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Where is Johnny Gosch · True Crime Never Sleeps

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If only a miniature doxin in Gretchen could talk, and it could be the star-witness, the four-day keg, its old mystery, behind a disappearance of Johnny Gosh, into Moiniwa, in 1982.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: 12-year-old Johnny went missing without a trace, and since then, his mother Norrin has been at the forefront in finding answers that simply can't seem to be found anywhere.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny's case allegedly involves prostitution, pedophilia, and a human trafficking ring controlled
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: quote, my hope is that the latest report saying you are still alive is true, and now one day we'll be able to see each other again.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was the heart-wrenching person, no, Noreen Gosh had written on a website dedicated to her missing son Johnny who disappeared on September 5, 1982.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was the only child Noreen in her husband, John Gosh.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: He replaced with him on November 12, 1969.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But after nearly 13 years of spending a good life for their son, the gosh couple was confronted with any parents worse nightmare.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny disappeared in unexpected and unexplained circumstances while doing his route as a paper boy for the Des Moines Register, the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines Iowa.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: A September 4th, the day prior to his vanishing, the then 12-year-old light brown here, blue-eyed, five-foot 7-inch tall and weighing around the 140-pounds, and a lesson, asked to be allowed to do his route alone, but his parents wouldn't allow it.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, Johnny usually asked his dad to accompany him on his route, but he didn't do that.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: On Sunday, September 5th.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he woke up at 5.45am, took only the family's miniature doxin.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: and left their home in the summer, and west of the morning before dawn to begin his newspaper deliveries.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was dressed in a white sweatshirt with Kim's Academy printed on the back, warm up pants, and blue rubber flip flops.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: He also brought with him the yellow paper bag and his bright red wagon which he used to carry the papers in.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Johnny wasn't able to deliver those papers.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: At around 70m, Noreen was woken up by a telephone call from a neighbor, complaining about not receiving a newspaper.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Concerned, John left the house to investigate, and he found Johnny's red wagon, approximately two blocks away, filled with all the undelivered newspapers.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: As well as their pet dog right there, John immediately went back home to inform Nuri, and then they called the police.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: A nightmare was staring them in the face.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny was missing.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, a police policy back then said Johnny couldn't be classified as a missing person until 72 hours had passed.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nuri investigated that the police arrived to take a report after a full 45 minutes.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: When they did, their initial finding was that Johnny had run away,
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Authorities later changed their statement and suggested that Johnny had been kidnapped.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they failed to establish a viable motive.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wanting to know the circumstances of how their only son vanished without a trace, Johnny and Noreen sought information from witnesses.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank goodness there were some who gave them the real score.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny's parents gathered that his fellow paper boys had seen him that unfortunate September morning at the paper drop, picking up his newspapers.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sadly though, it was the last sighting of Johnny that can be corroborated by multiple witnesses.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mike, who was among the paper boys, picking up their newspapers, said that a man driving a blue, uh, forward fairmont car approached Johnny.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: This man shut off his engine, opened the passenger's door, and as long as feet out onto the curb, right where the boys were assembling.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He started asking where 86th street was, Mike told her in, that Johnny turned to him and said, I've got my papers loaded in the wagon.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm scared.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting out of here.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna head home.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the young teenage boy was leaving, the car also started to leave, but flick the dome light three times before pulling away.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed as though he was giving a signal, because a tall man came out from in between two houses, and then followed Johnny along 42nd Street to Mark Court Lane.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: two other paper boys saw Johnny from across the street.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They said hello, but ended up going their separate ways.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: About the same time, a man named PJ Smith was awakened by a loud car door.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: He sat up in bed and that's when he observed a black silver car, making a left turn which rolled through the stop sign.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The accounts were also witnessed by a resident in the area who observed Johnny talking to a stocky man in a blue two-tone Ford Fairmont, with Nebraska plates, but didn't know what was discussed because it was a observing him from his bedroom window.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another witness, John Rossi, saw a man in a blue car, talking to Johnny and thought something was strange.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He looked at the license plate, but could not recall the plate number.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rossi Underwant hypnosis and told the police some of the numbers, and then the plate was from Warren County, Iowa.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: West Police Lieutenant Jeff Miller, a rookie cop back in 82, said the police began scouring the area immediately, but hit one wall after another.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You recall they went ahead and called in the staff the troopers they called in detectives reserves contacted Pope County Sheriff's the state patrol at that point they did a door to door cameras so that neighborhood trying to find somebody who saw something of Johnny but nothing was found in nobody saw anything at all.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The most disheartening thing for the Gosh couple was the pronouncement from Captain Bob rushing, the West Des Moined Police Department.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: The man in charge of the investigation, when he said, quote, there was no crime scene, nobody saw anything.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That to us was an explanation to the boys' disappearance.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: He just vanished.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Disappointingly, the police turned up a little evidence and made no arrests in connection with the case.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Gosh's futile effort to work with police strengthened the result to conduct their own investigation.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially for Norrine, who took it as her crusade to search for Johnny and the truth.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even after her divorce from husband John in 1993,
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: She contacted local and national media to cover the story, which was aired across the United States.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: She also contacted private investigators Jim Rothstein, a retired New York City police detective, and Ted Grunderson, retired chief of the LA FBI branch.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They followed up on leads that were never pursued by law enforcement in Des Moines, and what Norrine learned horrified her.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny was apparently kidnapped.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: for the sole purpose of use and a global pedophile and prostitution ring.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: She became relentlessly unstoppable in her battle to obtain justice for her son.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: A month after Johnny's disappearance, she founded Johnny Gosh Foundation, and likewise developed a program called Indefensive Children.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: She began touring the nation, making nearly a thousand personal appearances with law enforcement, missing persons organizations, including those against human trafficking, and doing whatever she could to increase overall awareness of crimes involving children.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The noise that Norring, Norring, created, brought awareness about Johnny's play.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The signs include of his possible wearabouts, started the surface.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: In March of 1983, six months since Johnny went missing, a woman claimed that she was approached by a young boy in the parking lot of a convenient store at Oklahoma.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was screaming, I'm Johnny Gush, I've been kidnapped.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, he was immediately accosted by two men who grabbed him, and then they were never seen again.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over the next few years, more of it in surfaced.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: A dollar bill was turned over to the goshes with a following message.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am alive, Johnny Gush.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nareen confirmed it was Johnny's handwriting.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Denver, Colorado, the words Johnny Gosh was here, were found written and read Neil Polish, on the restroom wall of a public eatery, whether they were real or just pranks, is hard to tell, but Nareen knew in her heart that her son was still alive.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: She would never give up her fight to reveal the hush truth about his abduction.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1984, Noreen raped, raped, raped, major rewards for her efforts and hard work.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: A bill she authored, named the Johnny Gospiel, was passed in the law in the Iowa Law on July 1, 1984.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It mandated immediate police involvement whenever a child went missing, and it was subsequently adopted by eight additional states.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That same year, Noreen traveled to Washington, Nisi, and courageously testified before
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although her incriminating testimony led to death threats, he resulted in the eventual establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: President Ronald Reagan even invited her to the Center's opening in dedication.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Norrine was victorious in her crusade, even though her son was still missing.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she scored another win in 1984 that you might be familiar with.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: She gained a support of Anderson and Erickson Dairy.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: The dairy company in Des Moines was prompted by another missing paperboy, 13-year-old Eugene Martin.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like Johnny, Eugene disappeared while delivering newspapers on the south side of Des Moines on August 12, 1984.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Based on their investigation, police didn't find a possible connection between the two boys' disappearances, even if there were similarities in their circumstances.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the persistently crusading Norring at a different take on the matter.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: She claimed that she was personally informed of the abduction of a few months in advance by a private investigator who was searching for her son.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was told that the next kidnapping would take place the second weekend in August of 1984,
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: After Eugene went missing, his relative working at Anderson and Erickson Dary, reached out to a company president Jim Erickson for help in disseminating information about cases of missing children like Eugene.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Erickson agreed and the company expressed support by running photos and short bios about the missing boys on the sides of the Dary's half gallon mill cartons.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a result, it got the boy's faces in the thousands of homes all across America.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny and Eugene became the second and third abducted children to have their plights publicized in this way.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon, Prairie Farms, Dairy.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: decided to do the same and expand it into a nationwide project after that.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: The missing children milk carton campaign ran only for a few years and ended after many parents complained.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's saying the pictures of missing kids every day was scaring their own kids.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite these efforts to intensify awareness about unresolved deductions of children,
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another demo in boy, 13-year-old Mark Allen, went missing on March 29, 1986, under suspicious circumstances.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: As for Johnny Gosh's case, his mother's efforts in finding him never waned.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet, as time marched onward, there was still no sign of him.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the succeeding years, Noreen had mind-boggling experiences that helped her put together pieces of the puzzle.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: and solidified her contention that her son's case wasn't just any ordinary abduction.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1989, she met with a young man who claimed that he was part of a child prostitution ring kidnapped by a child.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul Benachi, who was 21 years old, was also a victim of the sex ring that had victimized him when he was young.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: He disclosed that underage prostitution then was run by a prominent person.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lawrence E. King Jr.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: A Republican Party activist and businessman who also served as director, the Franklin Credit Union and Omaha on the Brasscape.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Alligations also connected high-level U.S. politicians as being involved in this child prostitution ring, which was said to be a cold of devil worshipers involved in the mutilation, sacrifice and cannibalism of numerous children.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: When interviewed, alleged abuse victims claimed the children of foster care or flown to
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul Banachis and he was one of them.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Norrine had the opportunity to meet Paul, and she believed he indeed had known her son, Johnny, based on Paul's information that only the gosh family knew about when Johnny disappeared.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Descriptions of a birthmark on his chest were circulated as part of his distinguished marks.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Paul told Norrine that he also knew of Johnny's scar on his tongue.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: A burned scar on his lower leg in his stammering when he was upset.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: All these were never made known publicly.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Noreen believed Paul's accounts, which confirmed her conviction from the beginning, that Johnny was abducted by child prostitution and human trafficking criminals.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the FBI and the local police didn't believe Paul was a credible witness in the case.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They simply never interviewed him again.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So once again, Norrine was at odds with the authorities, but she never gave up the biggest fight of her life.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: All for the love of her only child, adding insult to injury, was when separate state and federal grandjuries concluded that the allegations were unfounded, and that the ring was a carefully crafted hoax.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1997, Noreen had a surreal encounter.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, she only declared publicly when she testified during a 1999 pedophile crime organization trial in Nebraska.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was, as she put it, a two-near, yet too far, almost there, but not quite yet.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Experience that happened in the wee hours of March 1997.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: When Johnny himself visited his English mother 15 long years after her, he disappeared.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Orange account, she was awakened in around 23AM by an unexpected knock at her Iowa apartment door.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: She looked through the people and saw two young men.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: She asked, who is it?
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The voice answered, mom, it's me, Johnny.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I come in?
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: She immediately opened the door and instantly knew that it was her son standing outside.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was Johnny.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, 27 years old, accompanied by an unidentified man.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Noreen immediately recognized Johnny, who opened his shirt to reveal a birthmark on his chest.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was wearing jeans and a shirt and had a coat on because it was still cold that March.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: His black-died straight hair was shoulder-length along.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said, we talked about him, talked about an hour and an hour and a half, there was another man.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea who the person was.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny would have looked over to the other person for approval to speak.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny hadn't come home to stay, he came to ask his mother for help.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He gave her a brief account of the last several years and dropped the bomb that finally sealed, but Noreen had bullied for a long time.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny told her he had been abducted by members of a pedophile crime ring.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said he had escaped from the group some time earlier and was keeping the low profile to avoid repercussions from his former captors.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: His never-nerviscness was palpable during her union, and he said he was still in great danger.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny needed his mother to help bring his abductors to justice, so he wouldn't have to live in fear for the rest of his life.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sadly though, Johnny told Noreen he would probably not visit her ever again.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: She maintained that she had no further contact with her son since they have time, as she feared for her well-being.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny left before daylight without disclosing where he was living.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: or where he was going after the visit.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Norring went to the FBI and had them create a sketch that would now adult son.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the lack of evidence it's to suggest that Johnny was swept into a pedophile ring.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Besides Norring's story, led authorities to doubt that Johnny was still alive.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But a brief yet memorable and poignant encounter with a long-lost son was Norring's re-appermission that he was abducted by a child sex ring.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: and that the investigation was hapered because of the big names involved in the unlawful operations.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nine years later, another possible leading, Johnny Gasha's disappearance landed on his mother's lap.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: On September 1st, 2006, Noreen said a mysterious envelope showed up on her doorstep.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Contain three disturbing photos of three boys all bound and gagged.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of them boys appeared to be Johnny, wearing sweatpants similar to those worn during the period when he was abducted.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Noreen said in an interview, quote, I literally cannot breathe.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could not get my breath.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was so totally unprepared to see something like that.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: She believed the photos were authentic, so she took them down to the West and Moe in Police Department.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reaction of the police when she spread the photos out was, that's Johnny, that's Johnny.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The media then went wild and reported no rain story.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then came a call from Western Marine police who told her they were planning a press conference to announce the pictures or not of Johnny after all.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: A Florida law enforcement officer stated he had investigated the very same photographs in the 70s before Johnny disappeared, and had identified all three boys in the pictures.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who said they had willingly posed for those photos?
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Iowa Police thought, whoever gave the photographs to Noreen may have played a cruel prank.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Regardless, Noreen has always believed the boy in the photo is Johnny, and that he was bound, gang, abused, and taken.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: for the purpose of satisfying petal files.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the contrary, police continue to insist it's not him.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite the differing opinions about Johnny's case, which remains one of the most shocking accounts or child abductions in recent history, Norian continues to dedicate her life to finding her son's abductors and raising awareness about child kidnapping and human trafficking.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said, quote, the things that are good is the awareness that this is brought.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The case changed the country, it was a watershed case.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Police, however, doubt Johnny is alive and believe the only real break in the case will come when his remains are found.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: As of 2019, Johnny Gosh's case is considered functionally cold, as there are no real leads to pursue.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: He still listed as a missing person, so the case remains open.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps Johnny, now 51 years old, is just somewhere out there waiting for the justice that's way long overdue.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well thank you guys so much for watching today.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoyed this story.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember to subscribe.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please do tune in next week for another episode.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Feeled with scary, strange, mysterious stories because who knows?
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe your town will be next.
• 18:31
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• 18:38
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• 18:47
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• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you so much for watching and listening.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take care.