Explanation
Following all the media attention on Tom Johansen and his family, the family received a series of mysterious phone calls and his daughter's house was broken into. They wondered, as did I, if the incidents were only coincidences.

Johansen nuke deal gets more bizarre

By Arik Hesseldahl
Of The Journal

Some very strange occurrences for the Johansen family of Pocatello may be a coincidence.

Then again, it makes you wonder.

The Johansens own and operate the Frontier Car Corral on Pole Line Road. They are also the family that owns some $16 million worth of nuclear fuel reprocessing equipment that Tom Johansen purchased in a salvage auction at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory last year.

He also owns all the technical data and blueprints of the equipment that was designed to extract weapons-grade uranium from spent nuclear fuel rods during the Cold War.

The family has fielded literally thousands of phone calls from news reporters, government officials, and other interested people interested in their story. Among those have been some disturbing calls directed towards the family's children.

"My son got a call, and the person calling wanted to know if his Daddy had these documents and he said yes. Then he started asking about his height and weight. A reporter wouldn't ask those kinds of questions," Sandy Johansen said.

But what happened to daughter Jami Johansen and her boyfriend is even more disturbing, though it may not necessarily be connected to Tom and Sandy's bureaucratic conundrum.

During the weekend of Aug 13 - 14, Tom and Sandy left Pocatello for a vacation home. They were tired of endless dealings with the news media and waiting for the government to act.

Jami, 19, agreed to stay with the younger Johansen children for the weekend. While out at the Frontier car lot, on Aug 13, Jami answered the phone.

"I could tell he disguised his voice. It was an old guy. He said 'I know where the documents are and I'm coming to get them.'

"I asked who it was and he said 'it doesn't matter' and I hung up.

"Two seconds later there was another call. This time it was a different voice, not disguised this time. He said 'I'm coming for the documents and the kids,' and I thought they were after my brother and sister."

Tom and Sandy's vacation was cut short.

Though they may not be connected to the phone calls, two other suspicious events took place only a few days later.

Jami rents a small house with her boyfriend, Mike Haeger, that is managed by Remwest Real Estate Co. of Pocatello. They recently moved into the house.

On Aug. 16 the house was broken into and ransacked. Chairs and furniture were cut open and overturned.

Stereo equipment was dumped from shelves onto the floor. The bathroom sink had been plugged with the water left running.

But strangely, nothing was missing. Damage has been estimated at $5,000. Pocatello Police said there was no sign of a forced entry.

The break-in coincided with a strange early-morning visit to the house a few days before.

Jami had left for work, and Haeger answered the door. A woman he described as large with striking red hair rudely pushed her way through the door.

She mumbled her name and said she represented Remwest. The house was for sale she said, and she proceeded to show it to a young couple supposedly interested in buying.

They stayed about 20 or 30 minutes, lingering in closets and storage spaces.

That didn't sit well with Haeger, who later contacted the Remwest office. Office manager Lanae Millward told Haeger that no one in the two-person office had been sent to show the house. In fact, no one even closely resembling that description works for Remwest.

Millward said the house is not for sale, she said. Under usual procedures, no one representing the owner of the house should ever visit.

"There is no way that person works for us, and there is no reason that we would visit the house under those circumstances." Millward said.

Police have turned up no leads, though according to their report, a neighbor saw someone park a car in front of the house and take a key from the mailbox the morning of the break-in, while both Jami and Haeger were gone.

There is supposedly only one key to the house and they have it, Haeger said.

The strange happenings may or may not be connected to Tom and Sandy Johansen's dealings with the federal government. Then again they may not.

"It really makes you wonder. You really can't say yes or no on whether they're connected or not," Haeger said.