176. Backwoods Horror: Why Do People Keep Disappearing in Nome, Alaska?

To find out how you can get involved and provide advocacy and support, visit the website for the Data for Indigenous Justice organization at www.dataforindigenousjustice.org and click on “Resources” in the top left menu. In 2003, 19-year-old Sonya Ivanoff was walking home from a friend's house in Nome, Alaska when a witness saw her get into a vehicle marked 'Nome Police Department.' Her body was found the next day. But Sonya's murder is just one piece of a much larger pattern. Since 1960, at least 25 people have gone missing or died under suspicious circumstances in this isolated town of fewer than 4,000 people, and the community has been fighting for answers that local authorities seem determined not to give. Show Notes: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/nomealaska Subscribe on⁠ Patreon⁠ https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspounding to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on⁠ Tik Tok⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding?lang=en and⁠ Instagram⁠ https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ for a daily dose of horror.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by Toyota. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or get a Corolla sedan packed with the latest features, advanced tech and head-turning style. Take a test drive in two of Toyota's most popular SUVs, the spacious, family-friendly Grand Highlander and adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid and plug-in hybrid models available across the lineup, plus efficient all-electrics like the BZ, BZ Woodland and all-wheel-drive CHR, you can drive your way and skip the pump. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with legendary resale value,

• 0:44Kaelyn Moore?

  built on a reputation for quality and reliability. So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places. Welcome back to another episode of Heart Starts Pounding. As always, I'm your host, Kaelyn Moore. Today, I want to tell you about a town in Alaska where more people go missing per capita than anywhere else in the US. And I want to tell you about the cover-up that might be causing this. But first, I just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me with urban legends that you were raised with. Last week, I did an episode on urban legends and the true stories behind them, and I heard some wild tales from you all.

• 1:29Kaelyn Moore?

  Theo commented that he was raised in the Czech Republic with an urban legend called "The Black Ambulance." Legend says that there was an ambulance in the 80s that would prowl the streets of Prague and snap up children and harvest their organs. It was such a common legend that the government actually had to debunk it on national television. That's definitely something that I want to look more into, because what is the story there? Also, a few of you reached out to let me know that the episode was glitching on the third time I said "pinky" during the pinky pinky legend. We looked into it, and there wasn't any issue on our end. And also, people listened on the same platform and didn't have any problem. So I have no idea what's going on there. But to the handful of you who heard that glitch, you might want to check your bathrooms tonight. That is terrifying.

• 2:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Seriously, though, keep those stories coming. I love when you guys send me messages to the RDS headquarters. It makes my day that much brighter. All right, let's get into today's episode about the mysterious disappearances happening in Nome, Alaska.

• 2:28Kaelyn Moore?

  It was a Sunday night, August 10th, 2003. Eighteen-year-old Timore Tawarek and her roommate, nineteen-year-old Sonya Ivanoff, went to a friend's house for a fun-packed night of beer and board games. The Arctic summer sun had finally set just before midnight, but Timore and Sonya still had enough energy to burn, so they continued hanging out. At around 1:00 a.m., Timore looked at the clock and realized that she had to be up for work in just six hours. Neither Timore nor Sonya had cars. They got around Nome, their small Alaskan town, entirely on foot. And Timore, realizing that she wouldn't be getting more than five hours of sleep, decided that she was just gonna stay at her friend's place and crash there that night. But Sonya had Monday's off from work, so she wasn't really in any hurry.

• 3:13Kaelyn Moore?

  She decided she was just gonna amble home on her own. So, Timore walked Sonya outside into the misty night rain, and after the two girls told each other, "Ease out", Sonya continued on her way down the street in the direction of their home. At around 5:00 a.m. that morning, Timore returned to her apartment to get ready for work, and she noticed that Sonya's bed was empty. Now, Timore racked her brain for why that might be, and she figured Sonya must have stopped at her friend's house and spent the night there, so she just got dressed and headed out to work. She figured that she would hear from Sonya later because she often called her during the day on her work line just to check in and chat. But Timore didn't hear from Sonya at all that day. And this was not normal. These girls always checked in with each other.

• 3:58Kaelyn Moore?

  Even without cell phones, they just always knew where the other one was so that they could call the landline and just chat. Timore did not feel good about this, so she began making calls to mutual friends to find out if anyone had seen her. And no one had. That same morning, Timore called the hospital where Sonya worked and learned that she never showed up for her shift there. She then phoned the Nome police to ask if maybe Sonya had been arrested for some reason and was being held, but no one named Sonya Ivanoff or fitting her description was in custody. Where did Sonya go? Did she somehow make a wrong turn on the short walk back to her apartment, a walk that she had made many, many times before? Well, the truth is,

• 4:41Kaelyn Moore?

  Sonya had become part of a disturbing trend in Nome, a trend where people just vanish into thin air. And locals have been warning each other for a long time about this very thing. Now, Nome is a city at the edge of the world. It's etched into the Arctic coastline along the southern rim of Alaska's Seward Peninsula. It juts out into the Icing Bay Ring Sea. Nome is actually closer to Russia than to Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. And it's not for nothing that Nome's very name forms the first syllables of no man's land. Nome is a place isolated from the world beyond it. No roads connect to it from anywhere else. And if you open Google Maps and try to find driving directions to Nome, Google can't offer them.

• 5:22Kaelyn Moore?

  Nome can only be reached by plane, or by boat, or by dog sled. Everything about this place is harsh and unforgiving. Temperatures average just 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit in January, its coldest month, but they can drop as low as minus 50, which is a level of cold that most of us can't even understand. In summer, daylight in Nome lasts for 20 hours, while at the peak of winter, it's the total inverse: 20 hours of total darkness, and what's known as polar night. The harsh environment is reflected in the city's architectural character, too. Many of the buildings are these stilted clapboard structures with a prefabricated look. They're just designed for maximum warmth and durability.

• 6:07Kaelyn Moore?

  And Alaskan locals have been warning each other about Nome for a very long time. They say you shouldn't go there. And not just because of the ruthless environment, but because there is a darkness that's hiding in plain sight. See, since 1960, at least 25 people have gone missing or died under suspicious circumstances in and around the city. And for a population of just a few thousand, that's a lot. It's more missing persons and unexplained deaths per capita than just about any other American city. But for a place where people just vanish, there doesn't really seem to be a lot of urgency. Authorities say they have looked into the cases and decided that there's no connection.

• 6:48Kaelyn Moore?

  There's nothing weird going on, they say, no larger threat to the community. But residents, and the people that have lived there the longest, all know that that's not true. And honestly, after researching for this episode...

• 7:02Kaelyn Moore?

  I tend to agree with them. Now, by the time Timurie's workday was over, she knew that it was time to take action. She couldn't just sit idly by. At 5 o'clock, she walked straight over to the Nome Police Department to report her friend missing. And right away, Timurie was struck by the officer's apparent lack of concern or urgency. The officer, whose name was Stam Pascolla, asked Timurie questions that suggested Sonia might have left of her own accord. He asked about her mental state and about how the two girls got along. He didn't really seem to take this report all that seriously. Now, Timurie was not confident the police would do much to help. The department had a reputation for not diligently investigating cases involving Native Alaskans. Now, Nome's police force was also a very small one.

• 7:46Kaelyn Moore?

  At the time, the city employed only seven officers. So, the police at the time, as they often did, had to turn to volunteer firefighters. And those firefighters went out into the city and started doing a sweep, and they spread out to the opposite corners of town. So, those volunteers went out and began doing a sweep of the surrounding area, looking for Sonia. At around 8:30 PM, one of the volunteers began searching the tundra near this gold dredge, because Nome used to be an old gold mining town. It's on the outskirts of town, and as the searcher went down into a gravel pit, something in the willows caught his attention. It was a woman's body, completely nude, except for one single sock. The woman was identified as Sonia Ivanoff.

• 8:30Kaelyn Moore?

  Authorities processed this crime scene and then sent Sonia's body off to the medical examiner, who found that she had sustained a single gunshot wound to the back of her head, delivered at point-blank range, execution-style. But maybe strangest of all, he found no trace of forensic evidence of any kind on her body. It was as if the killer had intentionally removed evidence and maybe had knowledge on how to do that.

• 8:59Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by GU Skincare. GU just launched their Heal and Seal Trio, a simple three-step Korean skincare routine that replaces those complicated seven-step regimens. Polish pads to exfoliate, toner pads for dark spots and redness, and NAD Plus cream to lock in hydration overnight. These three products, three minutes a day. Dermatologist-tested with over 650,000 happy customers and a 90-day money-back guarantee. Recently, I've been using their NAD Plus cream, which has been so nice to put on at night. I really love it. It's not super-heavy, which I love, but it still feels very moisturizing. It doesn't have a lot of scent, which I'm really sensitive to, which is why it works great in my routine. For a limited time, GU is having a crazy deal for our listeners. Their Heal and Seal Trio is already up to 50% off right now,

• 9:44Kaelyn Moore?

  but our listeners can now get an additional 20% off plus free shipping with code HSP at J I Y U skin dot com. That's J I Y U skin dot com and use code HSP for an additional 20% off. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

• 10:02Kaelyn Moore?

  Sonya was born on April 13, 1984, in Unalakli, Alaska, a city of about 700 people, located 100 miles east of Nome. She attended a local high school where she played basketball. She was involved in school activities. And there, she became best friends with Timore. She graduated in 2002 and then moved to Nome, where she landed a job behind the Norton Sound Regional Hospital's admission desk. Sonya was determined to save up every dime she earned so she could eventually start attending college. Now, Sonya adapted quickly to Nome, which offered so much more excitement and opportunity than her small, little hometown. In June 2003, Sonya competed in the Miss Arctic Native Brotherhood Pageant, which is not a traditional beauty pageant, but instead, it's a showcase for Native Alaskan women

• 10:45Kaelyn Moore?

  that's meant to test character and cultural awareness. And the grand prize for winning is scholarship money for college. And that same summer, Sonya's best friend, Timore, who was a year younger than her, moved to Nome and began living with her. That's to say that this was supposed to be an exciting time for Sonya, but now it had been cut tragically short by an unknown killer. Back at the crime scene, Nome Police uncovered their first clue with a set of fresh tire tracks that led away from the gravel pit where Sonya was found. Whoever was driving that car probably knew what had happened to her. That's really all that they had to work off of, and it wasn't much. So for the next few weeks, there wasn't much movement on the case and it started running the risk of going cold.

• 11:29Kaelyn Moore?

  But then, in early September, their phone rang. Someone had seen something the night Sonya disappeared, and they were ready to come forward. A woman named Florence said she had witnessed something that she felt was important. On the night Sonya disappeared, Florence had been outside of her house smoking a cigarette when she spotted Sonya walking down the street alone. She looked okay, there wasn't anything obviously strange about her behavior, but then, an SUV suddenly appeared and started trailing her. Florence observed as this SUV watched Sonya for a bit and then seemed to drive off, but it soon reappeared at the next corner, right in the way of Sonya's path, in between her and her apartment.

• 12:12Kaelyn Moore?

  It was as if it was laying in wait for her. The driver then rolled down their window and briefly talked to Sonya. Florence couldn't hear everything that was being said, but she heard Sonya say something like, "What's going on?" The two chatted just a little bit longer, and then Sonya willingly got into the vehicle and rode off, heading in the direction of that gold dredge where her body would later be found. Now, Florence remembered that the time was about 1:30 in the morning, just a half an hour after Sonya and Timorey parted ways. The officer asked Florence to provide a description of the vehicle and its driver. Now, she didn't see the driver's face, she said, but she remembered one thing about the vehicle very distinctly. And then, her voice got real quiet.

• 12:57Kaelyn Moore?

  "On the side of the SUV," she said, "were the words, 'Nome Police Department.'" It was a marked police cruiser. Now, this shocking revelation narrowed down the suspect pool from thousands of people in the town to just two. Nome Police Officers Matt Owens and Stan Pascola, the only two officers who were on duty at the time of Sonya's disappearance and death. Officer Pascola was the one who first talked to Timorey when she came into the station to report her friend missing. He was the officer who seemed like he- Couldn't have cared less about the missing woman. Was it because he knew what had happened and didn't want an investigation to get started? But then, some of the women in town began coming forward with stories of their own,

• 13:42Kaelyn Moore?

  and not about Stan, but about the other cop, Officer Matt Owens. Stories of Officer Owens picking up women at night and giving them rides. "Sometimes," they said, "Owens would follow women in his patrol cruiser and then drive ahead of them only to cut them off further down their path." Just like what the witness had described happening with Sonya. Three witnesses claimed that they had been stalked and assaulted by Owens. One even said that she had come forward and told the police chief, Ralph Taylor, after it happened, but nothing was ever done. Another said that Owens had held her at gunpoint and threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone about the assault. Remember, this was a small town, less than 4,000 people lived here.

• 14:26Kaelyn Moore?

  There's liberal arts colleges that are bigger than gnome. It's been said that Owens' behavior was this open secret that the whole department probably knew about. And maybe that's why he felt so emboldened to commit these crimes on the clock and in uniform. But what happens when the only people you can go to are the ones who have been shielding the very predator you seek to report? Well, not much, as was obvious from the other women's experiences. But now, this was a murder investigation, and one that potentially involved an officer. It was no longer up to the Nome police department to investigate. The Alaska State Troopers took over the investigation shortly after this. Though, they wouldn't have to do much digging into Owens because his very, very bizarre

• 15:11Kaelyn Moore?

  choices started speaking for themselves. In late September, around six weeks after Sonya was murdered, there was another strange development in the case. Owens reported that his police cruiser was missing. It turns out, Owens' sergeant asked the officer about its whereabouts, and the officer claims that he just didn't know what had happened to it. The department soon launched a full-scale search for this cruiser. They were not going to look into the accusations against one of their own officers, but one SUV goes missing and they were going to throw everything at it. Officers searched all over town for this cruiser. And the officer who ended up finding it was Owens himself. He said that he located his abandoned vehicle right near the gravel pit where Sonya's body was recovered.

• 15:55Kaelyn Moore?

  But then, two minutes after Owens called in the discovery to the station, he radioed again, totally breathless, and claimed that someone was shooting at him. The other officers booked it over to the scene and searched the area, but they could not find anyone. It was just Owens there by himself. But he had a whole story about what had happened. He claimed that a perpetrator had approached him, grabbed his Remington 870 shotgun from the back of his cruiser, and then opened fire. The police-issued shotgun was nowhere to be found, so they couldn't corroborate the story. Though the SUV did look like it had been through hell, the front window had been shattered, but upon closer inspection, it wasn't actually a bullet that had gone through it. The culprit appeared to be a large rock that was on the ground right beside the cruiser.

• 16:40Kaelyn Moore?

  Owens' fellow officers examined the glass inside of the vehicle, and then they made a bizarre discovery on the front seat. It was an envelope made out to the Nome police, and inside was a typed letter addressed to "the pigs." It read, "You leave me alone, and I will leave you alone. I will also shoot you in the head if you get close. As you can see, it was easy for me to take your pig car keys right there. It was not her fault. She thought I was a pig, and shit just happened." I'm sorry, can I just interject here for one second? Because this makes me pretty angry. Who talks like this? You really expect us to believe that this assailant took the time to hand-write out a letter explaining their crime, and then left it on the front seat of the car they stole?

• 17:25Kaelyn Moore?

  This "killer" suggested that he had stolen the cruiser and then used it in his crime against Sonya. He included one of Sonya's picture ID cards and "proof of his deed", as if he was a serial killer. The ABI investigation immediately felt like this whole thing had been staged. And the prime suspect was Matt Owens. His story about an unknown assailant stopping his vehicle and managing to steal his police-issued firearm just made no sense. And it came suspiciously on the heels of Owens being summoned by the ABI to Anchorage for a polygraph test. But one problem they had was that the gun used to kill Sonya, believed to be a Jennings 22, was not in Owens' hands. Owen's possession. His home was searched and they could not find any such weapon.

• 18:09Kaelyn Moore?

  However, one officer did note that he knew of one Jennings 22 in Nome, and it was in evidence storage at the precinct where Owens worked. And not only that, but officers didn't have a great track record of keeping the evidence storage locked. The ABI investigator then contacted Owens estranged wife, who remembered speaking to Owens on his birthday. And Owens said something like he needed to drop off his son with her because the department was busy searching for a missing girl. They asked her what time this call had taken place, and she said she remembered the call being at around 4:30 in the afternoon. And this was the closest thing that they had to a smoking gun. Matt Owens' birthday was August 12th, the day that Sonya was reported missing.

• 18:54Kaelyn Moore?

  But Sonya wasn't first reported missing until after 5:00 PM. And logically, there was only one way that Matt Owens would have known about Sonya's disappearance before anyone else at the department did. On October 25th, 2003, Nome police arrested Matt Owens and charged him with first degree murder. Some of Sonya's friends showed up to the arraignment hearing where they were confronted by a hostile group of Owens' friends from his church congregation. They were outraged that a dutiful and brave public servant would be accused of such a crime. But almost immediately following his arrest, even more women started coming forward with stories about being picked up by Owens and then sexually assaulted by him. One of those women claimed that Owens warned her if she tried to report him, it would be his word against hers,

• 19:39Kaelyn Moore?

  and no one would believe, quote, "a native with a drinking problem over a police officer." Some of these women still went to the Nome police after their ordeals to report these assaults, and found tragically that Owens was right. The department did not do anything to investigate. And you know, this didn't really come as a surprise to them, because everyone knew that the police didn't take the harassment and assault of the local native women seriously. I mean, this is a department that in 2017 got in trouble for trying to weed out sexual assault cases by pressuring women to redact their accusations. And evidence against Owens just kept mounting, as I'm sure you can imagine. And then authorities came forward and said that they believed Owens had stole the gun

• 20:21Kaelyn Moore?

  used to kill Sonya from an evidence locker and then put it back afterwards. They also found proof that he had burned a pair of gloves and some of Sonya's clothing in a fire pit 70 miles north of Nome. And more than two years after Owens' arrest, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder as well as evidence tampering. And of course, for staging the purported theft of his police cruiser, because God forbid we forget about this car. A judge then sentenced him to 101 years in prison. He used his badge, his marked police car, and his police training to commit what he thought was going to be a perfect crime. The leading theory is that he took Sonya, thinking that she was going to be easy to assault, but she was able to fight him off.

• 21:04Kaelyn Moore?

  And because she wasn't drunk, he most likely thought that her statement against him wouldn't just be brushed off by police like usual, so he killed her so she could never come forward about what he did. And this was a rare kind of win in the area where not only a case was solved, but the person responsible was actually punished for the crime. Even though this crime probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if he had ever been punished for any of the other crimes against women he had committed. But like I said, Nome is a really harsh place, and not everyone there is fortunate enough to have their crime investigated, let alone closed. And sometimes, the trail goes cold in very, very unsettling ways.

• 21:48Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by Pranuvo. When it comes to your health, there's a lot that you can't see or feel. And sometimes, having more information can make all the difference. That's where Pranuvo comes in. Pranuvo offers proactive, whole-body MRI scans designed to help identify potential health concerns, including many cancers, aneurysms, and other conditions, sometimes before symptoms appear. The Pranuvo scan is non-invasive, uses no radiation, and is designed to give people a detailed picture of what's happening inside their bodies. Taking care of your health isn't just about responding when something feels wrong, it's about being proactive and making informed decisions. Pranuvo is helping people take a different approach to understanding their health.

• 22:31Kaelyn Moore?

  To learn more about Pranuvo and get $300 off your whole-body MRI, go to pranuvo.com/hsp and use code HSP. That's pre-n-u-v-o.com/hsp. Terms and conditions apply.

• 22:49Kaelyn Moore?

  Joseph Baldarris grew up in Lubbock, Texas, with a taste for adventure and a thirst for knowledge. The middle child of five, Joseph was both an avid outdoorsman and the first in his family to finish college. When he moved to Alaska for work in 2011, it was like life as Joseph knew it had been flipped upside down, trading in the arid heat of West Texas for the Arctic chill of America's so-called final frontier. For Joseph, it was an exciting and even exotic change, kind of. He never thought he'd actually be living in a place where the northern lights were visible for most of the year, but there he was. Joseph loved Alaska's imposing terrain. He loved, loved, loved to hike. He often called home to tell his mother of his latest adventures and his upcoming plans.

• 23:33Kaelyn Moore?

  If there was one thing she repeatedly would tell him, it was to not go hiking alone. You know, mom's worry. Still, he did plan to go hiking alone on the last weekend of June in 2016. Over beers with his coworkers that Friday afternoon, Joseph explained that his fiance was flying into town for the Fourth of July, and he wanted to surprise her with the perfect hiking spot. So he was going to head up north a ways to scope out some potential trails. "Don't go by yourself, though," his coworkers told him. "Wait for your fiance, Meghan." But Joseph had already made up his mind. He was going to go that weekend, and he was going to be fine. Joseph's fiance was Meghan Ryder. They had first met in 2013 down in Juneau, and that's where he lived until moving to Nome the following year to work for the city's Second District Court.

• 24:17Kaelyn Moore?

  Meghan stayed behind in Juneau, which, although it's in the same state, is over 1,000 miles away from Nome. But Joseph had plans to move back to Juneau that summer to start his own law practice and to marry Meghan. In the meantime, the couple saw each other as often as their schedules would allow, and they talked on the phone and texted nearly every day. On Friday night, June 24, 2016, Joseph called Meghan to brag about the salmon he'd caught fishing that evening. After the call, he sent her a picture of the filets, and he told her that he was heading back out to camp beneath the midnight sun. Early the next morning, Joseph was back home where he lived with his roommate, and he sent Meghan some texts saying that he was going to venture back out to another river where he suspected he could catch some king salmon. And Meghan eagerly awaited an update from him.

• 25:02Kaelyn Moore?

  But she never got one. By Monday morning, Meghan still hadn't heard from Joseph. Her calls were going straight to his voicemail and her texts were all undelivered. So she called up the Second District Court in Nome and she got Joseph's coworker Tracy Bluey on the line. And what Tracy had to say made Meghan's hair stand on end. Because Joseph hadn't come into work that morning and it was totally unlike him not to call or show. Tracy sounded a bit worried and before she hung up, she told Meghan that she would call the state troopers and report him missing. Now, the Nome Council Highway is 72 miles of unpaved gravel that's unplowed during the winter and ends in the town of Council, which has a population of zero.

• 25:45Kaelyn Moore?

  The highway is largely just a scenic route. When Alaska State Trooper Timothy Smith received the call that morning, he remembered that one of his fellow troopers spotted Joseph's pickup truck over the weekend parked on the highway out by mile marker 44. So, Smith drove out to that stretch of highway and lo and behold, there was Joseph's truck still parked on the shoulder. Trooper Smith parked behind the truck and tried the doors. They were all unlocked. So he reached his hand into the vehicle and removed a backpack from the passenger seat. He unzipped it and found fishing gear, a pair of waders, and boots. Smith looked around the area, the miles of barren land and low brush in every direction, yelling into his megaphone along the way.

• 26:30Kaelyn Moore?

  But there was no sign of Joseph anywhere and not a single other human in sight. This really eerie feeling came over the trooper in the total silence of the surroundings. He knew that he needed to get search crews out there immediately, so he used his satellite phone to contact the Nome Search and Rescue and the volunteer fire department. Over the next week, for 20 hours a day, from sunrise to sunset, ATVs and aircraft scoured the area looking for clues. Community volunteers, family members, and search dogs joined in the operation. And the dogs picked up a scent on the road near where Joseph's pickup was, and it led directly to the river. But then the trail was lost and the dogs' handlers just took them home.

• 27:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Searchers in the area also saw nothing except bears. I mean, there were a lot of bears out there. Could that be a clue to Joseph's fate? And Trooper Smith wondered that. If Joseph or his remains were out there somewhere, Smith believed that no one would be able to see him from any angle. It seemed pretty hopeless. After nearly a week, the search was called off and Joseph's whereabouts remained a mystery. On July 3rd, state troopers went back to Joseph's house and they talked to his roommate, Jake Stettinbens. And Jake told the troopers that he wasn't home most of the Saturday that Joseph disappeared. He had been out bridge jumping with his friends Emery and Tyler that afternoon and after the trio drove out to Solomon, an area east of Nome, and didn't return to town until 1:00 in the morning.

• 27:57Kaelyn Moore?

  And the troopers noticed that while talking to Jake, Jake had scrapes on his face and his arms, and they asked him where he'd gotten those. And he said that he got banged up playing catch football with a friend. The troopers then asked when this had happened, and Jake recalled that this was around June 30th, which would have happened three days after Joseph's disappearance. Now, troopers felt kind of weird about this whole interaction, so after the interview, they put in a request for Jake's cellphone data. And once that request was approved, they took a look at Jake's text message exchanges, and as they were reading through them, they discovered that Jake had been lying. On July 4th, a day after they first talked to Jake at the house, he had texted his friends

• 28:38Kaelyn Moore?

  Emery and Tyler, asking them to cover for him, saying that he had to use them in a story that he told the state trooper about driving out to Solomon after they'd gone bridge jumping. For some reason, Jake felt the need to create an alibi for his whereabouts from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM that Saturday. Troopers recontacted Jake and confronted him about this lie, and Jake apologized for not being truthful, and he explained that he had never been questioned by troopers before and he was just simply nervous. The investigators proceeded to thoroughly search the home Jake and Joseph shared, but they didn't find anything that would indicate foul play. And around the same time, troopers were contacted by a witness who reported driving on the Nome Council Highway on Saturday, June 25th, and seeing Joseph Balderra standing next

• 29:23Kaelyn Moore?

  to his pickup truck, right where it was later found, at Mile Marker 44. Now, this seemed to confirm that Joseph had driven his own car out to that stretch of highway and parked it at the east fork of the Solomon River, but what happened after was a question that continued to haunt investigators and Joseph's loved ones. Months passed without any sign of Joseph, whose family back in Texas grew impatient and dissatisfied with the state trooper's investigation. So the family hired their own investigator, an Alaska-based PI named Andy Clamser, who flew out to Nome to see if he could uncover something that the local investigators couldn't. And by this time, local officials were feeling the pressure.

• 30:04Kaelyn Moore?

  That October, with much of the dense foliage now cleared by the autumn weather, the city donated $10,000 to a volunteer search that returned to the area near mile marker 44 on the Nome Council Highway with helicopters spraying prop wash to flatten the willow branches for the best possible view of the ground. Searchers on ATVs and also on foot fanned out throughout the area, but the end result was the exact same as before: nothing. The PI, Andy Clamser, was meanwhile busy with his own investigation. He didn't believe that something had happened to Joseph while hiking. Joseph was an experienced outdoorsman and good physical shape. And besides, if he'd perished out there in the wild near his truck, he surely would have been found by now.

• 30:49Kaelyn Moore?

  If he had been attacked by a bear, then searchers would have found evidence of a bear attack. But they didn't. Clamser talked to dozens of Joseph's friends, his coworkers and acquaintances, and found no indication that Joseph was suicidal or had any reason that he would want to disappear. He was upbeat, he was happy, he had plans for the future, both short-term and long-term. Clamser ultimately concluded that Joseph was a victim of foul play. Joseph's family did agree, but that didn't bring them any closer to learning what actually happened to him or who was responsible. Did he walk out into the woods and meet someone he shouldn't have? Or did he get picked up by a car and taken somewhere?

• 31:32Kaelyn Moore?

  No one ever got any answer on this. And so Joseph's death got placed into an ever-expanding file of strange disappearances in Nome with unsatisfying answers from police. When Donald Adams disappeared from Nome in 1976 at just 18 years old, his family was left to search for him while the police didn't step up. And their search returned to nothing. When Nathan Aningazak vanished just a few years after graduating from the local high school, barely anything was written about him in his police file. When Justina Beatrice Kania, a mother of eight, disappeared in Nome on her way to a doctor's appointment. Her daughters had to show pictures of her around to the locals because the police refused to help.

• 32:14Kaelyn Moore?

  And when Admec Carl Henry Jr. vanished after being last seen at a relative's home, it was his sister-in-law that put together a suspect list, not the police. And she did the same thing when Antik's cousin, Ernest, went missing in the area as well. But although Joseph's case didn't get solved, it did get something that most of the missing persons cases in the area didn't get, including the ones that I just mentioned, and that's media coverage, which helped shine a brighter light on the disturbing pattern of disappearances and suspicious deaths in Nome, a pattern that had become so concerning to the community that in 2006, a whole decade before Joseph's disappearance, the FBI was brought in to analyze these cases because some residents of Nome feared that a serial killer was

• 32:59Kaelyn Moore?

  at work. And the FBI concluded that there was no serial killer and that there was no larger pattern. But if you pull back and look at the cases of missing and murdered Alaskans and suspicious deaths in Nome, you may not walk away convinced that there's a serial killer or some murderous cabal at work, but a very clear pattern does emerge, and that's the Nome Police Department's pattern of indifference, neglect, and hostility towards the local community, especially the local Indigenous community. But the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous people is much broader, and Alaska claims the greatest share of those. So to find out how you can get involved and provide advocacy and support, you can visit

• 33:39Kaelyn Moore?

  the website for the Data for Indigenous Justice Organization at www.dataforindigenousjustice.org, and you can click on Resources in the top-left menu. But that is all I have for you today. If you want to learn more about Nome, over on Footnotes on the High Council tier at Patreon, I'm going to kind of go through some of the cases that didn't make it into this week's episode. There's a lot, lot, lot more from Nome that I'd love to talk about, so you can join me there. Otherwise, I will be back here next week with another episode for you all. And until then, stay curious.

• 34:19Kaelyn Moore?

  Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Additional research and writing by Paula Haynes. Sound design and mix by Red Room Creative. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, and the team at WME. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstarts pounding dot com.

• 34:38Kaelyn Moore?

  Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon dot com backslash heart starts pounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.