by Travis Mateer
The image above is from an old TikTok post from April 17th because that would be 6 days after Joey went missing. He has since been found, deceased, in the Clark Fork river, 40 miles from where he was last seen and reported missing. I have written two posts about this case so far, one on May 5th and one on May 15th.
Today is May 20th and a memorial was held for Joey where many of his friends shared memories. There were stories that included Joey wearing a bear suit, coming to the aid of nephew in a nerf battle, and being a free spirit who sometimes showed up in security footage of a family friend who noticed him doing parkour on cars in her business’ parking lot.
I say WE are failing Joey’s friends because I am a part of this community and I know some of the people who may be involved. That’s why I called Detective Deibert over two weeks ago and left a message, but I still haven’t heard anything back.
What I DID hear from one of the young people I spoke to is a concerning degree of certainty about what she thinks happened, and some of her own trauma with a person who may be involved, the same person who has a mother that is well-known in the Homeless Industrial Complex, the same system that overlaps with the broken Criminal Justice System I’ve been investigating and exposing.
I hope some of the things I’m hearing are NOT true, but if they are, I hope we have competent investigators on the case.
Normally at the end of posts I provide links to donate money to my independent journalism. Not today. Today I’m just asking that you give a shit about the kids who are still alive, and the shit they are dealing with as us adults continue fucking things up for them.
Let’s do better.
PleAse keep investigating this case, there is more than a dead kid drowned in a river. Please.
Well said.