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[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> In the early '80s, middle America
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experienced tragedies that no parent could imagine. Until it happened for the first time.
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Newspaper boys were disappearing from the streets. They would step out into the dark of the
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early morning hours to deliver the daily news to their neighborhoods. And some of them did not return.
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It started in Iowa and then it moved to Nebraska. Kids were plucked off the street just a
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few steps into their routes. And some have vanished forever. The first boy gone was in West Des
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Moines, Iowa. The papers he carried read Des Moines Sunday Register. The newspaper Iowa depends upon.
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September 5, 1982. $1 for a single copy. 85 cents by motor route. And 80 cents by carrier.
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The top story headline read Good news of Iowa humanity emerged in tragedies of summer.
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The day's weather forecasted on the front page partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms in
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the afternoon. Highs 80 to 85°. But none of that mattered because the boy was gone before sunrise.
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Vanished. This is True Crime Garage. And this is our look at the missing paper boys.
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Chapter 1 Johnny Gosch. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We are going back in time to the 18th of
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September, 1983. This is Bellevue, Nebraska. Bellevue, Nebraska is just outside of and just
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south of Omaha, Nebraska, which is right on the state line of Nebraska and Iowa.
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September 18th, 1983 was in fact a Sunday. Please note that all three, the location, the month, and the day of the
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week and more importantly, the fourth item here, Captain, the scenario regarding this story are all very key
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ingredients to the emergency response and law enforcement officers responding to this call for help that caused them
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to have great concern and they all agreed is very, very strange, very, very scary stuff right off the rip. So, this
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is from Peter Kliesmet's book. Now, we've recommended his book before in our recommended
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segment here in the garage. The book title is FBI Diary: Profiles in Evil. And this portion of his book reads
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13-year-old Danny Joe Eberle got up early as he always did and headed down to a nearby
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convenience store to pick up his supply of 70, 7-0, Sunday newspapers to go out and deliver them. He rolled the papers
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put the entire load in the delivery bag on his bicycle and took off on his route. But he only made it three stops
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on this route. When some people on the route didn't get their newspapers at the usual time they
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were on the phone to Danny's parents calling his home phone number. Puzzled by the number of phone calls, his
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parents headed out on the route eventually finding Danny's bike inside the gate of a fence around a dentist's
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home. Folded newspapers were inside the delivery bag. But Danny Joe was nowhere to be found.
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There were no signs of a struggle. His parents drove around to see if they could find him but could not.
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And immediately afterward called the Bellevue Police Department. Police began searching for the boy right away,
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systematically talking to people in the area, but no one had seen anything including
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Danny Joe himself. The search continued for the entire day with officers checking every building in
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the area and searching around houses. More neighbors were interviewed but no one had seen Danny Joe with anyone.
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He had simply vanished. And as Peter Kliesmet writes, much like Johnny Gosch did a year before. And the
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parallels, he says were eerily similar. No clues were found despite a search by over a hundred towns
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people and officers. The day became evening. And when darkness fell, the search was
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put on hold and began first thing the next morning. Yet again the search teams fanned out with guidance and
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organization from law enforcement. The sheriff's department was involved. And the Bellevue Police Chief contacted the
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local FBI office in Omaha, Nebraska. Agents were immediately assigned to help with the search and investigation into
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the boy's disappearance. There were no indications of problems at home that could have made him decide to
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run away. To the contrary, he was conscientious about getting up, delivering his papers, and getting
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himself to school every morning. There were no problems at school. No one could understand how he could
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mysteriously disappear. So, where this call goes here, Captain, we have FBI is going to get involved very
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quickly in the disappearance of Danny Joe Eberle from Bellevue, Nebraska. Newspaper boy out on his route doesn't
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come home. It appears he made it to three of the stops delivering three newspapers and then
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something must have occurred after that third delivery. And now the boy is gone.
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The FBI we have Special Agent in Charge Herb Hawkins at the local field office here. And we have Assistant Special
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Agent in Charge John Evans from the Omaha, Nebraska field office. So, they are coordinating with the Bellevue
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Police Department and the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office. Herb Hawkins and John Evans get a local
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agent Peter Kliesmet Jr., who we've already mentioned his name a couple times. I believe he is out of
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neighboring state Iowa at this time. They get him involved and they also make a call to Quantico to bring in one of
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the big guns. One of the original mind hunters, Robert Ressler. On these initial phone calls, all of the agents
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discuss could this be a link? Could this be a continuation of the case that made
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national headlines just 130 miles to the east and almost exactly 1 year prior about another missing paper boy,
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12-year-old Johnny Gosch. Well, I think this hit home to a lot of people because
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at that time your paper boy delivering your daily paper is a part of your daily life.
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So, this affected a lot of individuals. >> For many, it's the start of each day, the start of that daily
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life. And >> Absolutely. to have something go so wrong so quickly in the day is jarring. And then we know as this story
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stands today very very haunting, very mysterious. So, let's circle back here and get into the
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details because I know we've talked about it many times here in the garage, but everybody listening today may not be
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fully up to speed on the Johnny Gosch portion of this story. And again the FBI agents that get involved in this
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missing paper boy case, immediately they have to be thinking about Johnny Gosch.
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Again, it's just 130 miles away. It took place about 1 year prior. In today's trailer, we talked about the newspaper
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headline and details that were on the front page of the Des Moines Register newspaper, the very
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papers that Johnny Gosch was out delivering on the day he went missing. Right. Now,
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the next day, the headline was "Police [snorts] Hunt Missing West Des Moines Boy" with an article featuring a school
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picture of the missing youngster, Johnny Gosch. And this true crime story breaks down as such.
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Before dawn on September 5th, 1982, the quiet routines of a West Des Moines, Iowa neighborhood were already stirring.
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Johnny Gosch, a 12-year-old Des Moines Register paperboy, born November 12th, 1969, got up early to begin his Sunday
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morning routine, which was delivering the Sunday morning paper, going on his paper route.
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In the Gosch home, this was usually a familiar ritual. Johnny often would get his father up, wake him up. John Gosch
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is his father, so the two of them could go on the route together. But on September 5th, 1982, Johnny went
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out alone. He wasn't entirely by himself, though. That morning, he took the family's dog. This is a small
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miniature dachshund. Dog's name is Gretchen. So, Gretchen goes with him as he headed out into the
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pre-dawn darkness of West Des Moines. Well, let me just for people that are not familiar with paperboys because in
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the '70s, '80s, '90s, it was commonplace. So, you'd have a kid that was local to the route.
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The route would be normally a couple blocks, a section of housing close to that individual's location or close to
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their house. The papers would be delivered in a stack. The newspaper boy would then wake up, normally before
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school. They would get the papers. They would roll them or bag them, and then they would head out and deliver them.
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Now, most of the time, the paperboys were I would say early teenagers to high school students. Well, see, that's
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interesting that you say that because that was our experience. We delivered newspapers in the '90s, and I think that
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these stories are why in the '90s that the paperboys were a little older than they were in the '80s. Right. And as you
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said, that paper route, very important for folks to know that it was either very near the delivery boy's home or the
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delivery boy's home was part of that route. And Sunday is always your biggest delivery day. I recall my route, damn
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near every house on the route received a Sunday paper. The it was about half or maybe
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a third received the paper daily. Yeah, and with the Sunday papers, they normally had ads. So, they'd be heavier
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papers, but >> Mhm. a typical day, they'd wake up, collect the papers that were delivered
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to them. They'd have to roll them or bag them, and then they'd deliver them. Now,
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they might deliver them by themselves or they might have a parent that helps them. And sometimes that would depend on
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the weather. Exactly. And note that in both of these cases that we've mentioned here with these two paperboys, this is
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both occurring on a Sunday, so the busy day for these delivery boys, and the day
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that the paperboys would be out the longest amount of time on their route as well. Right. And so, if they're
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delivering the papers by themselves, they become very vulnerable. This next part, I want to be clear here. Some
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descriptions say white sweatshirt, the majority of them say white t-shirt. This is a description of what Johnny Gosch
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was wearing when he set out that day to deliver the papers. Now, Johnny Gosch is on foot,
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where Danny Joe Eberle was on his bicycle. Right. >> Johnny wore clothes described in later
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summaries as a white t-shirt or white sweatshirt with Kim's Academy on the back. He was also wearing warm-up pants
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and blue rubber flip-flops, and he carried the standard yellow newspaper delivery bag used by the local carriers.
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And if you go back on message boards or go through comments, people that lived in the area that have continued to
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follow the Johnny Gosch case, they say that there's a picture of of a delivery bag, and everybody's comments are the
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same. All of the kids, all the delivery boys wore those same delivery bags. They
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were used to seeing that color of that delivery bag. His route began near the area later associated with what would be
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suspected as the abduction site or near the abduction site. So, this is around 42nd Street and
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Marcourt Lane in West Des Moines. Like other carriers, Johnny first needed to collect his newspapers. So, there's a
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drop-off spot. Other Des Moines Register paper carriers would later say that they saw him at the
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paper drop-off picking up his papers. Right. >> Those sightings are corroborated by
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multiple witnesses. These became the last widely verified moments of Johnny Gosch's morning. Not
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long after, something happened that several people would remember in fragments and uneasy
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impressions. Another paperboy, he's much later identified by the single name of Mike.
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I don't know if that's his real name or if that's how they chose to identify him.
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Early on in this case, Captain, the a lot of the paperboys that had comments or said that they may have seen
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something were not identified to the public by name. Yeah, cuz law enforcement was afraid that they would
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be targeted. >> Exactly. This paperboy, named Mike, later reported that he saw Johnny talking with a stocky man
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who was near a blue two-tone car. Now, a second witness, his name, John Rossi, also saw a man in a blue car speaking
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with Johnny and felt that something about it didn't sit right. Rossi recalled that Johnny told him the
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man was asking for directions, and Johnny asked Rossi to help. Rossi tried to do what he could in the moment.
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He looked at the license plate, but when the situation passed, he found that he could not recall the plate
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number. Later, he would describe the frustration of that gap, how he kept hoping the numbers would suddenly return
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to him. He says, quote, "As distinctly as night and day," end quote, but they never did. Right. Rossi eventually
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underwent hypnosis and reported some plate details to police, including that the plate he believed was to be an Iowa
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license plate from Warren County. So, as Johnny moved on, walking roughly one block north toward where his route
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began, another paperboy noticed something else. Johnny appeared to be followed by
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another man. Around that same time, a neighbor later described hearing a door slam,
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seeing a silver Ford Fairmont speed away northward from the area where Johnny's wagon would later be found.
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So, that wagon uh is what he used to carry the papers. And as said, this would be his big day.
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He's got his He's got his bag over his shoulders, and he's got his wagon that he's pulling behind him. That wagon,
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Johnny Gosch's wagon, would become one of the most haunting physical And we know because we were both
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paperboys, but I didn't remember or I don't remember seeing other paperboys out when I was delivering. Sometimes,
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one of the people on your routes might open up the door as you're going to deliver the paper on their porch.
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But you also didn't really see cars on the road cuz you're delivering the papers before work and before school.
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Yeah, you would often during the week would it would be a little more typical that you might see somebody out uh or
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somebody in their front yard or going out to their vehicle. But you're absolutely right. 95% of the time,
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first off, circle back to something else you said, I never saw another delivery boy. And we
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did this, you know, we had a route for years. I do recall almost every day seeing the
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drop-off, the person that would drop off the bundles of newspapers because you would
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wait for them to arrive so you could start. You couldn't start until you received that bundle. So, that person,
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that vehicle, you would typically see, I would anyway, every single day. Yeah. >> And
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at most during the week, most days, the only thing I would encounter would be a a dog that would decide to chase you
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temporarily or or again, maybe somebody walking out to get in their vehicle to go into work early. So, it's usually
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kind of the the dead of the morning, for lack of a better term. Here, his route is interesting, and I'm guessing
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it's a much heavily more heavily populated area. You have paper carriers meeting
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in a central location that morning to receive their paper bundles. And they're they're all kind of in the same space
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before they part ways and go to start their routes. That would seemingly be helpful in the Johnny
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Gosch case that we have some of these eyewitnesses and then potential earwitness. But I I will say this,
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Captain, that Yeah. the timeline of events and witness reports of that morning, they seem a little scattered.
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Some of them overlap and some of them are not quite clear on the order of what took place that morning. Well,
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eyewitnesses normally have the best intentions, but if you ask me what I ate for breakfast
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yesterday, I couldn't tell you. One of the things I think helps law enforcement in these cases is we should have an idea
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of when the papers were dropped off to the paper boy for him to then either wrap the papers or roll the papers up.
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And so at least we have a starting point in these timelines. Yes, we have a generalization of some of these times.
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And then the car information is helpful. It doesn't seem to produce any leads, but I think it helps when
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talking about theories and speculation in the Johnny Gosch case. So just like in the Danny Joe Eberle case
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that we referenced earlier, as the morning continues, Johnny's parents, the Gosches, they begin receiving phone
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calls from customers along Johnny's route. People are complaining that their newspapers had not been delivered. And
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this is what's going to kick things into action. Johnny's father went out for a quick search of the surrounding
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neighborhood. So the route is nearby. The streets are familiar to the father obviously, and yet within minutes he
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found something that made the situation unmistakably wrong. Two blocks from their home, John Gosch found Johnny's
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little red wagon sitting abandoned. It's was not empty. It's still full of newspapers. Not a good sign. The Des
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Moines Sunday Register that had never made it to the porches that Johnny was to deliver them to. So
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this finding here, Captain, tells a simple story with terrible implications. That Johnny had made it out there,
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started his route, and something caused him to quit mid-route after finishing just a couple of
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deliveries. He had been interrupted by something. But almost I want to point out almost
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immediately once he starts his route. I think that could be key here in this disappearance case. Yeah, I think it
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shortens the time frame. And then obviously that'd be my luck. Go out to get the paper.
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It's not there. I call to complain. Make an ass of myself. Just to find out that my paper boy has
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gone missing. Johnny's parents, John and Noreen Gosch, they contacted the West Des Moines Police Department and
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reported their son missing. In later public statements, his mother, Noreen, would be sharply critical of what she
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saw as a slow initial response time by police. She described a policy at the time that a child could not be
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classified as a missing person until 72 hours had passed. And by her account, police did not arrive to take their
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report for 45 minutes. A stretch of time that in the a case like this is going [snorts] to feel like
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a lifetime to those involved. Now, early on, we have we have like police assumptions
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that seem very shifty in the Johnny Gosch case. You review some articles and it it sounds like he
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was initially viewed as a possible runaway. Other articles where police or law enforcement members are saying that oh
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no, we we don't believe that he's a runaway. He's it's simply a missing person's case. Right.
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>> Others saying we we have to wonder if he's been abducted or could be a kidnapping, but it's just a missing
00:24:21
person's case. So it's really all over the map as to what they thought took place
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right out the gate. Well, my problem with this is to me this is stupidity. Because if we have a missing child
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that didn't collect the papers, like I said, to roll them or bag them, no effort to
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deliver the papers, then I think you could say, "Hey, maybe he ran away." But when you have a wagon full of papers and
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no sign of this paper boy, it makes zero sense. Oh, I I delivered three papers and then I decided I'm going to run
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away. It's stupidity in my opinion. Well, and in given his age, you know, boys will be boys, and I think
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that there was some thought by some, not many, that this could just simply be a prank that Johnny was pulling on
00:25:11
people, but >> Right. very quickly, I believe this is the next day or within 48 hours, the
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district circulation manager, his name is Lou Cook, he said, and this is something that Johnny's friends had
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said as well, like we don't think he would have pulled a prank because if he did, it wouldn't involve the
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newspaper or his paper route. And okay, so that's kids saying that, but Lou Cook, the circulation manager, had this
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to say. He says, "This disappearance didn't fit the image of Johnny Gosch, of the kid that he
00:25:48
knew." He said, "Johnny didn't seem to him to be the type of kid that would just wander off." He says, "Johnny had
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{quote} never before not delivered his route." and {quote}. And Cook goes on to say he was responsible with a strong
00:26:02
service record. And this is something that the carriers pointed out as well as the manager.
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That if carriers missed a delivery, if there was a paper that was not delivered on a Sunday, the carriers themselves
00:26:18
were charged 75 cents per paper that was not delivered, meaning Johnny Gosch, if
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he were to pull a prank, it would have cost him $27.75. Right. And as logic went, no one thought a
00:26:33
prank would be worth that to a boy 12 years old who is known to be responsible and hardworking.
00:26:56
>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Talk hands in the air. Make sure you tip
00:27:34
your newspaper [music] boy. That's right. Don't know if that they exist anymore. Simpler times, my friend. Yeah,
00:27:41
yeah, we uh you want to watch something interesting, talk to the young person working the
00:27:48
customer service desk and ask them, "Do you sell newspapers?" And then just see how that plays out.
00:27:54
So let's get into this timeline the best we can. So the Des Moines Register, the
00:28:00
same paper that our missing boy was delivering, would later document the first frantic hours and type that
00:28:09
captured both urgency and uncertainty regarding the missing boy. The paper described how another carrier reported
00:28:16
seeing Johnny talking with a man along the route and how authorities were reluctant to call it a kidnapping right
00:28:23
away, publicly labeling it, at least initially, as a missing person incident while not ruling out abduction. A police
00:28:32
artist created a drawing of a {quote} mystery man. But authorities declined to release it at the time, citing
00:28:43
uncertainty about whether it would was even an accurate likeness of the mystery man.
00:28:50
>> The description in early reporting centered around a man wearing a baseball cap and driving a dark blue car who had
00:28:57
asked for directions to 86th Street and Hickman Road. That same man had reportedly asked two
00:29:06
boys separately for directions to that same location. In the same reporting, the timeline
00:29:13
tightened around the moment that Johnny Gosch's family finally realized that Johnny
00:29:19
was missing. One of Johnny's 37 customers called the Gosch home at 7:45 a.m. to ask why
00:29:28
the Sunday paper hadn't arrived. Again, this was a customer who was saying that he received his paper daily on time
00:29:37
every day. And so this was out of the ordinary, and this person is on record saying that
00:29:46
Johnny was This was unusual for Johnny, who was reliable and prompt with his paper
00:29:54
delivery. So, dad, John Gosch, checked Johnny's room first. Finding the bed empty,
00:30:01
then the This is crazy, too. The dog, by this point, had returned home. Remember the
00:30:07
dog went out with Johnny that morning. >> And just so I'm clear, we have eyewitnesses that have this guy
00:30:13
wearing a baseball cap and a car asking for directions, asking directions from from multiple paper boys. Mhm.
00:30:21
And then there's another individual, but do we think that there's two individuals, or is it possible that
00:30:28
That's what gets so confusing about this the details around the When I look at this case, I
00:30:36
think we're talking about a window of approximately 30 minutes or so between the time that Johnny arrives to the
00:30:43
paper drop-off, rolls up the papers, he's got his wagon ready to go, he's he's got his bag ready
00:30:49
to go, and he sets off on his route. And we know that he only makes it two blocks from his home, where the
00:30:57
wagon is eventually found, but through throughout all of these witness statements, and some of these,
00:31:04
let's keep in mind, will be second-hand. They'll be told second-hand to Gosch's family, and this is information that
00:31:12
they will then put into the public atmosphere. Right. >> This is also information that comes from
00:31:19
other sources that say they were told by paper carriers that morning that they saw this or they saw that or a neighbor
00:31:25
saw this or heard that. What you ultimately end up with, here, Captain, is potentially three individuals that are
00:31:33
of question and two vehicles. What So, you have a driver in one vehicle, a driver in another vehicle, and then an
00:31:40
individual that's on foot, making it that more difficult to understand and explain the situation.
00:31:47
>> Right. And again, law enforcement doesn't know which individual these eyewitnesses are talking about, so I
00:31:54
think it would be difficult to come up with a composite sketch that you feel confident in. Yes, and they will
00:32:00
eventually release a sketch to the public, and we will go through that information as well. Now, we should note
00:32:08
here that if this timeline is accurate to the minute mark, I think it's a very accurate timeline. I just wouldn't nail
00:32:16
it down to a specific minute here, but roughly the family saying 7:45 is when they're
00:32:23
notified that papers weren't delivered. John Gosch, Johnny's father, finds the wagon, and during the time while police
00:32:32
were contacted to come out to the area, John Gosch delivered the undelivered newspapers himself. So, if the timeline
00:32:41
is correct, this would put the police there taking the report by 8:30 a.m. that morning. Now, keep in mind, it's
00:32:48
reported that Johnny Gosch would have left his home just prior to 6:00 a.m. that morning. So, we have a good deal of
00:32:54
time, and if it was about a 30-minute window, we have as I suspect, roughly 2 hours before
00:33:04
the police are there and on the scene. Well, I think what makes this more complicated is, like I said, there's not
00:33:11
a lot of individuals out. So, did these eyewitnesses see somebody that's involved in this kidnapping, or did they
00:33:19
see somebody out for a morning walk or a jog? And then, if you're police, you go,
00:33:25
"Well, we have eyewitnesses saying that there's a individual asking for directions. Is he a part of it, or is
00:33:32
there somebody on his route because you might only have, let's say, 30 to 100 and some customers, but you might
00:33:42
have a route that consist of 200 houses. Mhm. Yeah, and throughout this day, this
00:33:48
Sunday in September, the the search will widen. So, eventually, we will have involved here
00:33:56
the West Des Moines Police Department, the Polk County Sheriff's Department, the Iowa Highway Patrol,
00:34:04
and it will go so far as to include off-duty and reserve officers as well. And of course, we have family, friends,
00:34:11
and neighbors that will get involved in actively searching the neighborhood and beyond on the Saturday. The day's search
00:34:19
ran into rain in the afternoon, complicating the situation. We have volunteers that are soaked. You know,
00:34:27
you're out there in the rain, you're looking for a missing boy, and it's the As the minutes turn into hours, and the
00:34:33
hours go by, you're just building up with a deepening sense of dread. We thought we would find this
00:34:40
kid, maybe we're not going to. And this search continues with a lot of folks involved until dark that Sunday night.
00:34:49
>> Yeah, I think the thing that's scary for law enforcement and for the community is
00:34:55
if there's more than one individual involved, then what are we dealing with? By Monday, so now day two of the search
00:35:03
for 12-year-old Johnny Gosch, we get thousands of volunteers, but zero answers. So, this is Labor Day,
00:35:12
Monday, September 6th, 1982, when the search intensified. More than 1,000 volunteers combed woods, parks,
00:35:20
fields, and ditches around West Des Moines. Search lines formed with people spaced out about 5 ft apart, moving
00:35:27
through wet grass and brush, looking for anything. A newspaper bag, the shoes or
00:35:33
flip-flops, clothing, any trace that could say where Johnny Gosch had gone. Others drove slowly along rural roads in
00:35:43
Polk County and Dallas counties, scanning ditches and roadside edges. Still more volunteers cruised nearby
00:35:51
highways. At Southwoods Park, searchers moved through gnats and mosquitoes, having to
00:35:59
deal with that. And at one point, there were some items that prompted calls to authorities. One
00:36:07
was a Kleenex, and the other was a set of footprints, but these findings, while they, you know,
00:36:16
increased the level of uncertainty, they these seem to not produce any leads, and
00:36:24
neither of these have ever been described as evidence, just possible just things that were found during the
00:36:30
search. So, Right. >> Unfortunately, we're left with authorities having found no clues, and
00:36:36
then once again on day two, the search is called off at dark. This circles back to some of the statements
00:36:45
by witnesses or potential witnesses, as well as what law enforcement is describing the case.
00:36:53
So, officials publicly, for you know, on the record, they describe the case in careful terms.
00:37:00
Let's Let's say that. Careful terms, I think, is accurate. They said that there's no clear
00:37:07
indications of a kidnapping. So, no evidence, no no actual evidence that there was a kidnapping. They're also
00:37:13
saying there's no evidence or great reason to suspect that Johnny had run away. Right.
00:37:20
Now, they did what they were clear on, here, Captain, is they are looking for the vehicles and the people seen near
00:37:28
the time Johnny vanished. All right, so the dark blue car connected to the man asking for
00:37:34
directions, and also a silver late-model Ford Fairmont, described as having a wide black stripe
00:37:44
on it. Police said they wanted to speak to the drivers because they might have witnessed something, even
00:37:56
witness vehicles. As the official investigation continued, anxiety spread through the communities,
00:38:06
parents of other paper carriers talked about their children no longer going out alone on their routes. District
00:38:14
circulation managers called carriers and their parents, calling the carriers' parents with
00:38:20
warnings, saying, you know, you got to be cautious. Do not get into any cars. If something feels strange, go to a
00:38:29
customer's door and and knock on the door and tell the customer to notify the authorities.
00:38:35
So, this disappearance very quickly changed the emotional map of a place that it assumed that those early morning
00:38:43
hours were were safe. Well, we have evidence of that. We have a driver asking kids for directions, and multiple
00:38:51
kids trying to give that individual directions. >> Yeah, well, let's get Let's get into
00:38:55
that description there. And I think after all this time, we got to say suspect description here, right?
00:39:03
>> Yeah, well, I was going to say it's laughable when they It's like the Delphi case. Well, we're not saying the guy on
00:39:09
the bridge is a suspect, but we'd love to talk to him. And that's what we hear in all these cases.
00:39:15
>> Like That's true, but within the first 48, 72, and even I would say even, you
00:39:20
know, the first 48 to 72 hours, even the first week, there is some strategy involved in that statement, because what
00:39:30
you're hoping, and it wouldn't be the first time. It's rare, but it wouldn't be the first time that you publicly
00:39:36
announce, "Hey, a person that looks like this or a vehicle that looks like that was seen in the area at the time in
00:39:43
question, we want to know what that person may have seen or heard if they have further information that might help
00:39:49
us find this person or find the offender. And in some cases the actual offender will come forward
00:39:58
with the belief that they can get in front of it. Right. And give you some kind of story and and and and also it
00:40:06
may it may put a little paranoia on that individual thinking, "Oh, I was seen there.
00:40:14
It's only a matter time before they figure out it was me. I better get there and tell them why I was there and what,
00:40:21
you know, make up some something that I saw or I I was there but I didn't see anything. And in fact we know that in
00:40:28
the Delphi case Richard Allen who would later be convicted of those murders did come forward and talk to somebody saying
00:40:35
that he was there that day but didn't see really anything going on. Right. This portion though also don't let it be lost
00:40:46
on you garage friends. Read between the lines. There's there's a bit of a theory of coordination
00:40:52
here in this abduction, right? So over time the case developed additional public details including a composite
00:40:59
sketch that we've discussed briefly. A suspect description later released to the public. The suspect was described as
00:41:07
a man around 5'9" tall approximately 175 lb with dark eyes, black eyebrows, black
00:41:15
hair combed back a black mustache appearing to be in his mid-40s with a heavy beard or unshaven appearance.
00:41:29
Okay, now keep in mind it's still not light out when this witness sees this and and is giving this
00:41:37
description later and is giving this description of saying I saw this person at a distance. Right.
00:41:43
>> So where the heavy beard to unshaven appearance sounds strange to me I don't think they were able to fully
00:41:51
articulate 100% what they remember seeing as far as when when they what was it a
00:41:58
beard or was he just look like he didn't shave for a couple days. Many of the descriptions also include this saying
00:42:04
that it possibly of Latin appearance. The vehicle often associated with this individual is described as a two-tone
00:42:13
blue midsize car potentially a 1979 to '81 model that is described as clean on the outside, possibly clean interior
00:42:24
and an Iowa license plate. Here's where things get a little twisted and it might
00:42:30
be twisted for a good reason and in the right direction. It's hard to say. When we sit here all these years later with
00:42:36
so many questions, hard to say. Noreen Goss Johnny's mother later would publicly
00:42:43
describe what she said witnesses tell her that they saw at the paper drop-off. Right.
00:42:50
>> She says that a a driver pulls up, shuts off his engine. So keep in mind there
00:42:55
would be multiple paper carriers here. From all the descriptions I've read it sounds like there were
00:43:00
were about three boys here, maybe two at this spot but as she tells it the driver pulls up,
00:43:08
shuts off the engine to the vehicle, opens up the passenger door and started having a conversation asking for
00:43:16
directions. In her retelling she says that Johnny turned to one of the other carriers,
00:43:23
another boy, and said that he was afraid. He said that he was done loading his papers and he was going to get out
00:43:31
of there and he might even head back home. So Johnny leaves as Noreen said she says that about the
00:43:38
same time the driver pulled out too but not before detail that she says stuck in
00:43:44
her mind as extremely significant. She says that the driver before pulling off, before driving off he flicked the dome
00:43:53
light three times before driving away. Mhm. So you can usually typically reach up and you could
00:44:01
there's a switch where you could set the dome light to be on, off or when the car door opens or trigger it to turn on.
00:44:10
And she is saying that one of the witnesses has told her that the man reached up and using the switch flicked
00:44:19
the dome light to the vehicle on and off three times. But what does that mean? It's hard to say. And again, if if you
00:44:28
want to look at this and read read between the lines of a possible coordinated abduction this obviously
00:44:35
would be some kind of signal or trigger to somebody. Right. Or is it possible that like you said there's multiple
00:44:41
settings and if they turned on their light for some reason and then they scroll back
00:44:48
or not scroll back but they flip back to make it only open when the door does it
00:44:55
flicker in between? Well, and yeah, the other thing too is often times Leave it to me to get hung up on something that
00:45:04
might not be much of a big deal at all. >> But no no no, I think it's fair. I I think where someone could point to that
00:45:11
and say, "Well, this man clearly was signaling somebody." And and when given Noreen's description it absolutely
00:45:17
sounds that way. And she could be absolutely right. I want to be clear about that. But I cannot tell you how
00:45:23
many times I've reached up to turn that dome light on and I turn it off. You know, or or I go
00:45:30
to I go to turn it on and I turn it to the open setting where the car door would
00:45:36
trigger it. Or I go to turn it off and I turn it to to open and the back on, you
00:45:41
know, it you you can't The thing is when that light is not on and the you don't really know
00:45:47
the switch is little. Especially in those old cars, that that age of vehicle '79 to '81 model, it would be common for
00:45:54
somebody to turn the switch multiple times before getting it to the actual setting that they want. But also
00:46:01
sometimes the switch isn't not on the light. It's near the wheel somewhere. The Yeah. The other thing, let's throw
00:46:08
another wrench in this whole portion of the story. Some of the witness descriptions of this
00:46:17
man, remember he's asking for directions and he asked more than one individual for directions. So
00:46:24
some of these descriptions, not all, say that the man was his speech was slurred.
00:46:30
So there are some police officers that believe that this guy was just a drunk driver that was probably actually lost
00:46:38
and looking for some direction to get where he needed to go. Yeah, that makes sense. It it does make some sense but
00:46:45
then when you want to the flip side of that coin is the officers the officers that are suspicious of this vehicle
00:46:53
because well, we gave out the description of the vehicle and the man and he never came forward to talk to us
00:46:58
to tell us if he saw anything. So it's this is a very difficult case obviously. Yeah, but hold on a second. If he was
00:47:05
drunk driving, he might not come forward for that reason. >> True, but I would hope that in a
00:47:11
situation this severe that you would be like you'd be willing to go, "We appreciate you coming forward. Right. Do
00:47:18
not drink and drive anymore. I I I It would be I think it would be a little despicable if they're like,
00:47:25
"All right, well, you just confessed to He also doesn't have to confess to drinking and driving to come forward,
00:47:31
right? I was out driving that night. Oh, that kid said I slurred my speech? Who's
00:47:35
that kid now?" Yeah. He He doesn't have to include that part if it was part of it. Okay. So like we said this detail
00:47:44
with many others in the Johnny Goss case can be argued and theorized a number of
00:47:50
different ways. And of course Noreen has said publicly for a long time she believes her view of this is that this
00:48:01
was some kind of signal the dome light action was a signal to someone watching nearby, someone who then later grabbed
00:48:10
Johnny cuz we know he walked away from this location unharmed, alive and well. Now she also
00:48:17
described that one paper boy reportedly saw a tall man step out from between two
00:48:24
houses and then follow behind Johnny. Now police at the time described in one account this is by West Des Moines
00:48:33
Police Lieutenant Miller. So he he's actually a rookie at this time but later he's he's on record
00:48:41
regurgitating this portion of the story once he reaches lieutenant years later. Right. He's saying, you know, we called
00:48:49
in for additional help. We did canvassing. We went door-to-door. We went searching for witnesses
00:48:56
and he said we just kept running into dead ends. For all the manpower and urgency, no one
00:49:02
found Johnny Goss. And along those years sightings investigators and public pressure were
00:49:11
mounting. In the months and years that followed the story did not end. Noreen Goss
00:49:17
stated that a few months after the disappearance that Johnny was allegedly seen in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
00:49:25
And she describes this disturbing incident in which a boy repeatedly yelled to a woman for help before being
00:49:32
dragged away by two men. The case also drew the attention of private investigators
00:49:39
who worked with the Gosch family. Among those who assisted Johnny's parents were Jim Rothstein
00:49:49
who is described as a retired New York City police detective and Ted Gunderson described as a retired chief of the
00:49:57
FBI's Los Angeles field office. Now, this mother's grief would turn to advocacy and a mission. Just 1 month after
00:50:09
Johnny's disappearance Noreen Gosch founded the Johnny Gosch Foundation and developed a program called In Defense of
00:50:17
Children. The work grew into a national campaign. She toured widely making nearly 1,000 personal
00:50:25
appearances, often alongside law enforcement, missing persons organizations, and groups concerned with
00:50:32
human trafficking. She pressed a message that came from the most personal source possible. Children
00:50:40
could vanish quickly, even in {quote} safe places, and systems needed and systems were needed to respond
00:50:48
immediately. And this circles back to the problem with hey, you know, at this time period
00:50:56
a person isn't missing a kid isn't missing until it's been 72 hours. So then in October of 1982, President
00:51:03
Ronald Reagan signed the Missing Children's Act described as an effort to address the tragedy of
00:51:10
missing children and reassure parents that every effort would be made to find them.
00:51:15
In this story and in others, the environment of the early 1980s was simple. I mean, in many cases
00:51:23
there's no national headlines. In many cases there's no national hotlines, tip lines to call, no Amber Alerts, no rapid
00:51:30
deployment infrastructure, no DNA databases. The resources that we have today and the things that have been put
00:51:37
in place since kids like Johnny went missing have grown over the years only to the
00:51:45
betterment of locating the child or locating the reason why they didn't come home. As the years went
00:51:53
on, the public visibility of Johnny's case grew. In 1984, Johnny Gosch's photograph
00:52:00
appeared on milk cartons produced by the Des Moines-based Anderson Erickson Dairy
00:52:07
Company. His picture was placed alongside the photo of another Des Moines Register paperboy
00:52:13
who we will discuss in this series. His name is Eugene Martin who went missing in 1984. Johnny was
00:52:21
among the first missing children to have a disappearance publicized in that manner. The image traveling into
00:52:28
kitchens and grocery stores, an everyday reminder that the boy had not been located. People often wonder why a case
00:52:36
resonates with the nation and why other cases don't, but it's simple in this case.
00:52:45
Most people had a paperboy, so most people can relate something to this case and if you can
00:52:52
relate something to the case in your own life, it becomes more important to Well,
00:52:57
and we've reviewed a lot of these cases and what we typically see is there's um there's many different avenues that a
00:53:06
grieving parent can go down when they are dealing with this situation, this very unfortunate
00:53:14
scenario. Right. And some of them go heavy into mission-oriented or advocacy. And in that regard, Noreen Gosch is one
00:53:25
hell of a force. And that's also a reason why Johnny Gosch's case is so publicized and so remembered and
00:53:34
still being discussed in places like the garage here today. In fact, I mean, this
00:53:40
is just another part of her actions. In July of 1984 she authored a bill, the Johnny Gosch
00:53:47
Bill, was passed into Ohio into Iowa law. It mandated immediate police involvement
00:53:55
whenever a child went missing. And according to the report, the approach was subsequently adopted by
00:54:03
eight additional states. That same year, 1984, Noreen Gosch traveled to Washington, D.C. and
00:54:11
testified before Congress. She later stated that her testimony led to her receiving death threats. How does that
00:54:18
make any sense? Well, she was she was on the forefront of people talking about human trafficking and
00:54:28
something that is difficult to understand today and nearly impossible to understand in the early 80s.
00:54:34
So she's saying that that led to death threats, I I don't think that that's people, you
00:54:40
know, typical mom and dad in the public calling her up or sending a death threat
00:54:45
saying, "Hey, you better shut your mouth." I think she's what she's saying without saying it is people that are
00:54:51
involved in this, criminals that are involved in things like this were the types that were threatening her. And and
00:54:58
that's her way of pointing out there's more people potentially involved in these sort of activities than anybody in
00:55:05
the public, even people in law enforcement, may be aware of. And keep in mind her actions and her loudmouth,
00:55:13
and I want to be clear, I don't mean that as a criticism, I mean that as if everybody could have a bullhorn that
00:55:19
have had to face supreme difficulty like this or unimaginable tragedy if everybody had a
00:55:27
bullhorn and everybody and and people opened up their ear balls, open up your ear holes,
00:55:32
everyone. Yeah. Um it's her actions that, you know, we talk about the Walshes and so many other people, but it
00:55:40
wasn't the Walshes just alone. It was people like Noreen Gosch that helped to eventually establish the National Center
00:55:46
for Missing and Exploited Children, Nick Mecca as we often say here in the garage. And a big part of that, too, was
00:55:53
President Reagan opening up his ear holes and listening to these parents that were saying, "Look, in my area we
00:55:59
have a problem. My kid's not the only one. Look at Look at what's happened in Florida, what happened here in Iowa,
00:56:07
what happened in California, Texas." And and suddenly you realize these are not all
00:56:13
just one-offs. These are unfortunately not unique situations. In the 70s in the early 80s
00:56:22
the child abduction rates, especially what is is stranger-on-stranger crimes, the
00:56:29
rates were much higher back then. Yeah, what I was going to say is these aren't one-on-one.
00:56:35
These crimes aren't one-on-one, but these criminals are not one-on-one. I think you could take it a step further,
00:56:40
it's like, yeah, the Dahmer is a unique serial killer, but there's thousands of them. When you think of
00:56:48
these kidnappers or human traffickers they're not one-on-one. It's not a rare situation.
00:56:57
If this is happening in this state, this is happening in every state. So how many
00:57:01
of these sick individuals are out there and how many of them are working together? Yes,
00:57:07
and if it happened if it can happen in Los Angeles, California, it can happen in Des Moines, Iowa. And
00:57:14
you look, a lot of this will you will see how these actions in these communities and these parents
00:57:22
coming together with community leaders will change future cases that are similar. So in October of
00:57:31
1982, President Ronald Reagan signed the Missing Children's Act. This is an effort to address the tragedy of missing
00:57:38
children and reassure parents that every effort would be made to find them. Okay,
00:57:42
so we've already mentioned that, but what it what it directly means is that the FBI would expand
00:57:51
to becoming more involved in local homicide cases, local abduction cases, missing persons cases. It wouldn't just
00:58:01
be when they are called in because a ransom demand or state lines were crossed. Right. The case file details
00:58:10
here [snorts] before we wrap capped in at the at the time of his disappearance. Now, of course, this is over 40 years
00:58:15
ago. Yeah. But Johnny was described as a Caucasian male with brown hair and blue
00:58:21
eyes, approximately 67 inches tall, which would be 5'7" inches tall and about 140 lb at the
00:58:28
time that he disappeared. I want to point out something here that is noteworthy. And I think it adds to the
00:58:36
credibility of the possible suspect composite and description that we discussed earlier. One of the witnesses
00:58:45
that provided details about that composite that helped put that composite together and the description of that
00:58:54
person together simply stated that even from a distance, I I'm I'm basing the height and weight
00:59:02
of the individual off of Johnny's cuz Johnny was standing near this person. And he said that the guy
00:59:08
was slightly bigger than Johnny was. Slightly taller, slightly heavier than Johnny was. So that that's very helpful
00:59:18
for the description there. Yeah, but this makes it difficult, too, because if we don't have a solid age range
00:59:25
then you could go, well, this guy could have been in his late teens. Correct, but this witness is
00:59:33
saying that he believed the individual to be in his 40s. Now, regarding Johnny, Mark's noted for identification purposes
00:59:43
include a birthmark on his left cheek and a horseshoe-shaped scar on his tongue. The last confirmed date he was
00:59:50
seen, of course, was September 5th, 1982. The investigation began with the West Des Moines Police Department and later
00:59:58
involved the FBI. Dental records were made available and entered into databases. The
01:00:06
familial DNA samples were submitted and are available for possible future identification.
01:00:15
In later commentary, John Walsh, the long-time host of America's Most Wanted and father of Adam Walsh, is quoted
01:00:22
reflecting on the Johnny Gosch case and the lack of resolution, saying, "Nobody,
01:00:27
no suspects, no clear answers. Very sad." He stated his belief that a serial pedophile kidnapper may have been active
01:00:36
in the area at that time. And he also emphasized the cruelty of uncertainty, saying, "Quote, not knowing is the worst
01:00:46
part for families." The disappearance did not only remove a child from a household, it reshaped the
01:00:55
household that remained. The long strain on the Gosch family resulted in Noreen and John eventually divorcing. They have
01:01:03
both expressed differing feelings, opinions, and theories about the case publicly since their boy was lost.
01:01:11
The story of missing paperboy Johnny Gosch does not end, but this is what the terrifying story leaves
01:01:19
us with. Online, as iowacoldcase.org describes it, the Gosch missing persons case, it's a story that shocked
01:01:29
communities and catapulted Iowa into the national spotlight. It changed state law
01:01:35
and forever changed why parents monitored their children's activities and how they did so. Where the story
01:01:42
leaves off, Johnny Gosch went missing September of 19 82 delivering newspapers. A good
01:01:51
timeline, the best we could put together, about 5:45 a.m., Johnny leaves his home in West Des Moines with his
01:01:58
dog, Gretchen, and a red wagon to deliver the Des Moines Register Sunday edition.
01:02:04
6:00 a.m., he meets another paperboy at a drop-off point near the Valley United Methodist Church. This is at 42nd and
01:02:12
Ashworth to sort bundles of papers. The final sighting, witnesses report seeing Johnny talking to a man in a blue
01:02:20
two-tone car, and a silver car is also noted by another witness. And this would be
01:02:27
shortly after uh the Just prior to leaving the meet-up spot and shortly after leaving the meet-up
01:02:35
spot. And as we said, after 7:00 a.m., it's when calls start going to the Gosch home about undelivered newspapers.
01:02:42
How the story stands today, way back in 1982, Johnny Gosch's red wagon was found
01:02:48
abandoned with newspapers still in it, untouched. Witnesses described a man in a blue car
01:02:54
asking for directions, a possible second follower in a vehicle speeding away. Massive searches and multiple agencies
01:03:02
produced no definitive break in the case. The case has become a catalyst for policy changes in child safety advocacy,
01:03:12
but did not deliver the one thing the family and the community needed the most, proof of what happened to Johnny
01:03:20
Gosch, and where he went after those last confirmed moments at that paper drop-off
01:03:26
near the start of his route. Despite all of the ex- extensive physical searches and interviews, the investigation
01:03:34
produced little physical evidence and no suspects were arrested in connection with Johnny's disappearance. The case
01:03:40
quickly became not only a family tragedy, but a community tragedy. And for many, a 12-year-old paperboy frozen
01:03:49
in time. Then as years passed, the Johnny Gosch disappearance became a national reference point. And now, today, it's a
01:03:59
cold case. One that is of the most haunting kind. >> [music] [music] >> Want to thank everybody for joining us
01:04:23
here in the garage each and every week. So much more to get to in this series. Stick around and until [music] then, be
01:04:30
good, be kind, and don't litter. >> [music] [music]