Pod Insights National Park After Dark Introducing Valley of Shadows: The Devil’s Punchbowl About this episode Valley of Shadows is a new true crime podcast that digs into a nearly 30-year old secret buried in the California desert. On June 11, 1998, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Aujay set out for a run in California’s Devil’s Punchbowl park — and never came back. Aujay has yet to be found. The Sheriff’s Department rules Aujay’s disappearance a suicide, but friends, family, and fellow deputies insist the story doesn’t add up. Instead, they believe Aujay may have stumbled into the Mojave Desert’s criminal underworld — where outlaw biker gangs crank out methamphetamine and local cops operate on both sides of the law.
Through exclusive interviews, revealing wiretaps, and buried police files, journalists Hayley Fox and Betsy Shepherd explore one of Southern California’s most mysterious missing person cases. In Valley of Shadows, they ask: What is the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department hiding?
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Transcript 1,946 words · 12 speakers
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0:31 Speaker 01 Did you know that if your spouse goes missing, but you don't tell anyone, that's not necessarily a crime? That surprising fact is at the heart of the brand new season of Bear Brook, the award-winning true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm your host, Jason Moon. In season three of Private Matter, we investigate another New Hampshire mystery. A beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia vanishes from his small town. His wife never reports him missing. Can he still be found?
1:03 Speaker 02 If you knew Jay as well as I do, he's private. He doesn't want everybody to know his business.
1:11 Speaker 03 That, I don't believe you.
1:14 Speaker 04 I kind of revert back to that Bear Brook saying, what if we were to just come across something? And I wrote down, she said, I found him.
1:24 Speaker 01 Follow Bear Brook on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:31 Speaker 05 Hey, everyone. Cassie and Danielle here. We've got a real treat for you today. It's a preview of a new true crime podcast, Valley of Shadows, that has everything you love about National Park After Dark. It's an investigation into what can go wrong in the great outdoors, the secrets that are buried in the desert, and the people who want those secrets to remain hidden. Hosted by investigative journalists, Haley Fox and Betsy Shepherd, Valley of Shadows explores the unsolved disappearance of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Deputy, John Aje, and the stench of corruption that's followed the case for nearly 30 years. Through exclusive interviews, revealing wiretapes, and buried police files, Haley and Betsy enter into the criminal underworld
2:15 Speaker 05 of outlaw biker gangs, meth production, and crooked cops. In Southern California's Mojave Desert, exploring one of the state's most mysterious missing person cases. And let me tell you, this story immediately grabbed us. It has the eerie combination of vast wilderness, unanswered questions, and the sense that the truth has been buried on purpose. Valley of Shadows is the kind of investigation that stays with you long after you finish listening. In this preview, we hear how Ajay, an ultra marathon runner and survivalist, went for a run in the Devil's Punch Bowl Park and never returned. His body has yet to be found, and the people closest to him insist the ruling of his disappearance as a suicide just doesn't add up. Instead, they believe Aujay may have stumbled into the desert's criminal underworld,
2:58 Speaker 05 and his own department is covering it up. Enjoy the episode. If you like what you hear, find Valley of Shadows wherever you get podcasts. And if you want to hear the whole story ad-free right now, you can binge the series with a Pushkin Plus subscription. Sign up on the Valley of Shadows page on Apple Podcasts or pushkin.fm/plus. This series includes content that may not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
3:28 Speaker 03 Is this okay?
3:29 Speaker 06 Yeah, I'll turn it down just a little bit because sometimes you get animated.
3:33 Speaker 03 I get pissed off, pissed off old cop.
3:36 Speaker 05 This pissed off old cop is Mike Bauer.
3:40 Speaker 07 Okay, my name is Mike Bauer, retired captain, LA sheriff. I retired in 2002. My last assignment was Major Crimes Bureau Detective Division, LA Sheriff.
3:50 Speaker 05 Bauer spent 33 years climbing the ranks of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. And he looks the part of a retired captain. His white hair and mustache are neatly groomed, and his eyes are permanently fixed in a look that says, "Do not fuck up on my watch." And he's pissed off because of something that happened to one of his guys on his squad back in the summer of 1998.
4:16 Speaker 06 June 11th started off like a normal day in Los Angeles. June gloom and bad traffic.
4:22 Speaker 07 I got up early out of Long Beach and headed up the 605 and into East LA, our office in East LA.
4:29 Speaker 06 Bauer was doing paperwork when a call came into the front desk. The receptionist answered.
4:35 Speaker 07 Then she hung up and she comes down to get a cup of coffee across the hall. And I said, hey, who was that? It was John Aje.
4:45 Speaker 06 John Aje was a 38-year-old K-9 cop. And he was calling to inquire about an upcoming job assignment.
4:52 Speaker 07 I said, well, I've been trying to get a hold of him. And she says, oh, well, maybe he'll call back. He never called back.
5:03 Speaker 06 John Aje was working for the unit Bauer headed up at the time, the Special Enforcement Bureau, or SEB for short.
5:11 Speaker 07 Which consists of seven or eight SWAT teams. And the SWAT teams were involved in tactical responses to high-risk situations in the field.
5:23 Speaker 06 SEB handled things like active shooter situations, hostage negotiations, search and rescue. It was a job that attracted adrenaline junkies like Aje. He was an Army paratrooper and a survivalist. And those military skills, along with his buzz cut and square build, made him a shoo-in for the Sheriff's Department.
5:44 Speaker 07 He was in the Army in Special Forces. He was working at the elite unit of the department. I have to call him a loner, but he was an elite loner because the guy was doing 50-mile runs. He was an animal.
6:03 Speaker 06 Aje got his kicks by going on long runs through California's backcountry. He'd go out deep into the wilderness to conquer the only obstacle course that still challenged him.
6:14 Speaker 06 And that's how Aje was spending his day off, on June 11th, 1998. He woke up, put on his running gear, and drove to one of his favorite parks, the Devil's Punch Bowl. It's a rugged canyon where the Angeles National Forest, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Mojave Desert all converge.
6:38 Speaker 06 Ajay entered the park just before noon, used a payphone to call into the sheriff's department, and then he took off running. He never listened to any music, just the sounds of nature as he jogged along a maze of switchbacks and up a nearly 10,000-foot mountain. By early evening, he looped back towards the parking lot.
7:00 Speaker 06 But as the sun began to set, the shadows of trees and rocks grew, until night engulfed the park.
7:14 Speaker 07 That evening, I got a phone call saying that Deputy Ajay is missing.
7:21 Speaker 07 That he didn't come back to his vehicle and that they were gonna start some more extensive searching for him.
7:29 Speaker 08 It's an all-out manhunt for John Ajay. Every search and rescue team in LA County has been called in to help. The 38-year-old went hiking Thursday in a rugged section of the Angeles National Forest known as Devil Punch Bowl's Park. It's a beautiful but dangerous area, an area where it may be extremely difficult to find Ajay.
7:48 Speaker 06 It's a pretty unique situation. The sheriff's department is called in to look for a missing hiker, who's one of their own. So the search and rescue team sent out to look for Ajay consists of his friends and colleagues.
8:02 Speaker 09 We took our teams out and deployed in two-man teams over the edges of the trails into the little nooks and crannies and the gullies that he could have slipped and fallen into.
8:13 Speaker 06 But searchers find no trace of Ajay. It was as if he just vanished into thin air. And now, nearly 30 years later, the deputy is still missing.
8:30 Speaker 07 I guess I'll open a box.
8:33 Speaker 06 All that remains from Ajay's life is packed into five cardboard boxes. The items are wrapped in plastic, and Bauer wears gloves as he combs through them.
8:44 Speaker 07 This is John's work jacket. And it's an SEB jacket with his name embroidered on it, and Bosco, his dog.
8:53 Speaker 06 Bauer's preserving Ajay's belongings for future developments in the case.
8:58 Speaker 07 Okay, so here's his running shoes with his name on the back. Those should have some DNA in them.
9:05 Speaker 06 The artifacts also tell us who Ajay was. There's a photo collage full of happy memories. Him and his high school sweetheart, Dub, on their wedding day. A birthday party for their daughter, Chloe, who was just five when he disappeared. And puppy pics of Bosco, Ajay's department-issued canine. And next to these snapshots of domestic life, there's a steel ballistics helmet intended to stop rifle rounds, trophies for marksmanship, army fatigues. You know, tough guy stuff. Ajay moved at a fast clip, trying to balance the competing demands of home and work. But his life came to an abrupt and puzzling end.
9:49 Speaker 07 His death certificate says, "Cause of death: unknown. Manner of death: unknown." No body.
9:58 Speaker 06 The deputy's body has never been found, which raises a lot of questions for Mike Bauer.
10:05 Speaker 06 And a survivalist getting lost in the woods? Another big question mark. Over time, the mystery of it all has turned into something else: deep and unsettling suspicion about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
10:21 Speaker 07 The only law enforcement agency in this country that I know of, and I've looked around, who has a missing deputy sheriff and doesn't seem to care? What the hell happened? What's the answer? Who's motivated to find the answer?
10:37 Speaker 06 And that's my cue. When Mike Bauer first told me about A.J., I thought, "An unsolved disappearance involving a cop. That's unusual." But when he started talking about the sheriff's department, his department, that's when I locked in. Because you'd expect the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to turn over every stone to find their guy. So the claim that the L.A. S.D. may have an interest in not solving the case? Now that's a story. So I called up my friend Haley Fox. Like me, she's an investigative journalist, and she knows a lot about the sheriff's department. Because she's reported on it for many years.
11:18 Speaker 10 Hey, Betsy. How you doing? I'm good. I'm ready. Yeah? You gonna do this? It's about time. On a little road trip adventure? All right, let's do it.
11:30 Speaker 06 We've teamed up on stories before, and decided to get the band back together. To find answers about this missing deputy. And to take on the largest sheriff's department in the country.
11:41 Speaker 07 There's a code of silence in law enforcement. You break that code of silence, you're done. Hey, if they don't fucking kill a cop in Bari, what are they gonna do to me? It's an obstruction of justice of a very large scale.
11:56 Speaker 06 I'm Betsy Shepherd.
11:58 Speaker 10 I'm Haley Fox, and this is Valley of Shadows, a show about crime and corruption in California's high desert.
12:15 Speaker 06 That was a preview of a new podcast we're loving, Valley of Shadows. Find Valley of Shadows wherever you get your podcasts, and binge the full series ad-free with a Pushkin Plus subscription. Sign up on the Valley of Shadows page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
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