Introducing Valley of Shadows: The Devil’s Punchbowl

L.A. Not So Confidential: The Premier Forensic Psychology Podcast

L.A. Not So Confidential

Science, Health & Fitness, True Crime, Social Sciences, Mental Health

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2026

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Valley of Shadows is a new true crime podcast that digs into a nearly 30-year old secret buried in the California desert. On June 11, 1998, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Aujay set out for a run in California’s Devil’s Punchbowl park — and never came back. Aujay has yet to be found. The Sheriff’s Department rules Aujay’s disappearance a suicide, but friends, family, and fellow deputies insist the story doesn’t add up. Instead, they believe Aujay may have stumbled into the Mojave Desert’s criminal underworld — where outlaw biker gangs crank out methamphetamine and local cops operate on both sides of the law. Through exclusive interviews, revealing wiretaps, and buried police files, journalists Hayley Fox and Betsy Shepherd explore one of Southern California’s most mysterious missing person cases. In Valley of Shadows, they ask: What is the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department hiding?

Find Valley of Shadows wherever you get podcasts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to L.A. Not So Confidential, the premier Forensic Psychology podcast. My name is Dr. Shiloh.
0:06.5	And I'm Dr. Scott. And we host a podcast that explores the intersection of forensic psychology,
0:11.4	true crime, and how those concepts are represented in entertainment. We wanted to take a moment
0:16.2	and update this very first episode for anyone just discovering our little pod and starting off at the very
0:22.1	beginning with us, no matter what year you're currently in. Now, when we started this show back in
0:27.5	2017, our formula might not have been as clear as that description that I just gave you. Our first
0:34.0	recording of our first episode that night, we were just two best friends who happened to be forensic psychologists,
0:40.4	actively working in this profession in actual forensic settings. And we saw a void in the podcast space of people talking about the real ends and outs of this job and how it relates to true crime and the legal system.
0:54.6	We were hoping to find an audience that would be interested in us sharing some real clinical
0:58.8	research that we found endlessly fascinating. This has been an eight-year project of creative
1:04.9	growth, professional growth, and an enormous amount of data being put out into the world
1:10.0	in these relatively small bites.
1:12.4	Starting at the beginning of a podcast can be daunting. This is why we wanted to take a step back and address episode one.
1:20.8	We are so happy that you're listening, but maybe with some of this orientation, it will allow you to get even more value out of our
1:27.9	catalog of work. Yes, there is a ton of benefit you can get from binge listening through our
1:33.0	archives and we believe that this content builds upon itself, but really there's no need to
1:38.6	listen in order. There might be some repetition, but as we know when you're learning a new skill
1:43.4	or topic,
1:47.3	it can be super helpful to have some reminders along the way.
1:52.6	And there were a number of episodes that we ended up finding new research for later.
1:55.0	And we definitely go back and address that.
2:01.5	We are super excited that you're here and you're about to start on a journey of getting to know what the real forensic psychology world is like and also getting to know us. We would love for you
	...

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