Ashley Flowers kicks off the episode with a plug for Crime Junkie's summer merch collection — beach towels, lawyer totes, and tees — before pivoting straight into business. She recaps the key beats from Part 1: Joyce LePage, a 21-year-old WSU student, vanished from Stevens Hall on July 22nd, 1971, the same night a section of green carpet disappeared from the building. Three suspects have already been explored — Mike Finch (cleared by polygraph), a tile setter (also cleared), and Ted Bundy (largely ruled out). The focus now shifts to three new theories, all centered on people much closer to Joyce's daily life.

Before diving into the new theories, Ashley takes a moment to flesh out who Joyce LePage really was. This was not a passive young woman: she had her pilot's license by 18 and was actively taking skydiving lessons at 21. That same summer, Joyce was an initiated member of SIMS, the Student International Meditation Society, which practiced Transcendental Meditation. She attended weekly group sessions, had traveled to Spokane for a week-long course just a month before her disappearance, and was socially tied to at least three other members: married couple Mike and Celeste Lindbergh — the group's leaders — and their roommate Mark Wadley. All three lived at 400 Howard Street, just a few houses from where Joyce's abandoned car would later be found.

The proximity of Joyce's abandoned car to the meditation group's house is the seed of this theory. Mike and Celeste Lindbergh were heading to Spain for the semester; Mark Wadley needed a roommate to cover rent; Joyce was unhappy with Bruce and had agreed to move in. When officers first knocked at 400 Howard, it was Mark who answered. He described his connection to Joyce as arm's-length but was visibly nervous — the officer noted it explicitly in the case file. Mid-conversation, Mike Lindbergh was observed driving past the house without stopping, only returning after police left. When detectives caught up with Mike a month later, he told them he hadn't even noticed Joyce's car parked 100 feet from his door for over a week. He also volunteered that he believed Mark was attracted to Joyce — and that Joyce wasn't interested. Both men agreed to take polygraphs, and the results were telling: Mike's test flagged on the question of whether he thought Mark was involved in Joyce's disappearance, and he responded by saying he might be 'holding back' out of a sense of responsibility toward Joyce. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "I don't know why it would show that, but maybe I am holding back because I feel a certain responsibility towards Joyce." 07:39 Play}

Mark Wadley's polygraph results stopped short of clearing him. Examiners noted he was calm overall, but two questions produced notable heart rate spikes: whether he knew if Joyce was still alive, and whether he had been inside her car. Critically, the second question was framed around July 23rd — the day after Joyce disappeared — not the night of the 22nd. Brit immediately flagged this as significant: he could technically answer 'no' to the 23rd while still having been in the car on the night itself. The report's conclusion was explicit: Mark could not be eliminated as a suspect. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Mark Wadley's polygraph showed notable heart rate spikes on two questions: whether he knew if Joyce was still alive, and whether he had bee…" 07:35 Play} Ashley contextualizes the date discrepancy by noting that early in the investigation, police had a witness — neighbor Dave Parks — who claimed to have seen Joyce leaving her apartment on the morning of July 23rd with two unrecognized long-haired men. That sighting, later doubted by investigators, appeared to have shaped the framing of the polygraph question.

This is the bombshell chapter of the episode. Ashley nearly missed it because Joyce's handwriting was difficult to read — but buried in the case file was a letter Joyce wrote to her boyfriend David Arthur, found in her purse at Stevens Hall. In it, she describes a dinner outing with the meditation group, then drops a devastating aside: she had discovered that Mark once stayed at a mental institution for trying to strangle people. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Joyce's own handwritten letter to her boyfriend revealed that Mark Wadley had once been institutionalized for trying to strangle people — a…" 12:00 Play} In the same paragraph, she writes that she suspected him of being an informant who helped law enforcement with a major drug bust two years earlier. Ashley notes that neither allegation appears anywhere else in the case file, no investigator past or present seems to have pursued either claim, and if Mark was indeed a CI, there may have been institutional reasons to protect him from scrutiny. The letter gives the whole meditation group theory a darker, more menacing dimension.

Kay Garrison, who used to live with Joyce before they drifted apart, saw her several times over the summer of 1971. In their last meeting — about a week before Joyce vanished — Kay was struck by how unwell Joyce looked: thin, pale, like something was weighing heavily on her. Joyce asked Kay to visit so they could talk privately, but said she couldn't say what was bothering her right then. In her subsequent police interview, Kay recalled Joyce using the phrase 'sealing someone's coffin' to describe what might happen if she revealed what she knew. ^{[1] — Kay Garrison "I just don't know. I'm just so afraid that I'm going to tell people something that I shouldn't, especially when it's someone else's coffin …" 14:00 Play} Even more cryptically, Joyce referenced 'chemistry' — saying she understood it so well that she feared hurting someone. Whether 'chemistry' was literal (Mike Finch was a chemistry teacher) or a metaphor for drug knowledge connected to the meditation group is left tantalisingly open. Kay herself speculated to police that Joyce may have stumbled upon drug-related secrets that put her in danger. Mike Lindbergh, notably, had his own drug conviction from 1969.

The episode pauses for a promotional read for Dark Down East, a true crime podcast hosted by Kylie Lowe that focuses on investigative storytelling from Maine and the broader New England area. The promo describes the show's mission to give voice to victims in cases that never made national headlines, drawing on local archives to tell the stories of people at the heart of smaller-community crimes.

The episode pivots to Bruce Bierbaum — the roommate everyone in Joyce's life seemed to agree she was desperate to get away from. When police first tracked Bruce down at work after Joyce's father reported her missing, he cooperated fully, helping officers search the apartment and confirming her belongings appeared to be there. But Ashley reveals she has been holding back one detail: Joyce's car keys were found inside the apartment. Whether they were her everyday set or a spare is unknown, but the implications are significant. If Bruce had access to her primary keys, it opens a path to how her car may have ended up parked near the meditation group's house. In these early days, officers had little reason to view Bruce as more than a cooperative witness.

Bruce's first account placed Joyce alive and asleep on his couch as recently as Friday morning July 23rd, when he left for work before 7 AM. He said he assumed when she didn't return from the weekend that she'd extended her stay with her parents. But days later, Bruce sent a letter to Joyce's grieving father that struck both Ashley and Brit as bizarre: asking for $90 to cover shared living costs, instructing him to come collect Joyce's already-packed belongings before Bruce left town, and using subtly past-tense language when referring to Joyce. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Within weeks of Joyce going missing, her roommate Bruce Bierbaum sent a letter to her father asking for $90 to cover shared living costs — …" 21:10 Play [2] — Brit Prawat "Hello, sir. I know your daughter's missing, but please bring me money." 24:36 Play} Then, in a follow-up police interview, Bruce completely changed his story — he now said the last time he saw Joyce was Thursday evening before her skydiving lesson. When the lieutenant pointed out that he had previously said Friday morning, Bruce claimed he didn't recall saying that. This timeline shift is significant because Patty, the last confirmed witness to see Joyce alive, said Joyce told her Thursday night that she wasn't planning to go back to Stevens Hall that night — yet Bruce's original account had her there Friday morning.

When Joyce's best friend Jan visited the apartment, she noticed something police had apparently missed: Joyce's cherished blue vase lay shattered on top of the refrigerator. Jan confronted Bruce, who said it had broken in an argument — nothing more. Investigators never appear to have pressed him on this. Ashley also notes that Bruce had claimed to take a polygraph in 1972, but no record of it exists. Over time, Bruce stopped cooperating with the investigation entirely. He went on to graduate, become a veterinarian, and settle in Florida. When Crime Junkie reporter Emily contacted him, he said 'no thank you' and hung up. His refusal to engage was only deepened when Ashley revealed that Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers has made Bruce the primary focus of the investigation and even sent the FBI to his door to request a polygraph — a request Bruce declined. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "When Joyce's best friend Jan visited the apartment after her disappearance, she found Joyce's favorite blue vase smashed on top of the refr…" 25:17 Play}

The weight of circumstantial evidence against Bruce Bierbaum is laid out in full. He has been married and divorced five or six times, and almost every divorce has prompted an ex-wife to call the sheriff's office. One said plainly that she believed he killed Joyce. Another pointed police toward Joyce's distinctive 3-foot blue metal coat rack with cow-horn decorations, which went missing from the apartment and was never recovered. The most chilling detail: a family member told police they found a poem Bruce wrote about a dead girl looking up at him from a river. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Bruce Bierbaum is now the Whitman County Sheriff's primary focus. Multiple ex-wives have called the sheriff's office with suspicious storie…" 28:57 Play} Beyond that, a search of his name returned 35 criminal filings. The most serious was a 2014 domestic battery charge after he allegedly pinned his wife — 40 years his junior — against a wall at a friend's house. Two witnesses corroborated her account. Additionally, the Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine found he committed five violations for regularly giving animal medications to his children — discovered when his ex-wife reported him. None of this proves murder, Ashley is careful to say, but it is the sum total of why the sheriff has focused his investigation squarely on Bruce.

One of the most forensically significant moments in the episode comes when Ashley challenges the longstanding assumption that Joyce was stabbed. The green carpet taken from Stevens Hall — the presumed crime scene — was essentially clean, with no blood detected. If Joyce had been stabbed there or transported while wounded, some blood evidence would be expected on the carpet or her clothing. Ashley states frankly that she thinks the FBI's stab-wound determination was wrong — and that this view is shared by Sheriff Myers himself. He notes that what early investigators interpreted as puncture marks from a knife on Joyce's bones could instead reflect animal activity during the unknown time her body lay in the canyon before being discovered. If she wasn't stabbed, the crime scene could have been almost anywhere — including the apartment — and almost any method could have been used.

Joyce's own letter, in the paragraph immediately following the revelation about Mark's strangulation history, mentions Steve Solly: someone she describes as unstable and moody, but who had befriended her that summer and was directing a communications class in which he was filming her in commercials and skits. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Steve Solly was Joyce's former boyfriend who was filming her in a communications class that summer. He voluntarily brought her typewriter t…" 35:57 Play} Investigators became curious about those recordings but could never locate them. Steve came to police on his own initiative on August 10th, 1971, to hand in Joyce's typewriter — which he said she had left at his apartment while helping him with typing assignments. In spring 1972, a tipster reported that Joyce had appeared visibly distressed after being seen talking with Steve on campus on July 19th, just two days before she vanished. Joyce told the tipster she'd received a letter from someone she didn't trust who was coming to visit. Steve's former girlfriend Bruce Bierbaum also told police that Steve had told Joyce she was 'the source of all his troubles' and that he had been trying to see her. When police followed up, they discovered Steve had quit school and moved back to New York mid-semester — a departure his college roommate later told Crime Junkie didn't seem financially motivated as Steve claimed.

The episode takes a second promotional break for Dark Down East, Kylie Lowe's investigative true crime podcast set in Maine and greater New England. The promo emphasises the show's goal of giving recognition to victims whose stories never reached national audiences, through archival research and narrative journalism.

When police finally caught up with Steve Solly — by which time he had returned to WSU and re-enrolled — he denied ever dating Joyce, saying he had been dating a girl named Mary (through whom he met Joyce) and that Joyce had been coming over to his apartment to help him with typing. He said he quit school mid-semester due to financial pressure, though his former roommate Jay told Crime Junkie this didn't ring true. The police interview is notable for what it omits: the tipster's account of Joyce appearing distressed after their July 19th meeting was never put to Steve. The case file notes that Steve agreed to a polygraph and that officers believed he was being truthful — but Ashley cannot locate the actual test document. Like nearly every other thread in this case, the Steve Solly investigation ends inconclusively.

Ashley surfaces one last overlooked detail: phone records from Joyce's apartment showed a single long-distance call on July 15th, a week before her disappearance, to a number in Moses Lake, Washington registered to a Russell Hansen. Hansen's wife told investigators she knew neither Joyce nor Bruce, and the call was never explained. The number is now disconnected. What makes this detail linger is that Moses Lake only appears one other time in the entire case file: in 2013, when investigators tracked down Mike Finch — the first suspect covered in Part 1 — living there. Ashley doesn't overstate the connection, but the coincidence is impossible to ignore. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Phone records show a call from Joyce's apartment on July 15th to a number in Moses Lake, Washington — a number traced to a man named Russel…" 42:45 Play}

Rather than dwell on the gaps and missed follow-ups, Ashley takes a moment to credit what the original investigators actually got right. In a 1970s missing persons case — especially one involving a young woman in a counterculture environment — it would have been easy to assume she simply walked away. Instead, officers pursued leads aggressively from the very first day, long before DNA testing or digital forensics existed. Sheriff Myers told Ashley that if this crime had been committed today, he has no doubt they would have identified the killer. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "Sheriff Myers told us that if Joyce had been killed today, or even in, like, this decade, there is no doubt in his mind that they would hav…" 44:20 Play} The investigation remains active, with modern forensic testing being applied to old evidence, and Ashley notes that new techniques continue to emerge. The tragedy is that 55 years have passed and a killer has still gotten away with it — not for lack of effort, but for lack of luck and available science.

With Joyce's parents now deceased, her brother Bruce LePage has taken over the push for justice. He has funded a $100,000 reward: $60,000 for information leading to an arrest and an additional $40,000 if that information contributes to a conviction. ^{[1] — Ashley Flowers "$100,000 reward: Joyce's brother Bruce LePage has put up a $100,000 cash reward — $60,000 for information leading to an arrest and $40,000 …" 46:07 Play} He has also been conducting his own investigation. But in a heartbreaking admission, he told Ashley that he has largely given up hope of ever learning who killed Joyce. The episode closes with Ashley directing listeners to contact the Whitman County Sheriff's Office at 509-397-6266 and ask for Sheriff Brett Myers, or to email [email protected]. A case that could still be solved, if someone out there remembers something.

Ashley closes out by directing listeners to crimejunkie.com for all source material and to Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast for updates. The episode ends with a promotional segment for So Supernatural, a podcast hosted by sisters Yvette Gentile and Rocha Pecoraro that explores bizarre mysteries, unexplained phenomena, and legends — airing every Friday wherever podcasts are available.