During the early 1980s, boys used to ride their bikes without a care in the world. Many even had early morning paper routes back then before people would get up and have their coffee and breakfast. It was their American dream to be a part off a newspaper route.
On September 5, 1982, a 12 year old boy by the name of Johnny Gosch was setting out to do his paper route sometime between 6 and 7 AM. His paper route had covered 42nd Street and Marcourt Lane.
Normally, he would have awokened his father and taken his dad with him so he wouldn't be alone. This specific day, he decided to not wake his dad and to take his dog Gretchen with him instead.
Johnny's father Leonard woke up and realized that something was wrong. He went up to Johnny's room to see if he was in there and he was not.
Johnny was seen at a paper drop for the Des Moines Register, which was a local newspaper. A bystander by the name of John Rossi had seen Johnny talking to a man in a blue car near a paper drop. Allegedly, this man was asking for directions, and he had left the scene without Johnny at this time. There was also a rumor of a potential white van near the scene where Johnny was last seen, but there was no evidence of that so it was dropped.
His parents started receiving calls complaining that their papers were never received. Johnny had 37 customers that he would deliver these papers to every morning. On the morning of September 5, 1982, everything changed. Those customers were not getting their papers delivered by the young boy and his red wagon. In addition, his dog had returned home that day without Johnny.
Leonard Gosch ended up calling the police at 8:30 am to report Johnny's disappearance.
Police had taken up to 45 minutes before arriving at the scene, and Johnny's parents thought this was being done too slowly.
West Des Moines Police Chief Orval Cooney deterred the investigation by saying that Johnny was a runaway. There was a little evidence of this, but 72 hours had passed and they finally had made a realization that Johnny was truly missing. Obviously, this was very disheartening to Johnnys' parents because three days had passed. Those three days lots happened potentially, because there is no evidence of where Johnny had gone.
Johnny's parents got suspicious and decided to hire their own private investigators.
Two private investigators by the names of Ted Gunderson and Jim Rothstein were on the investigation and had made some theories that Johnny could've been kidnapped into a human trafficking ring. Local police thought this was a conspiracy so they questioned their theory.
In 1984, a Johnny Gosch bill was implemented to make it immediate that police would respond to any missing children at the time that it is reported. This was a huge win for the state of Iowa. After a pass in Iowa, eight other states had also passed the same bill.
In addition to the Johnny Gosch bill, a local dairy by the name of Anderson Erickson Dairy had started distributing milk cartons with the missing boys' pictures. That was in 1984 and 700 other dairies had actually taken part in it. Eventually, over three billion milk cartons had put these two boys missing pictures on them. It had become nationwide. This was a huge driving force to bring awareness to other missing children's cases.
According to a local news reporter, "they are the faces of the nations missing children and their images are rapidly becoming fixtures of America's culture."
This was a huge success because other children had started going missing and when people were getting ready to have their breakfast in the morning, they would be staring at these pictures.
What a way to start the day off with maybe someone coming up with some kind of evidence that they had seen these boys the day they went missing.
During the years that Noreen was trying to find her son, Noreen had become an outspoken right's activist at many different Senate hearings. She had spoke about her son's disappearance and how the area that they had lived in used to be so safe and now things had changed. With all of this being done, Noreen had received death threats due to her testifying. She was also up at the United States Department of Justice. President Ronald Reagan had invited her to the White House. Ten Million was donated to NCMEC, other wise known as the National Center for missing and exploited children, to help build this organization so they could help parents find their missing children.
Not only had Johnny Gosch gone missing while doing a paper route, but another young boy by the name of Eugene Martin had also gone missing while he was on his paper route. They were not sure if this was a coincidence or not, but the Eugene Martin case was definitely investigated much faster than Johnny Gosch's case.
In 1989, a young man by the name of Paul Bonacci, had concluded that he was a part of the abduction of Johnny Gosch.
Paul claimed to his attorney John DeCamp, that he was programmed to abduct Johnny so he could be part of the sex trafficking ring that Paul was a part of. According to Paul Bonacci's testimony, Paul knew where all the scars that were on Johnny that no one else would know.
Again, police questioned the credibility of Paul Bonacci. They did not think he was credible.
During this time, Noreen Gosch had received a letter saying that Johnny was a part of a slavery ring. They were playing with her emotions at the time and the finalization of this was that it was fraud. Noreen started questioning the FBI.
Another conspiracy that people are questioning is the fact that Noreen said that johnny had showed up in 1997 at 2:30 AM well, wearing jeans, T-shirt, and his hair had been dyed black. Allegedly, there was a man with him, and he seem to be in control of what Johnny was to say, but Noreen never got the name of the man.
On September 1, 2006, there were photos of Johnny left at Noreen's front door apartment and they consisted of a boy looking like Johnny being gagged and his shoulder had been branded with two other boys in the picture. Noreen was 100% sure it was a picture of Johnny. However, police questioned that also. Noreen was wondering if his picture of Johnny and these other two boys was actually featured on a child porn site. She started truly believing that her son was a part of a human trafficking ring.
Years later, they tried to hypnotize Mr. Rossi, hoping that he could remember the license plate from the blue car that day. Unfortunately, the hypnotism did not work.
Even President Reagan and vice President George Bush had visited Des Moines during this time. Right after Eugene Martin's abduction, more children went missing. They had addressed the paperboys disappearance and that they were going to crack down on crime. To this day, Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin are still open cases and there are no leads as to their whereabouts.
Hopefully, with a crack down on human trafficking, Amber Alerts and the advancement of technology, these boys will eventually be found.
Written By: Heidi
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