Midnight Sun (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

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[2] Just before 3am on September 23, 2003, a police officer in a little town in Alaska was driving down this old abandoned mining road when he happened to look over to the side of the road and he saw something shiny poking out of this big gravel pit.

[3] Now, the officer was looking for something that was shiny and so he pulled over and walked over to this pit and he looked down inside of it, and sure enough at the bottom was the thing he and his colleagues had been looking for for weeks.

[4] But as soon as this officer began scrambling down into the pit to take a closer look at this thing he had found, a gunshot rang out than another and another.

[5] Clearly someone was guarding this pit and the object inside of it.

[6] And so before long, this police officer was running for his life, screaming into his radio for backup.

[7] But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[8] So, if that's of interest to you, please take a screenshot of the Amazon Music Follow Button's computer desktop, then delete everything on their desktop and replace the background with the screenshot you took.

[9] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[10] I'm Dan Tversky.

[11] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, a mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[12] What's the answer?

[13] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[14] Hysterical.

[15] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[16] Binge all episodes of Histerical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[17] At 11 p .m. on August 10, 2003, 19 -year -old Sonia Ivanov and her best friend, Timoree, to Warack, were walking down a street that was lined with a few shops, bars, and houses in Nome, Alaska.

[18] Both young women had long, dark hair, and they were dressed almost the same in jeans, tennis shoes, and T -shirts.

[19] But Sonia was quite a bit taller.

[20] She was 5 '11 inches tall, and her height made her stand out no matter what she was wearing.

[21] Even though it was 11 o 'clock at night, the sun was still out and shining overhead, because Nome, Alaska, is less than 150 miles from the Arctic Circle, and that far north at that time of the summer, the sun doesn't actually set until close to midnight.

[22] Sonia and Timoree were accustomed to the long summer days and the midnight sunsets because they'd spent their entire lives in northwest Alaska.

[23] They were both Alaska natives, which is a term used to define the multiple groups of Alaska's indigenous people.

[24] And they had both grown up over a hundred miles south of Nome in a tiny village that was made up almost entirely of Alaska natives.

[25] But not long after Sonia had graduated high school a year earlier, she had moved to Nome, and Timoree had followed her soon after that.

[26] And as Sonia and Timoree walked down the street that night, they still felt like they were living in a big city.

[27] In reality, Nome was just a small remote town that was home to only about 3 ,500 people, but it was still a lot bigger than where Sonia and Timoree had come from.

[28] And Nome's residents were a collection of Alaska natives, as well as people who had grown up in town and others who had traveled there from far away to live in a place that a lot of people called America's Last Frontier.

[29] Sonia and Timoree walked past a bar and they could hear music and laughter coming from inside.

[30] Then they turned off the main road and onto a side street and walked over to a friend's small wooden house.

[31] Sonia and Timoree stepped up onto the raised porch and then Sonia knocked on the door.

[32] And then a moment later, their friend opened the door and stretched up on her toes to reach Sonia's shoulders and gave Sonia a big hug.

[33] Then, Sonia and Timoree headed inside to the cramped living room, flopped down on the couch, and settled in for a night of board games with friends.

[34] And just a moment later, a young woman about Sonia's age, walked into the living room from the kitchen, and handed Sonia a can of beer.

[35] Sonia cracked open the beer, took a swig, and smiled.

[36] When Sonia had first moved to Nome from the village she grew up in, her parents had been worried that she was too young and naive to handle city life.

[37] Everybody in their small village knew Sonia, and all of the adults there looked out for all the kids.

[38] And Sonia had been a star basketball player at her high school, so she was even kind of famous in her own little town.

[39] And her parents really hoped she would stay at least a little longer in a place where she was loved, protected, and admired.

[40] But Sonia had told her parents that she felt like she had to go to Nome to get a job that would let her save up enough money to go to college.

[41] because for most of her life, she dreamed of going off to college and experiencing new places and learning about new things.

[42] Sonia was outgoing, she was funny, and almost always in a very good mood.

[43] And so when she had arrived in Nome, she quickly landed work at a health care facility and she made a close group of friends.

[44] But she still felt connected to her roots because Timoree and her shared a small house and Sonia's sister and brother -in -law lived close by.

[45] So pretty soon after Sonia had moved away and kind of found her place in Nome, her parents relaxed, and they were happy that their daughter seemed to be thriving in her new home.

[46] But what Sonia hadn't told her parents, or really anyone other than her best friend, Timoree, was that she dreamed of a lot more than just going to college.

[47] She dreamed of making enough money to move away to Hawaii.

[48] Sonia loved her family, and she was proud of her Alaska native heritage.

[49] In fact, when she had first moved to Nome, she had entered the Arctic Native Brotherhood pageant, which was an event where young people celebrated their native culture and spoke about important native issues of the time.

[50] But as much as Sonia loved the place and the culture she came from, she had gotten tired of the dark cold winters in northwest Alaska, those times when the sun was only up for a few hours and temperatures regularly dropped below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

[51] So now Sonia liked to imagine herself on a warm, sunny beach in Hawaii, listening to the waves crash onto the sand.

[52] She knew her family would be sad to see her leave, but she just felt like going somewhere far away was something she had to do while she was still young.

[53] In the living room, Sonia drank her beer, she laughed and played a board game with her friends, and they all talked about work and guys and girls they had crushes on like most groups of teenagers do.

[54] But then, at around midnight, the group fell silent for a second, because they heard a police siren wailing on a street nearby.

[55] Sonia and Timoree almost always felt safe in Nome, but there were times when they would hear police sirens that reminded them they were not.

[56] in their little home village anymore.

[57] And Sonia's sister and her brother -in -law, who lived near Sonia, told her never to ignore her surroundings.

[58] Because in Nome, like across Alaska and the rest of the United States, Alaska Native women and Native American women were assaulted, abducted, and murdered at rates that were higher than the national average.

[59] And while the group of teenagers sat in Sonia's friend's living room that night, Officer Matt Owens of the Nome Police was the one who was blaring the siren in his SUV while he was on his way to respond to a domestic violence call nearby.

[60] Officer Owens was originally from Florida, and he had noticed during his few years on the known police force that long summer nights often led people to drink, stay up late, and get into trouble a lot more than they ever did during the winter.

[61] But back at Sonia's friend's house, not long after the sound of the siren had faded, the group of teenagers put any thought of the police out of their minds.

[62] And Sonia and her friends got back to talking, laughing, thing in playing their board game.

[63] And then, at about 1 a .m. on August 11th, two hours after Sonia had arrived, she stood up from the couch and decided it was time for her to head home.

[64] Sonia said good night to the group, and Timoree said she was actually going to stay for a bit longer, and that most likely she would just crash there for the night, so she would see Sonia at their place sometime the next day.

[65] Then Sonia and Timoree shared what they called their best friend goodbye ritual.

[66] They each tapped two of their fingers on the other's shoulder, then kissed their fingers, pointed them at the sky, and said, Peace out, pal, to each other.

[67] Sonia opened the door and stepped outside.

[68] And as she started walking home, she thought to herself that she really needed to convince Tamari to come with her to Hawaii, because she couldn't imagine being there without her best friend who she had known for basically her whole life.

[69] Just after 1 a .m., so a few minutes after Sonia had left her friend's house, Sonia turned on to the main drag that cut through the center of town, and she walked along the side of the road.

[70] The sun had finally set, and it was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

[71] A light rain had started to fall, and Gnome looked like it was covered in mist.

[72] And as much as Sonia had gotten sick of the cold Alaska winters, she loved rainy Alaska summer nights like this one.

[73] So she decided to take her time walking home and to enjoy being outside in the rain.

[74] She walked past the bar, and she still heard music coming from inside, then she walked a little bit further past an old house that overlooked the main street, and as she walked by, she heard someone call her name from the dark.

[75] Sonia was startled and she felt her shoulders tense up.

[76] Then she turned and saw an older woman she knew sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette.

[77] And Sonia laughed at herself for being scared, she exhaled, and relaxed her shoulders.

[78] The woman smiled and asked Sonia how she was doing.

[79] Sonia said she was doing fine, and then she told the woman to have a good night and wave goodbye.

[80] Sonia kept walking down the street, and as she did, she felt the rain falling on her face.

[81] Then at some point she heard people coming out of the bar that she had passed a little ways back and she realized it must be getting late.

[82] But Sonia didn't have to work the next day so she could just go home and sleep in as late as she wanted to.

[83] And the thought of that made her smile.

[84] Then as Sonia approached a brightly lit gas station, she heard a car coming up behind her.

[85] So she stepped even more to the side of the road to make sure the car could pass her, but the car pulled up right next to her and stopped.

[86] The passenger side window rolled down, the driver leaned across the seat and called out to Sonia.

[87] And so Sonia, she stopped walking and then she looked at the driver and actually approached the car.

[88] Sonia then leaned in through the open window and talked to the driver for a bit longer, and then Sonia climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door.

[89] At around 5 p .m. on August 11th, so about 15 hours after Sonia had gotten into that car, Timoree came home from work.

[90] She was exhausted because she had stayed up late with her friends and then gone into work without sleeping much.

[91] she'd come back to her and Sonia's house briefly that morning before heading to her job, and she hadn't seen Sonia, but she didn't think much of it.

[92] There was a chance Sonia had gotten up early and gone out for the day, or she might have run into friends on her way home and ended up staying somewhere else, which wasn't out of the ordinary for Sonia and Timoree, and neither of them had cell phones, so they didn't always keep in regular contact when they were apart.

[93] But hours after Timore had gotten home from work, Sonia still had not come by the house or called, so Timorey decided to check in with Sonia's sister.

[94] Timery called her on the landline and asked if she or her husband had seen or hurt from Sonia in the last 24 hours.

[95] Sonia's sister said no, but she didn't sound worried at all.

[96] Sonia was 19 years old, and her sister knew she liked to go out and have a good time with friends, and she also knew there was a guy or two Sonia had been seeing.

[97] So she told Timorey that Sonia was probably just out and would most likely be home sometime soon.

[98] And so that night, Timmery went to bed kind of early because she was still worn out from her day, and she figured she'd either hear Sonia come home later that night, or she would see her in the morning.

[99] But by the following afternoon, Timorey still had not seen or heard anything from Sonia, and now Timorey was starting to get worried.

[100] She called Sonia's sister again, but again the sister said she had not heard from Sonia, and so Timorey decided that she had to tell the police.

[101] But Timorey had grown up in a small village that did not have a traditional police department, so she didn't even really know how to go about telling the police what was happening.

[102] And so she decided it would be best for her to just go to the police station and talk to someone in person.

[103] Timery threw on a pair of jeans and a t -shirt, she slipped on her tennis shoes, and she headed towards the police station in the center of town.

[104] The rain had stopped, but it was still cool and gray outside.

[105] It only took a few minutes for Timore to get to the police station.

[106] She walked inside the small building that was lit up with bright fluorescent lights, and she was greeted by Officer Matt Owens, the Florida native who had responded to the domestic violence call when Timore and Sonia had been at their friend's house.

[107] Officer Owens asked Timoree what she needed, and Timoree would tell him that, you know, Sonia, her friend, had gone missing and she hadn't heard or seen from her since she had left to walk home over 24 hours earlier.

[108] Officer Owens was just about 29 years old, and he had brown hair, a goatee, and a warm small.

[109] He tried to put Timoree at ease because it was obvious she was very upset, and he told her that the police had not gotten any reports about anything out of the ordinary over the last day.

[110] Then another officer who was sitting nearby overheard the conversation, and he walked over to them.

[111] He said the best explanation was probably that her friend had gone out partying, and she was either still partying or recovering somewhere with friends.

[112] But Timore said that Sonia had only had one beer on the night they were last hanging out, So it wasn't like she was just wandering around town drunk.

[113] But the officer said there still probably wasn't anything to worry about.

[114] Then one of the officers took down Sonia's name and Timore's personal information and then told Timoree they would call her if they heard anything.

[115] Timore thanked the officers, she turned around and walked out of the station.

[116] But as she headed home, she felt like she'd been totally blown off.

[117] And she didn't like to buy into stereotypes, but she knew a lot of our friends and family believed that the cops in town would do as little as possible when it came to helping Alaska Native women, and she really hoped that was not the case.

[118] Not long after Timoree had left the police station, the phone in the police station rang, and Officer Matt Owens answered it.

[119] Sonia's boss was on the other line, and he was calling to say that Sonia had not come into work that day, and he was worried because Sonia never missed work or was even late without calling first.

[120] Owens hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

[121] Then he got up.

[122] and walked the short distance across the station to the chief of police's office.

[123] The chief waved Owens in and asked him what was going on.

[124] And Owens told him about Timorey's visit, about her friend Sonia, and now Sonia's boss had just called.

[125] And so Owens said they might have a legitimate missing person's case on their hands.

[126] At 8 .30 p .m. on August 13th, the day after Timoree had gone to the police station, a volunteer firefighter was driving on an old dirt road about five miles outside of Nome.

[127] After the chief of police had talked to Officer Owens about Sonia, he contacted the fire department and a couple of community groups to help organize a search for Sonia, and the volunteer firefighter had gotten the call, went right out to his car, and started driving in and around the city to help the search however he could.

[128] He was driving slowly, looking out the windshield and both windows, trying not to miss anything that might lead him to Sonia.

[129] The road he was on had once been very busy when Noam had experienced a gold rush all the way back in the 1890s, but now the roads around the old gold mines were pretty much abandoned, and almost nobody ever drove on them.

[130] But most people in town knew that young couples still would sometimes find their way out to the abandoned roads to spend some time together alone, and that the area near the mines had become a kind of lover's lane.

[131] And the volunteer firefighter thought, you know, maybe Sonia and a guy she was seeing had come out that way, and maybe they'd gotten stuck in the mud after the rainstorm or something like that.

[132] The volunteer firefighter continued to scan both sides of the narrow roads.

[133] But all he could see was bushes and thick underbrush stretching out in both directions.

[134] But then suddenly, something caught his eye and he slammed on the brakes.

[135] He looked out the driver's side window and stared into a bush.

[136] He thought something was out there, but he couldn't tell what it was.

[137] So he turned off the engine, he got out of his car, and walked over to those bushes.

[138] Then he crouched down and peered inside the bushes, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

[139] His stomach turned and he felt like he might get sick, but he made himself turn around and run back to his car.

[140] He climbed into the driver's seat, started the car, turned it around, and sped down the old narrow mining road, and back into town as fast as he could.

[141] Less than 30 minutes later, the same volunteer firefighter was heading back to the bushes on the side of the old mining road, this time in the passenger seat of a gnome police SUV that was being driven by Officer Brian Wayevana.

[142] Officer Wayevana headed down the road and stopped when the volunteer fireman told him to.

[143] Then, Wei Ivana stepped out at the SUV and walked over to the bushes by himself.

[144] Way Ivana was in his mid -30s with dark black hair and a black mustache, and he smoked cigarettes regularly while on the job.

[145] He would often say that being a cop in Nome was 39 .5 hours a week of sheer boredom and a half hour of, oh, shit.

[146] And this definitely felt like an oh -shit moment to him.

[147] Wei Ivana crouched down, and when he looked into the bushes, he hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him.

[148] But the sun was still bright enough for him to see clearly, and he knew he was staring at the body of Sonia Ivanov.

[149] Wayevana stood up, but then he quickly bent over again and put his hands on his knees and breathed in several times through his nose.

[150] Wayavana knew Sonia's sister and brother -in -law quite well, and he couldn't imagine having to tell them what he had just discovered.

[151] But before Wayevana could worry about that, he had to act fast.

[152] He knew that the small, gnome police department was not equipped to handle the forensics investigation required in a case like this.

[153] They would need help from the crime lab and the Alaska State Troopers, but both of those groups worked out of Anchorage, which was over 500 miles away, and there was no road that directly connected Anchorage -Denome, so it could take them a while to get there.

[154] Wayevana went back to his SUV, he opened the door and grabbed the radio.

[155] He called in to the officers on duty and told them he needed everyone to help him come lock down a crime scene and to make sure that nothing happened to it until help from Anchorage arrived.

[156] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[157] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[158] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[159] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[160] What happens next?

[161] Depends on who you ask.

[162] Was it a crime of passion?

[163] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[164] This was clearly an intentional act.

[165] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[166] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[167] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[168] Everyone had an opinion.

[169] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[170] To end in a mistrial, it's just a, confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[171] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[172] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondry Plus.

[173] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[174] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[175] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[176] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[177] I'm like, stop around.

[178] She's like, I can't.

[179] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[180] It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

[181] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[182] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[183] Well, you were holding something back.

[184] Intentionally.

[185] Yeah, well, yeah.

[186] No, it's hysteria.

[187] It's all in your head.

[188] It's not physical.

[189] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[190] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[191] Or is it something else entirely?

[192] Something's wrong here.

[193] Something's not right.

[194] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[195] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[196] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[197] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[198] On August 14th, so a day after Sonia's body had been discovered, criminalist Carrie Cathcart from the Alaska State Crime Lab in Anchorage sat in the passenger seat of Officer Way of Vana's SUV as they wound their way down the dirt mining road just outside of Nome.

[199] When Nome Police had called the crime lab, the case was handed over to Cathcart.

[200] She booked a flight and had arrived in Nome earlier that morning.

[201] And while Nome Police had waited for Cathcart to get there, they covered Sonia's body and most of the surrounding area with tarps to keep the crime scene as untouched as they possibly could.

[202] And Nome police officers had taken ships guarding the crime scene to make sure nobody came near it.

[203] Wayevana eased off the gas and stopped the car several yards away from the crime scene.

[204] Cathcart looked out and she saw the tarps covering the area.

[205] She was used to visiting scenes days after a crime had taken place because traveling in Alaska often just took a lot longer than it would in other parts of the United States.

[206] Cathcart got out of the SUV, slipped on a pair of gloves, and followed Wayevana to the on the side of the road.

[207] Cathcart wore hiking boots, a windbreaker over a dark shirt, and she had long blonde hair.

[208] Wayevana called another officer over, and together they removed a tarp from the bushes.

[209] Then they walked away from Cathcart and removed the remaining tarps that covered other parts of the crime scene.

[210] Cathcart stared down at Sonia's lifeless body inside of the bushes.

[211] Cathcart had worked homicide cases and other violent crimes for a few years, but it still hit her very hard when she saw victims as young as Sonia.

[212] As Cathcart approached the body, the most obvious thing that stood out about Sonia's body was that she was naked, except for a sock on one of her feet.

[213] But there were no clothes or scraps of torn fabric anywhere in the area.

[214] Then Cathcart moved in closer to get a better look.

[215] They would have to do a full autopsy and examination, but it was pretty clear to her right away that Sonia had died from a gunshot at close range.

[216] Cathcart asked an officer if Gnome police had found bullet casings in the area, but the officer said they hadn't really found anything before they locked the site down and contacted Anchorage for help.

[217] Cathcart made her way back to the road and started scanning the dirt.

[218] She saw sets of tire tracks that looked like they matched a police SUV like the one Wayevana was driving, but then she stopped cold and shouted for Way of Anna to come look at something.

[219] Way of Anna walked over to Cathcart on the road, and she pointed to a set of tire tracks in the dirt.

[220] He didn't really know why she was showing them to him, but then she motioned for him to come look closer.

[221] And she said the tracks were most likely from a truck, but importantly, it looked like the track had mismatched tires.

[222] This, of course, would make it much easier for the police to find this truck, especially because they were already starting with a small number of people who lived in Nome to begin with.

[223] So, Wayabana made a note about the mismatched tires in his notebook.

[224] Then, Cathcart followed those tire tracks back down the road towards the spot where Sonia's body was.

[225] Way of Anna walked right behind her.

[226] Kathkart stepped over to the bushes right on the side of the road.

[227] She squinted her eyes and looked as closely as she could at every branch, and a slight smile began to come across her face.

[228] She turned to Way of Anna and motioned for him to look at what she had just seen.

[229] And on one of the branches, she pointed to a streak of blue paint that she was almost certain had come from an automobile.

[230] So now, Wayevana believed if he could just track down a blue truck with mismatch tires, he would have a good chance of find finding Sonia's killer.

[231] In the days following, Carrie Cathcart's examination of the crime scene, Gnome police fanned out across the city.

[232] They spoke to Sonia's friends, her sister and brother -in -law, and anybody willing to come forward to say they had seen Sonia around the time she had disappeared.

[233] Officer Wayevana had met with Timoree the night Sonia's body had been discovered, but now he wanted to meet with her again to see if she might have any information that could lead him to the owner of a blue truck with these mismatched tires.

[234] So on a warm August morning, Way of Ivana knocked on the door of Timoree and Sonia's house.

[235] Timoree opened the door, and Waye Ivana could see that her face was puffy and her eyes were bloodshot.

[236] It was clear she had been crying.

[237] Timoree led Wei Ivana into the small front room of the house.

[238] The place was messy like a teenager's bedroom might be.

[239] There were clothes hanging on chairs and empty soda cans all over the coffee table.

[240] Timore sat down on the couch, and Wayavana cleared off a chair and sat down across from her.

[241] Timmery was glad that it was Wayevana who had come to the house to talk to her.

[242] Timorey knew that Wayevana knew Sonia's sister, so Timoree believed Wayabana would do everything he could to find out who had killed Sonia.

[243] Wayavana started by just asking Timore if she was okay, but she just shook her head and tried to fight off tears.

[244] Then he asked her if Sonia had any enemies or somebody who might have been angry with her.

[245] But Timore said Sonia was one of the happiest, easygoing people she'd ever known, and everybody who had met her liked her right away.

[246] But then Timery trailed off in the middle of a sentence, and she looked surprised, like she just thought of something that she believed she should have thought of a lot earlier.

[247] Wayabana asked her what was going on, and Timore leaned forward on the couch, and she said there was a guy who Sonia had kind of hung out with a couple of times, and she knew they had kissed a couple of times, but it really wasn't anything serious.

[248] But Timore said the guy was really into Sonia, but Sonia was not really into him.

[249] So Wei Ivana asked who this guy was, and Timori would say it was a friend of theirs named Kunuk Anzak.

[250] Then Timori said that Kunik was usually the nicest guy in the world, like a big teddy bear, but he did have a temper, and he could fly off the handle when he got mad.

[251] Officer Wei Ivana thanked her for the information.

[252] Then he asked Timri if she happened to know what kind of car Kunuk drove, and she said he drove a blue truck.

[253] Wei Ivana's eyes lit up.

[254] He couldn't believe he'd possibly found the person he was looking at.

[255] for so quickly.

[256] He thanked Timoree again, and then he headed out of her house, got into his SUV, and drove down the street to the police station.

[257] And when he filled in the chief of police about what he had just learned, the chief set things in motion for them to impound and search Kunuk's blue truck.

[258] It took a few days to get everything in order, but then Wayevana, Officer Matt Owens, other members of the known police, and the criminalist Carrie Cathcart, searched the truck, and they were stunned by what they found.

[259] Kunik's truck was indeed blue, and it had mismatched tires that fit with the tracks that Cathcart had found on the mining road near Sonia's body.

[260] But that wasn't all.

[261] One of the truck's tires had blood spatter on it, and inside the truck they found multiple rifles and a tarp that was covered in blood.

[262] And so after this discovery, police felt like they had found their killer.

[263] In late August, so a couple of weeks after Sonia had been found, gnome police had more than enough evidence to make Sonia's friend Kunuk their prime suspect.

[264] So Wei Ivana and another officer drove out to Kunik's house.

[265] When police had taken his truck, Kunik knew they would be back soon to talk to him.

[266] So he did his best to stay calm as he let the investigators back into his house.

[267] Kunuk had short brown hair and he wore jeans and a yellow t -shirt and he had a silver earring in his left ear.

[268] Kunik sat down in a chair in the front room of his house and the officers stayed standing.

[269] Wayevana didn't waste any time.

[270] He asked Kunuk when was the last time he'd seen Sonia.

[271] and Kunuk thought about it for a second and then said the last time he saw her was maybe two weeks before she died and Kunik would say that he and Sonia didn't really even talk when he last saw her that really they had just kind of crossed paths in town after this answer the other officer who was there with Wei Ivana asked why Kunuk had a bloody tarp in his truck and why was their blood spatter on one of his tires Kunuk started tapping his foot on the floor and he looked away from the cops and without making eye contact he told them that he'd been out hunting 70 miles away at the time of Sonia's death, and that's why the rifles and the bloody tarp were in his truck, and the blood on the tarp was just animal blood.

[272] But the officer pressed Kunik again about the blood spatter on his tire.

[273] And this time, Kunik did look back at the officer, and he would say that he'd run over a rabbit or some other kind of small animal when he was driving out to go hunting, and so the blood on the tire must have just been from that.

[274] The officers were totally skeptical of this answer, but they stayed neutral and continued to question Kunuk a bit longer, and then when they were finally done, the officers were convinced that this was their guy.

[275] The evidence against Kunuk was solid, and the running over the rabbit story just seemed like a convenient excuse he'd made up on the spot.

[276] So Wayevana asked Kunuk to submit to a DNA test, and he told Kunik, if he was innocent like he said he was, a DNA test was the best way to prove that.

[277] Kunuk continued to tap his foot on the floor, but then he looked at Wei Ivana, and he nodded and said he would submit samples for the test.

[278] Wayevona knew he would have to wait for the results from this DNA test and for the results from the test that the crime lab was going to run on the blood found on Kunak's truck and on the tarp.

[279] But Wayevana hoped that soon he would be able to tell Sonia's sister and the rest of Sonia's family and her friends that they had found Sonia's killer.

[280] In late August, so almost three weeks after Sonia's murder, her body was returned to the small village where she had grown up, And her family and friends there had a funeral service and an outdoor vigil to celebrate Sonia's life and to mourn the life she never got to live.

[281] At the vigil, people who knew and loved her most talked about how happy and kind Sonia had been and how much her community and her culture had meant to her.

[282] And they said they wanted police to bring this case to a close quickly and to make sure the person who had killed Sonia was brought to justice.

[283] But they knew that even if that happened, the village would never fully heal from what had been done to Sonia.

[284] At around 2 a .m. on a day in early September, about a week after the vigil, Officer Wei Ivana sat in his SUV in a parking lot off the main street in Nome.

[285] He cracked his window, took a long drag off a cigarette, and exhaled the smoke out into the early morning air.

[286] Just like Sonia's friends and family, Wei Ivana hoped the case would be solved soon, and he had really believed that Sonia's friend Kunik was the killer.

[287] But in the weeks following Kunik's interview, parts of the investigation had kind of come to a halt.

[288] Test results from the tarp found in Kunik's truck revealed that the blood on the tarp was animal blood, just like Kunik had said, and several of Kunik's friends said they had been with him when he was hunting on the day of Sonia's murder.

[289] Wayabana still was not ready to move on from Kunik as a suspect.

[290] But while he waited for results from Kunik's DNA test to come back, the case suddenly didn't seem as open and shut as it had just a couple of weeks earlier.

[291] And now the investigation team on this case had been reduced to just Wayevana and one other gnome officer.

[292] And Wayevana was stuck working nights while the other investigator worked days.

[293] So Wayevana sat in an empty parking lot near an empty street in the dead quiet of the morning and he felt like he wasn't doing anything to help.

[294] Then he leaned over and grabbed a file folder from the passenger seat.

[295] Inside the folder were all of the notes that he and other officers had compiled during interviews they'd conducted following Sonia's murder.

[296] He flipped through the notes and tried to look at everything with fresh eyes just in case he'd missed something.

[297] And as he read over a page right in the middle of the files, he almost gasped out loud.

[298] Way of Anna was reading comments made by a woman who claimed she had seen Sonia get into a vehicle near a gas station at the same time that Sonia was believed to have disappeared.

[299] But for some reason, this woman's statement had never been followed up on.

[300] And so later that day, Way of Anna, who was bleary -eyed and fighting off sleep, headed to that woman's house to talk to her.

[301] The woman said early on the morning of the murder, she had been smoking on her porch when Sonia had walked by and she had called out to her.

[302] The two of them had talked a bit, and then she watched as Sonia walked further down the street, got into a vehicle, and drove off.

[303] Then the woman gave a detailed description of the vehicle Sonia had climbed into and it was not a blue truck.

[304] Way of Anna thanked the woman and then rushed back to the police station where he told the chief of police all this new information he'd discovered, and the chief immediately put more officers back on the case, and they all went on a search to find this new vehicle that this woman had described.

[305] Just before 3 a .m. on September 23rd, so a few weeks after Wayabana had spoken to that woman, Officer Matt Owens, the Florida native, stood near a gravel pit down the road from where Sonia had been found.

[306] And in this gravel pit, Officer Owens saw a vehicle that matched the description of the one that that woman had seen Sonia get into.

[307] Owens quickly called into the station and let them know what he'd found and immediately other officers rushed out to the scene but just minutes later Officer Owens was on his cell phone to the police station again but this time he was out of breath and he was running for his life he kept shouting that gunshots had rung out right after he'd approached this vehicle in the gravel pit and so now he was taking cover but he needed backup fast not long after that way of Anna and other members of the force arrived at the gravel pit and they saw that Owens was crouched down behind some bushes nearby.

[308] They leapt out of their cars and they fanned out all across the area looking for whoever had been shooting at Officer Owens, but they never found anyone.

[309] And so after the police had secured the area and made sure it was safe, they all reconvened with Officer Owens over the gravel pit, and sure enough, inside of it was this car that Owens had found and called in.

[310] And they noticed the driver's side window was completely shattered, very likely from one of the rounds that had just been fired at Officer Owens.

[311] That day, the police would conduct a full search of this vehicle, and that search would lead them right to Sonia's killer.

[312] Based on evidence found at the crime scene, interviews conducted throughout the investigation, and evidence discovered from the vehicle that Officer Owens found in the gravel pit, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened in the early morning hours of August 12, 2003, the day Sonia Ivanov was murdered.

[313] Just after 1 a .m., the killer drove slowly down the street in the center of Nome.

[314] Light rain fell on the windshield, and the mist gave the whole town kind of an eerie glow.

[315] The killer heard music coming from the bar, and they watched as a few drunk people stumbled outside.

[316] The killer laughed and just kept cruising down the street.

[317] And in the bright lights from the gas station up ahead, the killer saw Sonia walking on the side of the road.

[318] It was hard to miss the very beautiful, five -foot, 11 -inch -tall teenager.

[319] The killer grinned and they felt their heart start to race a bit.

[320] Then they drove right past Sonia and hit the brakes.

[321] Then the killer rolled down the passenger window just as Sonia walked by and they called out to her.

[322] Sonia stopped, walked over and leaned in through the open window.

[323] The killer smiled and asked if Sonia wanted a ride home.

[324] Sonia liked walking in the rain, but there was a chance the storm could pick up quickly and get a lot worse and it was getting late so she said, sure, she'd love a ride.

[325] The killer told her to hop inside, and so she did, she opened the door, got into the passenger seat, and then once Sonia was inside, the killer rolled up her window, they locked the doors, and drove down the road.

[326] But when they got to the point in the road where the killer should have turned to go to Sonia's house, they just kept on driving.

[327] Sonia said, hey, you missed the turn, but the killer just looked at her and smiled and then hit the gas.

[328] Sonia started to get scared, and she asked the killer what they were doing, but the killer just told her to be quiet.

[329] When they reached the outskirts of town, the killer turned off the main road onto an old dirt road.

[330] Sonia desperately wanted to get out, but they were going so fast, and she was just too scared to do anything.

[331] Finally, the killer slowed down and pulled into some bushes on the side of the dirt road and parked.

[332] Then the killer got out.

[333] Sonia tried to open her door, but she couldn't unlock it, and then she looked up out her window and she saw the killer standing there in the moonlight.

[334] Sonia screamed and at the same time the killer opened the door, they dragged her outside, and then wrapped their arms around her from behind.

[335] Sonia was tall and strong and fast and so right away she began using all her strength to try to get out from the killer's grasp and at some point she began leaning forward and bucking her legs out behind her and she was able to get out of the killer's grip.

[336] But before Sonia could actually run away to freedom, the killer drew a 22 caliber pistol from their waistband and fired.

[337] And that bullet struck Sonia square in the back of the head.

[338] She fell to the ground, dead.

[339] Without wasting any time, the killer ran over and stripped off all of Sonia's clothes, except for one sock that they just overlooked.

[340] Then the killer dragged Sonia's body into a nearby bush.

[341] The killer went back to the road, grabbed Sonia's clothes, and tossed them into the trunk.

[342] Then the killer closed the trunk, took a deep breath, calm themselves down, and got back into the driver's seat.

[343] Then they drove away from the murder scene inside of their Nome Police Department SUV.

[344] Officer Matt Owens of the Nome Police Department killed Sonia.

[345] It turned out that woman who was smoking on her porch and then called out to Sonia on the night she disappeared, well, she saw Sonia get into a vehicle and that vehicle was a police SUV.

[346] But the woman said she had not seen which one of the officers was driving the SUV at the time.

[347] The mismatched tire tracks that had been found at the murder scene turned out to be from a truck that a young man and woman had been driving and the couple had just gone out to Lovers Lane on this mining road around the same time that Sonia was murdered.

[348] They had nothing to do with her murder.

[349] But the blue paint that criminalist Kerry Cathcart had found on the bushes ended up matching blue paint from the Nome Police Department insignia that was on all of their squad vehicles.

[350] and when Officer Owens had heard about this paint being found and about the woman who said she saw Sonia drive off with a cop, he went out and drove the police SUV that he'd been driving the night he killed Sonia out to the gravel pit and dumped it there.

[351] Then later, he went back and reported finding the dumped SUV in hopes that this would eliminate any suspicion towards him.

[352] And Officer Owens would say that he thought someone from town must have stolen the police SUV and then driven it out to the mining road, where they killed Sonia, and Owens was the one who shattered the SUV's window and then called the station to say he was being shot at, to make it seem like whoever had really killed Sonia was now monitoring this vehicle and going to kill anybody who went near it.

[353] But other known police officers and the Alaska State troopers saw right through Owens' lies.

[354] After finding him at the gravel pit crouched down behind some bushes as if he was being shot at, the general consensus was this looks staged.

[355] And so when they got out and they talked to Owens and he described who was shooting at him and from where, it just didn't really add up, and they searched the area and of course didn't find any shooter.

[356] And also just generally, the other officers just didn't buy the idea that someone from town would have the audacity to steal a police SUV and then go commit a murder with the SUV in tow.

[357] It just didn't make sense.

[358] Also, criminalist Kerry Cathcart, very early on, had said, that she believed whoever had killed Sonia had a deep understanding of how to sanitize a crime scene because there was no evidence left behind and her clothes had been removed.

[359] And so Cathcart actually said, you know, the killer could be a cop.

[360] And so ultimately, Officer Owens was arrested for Sonia's murder.

[361] It would turn out that in the years Owens had lived in Nome, six local women had claimed he sexually assaulted them.

[362] And two of those women said they had filed formal reports with the Nome police, but nothing had ever been done about it.

[363] In Sonia's case, there was no evidence of assault or rape, but some officers believed Owens intended to sexually assault Sonia when he picked her up, but when she fought back, he killed her.

[364] Officer Matt Owens was convicted of murder and evidence tampering and sentenced to 101 years in prison with a chance for parole after 34 years.

[365] Sonia's murder shed further light on what many Alaska Native communities believed was a history of police neglect, harassment, and violence towards Alaska's indigenous population.

[366] And so, in 2007, the Sonia Ivanov Act was signed into law in Alaska.

[367] That law states that any peace officer, firefighter, or correctional employee, convicted of first -degree murder, will receive a mandatory sentence of 99 years in prison.

[368] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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[371] They are just on YouTube.

[372] Again, the YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.

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