12 | The Roommate

Summary

Up and Vanished
Episode 12 | The Roommate
Release Date: August 30, 2024
Host: Payne Lindsey | Tenderfoot TV

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Introduction

In Episode 12 of Up and Vanished, titled "The Roommate," host Payne Lindsey delves deeper into the mysterious disappearance of Joseph Balderas from Nome, Alaska. This episode centers on Joseph's roommate, Jake, whose suspicious behavior and inconsistent statements have raised significant red flags in the ongoing investigation.

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Case Overview

Joseph Balderas vanished without a trace, prompting one of the largest manhunts in Nome’s history. As the investigation unfolds, attention shifts to Jake, Joseph's roommate, whose actions and alibis have become increasingly questionable.

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Suspicious Behavior and Inconsistent Alibis

Jake’s involvement becomes a focal point due to his evasive responses and attempts to fabricate an alibi. Initially, Jake claimed that on the night Joseph disappeared (Saturday, June 25), he and two friends went bridge jumping until around 8 PM and then drove to Solomon, a small town east of Nome. However, discrepancies arise when his friends deny being with him, creating a significant gap in his timeline.

Notable Quote:

Jake [03:07]: "I know that the timeline doesn't make sense to you... Nobody does."

Payne Lindsay highlights Jake's evasion, stating, "Jake completely dodged the first PI, and his family was becoming increasingly suspicious of all of his behavior."

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Phone Investigation and Fabricated Alibi

To address the inconsistencies, state troopers visited Jake's residence to analyze his iPhone. Jake reluctantly agreed to allow his phone to be examined, believing it could prove his innocence.

Notable Quote:

Jake [04:12]: "It's just really important for us to get this timeline figured out... I just want to know exactly what happened so I can fill that sequence."

Upon reviewing Jake's phone data in Anchorage, investigators discovered text messages where Jake was soliciting friends to lie for him, fabricating stories about his whereabouts to mislead the investigation.

Notable Quote:

Jake [10:09]: "I wouldn't say I went for a drive. I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do."

These revelations deepened suspicions, highlighting Jake's attempt to obscure his true activities during the critical time frame.

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Conflicting Truck Sightings

Adding to the complexity, multiple sightings of Joseph's truck were reported both before and after his disappearance. On Saturday night and Sunday morning, several unrelated witnesses claimed to see the truck in different locations, some far from Nome, raising questions about the truck's movements and Joseph's possible activities.

Notable Quote:

Kirk Piscoya [17:55]: "A ten. Because I looked at the vehicles went by and I didn't know at that time that was Joseph's truck until later..."

Despite extensive searches, including aerial reconnaissance, no definitive evidence was found to explain Joseph's disappearance, with theories ranging from animal attacks to foul play.

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Interviews with Jake’s Family

Interviews with Jake's stepdad, Kirk Piscoya, reveal Jake's reserved nature and lack of familiarity with Joseph's personal life, such as Joseph’s firearm ownership. Kirk expresses confusion and suspicion over Jake’s actions and the overall circumstances.

Notable Quote:

Kirk Piscoya [23:29]: "Something just is not adding up with... We should have come up with something."

His observations suggest that Jake's behavior deviates from what would be expected of a concerned roommate, further implicating him in the investigation.

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Emerging Tips and New Suspects

As the investigation progresses, Payne Lindsey receives anonymous tips that suggest deeper connections and potential misconduct by individuals involved in the case. One such tip alleges that Christine Piscoya, another key figure in the investigation, exhibited erratic behavior violently distressed over Joseph's disappearance.

Notable Quote:

Anonymous Caller [31:38]: "Christine was so drunk... I kept saying over and over, joseph's dead, Joseph's dead."

These revelations introduce new dimensions to the case, hinting at possible conspiracies or additional suspects that were previously overlooked.

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Conclusion and Ongoing Investigation

Episode 12 showcases the unraveling of Jake's deceit and the complexities surrounding Joseph's disappearance. Payne Lindsey emphasizes the critical need for thorough investigation and the challenges posed by conflicting testimonies and elusive evidence. The episode concludes with Payne receiving pivotal tips that could potentially shift the direction of the case, underscoring the ongoing nature of this true crime investigation.

Notable Quote:

Payne Lindsay [33:51]: "It's a situation where all of this work that I've done should have been done by the troopers... they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case."

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Key Takeaways:

• Jake’s Deceptive Behavior: Inconsistent alibis and attempts to fabricate stories significantly raise suspicions about his involvement in Joseph’s disappearance.

• Conflicting Evidence: Multiple and contradictory sightings of Joseph’s truck complicate the timeline and muddy the waters of the investigation.

• Anonymous Tips: Emerging tips indicate possible misconduct or undisclosed connections, suggesting that the investigation may need to broaden its scope.

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Conclusion

"The Roommate" offers a compelling exploration of the enigmatic circumstances surrounding Joseph Balderas’s disappearance, highlighting the critical role of scrutinizing alibis and investigating inconsistencies. As new information surfaces, viewers are left anticipating the next developments in this intricate investigation.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Jake [03:07]: "I know that the timeline doesn't make sense to you... Nobody does."

• Jake [04:12]: "It's just really important for us to get this timeline figured out... I just want to know exactly what happened so I can fill that sequence."

• Jake [10:09]: "I wouldn't say I went for a drive. I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do."

• Kirk Piscoya [17:55]: "A ten. Because I looked at the vehicles went by and I didn't know at that time that was Joseph's truck until later..."

• Kirk Piscoya [23:29]: "Something just is not adding up with... We should have come up with something."

• Anonymous Caller [31:38]: "Christine was so drunk... I kept saying over and over, joseph's dead, Joseph's dead."

• Payne Lindsay [33:51]: "It's a situation where all of this work that I've done should have been done by the troopers... they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case."

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For More Information:

• Visit Tenderfoot TV or follow Up and Vanished on your favorite podcast platform.
• Join the Up and Vanished Discord community through the link provided in the episode description for discussions and updates.

Transcript

[Payne Lindsay]

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[Christine Piscoya]

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[Christine Piscoya]

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[Ad Voiceover]

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. Up 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.

[Payne Lindsay]

From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. This is up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun Chapter two. I'm your host, Payne Lindsay.

[Christine Piscoya]

What did Jake tell you?

[Kirk Piscoya]

It was about 1:00pm on Sunday when I saw him leave. The hallway was too dark to define what colors he was wearing.

[Christine Piscoya]

Sunday.

[Ad Voiceover]

Sunday.

[Payne Lindsay]

Christine Jake is her cousin. The guy that lives with Joseph is her cousin. Yeah, I don't like it. I kind of get a creepy feeling about it. Is there anything there? I don't know? I have not been able to interview Jake. I set up two interviews. He's never showed up to either one. Joseph's roommate Jake completely dodged the first PI and his family was becoming increasingly suspicious of all of his behavior. They discussed this with the Alaska State Troopers.

[Jake]

I know that the timeline doesn't make sense to you, and we know that his roommate says he's calling. People are mistaken. It could be that. It could be that he came back in, forgot his phone. There's all these theories, but I don't have the answers and nobody does.

[Payne Lindsay]

The roommate's Sunday. Do you know what he said about that? Like, yes, I saw him, I spoke to him. I saw him driving away. Like, what level of commitment do you.

[Jake]

Think they passed each other in the.

[Payne Lindsay]

Home, inside the house on Sunday?

[Jake]

You guys, I'll be happy to go talk to Jake again.

[Payne Lindsay]

The troopers, in an effort to eliminate suspects and ease the family's suspicions, paid a visit to Jake's house a little less than two weeks after Joseph went missing.

[Christine Piscoya]

The roommate was interviewed right away by the troopers.

[Payne Lindsay]

I guess the troopers were just kind of doing their due diligence at first, right?

[Christine Piscoya]

In a cursory way. Brief interviews to try and get better idea of what happened and how they should focus the search.

[Payne Lindsay]

At 8:30am Investigator Kevin and Trooper Smith recorded a conversation with Jake at his apartment.

[Jake]

It's just really important for us to get this timeline figured out. I mean, we don't think that anybody did anything wrong. But what's really important to us, Jake, is getting these, getting these timelines figured out. Because if we leave a gap in any of this time sequence that happened, people are going to fill it with whatever they want. The booth, the beer bottles and stuff. I give a damn about a beer bottle. I don't care. It's just really important to have the facts. I just want to know. I need to know exactly what happened so I can fill that sequence. Because it's just important for me. You got to understand that we're trying to help you pin this down because when we leave here, we don't have answers. Everybody's going to say what the hell with a homicide investigator and a technical crimes investigator here. People know why we're here. And they're like, holy shit, these guys are. Why are they here? They don't call us in for these, for just whimsical thing. When you say you saw him at 1:30 on Sunday. On Sunday. No one else saw him after that. No one saw him after you did. Let's call that last known alive type thing. He didn't really talk to anybody after that. There was no communications. There was no contact with anybody on his cell phone or anything after Saturday. And I guarantee the family is going to be asking questions. The booth, the beer bottles and stuff. I give a damn about a beer bottle. I don't care. It's just really important to have the facts. You're not going to get in any trouble for smoking weed, drinking, nothing.

[Payne Lindsay]

The troopers had learned a key new detail in Joseph's case and it began raising Questions about Jake's sighting of Joseph on Sunday.

[Jake]

The truck drove by your mom's on Sunday. On Sunday and didn't stop. And that's unusual. Your mom said that that is highly unusual, that he wouldn't stop.

[Payne Lindsay]

Jake's mom claimed to have seen Joseph's truck driving very fast past their camp on Sunday, June 26, around the same time that Jake says he saw Joseph at his house. In over 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everyone.

[Jake]

Was he pissed off about something that day? He been upset about something? What's going on? That's where we're at. Jake, when was the last time that you were in the truck? The only time I ever got in it was to jumpstart my dad's car. Okay. When was that? Really chilling, June. Okay. Did you drive it at all that weekend he went missing?

[Christine Piscoya]

No.

[Jake]

You worried at it? I don't think anybody did anything wrong. I just need to know what they did that wasn't wrong. You feel me when you say you saw him at 1:30. No one else saw him after that. Really? I'm looking at from Saturday on as.

[Christine Piscoya]

To where he was and what he was doing. The roommate was interviewed, told the troopers that he was gone on Saturday night with friends, but that he saw Joseph the next morning walking down the hallway in the house.

[Payne Lindsay]

And this would have been Sunday.

[Christine Piscoya]

Sunday morning after Joseph had stopped responding to anyone.

[Payne Lindsay]

So if that were true, Joseph would have been ignoring people.

[Christine Piscoya]

Right.

[Payne Lindsay]

Which would be a little out of his character.

[Christine Piscoya]

And then he was never heard from again.

[Payne Lindsay]

Joseph's last communication was to his fiance, Megan, early in the morning on Saturday, June 25. Jake's version of events just didn't add up.

[Kirk Piscoya]

There's something else I want to ask.

[Payne Lindsay]

You, and this is completely up to you.

[Jake]

This is another step we want to.

[Payne Lindsay]

Take to try to eliminate any suspicion of you.

[Jake]

I've got an iPhone.

[Kirk Piscoya]

All these guys have iPhones.

[Payne Lindsay]

We call, we text, we use the.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Internet data, that kind of stuff.

[Payne Lindsay]

I have the ability and the equipment.

[Kirk Piscoya]

To download phone contents and go through them.

[Payne Lindsay]

That'll help us establish a timeline. Let's.

[Kirk Piscoya]

If you're willing to let me unborrow.

[Payne Lindsay]

Your phone, set my equipment up right here and I could just download the contents. I mean, your phone could be your alibi. If that's something you're willing to do.

[Jake]

I'm all for it. I have to be at work in 10 minutes.

[Payne Lindsay]

10 minutes. I have my equipment in the truck. I can bring it in right now.

[Jake]

Because if we can do this and get this to you and be done with it. That would. So if we can do that, get that phone back to you right away.

[Payne Lindsay]

Reluctantly, Jake agreed to let the state troopers conduct an analysis of his cell phone and download all of its data. This is an iPhone 6.6S.

[Jake]

I believe it's a 6S.

[Payne Lindsay]

Jake went to work. The troopers got the data, returned his cell phone, and left Noam back to Anchorage.

[Christine Piscoya]

The troopers did download the contents of his phone, but they didn't look at the contents of his phone until they went back to Anchorage.

[Payne Lindsay]

What they found on his phone changed this investigation forever.

[Christine Piscoya]

And then when they did look at the contents of his phone, they realized that he was texting friends, trying to get friends to create an alibi for him for Saturday night.

[Payne Lindsay]

Why would somebody be doing that?

[Christine Piscoya]

Obviously because he was trying to hide something.

[Payne Lindsay]

Jake first told investigators that on Saturday, June 25, he and two friends went bridge jumping until about 8pm he then claimed he and his friends took a drive to a small town east of Nome, called Solomon. Then he returned home to his apartment in Nome around 1:30 in the morning. But on his cell phone, they found text messages where Jake was asking his friends to lie for him. He told them he used them in a fake story for the state troopers and asked them to say they were with him.

[Jake]

Jake, originally you told me that you went out for a drive. And then I talked to your buddies and they said that didn't happen. You told me that you specifically went for a drive that way. And then they told me that they weren't with you or that didn't happen. And then I talked to you and I learned that you were out bridge jumping, which is, you know, which is what Tyler had told me. But again, my issue is when confronted with, hey, what did you do last weekend? I wouldn't say I went for a drive someplace I wasn't. You know, I would either not remember, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't say I went for a drive. I wouldn't come up with something I didn't do. So that's what kind of alarms me a little, Jake, is to me, it seems like either you're lying now because you're covering it, covering it for something that you don't want to tell us that for, or you were lying then, you know, when you told me that you weren't went in a completely different direction with two guys that you weren't with.

[Payne Lindsay]

Jake lied about where he was, and he tried to get his friends to lie for him, too. But why would Jake need to Lie in the first place. After seeing Jake's texts, the state troopers talked to his friends and they denied ever being with him. This then created a massive gap in Jake's timeline. Where was Jake from 8pm to 1:30am on Saturday night? And why do you feel he had to lie about it?

[Jake]

It doesn't sound like you're being 100% truthful with me. You know, I just. I can't. I can't understand how somebody would know right up until the point that they made it home. But then you just hung out for four hours. You didn't do anything else. I doubt that, man. On a Saturday night. You know, there's something else that was going on in it, and I gotta feel that. I still wonder why you told me the other day that you went out to Solomon, turned around. I wonder why somebody would say that and then. And then point to two fellows who weren't there. Why would somebody come up with that? Honestly, because I didn't know what to say. This is like one of the first times I knew Stu career. I was kind of very visible.

[Christine Piscoya]

So Jake initially lied to the troopers about what he was doing and where he was on Saturday night. After the troopers interviewed his friends and confronted him about that deception, he told them that he wasn't used to talking to the troopers and he was nervous. And then he says that he saw Joseph alive and well in the hallway of the home around 1:30pm on Sunday. And yet the trooper sergeant said he saw the truck at mile 44 between 1:30 and 2pm I would view the trooper's observation as accurate. That alone should have opened a murder investigation, Right?

[Payne Lindsay]

Maybe he just panicked and made up a story. But why? There wasn't any need to. Why is that time period even important to Jake at all? If he saw Joseph alive and well at his house the next day, who cares what you were doing Saturday night? Unless he's lying about a lot more than just that. What Jake was really doing between 8pm and 1.30am on Saturday night still remains a mystery.

[Narrator]

His codename's Jackal. He's an exceptional assassin.

[Christine Piscoya]

Streaming now on Peacock.

[Payne Lindsay]

He will kill again unless we stop him. Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne.

[Narrator]

You're paying me to kill him.

[Christine Piscoya]

I am charging you for getting away. Jackal's here.

[Narrator]

Look at the exits.

[Payne Lindsay]

BAFTA award winner Lashana Lynch. I will find him and I will kill him myself. I like to win.

[Christine Piscoya]

So do I.

[Payne Lindsay]

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[Kirk Piscoya]

His roommate, you know, he says he didn't remember. The person I'm living with goes missing and there's the largest manhunt in your state. How do you not remember what you're doing that night? My BS detector goes up.

[Payne Lindsay]

Vishnu, Joyce's friend It's just everything doesn't add up.

[Ad Voiceover]

The way Jake lied, all the inconsistencies. His family is very nice, but always the last ones to see Joseph.

[Payne Lindsay]

Selena, Joseph's sister He saw him whenever.

[Ad Voiceover]

Somebody else witnessed the truck already planted out there on mile 44. Then his mother saw him drive by.

[Christine Piscoya]

Then his uncle Kevin Piscolla saw his.

[Ad Voiceover]

Truck at Joseph's house.

[Payne Lindsay]

The various sightings of Joseph's truck on Saturday when he went missing are already very confusing. But on Sunday there are even more sightings and not in the same place that everyone else claimed to see it the day before. Stan Peskoya says he saw Joseph's truck at their apartment in Nome on Sunday at 11:30am Again, 24 hours after Joseph stopped responding to everybody. And at the same time, other people claim they saw Joseph's truck 40 plus miles outside of Nome. And then again on Sunday, Jake's own mom, Bonnie and his stepdad Kirk claimed they saw his truck flying down Nome Council Road at a high rate of speed around 3:30pm and added they found it strange that he didn't stop. What is going on here?

[Ad Voiceover]

All from this family. But all the other sightings from different.

[Christine Piscoya]

People who aren't related. They don't connect.

[Ad Voiceover]

They're all different timings.

[Payne Lindsay]

Andy interviewed Jake's stepdad, Kirk.

[Christine Piscoya]

Do you recall seeing Joseph at any point during the weekend that he disappeared?

[Kirk Piscoya]

We were. Last time I saw him was when he drove by camp on Sunday. I'm not sure what the date of that would have been. That weekend we were working on the new addition there at camp, which is at mile 26 on the council road. We were, my wife and I were working on the deck and we saw his pickup go just flying by. And she mentioned something like, oh, there goes Joseph. And I looked up at the last second to see that blue truck go by and I didn't really realize he had a blue truck. I guess I didn't really pay attention to what he drove So I just didn't think anything of the truck and but we thought, I wonder why he didn't stop by. Because it was about time to eat and normally he probably would have stopped in to say hi, but I'm assuming that was him in the truck. I couldn't get a super good look at his face because he went by pretty fast. But we saw it was odd that he didn't stop in. It just seemed like he was in a hurry to get somewhere. It was I think around 3 o'clock in the afternoon or something like that. I think we can figure he's trying to get down there to go hiking. So he was just in a hurry to get down there, figured he'd do his hike and stop by on the way back or something is what we figured.

[Christine Piscoya]

So I want you to use a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being absolutely positive, like you're looking out at something and one being not at all sure. How sure are you using that scale that it was Joseph's truck that went by? Not the driver, just the truck.

[Kirk Piscoya]

A ten. Because I looked at the vehicles went by and I didn't know at that time that was Joseph's truck until later when Bonnie said that he was driving that truck and then it was down there at the road. I didn't know he had a vehicle till then, but.

[Christine Piscoya]

But same one that was parked on there.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Yeah, same exact one.

[Christine Piscoya]

Here's why that is so important. There's really credible witnesses, multiple witnesses who saw it parked in the same position, you know, backed in there, you know, Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, 7:00pm and as late as 10:30 or 11:00pm, same position. And then two folks saw it at 10:45am on Sunday. Sergeant Cross saw it there at 2:45pm Sunday.

[Payne Lindsay]

I think it was about 3:00 when.

[Kirk Piscoya]

We saw it go by.

[Christine Piscoya]

Right. And then there's a whole issue of Stan saw it parked at the house.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Right.

[Christine Piscoya]

And Jake saw him at like, I don't know what he said, 130 or something.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christine Piscoya]

So that's weird.

[Kirk Piscoya]

That is. Yeah, we've been thinking the same thing. It's like we've been trying to add all this stuff up too. And we're like, what?

[Christine Piscoya]

What do you think the explanation is?

[Kirk Piscoya]

Only thing I can think of is maybe he came back into town, just made a quick run into town to get stuff, more, maybe more fishing supplies or dry clothes or something and went back out. We were there till, I don't know, maybe 8:00 or so at night. And we were out working on the place, so we would have seen it go by a buy again. And we were kind of expecting him to come by through and stop. But, you know, it never did come back through while we were there.

[Christine Piscoya]

So was the driver the only occupant?

[Kirk Piscoya]

Yeah. Yep. Only just one person there.

[Christine Piscoya]

The other thing is that, you know, his fiance had left him all these messages. Christine had left him messages. And so none of those got answered. And if he was back in town, that's a little unusual.

[Kirk Piscoya]

That's odd. He wouldn't have got his phone working.

[Christine Piscoya]

Yeah, he was pretty into responding to me.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Yeah, he was really responsible.

[Christine Piscoya]

Do you have any idea what he was doing out there at mile 44?

[Kirk Piscoya]

Once we found out he was missing, I think it was the next day or something. We just learned from everybody else that they assumed he was hiking, fishing, that he had wanted to climb that ridge. So we just, you know, we went right to the search over here. And we ended up being coming apart of it and learning what was going on and looking at the maps. And then I was looking at that ridge and saying, if I was doing this, this is where I would have gone and what I would have done. And that's kind of what the route he was going to take because it's the easiest, least resistant. Yeah. Go down the road, cross a bridge. I've climbed that ridge and paraglided off of that really before. So it's a real easy climb. And once I found out he liked to run ridges, I said, I bet he went right across the top and either came down to these fork and back or he went back those longer ridges, which we flew extensively with our own private airplane. We flew for hours and hours and hours down there on that search, for days with our plane, and didn't find, you know, not tracing nothing. You know, with barrier, everybody's talking, you know, it's a very high barrier area. Very high. And we saw a lot of bears while we were doing the searches in that very area. And I know they do bury their. But they kill. And it can be very hard to see. Talking to hunters around here and stuff. They said they've been standing on a moose kill. It was buried. The only reason they saw it was there's a little bit of horn sticking up out of the dirt and they didn't even know they were standing on it. So I don't know. I mean, we could have passed him who knows how many times somewhere and not even known it. If he was buried by a bear or something. Someone Found a leg here a few weeks ago down in that area when they were berry picking. And so that started a whole rumor that, you know, they found a leg of Joseph's leg. But it was. I think it ended up being a reindeer leg, which I was pretty positive is probably what it was. There was a. I don't know who started some rumor about, you know, Jake may have done something because they are roommates in the same house. And I knew that obviously isn't anywhere close to ever happening because I know Jake very well. And those two's ages were so far apart. They just lived in the same house. They really didn't hang out or anything. They just were roommates in there. It's about the only rumors I heard on that stuff. Everybody just thinks it's a bear. Probably a bear got him or something.

[Christine Piscoya]

I talked to fishing game and they said there's never been a fatal bear mauling on the Seward Peninsula.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Not fatal.

[Christine Piscoya]

There have been maulings.

[Kirk Piscoya]

There's a guy walking around.

[Christine Piscoya]

Right?

[Jake]

Right.

[Kirk Piscoya]

I didn't know he was getting married until, you know, this whole thing came about. People were, you know, there and I met her and all that stuff. I didn't. I didn't know the details of his life like that, like some other people did. But I knew he was moving and he seemed really excited about it. And he said he was going to miss us all and miss the kids, miss our Wednesday night dinners and stuff.

[Christine Piscoya]

So what are your gut instincts about what happened to him?

[Kirk Piscoya]

Part of me says it's a bear. Just because this area and where he was and alone, not armed. But another part of me just seems it's a little fishy because of how he was and how intelligent he was. And he did this kind of ridge running extensively. And he has pictures of being on top of everything around Nome, all over the place. So it's something he did regularly and he knew how to do it and he was very athletic. It's not a bear. Something just is not adding up with. I know that traffic goes back and forth a lot with drugs and alcohol. I just got a weird, you know, it's just an odd feeling that somebody's got him somewhere and it's not there or we should have found something. With that two weeks of extensive searching, we should have come up with a shoe, you know, something to show that he was in that area.

[Christine Piscoya]

Do you recall Joseph ever talking about anyone that he was having problems with and known for whatever reason?

[Kirk Piscoya]

No, I never heard anything about anybody not liking him.

[Christine Piscoya]

You know, I've tried to call Jake 11 times late this afternoon, this evening, and every time the call fails because he's not accepting calls. And when the first investigator came out here while the search was going on and everything, he tried to interview Jake a number of times. And each time, even though Jake said he would, he failed to call back. And the guy even ran into him in a bar and talked to him and he said he'd get with him and then never did. So, I mean, Jake really has probably the most relevant and important information of any of the people, and even, you know, little details that he doesn't think might be important might fit with something else that we know in terms of the bigger picture. Do you have any idea why he's reluctant to speak with us?

[Kirk Piscoya]

He's very, very quiet. Jake's very quiet and kind of reserved. I don't know if he's just, you know, feeling weird because he's gone now and maybe he thinks everybody's blaming him for something when obviously he knows he didn't do anything or whatever. I don't know, maybe something like that. I don't know.

[Christine Piscoya]

Has he expressed any of that?

[Kirk Piscoya]

Not to me, no.

[Christine Piscoya]

Okay.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Something. I bet someone's got him somewhere else that bumped him on the road or we should have found something, right? With all that, we should have.

[Christine Piscoya]

You know, somebody was drinking, you know.

[Jake]

And then they don't.

[Kirk Piscoya]

Scared, they don't know what to do.

[Christine Piscoya]

Right.

[Kirk Piscoya]

It's a big area.

[Christine Piscoya]

I mean, it's pretty easy, frankly, to get rid of a body out there.

[Kirk Piscoya]

You know, nothing here. Yeah, right. So.

[Christine Piscoya]

All right, this will be the end of the interview. It's now 9:09pm.

[Payne Lindsay]

As Andy Clamser continued collecting the facts, it was starting to paint a really bizarre picture. Joseph drops off the grid entirely on Saturday morning and everyone who sees him afterwards is related. Christine, Jake, their uncle Jake's mother Bonnie, Jake's stepdad Kirk. How does any of this make sense?

[Christine Piscoya]

I feel pretty confident that Joseph's truck was being moved around on Sunday. And given Jake's statements and some of the other suspicious behavior by Jake, I, you know, I feel pretty strongly that the most likely explanation for Joseph's disappearance is that someone has done something to him. After I interviewed Kirk, they were urging me to talk to Jake. So I called Jake a bunch of times, like 11 times, I think, the first day I was there. And he always had his phone set to not accept calls. He continues to say that he observed Joseph coming out of his bedroom about 1:30pm on Sunday. And leaving the house. He claims that he never saw any guns at the house there that Joseph might have had, which struck me as. Frankly, that didn't ring true to me because Joseph couldn't even latch the door to his room. You know, he had to keep the door closed with a bungee cord. He had bought that Taurus pistol in March. And I just think it's highly unlikely that Jake, staying in a bedroom right next to his, you know, wasn't aware of that and never saw it. Jake denies that there was ever any friction between them about anything, Denies that there was any dispute about the Internet, which also doesn't ring true to me. The whole issue of Jake lying about his whereabouts and trying to create an alibi. I mean, Jake said that he did that because he was nervous and he couldn't remember what he did that weekend. I mean, we have a situation where all of this, you know, all of this work that I've done is basically work that should have been done by the troopers. But you're in a situation where, for whatever reason, the troopers decided not to investigate this and to basically just close it out. And now they're in a pretty defensive posture about the whole case.

[Payne Lindsay]

Did those troopers, the guys, when they came out, they were supposed to take.

[Jake]

The truck and process it.

[Payne Lindsay]

Do you know if we have any.

[Jake]

Results for that or if they did that?

[Christine Piscoya]

They didn't do. They did not do that. A lot of people have commented that it was kind of a problem that the truck was left out there, and so many people went through it. It wasn't towed in and put in secure impound until just before the ABI guys got out there. And I think that was because the local troopers knew that that was something they should have done. And so they did it at the last second. So that when the Abi guys got out there, they would have the vehicle in the secure impound at the police department there to look at it. They didn't process the vehicle forensically for anything.

[Payne Lindsay]

Back in Anchorage, my producer Mike, and I were reading Andy's investigative reports, Learning all this information for the first time. There's no proof of anything yet, but he was his roommate, person he was.

[Jake]

Living with when Joseph went missing.

[Payne Lindsay]

So it's not weird to talk to.

[Jake]

People about somebody you knew.

[Payne Lindsay]

Yeah, I don't care what case we're doing. I'm going to talk to the roommate of the person who was one of the last people to see that person alive. And so if he's weird about it, that will be weird. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's say he didn't do anything. He did some weird things, though. Right. And so if we're coming in as outsiders trying to eliminate the red herrings that we need to be able to eliminate some of the weird things he said and did. I just don't see the urgency of the roommate making up an alibi. Right, when you don't know he's not coming back yet. Why are you assuming that you need an alibi for anything if he just disappeared? Unless you know more than you're saying. The thing about doing a true crime podcast and investigating it in real time is that everything can change in an instant. Last night, right before I was about to publish this episode, I got a call from Joseph's sister, Selena. Since 2016, she's managed a tip line for Joseph answering all the calls herself. There hasn't been a new call on the tip line for years. Until last night. This is the real recording, but I changed the person's voice to protect them. I didn't get that.

[Ad Voiceover]

Hi, I just was listening to the Pain Lindsey podcast. I have something to tell you about Christine Piscoya.

[Payne Lindsay]

Yeah? What happened?

[Ad Voiceover]

An interaction that I had with her. It was after Joseph was missing in November of 2018. Christine had borrowed a phone charger from my significant other at the time, but it was my charger. So I messaged her and I said, hey, do you still have my charger? Can I come get it? I went to her house and she was so drunk. She was shit faced. She wouldn't stop crying. She kept saying over and over, joseph's dead, Joseph's dead, Joseph's dead. I loved him. It was a really weird interaction. And this week I was just listening to the podcast and it all clicked for me. I'm seeing how connected the Pasquoya family is with all of this. The only reason I feel comfortable even sharing this is because I left Nome now. And I know that Christine is going to know it was me who shared this information. I want you to tell Payne I'm.

[Payne Lindsay]

Gonna let Pain know.

[Ad Voiceover]

Turning into the trippers isn't gonna do anything. I do not trust the known police at all.

[Narrator]

Did you know Jake?

[Ad Voiceover]

I did. I had a really rough time when I was a teenager, and I shouldn't have been hanging out with the people I was hanging out with. And Jake was one of them. I went to a party one night at his house. All of a sudden, he started talking about Joseph. I didn't really hear what Jake was saying, but One of my friends did, and they told me to go to bed. Now. You're too drunk. And that was the last time I saw Jake.

[Payne Lindsay]

I too, made a tip line for both Joseph Balderas and Florence Arkpialik. And there's a $50,000 reward. For over a year, I never got a single call. But then one night, all that changed. Someone was trying to reach me. Someone who doesn't want anyone to know who they are. For me, it's created a sense of paranoia. But the information they've continued to leak to me for months now is intimate knowledge that only someone very close to this investigation could ever possibly know. So despite my own fears, I'm choosing to be their friend. And this is where this season of the podcast is taking a permanent turn. Because my newfound friend has a whole lot to say.

[Jake]

Did you know that after World War II, the US government quietly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Or that in the 1950s, the US army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well documented government operations that have been hidden away in classified files for decades. I'm Luke Lamanna, a Marine Corps recon vet, and I've always had a thing for digging into the unknown. It's what led me to start my new podcast, Declassified Mysteries. In it, I explore hidden truths and reveal some eye opening events like covert experiments and secret operations that those in power tried to keep buried. Follow redacted Declassified mysteries with me, Luke Lamanna, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts to listen ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery App.

[Narrator]

Hi Pain. I have a story. I think you'll find it interesting. It was a couple months after Joseph went missing that summer in 2016. That night, I went to a house party. It was at Jake's house, the same house where Joseph used to live. There was a bunch of people there. We were all hanging out. But I only had one beer that night. Something was off. The vibe in that house was different.

[Ad Voiceover]

Pain.

[Narrator]

I could feel it. It was late, everyone was drinking, and there was a group of people crowded around in Jake's room. I was standing in the doorway and Jake was sitting on his bed. He looked up at me. He said, do you know who Joseph Balderas is? At first I was confused. I told Jake I never knew him. The room got quiet and Jake said he was my roommate. But now he's missing. Then he turned his head and held both of his hands in the air. I was scared. He made a gesture like he was holding a rifle and he pretended to look down the scope. He stood there frozen, still pretending to hold a rifle in his hands, just staring down the barrel. Jake said he's still missing. The room got completely silent. Talk. He pretended to pull the trigger like he fired the rifle. It was terrifying. And his friend sitting next to him made no reaction at all. None of them said anything. It was in that moment I knew I needed to get out of there. I left in a hurry and ran back to my house. I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's been eight years now and I've never stopped thinking about that moment. I believe he had something to do with Joseph's disappearance. There were other people there that night and Jake's gesture didn't even faze them. Would you like to know their names? Payne.

[Payne Lindsay]

If you want ad free episodes, you can do so by joining Tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts or just go to tenderfootplus.com if you really want to engage in the conversation here, by all means, go join the up and Vanish Discord. I put a link to the discord in the episode description. Also, we're going to start releasing bonus content from this season exclusively for Tenderfoot plus subscribers, so be on the lookout for some bonus stuff this week. Also, if you want to stalk me on Instagram, it's ainzy. And if you're not already, you should definitely follow up and vanish on Instagram. Panished See you next week.

[Ad Voiceover]

Up and Vanished in the Midnight sun is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your host is Payne Lindsay. The show is written by Payne Lindsay with additional assistance from Mike Rooney. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Lead 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 Kanique, Glenn and Eric Quintana. Artwork by Rob Sheridan. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at uta, Beck Media and Market 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. For more podcasts like up and Banished, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us@Tenderfoot TV. Thanks for listening.

[Payne Lindsay]

Water damage is no joke. Did you know that water damage makes up more than 25% of all home insurance claims? And the average claim costs over 13,000 doll dollars. Don't let a small leak turn into a big expense. Learn [e-mail] no joke. Pemco Mutual Insurance Co. Seattle, WA.