The Disappearance of Johnny Gosch

People disappear all of the time.  In our story today, a young newspaper delivery boy seemingly disappears off of the face of the earth, the boy’s dog, Gretchen, is the last member of his family to see him, until he mysteriously re-appeared 15 years later on his mother’s doorstep.  This story is wrought with Secrets and conspiracies, so let’s get into the disappearance of Johnny Gosch.  I’m John Dodson and this is The Secret Sits.

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Transcript

People disappear all of the time.  In our story today, a young newspaper delivery boy seemingly disappears off of the face of the earth, the boy’s dog, Gretchen, is the last member of his family to see him, until he mysteriously re-appeared 15 years later on his mother’s doorstep.  This story is wrought with Secrets and conspiracies, so let’s get into the disappearance of Johnny Gosch.  I’m John Dodson and this is The Secret Sits.

On an ordinary Sunday, September 5, 1982, to be exact in the suburbs of West Des Moines, Iowa 12-year-old Johnny Gosch woke up, got his things together and left home around 5:45am for his paper route. He would get up before the sun rose each morning and deliver newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa, which in 1982 had a population of around 22,000. Johnny was a very good paper delivery boy and had never delivered a paper late, so on the morning of September 5, when Johnny’s parents began receiving phone calls from neighbors asking what had happened to their papers, they realized something was wrong.

Johnny’s parents are John and Noreen Gosch and after receiving these phone calls from neighbors, the couple frantically alerted their local police. However, since they had found no note or a demand for ransom, the police ruled that the case was not a kidnapping and waited 72 hours before declaring Johnny missing and beginning the search.

In the meantime, Johnny’s father, John had begun searching the neighborhood for his son and he found Johnny’s delivery wagon filled with the undelivered newspapers approximately a block and a half away from the house, the family dog Gretchen sitting by the wagon waiting for her human’s return. This was the last trace of Johnny Gosch that would ever be found.

On any other typical morning, Johnny would wake up his father to help with the paper route, but for some, unknown reason, on this morning, Johnny only took the family's miniature dachshund, Gretchen, with him for his morning paper route. Other paper carriers for The Des Moines Register would later report having seen Johnny at the paper drop, picking up his newspapers. This would be the last sighting of Johnny that can be corroborated by multiple witnesses.

A neighbor named Mike reported that he observed Johnny talking to a stocky man in a blue two-toned Ford Fairmont with two doors and Nebraska plates, Mike did not know what was discussed because he was observing from his bedroom window. As Johnny headed home, Mike noticed another man following him. 

Another witness, John Rossi, saw a man in a blue car talking to Johnny and "thought something was strange". He looked at the license plate, but could not recall the plate number. He said, "I keep hoping I'll wake up in the middle of the night and see that number on the license plate as distinctly as night and day, but that hasn't happened." Rossi underwent hypnosis and told police some of the numbers and that the plate was from Warren County, Iowa. 

Noreen, in her public statements and her book Why Johnny Can't Come Home, has been critical of what she perceives as a slow reaction time from authorities, and of the policy at the time that her son could not be classified as a missing person until 72 hours had passed. By her estimation, the police did not arrive to take her report for a full 45 minutes, even though they were only 10 blocks from the home. 

While waiting on the 72-hour window to close so Johnny could be classified as missing, Noreen and John Gosch organized their own search party.  They met with friends, family and neighbors at a park close to their home.  And according to some, then police chief Orval Cooney showed up to the park (at least half drunk) and stood on a picnic table and shouted to the crowd through a megaphone for them all to go home and that Johnny was just, a damn runaway.

Initially, the police came to the conclusion that is all too familiar in these cases, they decided that Johnny was a runaway, but later they changed their statement and suggested that he may have been kidnapped, but they were unable to establish a viable motive. The police turned up little evidence and arrested no suspects in connection with the case. 

At one point police chief Cooney said to Noreen, “we don’t have a crime” to which Noreen replied, well I don’t have a son.  Cooney then started spreading a story around town that Johnny was not the Gosch’s real son, but was adopted and that is why he had run away, prompting Noreen to now have to prove that Johnny was her real son through publishing his birth certificate in the local newspaper. These things amongst others, are part of what spurred on many conspiracy theories around this case.

Johnny’s disappearance quickly made headlines across the country thanks to the efforts of his parents. Frustrated with the sluggish response of law enforcement, John and Noreen went on television and distributed over 10,000 posters with their son’s picture on it. Johnny was even one of the first children to be shown on the side of milk cartons throughout the United States in an effort to raise awareness about missing children.

As a side note, the missing Milk Carton Kids, which lasted for about a decade from the 1980’s through some of the early 1990’s was largely unsuccessful at returning any of the missing children featured on the milk cartons.

Although the Gosches’ massive efforts ensured word of their son’s abduction was spread, it also attracted unwanted attention in the form of cruel crank calls and false leads.

A few months after his September 1982 disappearance, Noreen Gosch has said her son was spotted in Oklahoma, when a boy yelled to a woman for help before being dragged off by two men. 

Over the years, several private investigators have assisted the Gosches with the search for their son. Among them are Jim Rothstein, a retired New York City police detective and Ted Gunderson, a retired chief of the Los Angeles FBI branch.

In 1984, Johnny's photograph appeared alongside that of Juanita Rafaela Estevez on milk cartons across America; they were the second and third abducted children to have their plights publicized in this way. The first was Etan Patz. 

On August 12, 1984, Eugene Martin, another Des Moines-area paperboy, disappeared under similar circumstances. He disappeared while also delivering newspapers on the south side of Des Moines. 

Authorities were unable to prove a connection between the two cases, yet Noreen Gosch claims that she was personally informed of the abduction a few months in advance by a private investigator who was searching for her son. She was told the kidnapping “Would take place the second weekend in August 1984 and it would be a paperboy from the southside of Des Moines." 

On March 29, 1986 — the day before Easter — 13-year-old  told his mother he planned to walk to a friend's house down the street but never arrived at the neighbor's home and has not been seen since.

These other two cases of missing young boys seem similar, however; police have never linked the cases and these other two cases, also have never been solved.

John and Noreen Gosch divorced in 1993.  John stayed in the family home, the home Johnny had known while he was still in their lives and Noreen moved into her own apartment.

The case generated national interest as Noreen Gosch became increasingly vocal about the inadequacy of law enforcement's investigation of missing children cases. She established the Johnny Gosch Foundation in 1982, through which she visited schools and spoke at seminars about the MO of sexual predators. She lobbied for "The Johnny Gosch Bill", a state legislation which would mandate an immediate police response to reports of missing children. The bill became law in Iowa in 1984, and similar or identical laws were later passed in Missouri and seven other states. 

In August 1984, Noreen Gosch testified in Senate hearings on organized crime, speaking about "organized pedophilia" and its alleged role in her son's abduction. At this time, she began receiving death threats. Noreen and John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh, testified before the U.S. Department of Justice, which provided $10 million to establish the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She was invited to the White House by President Ronald Reagan for the dedication ceremony.

In 1989, 21-year-old Paul A. Bonacci told his attorney John DeCamp that he had been abducted into a sex ring with Johnny as a teenager and was forced to participate in Johnny's kidnapping.

John DeCamp met with Bonacci and believed he was telling the truth. Noreen later met him and said he told her things "he could know only from talking with her son." He said that Johnny had a birthmark on his chest, a scar on his tongue and a burn scar on his lower leg; although a description of the birthmark had been widely circulated, information about the scars had not been made public. Bonacci also described a stammer that Johnny had when he was upset. The FBI and local police do not believe that Bonacci is a credible witness in the case and have not interviewed him. 

Bonacci accused Republican party activist and businessman Lawrence E. King Jr who also served as director of the Franklin Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, of running an underage prostitution ring and victimizing him since an early age.  This allegation included prominent members of the military, politicians and more.

In 1990, a county grand jury declined to charge King, finding the allegations to be "a carefully crafted hoax". Paul Bonacci and Alisha Owen were indicted on state perjury charges. A federal grand jury also declined to indict anyone for child prostitution but did return indictments against Owen for perjury and King for fraud related to the credit union; the latter was accused of looting $40 million from the bank and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The bank was shut down in November 1988 when it was raided by the FBI, the IRS and the NCUA. King was released from prison in April 2001.

On February 27, 1999, the U.S. District Court of the District of Nebraska awarded Bonacci $1 million in compensatory damages and punitive damages. Bonacci had sued King, who failed to respond to the civil lawsuit. Thus, a default judgment was entered against King, who ceased his appeal attempt in early 2000. 

According to Noreen Gosch, one morning in March of 1997 she was awakened around 2:30 a.m. by a knock at her apartment door. Waiting just outside was Johnny Gosch, now 27 years old, and accompanied by an unidentified man. Noreen said Johnny opened his shirt to reveal a birthmark on his chest. But Noreen said she did not even need to see the birthmark; she had recognized Johnny instantly. "We talked about an hour or an hour and a half. He was with another man, but I have no idea who the person was. Johnny would look over to the other person for approval to speak," says Noreen. "He didn't say where he is living or where he was going." In a 2005 interview, Noreen said, "The night that he came here, he was wearing jeans and a shirt and had a coat on because it was March. It was cold and his hair was long; it was shoulder-length and it was straight and dyed black." Noreen went to the F.B.I. and had them create a sketch of her now-adult son, but the lack of evidence besides her own story led the authorities to doubt that Johnny was still alive. Noreen firmly believes that Johnny was abducted as part of a child sex trafficking ring and that the investigation was hindered because of the big names involved in the scheme.

The authorities have not denied that this theory is possible, but Des Moines police said they “have no evidence to suggest that Johnny was swept into a pedophile ring.” Noreen and her husband never gave up hope that their missing son was alive, once stating in an interview, “We’ve lived without Johnny a long time now. It’s not new to us, but it still hurts.”

Noreen Gosch self-published a book in 2000 titled Why Johnny Can't Come Home. The book presents her understanding of what her son went through, based on the original research of various private investigators and her son's visit.

On August 27, 2006, Noreen received an unmarked envelope at her front door that contained three photographs. One color photo showed three fully clothed, prepubescent boys lying side-by-side on a bed, their mouths gagged, their ankles tied and their wrists bound behind their backs. Another featured one of the boys - who Noreen believed to be Johnny - alone and lying on a bed, shirtless, bound and gagged. The third showed a possibly deceased man with a ligature tied around his neck. That same day, others connected to the case, including former Nebraska state senator John DeCamp, also received the pictures via email or through the postal service.

Noreen was immediately convinced that one of the boys was Johnny. She sent the photos to James Rothstein, a retired private detective from New York who had helped her in the past. Rothstein said Noreen, along with an unnamed child sex ring conspiracy theorist he knows and talk show host Michael Corbin, had sent him the photos on August 26th. 

On September 13, 2006, the West Des Moines Police Department received an anonymous letter postmarked from Tampa that called the authenticity of the pictures into question.

Gentlemen,

“Someone has played a reprehensible joke on a grieving mother. The photo in question is not one of her son but of three boys in Tampa, Florida about 1979 - 80, challenging each other to an escape contest. There was an investigation concerning that picture, made by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. No charges were filed, and no wrongdoing was established. The lead detective on the case was named Zalva. This allegation should be easy enough to check out.”

This letter brought authorities to Nelson Zalva, an investigator at the Florida State Attorney’s Office, who told them the photos were actually from a case he investigated between 1978 and 1979.

Nelson Zalva was an investigator at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office when the two photos of the children landed on his desk around 1979. Someone - possibly one of the boys’ parents - had found them and notified the police, who began an investigation into their origins and whether any actual abuse had occurred. Zalva managed to identify the boys in the pictures, who explained they were taken by a man in the neighborhood who tied up the boys (with their consent) as part of an escape contest, and promised them fireworks in return. This all seems strange, but if his story is true, then it’s impossible for the boy in the picture to be Johnny Gosch.

However, Zalva’s story has also been challenged, as he was forced to admit that the authorities still hadn’t been able to locate an incident report, any records pertaining to the case, or even proof that the photos were ever part of a case handled by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. To this day, the records have never been found, so the story told by Zalva and the anonymous letter writer cannot be confirmed.

On October 18, Zalva announced that, using the information in the letters, he had been able to track down and interview one of the boys in the photos, who is now an adult. During the interview, which allegedly took place on October 16, the man again confirmed the pictures had been taken consensually by a man in their northern Hillsborough County neighborhood.

Noreen accused Zalva of lying and revealed that she had another photo of her son to prove it (although she didn't specify where or how she got it). She said she didn't share the photo with police because she didn’t trust their ability to investigate it, and that she expected to receive more pictures as her own investigation into Johnny's disappearance progressed.

Noreen has long believed that her son was abducted by an organized pedophile ring, which branded its victims with a “rocking X” symbol. This symbol was first mentioned by Paul Bonacci, a man who, in 1992, claimed that he and three other men had abducted Johnny for the ring connected to the Franklin Credit Union in Lincoln, Nebraska. On the second photo, which shows a lone boy who Noreen believes to be Johnny, someone had circled a faint X-shape mark on his upper arm.

As of 2016, this aspect of Johnny’s case remains unsolved. The sender has never been identified. They boy in the picture has never been confirmed to be Johnny, and the apparently deceased man in the third picture also remains unidentified. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office never found the files from the 1979 probe into the pictures.

Now there are many, many conspiracy theories pertaining to this case and some are quite interesting, but we are not going to get into those here, today.  But I would love to know what you think the Secrets behind this case could be.  Reach out to us on our social media or email, which can be found in the show notes and don’t forget to share this show with your family and friends. I’m John Dodson and this has been The Secret Sits.  Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson, Original art work provided by Tony Ley.