MURDERED: Joyce LePage Part 2

In part two of Joyce’s story, we dig deep into the case file and letters left behind by Joyce herself, which reveal even more suspects, including the roommate she’d been avoiding that summer.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:37Speaker 01

  Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  And I'm Brett.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Last episode, I told you the story of Joyce Lepage, a WSU student who went missing from Stevens Hall on campus in 1971. The same night in 1971 that a swath of green carpet from the building went missing too. And 55 years after that, we still don't know what happened to Joyce on July 22, 1971. Over the years, police have developed a number of suspects and theories, and I'm walking you through six of them. Last episode, I told you about Mike Finch, who investigators cleared with a past polygraph in 2013. Despite a shaky alibi and changing timeline,

• 2:22Speaker 01

  they also cleared a tile setter who was working just yards from Stevens Hall the night that Joyce vanished, because he too passed a polygraph. And although Ted Bundy seemed like a contender in the case of a brown-haired, missing Pacific Northwest coed in the 70s, most investigators agree that it is much more likely that Joyce was killed by someone a little closer to home. Maybe even her new home. Because it turns out Joyce was planning to move to a house not far from where her abandoned car was found. And one man inside that house has a scary past that Joyce talked about in her letters.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Let's dive back in, because I've got three more theories to tell you about, starting with the meditation group theory.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  I told you Joyce was one in a million. She was adventurous and curious. She had her pilot's license by the time she was 18, and at 21, she was taking skydiving lessons. In the summer that she was killed, one of Joyce's focuses was meditation. And I don't mean in a casual sense. Joyce was an initiated member of SIMS, the Student International Meditation Society. The group practiced transcendental meditation. They gathered for group meditations weekly, and Joyce had even traveled to Spokane for a week-long course on meditation, a month before she vanished. Joyce was socially linked to at least three other people from SIMS,

• 4:26Speaker 01

  this married couple named Mike and Celeste Lindberg, and another guy named Mark Wadley. I'll just refer to them as the meditation group. Well, Mike and Celeste were the leaders of SIMS, and Mark was their roommate. And they all lived at 400 Howard Street. This matters because their house was just three or four houses away from where Joyce's car was found, on Opal Street. And Joyce was planning to move in with them in the fall. The meditation group offered her a room that upcoming semester, because Mike and Celeste were going to be going to Spain. Mark needed to fill their room to cover rent. And they all knew that Joyce wasn't happy living with Bruce.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  So are we thinking that Joyce drove to their house on the night of 22nd? And that's just like the closest parking space she could find?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Anything is a possibility, especially because, try as they might, police were finding zero connection between Joyce and the frat house that her car was parked closest to. So if she is the one who drove her car there, and it wasn't just randomly dumped by somebody, it would stand to reason that she may have been there to visit someone in her meditation group.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Wait, did they not notice her car parked there the whole time she was MIA?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  No, they did, or at least one of them did. When police went knocking at the door of 400 Howard in the very early days of the missing person investigation, it was the single guy, Mark, who answered. And he says that he knows Joyce, and he had noticed her car parked down the road, but that he didn't know where she was, nor did he even realize that she was missing. According to what the officer wrote, he said he'd only just met Joyce the month before. They had never dated or anything, he said. And he tells them about the whole new roommate situation, but very much like keeps his connection to Joyce like at an arm's length. But the officer notes that his demeanor is just like off.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I mean, in the case file, the officer writes that Mark seems nervous. And then something weird happens, like mid-conversation. The officer notices that the other guy who lives at the house, Mike, he drives by, but instead of stopping, he like keeps driving. And when the officer left, they like keep surveilling the house just to see what happens. And they noticed that Mike only goes to the house after they left.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Uh, that's sus. Don't love it.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  So the detective made it a point to follow up with Mike.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Now, it's later in August, 1971, by the time they get with Mike Lindberg. So Joyce is still just missing at this point. We're a month out. And he says he knows Joyce for longer than Mark, about a year, ever since she was initiated into SIMS. And all he knew about her outside of the group was that she wasn't getting along with her roommate Bruce, but he didn't really know why. He suspected that it was because Bruce was, quote, "a little weird", and probably, quote, "involved in drugs". And he says drug use is forbidden for members of SIMS. He said the last time he saw Joyce was July 17, when she came over and joined him, his wife Celeste, and Mark for dinner. And then after dinner, all four of them drove out to Eden Valley,

• 7:36Speaker 01

  which is this like scenic area out near the river. Now here, he drops a little tidbit. Mike tells police that he thinks Mark is attracted to Joyce, but he doesn't think that Joyce is interested in Mark.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Did he just offer up that info about Mark?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Unclear.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Like, okay.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Unclear, because the case file I'm working with, they're all from 1971, many of which are like handwritten. But if I read between the lines, I get the sense that they like asked him point-blank about Mark's interest in Joyce, because there is one line in the files that says, "Mark asked Joyce out on a date, which Mark denied." Now, Mike also tells police that, unlike Mark, he had not even noticed that Joyce's car was parked 100 feet from his front door for over a week. And both Mike and Mark agreed to take polygraphs. And I find the results very interesting. After Mike's test, the officer concludes that while he doesn't think Mike was directly involved, he did seem quite nervous throughout the test.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And he notes that he showed concern in answering one question in particular. Do you think Mark is involved in Joyce's disappearance? Now, when they pressed Mike about this after the polygraph, he said, quote, "I don't know why it would show that, but maybe I am holding back because I feel a certain responsibility towards Joyce."

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Responsibility for what?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  I don't know. But the conclusions from Mark's polygraph were a bit different. They said that he seemed calm, but that there was a couple of spots where they noted a heart rate spike. Once, when he was asked if he knew if Joyce was still alive. And then another time, when they asked Mark if he had been inside Joyce's car. But the report notes, when they asked if he had been in her car, they asked if he'd been in there July 23rd, and there was not a notable change. So the officer summarizes that, based on this test, Mark can't be eliminated as a suspect.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  I feel like he squeaked by there with that, "Were you in her car?" question. Because like, they asked him about the 23rd, not the 22nd.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I know, but I, I don't think that was an oversight. I think that that was based on what information they had at the time. So when officers first went looking for Joyce, like, the day that she's officially reported missing, Bruce, remember, wasn't home for them to talk to, but they actually did catch a neighbor across the street, this guy named Dave Parks. Well, he told officers that he was friends with Joyce, knew her, and he last saw her leaving her apartment on July 23rd at 10:00 a.m. with two long-haired guys that he didn't recognize, and they all got into a car. Now, once this was a homicide investigation, police became a little less confident in that sighting. But it's still worth noting, and it is clearly what they were driving home,

• 10:36Speaker 01

  like, here in this polygraph with Mark.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  And did Mike and Mark have long hair?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Dude, somehow, nobody notes that in the case file. And I haven't run across any pictures of these guys from that era. But like, for the record, like, I don't think that sighting could be right. Right? Like, police seem to think that the neighbor must have been mistaken or gotten the date wrong, because, again, go back to like, the timeline of this. This carpet is discovered missing before 8:30 a.m. on the 23rd. So like, it had to have gone missing overnight on the 22nd. If Joyce is wrapped inside the carpet, like, she's already dead by then.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  And did they ever talk to Mike's wife, Celeste?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  They did, but she didn't have a whole lot to add. She just mentioned that the last time she saw Joyce was that night that they all, like, did dinner. They drove to the Eden Valley.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  So just kind of confirming all that.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's worth noting that throughout the case file, this night does get mentioned as like, July 16th or 17th, depending on who you ask. I'm not sure that that matters, but she didn't really offer up anything new. But I actually found something new that's actually old, hidden in the case file. And it's something written in Joyce's own words about Mark.

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• 14:08Speaker 01

  I almost miss this piece, because it is written in Joyce's handwriting, which, to be honest, is like, kind of hard to read.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Girl after my own heart.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I know. And it seems to be this letter that she was writing to her boyfriend, David Arthur, the one that they found in her purse at Stevens Hall when they first discovered the carpet was missing. So I'm gonna have a voice actor read a portion of the letter.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  I had dinner with Celeste, Michael, and Mark the other night. Afterward, we drove around until dark. Then we stopped in at a rummage sale in Paloo's City and got ice cream cones. We had a very good time. I discovered that Mark once stayed at a mental institution for trying to strangle people. He also, I suspect, was the informer to a narc for this big drug bust two years ago.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Okay, just a casual mention of strangulation in a letter to your boyfriend.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  There is no other mention of these allegations about Mark anywhere in the case file. No mention of this when they talked to Mark or anyone in the meditation group. And I don't see them trying to really nail down his history, like, ever. From what we can tell, no past or present investigator has even looked into this. And yes, the history is the most interesting allegation. But the one about him being a CI or a narc is just as big to me. Because if Mark was involved in some way as the polygraph would suggest, maybe someone was more inclined to look the other way and keep Mark out of trouble.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  There are a couple of areas in the file where this idea comes up, that maybe Joyce knew something before she died, something that made her a liability. So this woman, named Kay Garrison, is interviewed by police in September of '71. Again, Joyce is still just a missing person by this point. Now, Kay used to live with Joyce, but it sounds like Joyce moved dorms, and then they kind of just like drifted apart a little bit, like... But they would run into each other a couple of times over the summer of 1971 while they were doing summer classes. And one of the last times she saw Joyce was maybe like, a week or less before she disappeared. And she said Joyce looked like something was wrong. Like, she lost a bunch of weight.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  She looked pale, thin. And she was asking Kay to like, come up and see her sometimes so they could talk. She had something to tell her. She just couldn't tell her then. Crime Junkie, like, for all of you who have a secret, for the love of God.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Tell someone.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Here is exactly what Kay says in her transcript. And she's explaining to the detectives what it is that Joyce was saying.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Oh, I've been pretty busy with the other projects. And I asked her, "Well, where's Dave?" And she said, "He's at the library." I said, "Is something the matter? Is something bugging you?" And she said, "Well, I just don't know. I'm just so afraid that I'm going to tell people something that I shouldn't, especially when it's someone else's coffin I'm sealing." And I said, "Is some class that's bugging you?" And she said it was chemistry. I said, "Well, don't you understand it?" She said, "Well, I understand it too well. I understand it so well that I think that I'm going to hurt somebody." I said, "Why do you say that?" "Well, and this is what really bugs me. I can't really define in my mind whether she meant hurting someone in the sense of knowing this information

• 17:37Speaker 03

  and telling like, her friends that she was starting to associate with, that she didn't want to associate with them anymore, and that she didn't think that drugs were a good thing, or she was going to hurt Mike."

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Kay says it wasn't super clear what Joyce meant, but she had to get going, so she kind of just like told her, you know, "Okay, keep your head up. Things are gonna like, be better." And that was the last they ever spoke. I don't know who Mike is, either. Because is it Mike, the leader of the Sims group? Mike Lindbergh? Is it Mike Finch? I mean, she mentions Mike Finch by his full name later. And we're actually gonna like, have part of that read in just a second. So I don't think it's him. I don't know, maybe it's another Mike altogether. If it's Michael Lindbergh who's connected to Mark, I think it is real interesting. Because when they're talking to police, they said that the Sims movement was very anti-drug. But everyone else is talking like this meditation group was caught up in the drug world.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  And I mean, you're not gonna tell cops in the 70s that you're tied up in the drug world.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  True, but according to our research into Mike, he himself had a drug conviction from 1969. I don't have any more details on that drug bust that happened two years prior. And I don't see anyone questioning him about that either. I also wonder, like, is drugs about all this like, chemistry stuff is about? Like, she knows something that was gonna happen, like, that's gonna hurt people? Like, what'd she say, like, "Seal someone's coffin"? What does that mean? When this friend Kay was asked what she thinks happened, she said this.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Well... I think perhaps she was really hassled about like confidences. And she was associating with Transcendental Meditation Group. And they did have a tendency to deal in drugs. So maybe someone told her something about drugs or she found out about something. And then someone got scared about it, you know, and tried to hurt her in some way. But Mike, she was also hassled about this chemistry thing. And I don't know how this Mike Finch fits in, other than the fact that he was a teacher in chem and mentioned in something with her chemistry and then having the chemistry knowledge. And then this Mike. Now, maybe this Mike had something to do with drugs, you know?

• 19:56Speaker 03

  And he ties in somehow with this group or he wanted to tie her down and she didn't want to be tied down. So she went to her friends who happened to be on drugs and they tried to help her out somehow. I mean, there are so many little possibilities because she knew so many different people and she was so open and trusting to these different types of people. And I warned that it was dangerous to be that way.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  I'm so confused.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Me too. Like, I need clarifying questions, detectives.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Like some follow ups.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Past and present, just some follow ups. I believe that Mike Lindberg died by suicide in 1988. That's according to a death certificate that we found for someone with his name, middle name, and date of birth. I know that Mark is still alive. And though we didn't get him on the phone, we did reach a woman who answered a phone number that is listed for him at a business in Hawaii.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And she told us that she would ask him to call us and she agreed to forward him an email from us, but we have not heard back from him. And by the way, speaking of Mark, if you were to Google his name, a WSU sexual misconduct thing flags, it's like the first thing on Google.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  It turns out that he had the same exact name as his dad. And this particular incident was about his dad, not our Mark. But it says that the complaint was filed against his dad for sexual misconduct while he was a professor at WSU in 2003. The incident is listed as resolved and his dad has like long since passed. I definitely have more questions about Mark Wadley. So if anyone listening knows more, wants to reach out, please do. [email protected]. Or Mark, if you're listening, we would still love to talk to you. But there is still yet another person that I want to talk to. The reason Joyce was looking to move in the first place was because of the person

• 21:50Speaker 01

  everyone seemed to agree she was actually avoiding that summer. Her roommate, Bruce Beerbomb.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Finally, the roommate Bruce theory. I was waiting for this.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  I knew you were. Now, initially, Bruce is treated like just a witness. I mean, after Joyce's dad reports her missing and officer tracks Bruce down at work, he agrees to let police search their apartment, even helps like check to see if her belongings are there, which he says like they all seem to be accounted for. Which, by the way, I've been like holding out one little detail on you. One of the things that they found in her apartment was her car keys.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Wait, her car keys were inside the apartment?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yes. The hang up is nobody seems to know if those were like the primary set of keys, like, which would be so incriminating.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  The keys she uses every single day.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  If they were just an extra set that Joyce had to her car, which like I've got one of those. So have fun spiraling on that for the rest of the week.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  But back at the apartment, Bruce tells police that he and Joyce are just friends, nothing more, and that the last time he saw Joyce was early in the morning of July 23rd, when he left for work.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Wait, so he's saying she's alive and well on Friday morning?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Well, he's saying that day one, before many details were known. The story conveniently changes later. Stay tuned. But in this first chat, he lays out his schedule. So he works for the Campus Roads and Grounds Department. So that summer, he would typically leave for work before like 7:00 AM. He says that the morning of July 23rd, Joyce was asleep on the couch when he left. And he says that when he got home from work that day, she wasn't there. But he knew that she had plans to go home for the weekend, so he didn't really think anything of it. And when she didn't show back up after the weekend, he says that, you know, he assumed that she had extended her stay with her parents. And they don't really have much reason to think twice about this guy at the time.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  I mean, even though she's telling everyone she knows she doesn't want to sleep in the same house as him.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  I know, like the context clues feel like they are jumping off the page now. Back then, I don't know. I guess they like didn't see much of a motive. But while they were looking in other directions, Bruce was doing odd things, like sending this weird letter to Joyce's dad on August 11th, 1971. This is a few weeks into her disappearance. Here's a voice actor reading a condensed version of this letter.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Dear Mr. LePage, I really don't know where to start. Joyce and I had been friends for quite a while. She came and went as she pleased, as did I. I would go to work at seven, return at five, make dinner, and then leave at seven for band practice. Joyce went to classes somewhere around eight, so she was always asleep when I left. We ate dinner at the same time. In fact, that was about the only time we ever really talked. Usually that time was only about an hour at the most. I'd help her with her chemistry and sometimes we'd give each other a thumbnail sketch of what our plans were for the next few days, just so someone knew what was going on. The week before she disappeared, she seldom ate dinner, even here.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  She slept in Stevens Hall, had lunch in the apartment, then went somewhere for the afternoon, and she was usually going out to eat. With who, I never knew. In fact, that week, we had the least amount of communication of all summer. I don't know where she could be. The last I saw her was at six on Thursday night, when she went to her skydiving lesson. The last she was seen was at 11:30 on Friday morning. So the last thing I knew was that she had planned to go to the atomic cup race in Pasco, and that was it. I wish I knew more, but I don't. The investigator has probably filled you in on everything that he knows, which is everything I know.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  I've spent about six hours with him so far, and there is nothing more that I can think of. Every time I think of something, he chases it down, but so far, every try has come to a sickening dead end. I realize that you are probably pretty busy now, so I don't know when you will be able to pick up her possessions. I have packed up everything she had in the apartment, so whenever you want to pick it up, it shouldn't take too much time. I might add that while I did this, I looked for possible clues, but there wasn't a thing that could lead anywhere. I had hoped that there might have been, but there wasn't. If you could, get here before Saturday, but after that, I will be gone. Her stuff is in the closet by the door. There is one other problem.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  She and I were going to split the cost of the apartment. I was going to pay for the first month, June, and she would pay for July. And the guy we were subleasing from was going to pay for August. Well, I have paid for the phone for the two months, including a couple of her long, distant phone calls and the water and the rent. All of this has thrown me close to $90 in the hole from what I had planned to spend. Any of this that you could make up would be greatly appreciated because I am living on a bit of a tight schedule, and so $90 is quite a large sum of money. I'm sorry I couldn't turn her up anywhere. I tried as much as I could, but there have been no breaks coming our way. I wish she would turn up somewhere. Sincerely, Bruce Beerbomb.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  P.S. You can have the landlady let you in. The check can be left on the table and I can pick it up next fall. I really wish she would surprise me and walk in sometime soon. I think about half of the world would be overjoyed to see her.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Hello, sir. I know your daughter's missing, but please bring me money.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  And also, can you just like come get her stuff?

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Well, and who's the half the world that wouldn't be overjoyed to see her?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  And plus, why is he like half talking about her in past tense, even though she is just missing? And the plot thickens when one of Joyce's best friends, Jan, who I've talked about before, she goes to police and says like, hey, I went to go have a look around Joyce's apartment, and there actually are a few items of Joyce's that are missing. And one item that wasn't missing, but I found in the apartment shattered to pieces.

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• 30:23Speaker 01

  Jan found Joyce's favorite blue vase broken on top of the refrigerator when she went to check out Joyce's apartment after she'd gone missing. We actually have a photo of Jan with the vase in the background before it was broken. And I guess when Jan asked Bruce about it, he said that it broke in an argument, but he didn't explain further.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Did police not notice this when they searched the apartment?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I guess not, because like this is the first mention of it. And I don't see anywhere in the file where Bruce was asked about it. Again, I would love a follow-up question.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I see a follow-up interview with Bruce where he agrees to take a polygraph. And he later claims that he took one in 1972. But as far as anyone can tell, he never actually did. Either that, or no record of it was kept. But in that documented follow-up interview, he says now that the last time he saw Joyce was Thursday evening before she went skydiving.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  Oh, but that's not what he said last time.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  The lieutenant was like, whoa, he clocked that. We got a follow-up here.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Finally.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  He's like, well, last time we chatted, you told me she's asleep on your couch Friday morning when you leave for work. And he's like, oh, weird. I just, I don't recall saying that. And I find this real interesting because remember the last two people who are confirmed to have seen Joyce, Hal and Patty? They went with her to the skydiving lesson on Thursday. They drop her back at her apartment Thursday. It's 10:00 PM. It's late. Well, when Patty talked to police, she said something interesting. She told them that night Joyce was talking about how she thought police were going to figure out that she was staying in the dorm illegally. She said that she'd been working to move all of her personal items out of there, but she still had some to get.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  However, she agreed that she wasn't going to go back that night to get them because it was late and it was dark. She was gonna go in the morning. So Joyce is telling Patty at 10:00 PM on Thursday that she's not going to Stevens Hall. Bruce, in his early stories, says he sees her there Friday morning. So did Joyce actually go to Stevens Hall on her own Thursday night? Or is it possible she never even made it there? Bruce eventually stops cooperating with the investigation and they never get anything from him or on him that furthered the case. And Bruce is still alive today.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  He graduated and he became a veterinarian and he now lives in Florida. Obviously, we had so many questions that we were hoping he would answer for us. But when our reporter Emily got in touch with him, I thought the response was a little strange. Like, I would think this would be a significant time in his life. I mean, according to his letter, he wanted to do whatever he could to help. But when M asked to interview him, he said, no, thank you, and abruptly hung up. Maybe he's tired of talking about it. Or maybe he's gotten wind of what we learned, which is that today Bruce Beerbaum has become the primary focus

• 33:48Speaker 01

  of the sheriff's office investigation into Joyce's murder. And that is for a few reasons. You see, Bruce has been married and divorced several times over the years, like five or six times since the 70s. And almost every time there's a divorce, one of his exes calls the sheriff's office about this case with some weird stories.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Weird like what?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Well, one of them called to just like straight up say she thinks that he killed Joyce. And then another mentioned this coat rack. So remember how I said that Jan noticed that some stuff was missing? One of those things was a coat rack that was like, it was short. It was like three feet high, made of like blue metal with cow horns on the top. It was distinctive. It was Joyce's, but it was never found. I have a photo of this too, that I'll publish. And one of Bruce's exes told police she was pretty sure Bruce had it. But this never got confirmed. And to be fair, even if it were to get confirmed, stealing from your roommate is different than killing your roommate.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Like, that one might be nothing. But what feels like something is one of Bruce's family members who told police they found a poem that he wrote about a dead girl looking up at him from the river. Now, this is all very circumstantial stuff, but it was enough to spark a whole new, modern investigation into Bruce. And since then, Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers has tried to interview him and even sent the FBI to his door in Florida to approach him about taking a polygraph. But he won't have anything to do with it.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  I mean, what about any criminal history since Joyce's murder? Like, has he done anything?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Yes. There are a few interesting things. Actually, when our research team searched his name, 35 different criminal filings popped up. Most of them seemed to be traffic-related, whatever. But one was listed as assault. Police reports revealed that it was a domestic battery charge against Bruce for a 2014 incident with his then-brand-new wife, who, by the way, was 40 years younger than him. And the victim says that she was hiding from Bruce at a friend's house. Reports say that he found where she was staying and took her purse, pinned her up against the wall. And Bruce later told officers that he was just trying to like, get back a credit card that she stole from him. He denied ever touching her. But there were two other witnesses to the incident and he was charged with domestic battery.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  And there's something else in Bruce's record that's worth mentioning. And this is something we really had to dig for because it didn't pop up in any public databases. But know how I say he's like a veterinarian? Well, when we looked up his license, we found some disciplinary actions against him, one of which was an incident in 2003 where he was accused of giving animal medications to his kids. According to court records, the Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine found that he committed five violations and he was disciplined for them.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Are they okay?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  So yeah, the kids are okay. But the reports don't go into detail as far as like why he did this. They do note, though, that it happened regularly. And they say that one of them might have been for an ear infection. So like, maybe this animal medicine was like the same as like the human medicine that happens sometimes. He decided to use it since like he already had access to it. It doesn't matter. Like, it's still a huge no-no.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  And they found out about this because his ex-wife reported him for it. And there are more disciplinary actions. So like, there's a more recent one that occurred in Florida where he practices today. I don't know what that is, though. We filed records requests for the reports and as of now, they're still pending. But I don't like any of this that's on the books for him. Still, though, friendly reminder that none of these things prove that he's capable of murder.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%. But if we're spitballing theories, I like to remind everyone that at least one set of Joyce's keys were found inside the apartment that she shared with Bruce. Plus, if he worked at the college, would he have had access to Stevens Hall?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  All we can do now, in 2026, is guess because nobody seems to know for sure. But like, even if he didn't, does that matter? Because like, we know Joyce is getting through an unlocked window. Anyone could have gotten access to Stevens Hall the same way she did. And I hear you on all the things that are like suspicious, but there are holes in the Bruce theory. Like, to me, it makes a lot more sense that if something happened involving him, that it would happen at the apartment.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  I mean, unless he followed her.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, we still don't know where she was killed. I just like, I can't get past the carpet being taken from Stevens Hall. But there was no blood on the missing carpet. It's basically clean. And if the FBI is correct about her being stabbed, like, wouldn't you expect blood? Though even that is an if all these years later. I personally think that's like a wrong determination that they made. And I know that's like a bold statement, but it is an idea that Sheriff Myers has already had before I came along. Now, he doesn't know how long Joyce was in the canyon before she was found. What early investigators called puncture marks, or like that looked like it could have been from a knife, like stab wounds on the bones,

• 39:12Speaker 01

  he thinks could be a sign of animal activity instead.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Maybe she was killed in a way that didn't involve a messy crime scene. Like, you would think if she had been stabbed, there would be something on the carpet, even if like she wasn't killed on the carpet.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  She would still be like bleeding out. There would still be like blood on her that would get on the carpet.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  So is it possible she died another way? Okay, then where did that happen? Is it where her clothes ended up? Because they never found those. They just found a pair of slashed underwear that they believed were hers.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Could they test any of that for DNA?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I know the underwear got tested along with like the blankets over the years, but so far, they haven't gotten anything meaningful from it. But you know, new tests are always coming available. And it's not like they have zero evidence. Joyce's letters and diary pages that investigators found at Stevens Hall have always been a major key to this investigation. They gave detectives a unique glimpse into Joyce's personal life in the days leading up to her murder. And Joyce was detailed in her letters. There are names of several people that I haven't even mentioned that she was hanging out with that summer. And one of those names jumps off the pages at me and someone that I can't stop thinking about.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  This is one of the final theories I'll mention, and that's the Steve Solley theory. So you know the letter where Joyce talks about Mark strangling people?

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, how could I forget?

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Well, in the very next paragraph, she talks about Steve. And she says this.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Steve Solley is here this summer and has befriended me. He is quite unstable sometimes and always moody. However, he is going to become initiated into TM this week, so he shouldn't suffer too long. He is directing a 415 communications class, which involves taping and filming commercials, advertisements, news, skits, plays, et cetera, on TV. Because there are no girls in the class, I have added it for one credit and do nothing but goof off in front of the camera once or twice a week.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  So Steve was shooting Joyce in commercials for like a comms class. And this made investigators curious about him, also curious if like those commercials ever aired on TV or like what happened, but they couldn't ever find commercials, even though they actually, this is one of the things they actually went looking for. Now, that doesn't mean they don't exist, just that it was a class project thing, like is kind of the sense that I get, but like they don't actually say that for sure. But we dug into the case file and Steve Solley comes up several other times.

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• 44:14Speaker 01

  On August 10, 1971, Steve Solley goes to the police department to tell them that he has Joyce's typewriter and he wants to turn it in for safekeeping. Officers ask when he last saw Joyce. He says July 21. There's no follow-up questioning about that last interaction. Right. Now, the next time Steve comes up is via this phone call tip in the spring of 1972, not long after Joyce's body was found. The tipster says that they saw Joyce on campus on July 19, 1971, at the student union. So this is just like a day or two before she goes missing.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  And they say that Joyce was talking to Steve, and Steve left, and Joyce and this tipster walked to the library together. And Joyce, quote, "appeared to be distressed." And the tipster said that she asked Joyce, like, "What is wrong?" And Joyce said that she had gotten a letter from a man that she knew and that he was coming to visit her, but that Joyce was nervous because whoever this man was, she didn't trust him. And again, the tipster's saying she is visibly upset, but she refused to identify this guy. Just said that he would be around in a few days.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  And to me, at least, it kind of sounds like she's referring to someone else, like maybe like Mike Finch. It doesn't sound necessarily like she's referencing Steve.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  I think that's a fair assumption, but I do think it's interesting and worth mentioning that one of the only tips in the case file that says Joyce was distressed in the days leading up to her disappearance is one where she had just been with Steve. Like, what were they talking about that made her visibly upset? And was Joyce trying to make a cover story for like what had her worked up? Because here's another interesting tidbit about Steve. Joyce's roommate Bruce tells police during his interview that Joyce had dated Steve sophomore year. And Bruce says that not long before Joyce went missing, Steve told Joyce that she was, quote, "the source of all his troubles," and that Steve had been trying to see Joyce.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  And this information makes police circle back to Steve, only to find out, guess what? He just up and quit school and moved away. This is April 1972 when they're finding this out. Basically, the report says that this guy named Jay Foster told police that Steve quit school, returned to his home in New York, like, and this was about like two weeks before the end of the fall semester. So I want to be clear, it's not like he up and left that summer. It was a few months later.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  But that also means that it's like while school is happening. It's not like at the end of the year, at the end of a semester, it's in the middle of the school.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Right, so why? Now, it's not until two years after that that police sit down with Steve. By then, he has returned to WSU. He is re-enrolled in school. And he says, yes, he was shooting Joyce in commercials for class, but he denies that they ever dated. He says he was dating another girl named Mary, and that's actually how he met Joyce. And he says that the last interaction they had on July 21 was at his apartment. And he says that Joyce had been helping him with some typing assignments at night, so she would like come over to the apartment with her typewriter.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Which explains why he had her typewriter.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Is his apartment anywhere near her car?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not far. His apartment was at 918 Harvey Road, so it's not too far. It's like less than half a mile away. It's like an eight-minute walk from where he first started.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  It's all like basically a college campus. Everything's like relatively close, but not super close.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  But they asked Steve the important question, like, "Why did you quit school back in 71?

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Why did you like move away?" And he said that he moved away and withdrew because he ran out of money. He also says, like, I guess he was thinking about joining her meditation group, but like didn't do that because he was so broke as well. Now, notably absent from the questioning of Steve is about that tipster saying that Joyce was visibly upset after she's seen talking to him on campus on the 19th.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Which is frustrating, but at this point, it doesn't surprise me.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  The case file indicates that Steve then agrees to take a polygraph that officers believed he was being truthful, and the end. But I can't find a copy of the actual polygraph test in the case file. Like everyone, we tried reaching Steve, but we haven't heard back yet. Emily did reach his college roommate from back then, Jay. He didn't really remember Joyce's case, but he did confirm for us that Steve lived with him that summer on Harvey Road. And he said that Steve was a good guy, easy to get along with, and he couldn't remember why Steve quit school. However, he did not get the sense that it was money-related. Jay told us that Steve's girlfriend at the time spent a lot of time at their apartment, but he couldn't remember her name.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  It was probably Mary. We also tried to reach her, but no luck. I've told you, Joyce was murdered 55 years ago. And I want to give credit where credit is due. Usually when we cover cases this old, especially when they start as a disappearance, the theme of the file is like, oh, you know, she probably just like left on her own, walked away from her life, she's going to join a hippie commune or whatever, especially in the 70s. But investigators worked this case pretty hard from the very beginning, long before her body was found and long before any modern technology was there to help them. Sheriff Myers told us that if Joyce had been killed today, or even in like this decade, there is no doubt in his mind that they would have caught her killer.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  But somehow, her killer has gotten away with it. But they're not giving up. They are constantly looking for new evidence on old items and giving new eyes to the stuff that has been there all along. There is so much to this case. So many little pieces of info, weird details. I could do a limited series or write a book. I literally could do another episode on a whole new suspect that we found in like the 11th hour in the case file. If you want to hit me up in the comments. I just, I want to dissect all of it because I know that the truth is in there somewhere. I want to know more about Mark's history. What was the big drug bust two years before?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And I know I mentioned the fact that Mike is deceased, we believe. Mark wouldn't get in touch with us. Emily did try to get in touch with Celeste by email and she was supposed to call Emily, but as of this recording, we have not heard from her.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  I mean, I am extremely curious as to what she would have to say.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Same. I mean, other questions I have, like, how did Joyce get to Stevens Hall that night? Did she at all? And who all knew that she was going to be there? You know, they spent a good amount of time looking at the tile setter in this case, but there were two other contractors on campus at one point with him. I mean, he mentions them. And the only reason they even knew about the tile setter at all was because of the campus police officer who just happened to see the tile setter's car parked in Stevens Hall in the middle of the night. By the way, there is a tip in the case file about that guy.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  That guy, the campus cop?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, the tip says that he was a suspect in a molestation case near Arts Hall just a few months before Joyce went missing. And then after Joyce went missing, he up and quits the force.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Okay, comments or not, I personally would like a limited series on this.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Do not tempt me. There's also this one strange detail that I thought was weird, like in the early days when Joyce was a missing person, they contacted the phone company to pull any long distance calls from her apartment. I don't think they could get like full phone records, but they could see long distance calls back then. And they make note that there was one call on July 15th to a number in Moses Lake, Washington. Now granted, this is like a week before, but they tracked this number to someone named Russell Hanson. When they call, his wife answers and she's like, I don't know Joyce, I don't know Bruce. Like this is, the call's coming from their place. I don't know either one of them. They never found out who called that number. Now it's a disconnected number now.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  509-762-9234. We just get a disconnected tone when we call it. So I don't know what, what that means. But the only other time that Moses Lake seems to come up in the files is when they went looking for Mike Finch in 2013. He lived in Moses Lake then. I think the truth is still out there. And thanks to Joyce's brother, Bruce Lepage, there is still an active cash reward up for grabs, a pretty hefty one, $100,000. $60,000 for information leading to an arrest and another $40,000 if it leads to a conviction. Joyce's parents have since passed away and Bruce Lepage is now leading the charge to

• 53:14Speaker 01

  get justice for his sister, even doing a lot of his own investigating. But the sad thing is, he told us that he's kind of given up hope. He isn't really expecting to ever find out who killed his sister. So maybe we can help. Crime Junkies, if you know anything about the murder of Joyce Lepage, call the Whitman County Sheriff's Office at 509-397-6266 and ask for Sheriff Brett Myers. No tip is too small. And you can also email us, [email protected]. Let's give Joyce's brother something to hope for.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 55:04Speaker 05

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.