January 11, 2026 • 40 mins
After deputy Jon Aujay disappears, the sheriff’s department claims he was suicidal — pointing to marital troubles and erratic behavior in the weeks before he vanished. But the LASD’s official story doesn’t square with what Aujay’s loved ones and colleagues remember. Then, investigators start to hear rumors that the deputy didn’t take his own life, but was murdered for something he witnessed out in the desert.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
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Speaker 2 (00:18):
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(00:41):
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Speaker 1 (00:43):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's an all out manhunt for John Aujay, the thirty
eight year old when hiking Thursday in a rugged section
of the Angelus National Forest known as Devil Punch Bowls.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Park, he says, you know, there's a bunch of caves
and stuff out here.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I could pretty much disappear and nobody would ever find you.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I participated in that search until my feet were bloody.
But day six they said, well, shut it down. Why
are you shutting it down? Well, they say that they
decided he committed suicide.
Speaker 7 (01:26):
I kept contacting homicide and saying something's wrong.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I'm telling you there's a problem.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
There's something rotten in the woodpile, and it stinks and
I can smell it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Deputy John Auja disappeared while jogging in the Devil's punch
Bowl on June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
A couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Later, something tragic would also happen to his department issued canine, Bosco,
and there are more than a few parallels between what
happened with the two. Bosco was a Belgian Malinwah, which
looks like a leaner version of a German shepherd. Auj
got him as a puppy. He trained him to do
(02:10):
police work and brought the dog home to live with him,
his wife Deb and their daughter Chloe. I've had my
dogs Stringer Bell for over a decade.
Speaker 8 (02:21):
His Dringer Bell, Dringer Bear.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You gonna run around. He's a protector and eighty five
pounds of emotional support. He's gonna run on the grass.
Speaker 9 (02:32):
You're gonna eat some grass.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
My home life revolves around my dog, just as the
Aujays did around Bosco. We can tell because the dog's
front and center and dozens of family photos. Those pictures
now belong to Aujay's captain, Mike Bauer, and he shares
them with us.
Speaker 8 (02:51):
Oh my gosh, we get this picture of Chloe and
the dog.
Speaker 10 (02:55):
Yeah, you can tell that they were raised together.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
She's like squeezing the dogs net, like their heads are
pushed together, Like you lived like your best Bude.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Chloe appears to be three or four in the foot,
though her arms are barely able to reach around Bosco's neck,
so she leans in to make it happen, smiling from
ear to ear. Bosco looks annoyed like an older sibling would,
which is essentially what he was. And there was another
important Bosco memento. Bower came across it while rifling through
(03:30):
Aujay's patrol vehicle just days after he was reported missing.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
I found his tape recorder in the visor with tape
in a little tape recorder.
Speaker 11 (03:40):
Like I have.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Bower points to a micro cassette player, something he uses
for audio interviews and personal memos.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
And so I brought it in the office. I played it.
It's charming as hell.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The recording was a snapshot of John and Bosco's relationship.
Bower doesn't have it anymore, but he recaps it for us,
and it's easy for me to imagine.
Speaker 7 (04:06):
He was playing FECh somewhere in like a high score
field or somewhere out there in anlet valley.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
He's throwing the ball.
Speaker 7 (04:13):
To Bosco and he's going, hey, Bosco, and Bosco's barking,
and they're doing a training exercise.
Speaker 9 (04:18):
Good job, you try.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The connection canine cops have to their dogs is something
special because they're together all the time in the trenches,
working during the day and unwinding together at night.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
When you talk about John's relationship with his dog, you
have to understand he's a one man unit and that's
his partner, and it's a bond, and it's a big
deal because that dog saves that officer's life. The officers
in charge of the dog like a child.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Canine officers become so bonded to their dogs that when
one of these animals passes away, the Sheriff's department gives
it a funeral like it would a uniformed officer. An
American flag is draped over the dog's casket, a military
band play taps, mourners give eulogies, and riflemen send the
(05:14):
dog off with a twenty one gun salute. After Auja vanished,
Bauer hears that someone from the department retrieved Bosco from
the Auja home. Bower's confused because he was the person
overseeing the canine unit, so if someone was to give
the order to bring in Bosco, it should have been him.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
And I started searching for the dog. Where's the dog?
Speaker 7 (05:41):
I was told that dog died at the kennel during
a ved exam, and most likely the dog had some
sort of heart problem.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
The LA Sheriff's Department tells Bauer and the press that
Bosco was taken to a police kennel where he died
of natural causes, that the dog stopped eating after Auja disappeared, and.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
The dog may have died of a broken heart because
its master was gone.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
That's a kind of sappy crap, I was told at
the time.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Years later, Bauer hears a different account from a friend
of all Jay's.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
She said, it's a shame that dog had to be destroyed.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
I said, wait a minute, Bosco died in a vet
exam from.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Some sort of heart attack from missing his master.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So Bauer makes some phone calls and eventually reaches a
deputy who were not going to name, and this deputy
claims that he and a colleague killed Bosco. Bower met
him at a diner and recorded their conversation.
Speaker 11 (06:42):
Go he's gonna bite, always keep going because I got to.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Kill him before he does.
Speaker 7 (06:46):
He says, I shot that dog with my twenty five
I said in its kennel.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
He says, yeah, I said, you killed the dog. He says, yeah,
pull it, throwing that hubster twice cents.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The deputy says it cost them twenty cents the price
of a bullet to take out Bosco. He says they
did it becase as the dog was dangerous without John
Auja there to control it. Bosco should have been reassigned
to another deputy, or if the dog was a liability,
it should have been properly euthanized.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
You would expect a police organization that had ceremonies to
honor their dogs to give a shit about that issue.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Instead of getting a police burial, Bosco was tossed in
a dumpster behind the kennel where he was shot. Bowers
pissed and he confronts the higher ups at the LASD.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
I see you guys, what happened to Bosco?
Speaker 7 (07:45):
Mike, I don't know, vote, but you will just stop this.
We all agreed that it was a suicide and you
should just let it go.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
No, I'm not gonna let it go.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
The department says, it makes no difference what happened to Moscow.
Baj died by suicide, so case closed. But if the
LASD would lie about Bosco, what else might they be
lying about. I'm Haley Fowx.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I'm Betty Shephard and this is Valley of Shadows, Episode two,
An Unreasonable Act the Devil's Punch Bowl on June eleventh,
(08:37):
nineteen ninety eight. It's a scene we're going to keep
returning to because the story of what happened to John
AJ is like the sedimentary rock formations in the park.
It builds up over time and change of shape as
new layers are added. One of those layers comes from
(08:57):
the last known person to talk to AHJ before his disappearance.
Schoolteacher Dave Evanson, took his fifth grade class on a
field trip to the Devil's Punch Bowl. We stop.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Jabs the picnic tables.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Dave Evanson has Parkinson's disease, which causes him to slur
his speech, so his wife Don is helping him communicate
with us. At this point, she knows the story pretty
well because her husband has told it many times over
the years, and he insists on telling it to us.
Evanson's class was exiting the trail to go eat lunch
when they ran into Aujenny.
Speaker 12 (09:37):
Rail and he was just starting up the trail, and
then the kids saw him and started firing questions because
they recognized him from Family Night.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Every year, John Auj volunteered at Family Night, a community
event held at a local elementary school where Dave and
Don Evanson both had worked.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
The roster of.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Entertainers included Auja and Bosco.
Speaker 12 (10:01):
And Aja became one of the stars of the show
because he would bring Bosco and do demonstrations on what
the dog could do.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
The event took place two days before the class went
to the punch bowl, so when the students see Auj
in the park, they crowd around him like he's a
celebrity or really the owner of a celebrity. Do you
remember any of the questions that they asked him?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Where's Boscow?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Where's Bosco? The kids ask? Auj says he had to
leave the dog at home because he's here to train
for an ultra marathon. Auj took his time with the
students and even turned the conversation into a teachable moment,
telling them about the importance of wilderness safety. To me,
that does not sound like someone who's going out to
(10:51):
the woods to take his own life. But that's what
the Sheriff's Department says auj did after he finished talking
to these fifth graders. Evanson will never be convinced of that.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
He's happy.
Speaker 13 (11:07):
He was for.
Speaker 12 (11:09):
Life, happy, having fun talking to the kids.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So where is the Sheriff's Department drawing their suicide conclusion from.
Is there some other evidence we don't know about? Well,
if there is, the LASD sure isn't sharing it with us.
They denied our public records request, saying the requested records
are part of an ongoing and active criminal investigation and
(11:37):
are therefore exempt from disclosure an ongoing and active criminal investigation.
This response does not make a lot of sense to me,
because Aujay disappeared about thirty years ago. The state of
California issued a death certificate for him all the way
back in two thousand and three. Meanwhile, the department has
(11:58):
stuck by its suicide ruling, and they've openly and actively
discouraged retired Captain Mike Bauer's investigation. Lucky for us, Bower
has isn't let up. He spent decades looking into the
aj case. His office is filled with handwritten notes and
discs of recorded interviews, and he's collected internal documents from
(12:20):
the Sheriff's department which he's agreed to share with us.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Including confidential suicide report I somehow got hold.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Of Bauer Hands is a case file that's hundreds of
pages long. It includes reports that spanned years of investigation
in the Auja's disappearance, and it tells a story.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
This was assigned to Homicide Bureau Missing Persons Unit. They
were the ones who had to make the decision that
this was a suicide.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
The missing person's investigation began with the person who reported
John auj missing, his wife, Debbie.
Speaker 7 (12:59):
Then they began to get the feeling, well, this guy's
got some sort of relationship problems, maybe we better look
at it.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Debbie tells detectives that she and her husband got into
an argument before he took off for the punch bowl,
and that she can't find his off duty gun.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
They went out to her house and she said there's
an empty holster on the workbench, but the two inches missing.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The department begins to speculate that Auj may have taken
the gun with him into the Devil's punch bowl to
use it on himself.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
They then get psychological services involved in and find out
about the marriage counseling.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
The day before.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The day before Auj disappeared, he and Debbie had gone
to couples counseling with an LASD psychologist. By the end
of the session, the therapist concluded the Auj's were incompatible
and should separate, and the Sheriff's Department says that's what
pushed Auj over the edge, the final realization that he
and Debbie were done.
Speaker 14 (14:03):
When we ended, she said, if you have decided to
go through with the divorce, to come back to her
and she would give us ideas on parenting skills for
Chloe's sake.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is an interview Bauer recorded with Debbie in twenty fifteen.
He questions her at length about her marriage to John
because it's the crux of the department's suicide narrative. In
a nutshell, Debbie was a stay at home mom while
John worked a lot. She liked to party. His version
of fun was extreme running. She was full figured with
(14:41):
the bleach bond perm He was all muscle, topped off
with the military crew cut. The report says that after
twelve years of marriage, the couple drifted apart. They fought
a lot, and as their fights intensified, John withdrew.
Speaker 13 (14:57):
Okay, let me get to some characterizations that they wrote
in the report. He was not verbally communicating with you,
and he was getting more distant from that makes sense?
Speaker 11 (15:07):
Yes, was he depressed?
Speaker 14 (15:10):
Well, he had told the psychologist that he had been unhappy.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
For two years with the marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
With the marriage Bower's fact checking the sheriff's report because
it attributes a lot of its claims to Debbie's testimony,
supposed characterizations of her husband and their life together.
Speaker 13 (15:32):
Okay, when you talked to John afterwards on the drive home,
what was the conversation between the two of you about
this experience with marriage counseling? What was John's attitude?
Speaker 9 (15:44):
I Since he was angry, do you.
Speaker 13 (15:47):
Think he was hopeful that this session was going to
help save the marriage?
Speaker 9 (15:52):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
No, no, And already things aren't adding up. If Aujy
had been unhappy with the marriage for two years and
thought it was beyond repair, why would he suddenly snap? Well,
the report quotes Debbie as saying that Auj was psychotic.
Speaker 13 (16:14):
That's kind of describing a person who's mentally ill.
Speaker 14 (16:20):
I don't know if I said he was psychotic.
Speaker 9 (16:25):
I do remember saying that his eyes did not look right.
I do remember saying that to them, what respect, just
a real strong look in his eyes. Maybe his eyes
looked intense.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There's a world of difference between intense looking eyes and psychosis.
But investigators say there were other indications that Auj was suicidal.
He was giving away his prized possessions, including a family heirloom,
a gold necklace, and then right before he left for
the punch bowl, Auj told Debbie to have a nice life.
(17:05):
To detectives, that was Auj saying his final goodbyes. In conclusion,
the LASD report says the likelihood of suicide is overwhelming
and by far surpasses any of the other possibilities. I
can see why the department considered the possibility of suicide,
because it's clear that Auj was going through a tough time.
(17:28):
But to me, it's a big stretch to say the
likelihood of suicide is overwhelming, especially as I keep reading
the report and find out that Auj had big plans
for his future and that he wanted to spend it
with his girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Auj had been seeing a forty five year old woman
named Vicki d Vita. She was a competitive ultra marathon
runner just like him, and she was the one Auj
gave the heirloom necklace to. Their relationship was a bit
of an open secret, especially when she showed up with
the punch bowl searching for him day after day. We
(18:15):
can't ask Davida what she thinks happened to Auj because
she died of cancer in twenty ten, but her statement
to investigators reveals a rosier picture of the deputy. According
to Davida, she and Aj met at a race in
nineteen ninety five. She was the more experienced runner and
helped Aj train for his ultra marathons. They bonded over
(18:37):
their shared passion and slowly they fell in love, but
according to Davida, the relationship wasn't sexual because Aj wanted
to wait until after he and his wife had officially separated.
In letters to Davida, Aj called her his eternal love
and shared poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and recently,
(18:57):
Auja had asked her to take an STD test so
they could finally consummate their relationship. So Aja was making moves,
and Davida says he was relieved that he and Debbie
were splitting up because he was ready to start the
next chapter of his life. Debbie seems to confirm all this,
explaining that towards the end of their marriage, she and
Aj slept in different rooms and that he'd begun to
(19:20):
take photos and art off the walls of his bedroom.
Speaker 13 (19:24):
He was telling Vicki that he was setting a certain
time frame for him to make a decision what he
was going to do.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
Did you sense a move out was coming? Yes, it
appeared that he was going to move out.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Given this new information, Auj sounds less like someone saying
his final goodbyes and more like someone saying goodbye to
a relationship that had already run its course, and it
sheds new light on what Auja may have meant the
morning of June eleventh when he told his wife Debbie
to have a nice life.
Speaker 13 (20:03):
What was your thought at the time when he said it?
Did you think suicide at the time?
Speaker 9 (20:08):
No, I get it.
Speaker 13 (20:10):
Eye, it was not a threat of suicide. Had he
ever made a threat of suicide in the past. He
was going to kill himself because of some prole you
two were having. No, no, never expressed it. No.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Debbie paints a picture of Auj's final days that looks
very different from the Sheriff's departments in their report. It
seems they've cherry picked details to support their suicide thesis
and ignore or downplay those that contradict it. So we
keep digging through the LSD reports. Bauer gives us to
figure out how the department is connecting in stocks, and
(20:47):
we find a kind of personality profile they did on Auj.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
I feel like this has summed up so much of
what we've read and heard about him into a punch list.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Can I just read the bullet points?
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Yeah, okay, organized, responsible, punctual, regimented, committed, structured discipline.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
There's a definite theme.
Speaker 8 (21:09):
Did not believe in divorce or extra marital affairs, lived
by and often said death before dishonor occasionally read Bible.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I like that last night.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
It sounds like a real, real fun day. Auj's code
of ethics is a big part of why the Sheriff's
Department says he couldn't live with himself because he thought
divorce and extramarital affairs were dishonorable. The LSD seems to
be saying that Auj's girlfriend wasn't a reason to keep
on living. It was the reason he took his life,
(21:43):
because he was consumed with guilt over his part in
ruining his marriage. We try to follow this logic.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
His motto was death before dishonor, which alone is extreme.
But it's interesting to me that here he is in
this position where he knows he can't stay with his wife,
but emotionally he's not ready or willing to accept divorce,
(22:13):
and then the next day he disappears.
Speaker 10 (22:17):
Yeah, but if he's someone that sees giving up on
a marriage as failure as dishonorable, then he's sure shit
thinks that killing himself and giving up on life is dishonorable.
I'm just saying it cuts both ways.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Our main takeaway from this personality profile and the rest
of the Auja report is that the suicide theory isn't
based on hard facts. It's based on subjective accounts of
John Auj's behavior. Just like those rock faces in the
Devil's punch Bowl. It's a matter of interpretation.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
You'd have to say, how was he going to be dishonored.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We check in with Dave Rathban as Auji's former partner.
He was one of the few people who had insight
into his personal life.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Divorce. That's dishonorable.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Even eighty year old cop thinks that's ridiculously puritanical.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
I mean, might have been in eighteen ninety three, but
that was one hundred years before this, so that's beyond
a stretch. It's like science fiction or something.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I think Rathman got a divorce, which he says is
pretty common for law enforcement officers.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
My son even makes this joy. He's a lieutenant on
the sheriff department.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
And he said, yeah, my future ex wife and I
are going to go here and do this and do that.
I said, oh, for crying out loud, don't say that.
He said, yeah, the deputies will say that. They think
it's funny. And I said, I don't know if I
think it's funny. Having gone through a divorce.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Rathman doesn't buy the whole death before dishonor explanation, and
he feels pretty certain that auj would never take his
own life on account of his daughter, Chloe.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
If you got on the subject to Chloe, he glowed. Yeah,
he glowed and he went softly, wam that fast.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
He loved her to death. He would talk about her
all the time.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
Chloe, is Chloe that he's going to disappear in the
mountains and kill himself and leave her alone? Does that
fit with death before dishonor not very well? It's pretty
dishonorable to just abandon your five year old daughter, Debbie.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Auja has her own doubts about the suicide theory.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
It just causes confusion in me, that's all, because I
don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
There are more than a few details about Aujay's final
days that just don't add up for her, Like what
he did the morning of his disappearance.
Speaker 11 (24:53):
You said he went to the gas station.
Speaker 14 (24:56):
Yes, because when the bill came from the Shell credit card.
Speaker 13 (25:00):
And.
Speaker 14 (25:02):
I had noticed that he had gassed up on June
eleventh before going.
Speaker 11 (25:08):
To the ball.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
My gas tank is always hovering around empty. So the
fact that Auj took the time to stop at a
gas station on his way to the punch Bowl strongly
implies he hadn't planned on this being his last drive.
And according to the missing person's report, Auj put a
sunshield on his dashboard to prevent his truck from overheating.
(25:32):
It's another indication that Auja was planning to return from
his run and drive away from the punch Bowl.
Speaker 14 (25:41):
I would hope the Sheriff's department would it investigate this.
Speaker 13 (25:46):
I just.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Still want John to be found or his remains.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There's another detail that throws a big wrench in the
suicide theory. Remember that missing gun.
Speaker 14 (26:04):
His holster was left on the workbench in the garage,
and I've never found that small smith wesson.
Speaker 9 (26:13):
They told me when he was missing, they didn't find
any gun. They told me there was no gun in
the truck.
Speaker 14 (26:23):
Then I started hearing some rumors that there was a
gun in the truck.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
This missing gun is one of the lynchpins of the
lasd's narrative. They say Aujay didn't usually take a gun
with him while jogging, therefore he must have brought the
firearm into the punch Bowl with suicidal intent. But it
turns out the gun was not missing, not at first anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Okay, so you were at punch Bowl.
Speaker 13 (27:09):
Tell me what you did when you got there and
what you saw, and any other details that you think
are important.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Bower has been running down leads in the AJ case
for years. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but
at the top of the list is the one about
Auj's phantom gun.
Speaker 11 (27:31):
I see the truck, I run the plate. It is
his truck.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Bauer is interviewing Randy Hebberly. Hebberly was an LASD deputy
who worked patrol in the Anilo Valley, and he was
one of the first officers to show up at the
punch bowl after Auj was reported missing.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Look in the truck real quick with my flashlight. I
checked the door. It was locked. I then looked closely
in the truck. There's a little compartment and I see
the snub nose stainless steel five shot.
Speaker 11 (28:10):
That gun was in the truck.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Deputy Hebberly calls his sergeant and tells him he's located
Auj's vehicle.
Speaker 13 (28:19):
Do you remember telling the station in that cell phone
call that you saw a gun.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
In the truck. Yes, I told him his gun is
in the truck.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
According to Hibberly, Auj left his gun in the vehicle,
which means it could not have been used by him
to end his life. We ask around and find out
Deputy Hebberly isn't the only one who remembers the gun.
Sergeant Vince Burton confirms Heberly's account. He was one of
the sergeants overseeing the auj search.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
Deputy specifically said that his off duty gun was in the.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Car, and it wasn't just one deputy.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
There's a couple defies that swear there was a gun there,
and yet my lieutenant and I had a later time
looked at all the records and everything. There's no indication
that that gun was ever booked into evidence.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
It's not shown.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
This seems like a major oversight in the investigation, and
even more troubling, Burton says, investigators didn't process the truck
for any evidence.
Speaker 15 (29:23):
Since it's not a murder, they're not going to process it.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
They're not going to impound it.
Speaker 15 (29:27):
If missing person says we'd like the car held because
we think there's something suspicious, that's up to the detectives
to make that call.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The missing person's detectives don't flag the truck for inspection,
and so Audie's gun disappears, along with who knows what else.
Do you think that the gun may have gone missing
between when those first officers arrived and before homicide got there.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
That's very possible.
Speaker 15 (29:55):
Homicide interviewed me later, but we never talked about the gun,
and the gun never came up.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
That's weird, right, Homicide detectives make the case for suicide
based in part on a missing gun, and yet they
don't seem to be that interested in finding the gun.
We haven't found any records that show detectives even asked
responding officers about it. There appears to be a lot
of the missteps in this investigation, starting from the beginning
(30:25):
when a Jay's truck wasn't combed for evidence. Then there's
the department's decision to call off the search after less
than a week, and the detective's single minded focus on
the suicide theory, not to mention the way they punched
up key witness statements from people like Debbi Aja. After
six months of reporting this story, we're feeling the weight
(30:47):
and confusion of the case. We know there's one guy
who gets it. We hope Mike Bauer can give us
some perspective.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Bower lives on a remote ranch in Idaho.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
I've got to get my egg picker.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
His lakeside property includes a home of which he uses
as a base camp for his work on the Aujay case,
and wide open land for his dogs, horses and ducks.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Oh the ducks, come on, girls, let's go.
Speaker 13 (31:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
They have heated coops and kiddie pools to splashing. And
the duck's food is handmade by Bower. Every day. He
combines carrots, apples, corn, grapes, a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
And sour dough bread.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
And the staler the better because I put it through
the blender and chop it up.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
I don't feed these animals anything I wouldn't eat.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The ducks seem to be the darlings of Bower's farm,
but all sorts of animals flock to him. Deer linger
in the clearings Bower can tell him apart by their
facial features. Wild turkeys congregate outside Bower's home at the
same time each morning, waiting for their breakfast, and his
stable of horses includes a one eyed fella named Quincy.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Come on, girls, watching.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Bauer interact with these animals, it's enlightening. It helps me
understand why he reacted so strongly to Oscar's death and
why he's so invested in the Aujay case. Because the
things he cares about he cares about deeply. About ten
(32:37):
years ago, Bower had scheduled a meeting with Larry Lincoln,
captain of the Homicide Bureau at the time of Aujay's disappearance.
Bower wanted to go over the problems with the missing
person's investigation, how the detective said there were no signs
of foul play, but didn't seem to look very hard
to find them.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Every supervisor dreads coming into work and finding a horrible
situations throwing on there in their lap, and they have
to decide, am I going to cover it up?
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Or am I gonna face it head on and then
stop it.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
About a week before the two were scheduled to meet,
Lincoln sent Bauer a text saying he had to cancel.
Bauer recorded a voice memo of the message right after
he got it to add to his AUJ archive.
Speaker 13 (33:24):
I'm gonna tape Larry Lincoln's text this morning at just
before six am. I worked with John, was involved in
the search for him, and was in charge of the
investigation into his disappearance. With all that, I can say
with certainty that John, and only John was responsible for
his death. After eight years at homicide suicides caused me
(33:50):
more grief than any murder. The bottom line, one cannot
find reason in an unreasonable act. End of text.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Bower doesn't just think the suicide narrative is false. He
thinks it's reckless. It promotes bad police work, it tarnishes
Aujay's reputation, and causes immense pain to his loved ones.
Processing his disappearance is one thing. But thinking Aujae killed
himself and did it in a way that they'd never
(34:25):
know how or why, that's a whole new level of anguish.
And no one felt that more than his daughter, Chloe.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
I said, I'm telling you, Chloe, don't believe it.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
Do not believe it. Your father did not abandon you.
He was taken from you.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Over the years, Bower developed a friendship with Chloe and Debbie,
whose lives completely unraveled after Aujay's disappearance. Debbie struggled financially,
toggling between part time jobs and collecting unemployment. She sold
her house and moved in with her parents. She eventually
ended up living in a car in a parking lot
(35:07):
not far from the house she wanted shared it with John.
And that's why Bauer now has so many of Ajay's
things Because Debbie just didn't have a place to store them.
And then there's Chloe. She was just five when she
lost her dad. Then she lost her dog, and then
her mom. As Debbie drifted into homelessness, Chloe was shuffled
(35:31):
around among relatives but never found a stable home base.
She dropped out of high school and cycled through a
series of low wage jobs while living with boyfriends or friends.
Then in August of twenty twenty, Bouer got a call
from Debbie.
Speaker 16 (35:49):
And she said, Mike, we've lost our girl. That's lost
your said, We've lost our girl.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
At the age of twenty six, Chloe Aujay took her
home life. Some might call that an unreasonable act, but
I feel for her. Tragedy upended her childhood. She lost
her sense of belonging and security after her dad disappeared
and the shadow of his alleged suicide followed her from
(36:28):
place to place.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
I told her that her father didn't abandon her. She
wanted to believe that.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And this is why the auj case has become all
consuming for Bauer because the La County Sheriff's Department, the
institution he swore allegiance to for thirty three years, has
told a lie so big and so many times that
the story has become its own type of bullet, has
(36:58):
wormed its way through time, destroying lives and racking up
a number of casualties, and Bower's been forced to simply
watch the tragedy unfold.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
If John Auj didn't die by suicide, what happened to him?
Throughout Bauer's investigation, He's heard a lot of stories about Auj,
but there's one that just keeps coming up from multiple witnesses.
That John Auj didn't take his own life, someone else did.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
Early on, I let the suicide theory sit at fifty
to fifty. As I've learned more and more, I'm at
about ninety ninety five murder, five to ten percent suicide.
Speaker 17 (37:53):
He said, Hey, Larry, I'm hearing shit on the street
man and Auj didn't comit suicide. He was murdered. He goes,
I'm hearing for more than one person. Well, Sena maybe
looked into a little more.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
They told our search teams on day one, John may
have stumbled into a meth lab by accident.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
And what happened to that idea?
Speaker 9 (38:17):
This whole meth lab has just been a rumor I've
heard for years, and I do wonder what's behind that.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
We wonder what's behind that too, and why the Sheriff's
department didn't do more to investigate these tips. But it
turns out there was a homicide detective who took it
upon himself to find out what really.
Speaker 17 (38:39):
Happened all the time of the investigator. And I tell
people this, even younger guys. This cop stuff is not
like TV. You go with what makes common sense. Everything
looks like this, well usually if it looks like that,
that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
That's next time on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
If you have any information or tips related to the
disappearance of John Aujay, please call two one three two six'
two nine eight eight nine or Email shadows at pushkin DOT.
Fm valley Of shadows is, reported written and produced BY
Us Betsy shepherd And Haley. Fox our editor Is Diane.
(39:38):
Hodson our executive producers Are Jacob smith And Alexandra. Garaton
original music By Jake, Gorsky Ray, Lynch Mike, jersich And Hayden.
Gardner sound design By Jake, gorsky fact checking By Anaica.
Robbins additional production support By Sonya gerwit and our show
(40:00):
art was designed By Sean carney And Betsy. Shepherd special
thanks To Nick white for the show art. Photo additional
thanks To Stringer. Bell value Of shadows is a production
Of Pushkin. Industries to find More pushkin, podcasts listen on
The iHeartRadio, App Apple, podcasts or wherever you listen to.
(40:21):
Podcasts some type two. Fun We're betsy And. Hayley see
you next.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Week
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelfth. You'll also
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(00:41):
your support.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's an all out manhunt for John Aujay, the thirty
eight year old when hiking Thursday in a rugged section
of the Angelus National Forest known as Devil Punch Bowls.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Park, he says, you know, there's a bunch of caves
and stuff out here.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I could pretty much disappear and nobody would ever find you.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I participated in that search until my feet were bloody.
But day six they said, well, shut it down. Why
are you shutting it down? Well, they say that they
decided he committed suicide.
Speaker 7 (01:26):
I kept contacting homicide and saying something's wrong.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I'm telling you there's a problem.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
There's something rotten in the woodpile, and it stinks and
I can smell it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Deputy John Auja disappeared while jogging in the Devil's punch
Bowl on June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
A couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Later, something tragic would also happen to his department issued canine, Bosco,
and there are more than a few parallels between what
happened with the two. Bosco was a Belgian Malinwah, which
looks like a leaner version of a German shepherd. Auj
got him as a puppy. He trained him to do
(02:10):
police work and brought the dog home to live with him,
his wife Deb and their daughter Chloe. I've had my
dogs Stringer Bell for over a decade.
Speaker 8 (02:21):
His Dringer Bell, Dringer Bear.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You gonna run around. He's a protector and eighty five
pounds of emotional support. He's gonna run on the grass.
Speaker 9 (02:32):
You're gonna eat some grass.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
My home life revolves around my dog, just as the
Aujays did around Bosco. We can tell because the dog's
front and center and dozens of family photos. Those pictures
now belong to Aujay's captain, Mike Bauer, and he shares
them with us.
Speaker 8 (02:51):
Oh my gosh, we get this picture of Chloe and
the dog.
Speaker 10 (02:55):
Yeah, you can tell that they were raised together.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
She's like squeezing the dogs net, like their heads are
pushed together, Like you lived like your best Bude.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Chloe appears to be three or four in the foot,
though her arms are barely able to reach around Bosco's neck,
so she leans in to make it happen, smiling from
ear to ear. Bosco looks annoyed like an older sibling would,
which is essentially what he was. And there was another
important Bosco memento. Bower came across it while rifling through
(03:30):
Aujay's patrol vehicle just days after he was reported missing.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
I found his tape recorder in the visor with tape
in a little tape recorder.
Speaker 11 (03:40):
Like I have.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Bower points to a micro cassette player, something he uses
for audio interviews and personal memos.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
And so I brought it in the office. I played it.
It's charming as hell.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The recording was a snapshot of John and Bosco's relationship.
Bower doesn't have it anymore, but he recaps it for us,
and it's easy for me to imagine.
Speaker 7 (04:06):
He was playing FECh somewhere in like a high score
field or somewhere out there in anlet valley.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
He's throwing the ball.
Speaker 7 (04:13):
To Bosco and he's going, hey, Bosco, and Bosco's barking,
and they're doing a training exercise.
Speaker 9 (04:18):
Good job, you try.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The connection canine cops have to their dogs is something
special because they're together all the time in the trenches,
working during the day and unwinding together at night.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
When you talk about John's relationship with his dog, you
have to understand he's a one man unit and that's
his partner, and it's a bond, and it's a big
deal because that dog saves that officer's life. The officers
in charge of the dog like a child.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Canine officers become so bonded to their dogs that when
one of these animals passes away, the Sheriff's department gives
it a funeral like it would a uniformed officer. An
American flag is draped over the dog's casket, a military
band play taps, mourners give eulogies, and riflemen send the
(05:14):
dog off with a twenty one gun salute. After Auja vanished,
Bauer hears that someone from the department retrieved Bosco from
the Auja home. Bower's confused because he was the person
overseeing the canine unit, so if someone was to give
the order to bring in Bosco, it should have been him.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
And I started searching for the dog. Where's the dog?
Speaker 7 (05:41):
I was told that dog died at the kennel during
a ved exam, and most likely the dog had some
sort of heart problem.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
The LA Sheriff's Department tells Bauer and the press that
Bosco was taken to a police kennel where he died
of natural causes, that the dog stopped eating after Auja disappeared, and.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
The dog may have died of a broken heart because
its master was gone.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
That's a kind of sappy crap, I was told at
the time.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Years later, Bauer hears a different account from a friend
of all Jay's.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
She said, it's a shame that dog had to be destroyed.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
I said, wait a minute, Bosco died in a vet
exam from.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Some sort of heart attack from missing his master.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So Bauer makes some phone calls and eventually reaches a
deputy who were not going to name, and this deputy
claims that he and a colleague killed Bosco. Bower met
him at a diner and recorded their conversation.
Speaker 11 (06:42):
Go he's gonna bite, always keep going because I got to.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Kill him before he does.
Speaker 7 (06:46):
He says, I shot that dog with my twenty five
I said in its kennel.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
He says, yeah, I said, you killed the dog. He says, yeah,
pull it, throwing that hubster twice cents.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The deputy says it cost them twenty cents the price
of a bullet to take out Bosco. He says they
did it becase as the dog was dangerous without John
Auja there to control it. Bosco should have been reassigned
to another deputy, or if the dog was a liability,
it should have been properly euthanized.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
You would expect a police organization that had ceremonies to
honor their dogs to give a shit about that issue.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Instead of getting a police burial, Bosco was tossed in
a dumpster behind the kennel where he was shot. Bowers
pissed and he confronts the higher ups at the LASD.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
I see you guys, what happened to Bosco?
Speaker 7 (07:45):
Mike, I don't know, vote, but you will just stop this.
We all agreed that it was a suicide and you
should just let it go.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
No, I'm not gonna let it go.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
The department says, it makes no difference what happened to Moscow.
Baj died by suicide, so case closed. But if the
LASD would lie about Bosco, what else might they be
lying about. I'm Haley Fowx.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I'm Betty Shephard and this is Valley of Shadows, Episode two,
An Unreasonable Act the Devil's Punch Bowl on June eleventh,
(08:37):
nineteen ninety eight. It's a scene we're going to keep
returning to because the story of what happened to John
AJ is like the sedimentary rock formations in the park.
It builds up over time and change of shape as
new layers are added. One of those layers comes from
(08:57):
the last known person to talk to AHJ before his disappearance.
Schoolteacher Dave Evanson, took his fifth grade class on a
field trip to the Devil's Punch Bowl. We stop.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Jabs the picnic tables.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Dave Evanson has Parkinson's disease, which causes him to slur
his speech, so his wife Don is helping him communicate
with us. At this point, she knows the story pretty
well because her husband has told it many times over
the years, and he insists on telling it to us.
Evanson's class was exiting the trail to go eat lunch
when they ran into Aujenny.
Speaker 12 (09:37):
Rail and he was just starting up the trail, and
then the kids saw him and started firing questions because
they recognized him from Family Night.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Every year, John Auj volunteered at Family Night, a community
event held at a local elementary school where Dave and
Don Evanson both had worked.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
The roster of.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Entertainers included Auja and Bosco.
Speaker 12 (10:01):
And Aja became one of the stars of the show
because he would bring Bosco and do demonstrations on what
the dog could do.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
The event took place two days before the class went
to the punch bowl, so when the students see Auj
in the park, they crowd around him like he's a
celebrity or really the owner of a celebrity. Do you
remember any of the questions that they asked him?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Where's Boscow?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Where's Bosco? The kids ask? Auj says he had to
leave the dog at home because he's here to train
for an ultra marathon. Auj took his time with the
students and even turned the conversation into a teachable moment,
telling them about the importance of wilderness safety. To me,
that does not sound like someone who's going out to
(10:51):
the woods to take his own life. But that's what
the Sheriff's Department says auj did after he finished talking
to these fifth graders. Evanson will never be convinced of that.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
He's happy.
Speaker 13 (11:07):
He was for.
Speaker 12 (11:09):
Life, happy, having fun talking to the kids.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So where is the Sheriff's Department drawing their suicide conclusion from.
Is there some other evidence we don't know about? Well,
if there is, the LASD sure isn't sharing it with us.
They denied our public records request, saying the requested records
are part of an ongoing and active criminal investigation and
(11:37):
are therefore exempt from disclosure an ongoing and active criminal investigation.
This response does not make a lot of sense to me,
because Aujay disappeared about thirty years ago. The state of
California issued a death certificate for him all the way
back in two thousand and three. Meanwhile, the department has
(11:58):
stuck by its suicide ruling, and they've openly and actively
discouraged retired Captain Mike Bauer's investigation. Lucky for us, Bower
has isn't let up. He spent decades looking into the
aj case. His office is filled with handwritten notes and
discs of recorded interviews, and he's collected internal documents from
(12:20):
the Sheriff's department which he's agreed to share with us.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Including confidential suicide report I somehow got hold.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Of Bauer Hands is a case file that's hundreds of
pages long. It includes reports that spanned years of investigation
in the Auja's disappearance, and it tells a story.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
This was assigned to Homicide Bureau Missing Persons Unit. They
were the ones who had to make the decision that
this was a suicide.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
The missing person's investigation began with the person who reported
John auj missing, his wife, Debbie.
Speaker 7 (12:59):
Then they began to get the feeling, well, this guy's
got some sort of relationship problems, maybe we better look
at it.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Debbie tells detectives that she and her husband got into
an argument before he took off for the punch bowl,
and that she can't find his off duty gun.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
They went out to her house and she said there's
an empty holster on the workbench, but the two inches missing.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The department begins to speculate that Auj may have taken
the gun with him into the Devil's punch bowl to
use it on himself.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
They then get psychological services involved in and find out
about the marriage counseling.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
The day before.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The day before Auj disappeared, he and Debbie had gone
to couples counseling with an LASD psychologist. By the end
of the session, the therapist concluded the Auj's were incompatible
and should separate, and the Sheriff's Department says that's what
pushed Auj over the edge, the final realization that he
and Debbie were done.
Speaker 14 (14:03):
When we ended, she said, if you have decided to
go through with the divorce, to come back to her
and she would give us ideas on parenting skills for
Chloe's sake.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is an interview Bauer recorded with Debbie in twenty fifteen.
He questions her at length about her marriage to John
because it's the crux of the department's suicide narrative. In
a nutshell, Debbie was a stay at home mom while
John worked a lot. She liked to party. His version
of fun was extreme running. She was full figured with
(14:41):
the bleach bond perm He was all muscle, topped off
with the military crew cut. The report says that after
twelve years of marriage, the couple drifted apart. They fought
a lot, and as their fights intensified, John withdrew.
Speaker 13 (14:57):
Okay, let me get to some characterizations that they wrote
in the report. He was not verbally communicating with you,
and he was getting more distant from that makes sense?
Speaker 11 (15:07):
Yes, was he depressed?
Speaker 14 (15:10):
Well, he had told the psychologist that he had been unhappy.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
For two years with the marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
With the marriage Bower's fact checking the sheriff's report because
it attributes a lot of its claims to Debbie's testimony,
supposed characterizations of her husband and their life together.
Speaker 13 (15:32):
Okay, when you talked to John afterwards on the drive home,
what was the conversation between the two of you about
this experience with marriage counseling? What was John's attitude?
Speaker 9 (15:44):
I Since he was angry, do you.
Speaker 13 (15:47):
Think he was hopeful that this session was going to
help save the marriage?
Speaker 9 (15:52):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
No, no, And already things aren't adding up. If Aujy
had been unhappy with the marriage for two years and
thought it was beyond repair, why would he suddenly snap? Well,
the report quotes Debbie as saying that Auj was psychotic.
Speaker 13 (16:14):
That's kind of describing a person who's mentally ill.
Speaker 14 (16:20):
I don't know if I said he was psychotic.
Speaker 9 (16:25):
I do remember saying that his eyes did not look right.
I do remember saying that to them, what respect, just
a real strong look in his eyes. Maybe his eyes
looked intense.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There's a world of difference between intense looking eyes and psychosis.
But investigators say there were other indications that Auj was suicidal.
He was giving away his prized possessions, including a family heirloom,
a gold necklace, and then right before he left for
the punch bowl, Auj told Debbie to have a nice life.
(17:05):
To detectives, that was Auj saying his final goodbyes. In conclusion,
the LASD report says the likelihood of suicide is overwhelming
and by far surpasses any of the other possibilities. I
can see why the department considered the possibility of suicide,
because it's clear that Auj was going through a tough time.
(17:28):
But to me, it's a big stretch to say the
likelihood of suicide is overwhelming, especially as I keep reading
the report and find out that Auj had big plans
for his future and that he wanted to spend it
with his girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Auj had been seeing a forty five year old woman
named Vicki d Vita. She was a competitive ultra marathon
runner just like him, and she was the one Auj
gave the heirloom necklace to. Their relationship was a bit
of an open secret, especially when she showed up with
the punch bowl searching for him day after day. We
(18:15):
can't ask Davida what she thinks happened to Auj because
she died of cancer in twenty ten, but her statement
to investigators reveals a rosier picture of the deputy. According
to Davida, she and Aj met at a race in
nineteen ninety five. She was the more experienced runner and
helped Aj train for his ultra marathons. They bonded over
(18:37):
their shared passion and slowly they fell in love, but
according to Davida, the relationship wasn't sexual because Aj wanted
to wait until after he and his wife had officially separated.
In letters to Davida, Aj called her his eternal love
and shared poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and recently,
(18:57):
Auja had asked her to take an STD test so
they could finally consummate their relationship. So Aja was making moves,
and Davida says he was relieved that he and Debbie
were splitting up because he was ready to start the
next chapter of his life. Debbie seems to confirm all this,
explaining that towards the end of their marriage, she and
Aj slept in different rooms and that he'd begun to
(19:20):
take photos and art off the walls of his bedroom.
Speaker 13 (19:24):
He was telling Vicki that he was setting a certain
time frame for him to make a decision what he
was going to do.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
Did you sense a move out was coming? Yes, it
appeared that he was going to move out.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Given this new information, Auj sounds less like someone saying
his final goodbyes and more like someone saying goodbye to
a relationship that had already run its course, and it
sheds new light on what Auja may have meant the
morning of June eleventh when he told his wife Debbie
to have a nice life.
Speaker 13 (20:03):
What was your thought at the time when he said it?
Did you think suicide at the time?
Speaker 9 (20:08):
No, I get it.
Speaker 13 (20:10):
Eye, it was not a threat of suicide. Had he
ever made a threat of suicide in the past. He
was going to kill himself because of some prole you
two were having. No, no, never expressed it. No.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Debbie paints a picture of Auj's final days that looks
very different from the Sheriff's departments in their report. It
seems they've cherry picked details to support their suicide thesis
and ignore or downplay those that contradict it. So we
keep digging through the LSD reports. Bauer gives us to
figure out how the department is connecting in stocks, and
(20:47):
we find a kind of personality profile they did on Auj.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
I feel like this has summed up so much of
what we've read and heard about him into a punch list.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Can I just read the bullet points?
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Yeah, okay, organized, responsible, punctual, regimented, committed, structured discipline.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
There's a definite theme.
Speaker 8 (21:09):
Did not believe in divorce or extra marital affairs, lived
by and often said death before dishonor occasionally read Bible.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I like that last night.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
It sounds like a real, real fun day. Auj's code
of ethics is a big part of why the Sheriff's
Department says he couldn't live with himself because he thought
divorce and extramarital affairs were dishonorable. The LSD seems to
be saying that Auj's girlfriend wasn't a reason to keep
on living. It was the reason he took his life,
(21:43):
because he was consumed with guilt over his part in
ruining his marriage. We try to follow this logic.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
His motto was death before dishonor, which alone is extreme.
But it's interesting to me that here he is in
this position where he knows he can't stay with his wife,
but emotionally he's not ready or willing to accept divorce,
(22:13):
and then the next day he disappears.
Speaker 10 (22:17):
Yeah, but if he's someone that sees giving up on
a marriage as failure as dishonorable, then he's sure shit
thinks that killing himself and giving up on life is dishonorable.
I'm just saying it cuts both ways.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Our main takeaway from this personality profile and the rest
of the Auja report is that the suicide theory isn't
based on hard facts. It's based on subjective accounts of
John Auj's behavior. Just like those rock faces in the
Devil's punch Bowl. It's a matter of interpretation.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
You'd have to say, how was he going to be dishonored.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We check in with Dave Rathban as Auji's former partner.
He was one of the few people who had insight
into his personal life.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Divorce. That's dishonorable.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Even eighty year old cop thinks that's ridiculously puritanical.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
I mean, might have been in eighteen ninety three, but
that was one hundred years before this, so that's beyond
a stretch. It's like science fiction or something.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I think Rathman got a divorce, which he says is
pretty common for law enforcement officers.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
My son even makes this joy. He's a lieutenant on
the sheriff department.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
And he said, yeah, my future ex wife and I
are going to go here and do this and do that.
I said, oh, for crying out loud, don't say that.
He said, yeah, the deputies will say that. They think
it's funny. And I said, I don't know if I
think it's funny. Having gone through a divorce.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Rathman doesn't buy the whole death before dishonor explanation, and
he feels pretty certain that auj would never take his
own life on account of his daughter, Chloe.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
If you got on the subject to Chloe, he glowed. Yeah,
he glowed and he went softly, wam that fast.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
He loved her to death. He would talk about her
all the time.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
Chloe, is Chloe that he's going to disappear in the
mountains and kill himself and leave her alone? Does that
fit with death before dishonor not very well? It's pretty
dishonorable to just abandon your five year old daughter, Debbie.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Auja has her own doubts about the suicide theory.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
It just causes confusion in me, that's all, because I
don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
There are more than a few details about Aujay's final
days that just don't add up for her, Like what
he did the morning of his disappearance.
Speaker 11 (24:53):
You said he went to the gas station.
Speaker 14 (24:56):
Yes, because when the bill came from the Shell credit card.
Speaker 13 (25:00):
And.
Speaker 14 (25:02):
I had noticed that he had gassed up on June
eleventh before going.
Speaker 11 (25:08):
To the ball.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
My gas tank is always hovering around empty. So the
fact that Auj took the time to stop at a
gas station on his way to the punch Bowl strongly
implies he hadn't planned on this being his last drive.
And according to the missing person's report, Auj put a
sunshield on his dashboard to prevent his truck from overheating.
(25:32):
It's another indication that Auja was planning to return from
his run and drive away from the punch Bowl.
Speaker 14 (25:41):
I would hope the Sheriff's department would it investigate this.
Speaker 13 (25:46):
I just.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Still want John to be found or his remains.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There's another detail that throws a big wrench in the
suicide theory. Remember that missing gun.
Speaker 14 (26:04):
His holster was left on the workbench in the garage,
and I've never found that small smith wesson.
Speaker 9 (26:13):
They told me when he was missing, they didn't find
any gun. They told me there was no gun in
the truck.
Speaker 14 (26:23):
Then I started hearing some rumors that there was a
gun in the truck.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
This missing gun is one of the lynchpins of the
lasd's narrative. They say Aujay didn't usually take a gun
with him while jogging, therefore he must have brought the
firearm into the punch Bowl with suicidal intent. But it
turns out the gun was not missing, not at first anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Okay, so you were at punch Bowl.
Speaker 13 (27:09):
Tell me what you did when you got there and
what you saw, and any other details that you think
are important.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Bower has been running down leads in the AJ case
for years. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but
at the top of the list is the one about
Auj's phantom gun.
Speaker 11 (27:31):
I see the truck, I run the plate. It is
his truck.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Bauer is interviewing Randy Hebberly. Hebberly was an LASD deputy
who worked patrol in the Anilo Valley, and he was
one of the first officers to show up at the
punch bowl after Auj was reported missing.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Look in the truck real quick with my flashlight. I
checked the door. It was locked. I then looked closely
in the truck. There's a little compartment and I see
the snub nose stainless steel five shot.
Speaker 11 (28:10):
That gun was in the truck.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Deputy Hebberly calls his sergeant and tells him he's located
Auj's vehicle.
Speaker 13 (28:19):
Do you remember telling the station in that cell phone
call that you saw a gun.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
In the truck. Yes, I told him his gun is
in the truck.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
According to Hibberly, Auj left his gun in the vehicle,
which means it could not have been used by him
to end his life. We ask around and find out
Deputy Hebberly isn't the only one who remembers the gun.
Sergeant Vince Burton confirms Heberly's account. He was one of
the sergeants overseeing the auj search.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
Deputy specifically said that his off duty gun was in the.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Car, and it wasn't just one deputy.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
There's a couple defies that swear there was a gun there,
and yet my lieutenant and I had a later time
looked at all the records and everything. There's no indication
that that gun was ever booked into evidence.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
It's not shown.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
This seems like a major oversight in the investigation, and
even more troubling, Burton says, investigators didn't process the truck
for any evidence.
Speaker 15 (29:23):
Since it's not a murder, they're not going to process it.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
They're not going to impound it.
Speaker 15 (29:27):
If missing person says we'd like the car held because
we think there's something suspicious, that's up to the detectives
to make that call.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The missing person's detectives don't flag the truck for inspection,
and so Audie's gun disappears, along with who knows what else.
Do you think that the gun may have gone missing
between when those first officers arrived and before homicide got there.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
That's very possible.
Speaker 15 (29:55):
Homicide interviewed me later, but we never talked about the gun,
and the gun never came up.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
That's weird, right, Homicide detectives make the case for suicide
based in part on a missing gun, and yet they
don't seem to be that interested in finding the gun.
We haven't found any records that show detectives even asked
responding officers about it. There appears to be a lot
of the missteps in this investigation, starting from the beginning
(30:25):
when a Jay's truck wasn't combed for evidence. Then there's
the department's decision to call off the search after less
than a week, and the detective's single minded focus on
the suicide theory, not to mention the way they punched
up key witness statements from people like Debbi Aja. After
six months of reporting this story, we're feeling the weight
(30:47):
and confusion of the case. We know there's one guy
who gets it. We hope Mike Bauer can give us
some perspective.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Bower lives on a remote ranch in Idaho.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
I've got to get my egg picker.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
His lakeside property includes a home of which he uses
as a base camp for his work on the Aujay case,
and wide open land for his dogs, horses and ducks.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Oh the ducks, come on, girls, let's go.
Speaker 13 (31:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
They have heated coops and kiddie pools to splashing. And
the duck's food is handmade by Bower. Every day. He
combines carrots, apples, corn, grapes, a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
And sour dough bread.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
And the staler the better because I put it through
the blender and chop it up.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
I don't feed these animals anything I wouldn't eat.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The ducks seem to be the darlings of Bower's farm,
but all sorts of animals flock to him. Deer linger
in the clearings Bower can tell him apart by their
facial features. Wild turkeys congregate outside Bower's home at the
same time each morning, waiting for their breakfast, and his
stable of horses includes a one eyed fella named Quincy.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Come on, girls, watching.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Bauer interact with these animals, it's enlightening. It helps me
understand why he reacted so strongly to Oscar's death and
why he's so invested in the Aujay case. Because the
things he cares about he cares about deeply. About ten
(32:37):
years ago, Bower had scheduled a meeting with Larry Lincoln,
captain of the Homicide Bureau at the time of Aujay's disappearance.
Bower wanted to go over the problems with the missing
person's investigation, how the detective said there were no signs
of foul play, but didn't seem to look very hard
to find them.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Every supervisor dreads coming into work and finding a horrible
situations throwing on there in their lap, and they have
to decide, am I going to cover it up?
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Or am I gonna face it head on and then
stop it.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
About a week before the two were scheduled to meet,
Lincoln sent Bauer a text saying he had to cancel.
Bauer recorded a voice memo of the message right after
he got it to add to his AUJ archive.
Speaker 13 (33:24):
I'm gonna tape Larry Lincoln's text this morning at just
before six am. I worked with John, was involved in
the search for him, and was in charge of the
investigation into his disappearance. With all that, I can say
with certainty that John, and only John was responsible for
his death. After eight years at homicide suicides caused me
(33:50):
more grief than any murder. The bottom line, one cannot
find reason in an unreasonable act. End of text.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Bower doesn't just think the suicide narrative is false. He
thinks it's reckless. It promotes bad police work, it tarnishes
Aujay's reputation, and causes immense pain to his loved ones.
Processing his disappearance is one thing. But thinking Aujae killed
himself and did it in a way that they'd never
(34:25):
know how or why, that's a whole new level of anguish.
And no one felt that more than his daughter, Chloe.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
I said, I'm telling you, Chloe, don't believe it.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
Do not believe it. Your father did not abandon you.
He was taken from you.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Over the years, Bower developed a friendship with Chloe and Debbie,
whose lives completely unraveled after Aujay's disappearance. Debbie struggled financially,
toggling between part time jobs and collecting unemployment. She sold
her house and moved in with her parents. She eventually
ended up living in a car in a parking lot
(35:07):
not far from the house she wanted shared it with John.
And that's why Bauer now has so many of Ajay's
things Because Debbie just didn't have a place to store them.
And then there's Chloe. She was just five when she
lost her dad. Then she lost her dog, and then
her mom. As Debbie drifted into homelessness, Chloe was shuffled
(35:31):
around among relatives but never found a stable home base.
She dropped out of high school and cycled through a
series of low wage jobs while living with boyfriends or friends.
Then in August of twenty twenty, Bouer got a call
from Debbie.
Speaker 16 (35:49):
And she said, Mike, we've lost our girl. That's lost
your said, We've lost our girl.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
At the age of twenty six, Chloe Aujay took her
home life. Some might call that an unreasonable act, but
I feel for her. Tragedy upended her childhood. She lost
her sense of belonging and security after her dad disappeared
and the shadow of his alleged suicide followed her from
(36:28):
place to place.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
I told her that her father didn't abandon her. She
wanted to believe that.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And this is why the auj case has become all
consuming for Bauer because the La County Sheriff's Department, the
institution he swore allegiance to for thirty three years, has
told a lie so big and so many times that
the story has become its own type of bullet, has
(36:58):
wormed its way through time, destroying lives and racking up
a number of casualties, and Bower's been forced to simply
watch the tragedy unfold.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
If John Auj didn't die by suicide, what happened to him?
Throughout Bauer's investigation, He's heard a lot of stories about Auj,
but there's one that just keeps coming up from multiple witnesses.
That John Auj didn't take his own life, someone else did.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
Early on, I let the suicide theory sit at fifty
to fifty. As I've learned more and more, I'm at
about ninety ninety five murder, five to ten percent suicide.
Speaker 17 (37:53):
He said, Hey, Larry, I'm hearing shit on the street
man and Auj didn't comit suicide. He was murdered. He goes,
I'm hearing for more than one person. Well, Sena maybe
looked into a little more.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
They told our search teams on day one, John may
have stumbled into a meth lab by accident.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
And what happened to that idea?
Speaker 9 (38:17):
This whole meth lab has just been a rumor I've
heard for years, and I do wonder what's behind that.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
We wonder what's behind that too, and why the Sheriff's
department didn't do more to investigate these tips. But it
turns out there was a homicide detective who took it
upon himself to find out what really.
Speaker 17 (38:39):
Happened all the time of the investigator. And I tell
people this, even younger guys. This cop stuff is not
like TV. You go with what makes common sense. Everything
looks like this, well usually if it looks like that,
that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
That's next time on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
If you have any information or tips related to the
disappearance of John Aujay, please call two one three two six'
two nine eight eight nine or Email shadows at pushkin DOT.
Fm valley Of shadows is, reported written and produced BY
Us Betsy shepherd And Haley. Fox our editor Is Diane.
(39:38):
Hodson our executive producers Are Jacob smith And Alexandra. Garaton
original music By Jake, Gorsky Ray, Lynch Mike, jersich And Hayden.
Gardner sound design By Jake, gorsky fact checking By Anaica.
Robbins additional production support By Sonya gerwit and our show
(40:00):
art was designed By Sean carney And Betsy. Shepherd special
thanks To Nick white for the show art. Photo additional
thanks To Stringer. Bell value Of shadows is a production
Of Pushkin. Industries to find More pushkin, podcasts listen on
The iHeartRadio, App Apple, podcasts or wherever you listen to.
(40:21):
Podcasts some type two. Fun We're betsy And. Hayley see
you next.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Week
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