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>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Some of the following is from an article
00:02:28
written by Jodi Ewing, founder of Iowa Cold Cases website. The missing kids milk carton campaign
00:02:36
started in the great state of Iowa. The grainy images of boys and girls sat beside Americans during breakfast time
00:02:45
for much of the 1980s. Before Facebook, Amber Alerts, and text messages, pictures on milk cartons were
00:02:53
a way to distribute information about missing kids. It made sense at the time. Most Americans drank milk, and the
00:03:02
cartons had a frequent turnaround from grocery store to fridge. It was also a grassroots campaign with
00:03:11
deep Iowa ties. Among the first cartons to be distributed in the grocery stores were from Anderson Erickson.
00:03:20
They featured the black and white images of Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin, two Des Moines Register newspaper
00:03:28
carriers. From there, the missing kids milk carton campaign grew. Dairies across the nation participated. And
00:03:36
missing kids across the nation became part of Americans' routines. Johnny Gosch, aged 12, went missing
00:03:44
September 5th, 1982, while delivering newspapers. Less than 2 years later, Eugene Martin, aged 13, will go missing
00:03:54
on August 12th, 1984, while delivering Des Moines Register newspapers on a Sunday morning.
00:04:02
By September 1984, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines began running photos and short bios of Johnny Gosch and
00:04:10
Eugene Martin on the sides of half-gallon milk cartons. The trend continued with Wisconsin,
00:04:17
Chicago, and then out to California and across the nation. By 1985, more than 700 dairies were now
00:04:25
involved, and 1.5 billion milk cartons with images of missing kids are distributed nationwide.
00:04:33
This is True Crime Garage, and this is the missing person's case of 13-year-old Eugene Martin from August 1984,
00:04:43
one of the first kids featured on the side of a milk carton. >> [music] [music] [music]
00:05:19
>> Eugene Wade Martin was born on August 17th, 1970, and almost from the start, people closest to him shortened his name
00:05:30
into something that felt like it belonged to everyday [music] life. They called him Gene, the kind of name you
00:05:37
could shout from a porch when the street lights were coming on. Those who knew him described a boy who moved through
00:05:43
the world gently. He's described as polite. He's a quiet kid. He's quite shy. His folks would say not
00:05:52
withdrawn so much, but careful. He was also the kind of kid that was both cautious, but also fearless, they say in
00:06:00
the same breath almost. His mother, Janice, worried about him playing football because he was
00:06:07
on the smaller side. But Gene loved it, and he played anyway. And he And he played the game with
00:06:13
reckless abandon. He loved skateboarding, too, and it showed. He was always equipped with skinned knees
00:06:21
and scraped elbows. Gene, growing up in the 1980s, it was typical [snorts] '80s, video games and television, and
00:06:31
the usual tug-of-war between being outside with friends and being inside with whatever was glowing on the screen.
00:06:39
But he wasn't only a kid passing time, right? Just enjoying the ride. He had taken a job, and he took that job very
00:06:49
seriously. In May of 1984, Gene became a paper carrier for the Des Moines Register. The work required
00:06:58
routine, early alarms, quiet mornings, picking up bundles of papers, folding those papers, rubber
00:07:06
banding them, and loading them into a carrier bag, and then moving house to house while most of the neighborhood
00:07:14
was still asleep. When August of 1984 arrived, Gene had reasons to be quite excited. The Iowa State Fair was in
00:07:23
town. His 14th birthday was approaching. He had plans for a celebration for his birthday, big plans. On the
00:07:33
night of August 11, 1984, Gene went to a movie with friends, and he came home early.
00:07:39
Not under pressure, but because he wanted sleep that night. That night, Gene's older brother, Don, wasn't home.
00:07:45
Don was staying at a friend's house. Don, typically the older brother, would help Gene with his paper route.
00:07:53
But that was not going to be possible the following morning. It meant that when Gene got up before sunrise, he
00:08:00
would be going out on this paper route and going it alone. Before sunrise on the 12th,
00:08:06
Gene woke up on time and moved quietly through the house. His father, Donald, would later say that he heard Gene's
00:08:13
alarm and nothing else, no real commotion, no hint that anything was wrong. Gene's first stop was
00:08:22
the pickup point where carriers receive their newspapers. So, this is the corner
00:08:27
of Southwest 14th Street and High View Drive. At about 5:10 a.m., we have an older man, this is a somebody
00:08:36
who knows Gene, so somebody from the neighborhood. He drove past that corner on his way to play golf. He was going
00:08:44
out for an early tee time, and he said at about 5:10 a.m. when he drove past that
00:08:51
corner, he says he saw Gene sitting there, and Gene's paper bag was empty sitting beside him. So, he just assumed,
00:09:00
right? The kid's waiting there, waiting for the paper drop-off. And he said nothing about Gene's posture
00:09:05
or the moment seemed alarming at all. Gene looked exactly like what he was supposed to be, a kid waiting for the
00:09:14
start of his paper route. Well, it's also exciting time as a kid because you're making money.
00:09:21
It's not something that you have to do for hours. You know, and they can complete your
00:09:26
paper route within a let's say an hour or so. It is every day, so that takes a toll on
00:09:33
you. But it's a time where you get paid, and you don't have to spend money on bills.
00:09:39
So, that money accumulates different, and you >> [clears throat] >> And just like little simple things,
00:09:43
whether it's a bicycle or going to the movies or whatever it is, you're in a situation where you can afford something
00:09:49
that your peers mostly can't. >> Well, in those summer months, delivering papers are fun, too, because you rarely
00:09:57
do you have weather undesirable weather and you have those mornings those summer
00:10:03
mornings where the air is still kind of cool and crisp and you're out there alone and but you get to watch the the
00:10:12
sun come up often times on that paper route. Yeah. Sometime later this would have been after the papers arrived at
00:10:19
the drop-off point. Gene appears to have done the usual carrier type of work loading up the papers rolling them up
00:10:27
and loading them up into his bag and that's really what the next observation here in our timeline Captain
00:10:35
would suggest. So we have route manager Paul Porter. He came by and he saw Gene's carrier bag positioned at the
00:10:44
corner. It's loaded with newspapers looking ready to rock and roll. Porter says he did not see the boy. He did not
00:10:53
see Gene but the bag looked prepared as if Gene had already folded and rubber banded the newspapers and he actually
00:11:00
assumed that Gene had probably just taken a couple of papers went to deliver them and would circle back to grab the
00:11:09
rest or grab another handful. Reports place this sighting in the window of 6:00 a.m. to 6:15 a.m. So let's let's
00:11:20
put this under the microscope microscope real quick. Zoom in on these moments because we have one witness that says at
00:11:28
5:10 approximately he saw Gene just sitting there looks like he's waiting for the papers no papers in Gene's
00:11:36
carrier bag. Right. And then between 6:00 a.m. and 6:15 a.m. we have the route manager who spots the bag full but
00:11:46
no Gene. So in between those two times we can gather that Gene likely received these papers and put them together and
00:11:55
got them ready to go. But then just like we saw in the Johnny Gosch case then in
00:12:00
the Danny Joe Eberle case some point that morning Captain customers start calling making phone
00:12:08
calls. They had not received their papers. Right the route is interrupted. Correct and in those first two cases
00:12:16
we have reports of the calls going directly or at least the majority of those calls going directly to the
00:12:22
residence the home of the paper carrier. This case though seems different in the
00:12:29
sense that the reports I'm seeing here are that most of the calls if not all of them went to the paper itself or the the
00:12:36
persons in charge of the route rather than the carrier's home rather than Gene's home. So they're getting calls
00:12:43
they've not received their papers. One customer says you know she's at her window on the phone complaining that she
00:12:50
hasn't received the papers and she's like I can see the bag of newspapers sitting right there at the corner is it
00:12:55
okay if I just walk over and you know take my my paper. >> [laughter] >> Um in fact Porter I believe it was the
00:13:02
route manager Paul Porter who received this particular call because he says look I was telling
00:13:08
the people calling in don't worry your papers are going to show up and I will go back to I was already at the pick-up
00:13:16
point or the drop-off point prior with the papers and I'll circle back and see if you know what's going on what's the
00:13:24
hold up with with Gene. So at approximately 7:15 a.m. Porter then called Donald Martin and
00:13:31
told him look Gene's not out there delivering the papers and I've I've been by twice and I've not seen him. So
00:13:38
Donald searches the house. He's hoping for a simple explanation right maybe maybe his son returned home for any
00:13:46
reason maybe he's not feeling well but he says you know I I didn't really become alarmed until I
00:13:53
searched the home and Gene's not there. Just think about if you're on your route
00:13:57
and you have to use the restroom. And you don't want to pee on a bush or some tree or maybe it's not a number one
00:14:04
maybe it's a number two. Or the dreaded number three. Or the Sometimes it's a six.
00:14:12
But you're close to your house so there's a possibility that you just go home and I know that sounds funny but
00:14:18
I think these are the things that would go through your mind when you're getting calls that hey
00:14:24
my my paper hasn't been delivered and so you start going well why? Well also zoom
00:14:30
in on the time frame right because this is what roughly one month shy of two years after Johnny Gosch another paper
00:14:38
boy another boy [clears throat] delivering the Des Moines Register the same paper that Eugene Martin's
00:14:44
delivering is there there's always a chance the kid gets spooked and goes home. In all
00:14:50
reality what we have here Captain is we have the dad saying look I heard his alarm go off and I heard you know him
00:14:56
move through the house and we have the people calling in paper papers aren't delivered. We have the route manager who
00:15:03
says he saw the bag the carrier bag sitting there but in all reality all we have for this time frame of roughly
00:15:12
two hours-ish is only one person that can be confirmed as having actually seen Gene that morning. That's the golfer his
00:15:23
name is Connie. He says that roughly 5:10 a.m. that he drove by and saw Gene who he
00:15:29
knew from the neighborhood sitting there who appeared to be waiting on his papers. So Donald
00:15:37
Gene's father contacts his brother Donald's brother and the two of them go out and they
00:15:43
start looking. They got motorcycles. It's a summer morning. They both hop on the bikes.
00:15:49
They rode to places that they said look these are where we thought teenagers go typical teenager places. We went to the
00:15:57
mall. We went to the school. We went to anywhere we thought that Gene might be. And of course they found nothing. No
00:16:04
Gene no clear witnesses nobody saying that they had seen him no sign that the morning had gone wrong. So father Donald
00:16:12
returned home. He calls police to report Gene missing. This week the week that should have held a fair
00:16:20
and a birthday party turned into a week that contained a disappearance. Yeah and
00:16:27
as you have the disappearance of this paper boy and knowing that they're looking forward to these events these
00:16:34
events as they're popping up is is a reminder that he's missing. Absolutely and this is again this is a city haunted
00:16:42
by another paper boy case in Des Moines. It's a dark dark shadow that we're dealing with here only two years earlier
00:16:49
paper boy Johnny Gosch disappeared and the similarity was immediate and sickening and early morning paper route
00:16:57
and another boy gone. Police escalated quickly. Des Moines officers responded with urgency bringing
00:17:05
in six tactical unit officers and assigning five detectives at the outset. Investigators created a fact sheet with
00:17:15
Gene's photo and identifying details so searchers and officers would know exactly who they were looking for and
00:17:23
knowing being able to identify him on site. Right. So the initial search began at approximately 8:40 a.m. and
00:17:32
again this would be more than three hours about three and a half hours after the last confirmed sighting at 5:10 a.m.
00:17:40
In that gap Gene had vanished leaving behind only the carrier bag filled with undelivered newspapers.
00:17:47
Search efforts focused on the southwest area near that southwest 14th Street and
00:17:54
High View Drive. Investigators still had to consider early possibilities right? Maybe there's just this is just
00:18:01
confusion maybe he took a weird detour maybe there's a runaway situation scenario
00:18:07
here but the circumstances were unnerving and what they immediately found here their their findings were very quickly
00:18:16
that we have a responsible boy on a work route papers prepared and then he's absent. So authorities quickly
00:18:26
ruled out the idea that Gene had run away due to a domestic dispute. And as hours passed police said that
00:18:33
they were treating the case as an abduction or kidnapping. So you're seeing the immediate response Captain is
00:18:42
different here than in the Johnny Gosch case. Yeah but it's because of the Johnny Gosch case. They've learned. The
00:18:50
Des Moines Register moved in with in institutional urgency. The newspaper offered up quickly a $5,000 reward for
00:18:59
information about Gene's location and by the next day that reward money rose up to $25,000.
00:19:08
Notices were printed carriers were warned supervisors were sent out to watch carriers at pick-up points during
00:19:15
the early hours when routes were most vulnerable. So not only the police stepping in right away on the hour that
00:19:24
he's reported but within 24 hours we had the Des Moines Register stepping in doing some of the things that they did
00:19:30
in the Johnny Gosch disappearance but they're doing them faster here with Eugene Martin now missing. All right.
00:19:38
Can I get a witness we we get >> Can I get a witness Captain? We get a green car and an older man here so that
00:19:48
these are two different scenarios but let's play through them. So, as officers walked Gene's route, they're questioning
00:19:57
the neighbors, knocking on the doors. Did you see anything? We got a missing newspaper boy. They search for anything
00:20:03
that could anchor a timeline. They want, right, a vehicle. Maybe somebody overheard or witnessed an
00:20:09
argument, heard a scream. Maybe a direction of travel. Anything. We want anything at this point.
00:20:17
We have a vague timeline. We have eyewitness that sees him waiting for the papers.
00:20:21
Then we have the dad going out and looking for him because people are calling about not receiving their paper.
00:20:29
So, we do have a vague timeline. We need some anchors and some more markers on that timeline.
00:20:35
So, there are two troubling pieces of information that emerged from canvassing the area and
00:20:43
talking to neighbors. The first is the green car report. Okay, a green car described as being in poor shape was
00:20:52
reported in the area around 14th and 18th streets. According to the Des Moines Register,
00:20:59
the driver was described as a white male believed to be in his late 20s or early
00:21:05
30s with short dark hair parted in the middle and two to three days of beard growth.
00:21:14
He was reportedly seen possibly following two young women. The car was last seen around 5:00 a.m.
00:21:22
So, this would be before the abduction or whatever happened to Eugene because we know Gene was seen
00:21:29
alive and well according to the golfer at 5:10 a.m. And police did say, look, we have no
00:21:36
direct evidence tying this driver or even this sighting to Gene's disappearance. But, they did
00:21:46
say, we want to talk to the driver of this green car. Then we have an unidentified
00:21:53
man speaking with Gene or so the report goes. So, we get another witness that says that they reported
00:22:01
seeing an unidentified man speaking with Gene the morning Gene vanished. Likely between 5:15 a.m. and 5:45 a.m. The man
00:22:12
was described as wearing light-colored clothing and appearing to have a friendly conversation with Gene. Police
00:22:20
circulated a broad description of this individual and it was as such, a white male roughly 30 to 40 years old, 5 ft 9
00:22:30
in to 6 ft tall, medium build, medium length hair described as clean-shaven and neat in appearance, but no vehicle
00:22:41
was seen with him and and no vehicle was included in that report. Within days, Captain,
00:22:48
five more witnesses would report seeing what they believed was the same man talking with Gene. But, the description
00:22:55
remained too broad, too general. Determined not to lose time the way many believed is what
00:23:03
happened in the Gosh investigation, the Des Moines police requested federal assistance.
00:23:09
And we talked about this man in the first episode of the missing paper boys. Special Agent Herbert Hawkins
00:23:19
of the FBI's Omaha office, he came to Des Moines with 16 FBI agents. Gene's disappearance quickly saturated
00:23:28
newspapers, radio, and television. Tips poured in. Volunteer searches proliferated across
00:23:37
Des Moines. Wooded patches were searched. We're looking in tall grass, culverts,
00:23:44
in parks, anywhere a child might be hidden or harmed. Search teams expanded outward to parks, warehouses,
00:23:52
riverfronts, and other areas where evidence or a missing child might be concealed. The effort included 25 Des
00:24:00
Moines police officers, 16 FBI agents, and volunteers, many of which were friends and family, but also members of
00:24:08
the community. But, the central problem remained. Police, searchers, we got nothing. We got nothing solid, no
00:24:18
confirmed sightings beyond the early morning. Right. No reliable vehicle description, no physical evidence.
00:24:25
What's What's interesting here when we cross-reference and compare the two, what I see
00:24:33
when we look at the Eugene Martin case versus the Johnny Gosh case, Johnny's case has continued
00:24:42
for four decades to receive a mountain of press and coverage, be it podcast, documentaries,
00:24:54
what have you. The Eugene Martin case is often covered alongside of Johnny's, but almost mentioned as an aside. Yeah,
00:25:06
if anybody's ever seen a a picture of Johnny Gosh, you might have seen a picture of Eugene right beside him.
00:25:12
Exactly. Now, the difference here is right away, you heard the search efforts that I just described. The search
00:25:19
efforts immediately were different and much more abundant in strength and numbers with
00:25:27
Eugene Martin's case than it was with Johnny Gosh. Again, back to something you said earlier, it's because of the
00:25:33
Johnny Gosh case that they are they have adapted and are reacting different and reacting more appropriately in this
00:25:42
unfortunate second disappearance of another kid out delivering the Des Moines Register [music] newspaper.
00:26:01
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00:28:01
to the people. Power to the [music] people in the back, in the front, in the sides, and and the
00:28:06
ones blowing it out in the middle. Uh uh >> [laughter] >> And and somebody is out there listening
00:28:14
to the podcast with like giant headphones on. Shout out to whoever that is. We we don't
00:28:21
all need to be wearing earbuds. Some of us need to wear some giant headphones. That's right. Uh
00:28:28
but, even though we have all hands on deck in this Eugene Martin case, and again, it's because, you know, 2 years
00:28:36
prior, we have another newspaper boy going missing. Right. >> That delivered the same paper. But, I
00:28:43
think all this would have also changed if Johnny Gosh was found. But, Johnny wasn't found.
00:28:54
He he just vanished into thin air. Well, and about this same time, having gone back and and really digging through the
00:29:01
papers and the Des Moines Register in particular, they didn't shy away from the fact that
00:29:07
one of their own had gone missing, Johnny Gosh. But, you know, when there's not new information coming in,
00:29:14
the stories do start to fade from the headlines and from the 11:00 news. And Johnny's case was starting to fade a
00:29:24
little bit around this time. You start to see that it it's not so abundant in the news at this time. And then, oh my
00:29:31
god, here's not just the sad reminder that Johnny's missing, but now the scary fact that
00:29:39
Johnny's still missing and here is another kid similar in age, similar circumstances.
00:29:47
Houston, we have a problem here. And that problem is in Des Moines, Iowa, and it's it's paper boys going missing. So,
00:29:54
how about an anonymous tip here, Captain? We get an anonymous tip regarding a Just the tip. green Chevy
00:30:05
Malibu. So, on August 12th, Guilty. >> 1984, Whoever's driving that piece of crap, guilty.
00:30:13
>> police received an anonymous call. The caller claimed to have witnessed Gene speaking with an unidentified man
00:30:21
near a 1972 or 1973 green Chevrolet Malibu with gray primer marks on the vehicle. The caller alleged that during
00:30:33
the conversation, the man placed his hands on Gene at least once. The caller did not give his name. He
00:30:41
offered the information and disappeared back into anonymity, leaving the police with a specific
00:30:49
vehicle description, but no way to assess the witnesses' reliability, credibility,
00:30:56
in any way that could be corroborated. But, Yeah. we did have the early statements of
00:31:04
those of others with the the girls that might have been being followed or the two young women that
00:31:10
were possibly being followed by the green car described as being in poor shape. To me, that's not a
00:31:19
an unlike description. No, I think it's a normal >> that has primer marks on it? 1972, 1973,
00:31:27
it would have been it would have been a vehicle that was over 10 years old. But again, it gets difficult when your
00:31:33
tipster is anonymous and you have no way of contacting the individual, no way of
00:31:39
seeking out more information, or unfortunately, it could just be somebody calling in
00:31:46
a crank tip for whatever reason, for their own amusement or to send the investigators
00:31:53
in a different direction. Please tell me that they called in wrestler. Um we have FBI on the scene here, but this
00:32:02
would have been from the Omaha division, right? >> office. Yeah, from And so, they are
00:32:09
working this case. Unfortunately, the the folks at the Omaha branch field office, they have experience with
00:32:18
this type of work with the John Joubert case and and Eberle and Walden who went missing,
00:32:25
but were found both approximately 3 days later. So, they have some expertise in this, but a
00:32:34
big fail in the Gosh case, and that was one we we had talked about that in when we were talking about
00:32:42
Johnny's disappearance, was something Robert Ressler said. He said, "Look, I agreed
00:32:47
with the Goshes that it was a mistake that the FBI wasn't involved sooner. He did say part of that was we weren't
00:32:55
called in. The jurisdiction was a little different. Remember, it was Noreen Gosh and others that had
00:33:01
pressed Ronald Reagan and and pressed our government to to stack the deck differently so that FBI
00:33:10
and federal agents would become more involved in abduction cases and in murders. So, it's a bit of even though
00:33:18
it's just 2 years later, it's a bit of a different landscape here, and we're seeing how that's playing out
00:33:24
in the Eugene or Gene Martin disappearance. Let's get into some things here because
00:33:30
as the investigation continues, we're going to see a few things play out. They're going to start
00:33:38
re-interviewing people that they've spoke to early on in the case. There's an attempt at a composite
00:33:45
sketch, and maybe maybe some hope here, maybe some some hope. >> Well, I also think this is interesting,
00:33:51
too, because there there's reason to possibly believe that these are that these cases are
00:33:57
connected. So, I think as much as you're going down these rabbit holes, in Eugene's case, you have to then
00:34:05
double-check your work in the Gosh case to see if there's any suspect or any tip
00:34:11
that's over-lapping with each >> And I know that was an obvious statement. Call me Captain Obvious. Well, but you
00:34:20
hope you hope that the obvious is done in all of these investigations, and we've reviewed enough to know that
00:34:26
sometimes that is not the situation. August 15th, 1984, investigators are trying to
00:34:33
sharpen witness recollections. Remember, we have the several persons who had called in
00:34:40
stating that they might have seen something that morning. They wanted to see if we can get those
00:34:46
memories, make them stronger, and maybe even actionable. So, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen,
00:34:55
they state that a specialist was brought in from Washington to review six witnesses in hopes of producing an
00:35:03
artist composite sketch of the person described in those witness accounts. Even then though, law enforcement said
00:35:13
the unidentified man was not considered a suspect at that time. Simply, they wanted to locate him because in a case
00:35:22
with almost no anchors in the timeline, even this unidentified man near the last
00:35:27
known location, of course, is going to matter. It's going to matter, and we we need more information. Maybe this person
00:35:35
has it. This is very similar to the witnesses that that we discussed in the Gosh case.
00:35:42
That Oh, I saw this person. This type of vehicle. Police said with both of those individuals, we don't
00:35:50
consider them suspects, we consider them potential witnesses, we just want to talk to them. They don't come forward.
00:35:56
They never come forward. In fact, I was trying to locate it before arriving at the garage this morning. I was trying to
00:36:03
locate the exact quote and statement because we have a statement from police that says, "Look, we we really want to
00:36:12
talk to these people." And they keep pressing them saying, "Well, are they suspects? Are they suspects?" And they
00:36:18
kept saying, "No, no, no." And the reporters say, "Well, then why are you so concerned if they're not suspects?"
00:36:23
And the police has to spell it out for the reporters and and says, "Look, we are concerned that they've not come
00:36:29
forward. Yeah. >> We're hesitant to call them suspects, but we're we we are >> suspicious if they don't come forward.
00:36:37
Yes. Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious. And well, and that's going to be the case here. Now, again, this is
00:36:44
a pretty vague description, um but this individual appears to not have come forward in the Eugene Martin case.
00:36:54
Right. So, Eugene's parents were scheduled to meet with the governor. The police acknowledged the search was
00:37:01
expanding beyond Des Moines, and the efforts quickly became regional. Searches included members of the Civil
00:37:12
Air Patrol, and in mid-August, police recovered This is where they had some hope,
00:37:20
potential evidence they thought, but sadly, this was going to quickly be determined to be false physical hope.
00:37:27
So, mid-August, police recovered a tennis shoe and a pair of shorts, and they said that this was near the
00:37:33
location where Gene was last seen. And for a moment, it felt like the investigation was finally turning
00:37:40
physical, but quickly, it was determined that these items did not belong to Gene
00:37:45
and likely had no relevancy to the case at all. The reward was now up to $30,000,
00:37:52
and this was with help from the Iowa Newspaper Association. After the meeting with the governor,
00:38:00
Donald, Gene's father, expressed appreciation for the governor's concern and attention
00:38:06
to his son's case. Donald also emphasized something investigators took very seriously, and this is something
00:38:13
that our listeners should take very seriously, too, because when reviewing this case and the the few times that we
00:38:20
have, you know, we we covered Johnny's case a long time ago when we first started
00:38:26
covering cases here in the garage, and we did talk a good deal about Gene Martin's case as well during that time.
00:38:32
Yeah. But this is the thing that has always stood out the most to me. It goes down to
00:38:38
personality. Personality of the victim. And we we talk so often about victimology. You have to study your
00:38:48
victim when you're looking at these cases. And the thing that stood out the most to me is the repeated statement
00:38:54
that Gene was very shy. He wasn't outgoing. He was personable, very likable, had a lot of
00:39:03
friends. He would talk with the people he knew, with the people he trusted, but he wasn't the kind of kid that would go
00:39:10
up to people and talk to them. Wouldn't go up to a group of people and talk to them. May- Probably wouldn't even wave
00:39:15
to somebody from afar unless it was somebody he absolutely knew. Now, compound that thought
00:39:23
with this statement that his father is saying just weeks into the disappearance. Uh-huh. Donald says
00:39:32
regarding his son, "Gene is extremely shy." Donald says it is his belief that whoever took
00:39:42
Gene likely had to be someone that Jean could trust or someone who could convincingly present themselves as safe.
00:39:51
Meaning his father is suspicious that this is either someone who knew Jean or presented themselves in a way that Jean
00:40:01
would be comfortable with this person approaching them. Right. What was their ruse?
00:40:07
My only concern about a shy individual and I was not touched with that uh as a personality trait, but some of
00:40:18
these individuals, especially younger individuals that are shy, sometimes if an individual approaches
00:40:26
them, they they almost freeze. And so, maybe you'd need less of a ruse to to get close to that individual.
00:40:36
Well, we had one person in the you know, one kid in the Gosh case that said something like
00:40:42
Johnny was kind of spooked and said, "Hey, I'm out of here." And so, what we need to underline here
00:40:49
and really highlight is that shy and scared are two very different things. So, he might only
00:40:59
engage in conversation with somebody that he trusts or somebody that presents themselves as someone that he can trust.
00:41:04
But, he he's not being described as scared, meaning like, "Oh, as soon as the bad
00:41:10
guy turned the corner, Jean hopped you know, jumped up and took off on foot." He may have He may have been approached
00:41:18
by somebody. And another big difference that we have here is with the cases that we already
00:41:26
covered in Omaha in Nebraska with Eberle and Walden. With the Eugene Martin case and the
00:41:36
Johnny Gosh case, if they are connected, you can't really profile without any kind of evidence.
00:41:44
So, early in this investigation, there were people asking the police, "Well, is there going to be
00:41:51
an offender profile here? Can the Can the FBI build a psychological profile of the likely offender?" And the special
00:42:00
agent in charge, Herb Hawkins, said, "Look, we don't have enough to do a full profile. We don't
00:42:06
even have enough to do uh much of a profile at all." Right. And he says, "Without a clear crime scene or
00:42:13
any physical evidence, profiling would just be speculative, completely speculative." And he did say,
00:42:21
"Look, we're probably Look, if you're going to force my hand, we're probably looking for an introvert, a loner,
00:42:28
somebody that's not going to confide in others." Maybe lives alone. But but the trouble here for law enforcement is you
00:42:35
get so much more information. Like you said, to possibly build a profile, if there is
00:42:43
um a murder scene or if there is a body, what items are around that body, but obviously that's
00:42:51
not something you're going to wish for. No. >> You can't even imagine what these the
00:42:56
the family members are going through, the parents are going through, what society is going through. This community
00:43:01
is going, "Well, Johnny Gosh, we we know what that feeling feels like." For over
00:43:06
2 years, this guy this kid vanished into thin air and we don't have a clue. And then we also see
00:43:14
the aftermath. We see what's happened to the community. It's This is not a community
00:43:19
miles and miles away. This is a community that's in your on your the front steps, right? So, you see how this
00:43:26
has affected the Gosh family and then the friends and family and then the the kids of that age. And so, you're in this
00:43:34
very weird situation where you go, "Did Eugene just Is it going to be a story of he just
00:43:39
poof disappears into thin air or are we going to find him?" And the sad but the sad reality is if you do
00:43:46
find him, then you're going to have more evidence to to go off to to try to get answers in this case and in possibly the
00:43:54
Johnny Gosh case. Well, and keep in mind in the case of the Omaha cases, we have FBI getting
00:44:02
involved rather quickly, but we don't have a big gun, a mind hunter like Robert Ressler called to the scene until
00:44:10
after the first body was found. And it was Robert Ressler's own words that say, "It's going to be where you find the
00:44:17
body that's going to yield the most evidence." And that's why somebody like Ressler wasn't brought in because what's
00:44:25
he going to review? He put together an incredibly accurate profile of the likely offender in the Omaha cases.
00:44:36
Yeah, I mean he told you what the playbook Right. And he But he also told you the
00:44:41
playbook and the timeline of what was going to happen if we don't catch the individual.
00:44:47
And so, not only is he giving you this detailed description of the person you eventually catch, but
00:44:56
he's telling you he's a fortune teller. Well, this is what's going to happen if we don't catch him.
00:45:01
And but and he was able to create that profile based off of unfortunately so much evidence that was yielded at the
00:45:11
one the murder scene and the other a dump scene where bodies were discovered. So, here
00:45:19
I'm sorry you can't have a profile, but what do you want? Do you want bodies and
00:45:23
a profile or no bodies, no profile? And then as far as the police go, you know, they
00:45:29
jump in and they back up what the FBI is saying here. They said, "Look, this is the This is We're going to have to be
00:45:36
blunt about the sad reality of our investigation. We essentially have nothing. We have no
00:45:41
evidence, no witnesses, and the police here are telling the public, "Unfortunately, this could become a long
00:45:51
grind, grinding it out of lead chasing." And this will show you I think I I Look, you could This is This effort has
00:46:01
been labeled a few different ways, desperate, >> Yeah. showing that it was urgent or that
00:46:09
they were running out of ideas. I actually think that this idea is rather smart. I think this is an intelligent
00:46:15
move, especially when you're wondering what you have to work with here. But they decided in uh
00:46:24
This would be the 16th, I believe, of August. So, we're still in the same month here. But they decided, "Look,
00:46:30
let's get police and get a bunch of volunteers, round up a bunch of people. Let's start searching dumpsters.
00:46:37
We're going to search uh garbage cans of of civilians. Uh we're going to cut open bags and dump them out,
00:46:47
trash bags and dump them out. We'll re-bag them." And so, what they did was they put
00:46:52
police and volunteers uh police in every group and they're riding along, riding behind garbage trucks.
00:47:01
And they were examining trash hoping to find something. And it's reported that they examined trash for
00:47:10
more than 4,000 homes. Nothing was found. Uh well, nothing but a bunch of garbage, of course. But uh
00:47:19
I think that's actually a rather smart a rather smart move. So, kudos to them for having that idea. Well, you like you
00:47:27
said, there is some desperation because we have seen how this plays out. And they've gone down all these rabbit
00:47:35
holes. two different ways, both equally scary, right? Dead kids or forever missing. Yeah.
00:47:42
And I I I wouldn't want to pick either one. But the other problem though, too, is you
00:47:47
go, "Because of the the time separation, if these cases are connected, does the time separation
00:47:56
lead to any thoughts?" Because I could see on one level you go, "Well, maybe it is a local person because if it is a
00:48:03
local person, then because of the attention that the Gosh case, maybe they went into hiding and they were able to
00:48:10
control those urges and control those fantasies." Or is it possible that it is somebody
00:48:15
that is traveling through and the reason why there is a time gap between the two cases, if they're
00:48:22
connected, is because they weren't traveling through at that time. Yeah, if they are connected and you're
00:48:28
looking at these, yeah, it gets really difficult because then you start to go, "Would this be an offender that could
00:48:36
go 2 years without committing the same acts? What other kinds of crimes were they committing
00:48:43
in that window if they were committing any at all? If they're not somebody that could
00:48:48
abstain from this sort of behavior, then were they only in this area at these two times for some other
00:48:58
reason? You know, you look at a case like this and you got to start going, "Okay, what
00:49:02
was in the area at the time? What what moved into the area before? What left the area after?" I mean, there's a
00:49:09
there's a lot There's a lot a lot of stuff here uh that in many different ways that you
00:49:15
could attempt to try to work this. Uh speaking of work, the National Center for Missing and
00:49:22
Exploited Children became involved, came in to work with police and to print and
00:49:27
distribute missing person flyers. Locally, and area newspapers also pushed prevention efforts.
00:49:36
Remember that when Johnny Gosch went missing, they put out safety programs specifically for paper carriers and they
00:49:44
were reinforcing those safety programs. Now, unfortunately, the day after they started sifting
00:49:53
through trash and garbage was to be John's 14th birthday and there would be no celebration
00:50:02
on August 17th. And he had been missing for 5 days now and things were looking very bleak.
00:50:10
Donald and Janice kept moving in the ways families often do when there's nothing else to do. They're They're
00:50:16
meeting with investigators. They're trying to keep attention on the case. Trying to force
00:50:22
the world to keep looking. John's birthday cake was placed in the freezer, saved for the moment that he
00:50:29
might come home. The tip line began filling with calls from alleged psychics. So, this is such
00:50:38
typical 80s missing child case, right? Psychics, wannabes, and pranksters bogging down the phone lines in a very
00:50:48
important investigation. Police wanted to be clear. They announced to the media,
00:50:53
"We've not sought any help from psychics." And they pointed out that trying to track down psychic tips
00:51:01
would only strain their limited resources. >> One of the things I'm going to be looking at because
00:51:07
trying to determine if this perpetrator is local, if these if these cases are connected. So,
00:51:15
pervert roundup, but also is there any allegations against anybody that's involved with kids, school bus driver, a
00:51:23
librarian, a Boy Scout leader. In the last 5 years, is there any complaints against any individual? And
00:51:32
then I'll bring that person >> out recently. Right? We've seen that in a bunch of
00:51:36
cases recently with with not recent cases, but cases that have been solved or the
00:51:44
killer identified years, decades later, then it's traced back to somebody that oh, he
00:51:50
he got let out of prison 2 months before this happened and he was in there for similar crimes. Right. And was there a
00:51:57
arrest made in between these cases where somebody went away for a little bit and
00:52:03
then got released? Because again, that could show some sign of a connection here between the two
00:52:10
cases. As the days turned into weeks, now the volunteer turnout began to decline. This is of course an emotional
00:52:18
shift as much as it is a logistical one. At the end of August, the Quad-City Times reported that police said they
00:52:25
were no longer asking for volunteers. Police explained that many locations had been searched more than once and that
00:52:33
larger areas that had been searched with volunteer help would from now on be searched
00:52:41
by police. They were going to leave the future searches to the members of law enforcement. In early September 1984,
00:52:49
the reward money for information reached over $100,000, a sum meant to shake loose someone
00:52:56
sitting on information. If somebody knew something and could point the finger, you would
00:53:03
think $100,000, especially in 1984, would get that person to come forward. >> Hey, you give me a cheeseburger and a
00:53:12
hand job and I'm I'm I'm telling on my neighbor. >> The But keep in mind, September 1984, so
00:53:18
this >> Yeah. same period carried the grim anniversary in Des Moines with the 5th of September marking 2
00:53:28
years since Johnny Gosch disappeared. Between October 1984 and late December 84,
00:53:36
we get a tip and a probe and not the good kind. So, late 1984, authorities announced an investigation involving the
00:53:45
Des Moines Register staff with allegations that surfaced about possible sexual assaults connected to younger
00:53:53
paper carriers. The allegations were brought to police by a private investigator who claimed to have
00:53:59
obtained information for them to look into. And then in a separate port So, this is
00:54:08
another strange report. It's separate. This is in December of 84. A witness claimed to
00:54:15
have seen an adult male carrying a young boy who appeared limp under a highway bridge near Centerville,
00:54:22
Iowa. Mhm. This information's a little vague. I I don't know if they're if the report is stating that it was
00:54:30
something they had seen recently or if it was something that they thought they had seen around the time of the
00:54:35
disappearance of John Martin. What we do know, Captain, though, is investigators
00:54:40
did search along the river, searched in this area. Now, do note though, this area is over 80 miles southeast
00:54:50
of Des Moines and they reported finding nothing connected to John Martin or John's case.
00:54:57
Throughout 1985, the Martin family struggled financially. They were spending a a large sum of money and
00:55:05
large amounts of their money on private investigators. They were reaching out to
00:55:09
psychics and newspaper ads intended to keep John's face and story visible. They're paying for
00:55:17
newspaper ads when they felt that it was needed. And like we've said in many cases, like the Brian Shaffer case, you
00:55:25
hear these rumors, "Oh, well, they found him, right?" And they found him alive or
00:55:29
they found him dead. And so, when you have these two cases that are very similar in the same location, I'm sure
00:55:36
that, you know, some people are going "They're They're looking for who? Oh, I thought they found that guy. What? I
00:55:42
thought they found that kid. I thought somebody was arrested for that, right?" Uh so, I think this
00:55:47
doesn't help uh clear the waters in this investigation. >> Well, one thing that was really
00:55:53
difficult for me to pin down is the genesis of pictures of missing kids on milk cartons. Um
00:56:06
what I mean by that is I was trying to figure out who the first was and depending on what website you
00:56:12
review, they're going to tell you a different case. Etan Patz is one that is sometimes
00:56:19
referenced as being the first kid. There's also some female victims that are referenced. A lot of
00:56:26
times Johnny Gosch is mentioned to be the first one, but but the best I could sort out was in September of 1984.
00:56:34
So, this would have been roughly a month after John Martin had disappeared and roughly 2 years after Johnny Gosch
00:56:43
disappeared, the Anderson Erickson Dairy company in Iowa came up with the idea. And one
00:56:51
of the stories I found was that the There was an employee there that was either related to somebody that
00:56:59
knew the Martin family very well or was actually related to the Martins. And it was this employee along with upper
00:57:07
management and the owners that decided decided, "You know what? This is a good idea to spread awareness and to keep
00:57:13
these pictures out there, descriptions out there of these missing kids. Let's start putting
00:57:20
kids on milk cartons." So, it was this Anderson Erickson Dairy company in Iowa that printed photos of two local paper
00:57:30
boys, Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin, who had disappeared while on their routes. And we know
00:57:38
any kid that grew up in the 80s remembers seeing this at the grocery store or maybe even sitting on your
00:57:45
table at breakfast while you're eating your cereal with the black and white pictures
00:57:50
of the missing kids with the description of one or both kids that are that are uh presented there on the side of the
00:58:00
milk carton along with a number to call, telephone number to call to report if you have any information or if you've
00:58:07
seen anything or if you see these kids. And then 2 years later, it's the same story basically all over
00:58:15
again. 1986, another boy goes missing. Yeah, this one, Captain, is it's a little different than
00:58:23
the first two cases in Des Moines, but it is there's no way to look at these and not
00:58:29
question if they're connected immediately, right out the gate, right from jump street, right? This is March
00:58:36
29th. We're now in the year 1986. Another boy disappears in Des Moines, Iowa. This is 13-year-old Mark James
00:58:45
Warren Allen. So, Mark Allen, he left his home on Emma Avenue to visit a friend and never arrived. Now,
00:58:54
when we look at these cases, there's no shortage of information, even though there's
00:58:59
I should say there's no shortage of retelling of the Johnny Gosch case. Right. That Johnny Gosch case
00:59:07
really doesn't hold a whole lot of information when you look at the nuts and bolts of it. The Eugene Martin case,
00:59:13
very similar. There's I mean, they're missing for a reason. There's There's not a whole lot of witness statements,
00:59:19
not a whole lot of details, not a whole lot of great ideas as to why they went missing beyond speculation.
00:59:28
Now, in Mark Allen's case, there's less information about his story that's out there.
00:59:35
In fact, he was for the most part regarded as a runaway early on. He went missing in the evening hours,
00:59:44
and that's one of the big differences between his case and the previous two there in Des Moines.
00:59:51
He was on his way to a friend's house, but never arrived. The last time he was seen, Mark was wearing a light blue
00:59:56
T-shirt, blue jean shorts, white socks, gray tennis shoes with Velcro fastenings.
01:00:05
He had brown hair, blue eyes, and a small scar on the top of his head. And of course, this is the same area
01:00:12
that John Goss disappeared in 1982, and then later Eugene Martin in 1984. So, listed as
01:00:21
5 ft tall, 85 in Sorry. Listed as 5 ft tall, weighing 85 lb. And this is a sad story. He was
01:00:32
supposed to have movie night, pizza with his mom that night, and he was going to go out to a friend's house,
01:00:40
and said to his mom, you know, save me a slice, save me a couple slices. I'm going to be hungry
01:00:45
when I get back. And he has never never returned. Sadly, just like the Goss case, and now we just mentioned
01:00:54
Mark Allen, the investigation continues as to where is Gene Martin. The decades-long
01:01:05
four decades-long investigation into where is Gene Martin. There's been thousands of tips or leads over the
01:01:12
years. Des Moines investigator Jim Rowley worked Gene's case until his retirement.
01:01:19
So, he worked this case for approximately 15 years before he retired. And he was very close. He got very close
01:01:28
to the Martin family, got very close with Gene's father, Donald. And he said, "Look, if Donald
01:01:36
came up with a lead or a thought, I chased it down. Didn't didn't worry about what it would take, what we were giving
01:01:45
up, we chased it down." And he says, "Unfortunately, he estimates that he followed over 2,000
01:01:53
leads in the Eugene Martin case, taking him beyond our borders, both north and south, to Canada and Mexico. And he
01:02:04
says, "Out of all this, I never found any concrete answers, any concrete evidence, any concrete breadcrumb trail
01:02:13
that I thought could further the investigation. And anything that looked really good on
01:02:19
the surface, or or would lead him to another state, or even, as mentioned, another country,
01:02:26
he said, "A lot of times it was reports of mistaken identity." And then others, of course, were just
01:02:34
dead ends. His theory, though, his ongoing theory, Captain, is that Gene Martin's disappearance and
01:02:43
Johnny Goss's abduction are connected. He says he believes either by the same individual or a group.
01:02:54
Though he said he could not uncover solid evidence to prove it. And he also believes both boys were
01:03:01
likely killed shortly after they disappeared. Yeah. Like we said in the Johnny Goss case,
01:03:08
there was eyewitnesses that saw multiple people or identified multiple people. And so, you just wonder if it's a
01:03:16
similar situation with the with Eugene's case, and then how how dark and deep does this go, and how many
01:03:24
cases possibly could be connected to these two young boys? Well, and sadly, both cases remain open and unsolved.
01:03:34
And Gene's parents have both passed away. So, they never got any answers as to what happened to their boy.
01:03:44
Now, what is known from that morning, a quick review, and what investigators can return to and
01:03:50
have returned to time and time again, is the same narrow slice of time and place.
01:03:56
On August 12th, 1984, at about 5:10 a.m., Gene is seen sitting at Southwest 14th
01:04:04
Street and High View Drive by somebody that knows him, apparently waiting for his newspapers to
01:04:11
arrive. After that, his papers are prepared, folded, rubber-banded, loaded, and he's gone. Yet his bag remains at
01:04:19
the corner full of papers and abandoned. Witnesses describe Gene speaking with an
01:04:27
older unidentified man sometime between 5:15 a.m. and 5:45 a.m. Descriptions vary.
01:04:34
Even though it's a a vague, broad description, these descriptions vary. There are no confirmed sightings of
01:04:42
Eugene Martin after that morning. Gene is described as a white male with brown hair and brown eyes, about 5 ft
01:04:51
tall and around 110 lb. He was reported to be wearing blue jeans, blue Tracks brand shoes. There is
01:05:00
DNA that is available for analysis or comparisons in his case. And the story that began with a boy
01:05:09
waking up on a quiet morning just to go out and earn a few bucks, money for the fair
01:05:15
potentially, money for video games, ended with a carrier bag left behind at a curb, and a city searching
01:05:24
for answers outward in a widening circle and widening circles that never found the
01:05:30
one thing that would make the rest of the timeline real. Where Gene went after he finished folding the
01:05:38
papers. As we have mentioned, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
01:05:44
have been involved in Johnny Goss's case as well as Eugene Martin's case, and continue to have involvement, as
01:05:52
well as the missing person's case of Mark Allen. And you can go to their website,
01:06:01
ncmec.org, and you there you will find age-progressed images of these missing kids, what they
01:06:11
may look like today or more recently. Four decades have passed in both of these cases.
01:06:18
And if you have any information at all, please reach out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You
01:06:25
can call their 24-hour hotline, 1-800-843-5678, or you can go to their website, ncmec.org,
01:06:38
or missingkids.org. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Want to thank everybody for joining us
01:06:59
here in the garage each and every weekend. If you need more true crime for your ear balls,
01:07:04
your hairy, hairy ear balls, then make sure you subscribe to Off the Record, our other show, on
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Patreon or Apple Podcast subscription. You'll have tons more true crime for your ear balls.
01:07:19
And until next week, be good, be kind, and don't litter. >> [music] [music] [music]
01:08:01
>> Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And it's so, as a black
01:08:07
woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and [music] you're vulnerable. It is the
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thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we
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learn the power of hope, recovery [music] is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com.
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Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. Shatterproof and Empire Health.