S3E12: Paul Valenzuela
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From Tinderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. All I know is emotionally that person was very shaken up when he told me this stuff. I don't know. They were like very scared.

I don't remember the exact dates. I just remember getting a phone call. They told me that they had this girl at their house. They was going to beat her up and kill her or something. That was all I knew. She was very shaken up, asked me if I could come and pick her up. So I went to town to go pick her up. And then I get there. She's like terrified, crying, shaking, scared. I tried to calm her down. She was freaking out.

A few weeks ago, I got a tip from a Browning local that Ashley may be buried in the crawlspace in a home just outside of town.

I don't know whose house this is or how credible this is, but either way I'm going here. So there's a good chance they do not let me search this house. But hey, we're gonna try. I'm bringing my friend Tracy Sargent in her canine search dog. Hey, Payne. Are you the owner of the house? Yeah.

She was kind enough to grant us access inside the house. So we entered with Tracy and her dog Taz.

This is what he's looking for. This is his toy, his reward. So he's actually searching for this toy. He's been imprinted on cadaver scent, human remains scent. And when he finds that, he's going to sit and tell me, "Hey, I smell this scent here." So I'm going to give him the command and we're going to start searching. Hunt. To say this house was a mess is a complete understatement. There was stuff just everywhere.

Trash, clothes, kids toys, spoiled food. As we made our way to the back of the home, we noticed a door with a key lock hanging from the handle. The only way to gain access to the crawlspace was inside this room. So we asked the owner to unlock it. There was an access point to the crawlspace just inside the closet, but there were mountains of clothes and general debris covering the floor. As we were clearing the area, the homeowner got a call from her son.

He had just learned we were inside the house searching, and he wasn't very pleased about it. — Dad told me to go ahead. They're just, uh... — Yeah, we're the podcasters. — Well, Dad told me it was okay, so... But here's what I got to say.

Not until we searched this crawlspace, we're not. After a few minutes, we had the floor cleared, and we pried open the hatch on the floor. I helped the dog Taz down into the crawlspace, and Tracy began searching. We're currently in the crawlspace of a house.

Crawl space is about four feet high. And I'm just crouched down with my flashlight having Taz check the entire crawl space area. It's got some black plastic on the ground, as you can hear him walking on it. And it's got some various debris such as blankets, clothing, coolers, drink cans, toys, things of that sort. But we want to check this in great detail

to make sure there's nothing down here. Looking at high areas of interest such as the trunks of vehicles, inside vehicles, inside the crawl space. Spent a lot of time down there. He did a beautiful job gritting it out himself. There was some trash right there at the opening such as blankets, toys, Christmas things, all of that. I had him search that over and over.

There's two things about a crawl space or any area like that. It's like a, for lack of better words, a Tupperware container. It's going to contain scent and it's going to saturate the whole room. So that's why I had him check every part of that room. What I did find of interest is that he started showing a lot of interest in the venting system.

I saw this with my own eyes. When a canine dog smells cadaver, their command is to sit. As soon as we cleared the access point to the crawl space, Taz immediately sat down. But inside, we found nothing. We have eight females living in that house.

and most of them are menstruating females. It's not unusual when we've had this happen in the past when we have menstruating females living there or visiting there, it's not unusual for the dogs to pick up scent because it is human remains. So based upon his behavior and visually what we could see, I would say what he's picking up is the menstruating females.

There was no body inside that house, but we weren't done searching yet. We made the trip out to Divide, where Ashley went missing while Sam fell asleep in his car. What we have here is that I've done a waypoint of where we are here at the Divide. The waypoint is marked of where we're starting our location. Wherever he goes, this is noted on this GPS unit.

So this collar shows where he searches and all the areas that he goes. So if we look at the logistics, somebody coming in here, we're not going to search here. This is visually something that we can clear without a dog.

So I'm going to go into areas that we visually could not clear with our own eyes. So that means going downhill there or even in that thick brush over there. So those are the areas that we're going to send the dog in, see if he picks up any scent. There is a lot of wind here, so we're going to use that to our advantage as much as we can, but it is quite strong. The terrain that we're in right now is a thick,

wooded area with trees about seven, eight feet tall. This actually is helpful as far as scent conditions because this can contain scent in a certain area. So we can clear these areas pretty quickly. So these little pockets, if he picks up anything, he's going to be attracted to that. Taz, let's go. Good boy. Hunt. I just see a container there, which is just unusual. And something like that here.

I don't see anything of significance in it, but always want to check it just in case. Good boy. Hunt. Payne, let me ask you, has Sam showed you where they were parked? Yeah, it's about right there where those logs are. Okay, so that's helpful. So with that, we're going to check downhill because that's a stronger probability there. Sure, yeah. Okay, so we're going to head down there now.

There we go. We searched the divide for several hours, and again, nothing. I feel confident based upon what we know about this case in this area and searching visually and what has been done in the past and what the dog is doing today, that we can have a high level of confidence that this area can be marked off, at least for now, unless tips or leads bring us back to this area. Our next destination was the trailer that T and Paul stayed in.

The same trailer that T attempted to burn down. And it was also here that T claimed to smell something rotting. Maybe a dead animal. Or perhaps something worse. I had reached out to the current owner of the property about searching here, but I never heard back. So to do this properly, I was going to need her permission. Hey! I'm Payne Lindsey. I called you a few weeks ago. I'm doing the story about Ashley Loring.

We flew out here this week because we're just kind of crossing off some places on the search list and we have a canine unit with us today and I wanted to search that trailer over there. At first she was pretty hesitant, but she eventually came around and gave us permission. Let's get out of her tight as soon as possible just in case she tries to change her mind. So where we are now is this open

cow pasture area with some tree lines behind the trailer. These are ideal scent conditions. So we're about a hundred yards from the trailer working our way toward the trailer. So as we work there, we're actually searching and clearing these areas and to see if he picks up any scent between here and the trailer. Once we get to the trailer, then we'll do some detailed work around it. Hunt. Those are cow bones.

Yep. So I'm going to go check this barrel over here first before we go over to the trailer. Taz Hunt. We've checked the entire trailer going from the left side of the trailer, which is a bedroom and bathroom, living room,

slash bedroom and then kitchen area. So once we got to the kitchen, we came back from the right back to the left to the other end of the trailer. His response here is that he's not picking anything up. There's no change of behavior in him whatsoever.

the scent conditions again are ideal today. I feel good that we can move forward from this area, checking a few little spots before we leave here, but I think we'll be leaving this area shortly.

The scent conditions were ideal for the dog, so I feel confident that the areas that we checked, high probable areas, not secondary areas, but high probable areas, we can say with a high degree of confidence that they've been cleared with negative results. I had high hopes, but we came up empty-handed. The silver lining, though, is that these locations have now been cleared. Wherever Ashley is today, she's not here.

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For quite some time now, I've been trying to locate Paul Valenzuela. This man is completely off the grid. But a few weeks ago, I got an email from Paul Valenzuela's sister. I'm Paul's sister, Paul Valenzuela, the supposed V-dog down there in Browning, Montana. When this first happened and I had heard that Ashley was missing and that my brother could possibly be involved years ago,

This is when I started speaking up. I was getting a hold of detectives. I was giving them information about Paul, who he is, what he's about, how he knows how to bury a dead body where nobody can find it because my brother's done this before. It was about 20 plus years ago. He buried a body for somebody and he would kind of brag about it. Well, you know, I know how to bury a dead body. You put the body in first, cover it with dirt,

and then you put a dog over it. So if cadavers come and look, all they're gonna find is the dog's bones. I tried getting ahold of detectives up here. I didn't have the kid's last name. I only had his first name, and it was Perry. Paul's brother-in-law at the time, he's the one who killed the kid for the dope. And Paul is the one who helped fucking get rid of the kid, wrapped him in a rug, and fucking buried him somewhere up in the mountains.

The reason why I'm telling you this is because when I had found out that Ashley went missing and Paul's name came up, he's said it before, he knows how to bury a dead body. What really bothers me about this whole case, I've talked to detectives as well. I've talked to an FBI agent. My thought is they're more worried about the dope that's coming in and out of there instead of the missing people. His own sister, which is me,

I have spoken out against him. I have shared information. I'm not afraid to put my fucking name out there, which I do plenty on Facebook. I'm not afraid of him. And that's what I tell people. Why are you afraid of a crackhead? He ain't going to do shit to you. Paul never does his own dirty work. Now he's got little minions to do it for him, you know, because he holds the dope back. I know that Tashina was jealous because Paul was fucking her. And I know that that's what it revolved around was jealousy.

I just, I can't stand it that all of this information is out there, yet the FBI and the BIA has done shit about it. I mean, it's an open and shut fucking case. Like, wouldn't you track somebody's phone? Wouldn't you look up their messages? I mean, what the fuck? It's that easy. And Paul keeps getting away with his bullshit consistently. And I know Paul. I'm sure he helped get rid of her.

And her body. I know it. I know it in my gut. Otherwise, that's why I wouldn't have spoken up. I have nothing to do with my family back there. Nothing. I don't speak to them. I don't go around them. I'm a totally different Valenzuela. They've already drug our fucking name through the mud on that res. Completely. Paul's a no good piece of shit. When my son was 13 years old, this bastard was going back and forth on Messenger trying to sell my son fucking guns.

I've known my brother all my life. He's always been an addict. You want to get away with murder? Go to Browning. And it's true. She was a young, beautiful girl. What else would a young, beautiful girl like her be doing with an old-ass man like him? Whoever's got the dope, man. Whoever's got the good shit. You know you're going to go with them. And I know that from personal experience. And unfortunately, that beautiful little girl fell into this. And it's always been in my heart and

I just, I can never just put it down. I can't just, I just, she just sticks with me, man. It's insane, you know? It's just getting exhausting. It all has to come down to the BIA and the FBI coming together, putting the evidence together, quit fucking around, get Tashina and Paul to turn on one another because I will tell you one thing. Paul cannot stand to be in prison.

If Paul goes to prison, he'll fucking snitch. I don't know how he keeps getting away with this shit. I don't know how. It just blows my mind. It really does. I'm not looking for a reward. I ain't looking for none of that bullshit. I just want these people caught. Why aren't there real investigators here? We are discardable. We always have been, especially us indigenous women. We have to go around and say, if I don't come back home,

Know that something is wrong. I have to tell my children that. We just have no protection. None. We have to protect ourselves. Maybe Ashley is the one to make the fucking changes for our reservation. Because if they keep getting away with this one, it's never going to stop. Ever. And I'm sick of it. I'm so fucking tired of it. My brothers have gotten away with doing a lot of fucking shit.

And I'm sick of it. I'm just tired of it. The next logical step is to talk to Paul himself. Through an unnamed source, I found his current address and it was time to pay him a visit. Before I went there, T warned me that this could be pretty dangerous. I just need you to be careful when you go out there. Because the first thing he's going to do, he might pull a gun on you. Why is that? Because it's his property, he'll say, and you're not allowed to be here. That's just how he is.

My unnamed source told me that Paul lived in a rental house about an hour outside of Great Falls, Montana, in the middle of nowhere.

Paul's house was on the top of the hill and down below I saw what appeared to be a neighbor living in a mobile home. Do you live here? My name is Payne. I'm a journalist from Atlanta. Nice to meet you man. I was trying to interview this guy who lives up on the hill here. Yeah. Do you know much about that guy? Never seen him? No, I just moved here. Did you? I just heard that he was kind of just one of those guys around here. What does that mean? To watch out for I guess. Well there's no turning back now.

I've come a very long way to talk to this man. Once we round this bend, we'll be in eyesight of this guy. I think he's here. Don't get stuck. As I approached the home, I was met by an enormous dog. Hey, buddy. Thankfully, he was acting friendly. Hey. No answer. But I soon realized that I was actually at the door of the basement. So I made my way around to the front. Hey, man. Is Paul here? Uh, yeah, why?

I'm a journalist. A kid in his early 20s answered the door. Hey, come come in. Then he let me inside. Cool. I'm paying, by the way. I sat down in the kitchen, waiting for Paul to come upstairs. Every second felt like an eternity. A few moments later, Paul emerged. What's up, man? You're supposed to be here till tomorrow. Tomorrow? Wednesday. What do you mean? I said Valerie, sir. Who's Valerie? Landlord. You're a journalist. This house.

There seemed to be a misunderstanding. I had heard that Paul was in the process of being evicted, and it seemed that they both thought I was there for that reason, which I was not. White pages.

I've talked to everybody. I just wanted to get your side of the story. That's it. My side of the story is I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I want nothing to do with it. I mean, nobody wants anything to do with it. That's the bottom line. Would you mind just chatting for like 10 minutes? I came all the way from Atlanta. Check this out. I don't give a fuck if you came from fucking Egypt, man. Okay? My life is my life.

Alright? I understand that. People fuck with my life and I get pissed off. Okay, anything that I'm telling you right now, if I find out that it's written down, okay, if I find out that any of this is written down, what I'm telling you right now, I'm going to come find you. Okay? Because I'm telling you right now,

I'm just a podcaster. It doesn't matter. I'm not trying to point fingers at anybody. Check this out, man. I know the routine. I know all this little talk. I don't work for the big people. I don't work for the news. I'm just independent. It doesn't matter. Your argument doesn't stand. You came a long way for nothing. You can ask anybody in that community over there.

Everybody's always going to blame the bad guy, okay? Everybody does it for every fucking reason. So I'm going to tell you right now, I ain't got nothing to do with that fucking Lauren girl, okay? Never did, never will. Kimberly Lauren,

is a piece of crap for the fuck she's been doing to my family. What's she done? In my family name. And don't bother, that shit don't bother me at all, bro. I don't give a fuck where you come from, man. There's other people in the case. It's not like it's just you. Like, there's Sam. Go for it, then. No, I've talked to Sam. I've talked to T. I only haven't talked to you. I don't give a fuck about T. Either T is a fucking piece of crap, too. They're all pieces of crap, okay? If you can write that down, they're all pieces of crap. Bye. Dude, five minutes, man, please. Fuck off my board before I send a dog out there.

As I got back in the car, I could see Paul downstairs in the basement, peering through the window. Well, we got a minute. I'm gonna buy that truck I've been wanting.

Wait, don't you need, like, weeks to shop for a car? I don't. Carvana makes it super convenient to find exactly what I want. Hold up. You're buying a car on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing? You can shop wherever you want. I like to do my research, read reviews, compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of options. How'd you decide on that truck? Because I like it. Oh, that is a great reason. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

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Make sure they're okay while you're away. With Ring. Learn more at ring.com slash pets. This was a very frustrating experience. Where do you even go from here? One of the biggest problems with this case is that no one has seen Ashley since Sam fell asleep in his car at Divide. But maybe someone has. My name is Rachel Crow Spreading Wings. I'm a member of the Blood Tribe.

Because I'm from the blood reserve, I have a lot of friends and family on both sides. And I actually started seeing on Twitter different people posting about Ashley being missing. We never got a missing persons report, which I thought was really weird because generally if somebody goes missing, we get that right away so we can get it out there.

I pitched my story, and at first it was not very well received until I pitched it with the angle of why is there no missing persons report? Why, if this family is saying that she's been missing for two, three weeks at this point, why aren't we getting this?

Ty, I actually first saw this case come across my Twitter feed with the hashtag MMIW, which stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Then I saw it on Facebook being shared by her family and her friends. But what I didn't see was any emails come into our newsroom about it. No missing persons report or...

a be on the lookout alert. Now, I've called the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Billings and was directed to the head office in Washington, D.C. Their public information officer says they are looking into it and will be in contact when they have more information. Blackfeet law enforcement has not responded. In the studio, I'm Rachel Crow spreading wings.

Law enforcement didn't feel like she was missing yet. They still had her as a be on the lookout. It was really surprising to me that it took so long for her to be considered by law enforcement to be missing when her family was clearly worried about her, clearly afraid that something happened to her. They weren't being taken seriously. It's scary as a woman to know that I wouldn't be taken seriously if I went missing.

Every woman's fear is that if she were to go missing, nobody would look for her. A few weeks after Ashley went missing, Rachel had an experience that could potentially change everything in this case. About a week after I had talked to Kimberly, I was in a vehicle that had Alberta plates that day because it was my day off and I wanted to go for a drive. It was the middle of summer and I needed to look for berries. I went just past Belt, Montana,

There's two highways that come together and there's a really nice berry picking area. And so I just pulled over and was picking berries. All of a sudden I heard this voice saying, excuse me, I'm just wondering what you're picking down there. There is this young woman standing there and she looked a little hungry and a little unkept.

She didn't come close to me. She was a little like I tried to step to shake her hand like, oh, I'm Rachel, you know. On the other side of my truck, I could see where their car was parked and there was a guy there. He was definitely brown, far away. So I would say 5'9", 5'11", kind of dirty clothes, white T-shirt. I mean, he was a solid guy, not bodybuilder built, but definitely strong. So we weren't alone.

And he was watching us and just kind of stepped back for me. And so I just stayed where I was. We were probably about five or six feet apart and I introduced myself. Normally, if you meet somebody, even if it were on the side of the road in that kind of a situation and you're striking up a conversation, it would be normal to shake somebody's hand. And that guy just watched. It was somebody she was definitely afraid of.

Because she wouldn't come close to me. She didn't shake my hand. She said, "My name is Ashley." It was her. 99.9% of looking exactly like the person. And maybe now I would have been brave enough to ask her her last name. But at the time, I was afraid that he would do something to both of us if I pressed. I think that was her.

You know how sometimes somebody will be watching you, but standing there with their arms crossed, but watching you like they're ready for you to do something and they're ready to react. That was how it was. Like he was just ready to do something, grab her, grab me, I don't know. But he was ready. I think that was Paul. We were by ourselves. I don't know how violent this guy could be, but I've heard a lot of stories. And he could have killed us both.

I drove up the hill right away and I called emergency number. They said they had had a sighting of her in Augusta about an hour and a half ago. And I said, well, if they had went straight from Augusta to Belt, that's about an hour and a half. And this is where the highways intersect. There's a rest stop there. I think they actually have cameras at that one. You might be able to see. And they said to call Blackfeet law enforcement. So I did.

I talked to my bosses and I said, I'm pretty sure it was her. I didn't ask her last name, but it looks exactly like Ashley. She said her name was Ashley. The description of the car was the same. It was just too coincidental. I think mostly I feel bad that I wasn't braver and just told her to get in my truck and just drive away.

I have that guilt and I was asked not to tell the family because I was told that it could give them false hope. I feel guilty that I was scared. I feel bad that I didn't say anything to them, to the family. And I wish that I could have done something more. I think that was her. I mean, I suppose there's that small chance that it wasn't her, but I just don't believe that it wasn't her. I believe that it was her.

It's too coincidental. When I talked to the FBI, I asked them, well, is anybody going to be contacting me about my sighting of her six weeks ago? And she was like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I saw her. And they said that there was no record of my sighting. In the case file, there was no record in the case file of my sighting.

I don't know why. It's such a small community. It's not like it's a New York City. I don't understand. If you want to get away with murder, you go to Browning, Montana. I think that Ashley has become kind of a movement for all of the women who are missing. There are so many women missing.

in the United States and in Canada, but particularly the United States, who aren't being investigated, whose families haven't been heard. It just so happens that Ashley's story was heard. For now, this season of Up and Vanished ends here, but my team and I's search for Ashley will continue for as long as it takes.

Ashley Loring Heavy Runner has become the face of an even larger epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women. And it's my hope that Ashley's story continues to spread awareness. These crimes need to be taken seriously, and they're just not. I believe that one day Ashley will be found, and I vow to never stop looking.

Thank you.

Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTA. Ryan Nord, Jesse Nord, and Matthew Papa at the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, as well as Chris Cochran and the team at Cadence 13. Visit us on social media at Up and Vantage, or you can visit us at upandvantage.com where you can join in on our discussion board. If you're enjoying Up and Vantage, tell a friend, family member, or coworker about it. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening.

It's Madeline Barron from In the Dark. I've spent the past four years investigating a crime. When you're driving down this road, I plan on killing somebody. A four-year investigation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents, all in an effort to see what the U.S. military has kept from the public for years. Did you think that a war crime had been committed? I don't have any opinion on that.

Season 3 of In the Dark is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.