Original subtitles

[♪ tense music playing]

[Teddy Kyle Smith speaking]

[Sgt. Nathan Bucknall speaking]

[Teddy speaking]

[♪ ominous music playing]

[James Dommek Jr.] This story takes place

at the edge of the world...

Northern Alaska.

This land is an extreme place that's barely America.

It just doesn't care whether you live or die.

It really doesn't. And you can feel it when you're out there.

It's called the Last Frontier.

But to us natives, it's not a frontier, it's home.

But we've lived on this land for over 10,000 years,

so we're still very connected to the land.

We're still very connected to our stories.

These stories are meant to keep us alive

from going too far off...

from getting lost.

I'm gonna tell you a story. It's about Teddy Kyle Smith.

[Teddy speaking]

[Sgt. Bucknall speaking]

[gunshot]

[Teddy speaking]

[Sgt. Bucknall speaking]

[Teddy speaking]

[gunshot]

[James] Most people up north believe in the existence

of these mythical beings.

These mythical beings that we were all told about

by elders, by the storytellers.

He's seen 'em. They're real.

I had no idea...

how deep the story would go.

I had no idea how far this would take me.

[Teddy speaking]

[ringing]

[♪ rhythmic drum music playing]

[James] Neighbors love drummers.

[laughs]

How stoked would you be if I moved next door?

[♪ rhythmic drum music continues]

Whoo!

[♪ ominous music playing]

When I'm playing the drums, the whole world goes away.

When I first started playing, it was always kind of to escape.

I was born and raised in Kotzebue,

the corner of the world, the edge, the north.

For a number of years, the rest of the world knew my people as Eskimos.

But we are Alaskan Inuit. We call ourselves Inupiaq.

I think the rest of the world views my people

as almost mythical creatures.

You know, I'd say, "Where they--" "Where are you from?"

I'd say, "Alaska." And they'd be like, "Whoa."

And they're just like, "What?" And I say, "I'm-- I'm Inupiaq."

And they'd look at you like you're a leprechaun

or a unicorn or something.

They'd be like, "Wow. I studied about you in Social Studies.

And I learned about your people. Igloos, right?"

I always tell people that since we were the last

to have contact with the West...

my people went through a time machine.

We were on the twilight of the Stone Age, essentially.

And Alaska became a state in 1959.

-[indistinct radio broadcast playing] -The Space Age.

[broadcaster] [on radio] Expecting a high today in the mid 20s, low nine...

[continues indistinctly]

[James] Life has changed big time in many ways.

[children speaking Yup'ik]

[James] But growing up in the village is tough.

You see a lot of things.

Kotzebue's known as a brawling town.

A lot of Inupiaq villages are.

I saw a lot of disarray.

I thought music would get me outta here.

♪ One, two, three, four ♪

I would play anybody who called for a drummer.

[♪ upbeat rock music playing]

I'm like a hired gun, soldier of fortune, I like to say.

I wasn't living high on the hog,

but I didn't want to work in the mine.

I didn't want to work on the slope in the oil fields.

Could have made a shit-ton of money.

But I prioritized having fun.

And when I needed the money,

I would do freelance film production.

I just wanted to be around the action.

I took any gig I could get.

[narrator speaking Portuguese]

[muffled screaming]

[actor speaking Portuguese in video]

It's so cheesy. It's so fucking cheesy.

But they paid for me to go down to Sao Paulo for--

for a month, you know? Put me up in a really nice hotel.

But I felt kinda lost at that time.

Starting to party more, drink more.

I felt like a ship without a rudder.

I wasn't really sure who I was.

And that's when I first heard about Teddy Kyle Smith.

[radio static tuning]

I was in my car, I heard it on the radio.

[reporter] Alaska State Troopers say the suspect

in the shooting of two brothers north of Kiana

has been arrested and identified as a Kiana actor

who went missing earlier this month after the death

of his 74-year-old mother.

[James] Mother's dead.

He shot two men.

No one knows why.

Former Marine.

I started really getting fascinated with his story.

I would be drinking and partying,

bar, or hanging out with buddies, I'd be researching.

But then I was like, "I know that guy.

That's the guy. He's the guy from On the Ice."

I was really proud of this movie when I first saw it.

I- I saw it in a theater here in Anchorage when it first came out.

I felt like it was the start of something.

I felt like it was the start of us being able

to tell our own stories and not have other people tell our stories.

Oh, shit, there's Ted right there.

They're going out this weekend, though.

Bring home some natchiq for the freezer.

Where are you going?

Just out.

Go see your aaka first. I couldn't check on her today.

[James] Teddy's role in On the Ice,

it was being true to who we are as Inupiaq men,

modern Inupiaq men,

with a foot in each world.

I can't tell you what kind of person to be.

It's your decision.

[James] The representation of us on film

has always just been a caricature...

-[♪ zany cartoon music plays] -...stereotype.

Hey, ya big palooka. Watch where you're goin'!

-Huh? -Eh, what's up, doc?

If you just see yourself as a caricature enough,

it starts to kind of mess with your self-worth

or-- and your self-identity.

[♪ music blaring on car radio]

You start thinking, "That's the only way they see us."

I gotta put on these fake furs

and get this fuckin' spear and, you know, woo-woo?

My dad gets a scratchy throat

and he holds two yak horns over his head for eight hours.

Me, I take a Luden's throat drop. No Problem.

[James] But Teddy showed us that you could make a movie,

a big movie,

without playing a stereotype or just becoming a caricature.

Um, so-- so there's definitely a lot of stories out there

that-- that need to be told.

And-- and I think, you know, once they're told,

I-- I think a lot of people, society in general,

would-- would really get a good idea of-- of who we are.

[James] He did it. He got out.

I think that was a big part of it, getting out.

I know that was a big part of it for me.

Teddy Kyle Smith...

[James] Teddy was living my dream.

It seemed like he had so much going for him.

-My name is Ted Smith. -[producer] Okay, thanks, Ted.

[Teddy chuckles]

[James] I think he was very close to maybe getting a big break.

That we're gonna help free the whales.

[producer] Okay, we'll just do that one from the top.

You stand up in front of everyone.

[James] How could someone just go off the rails like that?

[laughing] Okay.

[James] Be so reckless,

so violent?

Reading the news, it didn't make any sense to me.

I start texting people in Kiana,

"Hey, do you know this guy Teddy?"

I learned that he volunteered at the school

and taught kids traditional Inupiaq skills.

He volunteered at the elders camp,

trapped wolverines in the middle of winter.

He loved the Inupiaq way of life.

But I heard when Teddy got arrested,

he started just talking to the troopers.

And it wasn't about anything he was locked up for.

It was about something else that happened out there

when he was on the run, an encounter he had.

So I, uh, ended up doing a records request:

trooper interview, courtroom audio.

The very first thing he started talking about

was what he saw out there in those mountains.

He drops this bombshell.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Teddy speaking]

[♪ music fades out]

[James] It just stopped me in my tracks.

I kind of like-- my mouth kind of started tasting like I was...

Like the pennies. Like it was--

You know, like got a metallic taste in my mouth.

I had a very visceral reaction when I heard it.

This is my great-grandfather's book,

The Eskimo Storyteller.

My great-grandfather's one of the last great Inupiaq storytellers.

In the old Inupiaq ways, the storyteller was a position

in society, much like a chief or a shaman.

These were his words being recorded by an anthropologist.

The very first story he tells him is about Inukuns.

"He was walking along the high ground along the creek.

"When he came to one point, he saw two men on the next turn.

"Suddenly he pretended to discover them

"and started to walk towards the rock.

"The two dwarfs stood up and started talking to him.

The little men are called..."

[speaking Inupiaq]

Inukuns.

[♪ tense music playing]

A long time ago,

we used to live side by side...

until blood was spilled,

and they left.

And ever since then, we only hear whispers about 'em.

They lived nomadically, off the land,

in places humans don't go.

They don't like to be seen,

but they're said to be very short, very strong,

leathery looking skin.

They speak an old form of Inupiaq,

but they also have their own language.

They whistle like birds.

There's other people who think that they're supernatural beings

and that they have shamanic powers.

People have witnessed superhuman strength...

possessions.

This is a little footnote at the end that the, uh, anthropologist put

at the very end of this story.

"A string of incidents held together by common actors.

"Dwarves, or little people, still populate

"the Noatak Eskimo territory.

And occasionally their footprints are seen along the river bank."

If Teddy did see what he saw out there,

if he did encounter Inukuns out there,

it would validate all my great-grandfather's stories.

All of our traditional stories.

There's only one person who has the answers,

but unfortunately for me, he's locked up in a maximum-security prison.

I reached out to his lawyer, asked if I could talk to him.

She said no.

So, I wrote him a letter in jail

and never heard anything back.

He just kind of ghosted me.

I need to know more about Teddy. I wanted to know what made him tick.

What just made him snap.

I have more in common with Teddy than I don't,

which is a weird thing for me to say,

because he is so capable of such violence.

People in rural Alaska use Facebook to communicate.

It's a, more of a tool, than a check-in.

Big Bob is one of my old friends from Kotzebue.

I grew up with him in the village.

I know that Bob knew Teddy

because he lived in Kiana for so long.

He could potentially make some things happen, you know?

If you're on his side and he's cool with you,

you'll be alright.

But if you're on his bad side, it's...

I wouldn't want to be on his bad side.

What really happened to him in those mountains?

What did he really see? Did he really see Inukuns?

[plane engine rumbling]

Kiana's an Inupiaq village outside of Kotzebue.

Life in a small village like that is, uh, you know,

it's like living in a fish bowl.

Everybody knows each other. Everybody knows each other's business.

Bob's the kind of guy you get in touch with

when you gotta get in touch with other people.

He knows everybody. Everybody knows him.

[parking brake clicks]

[truck door chiming]

[doorbell ringing]

-[Bob Sampson] Hey. Hey! -Hey! Hey!

What's up fucker? How you doing, man?

[Bob] Well, uh, I heard Mario Joe is cooking again.

I fuckin' met him, and he was karate chopping rocks in half.

-Working at Little Louis'... -Oh, yeah?

-Yeah. So... -Pizza House Mario Joe?

-That-- Oh, that-- from back in the day? -Mm.

-He's back in Kotz, huh? -Back in Kotz.

Well, I'll have to go check it out when I'm--

-I'm gonna get... Yeah. -Yes.

So, you know Ted, you know Teddy Kyle Smith?

I mean, I know of him. I've never partied with him.

-Yeah. -Uh...

-Tried to ask to buy a jug from me. -Hmm.

[♪ pensive music playing]

[Bob] Jugs are a fifth of whiskey.

I'm like, "No, I don't sell jugs.

I-- I only drink my jugs."

Because you're only allowed six at a time in Kiana.

A couple of my friends said that Teddy

was partying hard,

you know, after the movie.

Fucking too good for people,

and he's high and mighty and shit,

walking around with his chest up.

The native word for it is onga.

You know, you boast, you show off.

You think you're too good. Like you...

you onga.

That's what it's called. Fucking onga, huh?

Well, I mean, I can't help but respect a guy who comes

from where we come from to fucking make it

all the way up there to be...

-Yeah. -...you know, doing what he does.

-Yeah, yeah. -So...

So, who do you think I should talk to first?

Probably, uh, Glenda's Auntie Annie.

-[James] Mm-hmm. -Annie Reed.

[James] Mm.

I think she was the first person to see Ted and his mom.

[Annie Reed] We heard somebody get on the radio

and say, uh, that they needed help

over at Dolly Smith's place.

[♪ ominous music playing]

I don't even know why the hell they went over there.

When I walked in,

Teddy was smiling like a normal person.

[James speaking]

Yeah, he smiled.

I went into Dolly's room.

She was on the floor.

So, I start feeling for a pulse.

And I found a faint one, and I kind of panicked,

because I noticed there was a cord around her neck.

[camera shutter clicking]

A million things started going through my head.

So, I called the INL clinic on call, told 'em I needed help.

And at that point,

a couple of other health aides had come from the clinic,

and they all took turns giving her CPR...

-[camera shutter clicks] ...but to no avail.

[camera shutter clicks]

And when they came back out,

that's when they noticed Teddy was not in the house anymore.

They had no idea where he was at.

So, Annie tells one of the girls,

"You need to go get the VPSO,"

the Village Public Safety Officer.

There are no police in the village. There are no Alaska State troopers.

They only have a village public safety officer.

And at the time, they weren't allowed to even carry firearms.

He had a can of pepper spray and an audio recorder.

But Alaska's the most heavily armed state

in the whole union.

Everybody has guns up here.

[Annie] The VPSO was getting my statement,

and then, that's when Teddy Smith came out from somewhere.

I don't know where.

The VPSO was trying to talk to him

to calm him down,

but Teddy started getting more agitated.

[James] "Dolly's son, Teddy Smith,

"fired at least one firearm in the direction

"of the persons on scene.

"Teddy then retreated to a building on the lower portion

of the Smith property, still believed to be armed."

Troopers flew to Kiana and walked to Dolly Smith's residence

where they attempted to contact Teddy.

[Sgt. Bucknall] When we arrived at the scene,

it was unknown where Teddy was.

[Lt. Mike Roberts] I led the team up to the house,

and as we entered the house,

it was very, very quiet and still.

There's, uh, sun kind of gleaming through the windows.

We were moving down the hallway

toward the bedroom doors,

and we both suddenly see a shadow.

So, we slowed way down...

and stood there dead silent.

Ultimately, it was their family dog

that was unaware that we were there and was muzzling and licking

the mom's face as she lay dead

in the middle of the bedroom floor.

[Bob] Everyone was shocked.

Teddy killed his mom, and he's out,

playing out with a fucking gun?

I, uh... I'm worried, you know?

Who's next?

[Lt. Roberts] Following clearing that structure,

our mission changed.

We started to shift into a more of a manhunt search mode.

We went up and down the beach.

We cleared cabins.

[Sgt. Bucknall] We moved to the last structure,

what appears to be where Teddy was living.

We seized 59 different rifles and guns.

[camera shutter clicking]

[James] Here's the list of all the guns they found at his place.

Holy shit.

"Marlin 783, Savage 340."

These are all high-caliber rifles.

That's a lot of guns, man.

This whole page is just guns.

[Lt. Roberts] We didn't find Teddy Smith.

No one had seen him anywhere. No evidence, no sign of him.

Troopers are venturing out and getting more and more information

from people who knew him and whatnot.

[Lt. Roberts] We didn't really have an idea of where he may have gone.

He really could have gone anywhere.

So, we didn't put any effort in looking for him,

because eventually... people come back.

[Annie] Before he ran,

he told his sister, Lorena-- Lorena told me this--

that he was talking to little people by the house

that made him go kill his mom.

Mm... Yeah.

Mm-hmm. A lot of people always say,

you are not supposed to talk about them.

If you don't bother 'em, they won't bother you.

But if you bother 'em, they'll do something.

So, yeah.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[James] Lorena had some key details of that night,

and maybe she can unlock the mystery.

[Lorena Walker speaking]

[camera shutter clicking]

[camera shutter clicks]

[Sgt. Bucknall] So, initially, when we arrived at Dolly Smith's house,

we didn't see anything that was broken, misplaced,

knocked down or-- or indicated that there had been

some sort of fight or altercation.

[camera shutter clicks]

They didn't see any signs of a struggle inside the bedroom

or anything that indicated there was a struggle.

Other than a little bit of blood at the corner of Dolly Smith's mouth

and the discoloration on her arms,

the troopers didn't find any other signs of foul play.

There's two accounts in the trooper report about Dolly Smith's death.

One of 'em is Teddy gets on the radio and says...

And the other one, he says,

"The owls told me to do it, and I finally did it."

If I talk to Lorena, it's gonna unlock a bunch of things.

But I also knew that it was really tough for her to talk about.

So, part of me felt really bad,

but I knew that all I needed was five minutes.

And so, I went to her house to see if she would talk to me about Teddy.

Hi, are you Lorena?

Hi, my name is James.

I wanted to come and introduce myself.

Is that okay?

Are you in a hurry?

I explained who I was.

Oh, hi. My name is...

I said the media painted him to be a monster, pretty much.

I had family members who had been in jail,

and I knew that they weren't a 100% bad.

You know, I was just trying to find people who knew him as a person and...

[James] Oh, I understand.

[James] I completely understand.

I completely understand.

I wasn't able to interview her. She just, she wouldn't talk to me.

Yeah. Good talking to you too, Lorena. Have a good one, now.

[♪ somber music playing]

This is the Smith house.

Sad.

It's real sad. She was a real pillar of this community.

A real good lady. And a really good seamstress.

Made amazing fur parkies. Expensive parkas.

Just sad it had to go down like this.

Upon further investigation of the crime scene...

[camera shutter clicks]

...the troopers found some of Dolly Smith's parkas cut open...

[camera shutter clicks]

...and they didn't know why.

[camera shutter clicks]

Those parkies looked like they were intentionally cut up.

[camera shutter clicks]

Why would she destroy her own handiwork?

To me, it was a message.

Parkas, especially those kind that she made,

are almost like a status symbol

in the northern communities.

It's a very iconic Inuit look.

Uh, my mother makes parkas.

I grew up around furs.

House full of furs,

having to stretch the skins with my brothers,

working the fur.

[indistinct chatter]

And to cut one open like that...

that's just like you were trying to destroy something beautiful.

-You want me to do it? -Yeah.

Let me get my needle.

When I read-- when I read the story

in-- in Taata's-- in Taata Pulungun's book...

-Mm-hmm. -...the very first story

-he starts with is an Inukun story. -Mm-hmm.

People in our area have always kind of talked about stuff--

this kind of stuff,

just kind of based on, we find the little footprints,

we see little running away, we've-- stuff missing at camp...

Mm-hmm.

You know, we always talk about 'em.

-We know they're there. -Mm-hmm.

They still have shamanistic, supernatural powers.

[James] Mm-hmm.

Do you think that there are forces

that are unseen, both good and evil?

Absolutely.

Which dog you gonna feed the most?

Which is gonna be the stronger?

You got a good one. You got a bad one.

Gonna feed the good one more, or you're gonna feed the bad one?

[♪ ominous music playing]

[♪ ominous music playing]

[indistinct whispering voices]

[animal noises chittering]

[Teddy speaking]

[James] I know how it sounds, you know?

I know how it sounds.

I have my doubts. I'm a rational man.

But I know from my grandfather's stories that in each one

of those Inupiaq stories, there's a sliver of truth.

I had always been raised around people

who talk about these things.

Competent hunters.

They're sane, respectable people

who talk about stories, about things happening to them

out in the country.

[Ross blows]

A lot of people, they would think, "Teddy, he's crazy."

But I see things sometimes. Yeah.

I've experienced so many different spiritual experiences

throughout this region, and all-- lot-- most of the places

where I've trapped and hunt,

powerful ones, that almost took over my body.

[♪ eerie music playing]

It started from my head...

and then it got control of my voice.

[indistinct whispering voices]

Just when it got to my knees,

I finally realized I better ask God to help me.

I don't know if I would become the Inukun. I don't know what would've happened.

I don't know what I would've become

if he took over my body completely.

And I didn't want it to happen. So I stopped it.

And some people don't have the control.

[James] He was on foot for 10 days,

40 miles through some of the most difficult terrain in Alaska.

Even by Alaskan standards,

the trek that Teddy made is fucking crazy.

It's almost unbelievable that he made it that far on foot

by himself across that landscape.

There's a lot of people think he might have had help.

[Lt. Roberts] Blew my mind that he had gone so far.

I mean, it's very, very cold.

And it's very, very easy to get hypothermic very quickly

if you're not careful.

And this is the environment in a unequipped, unprepared,

not properly clothed for this trek,

that he ventured across and went out toward.

[James] Stumbled onto the cabin on the Upper Squirrel.

These hunting cabins on the rivers and up north,

you're well off the grid.

Cell phones don't work out there.

Landlines, there's no landlines out there.

There's hardly any-- There's no people out there.

And the only way to communicate in and out

is with the-- using VHF radio, Marine Band radio, CBs.

[indistinct chatter]

[door creaks]

[Paul Buckel] I recognized him as being from Kiana.

I couldn't place a name with him at that point in time.

And I told him, you know, who we were and what we were doing.

My brother and I went out to go bear hunting.

I knew the cabin was there. It belonged to friends of mine.

[Paul] He introduced himself as Paul

and said, "Yeah, I'm up here working on the cabin."

Nothing seemed off, nothing seemed out of place.

That's a normal thing for an Alaska cabin, that's for bears.

[Paul] We talked about weather, and hunting, fishing.

Everything was normal until I started looking

for the SAT phone and said I was gonna call Julie.

But the phone wasn't where I thought I'd left it.

Chuck and him started looking for the phone downstairs.

I went upstairs.

And that's when something switched...

[snaps fingers] ...just like that.

[Teddy speaking]

[gunshot]

[James] The bullet goes through him and out the window.

[Paul] Chuck was shot in the chest.

It went in the front, out the back.

Lots of things flash through your mind.

Shock, scared.

At that point, he's screaming.

He wants our boat, and he wants me to go get the boat

and bring it up.

I got the boat tied off and at that point,

he's... points the gun at me.

[gunshot]

Bullet come in on the back of my right shoulder,

and transitioned through and it come out the top part

of my-- my right arm here.

I stumbled off and back a ways into the woods.

I hunkered down for a bit where I could kind of see the cabin.

I eventually stumbled across Chuck out there.

Chuck wasn't in good shape.

I'd seen Ted come out packing all of our gear

out of the cabin and back down to the boat.

[James] Teddy has got their raft, all their gear,

all their food, all their guns.

And he's floating away with it down the river.

It's pretty much a death sentence.

They're fucked.

[Paul] Nobody knows where we're at.

Nobody knows we're hurt.

And I have no way to get in touch with anybody.

Chuck was standing,

but he was... didn't look good.

If I survive this, and I don't-- how do I tell his wife?

How do I tell the family that I lost him out here...

or I let him get killed?

I turned the Marine Band on to 68 and I hollered.

I got lucky,

and a young lady in Noorvik was up.

And via relay,

I talked to the troopers

and told 'em where we're at, what was up.

And, you know, "I don't know how much battery I got left. I'm--"

You know, "Come get us!" [laughs]

[reporter] A double shooting near Kiana is under investigation.

Troopers responded to the scene at daylight this morning,

taking the two injured men to hospitals

in Kotzebue and in Anchorage.

[Paul] It was, you know, 20-some--

almost 20 hours after he was shot

by the time he was at a hospital.

Most people when they're shot like Chuck was, in the chest like that,

those that survive...

don't survive for more than a couple hours.

When they figured out what had actually happened to me,

the femoral artery and the other--

the brachial artery in your arm,

if you cut it, nick it, most people are--

bleed out within five to 10 minutes.

Why I didn't that night? Nobody knows.

Just, it didn't.

Neither one of us should have come away from the cabin alive.

But we did. We're here.

You know. So, you know...

I'm sure something more was going on that night

than I have control over.

But there's lots of things out there that we can't explain.

[reporter] The village is in lockdown because of the incident.

Troopers do not know if the suspect is still

on the river or not.

[James] The troopers are using bush planes to look for him.

And one of them spotted him.

So, they set up an ambush.

[Lt. Roberts] We laid there in the brush on rifle,

waiting at any moment

for him to come around the corner for hours.

[James] One of the rifle men had instructions

to point his rifle at Teddy's inflatable boat.

The other rifle man had a license to kill.

[sirens wailing]

[Sgt. Bucknall] Teddy. This is the Alaska State Troopers.

Raise your hands, do it now.

Looking through my optic of my rifle,

I think he thought God was talking to him or something,

because he looked absolutely shocked.

He doesn't know where these voices are coming from.

He even looks up into the air.

[Sgt. Bucknall] Teddy, I need you to slowly work your way

over here to this shoreline.

Keep your hands away from the weapons.

Do it now.

I could very clearly see him scanning the tree line.

He was looking for who it was that was talking to him.

[♪ tense music playing]

I will vividly remember him setting his oar down,

and with his right hand, he reached down into his boat,

and he grabbed and did this.

Like he's looking forward,

focusing on something in the tree line.

And he started to pick up his rifle.

And I'm thinking, here it is.

[Sgt. Bucknall] Team, be advised he seems to be complying

and paddling over towards us.

Walk towards my voice. Keep your hands up.

Stop.

I want you to keep your hands in the air

and go down to your knees.

Roberts, initiate.

[trooper] Roger.

[Lt. Roberts] You have a right to remain silent.

Do you understand that?

-[Teddy] Okay. -[Lt. Roberts] Anything you say can...

[James] Teddy Kyle Smith was arrested that day on that river

without a single shot fired.

He knew it was done. He knew it was over.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Lt. Roberts] He was sitting across from me,

and he was just staring at me...

[camera shutter clicks]

...and looking me up and down.

And he kept saying "Inukun" to me.

Mr. Smith is present...

[James] What made Teddy's trial unique was, under oath,

he started talking about Inukuns.

[Teddy speaking]

[Judge Timothy Dooley] Okay.

[Judge Dooley] Okay.

[James] And what was at stake was really

who gets to decide what the truth is.

Is it an American justice system?

The ACLU and-- and the Native American Rights Fund got involved,

and they were saying that villagers from Kiana

would be more receptive to the fact that maybe he--

as a flawed and complicated man as he is,

maybe he did have an encounter out there

that he really wanted us, the people, to know about.

[Teddy speaking]

[James] The defense in Teddy's trial was faced with a real pickle.

Here she was trying to portray her client as sane,

competent to stand trial.

And here he was saying,

"I saw these things out there, and they followed me."

The prosecution is saying, "Yeah, maybe he didn't know right from wrong,

but the fact is he shot two men."

[James] They didn't believe Teddy.

They believed that he was acting during the trial.

The jury really bought what the prosecution said.

[James] The sentence was 99 years.

And Alaska doesn't have the death penalty.

So that's about as strict as a sentence as it could get.

Do I believe that he saw Inukuns?

Um...

I like rules. I like structure.

Um... I like things that I can understand.

Um, but I know that it's a big country,

and there's a lot of things out there that people haven't seen.

And there's a lot of secrets in the Arctic.

But the-- the fact that he talked about seeing Inukuns

and interacting with Inukuns did not play a role

in our deliberations.

There was no place for that

in, um, account of, you know, attempted murder.

My personal belief about Inukuns is just

from all the people that I've talked to.

I believe at one point... they definitely existed

and may still do.

Most of the stories that happen are on the circle.

It happens around the Kobuk River,

up to Anaktuvuk Pass,

or on the mountains and then back to Point Hope area.

And in the middle of that circle

are three massive, uninhabited national parks.

There's nobody in there. They hardly get explored.

But recently, there was a proposed mining road

north of the Kobuk River

to get all this minerals back to Anchorage.

And so, a group of archeologists,

geologists have to go and scout the area

and make sure that it's not gonna affect the ecosystem.

And I was scrolling through my social media,

and I saw one of my friends from Kotzebue had posted this flyer.

And what it said was that these archeologists

and geologists found something

that they really can't explain.

This is their words.

They potentially found "little people homes."

And I find out that there were three tribal liaisons

attached to this group of scientists.

And I find one name in particular that I recognize.

So, I reached out to her.

There we go. Right here.

Actually, I'm gonna hand that to you right here.

Thank you.

Um, I c-- I haven't been able to stop thinking

about what you've seen with your own eyes.

What were they? Tell me what-- Tell me what you saw.

Just point blank. What did you see?

Fucking homes.

Like, somebody's house.

Like, not people houses, not...

-Inukun homes? -Yep.

And I said, "Well, we need to stop work."

I said, "This is their land.

We can't be going on their land."

And they were like, "Oh, can we just go this?"

And I said, "No."

I said, "This is some real shit."

[♪ dramatic music playing]

So, when we flew over,

you could see how they were, like, stacked on each other,

like to form these walls.

- And-- -[James] They were big heavy rocks.

[Mary Black] Big. They were boulders, like...

It wasn't like rocks just scattered anywhere, everywhere.

It was perfectly square.

[♪ dramatic music continues]

[James] I mean, Inupiaq people didn't make houses out of rocks.

-[Mary] No. -[James] We made houses out of sod.

-[Mary] Yeah. Sod and tundra, and-- -[James] And then we-- tents.

-And then, a lot of tents in the summer... -[Mary] Yep.

[James] ...and moved around a lot.

-[Mary] Yep. -We never had--

I never heard of rocks.

We always just been tundra.

-Tundra's warmer. -[Mary] Yep.

Yep. And who else has a--

has a house on the side of the mountain beside bears?

[James] Yeah, that's true.

[Mary] But then, the day we got back to Bornite,

everything just went off.

All the electricity... off.

There was five helicopters.

They flew in two mechanics.

They looked through all... everything.

There was nothing wrong with them helicopters, nothing.

-Nothing wrong with them. -[James] But they wouldn't fly?

They wouldn't fly. They wouldn't even turn.

[♪ eerie music playing]

[wind whistling]

[James] I felt I was hunting.

In the same way that I was taught

that animals give themselves to worthy hunters,

to good people.

If you're a good person and you live right,

the animals can see it and they come to you.

This story did that to me.

Good. Good. I'm great.

I'm so glad you made it out. I'm so glad you made it down.

You beat this weather.

Out of nowhere, I got a call from Lorena,

and she said, "Hey, this is Teddy's sister.

I think I'm finally ready to talk."

I think you know him the best,

so I'm looking forward to talking about it a little bit more.

[James] Hi, Lorena.

-Hi. -[James] Hi. Good to see you.

-[Lorena chuckles] -James. Good to see you again.

Ah, thanks for coming.

-Mm-hmm. -[James] Yeah.

It was kind of weird the way it happened.

Yeah. You know, I was just, you know...

really... depressed at the time, and I couldn't do that.

Yeah. That's... that's a hard subject for me.

But I-- I remember that day, and all my kids wanted

to spend that day, and they did, with my mom.

[James speaking]

No. 'Cause I know him.

He wouldn't do anything to hurt her.

I think he did think

that he did something to my mom, our mom.

And that was why he was running.

Because he thought, you know, he--

[stammering] you know...

he's gonna be blamed for her death.

[James] Lorena's position is,

"I've known Teddy my whole life.

"I know who he is to the core.

"He would never intentionally harm our mother.

Maybe he thought he did something."

And the coroner reports backs that up.

"Entering the residence, there was no obvious signs of struggle.

"The home was in general order.

"I saw no obvious external injuries to Dolly Smith.

"No significant injuries or signs

"of foul play were discovered.

"The only injuries observed were minor scratches

"on the forearm.

"There were no injuries indicating a strangulation.

Dr. Raven ruled the death as undetermined."

Undetermined.

It doesn't say natural causes, and it doesn't say murder.

[sighs heavily] This is heavy shit, man.

I'm not quite sure what happened to Dolly Smith.

No. I-- I never experienced that with Ted,

with no seeing or hearing things,

because he was always, you know, at our house.

And if-- if he did that, then I would know,

or my kids would know.

So, to me, he didn't have any mental health issues.

Do I believe Teddy saw Inukuns?

Yes. 100%.

I think, you know, they were influencing him.

I could tell that maybe he was drinking,

but I... you know, I can't say for sure.

But I know that he-- he probably was drinking.

-[James] Hey! What's up, bro? -[Bob] Hey, hey! What's up, bro?

-What's up, man? -[James] How you doing?

Let me fix my fucking ponytail. How you doing?

I mean, do you--

Honestly, fucking no bullshit right now between me and you...

-Yeah. -Do you think he did that to his mom?

You know what is real crazy, man, is we talked to his sister.

I was like, "Why do you think he ran?

Only guilty people run, you know?"

And she was like,

"I think that he was getting ahead of himself,

"and he just thought, 'What-- look at the optics of this situation.

"'I'm the only one in this house with this woman

who just passed away.'"

And him being maybe a little buzzed,

thinking, "People are gonna think it's me,"

he took off.

And I-- that never crossed my mind that...

-I mean, fuck-- -...maybe he thought

he did something but didn't know he did.

If he was on an alcohol bender for a week,

and he kind of was stopping.

-Oh, shit. -The D-- the DTs.

-Yeah. -The snakes? [stammering]

-People see shit when they snake out. -I 100% will vouch for that

because I've fucking partied for weeks. Um--

Dude, I'm so fucking glad you quit drinking, man.

I'm so glad you quit.

Four years and eight months coming up next week.

I fucking hallucinated. I've seen snakes, you know?

-Yeah. -Fucking snaking out.

-Yeah. Yeah. -I mean, it's... [scoffs]

I went on a fucking eight-month bender before.

-Holy shit. -Yeah, man.

[James] The way you drink in the village

is way different than when you drink in a city.

In the village, you have to go and find someone

who's selling a bootleg bottle of whiskey.

Something you could buy here in Anchorage for maybe $10,

that bottle could go for $200.

When you get it, you're gonna take the cap off,

and you're gonna throw it away,

because you are gonna drink all of that right now.

I didn't really know that side of Teddy, the drunk side,

the alcoholic side,

but I related to him on that issue.

[crowd cheering]

Inupiaq word for blackout is... [speaking Inupiaq]

You know, me and my friends in the band call it "time traveling."

You wake up in one place, and you don't know

how you got there,

you don't know what you did or what you didn't do.

It started with, oh, I'd have a few drinks at a bar,

at a gig, and then it started,

"Well, I'm gonna get some and I'm gonna bring it to my home

and drink by myself."

That's when it just started getting kind of dark. You know?

I felt like I was slowly erasing my own self.

I felt like I was losing who I was.

[♪ solemn music playing]

Every native person I know has felt ashamed.

You have to give up a part of yourself

to just function in this new world.

And I just had this moment of like, "What am I doing?"

You know?

You got to do it right... to honor the story, to the people,

to the land...

to my great-grandfather's legacy.

At the rate I was going, I would never finish the story.

It's gotta be one or the other for me.

And so, I had my last drink, I had my last cigarette,

and I wrote another letter.

I wrote, "Dear Teddy, my name is James Dommek Jr.,

"and I'm born and raised in Kotzebue, Alaska.

"My parents are Jim and Verna Dommek,

"and my aunt and taata are Howard and Emily Monroe.

"The reason I'm writing you is I've been obsessed

"with your story since I read about it in the paper

"and heard about it on the radio.

"Mainly interested in the Inukun part of the story.

"Would you be willing to talk with me on the phone?

"I've included a copy of my great-grandfather's book.

"I hope you enjoy the stories and take care.

P.S.: I put money on your books."

And finally, I get a phone call.

And I see the caller ID says "Wasilla."

So, I pick up the phone, "Hello?"

Where it's a robot voice, and they say...

[electronic voice] This is the Goose Creek Correctional Center,

you have a call from...

And there's a blank space

where the inmate can say their name.

And this person said...

I thought it was literally my uncle.

So I pressed one to connect, and I go, "Hello?"

And I hear this voice on the other side.

[speaker] James Dommek?

[James] And I immediately was frozen solid still.

I knew who that was on the phone. I knew that voice.

And it was the very first time I heard him say my name.

And it really freaked me out.

Gave me the shivers.

And I said, "Yeah, this is James." And he goes...

And I said, "Ted, hey."

I try not to seem too eager or cool. I said, "Hey, Ted.

Hey, I've been really trying to talk to you for a long time."

And he says, "Yeah, I have a lot to say to you.

"I have a lot I want to talk to you about, but I can't too--

"I don't wanna talk too much over the phone.

I want you to come out to the jail and meet with me."

[♪ ominous music playing]

Is he gonna cuss me out?

Is he gonna try to attack me?

But I'm not gonna say no.

I had been trying to talk to Teddy for years.

I'm nervous, but I'm not scared.

I woke up this morning at 4:30 and was like, this is it.

Today's the day. Today's the day I talk to Teddy.

[exhales forcefully]

[♪ ominous music continues]

[blowing]

[whispering] Cool. It's gonna be cool.

[blowing]

[♪ ominous music continues]

[guard] Your seat's right there.

-[James] Hey, Ted. -Hello, James.

-How you doing? -Good.

-Good to see ya. -Good to see you.

How you doing?

Eh. Making it.

-Yeah. -You know?

Uh... you do the best you can out here.

-Mm-hmm. -You know, I mean...

But thank you. Thank you for coming out.

Um, I always-- the more I learned about you

in my research, you know, and I-- I just,

the more I realized that me and you have way more in common

than we do differences.

Yeah, there was a moment in time where I was...

like, uh... no rudder.

-Yeah. Yeah. -No rudder.

-Just blowing with the wind. -[Teddy] Yeah.

-I was drinking pretty hard, too. -Yeah.

And once I realized,

-"I gotta-- This is-- -Yeah.

"If I keep doing this, it's only gonna lead to this."

-Yeah. -To death or jail.

-Yeah. -There's a choice...

-between the light and the dark. -Yeah.

And every-- every young native man comes to that fork.

[Teddy] Yeah.

A big part of my existence wanted

to separate myself from my people.

You know? There was a lot of drunkenness in the village.

There was a lot of-- a lot of fighting, you know,

an-an-and I wanted to get as far as away as I can.

I totally get that.

Yeah. So, I think they only gave us so much time.

And I got a tough question.

Um...

what... what happened that night with your mother?

Yeah. You-- You're not getting an answer from that.

Okay.

Some things in life happen that can't be explained.

I didn't do it.

I didn't.

You know, my family knows that, you know,

and I know that.

-But-- -Why-- why did you shoot those guys?

Why did you shoot the Buckels?

Did you feel remorse for what happened at the cabin?

No growth can happen in me if I'm not sorry

for what I did to the Buckels.

You know? And I know that for a fact.

And, you know, even now, I'll-- I'll ask that they become blessed,

you know, in-- in whatever they do.

You know? And I do ask forgiveness, you know?

What it's put their family through.

Every opportunity I get to help them out, I will,

you know, in whatever way I can.

I want to go back to when you first saw what you saw.

Inukutuks, Inukuns.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Teddy] It's just one of these things, you just,

"Is this really happening?

This is really happening."

It was almost like if time stopped, I mean, uh, completely.

Time just stopped.

Everything that I-- I've ever heard about since a child,

to stay away from, to, to, to disavow,

to not speak about it, finally comes into my sight of view.

[♪ eerie music playing]

And at that point, I thought it-- they were saying something to me.

I could hear the words of "death, weak, vulnerable."

The thing that I missed until I was in here,

when I reflected on that,

was that there was something completely different.

I couldn't go with them.

'Cause I was at that stage in my life.

I'm vulnerable... weak... death.

I wasn't living a good life.

I was on the wrong path.

I thought that they were telling me that I needed to dress the old way,

but that's not what they were saying.

What they were saying is,

"You need to go to the old path."

Going back to the old way.

They see we no longer live in respect anymore.

Respect of land, respect of elders, respect of each other.

They have seen our culture disappearing.

The language, the drumming, the singing.

You're giving up all this because of Western society.

And-- and they see that with their own eyes.

They see the-- the destruction,

the degradation in our society.

And so, they know that-- that they don't want no part of that.

We never used to be like that.

Ev-- everybody in the village had a direction, had a purpose.

-[James] Mm-hmm. -You know?

Did you feel threatened by those-- by those hunters?

You keep saying you had a choice, but I just,

I'm trying to figure out what happened in that cabin.

Yeah. Well, see, I didn't understand I had the choice until...

until later. You know?

If-- [stammering]

If only I had the understanding that I have now,

then none of that would've happened.

It sounds like you want some good to come out of this situation.

That-- that's all that's gonna happen.

I have done my part,

and I shared enough with you

that you could take this out there

and you could do something that can be a change maker

for the nations of our people,

to start living right, to-- to get to the path of life.

When somebody doesn't have an identity,

when you're told to lose a part of your identity,

and you're told to-- to grow a new one,

you don't always gain the right path of life.

And if-- and if you-- if you misuse this and don't do that,

you know, you'd-- you'd just be like one of those guys

that loses his mind and drifts away.

You know? Because you know the truth though.

[♪ somber music playing]

[♪ pensive music playing]

[breathing deeply]

[James] Do I think he had an experience out there? I do.

Based on everything we heard about Inukuns growing up,

I think he misunderstood them.

I think that he thought they were trying to hurt him,

but maybe they were trying to save him.

Good, pull. Lean back.

Teddy Kyle Smith's story is a cautionary tale.

Oh, yeah, there it is.

Teddy could be a very complicated and flawed individual.

If you live a life of self-destruction, you won't get far.

You're either gonna die or you're gonna be in jail.

But if you choose the other way, life opens up.

Me and Ted were on paths that were very close to each other,

and we both came to that fork in the road, I believe.

Telling Teddy's story definitely kept me on the right path.

This story saw me and chose me.

I don't know where or when it happened, but I did feel a responsibility

towards Inupiaq storytelling, towards my family's lineage.

And if nobody tells these stories, they-- they die, they go away.

Someone's gotta give a shit about the stories.

Long ago, before all the outsiders came to the Arctic,

long ago, when the line between myth and reality was still thin,

we, the Inupiaq people, used to live alongside

another tribe that mysteriously vanished...

We're going to hold on to our traditions, our culture,

our language, our dances, our stories,

in order to give future generations a sense of identity...

and not be told who you are.

[♪ soft music playing]

♪♪