Pod Insights Park Predators The Deputy About this episode When a veteran Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy vanished while exercising in a remote county park near Angeles National Forest, alarm bells went off right away. However, the investigation into the missing deputy’s disappearance has been anything but a straightforward task.
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0:30 Speaker 01 Hi, park enthusiasts. It's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
1:10 Speaker 01 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Diambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in a popular Los Angeles County recreation space, known as the Devil's Punch Bowl Natural Area and Nature Center in south-central California. In most of the coverage I read, it seemed to be referred to most often as Devil's Punch Bowl. So that's what I'm going to call it. This area is roughly 1,300 acres in size and is home to a variety of trees, plants, and wildlife. There are also a lot of scenic overlooks and trail systems, which provide beautiful views of the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, Mojave Desert, and the northern border of the Angeles National Forest.
1:55 Speaker 01 Visitors who come to this region enjoy climbing, picnicking, horseback riding, and exercising in the Devil's Punch Bowl. Which is why it made total sense in June of 1998 that a dedicated long-distance runner and decorated Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy named Jonathan Aje went for a training run there as he prepared for an upcoming long-distance race. But he never came home. And for nearly 30 years, the mystery surrounding what happened to him has been mired in a purgatory of unanswered and puzzling questions. Questions that two investigative journalist friends of mine, named Haley Fox and Betsy Shepherd, spent more than a year exploring in their latest eight-episode limited series
2:37 Speaker 01 podcast for Pushkin, titled "Valley of Shadows." I've known these two women and their work for a few years, and so when they reached out to see if I wanted to cover this case, I immediately dove in and learned everything I could about it. All eight episodes of "Valley of Shadows" are available to binge right now, and trust me, you won't be able to turn it off. It's a piece of source material I'll reference a few times, and for good reason. It's super in-depth, which is great, because as you'll see, the story of what happened to Jonathan Aje is far from straightforward. This is Park Predators.
3:57 Speaker 01 Shortly before 11:00 PM on Thursday, June 11, 1998, a woman named Debbie Aje was at home in Palmdale, California, on the phone with an investigator from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. She told the deputy that her husband, 38-year-old Jonathan Aje, who also went by John, had been gone for several hours, and she was beginning to get really worried about him. Debbie explained that she'd last spoken with her husband shortly before noon, and at that time, he'd set off in his white Ford F-150 pickup truck to visit Devil's Punch Bowl. It was his day off work from the sheriff's department, and he'd wanted to go for a long-distance training run. The park was about 60 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles in an area known as the Antelope Valley,
4:43 Speaker 01 and it was roughly 40 minutes away from the couple's home in Palmdale. John told Debbie he'd be home by dark, but when he didn't return by dinnertime or in the hours after that, she realized something wasn't right, which is why she decided to make the call to authorities. John was known for being a responsible, punctual, and fairly routine person, so him ghosting his wife and their five-year-old daughter Chloe was definitely out of character. Not to mention, he'd also left his beloved canine partner of three years/family pet named Bosco hanging too. The pair were very close, and it would have been out of the norm for John to leave his police dog for such a long time unattended. Thankfully, because he was one of the L S D's own,
5:27 Speaker 01 the sheriff's department wasted no time in getting a team of deputies out to the Devil's Punch Bowl to start searching for him.
5:35 Speaker 01 When one of the first responding deputies arrived, it was dark, so he used his flashlight to search around the parking lot area for John's truck. And right away, he spotted it. It was sitting in a parking space closest to the trailhead's entrance. A park ranger named Jack Farley, who'd been working in the punch bowl during the day on Thursday, told the hosts of Valley of Shadows that the parking spot John's truck was found in was his usual go-to parking space. He had a habit of always getting the one closest to the trailhead, and Farley would regularly see him there after his long runs. So where the truck was found wasn't unusual. But what did stick out was the fact that John had not returned to it, or at least it didn't appear that he had.
6:20 Speaker 01 When the first responding deputy observed the vehicle, he noted it was locked, and there was a sun visor propped up in the dashboard. Inside a small compartment in one of the doors, the deputy could see a silver five-shot revolver, which he suspected was John's off-duty firearm.
6:36 Speaker 01 And the gun detail made sense because when Debbie later told officials that she'd noticed John was overdue, she said she'd checked things out around their house and discovered an empty gun holster sitting on a workbench that he used sometimes. That caused her to assume that John had taken his off-duty weapon with him on his trip to the Punch Bowl. But aside from what the first deputies on scene noticed, their search efforts that first night were kind of limited because it was late by the time the department even knew that John was missing. And nighttime in the park was only going to make things more challenging. However, by the next morning, efforts to find John really kicked into high gear. Authorities were able to interview witnesses who claimed they'd seen John during the daytime
7:20 Speaker 01 on Thursday. And those accounts gave police a better picture of his last-known movements. For example, a local elementary school teacher named Dave Evansen had reported that he and a class of 5th grade students he was leading had spoken with John near the picnic tables right before the deputy started running. According to Dave, during this interaction, the students had peppered John with questions about Bosco because, two days earlier, the class had seen John and his dog at their school for a demonstration. Dave didn't remember anything appearing to be wrong while he and his class spoke with John, and John seemed to be in good spirits. He'd even taken a few minutes to educate
8:00 Speaker 01 the kids about wilderness safety. Dave said that right before John left the group, he said he was going to take a route to Mount Baden Powell. Later in the day, a handful of campers had spotted John running through the terrain en route to the mountain. And another visitor who saw him claimed he'd seen him passing through a campground on the north side of the mountain headed back in the direction of the trailhead parking lot, and that was sometime around 6:00 PM. But that timeline got even narrower when a new sighting came in that provided even more information, as well as one concerning detail.
8:35 Speaker 01 Investigators learned from speaking with a local resident who lived close to the park that they'd heard a single gunshot ring out on Thursday evening. Now, this gunshot clue was certainly noteworthy, but there wasn't much investigators could do with the information because they still hadn't found John. Determined to learn more, authorities kept working to try and retrace his steps. They learned that right before he went running, he'd stopped to use a payphone at the park. A now-retired LASD captain named Mike Bauer told the hosts of Valley of Shadows podcast that he'd been at work when that call came in. And the secretary who'd spoken with John at the time later told Bauer that John had called to ask about an upcoming job assignment.
9:18 Speaker 01 Apparently, this secretary hadn't thought anything was amiss at that time. Now, according to the news coverage on this case, in addition to some of John's close colleagues volunteering to search for him, there were also between 30 and 40 other people from local area search and rescue teams who jumped in. Tracking dogs and aircrafts were utilized, and the sheriff's department set up a command post in the park, which is where news publications stated Debbie waited for updates. The description that went out for John was that he was white, stood six feet tall, had brown eyes, weighed 165 pounds, and had brown hair styled in a military-style buzz cut. When he was last seen, he'd been wearing olive-green shorts, black socks, a blue-and-white
10:01 Speaker 01 or green-and-white baseball cap, black sunglasses, a light-colored t-shirt, hiking boots, and a Casio brand running watch. He was also said to be carrying a forest-green JanSport brand bookbag. All day Friday, authorities kept at it, and eventually, military personnel from nearby Edwards Air Force Base even joined in the efforts. One experienced crew landed via helicopter on top of Mount Baden Powell to investigate several footprints they thought might be associated with John. But unfortunately, the tracks didn't lead to the missing deputy. That night, conditions got much cooler in the park, and temperatures fell into the 40s, which wasn't fatal weather necessarily.
10:43 Speaker 01 Cold for Californians, I'd imagine, but one official told the Press Dispatch, "The weather wasn't really hindering search efforts," which felt like a win considering the situation.
10:54 Speaker 01 The next few days passed and searching continued, but no sign of John popped up in the park or the rugged landscape that surrounded it. The terrain itself was a bit unforgiving. There were any number of nooks and crannies he could have been in. The specific geography where he'd gone running was made up of jagged rock formations, gullies, canyons, and faults from earthquake activity. There were also numerous abandoned mines in the area, including a large one on top of Mount Baden Powell. However, when authorities checked that one and others, they didn't find any indications that they'd been broken into or that someone had gone down one of the closed shafts. Even more frustrating, John was scheduled to work an afternoon shift for the department on Sunday the 14th, but he never showed up.
11:40 Speaker 01 There was a short while there where some of his colleagues held out hope he'd just walk out of the woods, likely apologize for being overdue, and then report for duty. But that wasn't what happened.
11:53 Speaker 01 No one wanted to think the worst, though. Everyone's initial assumption was that he'd likely fallen off a path he'd been running on or gotten injured, or he'd possibly become severely dehydrated. But John succumbing to the landscape, getting dehydrated, and being unable to find his way to safety seemed unlikely, at least to a few deputies who knew him well. You see, the specific unit that he was assigned to for the LASD was called the Special Enforcement Bureau, or SEB for short, which was made up of a handful of SWAT teams and specialized in high-risk situations. The SEB dealt with everything from search-and-rescue operations to hostage negotiations and even active shooter calls. John was a great fit for the unit
12:38 Speaker 01 because he'd previously served in the Special Forces in the Army and had survivalist skills. He'd also run routes in the Punch Bowl many times before, so he knew the landscape well. An LASD sergeant who'd ran with him on occasions in the Angeles National Forest told The Los Angeles Times that John would always carry supplies with him in the event something were to happen. Another member of the department told the newspaper that because John was so experienced with the great outdoors, there was real concern that something untoward had happened to him. But despite some deputies' growing suspicions that maybe this wasn't just a simple case of someone succumbing to the elements while on a long-distance run,
13:20 Speaker 01 the LASD still decided to officially call off the search for John just six days after it began. Now, that decision frustrated some of the missing deputies' colleagues. They were perplexed as to why the department wouldn't keep things going for one of their own. Typically, search-and-rescue efforts for missing people lasted longer than a week, which is why it seems so strange to them that the higher-ups at the LASD had decided to call it quits so soon after John, one of the department's veteran employees, had disappeared. What's more, the LASD Missing Persons Unit had received numerous tips in just the first few days of the search, which reported things were not as simple as they seemed.
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15:37 Speaker 02 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
15:57 Speaker 03 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
16:05 Speaker 02 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
16:12 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops, because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
16:20 Speaker 05 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
16:25 Speaker 02 I'm Eva Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
16:42 Speaker 01 According to the reporting in this case, several people in the Antelope Valley had come forward by like day three of John being missing and said that he wasn't just some hiker who'd fallen or died in the park. He was a victim of foul play. These informants claimed that he'd stumbled upon a situation related to rampant methamphetamine manufacturing and trafficking in the area, and as a result, had been killed. The only problem with that information, though, was that most of the accounts were word of mouth and had come from tipsters who allegedly used methamphetamine or were associated with the meth trade. The podcast Valley of Shadows goes into this part of the story in much more detail, but
17:23 Speaker 01 the high-level summary is that meth operations were big moneymakers in this part of California at the time John vanished. Criminal activity was an issue overall in the Antelope Valley, including illegal body dumping and all sorts of bad stuff connected to outlaw motorcycle clubs, as well as residents known for manufacturing and trafficking meth. As obvious as all that stuff was, though, some of John's former colleagues told Valley of Shadows that, from the outset of the investigation, the LASD really only pursued one theory: suicide.
17:58 Speaker 01 According to the coverage, the reason investigators strongly suspected that suicide made the most sense was because John's marriage to his wife Debbie had been falling apart for a while. In her statements, Debbie explained that for the last two years of their 12-year marriage, they'd been growing apart. Sure, they were high school sweethearts, but eventually she'd settled into a role as a stay-at-home mom and he'd thrown himself into his demanding full-time job in law enforcement. They both loved their daughter Chloe a ton, but over time, they'd each become unhappy in their marriage. They'd tried couples counseling, but that only confirmed for them that they were incompatible. Also, John had been seeing another woman on the side, a competitive runner he'd met
18:42 Speaker 01 in the running community, and though their relationship allegedly wasn't sexual in nature, he'd expressed in letters to his girlfriend that divorcing Debbie was "pretty much inevitable." So much so, that he'd even given the woman a family heirloom as a token of his affection and commitment to her. When investigators interviewed John's girlfriend, she told them they'd met in 1995 and began training together not long after that. Over time, they'd fallen in love, and to be honest, their affair wasn't really kept under wraps all that much. Debbie later told John's former captain, Mike Bauer, that it was very obvious John planned to move out of their place at some point. They were sleeping in separate rooms, and he'd already packed up a lot of his competitive
19:24 Speaker 01 racing memorabilia and stuff, so there wasn't a ton of love lost between them, I don't think. But this narrative surrounding John's marital problems acted as a fuel for those within the LES D who were leaning heavily towards the theory that he died by suicide. Those folks were convinced that he'd become so overwhelmed by guilt about the downfall of his marriage and not living up to his personal code of ethics: "death before dishonor." That he'd entered a state of despair he'd been unable to overcome. His prior service in the Army and the lasting impact of at least one or two confirmed shootout deaths while he'd been assigned to the Special Enforcement Bureau were also factors investigators considered in their assessment of why he could have taken his
20:08 Speaker 01 own life. LASD's missing persons investigators claimed in their reports that the single gunshot that a nearby resident had heard in the Devil's Punchbowl on the evening John went missing was possibly him taking his own life. But once again, that explanation did not sit right with some of his colleagues. For one thing, the first responding deputy who'd found John's truck was certain that John's off-duty firearm had been left behind in it and not gone with him into the park. Other officials had remembered the same detail, so that alone posed a really big problem for people who wanted to believe John died by suicide. In addition to that, John's wife Debbie said in her statements that her husband had never
20:52 Speaker 01 discussed taking his own life before in their entire marriage, like, ever. But take Debbie's statements out of the picture for a second. It's the gun that, to me, is the real crux of everything. What's interesting is that according to the folks who spoke with Valley of Shadows, the silver five-shot revolver somehow never made it into evidence after the search for John was called off. It was also never returned to Debbie, and to this day, its whereabouts remain unknown. Those within LASD who are convinced John died by suicide will tell you he took it with him on his run. But deputies who say they saw it in his truck after he was reported missing will tell you
21:34 Speaker 01 that John dying by suicide, at least with his own firearm, isn't possible. Now, what would have made things much cleaner with regards to the gun situation is if the LASD had properly inventoried and forensically swept John's truck. But they didn't. Claire Martin reported in her piece for Los Angeles Magazine that the LASD held on to John's truck for about a week after he vanished and then drove it back to the Ajay's home. The only items they reportedly took out of it were John's wallet and badge. But gun whereabouts aside, John's body has never been found. So there's no way to prove or disprove if he was even shot.
22:19 Speaker 01 I mean, there was no blood evidence or shell casings located in the park that factually supported a suicide theory or a foul play theory. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a few of John's colleagues who initially considered suicide a possibility because they knew his marriage had been on the rocks for a while and he'd been pretty bummed out about that. But most of the people who worked with him just couldn't picture that being the reason he'd want to end his life. They said he'd been looking forward to running his upcoming 100-mile race and he'd been making plans for the future. Not to mention, his wife Debbie later told retired LASD captain Mike Bauer that on his drive out to the park, she'd noticed after she got John's truck back that he'd filled up the tank with gas.
23:04 Speaker 01 The obvious question was, why would he stop to get a full tank of gas if he had no plans to return to his vehicle? And also don't forget, when his pickup was found at the trailhead, it had a sun visor in the dash, which kind of suggests he likely planned to return to it. But regardless of all these yellow flag observations, the official explanation the LASD gave to their internal personnel about how John could have died by suicide but his body remained missing was that he likely sat next to the mouth of an open mine, taken his life, and then fallen in. But that seemed like an even bigger stretch to some of his friends who were already questioning the suicide theory.
23:47 Speaker 01 Someone else who was also skeptical about the suggestion of John taking his own life was Dave Evenson, the schoolteacher who'd bumped into him right before he disappeared. Dave told producers for Valley of Shadows that when he'd interacted with John, the deputy seemed full of life and in a good mood. There were no indications that he was going to go into the park to die by suicide. In some of the coverage I read, it seemed to be easier for some people to believe that John had simply run off to start a new life than to accept that he could have died by suicide. And to make things even more bizarre, in late June, so this would have been just a few weeks after John disappeared, his canine partner Bosco unexpectedly died while at
24:31 Speaker 01 a department-run kennel. According to an article by the Oakland Tribune, Bosco had died while undergoing a medical treatment, which ended with a veterinarian at the kennel diagnosing the seven-year-old Belgian Malinois with an enlarged heart. The vet had also noticed that the dog had not been eating well, so the official story was that Bosco's health had rapidly declined because he'd missed John so much. But unofficially, John's former captain, Mike Bauer, discovered that wasn't the case at all. According to what Bauer told the hosts of Valley of Shadows, he later spoke with one of two deputies who claimed they'd been ordered to shoot Bosco at the kennel because the
25:15 Speaker 01 LASD deemed Bosco too dangerous to live without John. John was his handler, and he kept him trained and subdued, and without him around, well, the LASD just thought, too risky. Bauer said he learned that instead of being given a proper funeral, like all the other police dogs at the LASD, Bosco's remains were thrown into a dumpster behind the department's kennel. When Bauer confronted his superiors about what he'd uncovered, he claimed he was told to drop the matter and essentially stop asking questions. And after that, the case went nowhere. The investigation just languished for a few years, until the early 2000s.
25:57 Speaker 01 That's when a homicide detective at the sheriff's department named Larry Brandenburg decided he wanted to take a closer look at the case after a colleague told him about some of those early rumors that claimed John had been killed because he'd witnessed something in the park he shouldn't have. Brandenburg knew all too well the outlaw reputation the Antelope Valley had with regards to methamphetamine trafficking and criminal activity. He also knew that the area where John had vanished was considered an outpost for the sheriff's department, meaning it wasn't robustly staffed and thus difficult to police.
26:32 Speaker 01 When Brandenburg read through the Eliasty's internal missing persons case file for John, he realized that the prior tips claiming he'd possibly witnessed a meth dealer, something akin to that going down in the park and was killed as a result, were dismissed far too quickly. Instead, what should have happened, according to Brandenburg, is that the case should have been assigned to the homicide division as soon as informants came forward claiming foul play. Brandenburg told the host for Valley of Shadows that the homicide division would have investigated the credibility of those leads, but that never happened. So to make up for lost time, Brandenburg tracked down some of the folks who'd initially told authorities back in 1998 that John had been murdered.
27:17 Speaker 01 And those folks, once again, provided statements about what they knew. Those stories were similar in nature and basically said that there was a guy who lived close to the park who was a known meth dealer in the Antelope Valley. And according to these informants, that guy had made sure John was "taken care of," air quotes. But Brandenburg knew he needed a lot more than just a few informants claiming foul play. So he set out to investigate whether there was any hard evidence or even circumstantial evidence that linked John's disappearance to bad actors in the region's drug underworld. He did some research and discovered that in 1999, what was described as a major meth lab
28:00 Speaker 01 had been busted about two miles away from the Devil's Punch Bowl. That particular piece of property butted right up to the trails in the park that John was believed to have gone running on. There was also a makeshift shooting range on that parcel of land, which had targets set up, which were, wait for it, silhouettes of law enforcement officers, which I imagine was probably something that got Brandenburg's hackles up even more.
28:27 Speaker 01 Perhaps more disconcerting than that, though, was the fact that the meth lab property was super close to the local residence home who'd initially told authorities they'd heard a gunshot on the evening John disappeared. The further Brandenburg probed, though, the more and more skittish informants became. A lot of them were afraid of dominant motorcycle clubs in the region that were suspected of being major players in the drug underworld. Some of these clubs had violent reputations, and so people didn't want to inform on them, or even perpetuate rumors that claimed members of the club were responsible for John's death. Informants were also distrusting of the sheriff's department because they alleged
29:08 Speaker 01 certain deputies within the LASD were corrupt and essentially in bed with drug dealers. For example, at some point in 2001, Brandenburg spoke with an investigator who worked for a local defense lawyer, who claimed that one of his informants had said he'd seen John with two bikers in the park around sunset on June 11, 1998. But when Brandenburg went to hear this story from the informant himself, the guy waffled and eventually recanted. And the investigator who brought the information to Brandenburg to begin with? Well, that guy disappeared not long after connecting Brandenburg with the source. His vehicle was later discovered burned out in a dry riverbed near the Angeles National Forest.
29:53 Speaker 01 According to the hosts of Valley of Shadows, to this day, nobody knows what happened to him, where he is, or how his car ended up where it was found. As more time went by, allegations about corrupt deputies within the LASD became a reoccurring theme in Brandenburg's investigation. Some informants claimed that a lone veteran Antelope Valley deputy, who kind of ran the show in those parts, had gotten too cozy with people involved in meth trafficking and was a kingpin himself. There were also a few stories that surfaced which alleged that deputy was personally responsible for killing John.
30:32 Speaker 01 So to suss out those rumors, Brandenburg joined forces with an LASD narcotics investigator who was assigned to a meth trafficking task force in the valley that was backed by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That task force was called Operation Silent Thunder, and it aimed to eradicate meth manufacturing and distribution in the region through surveillance and coordinated takedowns of several major criminal cells operating in the area at that time. The DEA would handle the drug side of the investigation, while members of the LASD would work to uncover which deputies within their organization might be dirty. But right before Brandenburg could secure a search warrant to gain access to phones and electronics
31:15 Speaker 01 belonging to the LASD deputy in charge of the Antelope Valley, his superior pulled him off the John Ojai case, for good, and handed everything he gathered over to a new detective.
31:34 Speaker 01 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
31:55 Speaker 03 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
32:02 Speaker 01 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
32:10 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
32:13 Speaker 06 That's the one time that we called the cops, because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
32:17 Speaker 05 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
32:23 Speaker 01 I'm Ava Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
32:39 Speaker 01 Former LASD homicide detective Larry Brandonberg expressed to the hosts of Valley of Shadows that being yanked off John's case right as he was about to get a judge to sign a search warrant probing into allegations of corruption on a fellow deputy was a big red flag to him that he'd gotten close to exposing something that was either incriminating or too embarrassing to the LASD. The hosts explained further that Larry still suspects his superiors at the time didn't want him to keep going because whatever he'd gotten close to, they didn't want to be found out. Operation Silent Thunder, the drug task force Brandonberg had been working with to gather intel though, continued through August 21, 2001.
33:24 Speaker 01 When that effort ended, it ultimately resulted in hundreds of arrests, including defendants who were members of specific motorcycle clubs, as well as locals suspected of manufacturing meth. The sting also shut down 23 operations associated with the meth trade in the Antelope Valley, including meth labs and houses owned by suspected dealers. Richard Fawcett reported for the LA Times about a year after the culmination of Operation Silent Thunder that, despite the success of the sting, few concrete clues surfaced from that investigation that shed further light on what happened to John Auge. The homicide detective who'd taken over Larry Brandonberg's case told the newspaper
34:05 Speaker 01 that, after nearly four years of John being missing, and at least a year or so of personally investigating the case, he'd determined there wasn't enough credible evidence to consider John's situation a murder. He remarked, quote, "At the beginning, I thought he'd met with foul play, but we went out and interviewed all of these witnesses, and I couldn't find anything to suggest it. All those folks we talked to either said they lied about their original information, or we caught them in lies," end quote.
34:38 Speaker 01 Key people who'd been taken down by Operation Silent Thunder and who Larry Brandenburg and others suspected might have been involved in John's disappearance were later convicted of drug-related offenses and sentenced to several years in prison. But they were never formally declared persons of interest in John's case. In fact, no one truly knows who was or wasn't named as a potential suspect in the case, since the LASD's case file about its investigation into his disappearance has remained exempt from public disclosure for nearly 30 years. The department has never let an outsider or a member of the media look at its records. Which is kind of interesting, considering the fact that the department's official position on what happened to John
35:21 Speaker 01 is that he likely died by suicide. The only documents and records that have been made public were part of a wrongful termination lawsuit the former LASD narco investigator who'd worked with Larry Brandenburg filed after he was fired for investigating allegations of corruption within the department that may have contributed to John's death. For several long years, all the way to 2015, that civil lawsuit dragged on. But eventually, the case went to trial, which opened up the door for some of the LASD's records about its investigation into John's disappearance to become a matter of public record. Interview tapes and investigative reports included in all that court stuff pointed to some pretty questionable behavior
36:06 Speaker 01 by the homicide detective who took over the case after Larry Brandenburg was kicked off. Depositions and reports also raised a lot of questions about the integrity of the LASD sheriff's deputy who was in charge of the Antelope Valley. It also didn't help matters that in 2014, so around the same time the lawsuit was in full swing, the sheriff of Los Angeles County, who was the same man who'd been in charge when John vanished, got convicted, along with a handful of other deputies, for federal crimes related to interfering with a federal investigation into civil rights abuses, witness tampering, and threatening an FBI agent. I know, wild, right?
36:47 Speaker 01 In the end, the former narco investigator who sued the LASD won his lawsuit and was awarded $4.5 million. But unfortunately, that victory didn't bring anyone closer to figuring out what happened to John. It just reignited old suspicions that things in certain deputies at the department were not on the up and up at the time that John vanished. John's former captain, Mike Bauer, has been the keeper of all of his personal belongings since he vanished. John's wife Debbie didn't really have anywhere to store them because her life got pretty difficult after he disappeared. She had financial problems, struggled with housing, and eventually ended up living in her car.
37:30 Speaker 01 Things for her and John's daughter Chloe weren't much better either. Chloe dropped out of school as a teenager and lived with friends or relatives into her young adult years. In August 2020, at just 26 years old, she, heartbreakingly, died by suicide. To say that her father's disappearance, followed quickly by the loss of Bosco, a pet she was quite close with, changed her life forever, is an understatement. I'd argue that the summer of 1998 likely altered the outcome of Chloe's entire life. According to Mike Bauer, John was eventually legally declared dead. However, a lot of the important information on his death certificate had to be left vague
38:13 Speaker 01 because so much is still unknown about how he died, or even in what manner. In 1998 and into the early 2000s, he was the only Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy who was labeled a missing person. He worked for the LASD for 15 years, rarely took days off or called in sick. And yet, some of the men who wore the same badge he did would argue that their department didn't even come close to doing enough to find him. The hosts for Valley of Shadows reported that they confirmed the FBI has more than 450 pages of documents related to John's missing persons case, which proves the feds did at
38:54 Speaker 01 least do some kind of work on the case over the years. But unfortunately, the FBI told the podcast producers that it would take more than four years for the agency to produce the pages it has, which is bananas to me. But I think that's kind of the theme of this entire case, isn't it? There are still so many unanswered questions, loose ends left unchecked, sketchy information not pursued, and of course, no sign of John. But I for one, think it's high time for that to change. So if you know anything about the unsolved disappearance of Jonathan Aje in June 1998, please contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department or the FBI. Links
39:38 Speaker 01 to all of those resources are included in the show notes and on the blog post for this episode. Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators. I think Chuck would approve. In the dark, even the most familiar trail can feel like it leads somewhere else. Every
40:18 Speaker 01 rustle becomes a warning, every shadow, a doorway. In Full Body Chills, those doorways open into worlds pulled straight from your nightmares. This spooky season classic returns with chillingly tales, immersive sound, and no promise that you'll find your way back. So step off the familiar path if you dare. Listen to new episodes of Full Body Chills every week, wherever you get your podcasts.
Previous The Wreck Next The Pair Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated