5 | Finding Jon
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This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. I need to stick to the facts. I need to stick to what we know for sure. And through that, maybe all these other things will start to make sense. If we're sticking with what we know to be 100% true in this case right now, then that only really leaves one person, Oregon John. It was Oregon John who was the last person to see her that we know about.

It was Oregon John who had possession of Flo's things: her shirt, her shoes, her jacket, and her cell phone. He also offered no explanation as to why he had these things. He has since fled town and, to my knowledge, has never returned. And he has a rap sheet in Nome with 93 different incidents on it.

including sexual assault, cruelty to animals, and no matter the level of involvement Oregon John may or may not have here, he is, without a doubt, the most central character on the Night of Flo's disappearance. And he could very well hold the keys to solving this. So we must talk to Oregon John. But I wasn't feeling very confident about that. Everyone I've ever talked to has said he fled Nome years ago and moved somewhere in Asia. Wendy mentioned the Philippines.

If that's the case, we're in bad shape here. In the police report on Oregon John that I received from the city, I was able to learn his full name. And so my internet searching began. And it didn't take long before I found a Facebook profile that seemed to exactly match his physical description. I went deep back in the photos. There's no. This has to be the guy. Good morning, Facebook.

Oregon John, aka Lay Chon John. Just another beautiful night in Kodiak, Alaska. He's not in the Philippines. He's right here in Alaska.

From Tinderfoot TV in Atlanta, I'm your host Payne Lindsey, and this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun. I have his Facebook. He's in Alaska, but where in Alaska? This is right in town. Right here in between some buildings. Look at this. Right behind some apartments. Okay, pause that. Okay. You can almost see what it says. Damn, it's so blurry. Keystone. Hold on.

Wow, look at the power of that water. Right behind some apartment. In his most recent video, he was filming a river in some small Alaskan town behind some building complex. Desperately scanning the video, I noticed a small sign in front of a parking spot. I'm going to screenshot it. I can barely make out what it says. Keystone chiropractic. Okay, yeah, I found it.

A local business in Ketchikan, Alaska. It looks like it's right next to an apartment complex. If he was going to a chiropractor, you'd think he'd be doing that in a town he lives in. But I guess he could just be visiting. I need more. I feel like he was either going to the chiropractor that day, or he was just right behind his apartment complex looking at the river. There's a bar across the street. He might live there. Here's the problem, though. He's moving around everywhere, it seems like.

On Facebook, this dude is all over the map. Seward, Homer, Ketchikan, Kodiak. But all of his pictures are from the vantage point of a ship on water. And it's a pretty big boat. I mean, at least he's posting about it. I think it's the same ship. Deeper down on Facebook,

I found a picture of the actual boat. Okay. And if you zoom in just enough, you can see the name of it. It's going to take us two days to get to him in the first place. We need to know where he's going to be ahead of time. So let's just Google the name of the boat. Alaska? I don't know. Wait a minute. It's part of the Alaska Marine Highway System. The vessels transport people, freight, and vehicles. But this is also a commercial service. It's like a cargo ship.

People will have to know when supplies are coming in, right? When supplies are coming in to port, right? This is the same ship. Do they post the schedule of every individual ship? Hold on, please tell me this is correct. They do. Holy shit. If he actually works on this ship, then this schedule could tell me where he is at all times. Maybe. As long as he's not on vacation or something...

He should be wherever this ship is according to this schedule. This is the only information we have to go off of. So my idea here is to try to find out where he's going to be in hopes of being there at the same time. And if I can do that, maybe I'll have the chance to approach him in person and ask him about Florence Ocbialek's disappearance. But these sailing schedules are pretty tight.

Four hours here, four hours there, six hours this way, eight hours that way. And they're back to back all day. I could be in the same location as him and he never leaves that ship. This schedule is like months in advance. Okay. Unless I could find a date that he's staying overnight somewhere. Okay, Friday the ship takes off at 5.45 p.m. And it doesn't leave again until 12.30 p.m. the following day.

In two days, he's going to have the longest break on his sailing schedule that he has all month. A full 12 hours. An overnight stay in Kodiak, Alaska. Which means that he's sleeping overnight on that ship. We have to go there. This is absolutely our best bet. I would have to assume that at some point, he gets off that ship.

We can't afford to fly to a place he just left. But if we were just there ahead of time, we could probably get him. That's the move. That's the move. And if we're gonna do it, we gotta leave now. As I'm booking flights and looking for places to stay, I have this anxious feeling coming over me. God forbid he's not there for whatever damn reason. What if we do all of this and he never even leaves this port? It's just a big risk.

My goal is not to just say, "Hey." I want to sit down and actually talk to him. And for that to happen, I need to know he has some time on his hands. At least with this plan, I know how much time he has. I think... We have to turn around and leave 7 a.m. latest the next morning, so we're going to be running off little to no sleep if we sleep at all.

What felt like a consistent pattern, the same ship with the same name, the same cities over and over, and they all matched the schedule on the Alaska Marine Highway website. But what I don't like about this is that he hasn't posted on Facebook in over a week. For the past seven days or so, he hasn't posted anything at all.

It could be nothing. But on the off chance he doesn't work there anymore, something happened, anything, this would be a total waste of time that I'd rather spend in the right direction. It's just a big risk. I need to figure out if he's really going to be there or not. Or we just got to come up with a different plan entirely. What I need to know is where he's going to be. Well, I don't have a crystal ball.

And I feel like I've maximized all of my internet sleuthing here. I don't know anyone who knows this person directly. And I know in my gut, if I just reach out as me right now, there's no way he's responding. When I was a kid growing up, in the summer of sixth grade, one of my best friends Jeremy and I came up with a pact. It was silly at the time, but we swore to each other that if we ever got in trouble, that we'd have fake names in the back of our head to say quickly enough to somebody to seem real.

The name that I chose was Eric Gaulding. I know, it doesn't even sound real. And ever since Up and Vantage season one, I've been operating a fake Facebook account behind the scenes, just poking around, lurking, as I sit here wondering how on earth I can physically find Oregon John. My light bulb goes off, so I took a shot in the dark. Okay, so I just messaged John from my fake Facebook account.

I simply said, "Hey John, do you miss Alaska?" And to my surprise, you responded saying, "I'm there right now. I'm only up here temporarily." I just said, "Nice. Where are you off to next?" "Anywhere they pay me to go." "Anywhere they pay me to go." He's talking to me and he's talking to a complete stranger, which I think is a little weird.

He's talking to me on Facebook, but he thinks I'm somebody else. But I still have no earthly idea where this person is on a damn map. I tried to keep it going for a minute, but I knew that any second now, he was going to be like, "Who the hell is this?" Okay, I'm gonna give it a beat here before I look way too suspicious. I feel like I'm playing with fire here, but all I want to know is what happened to Florence Okpialuk.

Every person that I've spoken to brings up Oregon John. I mean, I don't know how I can ask him in a roundabout way when his next off days are. Before I knew it, our Facebook messages were getting friendlier than ever. I was inching closer and closer, just trying to find out where exactly he'd be in 36 hours. A big ask as a stranger. I'm just going to keep playing along here.

Okay, I just asked him, do you get to explore the town at night or do you have to stay on the ship or how does it work? Well, normally my shift don't start till 11 a.m. So we'll be pulling into port in the morning. I got a few hours to walk around. I've been to Kodiak, Seaward, Sitka, all them places. I think we're good. He's going to get off that ship. Chances are he's walking off that ship, at least for a few moments.

But to be there to confront him, I'm going to have to wait for hours, which means I need to get there now. It depends on what time we pull into port and what time we leave. But no, they don't make you stay on the ship. If you're off duty, you're off duty. So he's going to be in Kodiak, Alaska for a 12-hour period on Friday. It seems like a sure shot, almost too much so. Either way, we're rocking with it.

For the past 12 hours, John has continuously texted me. We're talking about Kodiak, and I'm still using my fake Facebook profile. I don't know why he hasn't asked who I am yet. Okay, he just said they have a really nice Class 3 gun store in Kodiak. They sell suppressors and Filato machine guns. It's pretty cool. No way. He just sent me a video of himself. Charging handle? Oh yeah!

Okay, he likes his guns, and he wants to show them to me.

Maybe he just wants to be friends with a total stranger on the internet. Then he sent me a picture of another gun and another one. But what's the message here? Maybe we're just bonding. My mom would say, stop what you're doing right now. We're definitely meeting in public, but I have to keep going. He's got a lot of big guns, but there's no way they let them on the ship, right? It's his job. That's where he works. Maybe in a weird way, this might be the safest place I could ever meet him.

So here's the plan. I'm about to board a flight to Seattle, which then takes me to Anchorage. Then I'm taking another flight to Kodiak, Alaska. And in 36 hours, I'm going to be waiting at the dock where his ship is going to be. It's time to tighten up and figure this shit out. Around 10 hours later, we landed in Anchorage. I was trying to do as much preparation as possible. Who is Oregon John? And what the hell am I getting myself into? When we got to the Airbnb in Anchorage,

We had about 12 hours before our next flight in the morning. And through some serious digging, I found someone who knows Oregon John better than almost anyone. So well that I can't tell you at all who he is. I swore that I wouldn't. But his insight is very real and very helpful in this moment. I want to know his whole backstory. Who is this guy? What am I dealing with? Is this going to be okay?

I talked to him on the phone, transcribed the call, and I had my good friend Rob Ricotta read it verbatim. This is what he said. My understanding was that he was the last person confirmed to have seen her at his tent on, I guess it was West Beach. He had a pattern of, I mean, he was a real piece of work. But he was a Navy veteran, I believe, who had some degree of health issues that sort of made him a little slow and awkward walking. Still a strong guy underneath that.

He had a civil protective order filed against him from an ex-girlfriend who was also a younger native Alaskan woman. They had some sort of like on-again, off-again relationship where he was providing her with alcohol and marijuana and I'm not sure how extended her stays there were. If it was sort of just like she crashed there from time to time and you know slept together in exchange for it. But they'd broken up and gotten back, briefly gotten back together,

like he had convinced her to come over, but she was drunk, but accused him of assaulting her and ran out the door. He basically called this couple who were also much younger native Alaskans, who he was kind of friends with because he gave them weed and asked them to come over. Basically, they were his alibis. You could sort of see that he had an explosive edge underneath him. He seemed like the sort of person who could get very angry very easily. I think he got out of town not too long afterwards.

Keep a little bit of personal distance. He really does like to talk about himself. He's the sort of person who's like creates his own reality. As long as it's sort of not adversarial, like if you seem interested, he would want to tell you his story.

and be so proud of his alibi and you know how wrong everyone else is. If he thought you were accusing him of horrible crimes, he's the sort of guy who would, I don't know, in all earnestness go off into just like a loud red face rant about how he was a soldier of Christ to fight against people who do that sort of stuff to women, not the sort of person who would do it himself. He did other stuff to vulnerable women and wrote me into kind of helping him out after the fact.

I think there's also like a 50% chance that he's told himself a completely different narrative. And even if he was being completely honest with you, he might not remember doing that. Be cognizant of your own personal safety when approaching him. I don't know if he's armed at this point. He's the sort of person who would want to be armed. Could get very fatalistic if he thinks that, you know, he's going to finally take the fall for it.

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He's been actively investigating another missing persons case in Nome, Alaska. Joseph Balderas, which is also very suspicious. Andy is a former cop in Alaska. And he knows way more about this shit than I do. If he's willing to meet with me, I'm going to do it.

Well, I mean, the more you talk to him, the better, because the more he talks about this and whatever he says, all the contradictions, if he's the one that did it, all the contradictions are going to add up in the end. It's a gift here that he's talking this much. If you can keep him talking about it, that is great. And just when we thought we had a good plan here, things took another turn. At the Airbnb in Anchorage, something just kept bothering me.

The only thing I can't control is whether or not he's actually on that ship. And something about this whole scenario made me feel like he wasn't going to be. So I messaged him again. Turns out, he's not going to be there. And he's back at home where he lives right now. In a totally different place. In somewhere I've never looked up in my life. Ketchikan, Alaska.

The whole plan feels up in the air now. And this is exactly what I wanted to talk to Andy about. I mean, it's rare that you can sit down and talk like this with somebody who's the main suspect. So I think you should keep it going. I don't see the upside of coming clean with him. I don't see any reason to do that. If he ever finds out who I was or looks me up, he'll know that that's me. Figure out a way to just sort of continue the friendship without seeming weird or anything.

Now I have a new dilemma. Now I'm meeting him on his home turf. The guns were cool and fun on Facebook, but that's when I thought he couldn't have them in person. The big concern is that if I pop up as Payne Lindsey out of nowhere, it's gonna look pretty weird given that he just met this stranger on the internet. And all of a sudden I'm here and I wanna talk about a disappearance?

If he consented to do the interview, it's gonna change completely what you get out of him because he's gonna be guarded. He's gonna know what you're doing. There's no way he's gonna go for this. Now I'm entering a whole different realm here. This whole thing started with me just trying to figure out where he was. And through that, he became very friendly, which I still don't know what to make of. Do I abort this altogether and surprise him as Payne Lindsey? What do we think is gonna happen when I do that?

Nothing good, I'm sure. Do I proceed as this Eric character, my fake Facebook, and try to meet him as his person? Breaking it down in my head, the scenarios go one or two ways here. If I know where he's going to be, and I pop up and say, hey, I'm Payne Lindsey, I want to talk about Florence Okbialik, there's a pretty good chance he's going to say fuck off. Am I trying to get a podcast soundbite? Am I trying to fulfill some sort of personal mission?

or am i trying to figure out what the hell happened to florence akpialik looking at all the options my best course of action for the biggest yield would be to meet him as this fake person that is if he actually believes this person is real i told him that i was in kodiak for a while with my uncle he used to work on the u.s marine highway i'm using his sky miles to get there another thing you do is introduce another person

If I introduced a friend who could be with me in the moment, it gave me a huge advantage. And who's that person in real life? I don't know. If I was going to go down this path, I want as much backup as possible. 2v1. I look like I don't belong there. Here's the reality. I have bleached hair, tattoos on my arms. I look and feel like I'm not from Ketchikan, Alaska. Having another person may help me offset that.

You, you're from Alaska. It's gotta be Cooper. The guy who sent me this case in the first place. He's from Alaska. He knows this territory more than anyone. And he's with me right now. Talk about a big favor. The goal would be to make contact with him, to know where he is. And you could even pitch this idea of a second person before you actually meet up with him. The second that I approach him as me, there's a chance he thinks that's weird.

Because it is. We can't just assume that he's not going to think that this stranger that I met has absolutely nothing to do with this investigative journalist that just came knocking on my door the same day. Maybe it's better to spring that on him without any advance warning. You know, just show up with somebody. I'm still on the fence about this. Should I tell him that I want to meet him as his fake person? He might just not believe me.

The worst thing that would happen is he stops answering. The real worst case scenario is you show up at the door and he pulls a gun on you and shoots you. That could happen. Well, that wouldn't be good. That's not the way to go. He messaged me. Probably won't be back to work till next week if you want to come out here and check it out. And come on by and you can probably crash on my floor for a week. I'm really just debating whether or not I go to his house. I don't think you should have.

So where do I go then? Better to get him in town and not out there at that fucking house. This is where all his fucking guns are. Meets him at a bar or a restaurant or diner or something. Bar probably is easiest at night. You meet him for a drink or two and you're like, hey, you know, I want to get into what you're doing, blah, blah, blah. You never have to mention Noam or anything.

This is the dilemma I've never been in before. But it made me stare in the mirror and think about what this shit's all about. Why am I doing this? Sure, it's a show. It's my job. You're listening to it. But what's the goal? To make some spicy clip? To pretend like we did something? To get really close and then just stop? I don't think so. I think this is a better way to do it. You're not going to get these comments that you get in a bar drinking with him.

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The other thing of this is you need an emergency situation. I gotta get out of here. You get a phone call from us, I gotta go. Sorry. We're gonna say that you're staying in a motel, that you're not staying. There's no way in hell I'm going to his house. I need to meet him in public. The best place to do that, without seeming weird, has to be a bar. He messaged me. There's a lot of bars in town. Let me know when your plane lands and I'll be there. It's weird that he even responded and that he wanted to go get drinks and everything. Yeah, same thing.

He just sent this to you? That ammunition is super expensive. It's like a dollar a round. Yeah, he was telling me that too. Why in the world would he do this? Why in the world would he meet you? And why would he want to form a friendship based upon somebody reaching out on Facebook? I mean, it's bizarre to me. What possibilities are there? He's lonely. He's stupid. He doesn't have friends.

But then it's like, is there a small part of him that knows that he'd be playing with fire but thinks that he's smart enough to navigate it? I don't think so. No? No. And I'd engage him on other subjects so that you sort of broaden the... Like, tell him you want to buy a gun for personal protection so he's comfortable with you because you're talking about other stuff, you know? Charge and handle? Oh, yeah! He's a weird dude. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to have a partner, my friend Cooper.

2v1. Something else as just a small distraction. Also, I'm not convinced that he just doesn't know who I actually am. And in that case, I definitely want one more person there. But we're not gonna half-ass this thing. We gotta have a whole backstory. Where are we from? What is your name? Why are we here? We can't mess these things up.

This is not how this whole thing goes down. Where's your car? What car did you get? You driving? Just say it's your uncle's key. No, you won't have a car. No, it's your car from back home. Yeah. No, you don't have a car. Yeah, you should not have a car. I think your last name should be your real last name. It was like a coincidence that you happened to be here the same time I was planning. I knew that you'd been out here in the past, so I just texted you and you were here.

and it's my it's my off season since it's the winter what's your favorite place to visit here the golden is that a real place yeah just have one name that's why you need this is the bar that my friend went to okay perfect is it still here though what's it called eagles club it's still open it's here like two months ago okay we'll double check this is already sounding very weird and unbelievable

The last thing I want to do is get hung up on some stupid detail, like if this bar is still open or not. At this point he's beyond friendly, and he offered to pick me up from the airport. We can't do that. Now I have to have a different story about my car. "So I rented a car?" "Uh, you can have a car here. You rented a car. You rented a car." And somehow, I have to bring in my other friend too. So Cooper is Riley. I am Eric.

and i told organ john that i want to meet him in person because i'm interested in doing the job that he does being a seaman and it's just a coincidence that my friend cooper aka riley is here at the same time if you continue talking those recordings would be like gold to law enforcement right when i thought i felt comfortable the real rational part of my brain kicked in big time

Why on earth is Oregon John agreeing to meet with me as a stranger? Does he know more than I know? Does he not care? Am I just overthinking this whole damn thing? It's time to buckle down. I can't waver anymore. I want to figure out what happened to Florence Okpialik. And this is the entire goal of this podcast. And I'm willing to go to lengths that I've never been to before to try and do that. Alaska is a one-party state.

Which means that in recording other people, only one party has to be there. In order for it to be legal, my flight's in six hours. There's no way I'm sleeping tonight. I've been on four different flights in the last 18 hours. Small rickety planes in the remote region of Northern Alaska. After a while, you get used to the turbulence. The plane's engine starts to feel like white noise. When I get here, I'm going to have to face the music.

For about a year now, I've been investigating an unsolved missing persons case. And it's all led me to this moment, to this place. A tiny town in remote Alaska. I'm minutes away from what is likely the most terrifying encounter of my entire life. And there's no escape plan. But I've mentally prepared for this moment. I know exactly why I'm here. I know why the victim's family wants me to come here. And I know why the police have never stepped foot here.

I'm about to meet the number one suspect in a murder case. I know they're dangerous. I know that they're armed. There's no time for second thoughts now. But what if I'm walking into a trap? What if this confrontation goes way south? You need to snap out of it. Turn around. But we both know we can't do that. I didn't come this far for nothing.

I've landed in Ketchikan and I'm less than 20 minutes away from meeting Oregon John at a bar. Hold it until the countdown's done. Then it's good to go? Yeah, then it's good to go. Okay, gotcha. You press record on your end. Yeah, that's the only thing is this one, if you don't hold it until it counts down, it's not going to connect. Let's try to see. Yep.

All right. Happy looking. I'm good. Let's do it. We don't know what the hell we're walking into. I found a bar that was quiet enough in the back and put as many recording devices as we could, hiding in plain sight. Now we're sitting and waiting. I sat there with Cooper next to me on my right at a table in the back of the bar that was facing the door. He messaged me 10 minutes away. Is it a real 10 minutes? Are you here already? Either way, we're on high alert now.

Remember why you came here. Then he walked in. John. Hey, what's up, man? This is Riley, man. To hear a full recap of this week's episode, go search for Talking to Death on your podcast app, my new weekly show. And listen to the latest episode with David Robinson that features another missing persons case.

That's talking to death on your podcast app and the most recent episode with David Robinson to hear a full breakdown of this week's episode.

Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your host is Payne Lindsey. The show is written by Payne Lindsey with additional assistance from Mike Rooney. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey. 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 Kanik-Glen, and Eric Quintana. Artwork by Rob Sheridan. Original Music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Mix and Mastered by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, 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 Vanished, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.

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