On September 5, 1982, in the early hours of the morning, a 12-year-old paperboy named Johnny Gosch went missing while working in West Des Moines, Iowa. At the time—40 years ago—America was only beginning to recognize the issue of omitted and sexually harassed children in this nation. Just three years earlier, in 1979, 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared in New York City as he was making his way to his bus.
In 1981, a 6-year-old boy named Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a Hollywood, Florida, shopping center and later discovered dead. When Kathy Kohm, then 11 years old, was kidnapped from Santa Claus, Indiana, she was raped and killed. Between 1979 and 1981, more than 20 kids were kidnapped in what was later known as the “Atlanta child murders,” among them 9-year-old Yusuf Bell.
In 1981, the year prior to Johnny disappearing, a telephone meeting held in Louisville, Kentucky, stated in its prologue that “kids are already being sexually exploited, slaughtered, and forgotten across the nation. “A large number of kids die isolated and in secrecy; their silent incidents ended up losing to American morals because the mainstream press, authorities, politicians, and the general public are all completely clueless about how widespread the problem is across the country.
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Johnny Gosch
John David Gosch, a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa, who vanished on September 5, 1982, between six and seven in the morning, has never been found. He was born on November 12, 1969. He is thought to have been abducted. The case is now regarded as cold, but it is still open, as of 2022, when no suspects were made. His mother, Noreen Gosch, claimed that Johnny managed to flee from his captors in 1997 and came to see her with an unknown man.
She claimed that her son had revealed to her that he had become a victim of a child predator organization and had been abandoned when he became too old. He has already afterward lived within an assumed name out of fear for his life because he didn’t feel it was safe to come back home.
John, the dad of Gosch, who has been separated from Noreen since 1993, has made it known that he is unsure whether or not this visit actually took place. Many people have also theorized that the visit really did happen, but it was somebody else posing as Johnny. Gosch has not been found by police, and Noreen Gosch’s account of what happened to him has not been verified. His whereabouts are still the subject of debate, rumors, and conspiracy theories.
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Once his mother claimed to have discovered images of Gosch in captivity on her doorstep, the case gained considerable attention in 2006. A boy in some of the pictures was never recognized, despite the fact that they were alleged of kids from a Florida case. That kid is Johnny, according to Noreen Gosch. In the early stages of the search for missing children, Gosch’s image was among the first to appear on milk cartons.
The Day It Happened & Disappearance
In the West Des Moines neighborhood on Sunday, September 5, 1982, Johnny Gosch left his home early to start his side job. Normally Johnny would wake his dad to assist with the route, but that morning he only brought Gretchen, the family’s small dachshund.
Afterward, other paper carriers for The Des Moines Logbook would recall seeing Gosch picking his newspapers at the paper drop. It was Gosch’s final sighting, which several eyewitnesses were able to confirm. Mike, a different paperboy, claimed to have seen Gosch conversing with a lanky man in a blue 2 car close to the paper drop; John Rossi, a different witness, “thought something was strange” when he saw the man in the blue car speaking to Gosch.
Gosch requested assistance from Rossi and informed Rossi that the man was seeking directions. Rossi examined the license plate but was unable to remember its number. I hope and pray that I’ll awake in the middle of the night and recognize the number on the license plate as clearly as night and day, but this hasn’t happened, the man said.
Under trance, Rossi revealed to police some of the figures and that the license plate belonged to Warren County, Iowa. A private investigator employed by the Gosches claimed that as Johnny walked north along his route’s starting column, a paperboy spotted another man trailing Gosch.
Case Of Wire Fraud
Robert Herman Meier II, then 19 years old, wrote Noreen Gosch a letter in 1985 from Saginaw, Michigan. Robert claimed to be “Dakota,” claiming that he was a security officer at a bike club when Gosch’s son vanished in September 1982. The letter was already signed by “Samuel Forbes Dakota.” Meier claims that Gosch’s son was abducted as a part of a sizable child-slavery circle run by the club. Meier requested and obtained $11,000 from the Gosches, as reported by the FBI. Meier also asked for an additional $100,000 and a guarantee to give back their son.
FBI agents detained Meier at the Canadian border in Buffalo, after which he was formally charged with wire fraud. In the letter she had written, Meier had claimed that Gosch’s son had been sold to a “greater drug lord located in Mexico City.” Even after the fraud allegations, Noreen Gosch is said to have taken Meier at his word. She later criticized the FBI, claiming that Meier’s arrest by the agency damaged their reputation with anyone who would have accepted their payment to offer a bounty for their son.
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