MURDERED: Joyce LePage

you today starts almost 55 years ago, but don't call this a cold case. Because things,

“even all these years later, are heating back up. Everything centers around one July night”

on the campus of Washington State University, a co-ed and a big swath of carpet, go missing from a residence hall, no one was supposed to be in. Where her car ended up, where her keys were found, and where her body was left, are all clues that point at different people. There have been many theories about what happened to Joyce LePage over the years, but only six viable ones seem to remain. And maybe our sleuths out there can help us see what is missing,

as we try to figure out who killed Joyce LePage. I'm about to take you back to a time that we and a lot of our audience have

“only a witness in the movies. The early 1970s. Now, what you might know about the time”

was that President Nixon has just declared the war on drugs. Some of the Pentagon papers are being released, and many Americans are taking to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. For some, these issues were part of the everyday fabric of July 1971. And for others, they probably felt a whole world away. Take for instance, Joyce LePage, a 21-year-old farmer's daughter in Eastern Washington, whose focus that summer was on young love meditating, skydiving, and school.

I'm sorry, Ashley, what are we going to take our own advice and stay out of Washington for one? Listen, every time we cover a case, there it leads to another one, which is actually how we found Joyce's story. So, back to the summer in 1971. Joyce is sublacing a room in an off-campus apartment, while taking summer courses in chemistry and German at WSU in Poland, which is on the eastern side of the

state. Now, I've always said college roommates are a coin toss. I found both of mine on Craigslist.

It's a story for another day, but you're either going to be absolute best friends or you'll want nothing to do with one another. There's not a whole lot of in-between. I actually had both. And for Joyce and her roommate Bruce Bierbaum, they fall into that second category. At least as far as Joyce is concerned, she finds Bruce kind of annoying so much so that she had actually been avoiding sleeping at her own place. In a letter, scrolled in her messy handwriting.

Joyce explained to a friend where she had been crashing instead. So, I'm going to have a voice actor read a portion of the letter. Stevens Hall is being worked on the summer, so I have taken over the building. I play their piano, watch TV, sleep, shower, even bathe in there. It's my private hideaway for the

“rest of the summer. It wasn't a secret among Joyce's friends that she was spending time at Stevens Hall,”

but concerns had been expressed about her getting caught. So, she writes in that same letter that she was taking precautions. I even use their hidden parking place that the police can't see from the road. Yesterday morning, a workman stumbled upon me accidentally. I had spent the night in the head residence room. He thought I was the head resident, I guess, because he asked me if I knew where the storm windows were, then apologized and left. This letter isn't dated, so we

aren't sure when that worker stumbled upon Joyce's hiding place. But it's not like she got kicked out. The arrangement seemed to be working for her. And on weekends, when she could, she would try to go back home to visit her family a few hours away in Pasco, Washington. In fact, in another letter written by Joyce in the case file, and dated July 20th, she wrote to her family telling them that she would be home that upcoming weekend for a doctor's appointment and to attend the water

follies, which was like annual boat race that the town put on. But before she hit the road, she had skydiving lessons to attend. Would you mention skydiving before? And I was like,

I am telling you, Joyce was one in a million. She was into writing, meditation. She played piano,

love getting her hands dirty, like helping on the family farm. And before skydiving,

comes to aviation. And she was actually taking these lessons alongside her friend, this guy named

“how would. So, fast forward to Thursday, July 22nd, is it just two days after she sent her parents”

that letter. This is when Joyce and how had a lesson planned. So, how and his then girlfriend patty hop on their motorcycle, they ride over to Joyce's apartment. We heard a actual apartment or the dorm she was like hiding out in. They meet her at the apartment. It's just a few blocks away from campus. And she's there, and everything is good. They all pile into Joyce's car, drive about four miles to the Pullman Moscow Regional Airport for the lesson.

After the three friends go to Spruce Tavern in Moscow, they share a picture of beer before, heading back. So, it's about 10 p.m. when they pull up to her apartment complex. And they say goodbye to Joyce in like the front yard area of her place. And that is where she is still standing when they take off on their bike. And this would become the last confirmed sighting of Joyce

“lapage alive and well. We really don't know anything else about the rest of her Thursday night”

after 10 p.m. But this is what we know about the next day, Friday, July 23rd. And 822 a.m. campus police get a call from a custodian who is doing rounds at Stevens Hall where Joyce had been crashing. And the janitor says that there is this big piece of green carpet in the lobby that has been cut out from the floor. And we're not just talking like a little piece. This is like a five by five foot swath. And the contractors had no reason to remove it. Plus,

if they did, they probably would have used like precision cutting tools. This looks like somebody took a pair of scissors and just like went to town. Yeah. So, they're calling to report this

basically as a burglary. Now, nothing else besides the carpet is missing. But they do find things

that don't seem like they belong there. This woven basket-type purse containing a head scarf,

“a German 350 textbook, and several cards and letters from someone named David Arthur to another person”

named Joyce LePage. And there's even an unmailed letter from Joyce back to David. Now, David Arthur is Joyce's boyfriend who, at the time, is back home in South Africa for the summer. Obviously, he didn't take their carpet, but they figured this Joyce might know some things and clearly her purse is there in the building. So, police locate Joyce's address, they had to her apartment to question her about the missing carpet, which Joyce isn't there. In fact,

she ends up being MIA to every scheduled thing she had that day, a German class that was scheduled from 1030 to 1130. Another skydiving lesson with Hal at 430, and she supposedly had been entertaining the idea of going to a dance in Oak Stale, Washington with this guy named Mike Finch. Mike was a friend of Joyce's that she had kind of like, she dated on and off at some point. He's a teacher. He was like literally shepherding like a high school dance and had invited

Joyce's his date. But Joyce was a no-show to all of it. Her professor said she didn't come to class. Hal says she didn't show up for the lesson. Mike says he waited and waited. Thought Joyce just blew him off for the dance. Come Saturday, Joyce also didn't show up to her childhood home as planned. She missed the boat race and her eye doctor appointment. Of course, her family had no idea of all the things she had already missed back at school.

So, they just tried calling her thinking maybe that her plans had changed. But there was no answer. And Joyce was one that didn't really talk on the phone a lot to her family, really to anyone very often. I mean, combing through her letters it seems like male with her main form of communication. So her family decided to kind of just wait a bit. See if she showed up. See if she would call with an explanation for her absence. But she didn't. After a few more days,

her parents try calling her apartment again. And this time, they at least get a hold of her roommate

Bruce. But he said, like, they're basically ships passing in the night. They don't really

see much of each other at all. Which makes sense if she's been like dodging. Yeah, and he says that he hasn't seen Joyce since the weekend before. And he doesn't know where she is. Now in Monday, August 2nd comes and there is still no word from Joyce. Her dad Walter calls campus police right and early to report his daughter missing. And first stop police make is again to Joyce's apartment. But no one is home. Her light green 1966 Dodge Coranette that her dad told them she had

isn't there either. Which at first might seem like a good sign. But by 115, that very afternoon, after checking the local hospital after checking student health center and checking their own arrest records without success, they locate Joyce's car parked at 1704 Opel Street right outside of

frat house say that the car has been out there for like a week. There is even like a parking

“ticket on the windshield dated July 29. So it's for sure been there at least four days,”

but likely more like people are saying. But even though people have seen the car a lot, they haven't seen anyone around it. Now the car is locked up and peering through the windows officers only see some books and papers, a wallet, some women shoes, nothing that screens foul play or anything. But they do at least still have some analysts with the Washington State Crime Lab coming process, Joyce's car right there on Opel Street. But the report says that they don't

find anything. Not even fingerprints. So that's the things the reports don't get that specific.

They just say that nothing of significance was found. But Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers,

who oversees the case today, he says he doesn't think they they dust it for fingerprints. Okay, then why have it processed at all if you're not going to do that? What is processing me? What are you looking for if not at least fingerprints? I don't know. I assume they're like looking for blood or like in her trunk. They're like looking for obvious signs that something bad happened. But like I'm with you to me, this would be a huge miss because the car just ends

up getting returned to Joyce's family. And it's probably because investigators don't know what they have on their hands yet. I mean, this is weird for sure. They've got a co-ed who hasn't

been seen for almost two weeks who lives on Oak Street, but whose car is parked on Opel Street.

But whose stuff is found inside Stevens Hall where a carpet went missing around the time that Joyce was last seen. But no one can say what it means. I mean, a crime junkie could tell you some ideas. And listen, it's not like they're totally writing her off. I mean, they launch an investigation and they interview pretty much everyone. Joyce's friends, her professors, roommates, boyfriends,

“and I think part of what confuses them or the situation is that they get some one-off”

sightings of her maybe being seen after 10pm on Thursday. So it's like, you know, this isn't normal, but is it sinister? Well, the more time that passes without any word from Joyce. And without any real confirmed sightings of her, the more they begin to believe that something bad happened to Joyce at the hands of someone else. But what? Well, it took nine full months before everyone got the answer that they were dreading. On April 16th, 1972, a teenage boy in his mom showed up at a police station

in Colfax, Washington with some bones and toe. They said that they'd been out in Hawaii, Canyon looking for gemstones when they found what they think are human remains. And it is unbelievable that these were ever even found. I mean, to recover the rest, Whitman County deputies have to tie a rope to the bumper of a patrol car and like repel down a steep cliff to get to the location where the rest of the bones are. Okay, how were the boy and his mom even down there if this

spot was so hard to get to? I don't know if they both were so reports say that the teenager was the one who actually found the remains, his mom was like a higher up. So I assume this kid is just like young and nimble and like climbed down easily. And mom is like on the edge being like, I'm watching.

“Yeah, I know. But like that's how they got down there. How did this body? How do these remains get”

down there, though? I want someone get them down there. I wanted the same thing. And we ask Sheriff Myers, he actually volunteered to like go out there with his drone and shoot some photos in video for us that kind of like give you a feel for the area. And if you take a look, you'll see there's this like Canyon Road. And they're thinking that maybe someone drove up there and then like pushed her down the canyon to where she landed. And I actually do like along with this drone footage,

I have some of the original scene photos that the Sheriff gave us as well. And I know it's like kind of hard to like know what you're looking at because they're in black and white. They're like film, they're pretty close up. But like they're in the brush. Oh, is that the carpet? That's the carpet. Yeah, when they get down there, deputies do find a partial, mostly skeletal body wrapped in a green carpet. Now, Joyce isn't completely intact anymore. Like the bundle of carpet that she's in is found

about three feet above a seasonal creek. So between that and animal activity, I'm sure. Like some of her remains were found more scatter. And how far away is this from Pullman and WSU? Close enough that. I mean, they know about Joyce LePage because while this is a very rural area, it's only like 25 minutes south west of campus. So people in these parts are well aware that a student has been missing for the better part of a year at this point. Now, they have to enlist the help of the FBI

What's left of her remains can't tell them how she died definitively. But their best guess

“at the time was that she was stabbed because there were markings on some of her bones that like”

look like they could be knife punctures. But interestingly, if she was stabbed, it wasn't while she was laying on that carpet because apparently there's no blood on it. Her remains were also wrapped in some blankets, including a military U.S. Army Medical Corps blanket. And none of that has blood on it either. Now, there's a pair of women's floral underwear that they found to, either like wrapped up in it or like somewhere nearby. And the underwear had been like

sliced on either side. And the only other item of evidence that they find is this fishing wire like

twine that was like wrapped around the pelvis. Now, this obviously is not the outcome that the LePage family was hoping for. But in a way, it is a relief. We interviewed Joyce's brother, Bruce LePage, for this episode, totally different than her roommate Bruce, this her brother. And he told us by that time. I mean, this is like nine months out, like they had accepted the fact that Joyce was likely gone. And her remains being found did allow them to have a funeral and to grieve and to celebrate

who she was. This daughter, sister, friend. She was a hard-working, farm girl with a freaking pilot's license who likes skydiving and listening to her favorite step-in-law record. And who by the way contained multitudes because she was also studying English lit and attending summer school to be able to graduate faster. Her brother told us that if Joyce had lived, she would have had a full life. He guessed as a teacher or maybe a journalist or a pilot even and probably a mom.

Because just two days before she vanished, Joyce wrote a letter to her parents talking about a friend's baby who had just turned six months old. And in it she used that maybe someday she'd have a baby of her own, like who knows she said the world felt like her oyster. But someone took all of that away from her, from her family, from everyone who loved her. And to this day, they've gotten away with it. But not for a lack of trying on the part of investigators. Because Joyce's case file is robust.

I mean, I could spend hours walking you through every step they took, every person they looked at, every lead that they ran down, lots of it went nowhere. But after 55 years, there are several theories

“that still carry a lot of weight. And I think that says something. So I want to walk you through”

the different scenarios and the six different suspects whose names have endured decades.

Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities

deserve recognition, too. I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling. Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts. Before I jump into the six theories that have lasted through all these years, let me get something

out of the way. Because if I don't bring it up, I know the crime junkies are going to come for me. The boyfriend. So Joyce's boyfriend, David Arthur, was foreshore in South Africa when she was murder. No funny business. He isn't even on the table here. And he didn't hire someone or want to take her out. Like, from Joyce's letters, it seemed like she was pretty smitten with David. And actually,

“some people even say that they were low key engaged to be married. So he had zero means motive opportunity.”

But there was someone in Joyce's recent dating history who had for sure two of the three of those. Mike Finch. And he's the teacher guy who invited her to shop around the dance with him that Friday night. He was supposed to see her be very night that she was likely killed. So obviously, that's a guy you had to look at. Yeah. But on top of that, police had gotten a tip that said that Mike had a habit of hanging around outside Joyce's chemistry lab and like disrupting class.

So often that the teacher was about to ban him from coming back. Also, he's like a grown man with a career. Like, what's he doing? Like, hanging around? Well, he's like, he's kind of a grown man. So like, he had done a stint in the army. And he just graduated WSU, like the year before. So he's not like,

But you know, she's number 20 still. Anyways, police interview Mike who tells them that he's known Joyce for two years, they had gone out about 10 times he says in the year two before. So he knows are pretty well. And he says that it wasn't just the dance that they were supposed to go to together. They were going to spend the whole weekend together. So he says that he last saw Joyce on Thursday, July 22nd. He was on campus for some reason, and he asked Joyce to shaper on this dance with him

and then go to the water follies thing together in Pasco. But Joyce didn't outright say yes. She said, like, how about you call me tomorrow? We can like talk about the plans. But he says he called the next day between like 6.30 and 7, right? Like, it's the 70s.

“You know, it has, you have to schedule when to call somebody. That's when she would be home from her”

skydiving lesson. But he couldn't get a hold of her. And he makes a point that he called her from a friend's place in Spokane, except she didn't answer. So he called her again. And again,

but all three times he never got in touch with her. And he tells police that he went to the dance

on Saturday as plan, shaperone, thought maybe she would like show up at some point. So he waited but Joyce never showed up. So he sucked it up and went along with weekend plans without her, which was to go to the water follies and then go to Bellingham Washington for an ad teachers conference where he said he remained for like almost the whole next week. But I don't know about this. Like, can I be honest for a second? Oh, okay. So in early iterations of like putting the story to

get there. The Mike Finch section of this was actually like pretty short. It was like he called her.

“He went to water follies, drove to his conference. And spoiler, even though he wouldn't take a”

polygraph in the 1970s, he did take one in 2013 and he passed. So police don't really consider him

a suspect anymore. But I am a details gal. I mean, always go away a deeper. And not everywhere

in my life for sure, but like for case details like a thousand percent. I don't care what the final line in the report says. I want to dissect everything. And I cannot make this man's timeline makes sense. Now, people before me kind of chalked it up to the fact that Mike was a drinker, and I'll get more into that in a minute. And they're also like, well, you know, he didn't have a calendar in front of him. Sometimes it's a little unclear exactly like when he left for Pasco. Like was it

Friday? Was it Saturday? Even the dance? Like sometimes in the report, the dance reads like it's Friday. Most of the time, when Mike's being explicit, he says the dance is Saturday. And determining what is sus and what is typos in old reports is hard. Because there's literally one part where it says that he left for Pasco Saturday morning at 10 p.m. Which I'm not in the morning,

“which could not be correct. And on top of that, I think everyone is like, oh, you know,”

whatever, like everything we're talking about Friday's Saturday, like Joyce was killed on Thursday. Right. So like these days don't even matter. But I think it could matter a whole thing

lot because here's what I've pieced together. Mike's story changes. And there's a lot of weird

details in between. His first statement was given two police on August 3rd, 1971. This is the day after Joyce is reported missing. And the report states that in a phone call with police, Mike says that he visited Joyce on campus on July 22nd and invited Joyce to the dance. They made arrangements for him to call her at her apartment the next evening to like make solid plans. But the loose plan, he says, was for them to attend the dance and then drive to the

tricities for the boat races. But Mike says that when he called Joyce on the evening of the 23rd, she didn't answer. He then waited around until like 10 p.m. and she didn't show. So he says, he went to the boat races solo. And then from there, he drove to Bellingham, Washington, where he attended a vocational agricultural teacher's convention. When police interviewed Hal and Patty, they're the ones who saw Joyce Thursday night. They said that she was planning to go to the dance

on Friday. When they interviewed Joyce's roommate Bruce, he too knew about the dance, which he said Joyce was planning to go to on Friday. These are all people who are being interviewed like the day after she's reported missing. And Joyce is the one telling them all this is she just mixed up. But why is Mike then saying that to in his first interview? And someone from the school ends up telling police that dances are always on Saturday, never Friday. So the mix-up seems even

more strange to me. So then, fast forward to after Joyce's remains are found, but before she's been officially identified. They do a more formal interview with Mike Finch. And his story is a

it sound a little more like he just happened to run into Joyce that Thursday morning. And he told her he's going to the water follies and he asked her if she wanted to go down because you know, I'm already going. She says, yes, they make plans for him to call the next day to verify.

He does. From Spokane, Washington, he clarifies is it the first time this comes up. He says he calls

from his buddy's place there. She didn't answer. He tries her a few times. From Spokane, he wants to make sure he mentioned that. Okay. And then he drives back to his place in Oaxdale. And they go back and forth to verify like dates a little bit. And they get back to the 23rd when he called Joyce between 630 and 7PN. From Spokane, I'm sure, right? He said he did it. Then on Saturday, he says he didn't leave for Pasco to go to the water follies until really late,

like 12 30 at night. So I mean, technically Sunday. But before he drove there,

“he just stopped by Pullman to drive by Joyce's apartment. What? He, he, he, listen. Okay. Why?”

Listen, it's not totally out of the way, but you don't drive through Pullman to get to Pasco.

That's for sure. He said he just passed saw that all the lights were off. It looked like no one was home. So he didn't stop. I mean, or everyone was asleep. It's midnight. Well, he's asked if her car was there when he drove by. He's like, oh, I can't really remember. Like, I wasn't paying attention. Anyway, he says from there, he left. He went to Pasco. Oh, and on the way, by the way, he makes a point to say, I stopped for gas in pull facts. Wait, pull facts as in, like,

pull facts where her remains were found. You are correct. They ask him zero follow-up questions about his stop in pull facts. But they do press him on something else that doesn't make sense.

They say, okay. So she's going to ride with you to the water follies. And then you were going

to go to that teacher's conference in belling him. Because that is still part of his story here.

“And he's like, yep. So they say, well, then how was Joy's going to get back to pull for classes on Monday?”

If you were her ride, yeah. Yeah. And he's like, oh, like, you know, get back. I guess I would drive her back to Pullman. And then I would drive to belling him. And the timing and the geography of this makes zero sense to me because if you're looking at a map, you have Pullman, like, all the way on the right. On the eastern part of the state, Pasco is two hours south west. And belling him is even way up north west, right? Way up north west. Yeah. It's like another five

hours. So it makes sense to go from Pasco and the water follies right to belling him. It makes no sense, however, to drive back to Pullman and then to belling him. Now we do lots of things for love. But this wasn't his girlfriend. I mean, it may be all the more reason, though, because it feels like he's like very into her. It's like, I think there had to been something there, right? But like, the thing is, he is saying to them that they're just friends.

Like, yeah, they'd gone out a few times before, but they both decided it was mutual. They were just friends. Like, like, come on. Come on. Like, why else are you asking her to be your date to like spend the weekend together? And you hang around for all of her classes all the time when you

“no longer go to school there. Well, he did. I think he was like taking a summer class at one point.”

So like, he had a reason to be on campus, but well, like, he denied the accusation about disrupting her chemistry class, but he did admit to hanging around campus on occasion. For people in Joyce's life, who knew Mike Finch, opinions are mixed. Some say that he's a big teddy bear. Others say he is crass when he drinks, which he does a lot. And both can be true. I think both probably were true. Joyce's friend, Jan, who had also dated Mike by the

way, is quoted in the case files saying, the more you knew Mike Finch, the less you liked him. That's ominous. But there's no elaboration. She just said that when Mike was drunk, he was very foul mouthed beyond belief. Now, police also interviewed the principal at Oaksdale High where Finch was an agriculture teacher, lost art, by the way. And the principal says that Finch does a good job at school, but he said it's no secret that he is a heavy drinker.

And if your boss knows you have a problem, then sir, you might have a problem. But he says the only time he's seen him have a violent temper was when he was sober. Which okay, but that's not helping. That's the solution at all. Again, no elaboration where I wish there was one. No one else, there is no mention of. Whether or not his alibis check out. And I should be clear, like he doesn't have an alibis for

Thursday, like the real night in question, because Friday morning is when the carpet goes missing.

For the life of him, he cannot remember what he was doing that night.

“But he definitely knows the time he called her from Spokane when he left for Pasco,”

where he stopped for gas. He knows all this stuff about the following two days. But that particular night. Nothing. They did verify with that friend in Spokane. That Mike was there Friday night, and that he thinks Mike tried calling a girl. But the guy says that Mike had no special feelings for Joyce. They also tried to talk to someone at the school to verify that Mike had

shaperoned the dance. Yeah. They confirmed there was a dance on Saturday. But the person they're talking to doesn't know if they kept records on who was shaperoned. Because again, they're not like really looking into this until like a year out after her

body's been found. The guy says basically he's going to have to check and get back to detectives.

But there's no follow-up in the file. Okay. Was he at the water follies? Did he go to the conference like there's other things? There's only there's mentions of police like saying they want to find out about these like a few years down the line. But I don't see in the case file where they ever got any answers. I do see where they looked up his criminal history, though. They found that he did have public intoxication and resisting arrest charges from five years before.

And interestingly, a few weeks after Joyce vanished, Mike got into a role over accident while driving he like totaled his car. Now back in the day, police asked Mike to take a polygraph in Joyce's case. He initially agreed. But instead, he got an attorney and then declined further participation. Which only makes him more suspicious to some investigators. Other things make them suspicious of him, too.

“Like remember the military blanket that Joyce has wrapped in? Mike was in the army.”

This makes some investigators keep their sights on him as the primary suspect for years,

though they never seem to be able to pin anything on him. Now, there is a moment, though,

when they wonder if they've got it all wrong. And that's in 1977, after a certain Pacific Northwest serial killer is arrested and begins confessing two murders of college co-eds. And are one theater or a bunty? His name is in Joyce's case file as a person of interest, but not until after his arrest. So he was first arrested in 1975 and then in 1977, a tip made it's way too police that said, "Bundy had supposedly stayed on WSU's campus the weekend that Joyce

was killed. But there was no way to prove that six years later." Also, people kept saying that there was like VW bugs around campus, which like, some say lent credence to this series. Mike said "Bundy drove a VW bug, but so did everyone in 1970." Literally, including Mike Finch.

“Oh. Okay, but isn't Joyce's case a little early for Ted Bundy now?”

Maybe. So Bundy's first confirmed killing was in 1974, but authorities have speculated that he may have started murdering people like in the '60s. So that leaves the door open. And because we're talking about a victim who was like his profile type in the Pacific Northwest,

which was like a hunting ground for him, his name I think will always come up until they can rule

him in or out. But if you believe the word of a serial killer, it should be out. Because before Bundy was electrocuted in 1989, he was asked about Joyce's murder and he denied any involvement. It's still totally possible that he was involved. But of the few theories that have survived, I think it's the least probable. And Sheriff Myers agrees with that. Bundy would have had to have just been like randomly passing through campus late at night on July

22nd, 1971. Right, like it's much more likely it was someone that Joyce knew. Or someone who, for sure knew where she was going to be. So maybe for that reason, Mike Finch stayed on police's radar for a very long time. They would try to revisit him, but he pretty much stopped cooperating once he got that lawyer. But just in 2013, they finally broke through. Mike agreed to be re-interviewed and that time is when he took a polygraph. And his memory then, as he is interviewed, is a little

bit different. So by 2013, he's saying Joyce asked him if he was going to go to Pasco for the boat races. And when he said yes, she asked if she could hit your ride with him. He told her, "That's fine, as long as she could find her own ride back because he had to go to that egg teacher's conference the next day." This time, he doesn't mention calling her on Friday,

to see if she was still at her skydiving lesson. What time is this? In this version, it's earlier.

He says that when she wasn't there, he drove back to his place in Oakstale because he figured

“it was too early to go to Pasco. Remember, before he said that he drove by her place,”

then went straight there, like really late at night. So he says he drives back to his place, he waits around, has a couple of beers outside his house with a local farmer friend, and then he left. And he says he didn't know he was a prime suspect all these years. And all that time, might have warped his memories as time tends to do. But he still says he had nothing to do with her disappearance or murder, and he finally agrees to take the polygraph and he passes.

Mike Finch died in 2024, and investigators today more or less consider him cleared. They can't connect him to anything from the scene, and they can't put him with joys or around Stevens Hall on Thursday, July 22nd, 1971. So maybe it would be better to look at someone

“we know, for a fact, was near Stevens Hall that night. A man, who police had on their radar,”

when joys was still just a missing person.

Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities

deserve recognition, too. On Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Downies, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling. Set in my home state of Maine and the Greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light. Listen to Dark Downies, wherever you get your podcasts. The first indication that anything was a miss on campus wasn't the report that joys was missing.

It was that report that they got in of the missing carpet in Stevens Hall. And while joys wasn't early suspect in the carpet, because her belongings were found in the building, there was one other suspect. A contract worker named Robert Lauren Johnson, who was laying tile that summer in what was then arts hall, which is a building just like 100, maybe 200 yards from Stevens Hall. And it turns out he was working late the night of July 22nd and actually ended up working

until like 230 AM and just stayed the night there. Now he became a suspect in the carpet theft, because an off-campus police officer saw his car parked outside Stevens Hall in the middle of the night. And the theory for Robert, in terms of joys' disappearance, is that maybe after joys said goodbye to Hal and Patty, she snuck to Stevens Hall like she'd been doing on previous nights. We know from joys' own letters that a worker had stumbled upon her poaching the head residence bed.

“Who was that worker? Was it Robert? Was it someone who maybe told Robert about it?”

Someone knew that she was there. More than just the one incident she wrote about in that letter, because police ended up hearing a rumor that had been going around that one of them and working in Arts Hall. Where Robert was laying tile? Had reportedly been messing around with a girl from Stevens Hall, that summer. And Joyce's literally the only one staying in Stevens Hall,

exactly. But they were never able to determine where this rumor originated or who it was about.

I mean, yes, presumably joys, but who was the man? When police interviewed Robert, he said he had nothing to do with Joyce' disappearance. He did admit that he was working in the dorms that week, mostly by himself. And the only people he saw was a security guard around 8 p.m. the night before. And then the night of the 22nd, he saw a few contractor buddies who came by from another job after midnight and brought him a burger. He says they left

it like 1 a.m. he kept working until like 2 or 2.30. And because he was anxious to get the job done, he just like slept on the floor and then continued working a few hours later when he woke up. Worried because a chunk of your night was spent doing something else? Or? Well, Robert, who, by the way, was married with kids, took and passed a polygraph in the early days of the investigation. So that was pretty much that. There weren't really any red flags in his background for them

to like keep pursuing him for any reason. And then he ended up dying just a few years later. Okay, if he wasn't involved and he's up like all night working, most of them, most of the night working. Wouldn't he have heard like screaming or something if Joyce had been attacked like a

or like something that night. So it seems like sound traveled there. And Sheriff Myers told us that

you can like hear parties happening from across town, especially in the summer. But I mean, we don't know what happened. Maybe Joyce didn't have a chance to scream. Okay, but she had to have been attacked in Stephen's hall, right? Like she's wrapped in the missing carpet when she's found. I mean, to me, it seems like the most likely scenario because I really don't know why else you would go there and take the carpet if you're not already there. I mean, might help to hide and

transport the body. Sure, but like I don't think you killed her somewhere else. Then go to this hall, cut out a square carpet like there's no other way. I like go to this hall where she was like

kind of secretly known to have been staying. I don't know. And it was taken from the front

lobby of the building, right? It was taken from, it's they called it the lounge like this hangout area of the building. There's actually this hand drawn diagram of the room in the case file. It doesn't give like precise details, but our producer licensed some old photos from WSU of the interior. And one of them shows the room with a piano in it. And like we know from our letters like she would go she would play piano. So like I don't know like it just seems like something happened in that room

where she was known to hang out. And this room is like a decent size. And it is kind of at the front entrance on the main floor. But listen, we know Joyce got in and out of the building through a window

in the head residence room where she was sleeping. Okay, but like we know she's staying there.

She has a way in and out kind of how would Robert have gotten into Steven's hall. I mean, like

“I don't know if he had a key or anything, but like he could have gotten in the same way she did,”

like she's sneaking in through a window. Anyone could have snuck in the same way she's getting in. Or she could have let someone in. But there are a couple of things that make sense for a suspect like Robert someone who maybe had opportunity but not like a deep motive or history with the victims. Like hear me out. So the place is what would tie him to Joyce, right? Like he can't untangle himself from the dorms, people know he was there. He had scheduled work to get done.

So he would have to remove Joyce from the place. Her body can't be found there. Her car cannot be found there. You need people looking elsewhere for her. But maybe you don't know her enough to know that she told a lot of people about staying there. Like you don't know her enough to know that her books and letters are still there in the building. Well, and I kind of forgot about her car being moved. Well, technically, we don't know that it was moved. But if we believe that she went to

Steven's Hall herself and then she was killed in Steven's Hall, then yeah, how did her car get outside

“that fat house? And what was the parking situation like back then? Like was that just a good spot?”

So she didn't like draw attention to the fact that she was squatting there like no, no. So if you like picture a triangle, her car is like at the top, her apartment is like the bottom left and Steven's Hall is bottom right. So it's not like you drive past it or it's like on your route driving there. So to me, that that doesn't make sense of like a place to park. Just heard like store it there. Even if she's trying to get people out to see her, just like, I don't know, it doesn't

make sense. But since there are no mention of processing fingerprints when they found the car, we don't know if someone else drove it there. But there actually is the option that she did. I mean, she could have because her car location is actually what leads us to the next theory, the meditation group. Because even though Joyce didn't know anyone at the front house, she did know a group of people just a couple of houses away, actually. And she was planning

on moving into that house right before she died. And the people in that house, one of them, at least,

“has a dark secret that Joyce recently learned about. And she had shared it in a letter to a friend.”

I discovered that one stayed at a mental institution for trying to strangle people. That is next week in part two of Joyce LePage's story. You can listen to that right now if you are part of the crime junkie fan club, just go to crime junkie.com to join. Otherwise, we'll see you next week. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkey.com. And you can follow us on Instagram @crimejunkeypodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

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