Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. Just before 3 AM on September 23rd, 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.
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.
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, then another, and another.
Clearly, someone was guarding this pit and the object inside of it.
And so before long, this police officer was running for his life, screaming into his radio for backup.
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.
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.
Okay, let's get into today's story. Are you searching for a romantic summer getaway?
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The phenomenally talented Philippa Soo returns to narrate her fifth Lily Chu title.
This time, Philippa is joined by her real-life husband, Stephen Pasquale.
Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, aka the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down-on-her-luck event planner posing as a socialite's long-lost daughter while piecing together the secrets surrounding a mysterious family. and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard-to-read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant Nico.
Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned.
She's in over her head and head over heels.
Listen to Rich Girl Summer now on Audible.
Go to audible.com slash richgirlsummer. At 11 p.m. on August 10, 2003, 19-year-old Sonia Ivanov and her best friend Timuri Tawarak were walking down a street that was lined with a few shops, bars, and houses in Nome, Alaska.
Both young women had long dark hair and they were dressed almost the same in jeans, tennis shoes and t-shirts.
But Sonja was quite a bit taller. She was 5 foot 11 inches tall and her height made her stand out no matter what she was wearing.
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.
Sonia and Timmery were accustomed to the long summer days and the midnight sunsets because they'd spent their entire lives in northwest Alaska.
They were both Alaska natives, which is a term used to define the multiple groups of Alaska's indigenous people.
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.
But not long after Sonia had graduated high school a year earlier, she had moved to Nome, and Timuri had followed her soon after that.
And as Sonia and Timuri walked down the street that night, they still felt like they were living in a big city.
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 Timmery had come from.
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.
Sonia and Timmery walked past a bar and they could hear music and laughter coming from inside.
Then they turned off the main road and onto a side street and walked over to a friend's small wooden house.
Sonia and Timmery stepped up onto the raised porch and then Sonia knocked on the door.
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.
Then Sonia and Timmery headed inside to the cramped living room, flopped down on the couch, and settled in for a night of board games with friends.
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.
Sonja cracked open the beer, took a swig and smiled.
When Sonja 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.
Everybody in their small village knew Sonja and all of the adults there looked out for all the kids.
And Sonja had been a star basketball player at her high school, so she was even kind of famous in her own little town.
And her parents really hoped she would stay at least a little longer in a place where she was loved, protected, and admired.
But Sonja 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.
Because for most of her life, she dreamed of going off to college and experiencing new places and learning about new things.
Sonia was outgoing, she was funny, and almost always in a very good mood.
And so when she had arrived in Nome, she quickly landed work at a healthcare facility and she made a close group of friends.
But she still felt connected to her roots because Timmery and her shared a small house and Sonia's sister and brother-in-law lived close by.
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.
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.
She dreamed of making enough money to move away to Hawaii.
Sonia loved her family and she was proud of her Alaska native heritage.
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.
But as much as Sonja 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.
So now Sonja liked to imagine herself on a warm, sunny beach in Hawaii, listening to the waves crash onto the sand.
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.
In the living room, Sonya 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.
But then at around midnight, the group fell silent for a second because they heard a police siren wailing on a street nearby.
Sonia and Timmery almost always felt safe in Nome, but there were times when they would hear police sirens that reminded them they were not in their little home village anymore.
And Sonia's sister and her brother-in-law, who lived near Sonia, told her never to ignore her surroundings.
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.
And while the group of teenagers sat in Sonia's friend's living room that night, Officer Matt Owens of the known 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.
Officer Owens was originally from Florida, and he had noticed during his few years on the Nome 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.
But back at Sonja'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.
And Sonja and her friends got back to talking, laughing, and playing their board game.
And then at about 1 a.m. on August 11th, two hours after Sonja had arrived, she stood up from the couch and decided it was time for her to head home.
Sonja said goodnight to the group, and Timuri 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 Sonja at their place sometime the next day.
Then Sonja and Timuri shared what they called their best friend goodbye ritual.
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.
Sonia opened the door and stepped outside.
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.
Just after 1 a.m., so a few minutes after Sonia had left her friend's house, Sonia turned onto the main drag that cut through the center of town and she walked along the side of the road.
The sun had finally set and it was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. a light rain had started to fall and Nome looked like it was covered in mist.
And as much as Sonia had gotten sick of the cold Alaska winters, she loved rainy Alaska summer nights like this one.
So she decided to take her time walking home and to enjoy being outside in the rain.
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.
Sonja was startled and she felt her shoulders tense up.
Then she turned and saw an older woman she knew sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette.
And Sonja laughed at herself for being scared.
She exhaled and relaxed her shoulders. The woman smiled and asked Sonja how she was doing.
Sonja said she was doing fine, and then she told the woman to have a good night and wave goodbye.
Sonja kept walking down the street, and as she did, she felt the rain falling on her face.
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.
But Sonja didn't have to work the next day, so she could just go home and sleep in as late as she wanted to.
And the thought of that made her smile. Then, as Sonja approached a brightly lit gas station, she heard a car coming up behind her.
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.
The passenger side window rolled down, the driver leaned across the seat and called out to Sonja.
And so Sonja, she stopped walking and then she looked at the driver and actually approached the car.
Sonja then leaned in through the open window and talked to the driver for a bit longer.
And then Sonja climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door.
At around 5 p.m. on August 11th, so about 15 hours after Sonia had gotten into that car, Timmery came home from work.
She was exhausted because she had stayed up late with her friends and then gone into work without sleeping much.
She had 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.
There was a chance Sonja had gotten up early and gone out for the day, or she might've run into friends on her way home and ended up staying somewhere else, which wasn't out of the ordinary for Sonja and Timuri, and neither of them had cell phones, so they didn't always keep in regular contact when they were apart.
But hours after Timuri had gotten home from work, Sonja still had not come by the house or called, so Timuri decided to check in with Sonja's sister.
Timmery called her on the landline and asked if she or her husband had seen or heard from Sonia in the last 24 hours.
Sonia's sister said no, but she didn't sound worried at all.
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.
So she told Timmery that Sonya was probably just out and would most likely be home sometime soon.
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 Sonya come home later that night or she would see her in the morning.
But by the following afternoon, Timmery still had not seen or heard anything from Sonya and now Timmery was starting to get worried.
She called Sonia's sister again, but again, the sister said she had not heard from Sonia.
And so Timmery decided that she had to tell the police.
But Timmery 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.
And so she decided it would be best for her to just go to the police station and talk to someone in person.
Timmery 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.
The rain had stopped, but it was still cool and gray outside.
It only took a few minutes for Timmery to get to the police station.
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 Timmery and Sonja had been at their friend's house.
Officer Owens asked Timmery what she needed and Timmery 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.
Officer Owens was just about 29 years old and he had brown hair, a goatee, and a warm smile.
He tried to put Timmery 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.
Then another officer who was sitting nearby overheard the conversation and he walked over to them.
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.
But Timmery 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.
But the officer said there still probably wasn't anything to worry about.
Then one of the officers took down Sonia's name and Timmery's personal information and then told Timmery they would call her if they heard anything.
Timmery thanked the officers. She turned around and walked out of the station.
But as she headed home, she felt like she'd been totally blown off.
And she didn't like to buy into stereotypes, but she knew a lot of her 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.
Not long after Timmery had left the police station, the phone in the police station rang and Officer Matt Owens answered it.
Sonja's boss was on the other line and he was calling to say that Sonja had not come into work that day and he was worried because Sonja never missed work or was even late without calling first.
Owens hung up the phone and took a deep breath.
Then he got up and walked the short distance across the station to the chief of police's office.
The chief waved Owens in and asked him what was going on.
And Owens told him about Timmery's visit, about her friend Sonia, and now Sonia's boss had just called.
And so Owens said they might have a legitimate missing persons case on their hands.
At 8.30 p.m. on August 13th, the day after Timmery had gone to the police station, a volunteer firefighter was driving on an old dirt road about five miles outside of Nome.
After the chief of police had talked to Officer Owens about Sonja, he contacted the fire department and a couple of community groups to help organize a search for Sonja. 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.
He was driving slowly, looking out the windshield and both windows, trying not to miss anything that might lead him to Sonja.
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.
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.
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.
The volunteer firefighter continued to scan both sides of the narrow road, but all he could see was bushes and thick underbrush stretching out in both directions.
But then suddenly something caught his eye and he slammed on the brakes.
He looked out the driver's side window and stared into a bush.
He thought something was out there, but he couldn't tell what it was.
So he turned off the engine, he got out of his car and walked over to those bushes.
Then he crouched down and peered inside the bushes and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
His stomach turned and he felt like he might get sick, but he made himself turn around and run back to his car.
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.
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 known police SUV that was being driven by Officer Brian Wayovana.
Officer Wayovana headed down the road and stopped when the volunteer fireman told him to.
Then Wayovana stepped out of the SUV and walked over to the bushes by himself.
Weyavana was in his mid-30s with dark black hair and a black mustache, and he smoked cigarettes regularly while on the job.
He would often say that being a cop in Nome was 39 and a half hours a week of sheer boredom and a half hour of, oh shit.
And this definitely felt like an oh shit moment to him.
Wayovana crouched down, and when he looked into the bushes, he hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him.
But the sun was still bright enough for him to see clearly, and he knew he was staring at the body of Sonia Ivanov.
Weyavana stood up, but then he quickly bent over again and put his hands on his knees and breathed in several times through his nose.
Weyavana knew Sonia's sister and brother-in-law quite well, and he couldn't imagine having to tell them what he had just discovered.
But before Weyavana could worry about that, he had to act fast.
He knew that the small Nome Police Department was not equipped to handle the forensics investigation required in a case like this. 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 to Nome, so it could take them a while to get there.
Weyivana went back to his SUV, he opened the door and grabbed the radio.
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.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery+.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now, much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Flawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad-free.
No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest.
Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin.
That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
On August 14th, so a day after Sonya's body had been discovered, criminalist Carrie Cathcart from the Alaska State Crime Lab in Anchorage sat in the passenger seat of Officer Wayavana's SUV as they wound their way down the dirt mining road just outside of Nome.
When Nome police had called the crime lab, the case was handed over to Cathcart.
She booked a flight and had arrived in Nome earlier that morning.
And while Nome police had waited for Cathcart to get there, they covered Sonya's body and most of the surrounding area with tarps to keep the crime scene as untouched as they possibly could.
And Nome police officers had taken shifts guarding the crime scene to make sure nobody came near it.
Wei Ivana eased off the gas and stopped the car several yards away from the crime scene.
Cathcart looked out and she saw the tarps covering the area.
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.
Cathcart got out of the SUV, slipped on a pair of gloves, and followed Wayavana to the bushes on the side of the road.
Cathcart wore hiking boots, a windbreaker over a dark shirt, and she had long blonde hair.
Wayavana called another officer over, and together they removed a tarp from the bushes.
Then they walked away from Cathcart and removed the remaining tarps that covered other parts of the crime scene.
Cathcart stared down at Sonja's lifeless body inside of the bushes.
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 Sonja.
As Cathcart approached the body, the most obvious thing that stood out about Sonja's body was that she was naked, except for a sock on one of her feet.
But there were no clothes or scraps of torn fabric anywhere in the area.
Then Cathcart moved in closer to get a better look.
They would have to do a full autopsy and examination, but it was pretty clear to her right away that Sonja had died from a gunshot at close range.
Cathcart asked an officer if known 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.
Cathcart made her way back to the road and started scanning the dirt.
She saw sets of tire tracks that looked like they matched a police SUV, like the one Way Ivana was driving, but then she stopped cold and shouted for Way Ivana to come look at something.
Wayavana walked over to Cathcart on the road, and she pointed to a set of tire tracks in the dirt.
He didn't really know why she was showing them to him, but then she motioned for him to come look closer, and she said the tracks were most likely from a truck, but importantly, it looked like the track had mismatched tires.
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.
So Wayovana made a note about the mismatched tires in his notebook.
Then Cathcart followed those tire tracks back down the road towards the spot where Sonja's body was.
Wayovana walked right behind her. Cathcart stepped over to the bushes right on the side of the road.
She squinted her eyes and looked as closely as she could at every branch, and a slight smile began to come across her face.
She turned to Wei Ivana and motioned for him to look at what she had just seen.
And on one of the branches, she pointed to a streak of blue paint that she was almost certain had come from an automobile.
So now Wei Ivana believed if he could just track down a blue truck with mismatched tires, he would have a good chance of finding Sonya's killer.
In the days following Carrie Cathcart's examination of the crime scene, known police fanned out across the city.
They spoke to Sonya's friends, her sister and brother-in-law, and anybody willing to come forward to say they had seen Sonya around the time she had disappeared.
Officer Wayovana had met with Timary the night Sonya'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.
So on a warm August morning, Weyivana knocked on the door of Timmery and Sonja's house.
Timmery opened the door and Weyivana could see that her face was puffy and her eyes were bloodshot.
It was clear she had been crying. Timmery led Weyavana into the small front room of the house.
The place was messy like a teenager's bedroom might be.
There were clothes hanging on chairs and empty soda cans all over the coffee table.
Timmery sat down on the couch and Weyavana cleared off a chair and sat down across from her.
Timuri was glad that it was Weyavanna who had come to the house to talk to her.
Timuri knew that Weyavanna knew Sonja's sister, so Timuri believed Weyavanna would do everything he could to find out who had killed Sonja.
Wayavana started by just asking Timuri if she was okay, but she just shook her head and tried to fight off tears.
Then he asked her if Sonia had any enemies or somebody who might have been angry with her.
But Timuri said Sonia was one of the happiest, easygoing people she'd ever known, and everybody who had met her liked her right away.
But then Timuri 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.
Weyabana asked her what was going on, and Timuri 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.
But Timuri said the guy was really into Sonia, but Sonia was not really into him.
So Wei Ivana asked who this guy was, and Timuri would say it was a friend of theirs named Kunuk Angsuk.
Then Timuri said that Kunuk 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.
Officer Weyivana thanked her for the information.
Then he asked Timuri if she happened to know what kind of car Kunik drove, and she said he drove a blue truck.
Weyivana's eyes lit up. He couldn't believe he'd possibly found the person he was looking for so quickly.
He thanked Timuri again, and then he headed out of her house, got into his SUV, and drove down the street to the police station. 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.
It took a few days to get everything in order, but then Wayavana, 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.
Kunick's truck was indeed blue, and it had mismatched tires that fit with the tracks that Cathcart had found on the mining road near Sonja's body.
But that wasn't all. 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.
And so after this discovery, police felt like they had found their killer.
In late August, so a couple of weeks after Sonja had been found, Nome police had more than enough evidence to make Sonja's friend, Kunuk, their prime suspect.
So, Wei Ivana and another officer drove out to Kunuk's house.
When police had taken his truck, Kunik knew they would be back soon to talk to him.
So he did his best to stay calm as he let the investigators back into his house.
Kunik had short brown hair and he wore jeans and a yellow T-shirt and he had a silver earring in his left ear.
Kunak sat down in a chair in the front room of his house and the officers stayed standing.
Wayavana didn't waste any time. He asked Kunak when was the last time he'd seen Sonia.
And Kunak thought about it for a second and then said the last time he saw her was maybe two weeks before she died.
And Kunak 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 Weyavana asked why Kunuk had a bloody tarp in his truck and why was there 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 Sonya'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.
But the officer pressed Kunik again about the blood spatter on his tire.
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.
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.
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.
So Weyavana asked Kunuk to submit to a DNA test. and he told Kunuk if he was innocent like he said he was, a DNA test was the best way to prove that.
Kunuk continued to tap his foot on the floor, but then he looked at Weyivana and he nodded and said he would submit samples for the test.
Weyavana 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 Kunik's truck and on the tarp.
But Weyavana 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.
In late August, so almost three weeks after Sonja'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 Sonja's life and to mourn the life she never got to live.
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.
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.
But they knew that even if that happened, the village would never fully heal from what had been done to Sonia.
At around 2 a.m. on a day in early September, about a week after the vigil, Officer Weyivana sat in his SUV in a parking lot off the main street in Nome.
He cracked his window, took a long drag off a cigarette, and exhaled the smoke out into the early morning air.
Just like Sonia's friends and family, Weyivana hoped the case would be solved soon, and he had really believed that Sonia's friend Kunuk was the killer.
But in the weeks following Kunik's interview, parts of the investigation had kind of come to a halt.
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 Sonja's murder.
Wayovana still was not ready to move on from Kunuk as a suspect.
But while he waited for results from Kunuk'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.
And now the investigation team on this case had been reduced to just Wayovana and one other gnome officer.
And Wayovana was stuck working nights while the other investigator worked days.
So Wayavana 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.
Then he leaned over and grabbed a file folder from the passenger seat.
Inside the folder were all of the notes that he and other officers had compiled during interviews they'd conducted following Sonia's murder.
He flipped through the notes and tried to look at everything with fresh eyes, just in case he'd missed something.
And as he read over a page right in the middle of the files, he almost gasped out loud.
Weyavana 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.
But for some reason, this woman's statement had never been followed up on.
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.
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.
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.
Then the woman gave a detailed description of the vehicle Sonia had climbed into and it was not a blue truck.
Weyavana 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.
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 Sonya had been found.
And in this gravel pit, Officer Owens saw a vehicle that matched the description of the one that that woman had seen Sonya get into.
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, Wei Ivana and other members of the force arrived at the gravel pit and they saw that Owens was crouched down behind some bushes nearby.
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.
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.
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.
That day, the police would conduct a full search of this vehicle and that search would lead them right to Sonja's killer.
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 12th, 2003, the day Sonya Ivanov was murdered.
Just after 1am, the killer drove slowly down the street in the center of Nome.
Light rain fell on the windshield, and the mist gave the whole town kind of an eerie glow.
The killer heard music coming from the bar, and they watched as a few drunk people stumbled outside.
The killer laughed and just kept cruising down the street.
And in the bright lights from the gas station up ahead, the killer saw Sonja walking on the side of the road.
It was hard to miss the very beautiful five foot, 11 inch tall teenager.
The killer grinned and they felt their heart start to race a bit.
Then they drove right past Sonja and hit the brakes.
Then the killer rolled down the passenger window just as Sonja walked by and they called out to her.
Sonja stopped, walked over, and leaned in through the open window.
The killer smiled and asked if Sonja wanted a ride home.
Sonja 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.
The killer told her to hop inside, and so she did.
She opened the door, got into the passenger seat, and then once Sonja was inside, the killer rolled up her window, they locked the doors, and drove down the road.
But when they got to the point in the road where the killer should have turned to go to Sonja's house, they just kept on driving.
Sonja said, hey, you missed the turn, but the killer just looked at her and smiled and then hit the gas.
Sonja started to get scared and she asked the killer what they were doing, but the killer just told her to be quiet.
When they reached the outskirts of town, the killer turned off the main road onto an old dirt road.
Sonja desperately wanted to get out, but they were going so fast and she was just too scared to do anything.
Finally, the killer slowed down and pulled into some bushes on the side of the dirt road and parked.
Then the killer got out. Sonja 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.
Sonja screamed and at the same time the killer opened the door, they dragged her outside and then wrapped their arms around her from behind. sonya 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 but before sonya could actually run away to freedom the killer drew a 22 caliber pistol from their waistband and fired And that bullet struck Sonja square in the back of the head.
She fell to the ground, dead. Without wasting any time, the killer ran over and stripped off all of Sonja's clothes, except for one sock that they just overlooked.
Then the killer dragged Sonja's body into a nearby bush.
The killer went back to the road, grabbed Sonja's clothes and tossed them into the trunk.
Then the killer closed the trunk, took a deep breath, calmed themselves down and got back into the driver's seat.
Then they drove away from the murder scene inside of their Nome Police Department SUV.
Officer Matt Owens of the Nome Police Department killed Sonja.
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.
But the woman said she had not seen which one of the officers was driving the SUV at the time.
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 Sonya was murdered.
They had nothing to do with her murder. But the blue paint that criminalist Carrie 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.
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.
Then later, he went back and reported finding the dumped SUV in hopes that this would eliminate any suspicion towards him.
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 Sonya.
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 Sonya was now monitoring this vehicle and going to kill anybody who went near it.
But other known police officers and the Alaska State Troopers saw right through Owens' lies.
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.
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.
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.
It just didn't make sense. Also, criminalist Carrie Cathcart very early on had said that she believed whoever had killed Sonya had a deep understanding of how to sanitize a crime scene because there was no evidence left behind and her clothes had been removed.
And so Cathcart actually said, you know, the killer could be a cop.
And so ultimately, Officer Owens was arrested for Sonya's murder.
It would turn out that in the years Owens had lived in Nome, six local women had claimed he sexually assaulted them.
And two of those women said they had filed formal reports with the Nome police, but nothing had ever been done about it.
In Sonja's case, there was no evidence of assault or rape, but some officers believed Owens intended to sexually assault Sonja when he picked her up, but when she fought back, he killed her.
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.
Sonja'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.
And so in 2007, the Sonja Ivanoff Act was signed into law in Alaska.
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.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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