6 | Two Truths and a Lie
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Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is released every Friday and brought to you absolutely free. But for ad-free listening, exclusive bonuses, and early access starting next week, 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. I mean, it's rare that you can sit down and talk like this with somebody who's the main suspect.

Do I abort this altogether and surprise him as Payne Lindsey? What do we think is going to 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?

Looking at all the options, my best course of action for the biggest yield would be to meet him as this 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 shut the door and he pulls a gun on you and shoots you. That could happen. This is the dilemma I've never been in before. 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. I think this is a better way to do it.

He just sent this to you? 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. I think it makes him dangerous. I look like I don't belong there. You, you're from Alaska. I'm going to have a partner, my friend Cooper. 2v1. So Cooper is Riley. I am Eric.

And I told Oregon John that I want to meet him in person because I'm interested in doing the job that he does. 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, I've landed in Ketchikan. And I'm less than 20 minutes away from meeting Oregon John at a bar. I'm going to tape you. Hold it until the countdown starts.

I found a bar that was quiet enough in the back and put as many recording devices as we could hiding in plain sight. He messaged me 10 minutes away. Remember why you came here.

then he walked in John hey man I was just texting you hey what's up man this is Riley man

From Tinderfoot TV in Atlanta, I'm your host Payne Lindsey, and this is Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun. My friend Cooper and I were sitting at a table in the back of the bar, facing the entrance. "John, John, hey." "What's up man?" And Oregon John was immediately recognizable. Our other producers, Mike and Dylan, were camped out behind us, recording the entire interaction. My first thought was to try and make some small talk.

If he thinks I'm somebody else, he's likely going to say something any moment now. He does DoorDash in town and just got off his shift. I lived in North Carolina for a little while. Okay, same shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same shit. Except we rode Harleys.

No, they got some pretty cheap bikes around here, though. Cheap cars, too. I'm going to look. Just for fun, I'm going to look. I'm bouncing back and forth to Cooper, hoping John doesn't get a long look at me. My cab driver said her mom died a year ago, and the car's been sitting. She said she'll give it to me. No way. 96 Subaru Outback wagon with all its windows. You got to hustle around here. I need to fully become this person right now.

Within a few minutes, the conversation became friendly, and John mentioned that he's married now. — Wait, so how'd you meet your wife? On the internet? — I was gold mining. — Okay. — And I hired her to be my guide when I was in the Philippines. This must be where the idea of John being in the Philippines came from.

We talked about our own personal experiences in Alaska, and I started naming other cities, hoping that we'd eventually get to Nome. Then after two weeks... So you were gold mining out there in the Philippines? Yeah, yeah, because I was gold mining. That's what I was doing in Nome for four years. I used to have a 100-ton license. Then he brought it up on his own. And there's some days you make 10 grand in the end.

So John was a cab driver in Nome.

And he offered a concerning anecdote about his time as a cab driver in the town. "The girls that would spend all their money in a bar needed to ride home and offer me a blowjob for a $5 cab ride." Because all of our mics are hidden, the audio quality is not always the best. So I'm going to occasionally replay stuff. "The girls that would spend all their money in a bar needed to ride home and offer me a blowjob for a $5 cab ride."

According to John, his time as a cab driver was more of a hunting ground for local women. In his words, exchanging sex acts for rides and enticing women with liquor. You know you can go to a liquor store and know. You come out with a bottle and the girls come up and you get to take your pick up to three of them.

This was a familiar story that I'd heard before.

Naomi, from the Board of Trade bar in Nome, said that Oregon John was talking about a restraining order that was placed against him at the time. He was sitting there drinking and he was talking about an incident that was going on with his girlfriend and he was saying she'd gotten a restraining order on him or something, something, something. She told the cops that I raped her. So she got a restraining order and they believed her, right?

So a month later, she saw me sitting on the bench, right? I'm sitting there and she walks by and says, how come you won't talk to me? I said, do you fuck my life up? She goes, well, come over to my house and fuck me right now. So we started dating again. And the girl...

He claimed that after he left Nome, he went back home to Oregon and that he got back together with her after she had filed the restraining order. I went back to Oregon. We were still on the phone. I was sending her money, you know. And my mom goes, "Why are you sending her money?" I said, "Because I've got a plan." So I talked to her, and going back to her parents in Fairbanks and sobering up and going to rehab. When she sobered up, she dropped all the charges.

And the statute of limitations has already run out on it now. Because they kept going back and get her to try to get her refiled. And she told him no because I helped her. John seemed to view himself as a hero in this situation. Keeping a straight face and playing along with him was starting to become pretty difficult. So I moved our conversation back to Nome. Why did John leave Nome? Why did you want to get out of there eventually? I had legal issues, remember?

He claimed the reason he left Nome was his legal issues he had with his ex-girlfriend, the restraining order. But then he said this. Let's play that back again.

John claimed that a woman went inside his tent one night. She walked off, and then somebody kidnapped and murdered her. Does John know this as a fact? He's clearly talking about Florence here, and he's saying with confidence that she was murdered, as if that's a known fact.

I started digging deeper. The whole town thought I murdered her. The FBI had to come in. They cleared me. They found her buried under the dude's house, the meth dealer, who was also the search and rescue diver for the police. And they thought I did it, so I bounced. I was the last person to see her alive, besides the guy that killed her.

Okay, he's now admittedly the last person to have seen Flo alive, besides the person who murdered her, which he believes to be a solid fact at this point. Claiming her body was discovered in a barrel under some meth dealer's house? I think I would have heard about that if it were true. These are pretty bold claims here. The FBI had to come in. They cleared me. They found her buried under the dude's house, the meth dealer, who's also the search and rescue diver for the police. And they thought I did it, so I bounced.

I was the last person to see her alive, besides the guy that killed her. He's saying that because everyone thought he did it, the FBI came in to rescue him. He can't be serious with this, right? He described a time when one of Flo's friends had approached him. He goes, "Hey, I heard you picked up Flo in town and took her out to your camp." And yeah, yeah, she passed out. And then in the morning I woke up and she was gone, but I left her shoes and her phone.

So Flo passed out in his tent. Then he woke up in the morning and she was gone, even though she left all of her things there. And yeah, yeah, she passed out. And in the morning I woke up and she was gone. I left her shoes and her phone. Well, there was no trace of it. And it took a while. I was actually held captive by the natives for 28 days straight.

You've got to be kidding me with this. Held captive by the natives? Give me a break. It took every ounce of self-control I had to not roll my eyes into the back of my head. A friend of mine, she actually called the FBI in because she was working for the guy that killed her. She found the barrel under the house and called the FBI in. The FBI had to rescue me.

In John's story about Flo's disappearance, that he's claiming is a murder, in which they've already found her body, there was a particular friend of his that was apparently vouching for him at the time. And this person allegedly told the FBI that John was innocent. What friend is he talking about? He's saying she, so we know that. And this person found Flo's body in a barrel under someone's house? The police were trying to fuck me and everything because it was one of their people that did it.

He's now conflating the story of Sonia Ivanov's murder by a known police officer, which happened two decades ago.

Mind you, in this moment, he thinks that I wanted to meet him to talk about his job. And we just casually arrived at this point in the conversation. To his knowledge, we know nothing about Flo's disappearance. At all. And it's starting to feel like he's just throwing shit out there to see what sticks. So we can just move on and talk about something else. Now you know about the judge that disappeared, right? No, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, they fed him to the bears.

He's likely referring to Joseph Balderas, who went missing in 2016. His car was found abandoned outside Nome, and there's been no trace of him ever since. This is the case that the private investigator, Andy Klamzer, has been working on for years. It's time to try and press a little bit harder. Why did they fucking think you did it then? Because I was the last person known to have seen her alive. She just vanished. Then who saw her afterwards? Who murdered her?

They brought in cadaver dogs around my camp and I had no place to live. I was living in a camp and every time I go into town, people were following me. They'd follow me out to my camp. One time, 30 of them cornered me on the beach. I had to stab a guy and I called the police out and by the time they got there, everyone was left and they took the guy and the police didn't. I think as far as we're concerned, it was never gonna happen because it was just outside their jurisdictional lines.

So the guy who fucking really did it, did he get caught or did he fucking... It's hard to hear him, but when I asked if they caught the guy, he says, oh yeah. So the guy who fucking really did it, did he get caught or did he fucking... Good. But I still got family members calling me. They actually were doing a podcast and tried to get a hold of me. It was in this moment, an extreme panic began pulsing through my veins. They actually were doing a podcast and tried to get a hold of me.

Is he just fucking with me? Does he actually believe I'm this other fake person? Or did I just get caught? Also, how the hell does he know about this podcast? At this point in time, I haven't told anybody. My camp was known as a safe place where people would come when they were drinking without any... I swore I was never coming back to Alaska, and then I got this fucking job. But I stay out of trouble. I don't go into town. I don't mess around with girls. I got my beautiful wife. I don't...

Eventually, he brought up his guns, a subject I was a little less enthused by considering the fact that he has one on his belt right now. He's aware of some podcast, and he doesn't realize yet that he's talking to that podcaster right now.

Why is he telling me this?

I'm not exactly sure who he's talking about here, but I have some good ideas. Back to the case again. Are you saying the police didn't interview you at all? Yeah.

No, they wouldn't speak to me. I had officially worked Flo's disappearance back into the conversation, and I knew this was likely my last shot at asking any deeper questions. According to John, he was never interviewed at all by the known police department, but he did offer up on his own another interesting story. Now, my friends wanted to go out of town fishing.

But they weren't old enough to rent the car. So they had me rent a car and I drove them out there to go fishing back with their cousin. Now, this is when that girl was missing. So we came back. I parked the car in front of their apartment. We were returning the next day. The police came and confiscated the car and searched it. Because they said they saw me driving out of town with a girl in a car. What kind of car was it? It was a wagon. A truck or something? Wagon. Station wagon. Okay. But they... Ha! Ha!

He liked that. He wouldn't come out and say it himself, though.

This story, to me, is of utmost importance. I've heard previously, through the grapevine, that Oregon John had allegedly rented a car in Nome the day after Flo went missing. Very strange timing. And according to him, that's true. But he rented it for some friends of his because they weren't old enough. Okay.

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At this point, he'd said some very peculiar things, and it seemed like he wanted to backpedal and try and qualify that he is in fact innocent. But all my female friends that knew me were standing up for me, including my girlfriend that had rape charges on me. Her roommate was the missing girl's cousin. Her roommate would get drunk and she'd steal my girlfriend's phone, calling me up, where's Flo? Where's Flo? Now, when I went to jail on my girlfriend,

Right? On a serial murder violation. Flo's sister was in the cell next to me. For three days, I had to hear, where's Flo? And I'm like, I don't know. And the police did that on purpose. Back to whoever this alleged murderer is. Do they have a name, John? Did you know that dude who did it? No, I never met him. He was friends with her meth dealer. They conspired together. The thing is up there, is why would you need to kill a girl? They put out like crazy things.

So John knows with certainty that Florence was killed by this man, and he put her body in a barrel under a house that his friend eventually found. Yet no one else knows about it. And he also doesn't know this guy at all, and no names are forthcoming. The thing is up there is why would you need to kill a girl if you put out like crazy? Weirdos moved to Alaska to be weird.

An interesting stat to recall at a bar with two strangers you just met. It also isn't true. John has presented this story as if he is the victim. So maybe if I played into that some more, he'll keep talking about it, at least a little longer. He had mentioned earlier the preposterous story of being held captive by natives for 28 days straight. So I brought that back up.

Some more absurd details. Not only was he held captive, which he then said was just him being in his own tent on the beach, but he was injected with Hepatitis C.

Come on. Playing dumb a little bit here. Back to Flo. Why was she in his tent that night?

Unfortunate timing for him if he had nothing to do with her disappearance, like he claims. She just wanted a place to sleep it off. In my camp. I had a huge cabin tent with a wood stove in it and everything. I had solar panels, 12-volt refrigerator. You know, I had a cook stove. You know. Did you go find that motherfucker? The guy who fucking killed that girl? No, I left town when they found him. A friend of mine, a woman, used to come out and fuck me. She was 30 years old.

He brings up his friend again, the one that apparently vouched for him to the FBI. This woman also apparently found a barrel with Flo's body inside it under a house in Nome. Who is this person? A friend of mine, a woman, used to come out and fuck me. She was 30 years old. She's just one of her friends, but she wanted to fuck me. She'd come into the village a couple times a month, you know, good-looking, whatever. But she was working for the guy doing the construction. F***.

That friend of his is Kelly. The same Kelly that sent out all those text messages claiming two other men and a woman were responsible for Flo's murder. The same Kelly that told Flo's friend something entirely different. Kelly had told Flo's friend that it was John who was involved and that her body was in John's tent, not a barrel or someone else. The same Kelly that refused to talk to me on the phone and pretended like we already had.

This is the person who vouches for John? He's gonna need a better reference than that. No, no, that's the one that found the girl and turned it in and called the FBI to save me. And I knew her from the homicidal. And she's really cute. I was like, "Oh, you're coming over to fuck me?" So, you know, I took a Viagra and pounded the shit out of her. Then I'm like, "Fuck, man, this is a nice girl." So she'd come out to my cabin and just strip down to her bra and panties and run around all day in the summer, drunk.

and just hang out with me. She was safe. They don't need me, you know, because I was really chill with the girls, you know? There's no reason why I do that. I had one girl who had a boyfriend. She'd call him on the phone when I'm fucking him. And he'd get all butt hurt. And she goes, well, you know us, Eskimos. We cheat. She'd hand me 10 bucks and go, I know you. You should go get me a bottle of liquor. And I'd say, okay, let's fuck.

She was too drunk already to go in and sell, so I fucked her for 20 minutes and then I drive to the store and get her a bottle. But she gave me a bottle. That young girl, the one I showed you the picture of, she had them drive me out there and they were like, are you sure you want to go see John? And she's like, yeah, I know John. I trust John. And she come out, give me big hugs. She goes, I'm going to stay here with John. This is while that missing girl was out and everybody thought I killed her. Where did they find her? Under the dude's house, buried in a 50-gallon drum. That girl was telling me about it.

He's talking about Kelly again. Kelly. I'm no psychologist, and this may be pseudoscience altogether, but in my opinion, this was a classic example of what they call a Freudian slip. Listen again.

That girl knew I was guilty and she told him, look, John didn't do it, blah, blah, blah. The FBI had to come out and get me. And then my mental health counselor put me in the hospital with a toxin I'd lived with for three months. And then he shipped me out on a court mandate, locked down for mental health reasons to Anchorage. He faked the paperwork. What happened? Then as soon as I got there, in 24 hours, I was released of going to Oregon from Anchorage.

because they were doing it to protect me. I was considered an at-risk adult because of the abuse I was receiving by the natives. - Oh my God. - Yes. - That's crazy. - They shipped me out of the state. They have no idea I'm back up here. You could not pay me enough to go back there. Let's put it this way. It's a small town. I lived there for four years.

So everybody knows everybody. I go back into town. I step off that airplane. Matter of fact, before I get off the airplane, there's going to be people on that plane that are from there. They will know in town before I even step off the plane. That girl was from that area and she was ready to hop to town. But they got the guy, right? But they still don't believe it. They still think I was involved. Like I said, as much as six months ago, they tried to get in touch with me for a podcast.

Not the podcast again. We're pretty deep in the conversation now. I think he believes that I'm somebody else. He has to, right? As much as six months ago, they tried to get in touch with me for a podcast. The fuck? So where's the fucking guy who did it now? See, I thought you were hooked up with them. I didn't know who you were. I didn't see your picture. He's talking about my fake Facebook, which he clearly was at least a little suspicious of.

I don't even like Facebook, which is true. Good thing we didn't go to his house.

I don't blame him. John sent a lot of red flags up for me, too.

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That's hellotend.com slash dcpodcast to book your appointment. And he wanted to walk us to his car. He said he had a document for us pertaining to that job we were supposed to be interested in. I didn't like this, but I had to go. It's kind of good out here, wasn't it? That's quiet. Now, there is a company here, another gun store, called Firearm Adventures. You can rent 40 auto. Making conversation on the way to his car...

John invited us to the gun range the following morning. Not to look weird, I told him yes, we'd go. What's great is I got the high-rise sights, so even when the battery goes dead, I still have sights. He pulled out one of his pistols and accidentally dropped it on the ground. Oh, shit. I got my hollipoints, but that's all I got. What time should we text you tomorrow? Hit me up a little afternoon. Take off around 1. We'll go to the store, we'll come back, we'll be back about 2.30.

We debriefed the next day with private investigator Andy Klamzer. He was. Our friendship continued. But I was not about to go to the gun range with this guy.

He wanted us to meet with him the next day and go gun shooting. And I was like, "Eh." What could go wrong with that? Yeah, I'm like, "I'm gonna have to do that." Well, how did you segue into Nome? It's crazy because he actually brought it up first. Right before he got there at the bar, I was messaging him. He brought up Nome on his own. We pulled up some recordings for Andy to hear. What did he say about why her stuff was in his tent?

Did they find her? No, they did not find Flo. I was actually...

They injected him with what? So he's crazy. Andy also found his stories to be absolutely insane. You knew I was guilty that I put the crack rock on a meth rock in the butthole. She's the one that called me. Isn't that a waste of a crack rock? She would like to be in a village and call me a town just to crack me.

I always felt this whole thing with Kelly to begin with was just really weird and now I feel that way even more I pulled up all the messages that Kelly had sent out about Flo's murder and he hadn't seen them yet who wrote this these are Facebook posts collected by a woman named Sue who's just been on her own trying to solve Flo's case so when we run into this problem

What we usually do is go to, like, Nome and try and find somebody at Nome that knows her well enough that'll help arrange a meeting. He's peddling that theory, but that theory has really only ever come from one person named . And he talks about her a lot. That theory sounds cute and all, but it only comes from one person. This girl, who also won't answer the phone, did answer it finally, hung up on me. I'm gonna have to try some other angles.

Kelly clearly does not want to talk on the phone, or she thinks that we already have. I don't know. Whatever. So he said he left Nome because of it? Yes. So that's a good admission right there. I mean, if you didn't do it, why would you be, like, leaving Nome? And then in the morning when he woke up, she's gone and her stuff is there. The more he talks, the more he incriminates himself. This is probably better than, you know, trying to interview him

where you tell him who you are because this way you can keep talking to him over time. So, I mean, one thing you can say to him now is that, "Hey, I think that girl's still alive. I don't think they found a body. I was looking, somebody told me, I was looking online or whatever." And he claims that the natives injected him with hepatitis. - They held him captive for 28 days. - And injected him with hepatitis. That's just, I mean, so that's like delusional.

Kind of puts him in a different category. I mean, definitely dangerous. He's crazy enough that he had

a mental health person in Nome, and they did a Title 47 on him where they decided he was a danger to himself or others and sent him to API in Anchorage or Providence for evaluation. And then they do like they always do after a few days, they kick him loose. It's delusional. It's like this whole, there's delusions all through this. I think this guy's truly delusional. - Yeah, he believes this stuff. - It involves delusions.

Those are people who, you know, can commit violent crimes because of their delusions. I think it moves him up in terms of being a suspect. It makes him a lot more suspicious, you know. I brought up that restraining order, the one John's ex-girlfriend had filed against him. It sounds to me like he actually got charged with something related to that, and they dismissed it, and that's why it doesn't show up in court view.

You need to get those restraining order petitions where she talked to the judge about what happened. I did find these court documents and the following is her statement about John. On the morning of March 20th, 2020, John physically assaulted me and raped me. I still do not feel safe to be around him. He burned a cigarette out on my right shoulder.

I have a threatening voicemail of him yelling and cursing me on my voicemail. I went to the hospital and did a rape kit. The DA has all the evidence and currently waiting to move forward on pressing charges. I am so scared and do not want him anywhere near me. I am scared.

He has guns and knives and he sells weed and dabs to underage minors from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily. My biggest thing is, okay, how does this guy know about a podcast? There's a finite number of ways he should be able to know that this is happening. Like, you could go look it up, but he didn't. I know he didn't. Someone told him something. Probably somebody you talked to and know him who's still in touch with him. Yes, and I think it's that...

She's peddling the only other theory, and I had called her the day before. It would have made perfect sense that she communicated to him about this podcast. This guy is going to know about the podcast. He'll act differently, I think, knowing that he's being talked about. That may prompt him to say a bunch of other stuff, so that's good. I'm curious if he found out who I was, if he'd still talk to me. He probably would.

I don't think it would be weird if you said, "Hey, I googled this and it says here that that lady was never found and that she's still missing." That's fucked up or something like that. What you don't have is you don't have access to the official interviews he gave. My guess is whatever he tells you is going to contradict whatever he told them, which makes it important. So it was like two hours? Two hours, yeah. Wow. It's perfect. It's perfect.

You gonna send him a Christmas card? I could. So what's your plan for the next time you talk to him? Now what do I do? How long before my whole cover is blown here? My next contact with John may very well be my last. So I ghosted him, and I went two months with no contact. Then I opened up my fake Facebook account and took another shot in the dark. He hadn't messaged me in two months either. What does that mean exactly?

I took Andy's advice and I messaged him again as this fake person. Here goes nothing. I said, I looked up that missing girl on Google and it says they didn't find her yet. Did the FBI keep it a secret? He read it. He's online right now. And in no time at all, he read it. He's typing.

Hey, it's Payne. If you haven't checked out Talking to Death yet, please go check it out. It's my new weekly show. If you like Up and Vanished, then there's a good chance you might like my weekly show called Talking to Death. During this season, right now, in the intro segment of every new episode of Talking to Death, we are unpacking the latest episode. Hey, Mike. Hey, Mike.

Hey. If you want to hear myself and the producers of Up and Vanished unpack episode six, go right now on your podcast app and look up Talking to Death and find the latest episode featuring Laura Norton.

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. Do you think you could be manipulated out of a bad habit?

it? Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. Scamfluencers recently dove into the story of Richard Bandler, the godfather of modern mental manipulation. He revolutionized the world of self-help, all thanks to an approach he developed called neuro-linguistic programming.

Even though NLP worked for some, many called it pseudoscience. NLP methods have been criticized for being dangerous in the wrong hands and inspiring some of the most toxic and criminal self-help movements of the last two decades. Throw in Richard's dark past as a cocaine addict and murder suspect, and you can't help but wonder what his true intentions were.

Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid and Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.