S4E6: Two Truths and a Lie

It started with a backpack at the 1996 centennial Olympic Games, a backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

I saw as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out.

The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces. Forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong, life and death, their once ordinary lives and mine changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat far-right, homegrown religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint starting July 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your 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. I don't see the upside of coming clean with him.

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.

Do I abort this altogether and surprise him as Payne Lindsay? What do he think's going to happen when I do that? Nothing good, I'm sure. Do I proceed as this Eric character? My fake Facebook?

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.

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.

Yep.

All right, how are we looking? I'm good.

Let's do it.

I found a bar that was quiet enough in the back and put as many recording devices as we could, hiding in plain sight.

John I was just texting, Hey, what's up, man?

Thanks for meeting me, man, this is Riley man.

Doordash driver I didn't even know who I was looking for. Did I check that?

I was like, I know you look like him, I was like 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. We rode Harleys, No, they got some pretty cheap bikes around here though, cheap cars too.

I'm just going to look just for fun, I'm just 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 gotta 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're 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 a day.

Yes.

Checker Cab I used to drive for checker.

Where you drop everyone off at the same time.

Dude, I worked for 32 days straight, no day off, 16-hour days, I made $28,000 cash under the table.

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 were 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 in Nome, you come out with a bottle and the girls come up and you have to take your pick up. The three of them. I used to bang this one little 19-year-old girl that wanted to get drunk all the time. I was dating a 30-year-old from Kotzebue, which is a village just up north. She would beat my ass.

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.

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?

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 and 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.

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?

I had the 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.

And a girl come and hung out in my tent one night, and she walked off somewhere and somebody kidnapped her and murdered her.

Let's play that back again.

And a girl come and hung out in my tent one night, and she walked off somewhere and somebody kidnapped her and murdered her.

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?

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 have seen 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.

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.

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 her camp, and yeah, yeah. She passed out. And 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. But I left her shoes and her phone. Well, there was no trace of her and I took her. 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. Noam is corrupt, you have no idea. Three times in the last 12 years the law enforcement department has been shut down. They are so corrupt up there, it's crazy. One of the police officers was raping and murdering other girls.

He's now conflating the story of Sonia Ivanoff'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, they're not.

Yeah, yeah, they fed him to the bears.

He's likely referring to Joseph Balderas, who went missing in 2016.

Because I was the last person known to have seen her alive, she just vanished.

Then who saw her afterwards, who murdered her? What the fuck happened?

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'd go into town, people would follow me, they'd follow me out to my camp. One time, 30 of them cornered me on the beach.

So the guy that fucking really did it.

Did he get caught or did he fucking anyway?

It's hard to hear him, but when I asked if they caught the guy, he says, Oh yeah, so the guy that fucking really did it.

Did he get caught or did he fucking anyway?

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 for people to come when they were drinking without any.

I got me a beautiful wife.

I don't, you know, I don't get in trouble. I used to ride around on my wheeler with a half gallon of vodka just to get laid.

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.

I had some guns to where they couldn't even legally touch them.

Why is he telling me this?

There used to be an old guy that worked up there as the safety officer, they'd drive the paddy wagon around. Now he was my buddy, he stood up for me. He's retired now.

I'm not exactly sure who he's talking about here, but I have some good ideas. Back to the case again, you must say, like, did they fucking interrogate you or some shit or what?

No, they wouldn't speak to me.

Are you saying the police didn't interview you at all? You must say, like, did they fucking interrogate you or some shit or what?

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.

What kind of car was it?

It was a wagon.

Like, a truck or something.

Wagon Station Wagon.

Okay.

But they.

Ha.

So my friends called me and said, the cops are here and they're taking the car. So I pulled up on my four-wheeler and go, What the fuck are you guys doing? The cops go, we can't talk, we can't talk to you. Because they're trying to build a case, even though there's nothing to build.

Frame your ass. Yeah, yeah. He liked that he wouldn't come out and say it himself, though. This story to me is of utmost importance.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop around, she's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

Like doubling and tripling.

And it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

Yeah, well, yeah.

No, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely?

Something's wrong here, something's not right.

Leroy was the new dateline.

And everyone was trying to solve the murder.

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

But John went with them in the rental car, so that can't be the reason. Because John had a car of his own. Why was he renting this car and who was in the car with him?

But all my female friends that knew me were standing up for me, including my girlfriend that had rape charges on her. Now, her roommate was the missing girl's cousin, Her roommate would get drunk and she'd steal my girlfriend's phone. Call me up, Where's Flo?

Where's Flo?

Now, when I went to jail on my girlfriend, right on a machinery violation, Flo's sister was in the cell next to me for three days.

Back to whoever this alleged murderer is, do they have a name? John? Did you know that dude who did it? No, never met him.

He was friends with her, they conspired together.

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.

The thing is up there is. Why would you need to kill a girl?

They put out like crazy.

Weirdos move to Alaska to be weird. Look, 80 of the people they killed up here, nobody finds out.

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.

Well, I was in my camp.

And they wouldn't let me leave.

I was actually held captive by the natives for 28 days straight. What the they forced me, they ejected me. With hepatitis C, I ended up in the hospital for three months.

For 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.

I had a girlfriend, she smoked a lot of weed and drank a lot of liquor.

Was your girlfriend the one who died or no?

No, no, no.

That was just the first I knew.

My girlfriend, she's still alive.

Okay, yeah, yeah, but she's not my girlfriend anymore. That's really confusing. Were you dating the other girl or no?

No.

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, and you know,....

Did you not 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?

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.

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 going to 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 homicide and she's really cute. I was like, Ooh, you're coming over to fuck me, so, you know, I took a bite of her and parted the shit out of her.

I had one girl that 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 Eskimo's boutique? She'd hand me 10 bucks. I said, Well, I know you, you should go get me a bottle of liquor, and I'd say, Okay, let's fuck.

When did they find her?

Under your dude's house, buried in a 50-gallon drum that girl I was telling you about.

Kelly.

And she told him the clip 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. Lockdown for mental health reasons. To anchorage, he faked the paperwork.

What happened?

Then, as soon as I got there, within 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.

Yeah, but they got the guy right.

But they still don't believe it. Oh, 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.

Oh, fuck.

So where's the fucking guy who did it?

See, I thought you were hooked up with them. Fuck, no, 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. Oh no, I don't even like Facebook. No, no, no.

No, because I have people contacting me on Facebook that are from up there, from where they tried to befriend me, No.

Still, yes.

That's why I was wondering, who the fuck you were? Curiosity killed me, man. I invited you, I invited you to come stay at my house.

I got a gun.

This guy's gonna fuck with me.

Good thing we didn't go to his house. I got a gun.

This guy's gonna fuck with me. But I had to find out who you were. See, I didn't even know you were a white dude, but you said you were from Georgia. And see, when you check out his Facebook profile, there's no pictures, there's no posts.

I don't post shit, man.

All it says is he's from Georgia but lives in Kodiak. That's the only information, which, to me, sends up a lot of red flags.

I don't blame him, John sent a lot of red flags up for me, too. At this point, the conversation was winding down 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 quiet in here, though.

Now there is a company here, another gun store called Firearm Adventures. You can rent 40 of them.

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 hollow points, but that's all I got.

What time should we text you tomorrow?

Hit me up a little afternoon.

Fuck it.

Getting John was really kind of a box we needed to check to see where we'd go.

I'm totally impressed that that happened. I didn't think you'd ever talk to this guy.

I didn't think I would, either. We debriefed the next day with private investigator Andy Klamser.

And is he still messaging on Facebook?

He was, our friendship continued. But I was not about to go to the gun range with this guy. He wanted us to meet within the next day and go gun shooting. And I was like, Eh?

What could go wrong with that?

Yeah, I wasn't happy with 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.

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 held captive by the Navy for 28 days straight. They injected me with hepatitis C.

They injected him with what? So he's crazy.

Andy also found his stories to be absolutely insane.

Isn't that a waste of a crack rock?

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. Andy hadn't seen them yet.

Who wrote this?

These are Facebook posts collected by a woman named Sue at Nome, 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, 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 going to have to try some other angles. Kelly clearly does not want to talk on the phone, or she thinks that we already have.

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?

They held him captive for 28 days.

And injected him with hepatitis.

He tells them all the FBI came out to get him, basically to save him, which is really fucking weird.

She's the one that called the FBI.

And she told them, Look, John didn't do it, blah, blah, blah.

The FBI had to come out and get me.

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, like they always do, after a few days, they kick him loose. It's 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.

I did find these court documents and the following is her statement about John.

On the morning of March 20, 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.

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.

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.

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. Yeah, what you don't have is you don't have access to the official interviews he gave.

Two hours, yeah.

Wow.

It's perfect, it's perfect.

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.

Up and Vanished In the Midnight Sun is a production of Thunderf00t 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.