the security footage from there that's gone. It ties in other ways to the story. But we plan on telling you as much as we know about that specific piece of evidence, if we want to call it that, very soon, actually. Y 'all, the holidays are approaching. The air is crisp and cozy. Polished layers have never felt more essential. That's why I'm loving quints this season. Their sweaters, outerwear, and everyday essentials feel luxurious, look timeless, and make holiday dressing and gifting so effortless.

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