Introducing Valley of Shadows: Corruption in California’s Mojave Desert

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy Jon Aujay disappeared nearly 30 years ago in a remote part of the Mojave Desert. Investigative reporters Betsy Shepherd and Hayley Fox dig into why Aujay’s former department may never want him found. In the process, the hosts uncover vestiges of the Wild West in a small California town, where outlaw biker gangs crank out methamphetamine and local cops operate on both sides of the law.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
On June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, the deputy from the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's an all out manhunt for John Auj. Every search
and rescue team in La County has been called in
to help.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Deputy Jonathan a J spin his day off jogging in
a rugged section of the Mojave Desert known as the
Devil's Punch Bowl, but he never returned home to his
wife and young daughter.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Friends say Auj is a highly trained survivalist in hiker
and fear his disappearance may mean he's in serious trouble.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Within days, tips started flooding into the Sheriff's department that
their deputy was the victim of foul play.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm here, it's shit out of the street man Auj
was murdered.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm hearing from a one more in person.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
A ruler around the drug scene was that a deputy
stumbled onto something he's shouldn't of and he was taken
care of.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
But the Sheriff's department dismissed the tips suddenly called off
the search for Auja.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
His death certificate says cause a death unknown manner, a
death unknown no body.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
And thirty years later, the La County Sheriff's Apartment still
hasn't found him.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
The only law enforcement agency in this country that I
know of who has a missing deputy sheriff and doesn't
seem to care.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
What the hell happened?

Speaker 1 (01:25):
What's the answer? Who's motivated to find the answer. And
that's where we come in. I'm Betsy Shepherd and I'm
Haley Fox. We're investigative journalists, and for the past year
we've been retracing Auj's steps in the devil's punch bowl,
trying to separate fact from fiction. How hot do you

(01:47):
think it is right now?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
It's pushing one hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
For sure. Your brain does some wonky stuff when you're dehydrated.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
And they thought maybe he got on the trail and
keeps doing the forest going, just kept roaming.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
But out here it's not just heat stroke you have
to worry about. It's meth labs hidden in canyons, outlaw
bikers running drugs, and deputies who operate on both sides
of the law. I think a lot of people picture
breaking bad whatever you're talking about, making meth in the desert.
Can you give us a reality check?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
If you change the names. It's the same exact thing.
Is this the story of a man who just got
lost in the desert? Or of a cover up inside
the nation's largest sheriff's department?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if
this guy's guilty or innocent? Who does that?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Hey, I don't fucking kill a Coffinberry? What are you
gonna do to me?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
As my father would say, God bless him, there's something
rotten in the woodpile, and it stinks and I can
smell it.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
What really happened to the missing deputy.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Which is Perry Mason? This shit?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
This changes my whole way of gin him about theory.
Valley of Shadows a new series from Pushkin Industries about
crime and corruption in California's High Desert.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Do you have any advice for us while looking into
this disappearance? I wouldn't do it alone. In the event
somebody did decide that you were getting too close to something,
you will not be found killed. You will simply disappear.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
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(03:54):
your support.