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and affiliates. Discounts not available in all states or situations. >> [music] [music]
00:01:25
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> On September 5th, 1982, 12-year-old
00:02:26
Johnny Gosch vanishes while delivering Sunday newspapers in West Des Moines. His red wagon, still full of papers, is
00:02:33
found near the start of his route and just a short distance from his home. More than one witness reported seeing
00:02:40
Johnny talking to a stocky man in a clean 1979 to 1981 model blue two-tone car near the newspaper drop. It is
00:02:51
believed that the vehicle had a Warren County, Iowa, license plate. The suspect was described as a man
00:02:59
around 5' 9" tall, approximately 175 lb, with dark eyes, black eyebrows, black hair combed back, and a black
00:03:10
mustache, appearing to be in his early to mid-40s, with a heavy beard or unshaven
00:03:17
appearance, and possibly of Latin appearance. Another witness saw a silver Ford Fairmont speed away northwards from
00:03:27
where Johnny Gosch's wagon was found. Neither driver has come forward nor has been identified.
00:03:35
And what involvement, if any, either vehicle had in the abduction of Johnny Gosch remains a mystery. Less than 2
00:03:43
years later, on August 12th, 1984, another paperboy, Eugene Martin, disappears from Des Moines under nearly
00:03:52
identical circumstances. Witnesses saw Eugene talking to a man near the intersection of Southwest 12th Street
00:04:00
and Highview Drive. The man is described as clean-cut and he appeared to be in his 30s, possibly
00:04:07
driving a 1972 or 1973 green Chevy Malibu with gray primer marks. He has never been identified.
00:04:19
In September of 1984, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa, printed photos of the two local paperboys who
00:04:27
had disappeared while on their routes on milk cartons, marking the official start
00:04:34
of the milk carton kid phenomenon. In October of 1984, 37-year-old Frank Secora was fired from his job in
00:04:44
the circulation department of the Des Moines Register after a private investigator claimed that Secora had
00:04:52
sexual relations with at least seven paperboys. Private investigator Sam Soda gave
00:04:58
authorities a 2-hour videotape in which Secora admits he fondled almost all the boys and sexually assaulted a
00:05:07
14-year-old boy. Soda said Secora let the boys sleep with him in his apartment and showed them
00:05:14
pornographic magazines and films. But then, on March 29th, 1986, another boy disappears in Des Moines.
00:05:24
13-year-old Mark James Warren Allen left his home on Emma Avenue to visit with a
00:05:30
friend. He asked his mother to save some pizza for him to eat when he got home. Mark Allen never arrived at his friend's
00:05:39
home. There are no witnesses and no suspect or vehicle descriptions in Mark Allen's
00:05:46
case. In May of 1987, a former Des Moines Register employee, Wilbur Milhouse, 44
00:05:54
at the time, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to six counts of third-degree sexual abuse.
00:06:02
Milhouse gave money, drugs, and alcohol to six boys ages 14 and 15 in exchange for them performing sex acts with him.
00:06:14
In 1990, a young man named Paul Bonacci was convicted of three counts of sexual assault on a child in Nebraska.
00:06:23
He was sentenced to prison where he was incarcerated until at least 1992. While serving his sentence, Bonacci
00:06:31
alleged he was the victim of a powerful, widespread child trafficking ring. In 1992, it came out that the then
00:06:41
24-year-old Paul Bonacci said that when he was 14 years old, he assisted a couple of men in abducting 12-year-old
00:06:49
Johnny Gosch. Paul Bonacci claims he was forced to participate in Johnny's abduction by a
00:06:56
pedophile ring. These claims remain highly suspect and controversial. Paul Bonacci is self-diagnosed as having
00:07:05
multiple personalities. Detectives say that he is a liar and his background as a convicted sex offender is central to
00:07:13
the debate over his credibility. Johnny's mother, Noreen Gosch, famously claimed her son visited her in 1997 as
00:07:22
an adult before vanishing again. In 2006, Noreen receives a mysterious envelope containing photos of boys bound
00:07:32
and gagged. She believes one is Johnny, though investigators later linked the photos to an unrelated 1979 case in
00:07:42
Florida. Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin, and Mark Allen all went missing from Des Moines, Iowa,
00:07:51
in less than a 5-year period. None of these boys have been found. This is a conversation about where these
00:08:01
cases sit today. Frigid cold. This is chapter 6, the lost boys. >> [music] >> You didn't know these boys, John.
00:08:47
>> [music] >> Why did you do this to them? John Joubert replies, "I really don't
00:08:53
know. All I can tell you [music] is that for as long as I can remember, I've just had a need to kill."
00:09:02
And that is John Joubert talking to Mark Pettit in their first interview that took place while John Joubert was
00:09:11
sitting on death row, waiting to be executed for the murder of two boys, one of them a newspaper delivery boy who he
00:09:20
abducted early into the boy's route on a Sunday. And we've already talked about two other similar cases from the state
00:09:29
of Iowa, where we have Johnny Gosch, who went missing 1 year before Danny Joe Eberle. We also have Eugene Martin, who
00:09:39
went missing again on a Sunday morning delivering the same newspaper that Johnny Gosch was delivering. And it's
00:09:47
interesting to take a look at these cases, right? All of these cases are very similar in nature, very similar in
00:09:56
modus operandi, and through the lens we see a pair of solved cases in Omaha, Nebraska and then three unsolved cases
00:10:04
in Des Moines, Iowa once you add in missing persons missing person Mark Allen to the
00:10:12
equation. Yeah, and these all fall in the Midwest. So, if you zoom out and look at it as a national issue, how many
00:10:22
more cases are similar and then did these cases inspire other killers? Yeah, you have to wonder that when you I I
00:10:31
hate to say this because it but it's the truth. You know, and and I've I've had people look at me
00:10:37
with a side eye before when it but these predators are hunting humans and it's the same as a hunter who is hunting
00:10:46
for deer or rabbit or a fisherman. You you know, you don't stand in the middle of a field hoping to catch fish. You go
00:10:54
to a lake where the fish are and it's just like with people who hunt people, you go to where the people are. That's
00:11:02
why if back in the '70s and '80s, these maniacs that were looking to abduct teenage girls, they would go to the
00:11:09
mall. And here you have a weird scenario of newspaper boys being plucked off the
00:11:16
streets during their paper routes and it's sadly it's obvious, right? If there's a if there's a man out there
00:11:24
that's looking to abduct a teenage boy, you have a teenage boy that's out there alone in the dark. Vulnerable. Yeah, we
00:11:34
have some witnesses in some of these cases, but in a lot of the cases we don't have and some of them we don't
00:11:41
have any type of witness. And so, it's interesting to kind of compare these cases. Now, right
00:11:46
out the gate we should say a couple of things because I've heard it reported on other podcast and questioned if John
00:11:55
Joubert could be responsible for Johnny Gosch. Now, we know that he would not be
00:12:00
responsible for Eugene Martin because he was already apprehended by that time. Right.
00:12:07
>> And some podcasters have come up with the question and it's a good question. I'm I'm not saying this to tear them
00:12:13
down. I'm saying it so we can explore it here but also move on from this idea. We
00:12:19
talked about this briefly where Robert Ressler said, "No, John Joubert didn't do the Johnny Gosch
00:12:27
case." And in the short of his answer was very simple, that Joubert's victims were found and
00:12:34
located. Johnny Gosch has never been recovered. That makes sense to me, number one. Mark Pettit who who
00:12:41
interviewed [clears throat] Joubert extensively on death row says, "No, he didn't do it." And Mark Pettit
00:12:46
has a different reason. He goes, "I think he would have told me if he killed John Johnny Gosch, that he would have
00:12:52
eventually confessed to it." Which makes sense because he did confess to the crimes that we know that he did. In
00:12:59
fact, he confesses to killing Ricky Stetson in in Maine. Right. >> And they didn't know anything about
00:13:08
that. In fact, they at one time they had a different man locked up for Ricky Stetson's
00:13:13
murder. Now, one thing that that eventually got him off from my understanding that the the the
00:13:20
wrongfully accused man, he was locked up for months and months cuz he failed the
00:13:25
lie detector test. His alibi didn't check out where he said he was at the time, he wasn't there. So, he has no
00:13:31
alibi, he fails the lie detector test. He had some priors, this guy, but ultimately the bite mark on the victim
00:13:40
didn't match. The bite mark is part of John Joubert's signature. We talked about it with Danny Joe Eberle and we
00:13:49
talked about it with Christopher Walden. And in fact, he tried to cover up the bite marks on Christopher Walden by
00:13:57
doing damage with a knife trying to conceal that bite mark. In fact, there was two bite marks on
00:14:03
Christopher Walden. So, Mark Pettit says, "No, John Joubert didn't kill Johnny Gosch, isn't responsible in that
00:14:10
case." Robert Ressler who is the biggest that one of the biggest experts we can talk about here in the
00:14:17
garage says, "No, the crimes were different." But the reason why people have questioned this is because what we
00:14:24
do know it John Joubert is he kills Ricky Stetson and then shortly afterward he enlist in the Air Force.
00:14:34
Now, I believe and Mark Pettit could tell us better, but I believe that John Joubert probably enlisted in the Air
00:14:42
Force one cuz he had he he had nothing really to fall back on. By this point in his life he had already flunked out of
00:14:48
college in his freshman year in Vermont. I believe that it was flunking out of college that was the trigger. You know,
00:14:55
we always talk about their stressors that that take these people that have these violent murderous
00:15:01
homicidal fantasies. But there's a tipping point. There's a there's often times a stressor or a
00:15:07
trigger that sets them over the edge that takes them from fantasy to living their fantasy, acting it out and finding
00:15:16
a victim. And I think that it was him flunking out of college and moving back in with mom in Maine that led to being
00:15:25
the stressor, the trigger of killing Ricky Stetson. So, he kills Ricky Stetson. The way that that goes down is
00:15:32
Ricky Stetson was out jogging and it this is you know, I hate the expression wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, he
00:15:39
was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it's true though. It's such the
00:15:44
truth. It it with a lot of these victims, especially when you're talking about a serial offender,
00:15:50
that it's remember we talk about the the three abilities, desirability, vulnerability and
00:15:56
availability. And a lot of times the vulnerability and availability comes down to wrong place at the wrong time.
00:16:02
John Joubert wasn't looking for Ricky Stetson. He was looking for a Ricky Stetson. He was looking for a victim and
00:16:09
it happened to be this kid who was out jogging and John Joubert's out riding his bike. But the accessibility, right?
00:16:17
And the vulnerability trumps the desirability. Exactly. >> This victim might not
00:16:24
match their perfect victim type, but hey, they're there. It's an opportunity. But a couple things that you said, one
00:16:33
talking about true crime podcast, one true crime podcast should collaborate more, but we also should talk more [ __ ]
00:16:39
about each other. Just for fun. You know, like a East Coast, West Coast rivalry. In the next couple weeks I'll
00:16:46
determine which podcast I want to talk [ __ ] to and I'll start talking [ __ ] to
00:16:50
them publicly. It'll be fun. But also, you're talking about this interviewing a killer,
00:16:58
which would be I think extremely fascinating if I was ever afforded that opportunity. And I
00:17:05
don't want to get off on a crazy tangent, but is there somebody that you have in your mind that if you had the
00:17:10
opportunity to talk to in prison that you would talk to? I I think I've said this before here, right? That I I don't
00:17:18
pay attention. I wrote a uh a rather lengthy letter to Edmund Kemper and I got a reply. It wasn't the reply
00:17:28
that I wanted. I got a phone call from another inmate. He gave my information. You want to talk about a guy that plays
00:17:39
games? He loves to play games. He gave all my information that I sent to him so he would reply to me
00:17:45
to another inmate for his own amusement. And then I had to deal with this other inmate that I had no desire to talk to
00:17:53
calling me for weeks upon weeks. He would tell me about Edmund Kemper and his interactions with Ed and those were
00:18:00
interesting, but other than that I didn't want to hear from this other guy. So, really he
00:18:05
he must have been annoyed by my letter and he found a way to pay me back tenfold on the annoyance by having this
00:18:14
other inmate call me. Well, it helps if you type the letter and you don't write it in crayon. I wanted to play a game
00:18:20
with him and the game I wanted to play is and I thought he might he would have some very good insights to this
00:18:27
were the Zodiac killings. That was my letter to him. I was like, "Hey, let's work on this together. Let's work on the
00:18:34
the unsolved Zodiac thing." But back to back to our Well, you I guess you're going to tell us who you would want to
00:18:41
talk to. I I don't have anybody off the top of my head. I'm I mean, I think BTK would be fascinating, but he's probably
00:18:47
not going to to admit to crimes that I think he's responsible for. I I think that would be a fascinating angle of a
00:18:55
conversation of the these crimes seem similar to yours and and is there a reason why he's not
00:19:03
taking credit for them or is it simply that he didn't do it? The the problem with all these individuals is we know
00:19:10
that they lie. And so then, what do we choose to believe? Now, there's several people like out of in the true
00:19:18
crime space. I mean, Ressler would have been a fascinating conversation. And I've heard
00:19:26
John Douglas conversations with you and those have always fascinated me. Those were like a a honor and a privilege to
00:19:33
edit even though John Douglas is hard to edit. But I I would love to talk to Jason Baldwin or Damien Echols just
00:19:41
because that case there's there's just so much more information that even though that case
00:19:47
has a lot of information out there. You have spoke with Jason Baldwin just not in a venue that was We drank heavily
00:19:54
together. Yeah. Yeah, so probably not much about the case. I've talked to Terry Hobbs. Um
00:19:59
He almost came on the show. The invite is still out there, Terry, if you are listening. But back to back to our case
00:20:07
here, and this is something that other podcasters have pondered. You have this scenario where John Joubert he kills
00:20:15
Ricky Stetson in Portland, Maine. Okay, and this is 1982. So, Ricky Stetson is 11 years old at the
00:20:26
time, and he fits very much that desirability portion of the three abilities, too. If you look at all three
00:20:34
of his victims, they're all on the smaller side. Right. And so, he fits that smaller build of victim that he's
00:20:43
looking for, and we've already talked about how small John Joubert is. And not just was up to the point of his
00:20:50
execution, he was even smaller when he was apprehended. He put on weight while he was on death row.
00:20:57
But he was a smaller man, and I think that that played into the type of victim he was looking for. I
00:21:06
think he was looking for smaller individuals that were But he also wanted a teenager.
00:21:12
He wanted that 12-year-old, 13-year-old type victim. You look at his three victims, 11, 12, 13 years old. Right.
00:21:20
And but he wanted a smaller victim. Why? Because he was smaller, and that played
00:21:25
into his ability to control the victim, his need to control Well, hold on, let's just say the other
00:21:32
obvious. With a small victim, it's easier to control, so easier to kill or to live out whatever fantasy that you're
00:21:41
trying to live out. But also, it's the aftermath. Now you have a smaller victim to dispose of. Yeah. And we know that in
00:21:51
one of the cases he disposed of the victim, and the other case he walked the victim to where they were eventually
00:21:57
found. So, on August 22nd, 1982, John Joubert kills 11-year-old Ricky Stetson in Portland, Maine. On September 5th,
00:22:06
Johnny Gosch disappears off the streets of West Des Moines, Iowa. And if you were to make the quickest route, driving
00:22:16
route from Portland, Maine out to Bellevue, Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska where we know John Joubert ends up
00:22:25
eventually, because we know that he killed Danny Joe Eberle the following year, September 18th
00:22:32
1983. He abducts the boy on his paper route. Johnny Gosch disappears on his paper route 1 year prior. You That route
00:22:40
would take you right through Des Moines, Iowa. And so, the question has always been
00:22:46
with some folks, did he stop along the way, or did he or was he in Des Moines, Iowa
00:22:55
for any period of time and abducted and killed Johnny Gosch? It's interesting to
00:22:59
ponder. The problem with that equation is he didn't go straight from Portland, Maine to Omaha, Nebraska.
00:23:08
He was actually stationed in two different locations before he ends up in Omaha, Nebraska. So
00:23:16
the best that I can pin John Joubert down at the time of Johnny Gosch's abduction, he was actually in San
00:23:26
Antonio, Texas. And he was completing his training for his Air Force training, and then he ends
00:23:33
up in Biloxi, Mississippi, both before he is in Omaha, Nebraska. Yeah, so one, you have to put the guy in the area for
00:23:42
him to be able to commit the crime. But I think the other thing that should be noted here is if he's not responsible,
00:23:48
that just is a indication that there's more and more creeps. Just scare the [ __ ] out of everybody. Johnny Gosch,
00:23:56
while he is the same age as Joubert's victims, he's quite a bit bigger. I mean, actually, at
00:24:04
the time of his disappearance, he's larger than John Joubert. He's an inch or two taller than John Joubert, and
00:24:11
would have weighed about the a little less than Joubert at the time, but I think that even if he were, which we
00:24:19
know that he wasn't even if he were to have been in Des Moines, Iowa by chance on September 5th, 1982, I
00:24:26
think he would have looked for a smaller victim. I think that the size of Johnny
00:24:30
Gosch would have made him just keep driving. And we know that Johnny Gosch was not the only
00:24:36
newspaper boy out that morning. There's a lot of stuff that takes place in the Johnny Gosch case, and people that are
00:24:42
familiar with the case they know this. There's a lot that went on with that case over the decades in
00:24:50
it's it's a case that refuses to go quiet, and a big part of that is Johnny Gosch's mother, Noreen Gosch. We know
00:24:58
the last place that we can tie him to is the corner of 42nd and Marquart Avenue.
00:25:03
One thing that we should talk about here, Captain, is there's [snorts] been a lot of speculation as to what happened
00:25:10
to Johnny. And there's been talk of, well, he's he's not dead, he's been sold into child
00:25:17
sex rings. And we have Noreen Gosch, who says that Johnny visited her many years after
00:25:26
he was abducted. He He came and spoke with her one night in the middle of the night, and he was an adult, and he was
00:25:32
there with another man who who seemed to be keeping an eye on Johnny and controlling
00:25:37
the situation. He was living under a different name. I Look, I don't know if that really
00:25:43
happened. We know that we know that Noreen Noreen and John Gosch Sr., Johnny's dad, they eventually separate.
00:25:52
John Gosch moves to, I believe, Arizona. He says, look, I question if that really
00:25:59
happened or not. I I'm not going to sit here and and drag Noreen through the mud. She says it
00:26:07
happened. I don't know. It doesn't seem likely to me. I I Look, the These parents go through a
00:26:13
lot. This is enough to break anybody. Well, you wonder, is it It wasn't a dream that just felt so real?
00:26:20
But also, I My argument to other people would be like, show me where she's lied before. Show me Show me her as a liar.
00:26:28
Show me her as somebody that hasn't gone gone above and beyond to try to help other missing
00:26:37
children's families. And just the whole conversation, she's She's advanced the conversation of what should we do when a
00:26:44
child goes missing. And so, my argument is if you can't point to her as a liar, why should I not believe her? And then
00:26:52
you've also in the Johnny Gosch case, and even if the story was made up from Noreen
00:26:58
but it pushes the narrative or gets people to keep talking about the case, hey, she's a parent. There's nothing
00:27:04
that you won't do. But there's been other people in the Johnny Gosch case that have come
00:27:10
forward and said, I helped abduct Johnny. >> Well, that's what I want to get into
00:27:14
right here. So, this is from a 1992 I pulled all the information from information that was coming out in 1992.
00:27:24
Okay, so If I sound a little pissed off, I'm I'm a little pissed off. Well >> Not at you. Just in in general. I think
00:27:33
these cases, they're frustrating, and I think sometimes when people are trying to put
00:27:39
out information or try to give information, I don't know. I think the the narrative of these cases and how
00:27:46
people have fudged them over time. And not just And not just in this case, but in in true crime as a whole.
00:27:53
The more we look into the cases, the more I realize the initial narratives really matter,
00:28:01
because they stick. Yeah, but I I Again, this child sex ring and and all of this
00:28:07
extra stuff, all this other stuff was not part of the original narrative. >> Right, right. Um And and to circle back
00:28:14
to something, too, like I get it if if Noreen makes up the story to keep her son's story alive
00:28:21
I I can sympathize with that. The problem with that, though, is it's just frankly it's just wrong. I mean, if And
00:28:28
if you were if you were to be caught in a lie of that magnitude, then you're not
00:28:34
helping your son's case. You just aren't. So, I mean, I it it would seem a bit of cutting off your nose despite
00:28:40
your face situation. But let's go to to something that we know absolutely 100% did take
00:28:47
place in the Johnny Gosch case. Speaking of original narrative, let's go back to the beginning here, right? On
00:28:55
the morning of September 5th, 1982, Johnny Gosch left his home around 6:00 a.m. to deliver the Sunday Register.
00:29:03
Something that he did most Sundays. Now, keep in mind, most of these days, if not all, the way that the original
00:29:10
narrative is this is the first day that he was going to go out there and do it by himself. And if that is true,
00:29:18
speaking of truth, if that is true, I think that plays into the facts of what probably happened that day, of of who
00:29:27
might be responsible. Now, and keep that in mind as we go through this portion of
00:29:33
the story. So, around 7:45, someone calls to ask why their paper hadn't been delivered.
00:29:39
Noreen and John, they rush out. They're looking through the neighborhood, trying to find their son.
00:29:46
This is a nice neighborhood. The search didn't lead them to Johnny, obviously. It led them to something worse. They
00:29:52
find his wagon still filled with newspapers sitting near the beginning of his route
00:29:58
as if the route had barely started before it was abruptly interrupted, and they report their son missing around
00:30:06
8:30 that morning. Now, detectives would learn that Johnny had last been seen talking to a man in a blue car around
00:30:13
that 6:00 a.m. mark. This man's identity has never been confirmed. The blue car became a detail that hung
00:30:21
over this case. It sounded like a lead, but really it's just a bigger it's just part of a bigger
00:30:27
mystery. And the first days after Johnny vanished, police were reluctant to say that he had
00:30:34
been kidnapped even though there's no trace of him. And we can sit here today. I I feel we know
00:30:41
the kid's missing, right? And but he's often referred to as a missing kid. I don't know why we're not saying
00:30:48
abducted kid. It's clear to me this kid was abducted. Now, 2 weeks into this investigation,
00:30:55
according to Noreen, the case was put on the back burner, as she states it. She was very vocal in '92
00:31:05
because she's saying, "Look, we've uncovered the biggest break in this case. It's
00:31:11
not a suspect, not a confession, well, of sorts, right? But a person who had or claims to have involvement with
00:31:21
Johnny Gosch's abduction. This all ties into some of the sex ring implications, and also with a circle of pedophiles, as
00:31:32
well as child pornography, child sex abuse material, things of of that nature. What we get
00:31:40
here, Captain, is an attorney in Omaha, Nebraska very weird right back there in Oma-
00:31:47
Omaha, Nebraska. All these things are just they're just tied together in my mind
00:31:52
permanently. So, an attorney from Omaha, Nebraska contacted Mr. Gosch, and he tells Mr. Gosch
00:32:01
that he has a client sitting in prison who claims to have been involved in the abduction
00:32:09
of their son, Johnny Gosch. What we have to decide here, Captain, is is this story true
00:32:18
or is it false? Is it just another part of this big, strange mystery that's become a mystery wrapped in a riddle?
00:32:37
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>> [music] [music] >> All right, we are back. Tall cans [music] in the air. Power to the people
00:35:03
in the back. Much love to everybody that's on Patreon and Apple podcast subscriptions. Cheers to [music] you,
00:35:09
Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. Tall cans in the air, everybody. So, what we're talking about here is Paul
00:35:16
Bonacci. Paul Bonacci. At this So, in the at the time he's 24 years old, he's sitting in
00:35:24
in prison in Omaha, Nebraska, and he tells his attorney that he was involved in the abduction of
00:35:34
Johnny Gosch. Johnny's father hires a private investigator to first meet with this Paul Bonacci
00:35:43
and the attorney, and then he goes and meets with him as well. And both the private investigator and
00:35:51
and Mr. Gosch walk away from those meetings with the same conclusion, that they believe that this
00:35:57
Paul individual is telling the truth. And that is what Noreen is saying, "Look, this is the biggest break. We
00:36:05
took this information to the police department investigating our son's abduction, and they they don't want to
00:36:11
do anything with this information." Now, the they're the way that this story works is that
00:36:20
he says that he had been being abused by a child sex ring, and that he claims that
00:36:30
he was part of abducting Johnny Gosch. Look, if you have a kid in the car, it would be easier to entice another kid to
00:36:38
get in the vehicle is the general idea here, or send Paul out to talk with a possible victim and lure them
00:36:47
back to the abductor. His story he claims that there there's a couple problems with Bonacci's story, okay? And
00:36:57
I know that the parents, Johnny's parents, feel like he's telling the truth. >> Well, part of it part of it is that they
00:37:02
want to believe somebody with new information. That's part of it. And so, you have to look at this information
00:37:12
with a clear head. And it's going to be impossible for anybody that has had a child abducted, and they don't know
00:37:18
where their child is, to come at a lot of this information with a clear head. Well, speaking of clear head, I'm
00:37:25
allowing my speculation to get in the way of telling of laying this story out. So,
00:37:31
Noreen meets with she eventually meets with Paul Bonacci as well. This would be just before
00:37:37
Thanksgiving 1991, okay? She said that he told her things that he could only have known
00:37:45
from speaking with Johnny. Right. >> And Bonacci's story is expansive and horrifying if it's real. He claims that
00:37:54
Johnny had been sold into a pedophile sold to a pedophile in Colorado, and said that he traveled, quote, on the
00:38:01
road with Johnny Gosch and other kids for about 7 years, and that the last time he saw Johnny was in Colorado in
00:38:09
1989. And he said that eventually Johnny was later shipped to a country in the area
00:38:17
of the Netherlands where this type of activity is legal, and that Johnny had been renamed Mark. He had black hair,
00:38:26
and he stood 6' 4". Johnny was a big kid, so the 6' 4" thing makes sense to me. Some of what he's saying makes sense
00:38:33
to me. The problem that I have with Bonacci's story is this. One, at this time, he
00:38:41
is in prison. We know that. What's he in prison for? Sexually assaulting three boys. Oh, but that
00:38:48
shows that part of his story is true. The other part of his story that I don't like is that he says that So,
00:38:55
the reason why Mr. Gosch and the private investigator walk away from their meetings with Paul Bonacci think that
00:39:02
he's telling the truth is that they they basically gave him a photo lineup without telling him it was a photo
00:39:09
lineup, right? They gave him the description of the man. The description we have of the person that was talking
00:39:17
to Johnny Gosch, and they said that he picked up the picture, said that this is the man that
00:39:24
abducted Johnny Gosch, and and named that person, the mystery man. He named him. They took
00:39:31
that information to police, and the police weren't so interested. They didn't arrest the guy. They I think
00:39:36
Noreen claims that they didn't interview him. The police say that they did interview him multiple times,
00:39:42
but the police also say that they don't believe Paul Bennewitz. And that that's going to be a problem
00:39:48
for this for arresting the guy. They can't just go arrest the guy because Paul Bennewitz
00:39:54
says this is Johnny Gosch's abductor. Right. The other part of the story that I don't like is Bennewitz says that he
00:40:02
was in a motel the night before Johnny Gosch was abducted. And he says that that man
00:40:09
who he named came to the motel, gave him a picture of Johnny Gosch and said, "This is the boy that you're going to
00:40:15
take tomorrow." Okay. Let's examine that part of it. I'm not saying that all parts of Paul Bennewitz
00:40:21
story are completely false, but this would seem false to me because the original the narrative, back to the
00:40:29
idea of original narrative, has always been that Johnny went on that paper out for the first
00:40:35
time alone that morning. So, if you were targeting that his Paul story would implicate that that Johnny Gosch was
00:40:43
targeted. And if he was targeting Johnny Gosch, you're not going to do it on his
00:40:48
paper route when he's not a when he's being accompanied by his father. So, that part of the story
00:40:55
I don't know, just doesn't ring true to me. Well, and he knows about certain birthmarks and, you know, the fact that
00:41:02
Johnny would have a stammer when he get nervous. But, a lot of this stuff you could learn
00:41:08
through I found all of that in the newspapers. Right. I I found that in the newspapers because all that was
00:41:16
well reported. I mean, obviously it would be. They're looking for the boy. But, this is strange to me because
00:41:21
Paul's not coming forward or Bennewitz is not coming forward and trying to go, "Hey, I'm I'm awesome. I'm a hero." You
00:41:29
know, uh he's telling you what he is. "I'm a degenerate, a horrible [snorts] individual, and I
00:41:38
and when I was younger, I helped abduct Johnny Gosch." I'd also wonder if he helped abduct other individuals. But,
00:41:48
so to me, it's it's like when when somebody confesses to a crime and then the next time they
00:41:55
confess, they put they implicate themselves more and they make themselves look worse, right?
00:42:03
I tend to believe the the story where it makes them look worse. So, again, if he
00:42:08
was trying to tell this story or try to sell it as if he was >> make him look worse though? I mean, how
00:42:14
many times does somebody end up on trial for murder and at their at their sentencing, once
00:42:20
they're found to be guilty, at sentencing, all of a sudden, they're telling stories of, "Oh, I was abused
00:42:26
and neglected as a child and all this stuff happened to me and this is why I am the way I am. I'm a victim,
00:42:33
too." And that to me is what his story is is more of, "Oh, I was victimized as a child and that's why I've done the
00:42:42
stuff that I am now sitting in prison for." Yeah, but it could be both, you see.
00:42:46
>> that, too, can't [clears throat] you wouldn't you believe for a moment that he's trying to use this information to
00:42:52
leverage him into a better situation? "Hey, this kid you've been looking for for 10 years, I've been sitting on
00:42:58
information." It could just be his lack of intelligence. The information that he's given is not going to get the
00:43:05
answers needed to help him out in any possible way. He can sit there and tell you what happened, but if
00:43:12
you're not able to find Johnny because of this information, I don't know how much it helps him. But,
00:43:18
that doesn't negate the fact that he might not understand that. So, then you just wonder,
00:43:25
is he trying to tell the truth? And the truth still makes him a a [ __ ] that participated in this stuff, whether it's
00:43:33
willingly or non-willing. I mean, that's a whole other argument. Or is he just a complete bag of horse
00:43:39
[ __ ] and he's just telling this story to possibly get something out of it. That
00:43:46
You know, some of these people, they're they're so dumb that they think, "Well, I can just make up nonsense and feed
00:43:52
them information and maybe I'll get a lighter sentence." Not understanding that if you don't give
00:43:57
them enough where we get some results, that this does nothing for you. So, he could just he could
00:44:03
>> hurt to try. It doesn't hurt to try. The problem with his story is this for me.
00:44:08
It whether it's real or not, I believe it to be false, completely false. But, the the problem with his story is this.
00:44:16
Either it's completely a lie or it's the truth and the truth is so strange and fantastical that nobody will
00:44:24
believe it. Well, and the thing, too, is he he brought law enforcement to a location that he said they were holding
00:44:30
children. He said before they get to the location where they're holding those children, they go they go to that
00:44:36
location and find a basically like a secret door that leads you to this place that has all these names written
00:44:46
and carved into it. And you go, "Okay. So, maybe the the Johnny Gosch part isn't correct,
00:44:56
but other parts of his story are correct. And I think that's hard for law enforcement to deal with. I think
00:45:03
it's hard for society to deal with that there's this there's this crazy, sick, demented [ __ ] going on constantly.
00:45:14
And sometimes it's it sounds it sounds insane. And I think some of the people that are
00:45:21
doing this stuff know that. You know, in the mid-90s, they were talking about Bohemian Grove,
00:45:32
which was a owl sanctuary where world leaders would meet to have conferences. And they had a outdoor
00:45:40
amphitheater. And during some of these meetings, they would have a play. And the play would be a reenactment
00:45:49
sacrifice of a child, of a baby. And that sounds insane because if I'm at a party and you turn to me
00:45:59
and you give me a nice cold beer. We cheers, talk, hands in the air, and you say, "Hey, get ready cuz in 5
00:46:05
minutes, they're going to have a play where we we reenact the sacrifice of a child." I'm
00:46:12
going, "No, thanks. I'm getting the hell out of here." And it sounds crazy. And if you tell
00:46:19
people the story, you could tell 100 people the story and they all think it's crazy.
00:46:23
But, then when you can show them video evidence of it, then then people don't know what to do. They don't know what to
00:46:28
say. Every time we talk about anything about human trafficking or child trafficking, I get an email from
00:46:35
somebody that says it doesn't exist. And I think that's part of them not wanting
00:46:40
it to exist. And just because you want something not to exist, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And so, I don't know if
00:46:49
Paul's story is connected to Gosch, but it is connected to other individuals. And
00:46:57
and I think it Look, both can be happening at the same time. These individuals that do sick [ __ ]
00:47:04
they're looking for reasons why. And if they were physically abused, mentally abused, or sexually abused as a
00:47:12
child, this is them wrestling with the justification. And is it chicken or the egg? And so, I think this guy's a piece
00:47:21
of [ __ ] How he got there, I'm not for sure. But, that is part of the story and it's
00:47:28
also should be part of like the disclaimer. When these individuals are abused, they can become the abuser. And
00:47:38
the and it's a sick, sad world. True, but a couple of names carved into a wall doesn't mean
00:47:45
that his story's true. I mean, again, you said it, he's not able to prove any of these things.
00:47:52
And that is where his story for me stops. Until any of that can be proven, his is
00:48:00
just a story. And it's just one story. It's it's one story that made it to the spotlight with the Johnny Gosch case.
00:48:08
But, I can assure you this that and everybody out there listening, that this is not the only story that made its way
00:48:14
to police or to Noreen Gosch or anybody else regarding Johnny Gosch's what happened to him. Well, but hold on. I I
00:48:22
do want to point out he talked about being branded. And there was other individuals that came out
00:48:29
saying that they were branded as well. That's something that if you are faking, brand yourself sometime and tell me what
00:48:37
that feels like, right? And so, when that stuff comes out to me, I'm like, again,
00:48:44
the 100% of the story doesn't have to be true, but even if 5% of it's true, this
00:48:48
is a sick world. These are sick individuals. These you know, you might not have to run down
00:48:55
100% of the story, but you have to run down the 5% of the story because this is happening all the time.
00:49:00
>> Well, let's get out of the weeds here and go back to Des Moines, Iowa and examine
00:49:06
this because what I want to truly examine here is are these still outstanding cases connected?
00:49:16
Right? We have Johnny Gosch, he's never been found. We got Eugene Martin 2 years
00:49:21
later. So, Eugene Martin is last seen between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. on August 12th, 1984
00:49:28
in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. He was preparing to start delivering his morning newspaper route
00:49:36
at that time. And he normally delivered the papers with his older stepbrother, but his stepbrother was not with him on
00:49:42
this day. Witnesses saw Eugene talking to a man between 5:00 and 5:15 a.m. at Southwest
00:49:49
12th Street and Highview Drive. The man is described as clean-cut, and he appeared to be in his 30s. He has never
00:49:57
been identified. You know, we talked about the vehicles in question in the Johnny Gosch case. They didn't call
00:50:04
those the drivers of those vehicles suspects, but you do have the detectives telling the papers
00:50:12
in Johnny Gosch's case like because the papers kept kind of poking at police like, "Well, are these
00:50:18
suspects? Are these suspects?" And they're they're like They want to call them suspects.
00:50:23
But they they refuse to do so, but they but they tell the newspaper, "Look, our concern is we're not calling them
00:50:30
suspects, but our concern is here's all this time we've described these vehicles
00:50:35
over and over again, and nobody with these vehicles has ever come forward. No one has ever come forward. So, that's
00:50:41
where their suspicion lies if you read between the lines there. The similarities in the two cases are
00:50:47
fascinating with Eugene Martin and Johnny Gosch both on a Sunday morning Yes. >> both out delivering newspapers, and
00:50:56
according to the original narrative, both delivering it alone, solo, for the first time.
00:51:03
Now, when you dig deeper, one thing that's great about covering cold cases from the state of Iowa is
00:51:11
Iowa has a fantastic cold case presence online. iowacoldcases.org. It's a It's a great tool for us when
00:51:20
we're doing our research. They cover just about every Iowa cold case that you can think of. I mean, it's it's
00:51:28
extensive. With Eugene Martin, less is known about his story than Johnny Gosch's. And I wanted to really dig
00:51:37
through the Eugene Martin stuff because I have to reconcile are these connected.
00:51:42
There's so many similarities that it says that they would be. The difficulty thing here The difficult part of this is
00:51:49
the person or persons responsible, did they wait 2 years before they pulled another kid off the streets? That's
00:51:55
difficult to say. So, I found one person who posted a great comment about Eugene's case and gave
00:52:06
much more information because he lived there. He grew up with the disappearance of Eugene Martin.
00:52:15
And so, Mike K posted, this is from almost 6 years ago. And I'm going to read his post cuz it's it's detailed and
00:52:22
it's filled with information. He says, "I clearly remember when Gene disappeared. I was 15 at the time. Gene
00:52:30
was 2 years younger than I. He lived with his mother on the east side during the school year and visited his dad
00:52:36
during the summer, so I didn't know him, but this happened in my south side neighborhood and it hit me pretty hard.
00:52:44
As someone who grew up about a mile from where Gene's paper bundles were dropped
00:52:50
and about a quarter of a mile of a mile from where his bag was found, who also spent a few weeks in Iowa August beating
00:52:59
the bushes and all over the south side of Des Moines with the organized search crews, I'd like to point some things out
00:53:07
to the internet sleuths here. First, from where his paper bundles were dropped, the city limits are
00:53:14
approximately 1 mile straight south and also about a mile and a quarter west on on a state highway that ran straight to
00:53:23
Interstate 35. The map today doesn't represent the area as it was because the airport bought out my entire
00:53:31
neighborhood to expand and rerouted the highway a bit to the south. But if you look at the intersection of Southwest
00:53:39
14th and Army Post Road on the current map, then track a straight line west to I-35
00:53:47
through the airport, that is how the highway ran. Near the end of the last building shown
00:53:54
on the airport on Google Maps today is where the city limit sign used to be. And if memory serves me correctly,
00:54:02
over 36 years later, Gene's bag was found on the side of the road not too far past that sign. And he says that the
00:54:10
the bag was found by a person who he's calling RM, and we'll get to Well, sorry. The bag, as we know, was found by
00:54:18
his route manager who saw it because it was on his path from where he was to Gene's bundle drop.
00:54:27
Okay. Now, Mike K goes on to say, "You can never miss those bright yellow bags lying on the ground anywhere.
00:54:34
I didn't know Gene because he was 2 years younger than me, but this was my neighborhood. The biggest reason that
00:54:40
there is more information about the investigation out in the public view about Johnny Gosch rather than Gene is
00:54:47
because Noreen could not stay away from microphones and often times said things on air that compromised the police
00:54:54
investigation. Don Martin, Eugene Martin's dad, didn't do this. I can tell you that
00:55:02
in the weeks after Gene's disappearance, there wasn't a field, barn, ditch, culvert, property, creek bed, riverbank,
00:55:10
railroad trestle, or inside of a 7-mile radius that wasn't walked and checked by our group." So, Mike is
00:55:18
saying he was part of the organized searches for Eugene Martin. And that's a great description of He's
00:55:25
saying in a 7-mile radius, we checked everything. Often times, the they were accompanied by Gene's family
00:55:32
on the searches. And part of Mike's post, his comment post here, is in defense of the Martin family because
00:55:42
there were people that were posting on iowacoldcases.org that they were suspicious of
00:55:50
Eugene's father. And he's saying there's no reason to do that. And we also talked
00:55:56
about in when we covered Eugene's case in chapter 4, we talked about the the detective that worked the Eugene Martin
00:56:05
case, and he would go over to Eugene Martin's father's home every Friday after work, and they would sit
00:56:12
and talk about the case. Every Friday for years. That was Detective Rowling. Yeah, something you probably wanted to
00:56:19
do if you had something to do with the case. I think it's just bad speculation on the
00:56:25
internet that that has led to that. So, his post goes on and says, "No property owner to my knowledge told us, 'No, you
00:56:33
can't look here.' That's just the way we were back then. I also remember that I also remember that neighborhood was
00:56:41
literally crawling with police canvassing, checking, looking, etc. for at least a week. They were never denied
00:56:48
access anywhere they wanted to look because us south siders were upset and actually wanted to help. Nobody in
00:56:56
Gene's family hurt him or buried him in the basement under his own house." That was some of the speculation in the post
00:57:03
in my prior post. "Those things were extensively checked," he says. "Detective Rowling followed every lead
00:57:11
and idea that came his way. You can take that to the bank. I will say that in the
00:57:16
interest of keeping investigation details under wraps to keep the cranks from wasting his time, he wouldn't or
00:57:24
couldn't let people know what was or wasn't found. That's just standard investigative procedure." He goes on to
00:57:31
say, "I see names called out here that I remember hearing back then, so I can only assume they were thoroughly
00:57:38
investigated as well. This is interesting because this whole pedophile ring hits a lot closer to home
00:57:50
in Des Moines, Iowa, than it does with some of Paul Bonacci's accusations and other stories that we've
00:57:58
heard. Mike K says, "Yes, The Register, which was the newspaper that both of these boys were delivering, The Register
00:58:04
had a few pedophiles working in the delivery department at the time, but I recall every single one of them was
00:58:11
checked thoroughly as well as the route manager and the distribution manager and
00:58:17
anyone else with The Register that might have had slight passing knowledge. Des Moines Police Department didn't want
00:58:26
to miss a trick, and I don't recall hearing of anyone stonewalling them. What's interesting about this statement
00:58:33
here with the pedophiles at The Register is one, it makes sense they would be out
00:58:40
there at the same time that these boys were. And two, the boys wouldn't have any problem talking to these guys. They
00:58:49
essentially work with them. They're associates. These are people that they've seen before. They're not
00:58:54
strangers. And what did Don Martin tell us about Eugene Martin? He says, "It had to have been somebody that he
00:59:02
trusted or that he knew that took my son." And he says, was too shy. He wouldn't talk to a stranger."
00:59:10
And that's what the father has always believed. >> Well, let let me go a step further with
00:59:14
that because if this is somebody that you were technically working with or working for,
00:59:21
then Eugene would have felt a obligation to talk to them. You see what I'm saying? So, they don't
00:59:27
have to be somebody that's familiar or or friendly towards him. It's simply I'm being paid to do a job.
00:59:35
So if I'm talking to my manager or somebody delivering the papers, that's somebody, no matter if you're shy
00:59:42
or not, you have to talk to. Yeah, and there were individuals that worked for the register that that were in the
00:59:50
distribution part of that newspaper that did face charges years later. This idea though would make a lot of
01:00:01
sense here to me. Now he this poster is saying that to his knowledge those individuals were
01:00:10
checked and he believes extensively. But what I'm I'm not saying that it was those individuals in particular, I'm
01:00:18
just pointing out the idea that that would make some sense to me that these are people that we know would be out
01:00:23
there, number one. And again, it's back to the idea of humans hunting humans. Where do you go?
01:00:31
You if you know that there are your victim type is out there alone on these mornings,
01:00:37
you go cruising and it doesn't have to be a targeted Johnny Gosch like Paul Bonacci says. It could be any of those
01:00:45
paper boys. It could be any of them that are that fit those abilities, the vulnerability,
01:00:52
the availability. I don't think that it's happenstance that two paper boys go missing on a Sunday two years apart
01:01:02
from the same area delivering the same newspaper. It but it goes back to what you said
01:01:08
earlier, Captain. It's either the same individual or one crime inspired the other crime.
01:01:17
Without having any more information, the Eugene Martin case, the Johnny Gosch case,
01:01:23
and Mark Allen, all three of them roughly three kids, the same area, roughly six years in time.
01:01:33
Are they all connected? It's difficult to say. There's just not any There's just not a lot of information, not
01:01:39
enough to to say that they're connected and when you cross-reference the statements of
01:01:47
individuals who say that they saw Eugene Martin talking to someone and individuals that say that they saw
01:01:53
Johnny Gosch talking to someone, I don't know that those descriptions completely match up.
01:01:59
But back to the idea that it if it were some kind of ring or persons working together, that would make some sense as
01:02:09
well. The The thing with the Gosch case, the Martin case, and the Allen case, unfortunately,
01:02:16
they to me have similarities to the Jacob Wetterling case. Why did that case remain unsolved for so
01:02:24
many years? It's simple. There were witnesses in the Wetterling case. But it went unsolved because
01:02:33
unfortunately the killer had the great idea to bury the body. And the difference between the cases in
01:02:40
Des Moines, Iowa and the cases that took place at the same time period right down the road in
01:02:47
Omaha, Nebraska were that the bodies were found and that provided a crime scene, it provided physical evidence.
01:02:56
And in the John Joubert case, you had the champion. You know, we talk about the face of evil. We're looking
01:03:04
for this guy. This is the face of evil. Look for him. Find him. They had a description of
01:03:09
the suspect in the Eberle case and the Walden case. But what you had was you had the
01:03:18
the champion of justice. You had the adversary. You had the good versus evil. You had the side of good that stood up
01:03:27
and called the suspect a coward and said, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" And that is ultimately
01:03:35
what led to John Joubert getting apprehended. Identifying him as the killer because he
01:03:42
went out that day when he when he attacked the preschool teacher, he went out that
01:03:49
day looking to pick on someone his own size. He went out there to to show the police You know, you think I'm a coward?
01:03:57
I will go out and pick on someone my own size. But she spotted him and she said, "You
01:04:02
know, I think he looks like the guy you've been looking for in these child cases."
01:04:07
Now when you look at Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin, Mark Allen, there's it's easy to argue and say that
01:04:17
they're all connected. At the same time, I try to stay water and a good example of that is this.
01:04:24
We know John Joubert, we know about his crimes in Omaha, Nebraska, but one of Omaha's most infamous cold cases
01:04:33
is that of another dead little boy, abducted and murdered. This took place back in March of 1986. John Joubert was
01:04:40
apprehended in 1984. So this case is of Richard Ricky Chadek who left a friend's house only to never
01:04:51
be seen alive again. His body was found eight days later. He was your typical 11-year-old boy. He
01:04:58
would have fit Joubert's ideal victim. This was a smaller 11-year-old boy. He was into GI Joes,
01:05:07
Legos, all that stuff. He wanted to be an astronaut. But on March 23rd, 1986, those dreams of becoming an
01:05:15
astronaut came to an abrupt end. He disappeared while riding his bike near his home. His bike was found in a
01:05:22
bank parking lot. And then seven days later his body was found. One strange part of this is when you
01:05:35
compare when he went missing March 23rd, 1986 and then his body is found March 31st.
01:05:43
During that time period, Mark Allen disappears March 29th, 1986 in Des Moines, Iowa. But the reason why I bring
01:05:52
up this cold case here of Ricky Chadek, this case is still unsolved. We know John Joubert didn't do it because he was
01:05:59
apprehended in 1984. If John Joubert was never caught for the murder of Danny Joe
01:06:05
Eberle and Christopher Walden, I think we would be sitting here 30, 40 years later and going this case is so similar.
01:06:15
It's got to be connected. It's got to be part of the series. But we know 100% that it's not. So I here I am, Captain,
01:06:24
sitting in the garage with you and all I am doing is delivering information that
01:06:28
that just creates more questions and no answers. >> Yeah, but isn't part of this like
01:06:34
maybe consciously or subconsciously we we want them to be connected because we don't want to face the reality that
01:06:43
there's more monsters out there than there's more monsters out there. Yes, but for me, it's a bit of a selfish
01:06:52
errand, right? It's It's It's comparing I wanted to look at these cases and compare them together in
01:07:00
hopes that it would lead me to some answers. And clearly it did not. It It's I'm taught time and time again by myself
01:07:11
to stay water. You got to stay water in these cases. Now I I do sit here too and
01:07:15
I really worry that we're never going to get any answers in Johnny Gosch's case.
01:07:21
I worry that we're not going to get answers in Eugene Martin's case. Um Are they connected?
01:07:27
It's It's very difficult to say, but what we do know all these years later is that in a matter of just
01:07:36
And sorry, I think I said six years earlier, but really it's just four years. Johnny Gosch goes missing 1982.
01:07:45
Des Moines, Iowa. Danny Joe Eberle abducted in Nebraska 1983 in September. Christopher Walden December of 1983 in
01:07:55
Nebraska. Eugene Martin 1984 Des Moines, Iowa. Mark Allen March of 1986 Des Moines, Iowa and Ricky
01:08:05
Chadek March of 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska. Well, in a lot of these cases I thought would have
01:08:16
more answers, especially with the true crime genre becoming more popular and some of these
01:08:24
things becoming re-examined by so many individuals, you hope that there's more information that came out uh on these
01:08:34
cases, but we're we're 10 years in and in some of these cases there has been little to no movement. Police continue
01:08:41
to work these cases, especially the Ricky Chadek case. There's been a lot of work on that in the last
01:08:49
>> [clears throat] >> One of these days my throat will be back to normal. Don't worry, I'll karate chop
01:08:53
it. >> Police continue to work these cases, especially the Ricky Chadek case. There's been a lot of activity, a lot of
01:09:00
work that's gone into Ricky's case in the past 10, 15 years. One thing that police have always said
01:09:06
in Ricky's case is the individual that had him in his possession either was a good
01:09:13
communicator or gained Ricky's trust somehow. There's some There's something some indicator of that
01:09:20
for police to come to that conclusion. Ricky's body was discovered on Easter Sunday, March 31st. He was found in a
01:09:27
field northwest of Omaha strangled. It was determined that he was kept alive for several days after his kidnapping.
01:09:36
His body was found down an embankment near 168th and Ida Street. His hair, clothes, and body were
01:09:46
all clean. Detectives say that he was kept alive, cared for, and even fed for several days. They believe maybe
01:09:55
even as much as seven days, and they're basing part of that off of how clean he was and that there was food
01:10:05
found in his digestive tract. Detectives found physical evidence at the scene, hair follicles. They have
01:10:11
submitted this information, these this evidence for testing, but unfortunately, it returned only a partial DNA profile,
01:10:19
not enough to enter into the national DNA database. A suspect has never been arrested in Ricky Chaddock's death.
01:10:28
Police are still looking for any leads in that case. If you know anything about Ricky's murder or have information, call
01:10:34
the Douglas County Sheriff's tipline at 402-444-6000. If you have any information in the
01:10:43
disappearance of Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin, or Mark Allen, please contact the Des Moines Police Department at
01:10:52
515-237-1430. And there are a lot of people that have been critical of the Des Moines Police Department's work
01:11:04
or maybe lack thereof in the Johnny Gosch case. So, if you do not feel comfortable contacting the Des Moines
01:11:10
Police Department, look, I I want to point out something. I saw nothing but great work out of them in
01:11:17
the Eugene Martin case. But if you don't feel con- confident contacting the Des Moines
01:11:23
Police Department regarding those still unsolved cases, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited
01:11:29
Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. >> [music] [music] >> Want to thank everybody for joining us
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here in the garage each and every week for everything true crime. Check out truecrimegarage.com.
01:11:56
While you're there, sign up on the mailing list, and until next week, be good, be [music] kind, and don't litter.
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