Episode 1: The Devil’s Punchbowl

Summary

Valley of Shadows – Episode 1: The Devil’s Punchbowl

Podcast: Valley of Shadows
Host/Reporters: Haley Fox and Betsy Shepard (Pushkin Industries)
Date: January 12, 2026
Main Theme:
Exploring the mysterious disappearance of LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Aujay in 1998, the Mojave’s criminal underworld, and the swirling suspicions of police corruption and cover-up.

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Episode Overview

This debut episode unpacks how the 1998 vanishing of Deputy Jon Aujay launched not only a massive manhunt but also a reckoning with the dark realities of law enforcement culture, corruption, meth epidemics, and lawless desert landscapes in California’s Antelope Valley. Through interviews with those who knew Aujay, searchers, and ex-cops, hosts Betsy and Haley probe evidence, myths, and official narratives to ask: What really happened—and who wanted to keep it quiet?

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Who Was Jon Aujay?

• Introduction to Mike Bauer ([02:20–03:08])
  • Retired LASD Captain, Aujay’s former superior, describes Aujay as an “elite loner”: Army Special Forces, SWAT officer, survivalist, ultra-runner.
  • Quote (Mike Bauer): “He was an animal... doing 50 mile runs. He was an elite loner.” ([04:30])
• Aujay’s Last Day ([04:49–06:00])
  • On June 11, 1998, Aujay drove to Devil’s Punchbowl for a solo run. He called in to LASD from a payphone and was last seen alive in the park that afternoon.

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2. The Search and the Desert

• Immediate Response ([06:18–07:15])
  • Colleagues and friends, including LASD SWAT and search teams, scrambled to cover rugged terrain, but “it was as if he just vanished into thin air.”
• Personal Touch ([07:19–08:44])
  • Bauer combs through Aujay’s belongings—work jacket, running shoes, photos—underscoring the human cost and unresolved grief.
• The Antelope Valley Setting ([11:24–13:49])
  • Fox and Shepard describe the Mojave’s “otherworldly” harshness and how Pearblossom, CA, feels simultaneously bleak and cinematic.
  • Quote (Haley Fox): “This part of the high desert doesn’t have the allure and vibiness of Joshua Tree... It’s mostly empty space dotted with defense plants, bedroom communities, and tumbleweed towns.” ([11:42])

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3. First Theories and Dead Ends

• Search Parties and Local Witnesses ([14:34–19:07])
  • Park Ranger Jack Farley recounts seeing Aujay in his regular parking spot; a local teacher sees Aujay head for the mountains.
• Massive Multi-Day Search ([23:09–28:10])
  • Bloodhounds, helicopters, ESD squads, and even army assistance search for days. Dogs maybe catch a scent; a resident reports a gunshot near a trail—no evidence found.
• Dark Side of the Desert ([28:26–30:51])
  • Searchers briefed to be cautious of meth labs and potentially violent locals. Abandoned mines and the forest’s reputation for dumped bodies add chilling context.
  • Quote (Dave Rathbun, ESD): “If all the dead bodies... stood up at once, they’d be shoulder to shoulder.” ([30:01])

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4. Theories: Accident, Suicide, Foul Play, or Cover-up?

• Proposed Explanations ([32:46–34:15])
  • Was Aujay a survivalist who simply vanished, or did he want to disappear?
  • Friends recall Aujay quipping, “I could go in the mountains and you’d never find me.” ([33:38]; Dave Rathbun)
• Premature End to the Search ([34:15–35:57])
  • The official search is called off on day 6. Rathbun objects: “Who said that? Who gave that order? ...Why are you shutting it down?” ([34:15, 35:41])
• Suicide Narrative Takes Hold ([38:56–41:13])
  • LASD quickly pivots to a theory that Aujay killed himself, citing depression from marital problems, though no body or forensic evidence is ever found.
  • Some colleagues are skeptical; others, like running friend Randy Meggerdly, believe suicide most likely. The possibility Aujay vanished by intention or got lost is also floated.

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5. Suspicion, Silence, and Red Flags

• Code of Silence and Institutional Barriers ([27:27, 45:00–47:06])
  • Dave Rathbun: “There’s a code of silence in law enforcement. You break that code and you’re done... If they’ll kill a cop and bury him, what are they gonna do to me?” ([10:27])
  • Case files are treated as “hot potatoes” within the department—untouchable, secretive, with open resistance to scrutiny.
  • Quote (Dave Rathbun): “If I start poking around that case, they’d let me go... That case can’t be touched.” ([45:25, 45:33])
• Internal Stonewalling ([47:06–48:02])
  • Public records requests are ignored. Retired Captain Bauer reports persistent lies from within LASD:
  • Quote (Mike Bauer): “They lied to me... as a captain of the fucking Sheriff’s Department with 33 years... They fucking lied to me about what they’re doing at Homicide to shut this thing up.” ([47:40])

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6. Consequences for Speaking Out

• Physical Danger and Retaliation ([44:06, 48:28–48:40])
  • “I wouldn’t do it alone. In the event somebody did decide you were getting too close... you will simply disappear.” —Mike Bauer, warning to the reporters ([48:40])
  • Law enforcement whistleblowers express fear — not just of criminal actors, but their own department.
  • Quote (Mike Bauer): “It’s not safe — not because of criminals. It’s not safe because of law enforcement. And there’s nothing worse than that.” ([49:57])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mike Bauer, retired LASD Captain:
  • “Who has a missing deputy sheriff and doesn’t seem to care what the hell happened?” ([09:08])
  • “Just common sense told me you probably ought to see whether there’s any evidence of self-infliction.” ([42:18])
  • “You guys have stumbled into a cluster of shadows.” ([48:24])
• Dave Rathbun, search and rescue:
  • “I participated in that search until my feet were bloody... But day six, they said, well, shut it down. Who said that? Who gave that order?” ([34:15])
  • “There’s something rotten in the wood pile, and it stinks. And I can smell it.” ([46:08])
• Haley Fox:
  • “This part of the high desert... feels worlds away. The Antelope Valley... is a 3,000 square mile stretch of the Mojave. This is a very unusual, strange place.” ([11:42, 29:18])
• On alternative theories:
  • “Stories began to circulate that Ajay’s alive and well, living in Alaska... Mexico... joined the CIA...” ([32:46])
  • (Press statement, LASD): “A good analogy would be someone giving you two to three pieces of a 500-piece puzzle and asking you to guess what the picture is... We might never get it right.” ([34:32])

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Important Timestamps

• Intro/Main Cast Introduction (cut ads): [02:14–04:49]
• Jon Aujay’s Disappearance: [04:49–06:00]
• The Search Begins: [06:00–07:15]
• Describing Pearblossom and Devil’s Punchbowl: [11:24–14:29]
• Police and Family Respond: [22:20–25:07]
• Search & Rescue Actions, Gunshot, Meth Theory: [26:01–30:51]
• Suspicions and Cover-up: [38:56–47:40]
• Danger of Speaking Out / Season Preview: [48:24–50:09]

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Tone and Style

The episode blends meticulous investigative journalism with noirish, desert-swept atmosphere. The hosts mix dry humor, empathy, and a growing sense of unease as they peel apart official stories and personal memories.

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Summary

Valley of Shadows launches with an engrossing, open-ended mystery: Deputy Jon Aujay vanishes without a trace in the Mojave, leaving behind only rumors, suspicions, and a trail gone cold. The first episode draws listeners into the distrust swirling around the LASD, the lawless reputation of the region, and a mosaic of perspectives from jaded cops, worried colleagues, and persistent friends. The series promises a deep dive into not only the disappearance but also the system that may have preferred Aujay vanish — and that might endanger anyone who digs too deep. This is California crime and corruption set to the stark, strange beauty of the desert.

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Transcript

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[Mike Bauer]

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[Haley Fox]

Pushkin subscribe to Pushkin plus to hear the entire season of Valley of Shadows ad free starting January 12th. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks and early ad free listening from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin plus on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple Podcast or at Pushkin FM plus. And thanks for your support. This series includes content that may not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

[Mike Bauer]

Is this okay?

[Betsy Shepard]

Yeah, I'll turn it down just a little bit because sometimes you get animated.

[Mike Bauer]

I get pissed off.

[Betsy Shepard]

Pissed off Old Copy this pissed off old cop is Mike Bauer.

[Mike Bauer]

Okay? My name is Mike Bauer, retired captain, LA Sheriff. I retired in 2002. My last assignment was Major Crimes Bureau Detective Division, LA Sheriff Bauer spent 33

[Betsy Shepard]

years climbing the ranks of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and he looks the part of a retired captain. His white hair and mustache are neatly groomed and his eyes are permanently fixed in a look that says do not fuck up on my watch. And he's pissed off because of something that happened to one of his guys on his squad back in the summer of 1998. June 11 started off like a normal day in Los Angeles. June gloom and bad traffic.

[Mike Bauer]

I got up early out of Long beach and headed up the 605 and into East LA. Our office in East LA.

[Betsy Shepard]

Bauer was doing paperwork when a call came into the front desk.

[Mike Bauer]

The receptionist answered, then she hung up. And she comes down to get a cup of coffee across the hall. And I said, hey, who was that? It was John Augie.

[Betsy Shepard]

John auge was a 38 year old canine cop and he was calling to inquire about an upcoming job assignment.

[Mike Bauer]

I said, well, I've been trying to get a hold of him. And she says, oh, well, maybe he'll call back. He never called back.

[Betsy Shepard]

John Auge was working for the unit Bauer headed up at the time. The Special Enforcement Bureau, or SEB for

[Mike Bauer]

short, which consists of seven or eight SWAT teams. And the SWAT teams were involved in tactical responses to high risk situations.

[Betsy Shepard]

In the field, SEB handled things like active shooter situations, hostage negotiations, search and rescue. It was a job that attracted adrenaline junkies like Ajay. He was an army paratrooper and a survivalist. And those military skills, along with his buzz cut and square build made him a shoo in for the sheriff's department.

[Mike Bauer]

He was in the army and Special Forces. He was working at the elite unit of the department. I have to call him a loner, but he was an elite loner because the guy was doing 50 mile runs. He was an animal.

[Betsy Shepard]

Ajay got his kicks by going on long runs through California's backcountry. He'd go out deep into the wilderness to conquer the only obstacle course that still challenged him. And that's how Ajay was spending his day off. On June 11, 1998, he woke up, put on his running gear and drove to one of his favorite parks, the Devil's Punch Bowl. It's a rugged canyon where the Angeles National Forest, the San Gabriel Mountains and the Mojave Desert all converge. Ajay entered the park just before noon, used a payphone to call into the sheriff's department, and then he took off running. He never listened to any music, just the sounds of nature as he jogged along a maze of switchbacks and up a nearly 10,000 foot mountain. By early evening, he looped back towards the parking lot. But as the sun began to set, the shadows of trees and rocks grew until night engulfed the park.

[Mike Bauer]

That evening I got a phone call saying that Deppy OJ is missing. That he didn't come back to his vehicle and that they were going to start some more extensive searching for him.

[Betsy Shepard]

It's an all out manhunt for John Ajay.

[Haley Fox]

Every search and Rescue team in LA

[Betsy Shepard]

county has been called in to help.

[Haley Fox]

The 38 year old went hiking Thursday

[Betsy Shepard]

in a rugged section of the Angeles National Forest known as Devil Punchbowls Park.

[Haley Fox]

It's a beautiful but dangerous area, an area where it may be extremely difficult to find Ajay.

[Betsy Shepard]

It's a pretty unique situation. The sheriff's department is called in to look for a missing hiker who's one of their own. So the search and rescue team sent out to look for Ajay consists of his friends and colleagues.

[Mike Bauer]

We took our teams out and deployed

[Betsy Shepard]

in two man teams over the edges of the trails, into the little nooks

[Mike Bauer]

and crannies and the gullies that he

[Betsy Shepard]

could have slipped and fallen into. But searchers find no trace of Ajay. It was as if he just vanished into thin air. And now, nearly 30 years later, the deputy is still missing.

[Mike Bauer]

I guess I'll open a box.

[Betsy Shepard]

All that remains from Ajay's life is packed into five cardboard boxes. The items are wrapped in plastic and Bauer wears gloves as he combs through them.

[Mike Bauer]

This is John's work jacket and it's an seb jacket with his name embroidered on it. And Bosco, his dog.

[Betsy Shepard]

Bauer's preserving Ajay's belongings for future developments in the case.

[Mike Bauer]

Okay, so here's his running shoes with his name on the back. Those should have some DNA in them.

[Betsy Shepard]

The artifacts also tell us who Ajay was. There's a photo collage full of happy memories. Him and his high school sweetheart Deb on their wedding day. A birthday party for their daughter Chloe, who was just five when he disappeared. And puppy pics of Bosco, Ajay's department issued canine. And next to these snapshots of domestic life, there's a steel ballistics helmet intended to stop rifle rounds. Trophies for marksmanship, army fatigues, you know, tough guy stuff. Audrey moved at a fast clip, trying to balance the competing demands of home and work. But his life came to an abrupt and puzzling end.

[Mike Bauer]

His death certificate says cause a death unknown. Manner of death unknown. No body.

[Betsy Shepard]

The deputy's body has never been found. Which raises a lot of questions for Mike Bauer. And a survivalist getting lost in the woods. Another big question mark. Over time, the mystery of it all has turned into something else. Deep and unsettling suspicion about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the only law

[Mike Bauer]

enforcement agency in this country that I know of, and I've looked around. Who has a missing deputy sheriff and doesn't seem to care what the hell happened? What's the answer? Who's motivated to find the answer?

[Betsy Shepard]

And that's my cue. When Mike Bauer first told me about Ajay, I thought, an unsolved disappearance involving a cop, that's unusual. But when he started talking about the Sheriff's department, his department, that's when I locked in. Because you'd expect the LA County Sheriff's Department to turn over every stone to find their guy. So the claim that the LASD may have an interest in not solving the case, now that's a story. So I called up my friend Haley Fox. Like me, she's an investigative journalist and she knows a lot about the Sheriff's Department because she's reported on it for many years.

[Haley Fox]

Hey, Betsy, how you doing? I'm good. I'm ready.

[Betsy Shepard]

Yeah. You wanna do this?

[Haley Fox]

It's about time.

[Betsy Shepard]

A little road trip adventure.

[Haley Fox]

All right, let's do it.

[Betsy Shepard]

We've teamed up on stories before and decided to get the band back together to find answers about this missing deputy and to take on the largest sheriff's department in the country.

[Dave Rathbun]

There's a code of silence in law enforcement. You break that code of silence and you're done. Hey, if they'll fucking kill a cop and bury him, what are they gonna do to me?

[Mike Bauer]

It's an obstruction of justice of a very large scale.

[Betsy Shepard]

I'm Betsy Shepard.

[Haley Fox]

I'm Haley Fox and this is Valley of Shadows, a show about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Episode 1 the devil's punch bowl. Betsy and I are making the trek from downtown Los Angeles to the Antelope Valley. That's the desert area north of LA where Deputy Ajay decided appeared. The drive's about 60 miles, but takes an hour and a half to two hours because of the mountainous terrain.

[Betsy Shepard]

So you actually have to take. We got to go north.

[Haley Fox]

Yeah, we're going to go north, but this is LA, dude. We got to go south 110, south 5, north 14. And then I think there's a 138 throne in there, but nothing's a straight shot.

[Betsy Shepard]

Spoken like a true Angelino.

[Haley Fox]

I was born and raised in LA County. Go Dodgers. But this part of it feels worlds away. The Antelope Valley, or the AV, as it's sometimes called, is a 3,000 square mile stretch of the Mojave. But this part of the high desert doesn't have the same allure and vibiness. As places like Joshua Tree. Instead, the AV is mostly empty space dotted with defense plants, bedroom communities, and tumbleweed towns.

[Betsy Shepard]

So a lot of just like trailers kind of just parked out in the desert?

[Haley Fox]

Yeah, I mean, power lines and scrub brush. Our story takes place in and around Pear Blossom, California. It has a population of 1500, and it's where the Devil's Punch Bowl's located. Driving through it, Betsy gets a case of deja vu.

[Betsy Shepard]

I get anxiety coming to places like this because it reminds me of, like, the town that I grew up in. There's just like I feel the oppressive weight of boredom.

[Haley Fox]

Oh, really?

[Betsy Shepard]

I moved to LA several years ago from South Louisiana. I'd never been to Antelope Valley before, but it was immediately familiar to me because if you were to replace desert with swamp, this region would look a lot like the small town I'm from. It's rural and kind of run down. There's more landscape than real estate. Lots of pickup trucks and town life seems like a thing of the past. We got an abandoned motel.

[Jack Farley]

What's this?

[Betsy Shepard]

Oh, like an abandoned old restaurant and rec hall. And people getting gas to and presumably be on their way.

[Haley Fox]

Yeah, I mean, I think the three gas stations in a row tell the story.

[Betsy Shepard]

But the closer we get to the Devil's Punch bowl, where Ajay was last spotted, an otherworldly landscape appears, full of spiky Joshua trees and sandstone columns.

[Haley Fox]

It's actually really beautiful out here.

[Betsy Shepard]

I did not expect it to look like this.

[Haley Fox]

Are you looking at these huge rocks jutting out of the ground and, like, they're making all those crazy shadows?

[Betsy Shepard]

I've never seen anything like that before.

[Haley Fox]

I haven't either.

[Betsy Shepard]

I feel like I'm in an old western movie, you know, like, where he's got this, like, wide, epic landscape shots.

[Haley Fox]

Oh, total endless horizons.

[Betsy Shepard]

Total endless horizons. I can see why John Ajay like to come out here.

[Haley Fox]

Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty epic. Okay, we are pulling into the Devil's Punchbowl county park parking lot.

[Betsy Shepard]

Here we are.

[Haley Fox]

We've come here to retrace John Auge's last known steps and to meet with Ranger Jack Farley. He was working at the Punch bowl the day the deputy disappear.

[Betsy Shepard]

Hi. Are you. Are you Jack Farley by chance?

[Jack Farley]

I am.

[Betsy Shepard]

I'm Betsy. This is my reporting partner, Haley.

[Jack Farley]

Nice to meet you, Haley.

[Haley Fox]

Thank you for meeting us out here. Jack Farley's retired now, but for 35 years he was assigned to work the Punch Bowl. What a cool job.

[Jack Farley]

Great for me. Yeah, it was awesome. Good job.

[Haley Fox]

It was Farley's job to keep an eye on things, to tend the grounds and patrol the area. So he noticed when Ajay became a regular at the Punch bowl and he clocked Ajay's regular parking space, the one closest to the trailhead.

[Jack Farley]

So I can remember seeing him sitting in the back of his truck when he'd get done with a run in the mountains. So when I'd walk out into the parking lot, I'd see him sitting out there and ask him about his run.

[Haley Fox]

Farley remembers that the day Ajay disappeared, his white Ford F150 truck was parked in that very same spot, surrounded on all sides by wilderness.

[Betsy Shepard]

One thing that impresses us so much about this area is that you have a desert landscape on one side, you have mountains and forests on the other, and then in between, it's these really cool rock formations.

[Jack Farley]

Right. It's all uplifted from earthquake activity. Oh, wow, That's Punchbowl Fault. And that runs parallel with the mountains. And then when you came up the hill, you crossed the San Andreas Fault, which is, of course, the big one that runs through California. Several faults in the area took all this sand that was laid down flat by streams and tilted it up into

[Betsy Shepard]

vertical relief, and it creates a bowl shape.

[Jack Farley]

You can see a definite bowl shape coming around like this. So that's where it got the Punchbowl name.

[Haley Fox]

We're not totally sure about the devil part of it, though. According to local lore, early homesteaders saw a grinning devil in the rock formations. We didn't see Satan in the rock face, but we did see something else, thanks to a county park employee named Dave Neumer.

[Mike Bauer]

See this?

[Betsy Shepard]

Right where the shadow ends, there's that

[Odoo/Comcast Business Advertiser]

big rock kind of all by itself. If you look, it's like a forehead

[Mike Bauer]

is facing us and there's a nose pointing straight.

[Betsy Shepard]

Kind of looks like George Washington.

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Yeah, it's a natural.

[Betsy Shepard]

Mount Rushmore.

[Jack Farley]

Cool.

[Odoo/Comcast Business Advertiser]

So there's all kinds of faces out here because it's like, oh.

[Dave Rathbun]

Our brains are programmed to see patterns.

[Haley Fox]

Pattern recognition is why we see gods and goddesses in the stars and the man and the moon. It's also a key part of criminal investigations, a way to turn information into a story. And that's why we've come to the Devil's Punch bowl, to see if we can make sense of what happened on June 11, 1998. So we pull out a map we printed from the Internet because we're prepared journalists and elder millennials, and we present it to Ranger Farley.

[Betsy Shepard]

Let me show you what it looks like?

[Jack Farley]

Yeah, mine will definitely be.

[Haley Fox]

This would definitely get us lost in the wilderness, but it was a good thought. Farley proves his outdoor prowess by whipping out some real maps of the area to help orient us to our surroundings.

[Jack Farley]

Okay, here's the Devil's print.

[Betsy Shepard]

Okay. And

[Jack Farley]

there's Burkhardt Trail right there. Goes over toward Devil's Chair. So that'd be just to the east.

[Betsy Shepard]

Mm.

[Jack Farley]

Goes to South Fork.

[Haley Fox]

One witness reported seeing Ajay near the picnic tables at the main trailhead sometime before noon. This witness was a local teacher there on a field trip with a bunch of elementary school kids. Audrey stopped to talk to him. He pointed to a jagged mountain in the distance, Mount Baden Powell, and said that's where he was headed.

[Jack Farley]

So the high mountain behind the telephone pole over there? Yeah, that's Baden Powell. And that's where he would go sometimes

[Betsy Shepard]

to the top of that.

[Haley Fox]

How tall is that mountain?

[Jack Farley]

Geez. That is one of the higher ones. Let me think. 10,000. 10. I mean, in this range.

[Betsy Shepard]

And he would run from here to that mountain, all the way over there and then run up it?

[Jack Farley]

Yeah, he'd run over there and then there's switchbacks all the way to the top of that mountain.

[Haley Fox]

Ajay was spotted again later in the day when multiple witnesses say they saw him jogging through a campground just north of the mountain in the direction of the Punch bowl parking lot. But when Farley left his post at 5pm Ajay's truck was still parked in the lot. And it stayed parked there as the evening bloomed over the desert. And then close to midnight, Ajay's wife called the sheriff's station to report him missing.

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[Betsy Shepard]

As June 11, 1998, nears its end, Debbie Auge becomes increasingly panicked because her husband, Deputy John Ajay, told her he'd be home around dark. And by now he's several hours late. So she dials up one of the sheriff's stations where Ajay worked.

[Vince Burton]

The call comes into the desk and it's from Debbie. And it says, hey, my husband who's a deputy, he went for a run and he didn't come home.

[Betsy Shepard]

Vince Burton was a sergeant in the Antelope Valley. He was also Ajay's colleague and friend. So he gets on the phone with Debbie.

[Vince Burton]

She was just upset. She was crying. She was obviously very concerned. I just, I said, okay, Debbie, we're sending people up there, you know, keep you posted.

[Betsy Shepard]

Patrol deputies hightail it to the punch bowl where they find Ajay's truck. But no Ajay. They think maybe he got injured, slipped and fell or had a run in with some wildlife. So Burton dispatches search and rescue to the site and he calls in their coordinator, Dave Sauer to discuss Ajay's likely route.

[Vince Burton]

And Dave comes in and we pull up a map of the area. And I, I told him at that time, I said, you know, John's a runner. And he goes, yeah. And I said, no, he's a long distance runner. He's an ultra marathoner. He's like what

[Betsy Shepard]

ultramarathoners are running extremists who power through long distances. In fact, Ajay was scheduled to Compete in a 100 mile run the week after he went Missing. So responders have a hard time wrapping their heads around the scale of the search.

[Vince Burton]

I gave them the best information I could give them. You know, don't start your grid pattern so small.

[Betsy Shepard]

This is Randy Meggerdly. He was a patrol deputy for the sheriff's department and one of Ajay's running buddies. He reiterates to the command post that Ajay was a beast.

[Vince Burton]

You're running goat trails is basically what I categorize them as.

[Betsy Shepard]

What do you mean by that, goat trails?

[Vince Burton]

Well, they're just makeshift trails. Sometimes it'll be covered with snow. Sometimes it'll be covered with mud. Crossing rivers. I mean, it's crazy what kind of stuff that we were doing. There was one that we did. It was hand over foot trying to get up this mountain.

[Haley Fox]

Wow.

[Betsy Shepard]

And so part of the activity was figuring out how to get to the end of it.

[Vince Burton]

Yeah, in one piece.

[Betsy Shepard]

Hearing Meggerdly talk about ultramarathoners, it sounds like they have no off switch. So maybe Ajay just overdid it.

[Vince Burton]

Your brain does some wonky stuff when you're dehydrated. And they thought maybe he got on a trail and he was doing the forest gump, just kept running.

[Betsy Shepard]

That's a theory, but Ajay was doing the forest Gump and just kept running and got himself into a tailspin of dehydration. Responders take note and fan out across the search grid.

[Jack Farley]

I was nice to him. I said, you know, I know the area pretty well. If you guys want help.

[Betsy Shepard]

Ranger Jack Farley again, the guy goes,

[Jack Farley]

no, we're search and rescue. We pretty much know what we're doing, you know? So I go, okay, okay.

[Betsy Shepard]

But it doesn't take long for the pros to realize they're in over their heads.

[Jack Farley]

So then they're going, hey, are you the guy that knows the area? You know, maybe you could give us a little help.

[Betsy Shepard]

So Farley leads a few groups of deputies and bloodhounds down the local trails.

[Jack Farley]

At one time, thought they caught a scent, and it went up on the trail going toward the Burkhardt Trail. And we had talked about someone saying they heard a gunshot. You can't see the house from here, but it's like a half mile below the trail up there where the people lived that said they heard that.

[Betsy Shepard]

The dogs pick up a scent. Possibly Ajay's on a trail that's near a local resident. That guy reported to searchers that he heard a single gunshot. And at sunset, the day Ajay vanished. It's a detail the sheriff's Department registers as a potential clue.

[Jack Farley]

So I took a group of deputies over there and we went down really rugged wooded canyon. They didn't find anything.

[Betsy Shepard]

But searchers do spot some footprints on the mountain where Ajay told people he was going. So Ajay's captain Mike Bauer takes to the skies to see where they lead.

[Mike Bauer]

And that was the first time I ever stepped out of a huge helicopter on the side of a mountain with one skid touching. And then that helicopter flew off while we examined the openings of Bighorn mine to see whether or not it had been broken into.

[Betsy Shepard]

Bighorn is a mine on top of the mountain left over from the gold rush days. Its entrance has been welded shut to keep out hikers. And when the helicopter lands, 90s action movie style, Bauer's crew finds no signs of a break in. Ajay's reported missing late Thursday night. By the end of the day Sunday, the sheriff's department kicks things into high gear. They call in the US army and Air Force along with the LASD heavy hitters. It's a specialized squad called Emergency Services Detail or esd.

[Dave Rathbun]

They do search and rescue, underwater search and recovery, and they support the special weapons team with medical skills.

[Betsy Shepard]

Dave Rathbun was one of the ESD members sent out to search for Ajay.

[Dave Rathbun]

And the adrenaline that you get from ESD is different from any other adrenaline.

[Betsy Shepard]

ESD deputies are equipped to handle all the all types of emergency scenarios. But it wasn't just the rocky ledges and wild animals they had to worry about here. The area was full of all kinds of criminal activity.

[Dave Rathbun]

One of the things they told our search teams on day one was John may have stumbled into a meth lab by accident. So that was told to us when we were out searching. And the reason they told us is they recommended we take weapons.

[Betsy Shepard]

Rathman and his team of searchers come to the punch bowl armed and ready for action. Because maybe Ajay isn't lost or injured or running for the hills. Maybe he's the victim of foul play. The command post doesn't expand on why they thought Ajay may have been taken out by meth related violence. But to Rathbun this theory doesn't sound too far fetched. Because the Antelope Valley is isolated, outlawish and on account of its size, difficult to police.

[Dave Rathbun]

There are a lot of people who just don't want to be around other human beings out there, which makes them sometimes dangerous. There's people cooking meth. It was a little bit like the old west in a way. I mean this is A very unusual, strange place.

[Betsy Shepard]

And remember that abandoned mine searcher scoped out. Well, it turns out they're everywhere and they're a prime location for body dumping.

[Dave Rathbun]

One of the things ESD did was recover dead bodies from mines.

[Betsy Shepard]

And it wasn't just the mines. Corpses turn up all over these parts.

[Dave Rathbun]

You know, if all the dead bodies that were up there from being deliberately disposed of stood up at once, they'd be shoulder to shoulder.

[Betsy Shepard]

It's a chilling image of the area's darker side. Ajay would jog from the Devil's Punchbowl into the Angeles National Forest, which has been called the most dangerous national forest in America. Around the time of Ajay's disappearance, it's estimated that two to three dozen corpses dropped, turned up in the forest every year. And those were just the ones that were found. So Rathbun understands the danger he faces, but pushes on in search of footprints.

[Dave Rathbun]

You have to look at the ground and look at bushes that have been pushed. And we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. And we generally don't give up until it's just ridiculous.

[Haley Fox]

The search is taxing for Rathbun physically and emotionally because he and Ajay were friends. And back in the early 90s they were even partners.

[Dave Rathbun]

If it was me that needed cover, he'd be there. I didn't even think about it. Someone you could definitely depend on.

[Haley Fox]

Rathbun and Ajay spent a lot of time driving around together, but they didn't sit around riffing like partners in a buddy cop movie.

[Dave Rathbun]

He was laconic, didn't have a lot to say unless you worked on him. And he was always kind of severe, serious.

[Haley Fox]

Ajay was hardly two dimensional, though. He used his deadpan personality to mess with people.

[Dave Rathbun]

He had this secret sense of humor, but it was really hard to tell which card he was playing, the funny card or the I'm John and I'm dead serious card.

[Haley Fox]

One time, Rathbun and Ajay had to chase down a suspect. Rathbun was driving and he ends up reversing down a one way street. They got the guy, but Ajay looked

[Dave Rathbun]

pissed and he added that. Dave, I need to talk to you.

[Haley Fox]

Rathbun's gotten pretty good at impersonating John Ajay's baritone voice. He says he sounded a lot like Lurch from the Addams Family.

[Dave Rathbun]

What you just did was a violation of California state law. And if you do something like that again, I'll have to write you up, John. We were chasing a suspect and we are law enforcement officers, and so we get exemptions during those things. That may be true, but it was illegal. Is this John being funny? You would not know, and he will never let you know.

[Haley Fox]

Ajay was hard to read. In fact, there's even confusion over the pronunciation of his last name. His family says OJ but to his

[Dave Rathbun]

friends it was Ajay, and he never corrected us. And he's not very bashful.

[Haley Fox]

We'll never know why he didn't tell people how to pronounce his name. But it seems fitting for someone who remains a mystery to so many. Ajay was an enigma to just about everyone around him. So when he disappeared, he became an easy target for conspiracy theories. Stories began to circulate that Ajay's alive and well, living in Alaska. Others say Mexico. Some say he was recruited by a mercenary group or joined the CIA. These theories were fueled by weird comments Ajay had made to friends like Dave Rathbun.

[Dave Rathbun]

Dave? Yes. You guys think you can find people with your searches and you think you're pretty good at it, right? I could go in the mountains and you'd never find me. And I said, there are people who want to be found that we can't find. So I'm not real impressed with your declaration there. If you don't want to be found, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find you. So I agree.

[Haley Fox]

And of course, that conversation takes on extra meaning as searchers keep coming up empty handed.

[Dave Rathbun]

I participated in that search until my feet were bloody, as did several of my peers. But day six, they said, well, shut it down. What do you mean, shut it down? Who said that? Who gave that order? Who shut this thing down? What are you talking about?

[Haley Fox]

Day six, the Sheriff's department folds the search after six days and gives a statement to the press. Sergeant Sauer, one of the deputies overseeing the operation, says, quote, a good analogy would be someone coming up to you and giving you two to three pieces of a 500 piece puzzle and asking you to guess what the picture is. Throw into that a few pieces of an entirely different puzzle, and that is what we work with. We might never get it right, end quote.

[Dave Rathbun]

You want to trust the department, that they're doing the right thing, but no one asked us if we should shut it down. If I'm the search and rescue guy and my partners are search and rescue guys and the helicopter pilots have been on hundreds of searches, why are we asking them what they think? And their input?

[Haley Fox]

Rathbun says searches for missing hikers typically last seven to 14 days, depending on the viability of the person. Ajay was not your typical hiker and given his personal and professional connection to the Sheriff's department, it seems like the LASD would go the extra mile to find him.

[Dave Rathbun]

So it's six days. You cancel a search for somebody who can run 50 or 100 miles in the wilderness, really knows the wilderness as good or better than anybody in esd. They're shut it down. Why are you shutting it down?

[Haley Fox]

The Sheriff's department tells the public that Ajay disappeared without a trace and that they're ending the search because they're just spinning their wheels. But behind the scenes they're telling a very different story.

[Dave Rathbun]

A well, they say that they decided he committed suicide.

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[Betsy Shepard]

Internal LASD reports claim that Ajay was distraught over his failing marriage and took his own life in the punch bowl. That gunshot the area resident heard, that could have been the sound of Ajay just putting an end to it all. But the Sheriff's department makes that determination. Without a body, they don't find any remains. Blood, bullets, or a suicide note, nothing. The only thing they think they may have found of Ajay's was an energy bar wrapper left on one of the trails. From what we can tell, there's not a lot pointing to suicide. So we reach out to Ajay's colleagues and friends to get their thoughts.

[Vince Burton]

He was obviously down. He was obviously upset, but was it enough to commit suicide?

[Betsy Shepard]

Sergeant Vince Burton is still on the fence. On the one hand, Ajay did appear torn up over his marital problems. On the other, he seemed to be coping.

[Vince Burton]

Would you be telling me about your ultra marathon if you were just going to end it all, would you even be planning to go run at the punch bowl, which is an ugly area anyway?

[Betsy Shepard]

For fact checking purposes, we want to make clear the punch bowl is not ugly, but go on, Vince.

[Vince Burton]

None of that made sense to me with the suicide.

[Betsy Shepard]

Rajay's running buddy, Randy Meggerdly. There's no question, plain and simple, I

[Vince Burton]

think he killed himself. That's the only way I can explain

[Betsy Shepard]

it, because he says Ajay was acting strangely, even more strangely than usual in the weeks before his disappearance.

[Vince Burton]

He says, you know, there's a bunch of caves and stuff out here. You can pretty much disappear, I think was the word that he used, and nobody would ever find you.

[Betsy Shepard]

Ajay said similar things to Dave Rathbun, but he didn't put a lot of stock into any of the statements because he says, Ajay is just a weird guy.

[Dave Rathbun]

Our unit was next to a big, giant duck pond, and one of the ways we used to make jokes about each other is we kind of like weird. Do you fit in the. In the duck pond? John was an. I don't want maligning, but he was one of the oddest ducks in the pond, which is good, right? You need him. You don't want everybody swimming the same.

[Betsy Shepard]

Initially, Rathbun was open to the possibility of suicide, but he's become increasingly skeptical over time because if Ajay had killed himself, he thinks his body or some trace of him would have turned up by now. So Ajay's colleagues are divided on what happened to him. It's Kind of like those faces seen in the rocks at the Devil's Punch Bowl. Same details, but interpreted in different ways. And that makes sense because we feel conflicted about it too. Ajay did say some eerie things about disappearing, but this disappearing act would be pretty hard to pull off. I mean, how could he have buried himself and stay buried for almost three decades? Rathbun asked the sheriff's department to explain that one.

[Dave Rathbun]

They said, well, we think he might have sat on the edge of one of those mines and blown himself into the mine. Okay, we are really stretching now for an explanation as to why we can't find him.

[Mike Bauer]

I didn't accept it. Just common sense told me you probably ought to see whether there's any evidence of self infliction.

[Haley Fox]

Pissed off old cop Mike Bauer is evangelical in his belief that the suicide theory is bullshit because he says the sheriff's department didn't arrive at this conclusion. They led with it, and that poisoned the investigation from the start. Bower says that as early as day three, an LASD official was pushing the suicide narrative during search team briefings. To Bauer, this was equivalent to telling searchers to let up.

[Mike Bauer]

I took that person outside and I said, what in the hell did you say that for? How could you possibly know that at this point? How could you possibly discourage them to search for somebody that work for you?

[Haley Fox]

The sheriff's department was even sharing this

[Betsy Shepard]

theory with the press.

[Mike Bauer]

We haven't ruled out the possibility of suicide, but we don't have any evidence to support that. That's what he came here to do.

[Haley Fox]

Bauer thinks it's irresponsible to promote the suicide theory without a high degree of certainty. So he prods the department to keep investigating.

[Mike Bauer]

I kept contacting homicide and saying, something's wrong. I'm telling you there's a problem.

[Haley Fox]

But he says the department ignored the case to such an extent that he began to question their motives.

[Mike Bauer]

Nobody was in charge of it, and nobody wanted any of it once they saw how stinky it was getting.

[Betsy Shepard]

Randy Meggerdly represents the other end of the spectrum. So we ask him what he thinks about the possibility of foul play.

[Vince Burton]

I refer to myself as a mushroom. They would just feed me a little bit of poop every once in a while. I wasn't in the know on that whole thing.

[Betsy Shepard]

I've never heard the mushroom poop metaphor before.

[Vince Burton]

Yeah, you know, you feed you a little bit of poop and you grow a little bit.

[Betsy Shepard]

At first, the mushroom poop analogy went way over my head. It sounded like a Southern expression. My mom just forgot to teach me. But then it clicked while I was watching the Departed, the Martin Scorsese movie about corruption within the Boston Police Department.

[Vince Burton]

My theory unfeds, is they're like mushrooms. Feed them shit and keep them in the dock.

[Betsy Shepard]

I think what Megardly is saying is that he doesn't ask a lot of questions because he prefers to be kept in the dark about things that don't concern him. And who can really blame him? I mean, law enforcement agencies are not exactly known for their culture of transparency.

[Dave Rathbun]

That file. You'd have to get special, special permission to touch that file.

[Betsy Shepard]

Dave Rathman, Ajay's former partner, says the sheriff's department is unusually protective of the Ajay case file.

[Dave Rathbun]

And they don't even like to hear you talking about it. Well, to me, that's what you would call a red flag.

[Betsy Shepard]

So Rathbun asked his buddy, a retired detective working cold cases for the sheriff's department, to review the Ajay case.

[Dave Rathbun]

Could you maybe grab that case file? And he went, oh, no. I said, what do you mean, oh, no? Why wouldn't you want to take a look at it? He said, no, that's a hot potato. No one's allowed to touch that. If I start poking around that case, they'd let me go. I said, well, that's interesting. Why? It's a suicide. He said, I don't know. I just know that that case can't be touched.

[Betsy Shepard]

Those red flags are another reason Rathbun and others just can't get behind the party line.

[Dave Rathbun]

As my father would say, God bless him. There's something rotten in the wood pile, and it stinks. And I can smell, smell it.

[Betsy Shepard]

And that brings us back to the poop mushroom. It might thrive in darkness, but to me, that's not an ideal environment for policing. I mean, the whole concept behind law enforcement is that watchful eyes deter crime, right? But who is watching the police? There's very little oversight of law enforcement agencies, and it's hard to hold them accountable since. Since they control the collection and release of information about internal problems, the philosophy

[Mike Bauer]

of the sheriff's department is to hide it. And the philosophy of government in a lot of respects is that way. Now with the terrible way they handle public records requests and stuff, they just basically stonewall you. They give you the middle finger if you're asking for something that the public has a right to know.

[Haley Fox]

Tell me about it. Public Bauer. We tried with those public records requests and got the proverbial middle finger. Without access to the information, it's hard for us to know how the Sheriff's department handled the Auge case. And we'd remain in the dark if it weren't for Mike Bauer and other deputies coming forward. Bauer retired in 2002 and has spent the better part of his retirement investigating a disappearance. And he's uncovered what looks like some pretty damning information about the Sheriff's department.

[Mike Bauer]

They lied to me. They lied to me as a fucking captain of the fucking Sheriff's department with 33 years on the job. They fucking lied to me. While I'm in charge of sheriff's intelligence, they're fucking lying to me about what they're doing at Homicide to shut this thing up. They don't want me involved in it. Ah, imagine that's how offensive that is.

[Haley Fox]

We know that law enforcement has its problems, but they're not usually laid out for us by dyed in the wool cops. People who know this world from the inside and can show us where the bodies are buried, figuratively speaking. We tell Bauer we want to do a deep dive on the Ajay case, beginning with his investigation.

[Mike Bauer]

You guys have stumbled into a cluster of shadows.

[Haley Fox]

But he's not as encouraging as we expect him to be and for good reason.

[Betsy Shepard]

Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance?

[Mike Bauer]

I wouldn't do it alone. In the event somebody did decide that you were getting too close to something, you will not be found killed. You will simply disappear.

[Haley Fox]

This season on Valley of Shadows.

[Dave Rathbun]

Early on, I let the suicide theory sit at 50 50. As I've learned more and more, I'm at about 90, 95 murder 5 to 10% suicide.

[Betsy Shepard]

They ruler around the drug seen was that a deputy stumbled onto something he shouldn't have and he was taken care of.

[Dave Rathbun]

I'm hearing on the street, man, that Ajay, he didn't commit suicide. He was murdered. I'm hearing it for more than one person.

[Haley Fox]

Then I started hearing some rumors that

[Betsy Shepard]

there was a gun.

[Vince Burton]

And yet there's no indication that gun was ever booked into evidence.

[Dave Rathbun]

If you ratted or they thought you

[Vince Burton]

were going to rat, it wasn't, hey, don't do that ever again.

[Dave Rathbun]

You're done.

[Vince Burton]

They got rid of you.

[Dave Rathbun]

So that's where the murders came in.

[Betsy Shepard]

He was describing with his hands and his arms and his whole body, where

[Vince Burton]

this cop was buried at.

[Mike Bauer]

In other words, it's not safe. Not because of criminals. It's not safe because of law enforcement. And there's nothing worse than that.

[Haley Fox]

Hey, dude, we're getting like pretty far out in the middle of nowhere. And no one knows we're out here.

[Dave Rathbun]

You've got to be careful where you go and who you talk to.

[Haley Fox]

If you have any information or tips related to the disappearance of John auge, please call 213-262-9889 or email Shadowsushkin FM. Valley of Shadows is reported, written and produced by us, Haley Fox and Betsy Shepard. Our editor is Diane Hodson. Our executive producers are Jacob Smith and Alexandra Garriton. Original music by Jake Gorski, Ray Lynch, Mike Jersich and Hayden Gardner. Sound design by Jake Gorski. Fact checking by Annika Robbins. Additional production support by Sonya Gerwick and our show art was designed by Sean Carney and Betsy Shepard. Special thanks to Nick White for show art photography. Additional thanks to Jerry Me Tao. Valley of Shadows is a production of Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts from. Type 2 fun. We're Hayley and Betsy. See you next week.

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[Haley Fox]

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[Betsy Shepard]

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