An Alaskan town has a dark history of missing persons. A podcast host is picking up where authorities left off
Joseph Balderas, 36, was last seen on June 24, 2016, in Nome, Alaska. Four years later, on August 31, 2020, Florence Okpealuk, 33, vanished from the same town. Podcast host Payne Lindsey traveled to the edge of the Arctic circle to find out more for a new season of Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun: Exposing the Dark Side of Alaska’s Mysterious Disappearances. Andrea Cavallier reports
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There’s a rural community in Alaska that is known for dog sled racing and its gold rush history.
But it’s also become known for dozens of mysterious disappearances.
In June 2016, Joseph Balderas, 36, vanished without a trace. Just four years later, in August 2020, Florence Okpealuk, 33, an Alaskan Native, also went missing.
The unexplained disappearances have stumped law enforcement and worried residents.
Podcast host Payne Lindsey traveled to Nome, Alaska at the edge of the Arctic Circle to investigate the two missing persons cases, which he discusses on Season 4 of Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun.
What he discovered brought him one step closer to getting answers for the families.
“Everyone is turning on each other,” he told The Independent.
“If you are an individual involved in one of these cases, I would trust no one. There are people who have been scared to talk for years – and now they’re coming forward. There are people who are snitching because they feel guilty.”
The disappearance of Joseph Balderas
Joseph Balderas, 36, was last seen on June 24, 2016.
Three days later, he was reported missing by one of his colleagues, after he failed to show up for his job as a law clerk with the Nome Second District Court.
“When I came to work on that Monday morning, I believe it was June 27th, I was told that Joseph wasn’t at work and that his girlfriend had called the court and was concerned because she hadn’t been able to get ahold of him,” Tracey Buie told Dateline in a 2022 interview.
“If Joseph was going to be late to work or not come in on a day, he normally would call me or send a text.”
That same day – June 27 – his truck was found abandoned at mile 44 of the Nome Council Highway, according to Alaska State Troopers.
The truck was unlocked and inside was a backpack that contained fishing accessories, a pair of waders and boots. Troopers believe he was in the area hiking or running.
Joseph, who was an avid outdoorsman, had moved from Lubbock, Texas, to Nome for a job in 2014, and had truly embraced the Alaskan lifestyle, his family said.
He was engaged to a woman named Megan Rider, his family said, and they had planned on moving to Juneau in the coming months.
Nome Search and Rescue and the US Coast Guard searched for him for several days, but there was no sign of Joseph.
By July 6, the search had been suspended due to lack of evidence, according to Alaska State Troopers, who determined “that without new evidence, a continued Alaska State Trooper directed search was at great risk to the search party and having searched all egress routes from the vehicle, it was unlikely Balderas was alive, concealed in the brush.”
A police investigation revealed that Joseph’s roommate, Jake Stettenbenz, allegedly lied to authorities about his movements during the weekend prior to his disappearance.
“Trooper Smith learned in previous interviews that Jake had gone bridge jumping with friends Emery and Tyler in the afternoon that Saturday [June 25],” according to a recorded statement by Alaska State Trooper Investigator Steve Kevan.
But, according to police accounts of data collected from Jake’s cellphone, on July 4, 2016, he texted his friends Tyler Eide and Emery Booshu that “he had to use them ‘in a story for the state trooper.’”
“When confronted with the inconsistency in stories, Jake admitted that he had made up the story of driving to Solomon after bridge jumping. He said he has had little contact with Troopers before and was nervous,” Investigator Kevan wrote in police reports.
Officers who searched Jake and Joseph’s home on July 3, 2016, reported that “there were no indications of foul play inside the residence.” Police in Nome have not said whether they believe foul play is involved in his disappearance.
Theories swirled that Joseph was attacked by a bear – or that he died by suicide. But private investigator Andy Klamser, who was hired by the family, has discounted both theories.
“Typically, you know, if there was a bear attack there would be evidence of it,” Klamser told Dateline. “With the number of people that they had out there on foot, on 4-wheelers and in the air and with scent dogs, it just seems like that’s less likely.”
After a thorough investigation and multiple interviews with his family and friends, Klamser said he also believed suicide is unlikely.
“It seemed very unlikely, because everyone I interviewed, you know, talked about his personality and all the plans that he had,” Klamser said. “I mean, he was within weeks of moving to Juneau to set up a law practice and marry his fiancée.”
Lindsey told The Independent that his investigation for the podcast picked up where Klamser’s investigation left off.
Joseph is 6ft 1 tall and has brown eyes and black hair.
His family is offering a $25,000 reward for “information leading to successful resolution” of the case.
“You know, he was a smart one,” his sister Salina told Dateline. “And the thing that’s sad is that we feel like, if one of us would have been missing, he would have been the perfect one to find us. He wouldn’t have quit and he would have found us, you know, found what happened or kept trying.”
The disappearance of Florence Okpealuk
Four years after Joseph went missing, Florence Okpealuk, 33, vanished from the same town on August 31, 2020.
A native of Wales, Alaska, a village about 100 miles northwest of Nome, Florence had moved to Nome in 2013.
She was last seen leaving a tent on West Beach, just outside of Nome, around 4pm on August 31, 2020. The area is well known for gold miners to camp during the summer.
Searches were conducted by the Nome Police Department, FBI, Alaska State Troopers, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department Search and Rescue Team, and the US Coast Guard.
Her shoes, socks and jacket were recovered by authorities and given to her family. But there has been no sign of Florence since.
Florence is described as being 5ft 2 and 142 pounds, with black hair and black eyes. It is unknown what she was last seen wearing and which direction she was headed in after she left the tent on the beach.
Her case is just one of thousands in the nationwide Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis, Native News Online reported.
Native women living on reservations are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than the national average, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Alaska is among the 10 states with the highest number of MMIP, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute in Alaska.
From 1960 to 2004, there were a reported 24 disappearances from the remote, isolated town of Nome, according to the FBI.
An investigation was launched amid fears of a serial killer. But the FBI found that alcohol abuse and the Alaskan wilderness were most likely to blame – not a killer.
In a March 2024 interview with Native News Online, Lindsey said he hopes Up and Vanished can bring attention to Okpealuk’s disappearance — and the MMIP crisis.
“I hope that this resonates for people who may know nothing about this,” Lindsey said. “And I hope that those people speak up about it.”
Part two of Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun premiered on August 8, 2024 with new episodes releasing every Thursday.