Criminology - Andrew Gosden

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

14-year-old Andrew Gosden disappeared in England in 2007. He skipped school that day, nearly emptied his bank account, and bought a ticket on a train to London. His parents discovered he was gone later that day and contacted the police. The authorities were able to find CCTV footage of Andrew and found some witnesses who encountered him that day. But, no good leads were developed and Andrew's case went cold. They just could not figure out what his plans had been on that day. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Andrew Gosden. Early in 2022, nearly 15 years after he disappeared, there was some movement in Andrew's case. Arrests were made of two men in connection with Andrew's disappearance. But, because of British privacy laws, we don't know exactly what police have that connects them to Andrew's case. Both men have been charged with kidnapping and human trafficking while one of the men was found to have child pornography on his computer. The police have not released too many details so it's a case to keep a close eye on. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 201 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, what's going on with you, man? Not a whole lot. Help what's new with you.

You know, recording, researching. That's kind of what you and I do day in, day out, weekend, week out. I know we're trying to get ahead for CrimeCon, Vegas, which everybody is excited about, but we have great jobs. There's no doubt about that. The one downside to it that I will say is there are very little breaks, what I would call true time off. We just don't really have that. Yeah, and if you take a little bit of time off, even a couple days, it sort of throws everything

out of sync and then you're playing catch up. so it's good when we can try and work ahead a little bit. Yeah, we've got a great case on tap for everybody. Before we jump into that, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Amy and Jupiter, Sharon Summers, Jen DeSimeo, and Amanda Ellis. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for that support.

It means a lot. And we appreciate that. Anyone that would like to help support criminology can do so by going to Patreon. dot com slash criminology. More speaking of crime con, I do think we're going to try to meet up with folks, but we just haven't really cemented anything yet. You know, the one thing that I'm having trouble with is it's such a large venue. You've got a couple of hotels involved.

They're connected. So we're trying to figure out how we can get to maybe see everyone who wants to see us on Saturday night or something like that. but we'll let people know as we move forward. Yeah, hopefully we can work out something that sort of fits everything and we find a nice little spot. Well, and as you and I talked about the other day, it's also the NFL draft weekend, which is, you know, that's going to add quite a bit of traffic to it as well. Yeah, if it's anything like Nashville was, Nashville was just a city all within its own in that facility. so it'll be interesting to see what the layout is and what we can set up.

Yeah, yeah, we'll keep everybody up today. All right, buddy, let's go ahead and dive into this episode. Early this year, 2022, there was some movement on a case that surprised everyone in the true crime world. It was in a case that's been unsolved for almost 15 years now with virtually zero leads. And the first news that we had heard in years was that two or two or two, arrests had been made. Now, because of British media rules about privacy, we don't know the men's names, but we know their ages and we know their charges. There has been no new information released since then, so we're left to speculate or wait for the news to come out. We're talking

about the case of Andrew Gosden, who disappeared on September 14th, 2007. Andrew Paul Goston was born on July 10th, 1993, to Kevin and Glenis Goston, in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. He had an older sister named Charlotte. While Andrew's parents were active Christians, they didn't baptize Andrew's Charlotte, as they wanted them to find and form known religious views. Andrew was, however, interested in his parents' religious activities, and he went to church on a regular basis. He also attended the Macaulay Catholic School. While he was there, Andrew achieved perfect attendance. He got good grades and was in the school's gifted and talented program. Andrew was described as highly intelligent, shy, quiet, and sensitive. Things seemed to be going well for Andrew,

but about a year and a half before he went missing, he stopped going to church. He also had been active in scouting, but also lost interest in that not too long before he went missing. While Andrew didn't have many friends, he wasn't really a loner. He just preferred to keep to himself. physically, Andrew looked a couple years younger than he actually was. He was smaller than most boys' age, and he wore prescription eyeglasses. He was deaf in his left ear and had a distinctive double ridge on his right ear. Like many teens his age, Andrew was into hard rock and heavy metal music, with his favorite band being Slipknot.

When his parents got home from work on Friday, September 14, 2007, the house was quiet. They figured that 14-year-old Andrew was in his room or in the converted basement where he would play video games after school. That's where you would normally find him. Most days after school at around 7 p.m., it was time for dinner. But Andrew didn't come to the table. His mom, Glenys started looking for him, Andrew's blazer and tie from his uniform for the Macaulay Catholic High School were hanging over the back of his chair. his shirt and pants were in the washing machine. It seemed as if Andrew had come home from school.

He had gotten undressed, but then he was nowhere to be found. This was completely unlike him. He was usually at home playing video games or listening to music. And if he did leave the house, he always told someone where he was going, whether it was Glenys, his dad, Kevin, or his older sister, Charlotte. If he didn't tell them, he left a note. Kevin and Glenys made a few calls to Andrew's friends, but none of them had seen him. They then called his school, and that's when they were told that Andrew hadn't attended any of his classes that day.

The school informed them that someone had attempted to notify his parents of the absence earlier that day, but unfortunately, whoever had tried to call their home dialed the wrong number that morning. It was after learning that Andrew hadn't gone to school that panic set in for them. This was especially odd because he had woken up that day like normal and put his school uniform on and said goodbye at 805 a.m. walking out the door on his way to catch the bus, just like he did every school day. As we mentioned earlier, Andrew had a 100% attendance record at McCauley Catholic High School. This was the first time he had ever missed school, so it's something that just didn't compute with his parents. And more if you know in a lot of episodes that we do, we kind of talk about those moments. where, you know, parents learn something and it really strikes fear in them.

And this is one of those types of moments, you know, for me, my girls, once they got older, once they got into high school, and especially once they could drive, they were gone before most times I even got out of bed. They went to school pretty early. So they would get ready, get in their car. drive off to school. If I would have received this type of notice, and I get it, in this case, the parents didn't actually receive it.

But if I would have, that would have been the moment where, you know, panic starts to strike a little bit and then would gradually tick up from there if I couldn't get a hold of them, if nobody seemed to know where they were. you know, you really think about these types of situations in these cases. And it's hard not to put yourself in the position of these parents and kind of think about, man, what would be going through your mind at that very moment? And I think that warning system they have in place from schools to call the parents when a child's not there is, it works well.

I mean, a couple times I've forgotten to call my kids out of school and they had a doctor's appointment or whatever. And then I get that call and I'm like, oh, you know, stupid man, I forgot to put call in that they're going to be out. So it does work and I can see why they have it in place because in this situation, it may have helped. But because they didn't get that call, there was a little bit of time loss. But you have to think that leading up until when they finally learned that he didn't attend school, maybe they just, you know, thought he was out with his friends, whatever. but that had to be a real sinking feeling when they found out that he wasn't in school that day either. Yeah, I'll agree with you that that's a really good system, right?

To be notified if your child is absent. I will say this. There have been just a couple of times where my daughter, one of my daughters was sick and I forgot to call them in or I thought my wife had called them in and she didn't. So I didn't. And I didn't get that call until, I think on a couple of occasions, like 11 o'clock in the morning, that's a little scary to think about the fact that, you know, three or four hours could pass and maybe something could be wrong. And that notification would come late.

Not blaming it on the school. I'm just saying that has happened a couple of times. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I don't think we had that kind of system in school when I was going school. I don't remember anything like that being something that we had. So I think it definitely helps in a lot of cases to let parents know that, hey, your kids aren't here. And then if they're something's up, they can take appropriate actions. Well, first of all, you and I are so old. We don't remember what we had in place. I think that's part of it. That could be part of it.

Kevin and Glenys called family members who lived in the Sidcup and Chislehurst areas of London, Andrew had been there before to visit family for holidays. They really couldn't think of anywhere else that Andrew could have gone to, but none of his grandparents or aunts in London had heard from him. They hadn't seen him. The Gosdans decided that they needed to call the South Yorkshire Police to report Andrew missing. Police quickly determined that Andrew had withdrawn almost 200 pounds or roughly $260

from his bank account that morning at an ATM, nearly emptying the account, leaving him with only around 14 pounds in the bank. Police felt that he only took out what he did because he couldn't take it all out due to the odd amount in his bank account. Now in the U.S., there are some ATMs that make you pull out money in multiples of 20. I think it varies some you can get tens, maybe even fives, but the police were thinking that because of the way that this ATM operated, it forced Andrew to lead the 14 pounds in his bank account. Police discover that wherever Andrew was, he apparently had taken his wallet, his keys, and a PSP, which was a PlayStation portable gaming console.

I remember those more if I don't know if they still make. that, the PSP, for those of us that are advanced in years, I kind of think of it as a souped-up version of the old Nintendo handheld thing, used to be able to play Tetris and a few other games on it. This was obviously way more advanced than that, but I remember it well. I just not sure if they make it anymore. I was never in the games, but I do see a lot of kids that are carrying around their little handheld devices. And I remember them when I was younger doing that as well. So I think that's something that's been pretty consistent.

Just, you know, whatever system at the time is out, you know, always is being upgraded. But I could totally see Andrew taking something like this with him as a lot of people his age probably did. Yeah, I think nowadays probably the Nintendo Switch is the preferred handheld device, at least from what I understand, what my nieces are always talking about. Police were able to follow somewhat of a paper trail, and they learned that at 9.30 a.m., Andrew bought a one-way ticket to London from Doncaster.

CCTV footage from a security camera from a neighbor's house showed Andrew leaving the house at 8.30 a.m. and walking toward the train station in Doncaster. He seemed to be walking with a purpose and walking at a brisk pace. A witness remembered selling Andrew's train ticket because of how young Andrew looked. Police determined based on CCTV footage that Andrew had taken the train and made it safely to Kings Cross Station in London at 1120 a.m. But from there, it's unknown which direction Andrew headed. This Kings Cross Station footage was important, but here's the thing. The CCTV footage from King's Cross Station was not requested until 27 days after Andrew's disappearance.

We don't know why it took so long to request that footage, but that's a lot of time, Morph, to go by in the case of a missing child. This footage showed him on his way out of Kings Cross Station at 11.25 a.m. Just after his train arrived, and from the footage, it appeared as though Andrew was looking around for something or someone. He seemed to be looking to the left and right. essentially it looked as though he was scanning the area. If police had gotten this footage sooner,

they would have known to check the CCTV from surrounding buildings and streets or the buses on the route that day. And there may have been much more footage or more witnesses who remembered seeing him as he left the station. Most of the footage had been deleted or recorded over by the time it was requested.

Who knows what other clues might have been discovered? And I'm speculating here, Morph, I don't know for sure. You know, 2007, okay, not all that long ago. I think when you think of digital retention, you know, that technology existed. It wasn't like, you know, the old days of having to record onto VCR tapes and then record over them. But even so, storage is always a problem, especially with digital video, which takes up immense amounts of storage. So I get it, you know, when you're talking about a place like Kings Cross Station, okay, maybe they're at a point where they can keep video for

long periods of time. But when you think about independent businesses or, you know, other places along the route, that probably would not have been the case. They would have had a much smaller amount of storage. And that's when you get into, okay, almost a month later, most of that would have been deleted and recorded over. Yeah, I think one thing the UK is known for as well is, the amount of surveillance they have, it's pretty extensive. I don't know how much today versus

in 2007, but they've got a pretty well-known history of documenting a lot of what happens on their streets to fight crime and whatnot. So I think you're right, there's no doubt there might have been any number of different captures of him on surveillance, but unfortunately, you know, too much time went by and that stuff was erased. Despite the lack of multiple CCTV videos to go through. Police did do an extensive search for witnesses that may have seen Andrew the day he vanished. Only three witnesses are believed to have reported credible sightings of Andrew. As we mentioned, the employee who sold Andrew the ticket to King's Cross remembered Andrew and distinctly remembered offering him a round-trip ticket that he turned down. He said Andrew was by himself at the time,

and it seemed odd to the witness since Andrew seemed so young and was traveling alone one way. One woman believed that she saw Andrew at a Pizza Hut on Oxford Street the day he disappeared. This Pizza Hut was only a couple miles from Kings Cross. Andrew's family believes that this woman's description of the boy's mannerisms matches Andrew, and he was known to like pizza. The third witness believes she saw Andrew in Covent Garden. This area is just south of Oxford Street, so it makes sense that if the Pizza Hut sighting was credible, that this sighting may have been of Andrew as well.

And this is a touristy-type area with the British Museum, Big Ben, with Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye all within walking distance. There's a subway route that goes from Kings Cross through the Oxford Street or Covent Garden areas. But of course, it's unknown whether Andrew walked out of the station or took another train or bus, or perhaps was picked up by someone in a vehicle. There were no further leads regarding Andrew's whereabouts. the Gosdens took every opportunity to keep Andrew's disappearance in the news so that the public could learn his face and be on the lookout. They were left with a lot of questions and uncertainty.

It seemed obvious that their son had left his home freely and journeyed to London, but they had no idea why. The one-way ticket, in their mind was troubling as well. They wondered if he had planned to leave home for good, and if so why. Kevin Gosden quit his job. His depression was just overwhelming. It was all consuming. His mind went into overdrive about what could have happened to his son or what he possibly could be going through.

Not only was his son missing, but some people were looking at him as a suspect. People constantly said it's always the family, right? And people also assume that the fact that he was so upset. was because of guilt for harming his son. Sadly, Kevin tried to take his own life, but thankfully he was saved by a friend of his and he got help and he lived on determined to find his son, though he has said publicly that he still wrestles with suicidal thoughts often. And more if this is something that comes up in many cases, you know, we know that when certain types of things happen. The family is looked at first. When you have the disappearance of a child,

the family is looked at. And then when that child is not found, you know, I do want to take a minute just to kind of talk about this cloud of suspicion. You know, it's something that I think about a lot. as we research these cases, as we go through them, you know, think about a guy like Kevin Gausden, who is already experiencing this horrible feeling of not knowing where his son is. Now, you add on top of that the fact that people are looking at him, they're whispering, they're questioning, okay, that cannot be easy to deal with. put all of that together, that is a lot for anyone to handle. And I think as parents, our children obviously are the most important things in our lives.

And the thought of losing them or not knowing where they're at had to be agony for the family. And, you know, I feel so bad for him to have to go through this and then have that accusations or suspicion cast on him on top of that. Just had to be something that was unbearable. Well, and obviously you would extend that to the mother as well, but we didn't see the same type of comments, right, made about the mother. Most of these types of comments that we saw in the research were directed at Kevin Goste. No doubt, though, that she was going through her own thing, her own agony of not knowing where her son was, but it didn't seem as though she had. had the same type of cloud of suspicion hanging over her head. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. In October 2008, Andrew's face was printed on milk carton, sold in Iceland grocery stores. That's the name of the chain. And it was facilitated by a charity called Missing People.

In November 2008, a little over a year after Andrew vanished, a man went to the Leominster Police Station in Herefordshire, claiming to have information about it. Andrew. Unfortunately, it was late, and he used the intercom outside of the building, and by the time an officer made it to the front of the building, the man was gone. He didn't come back or call on a tip as far as anyone is aware of. In September 2009, age progression images of Andrew were released to the public, showing a slightly more mature-looking Andrew. The next month, October 2009, the band Muse played a concert at Sheffield Arena. Mews was one of Andrew's favorite bands, and Kevin had taken him in Charlotte to see them live in 2006.

The family went to the show at Sheffield Arena and handed out flyers about Andrew, over 10,000 of them. Muse also put out an announcement. They offered Andrew free tickets to a show if he showed up. He just had to let everyone know he was okay, but Andrew didn't turn up. And Mor, if this is one of those things that kind of jumps out of me, you see this quite often with bands, musical acts who find out that someone, you know, really enjoyed their music, was a big fan. And a lot of times they go out of their way to do things that they wouldn't

normally do to help out a situation, to help out a family. You know, that type of stuff makes me feel good. These are people making millions and millions of dollars. But you know, you know, But yet, they take the time to do something to try to help out this family. Yeah, I can think of a couple cases off the top of my head in which new kids on the block, Metallica, they all publicly appealed for help in cases of their fans being missing or being murdered. So I think it's something that is common in the music industry. In May 2011, Kevin Gosden hired a company to serve.

the river Thames, sonar technology was used to search the river. A body was found during the search, but it turned out not to be Andrews. On Andrews 18th birthday, a brand new sports car was offered as a reward from Kent area businessman Barry Ford for anyone who had information that led to the discovery of Andrew's whereabouts. But unfortunately, that didn't result in any new leads either. In 2014, Kevin and Glenys went on the BBC One TV show Panorama. It looks like it's sort of an equivalent to our dateline or 2020. They were trying to drum up information, drum up tips.

It was a faint hope that Andrew, by the, then a 23-year-old would be watching and finally call. But he never did. On May 25, 2016, a charity event was held for families of missing children, featuring many different musicians collaborating on a song called I Hope, which was based on a poem that Kevin wrote about Andrew in 2013. Almost a decade after Andrew went missing, people were still thinking about him and trying to help him be found.

On September 14th, 2017, the 10-year anniversary of Andrew Vanishing, Kevin Gostin and other family and friends went to the train station in Doncaster and held a silent vigil for 10 hours. Each silent hour represented one year without Andrew. The passage of a decade had not made things any easier for Andrew's family. And let's face it, more of how could it? Because they haven't learned anything. There's been drips and drabs and drabs. of information that have come in, but none of it has led to, you know, really anything concrete.

You know, this is my thought in all of these cases. Years and years go by. It's not going to get any better, you know, for the family. I just don't believe that it does that, that heartache, that longing to know what happened to your loved one, it just continues. year after year, it's very sad to think about. But until something comes in that, you know, really kind of shows or proves what happened to Andrew or if Andrew is found to be okay, the family's going to remain in agony. And I've heard from a lot of different families over the years that have said, you know, of murdered families of murder victims that as tough as it was,

for their family members to be murdered, they can't imagine what people are going through who don't know where their loved one is because they at least have their remains, they can say a proper goodbye, there's some kind of finality there, whereas the families of missing persons, it seems like it goes on and on, then you just, there is no, no kind of finality. It's still going and never ends. despite Andrew's case being kept in the public eye for the entire time. He'd been missing. His whereabouts were still unknown.

The Gosdens refused to change the locks on the doors of their home. In case Andrew came back home someday, he did leave with his key. It would work in the door. If he came home and tried it, his room is still just the way that he liked it. They didn't change the thing. It's ready for him whenever he comes home. And just in case he needs something someday, Kevin and Glennis have been depositing money into his account this entire time. In September 2021, there was a new appeal from the South Yorkshire Police for information about Andrew Goston.

They released two age-progressed photographs, one was short hair and one with long hair of Andrew at age 28. The information sought by investigators wasn't limited to information about his disappearance. It seemed like investigators thought Andrew was out there living his life under another identity. This plea was for someone out there to realize that someone they knew was Andrew, someone with an unexplained past, a distinct ear, eyeglasses or poor eyesight, no family interaction. But despite the renewed push, no solid leads came in. It seemed like there was no movement at all on Andrew's case.

But that all changed suddenly. Seemingly from out of nowhere, on December 8th, 2021, two men were arrested in connection with Andrew's disappearance. One of the men was 45 years old. He was suspected of kidnapping, human trafficking, and possessing indecent images of children. The other man was 38 years old. He was suspected of kidnapping and human trafficking. In January 22, by the time the public was made aware of the arrests, the men had been released

while authorities continued their investigation into their backgrounds. In the UK, they do things a bit differently than what we're used to here in the United States. It looks like they had arrested these men in order to investigate them, which to some seems a little bit backwards, they have been released under investigation. So they're not totally free. They're still suspects, but they didn't have to pay any bail, which is usually how one would get out of jail following being arrested here in the U.S. These men would have been 31 and 24, respectively, at the time that Andrew disappeared. Multiple devices were seized from the men when they were arrested and authorities were still going through them in January 2022.

The police didn't release much in the way of details as far as these two men are concerned, so we don't know much about what allegedly happened to Andrew or why he left that day almost 15 years ago. That hasn't stopped many people from speculating. Some people have theorized that perhaps Andrew was groomed by some kind of predators, and grooming isn't unheard of in situations like this. There's actually another case from England. involving the grooming of a teenage boy.

In 2014, 14-year-old Breck Bedner was murdered by 18-year-old Louis Danes. The two had met online while playing video games. After the pair met and started corresponding, Breck's mother noticed changes in her son. He stopped attending church with the family. Breck's mother was aware of Louis Danes and actually took measures to stop the two of them from talking, including not allowing Breck to use certain servers where Danes was active.

And she reported, the Surrey police for online grooming. Still, two months later, Breck went to Dane's apartment to meet in person for the first time, and he was killed by Daines. And more if you know, this, this term grooming.

I think we've heard more and more about it over the last so many years. It's a scary thought, especially, you know, when we think of the amount of time that some kids spend on the internet, you know, not all that time is monitored, can be monitored, you know, no matter what steps you take, kids are really smart. They figure out a way around, you know, certain types of things that parents

put in place is just really scary to me to think that, you know, a child is on the internet talking to someone. They may think it's another kid, but they're being groomed. And, you know, there's a relationship that is trying to be established that is inappropriate, obviously. And I think in a lot of cases, it's led to some very tragic outcomes. But every time you hear about one of these types of cases, it causes parents to think, right? What are my kids doing? What precautions can I put in place? What safeguards can I put in place?

Can I lock down certain apps on phones, on computers? Yeah, I think all parents should be thinking about those things, you know, when they have younger children. Yeah, I think, as you mentioned, kids are always trying to figure out how they can outsmart their parents and get away with things. And I think some of the predators out there are sort of trying to think how they can outsmart the parents that are trying to protect their kids. So I think it's an ongoing battle, and I can see why people might think that there was some kind of grooming going on in a case like this. Yeah, I can definitely see it as well. But, you know, for what it's worth, the Gosdens do not believe that Andrew could have been groomed by someone online. It's always kind of been deemed as very unlikely in this case because Andrew didn't seem to even use the internet.

As we learn from Brecht Bedner's murder, sometimes when parents think they are limiting access to the internet, their children are still able to use a workaround to access it using secret devices, jump derives or software to skirt blockers and trackers that have been installed. But in Andrew's case, it's not as simple. Andrew had lost his phone a year or two earlier and hadn't wanted it replaced. Charlotte's laptop was the only computer in the household. She had only had it for about eight weeks. Sony confirmed that Andrew didn't even have an online account for his PSP. Police even went as far as to check the computers in the Doncaster Library. And at Andrew's school, but nothing turned up,

it truly seemed as though it would have been hard for a predator online to, target Andrew. I think it's pretty clear, right? Teenagers are pretty crafty. They come up with ways to do things they want to do and to keep those things from their parents. But if Andrew had some hidden life online, police never found it. And I think even back then, Morp, that had to have been viewed as fairly unusual. You're talking about a kid who's into his game. You're talking about a kid who's into his gaming. Okay. But he doesn't have an account for his PlayStation. He doesn't seem to really have access to a computer, doesn't really even seem to have been all that interested in the internet. I think that's somewhat unique for a kid his age. Yeah, and I know we're talking

2007, you know, here we are 15 years later almost. Kids nowadays, I, I can't even imagine them, for the most part, functioning without their devices, without their online connections, without their social media. And I'm sure there was a lot of that going on back then, too, but Andrew just didn't seem to be all that interested in that stuff. The footage of Andrew arriving at Kingscross Station has been a hot topic of discussion for people following his case. In the video, it does look like Andrew's moving his head around more than others, and it

gives the impression that he may be searching for something or someone, but this also leaves to multiple scenarios here. He could have been deciding what exit to take. He could have been searching for someone he was supposed to meet up with, or he could have possibly been disoriented from the sound and the station. He was deaf in his left ear, and was said to have trouble orienting himself the sound. So in a crowded place with a lot of noise, he may have just been looking around to make sure he wasn't bumping into anyone or getting into anyone's way. But he could have been trying to find someone who was supposed to meet, a quote-unquote friend or an unknown grumer. But no matter what happened to Andrew when he got to the station, a question that perhaps is just

as important is what led him there in the first place? When Andrew left home, he seemed to have a very deliberate plan. He didn't simply take off to London on his way to school. Instead, he made it seem to everyone in his family that morning that he was on his way to school and that it was just another normal day. But we know that he intentionally did not get on the bus and perhaps hid nearby in the park, waited until his home was empty so that he could go home and change and then put his school clothes in the washing machine.

So maybe that it would look like he had been home after school. Whatever he wanted to do that day, he was determined and obviously felt that. that everything would work out just fine. Perhaps he thought he'd be home, possibly in time to say he went somewhere between coming home and putting his clothes in the washing machine and his parents getting home. Although we know Andrew took his PSP. He didn't take his PSP charger. So it doesn't seem as though staying anywhere overnight was in his plan unless he simply simply, simply forgot the charger. With it being his first time that Andrew missed or skipped school,

it's possible that he didn't know the school would try to call his parents about him not being there that day. It certainly seemed like he didn't think anyone would notice that he skipped school, since the school uniform draped over the chair and the pants in the washer a clear indicator that he made at home after school that day. Whatever Andrew's plan was, his parents didn't catch on to it until later, because the school had misdialed the number listed for his parents. It gave him about an eight-hour head start before anyone noticed he was missing. There's also a lot that's read into Andrew not buying a round-trip ticket that day.

It was less than a pound more. So certainly less than buying a second one-way ticket back from London. Some people believe that the fact that he bought a one-way ticket to London indicated he knew he was never going to come back home. But perhaps there's another scenario. He could have simply planned his whole trip beforehand. He would go to the station, buy a ticket to London, go do whatever it was he was going to do, go back to Kings Cross, buy a ticket and go home.

If someone said, hey, do you want to buy a round trip ticket? In Andrew's mind, what they would really be saying is maybe, hey, do you want to adjust your plan unexpectedly. Now, that seems small to us now, but if you're in a hurry and you already have all of this planned out, it's a lot easier to just say no to anything that would change your plan, even in the slightest way. With Andrew being deaf in one ear, it's also possible he just didn't really hear the person correctly and didn't want to bother with whatever it was that they were saying or didn't feel like asking them to say it again so that he could hear it better. He needed to catch the train.

This could, of course, also point to Andrew believing that he had a ride home that day. And therefore, he didn't need to take the train back. Another thing that may point to Andrew planning to make it home that night is that he didn't seem to have much with him. He did have a messenger bag with him. but in the video surveillance of him, it didn't look heavier full. He didn't take much of his stuff, so maybe he planned to be away for a night or so, and didn't plan to run away.

He probably would have taken his charter if he thought enough to take his PSP device. We know he took almost all his money, and 200 pounds is nothing to scoff at when you're 14 years old. It's interesting that Andrew withdrew 200 pounds when he had birthday money in his room that he could have used. He could have needed a certain amount for whatever his plans were, why not take the money in your room and instead withdraw the money he did. Maybe he was afraid he would be found out before he got back home, and for some reason didn't want his parents to check and see if he had the birthday money in his room still. Or maybe the birthday money, which was 100 pounds, included some coins, which would be

harder for him to carry. We just don't know. Like in many unsolved cases, it seems like every clue or possible lead ends up taking us down different paths, and every piece of possible evidence seems like it could be either incredibly important or nothing at all. And man, Morph, isn't that the case in all of the unsolved cases that we do? You know, you go through kind of the known things in a case and you think, what does this mean? What does that mean? And at the same time, you're kind of judging the weight of that meaning as well. What does it mean? And how important is it? And how important is

it if it means this or if it means that. And one thing, you know, obviously we can all debate, we can all theorize, and a lot of that's gone online. But one thing that jumps out to me is if I was in Andrew's shoes and I was going to leave home and I was planning on never coming back, I would have taken all the money, the money I had for birthday money, the money that he withdrew, I would have taken it all if I were in his shoes. Now, maybe he forgot the birthday money.

Maybe he was so busy with the rest of his plan that he was. he forgot to actually scoop it up and take it. Or again, maybe it was some of it was in change. We don't know the details of that. And he didn't want to carry all of that. But it seems like if he was leaving, he would have, if he was leaving permanently, he would have wanted to take that with him. Yeah.

And I always believe that. You know, it's what leads me to think that in many of these cases that we do, that theory that has to be explored is just not often. all that reasonable that a younger person intends to run away and never come back when they don't take much of anything with them. To me, that just does not make sense. Some people have wondered if Andrew left to end his life. He was quiet and smart and he was just days into a new school year when he disappeared. So there are questions surrounding whether he was being bullied.

Was he depressed? We mentioned it. He had stopped going to church about a year and a half earlier and he quit the Cub Scouts months before he disappeared. If he was depressed, his family has come out and said that they didn't sense it. But maybe these aren't signs of depression. Maybe as he was getting older, his. interests had changed. His sister Charlotte didn't want to go to church either. And Andrew loved video games

and was growing up. So his parents figured that he just didn't want to do scouts or church anymore. When Charlotte woke him up for school the morning Andrew vanished, he seemed grumpy. But again, he was 14 years old. And it was early in the morning. You know, to me, that's pretty typical teen behavior, for the most part, doesn't seem all that unusual. I know my girls as teenagers and still even sometimes today, when you try to go to wake them up before they believe they should get up, they're pretty grumpy. I myself at my much more advanced stage can get pretty grumpy. if my wife wakes me up before my alarm clock is set to go off. Suicide is a possibility, but there simply is no evidence that, you know, he was on a path

to do this. And if he did take his own life, what happened to his body? You know, again, a question that comes up time after time. When you think about someone meeting an untimely end at the hands of another person, And you often think, well, the murderer works hard to dispose of the body. They don't want the body to be found because that could lead to authorities figuring out their identity or the fact that they had a role in this. But when you think about someone ending their own life, I think more times than not,

the body is found. And so when we have these cases of disappearances, it's not to say that it's out of the question that someone could go to a very remote area, take their life, and the body not be found. That is possible. It's just in the grand scheme of things, not the most likely. Yeah. And unless in this case, Andrew wanted to take his own life and somehow, after, you know, his death, make this a mystery or make his parents worry for the rest of their lives,

he would have had to take some kind of steps to make sure his body wouldn't be found. So that's the, to me, that's something that jumps out as suicide just seeming unlikely because I think in most cases of suicide, whether the person leaves a note or whatever, their bodies are usually found. Well, and speaking of a note, okay, let's say he was depressed. let's say he did want to end his own life. Why would he put his family through the not knowing? Why wouldn't he have left them a note explaining, you know, what he was doing?

I'm not saying it happens in every situation, but I look at things as what's most likely, what's most probable. And, you know, that's why I tend to discount certain things because, again, they don't make the most sense. Perhaps the most commonly held theory is that Andrew went to London to go attend some kind of concert. Maybe there was an event there that he knew he wouldn't be allowed to go to, and he felt it would be easier to ask for forgiveness from his parents than asked for permission. He could skip school, put his clothes in the wash, and make it look like he had been home after school and gone back out.

Then depending on whatever time, whatever he was doing ended, he could pop in, perhaps just late for dinner and make an excuse. or call his parents from London to explain his whereabouts. As we mentioned, Andrew loved to listen to music, especially heavier bands, considered to be more toward the goth side of things like Marilyn Manson, Iron Maiden, and Slipknot. In fact, Andrew was wearing a Slipknot shirt when he was captured on CCTV at King's Cross. The issue with this theory is that most rock shows have an evening start time,

and being Friday a school day, how could he go to a concert in London and get home by the time his parents? got home if he was going there see an evening concert. Police talk to Andrew's friends and family, and none of them recalled Andrew talking about wanting to see a concert. There was actually a show, a concert that was originally advertised to start at 4 p.m. that Friday, but then it was rescheduled for 7 p.m. If Andrew wanted to go to that show, he could have gone to school and then gotten his parents'

permission to go to the show. so that would have meant no need to skip school. But if he didn't know that the show was changed to 7 p.m., it could make sense why he caught the early train. This show was very special because the band had already broken up. They had announced in May that following their tour in July, two of the members, their vocalists, were leaving the band, trying to see a band's last show. Seems like a pretty good motivation to skip school. the band sick had once supported slip knot on tour so it's not outside of the realm of music

Andrew would like though he's not actually known to specifically have been a fan of this band there were a few other bands playing in London that he might have wanted to see live he was known to like 30 seconds to Mars and they were playing that night in London as well at the O2 Academy in Brixton, but the sixth show was just down the street from Kings Cross. But it was in the opposite direction of the possible Pizza Hut and Covent Garden sightings. Even if Andrew did go to a concert or plan to go to one, we're left with a few big questions. Why didn't Andrew come back from the show? Why hasn't he been seen or why hasn't he called home since that day?

In this sense, Andrew's disappearance is very similar to the disappearance of 9-year-old Asha Degree from Shelby, North Carolina. In the very early morning of a rainy Valentine's Day in 2000, she walked out the door with a packed backpack and headed down a dark highway. She's never been seen again. In her case, even if we think we know why she left or where she could have been headed, we're still left unable to explain what happened to prevent her from coming back home that day, or being seen ever since. whether Andrew went to a concert or not. We still don't know if he knew these men that were arrested in December 2021. And if so, how are they connected to Andrew?

We don't know what happened. There were explicit images of children found on the devices of at least one of the men. But it's not mentioned whether Andrew is among the victims. This is very similar to another high profile investigation. taking place in the United Kingdom, the disappearance or abduction of three-year-old Madeline McCann in 2007. The case is still open and unsolved, but in late 2021,

prosecutor seemed confident that a man named Christian Brookner in prison on other crimes was responsible for the abduction and murder of Madeline. Though there's little to no hard evidence, she's still not been found, Brookner has been convicted of sexual abuse of a child in the past, and prosecutors insist they do have some sort of evidence. This has led many to wonder if authorities found photographs of Madeline in Brookner's possession or photos that showed the two of them together.

In Madeline's case, as well, we just have to wait for authorities to complete their investigation and to let us know what they've uncovered. One question we have to ask is, what if Andrew's still out there? Someone may know him. Andrew's pretty bad eyesight. The lenses in his glasses were so thick that they made his eyes look a bit bigger than they actually were.

Eyesight generally gets worse over time, so it may be really bad now if he didn't get new glasses or some kind of procedure to improve his eyesight. If he hasn't gotten any new glasses, he would probably be struggling daily with vision. He was also deaf in one ear, and the distinct shape of his other ear may be easily noticed. If someone knows Andrew, or if you're out there someplace, Andrew, your family misses you and would like nothing more than to hear from you.

If you know anything about the disappearance of Andrew Goston, please contact the South Yorkshire Police Department. If you want to remain anonymous, you can also contact crime stoppers at 080-50-5-1-11 and refer to incident number 161 of September 13, 2017. If you're international or just don't want to make a phone call, you can always email Kevin Gostin directly at Kevin.goston at hotmail.co.c.com. So Morp, as we wrap up this episode on Andrew Gosden, there's a lot going on here. You know, in these cases that span 10, 15, 20 years,

where all of a sudden there is breaking news. You know, the interest automatically ramps back up. I'm not saying that there was no interest in this case. A lot of people have been following this case for many years. But now all of a sudden, something really big has happened. The problem is, as we mentioned early on, we don't have a lot of the details at this time. So this is a case that we're going to have to continue to follow. My thought is it's just a matter of time before the authorities come out with the information, right?

Maybe it's during the trial, after the trial. I don't know exactly when the media privacy laws kind of end. I mean, you know, obviously once you're convicted, then I would think, at the very least they end at that point, right? The information can come out. What are the names of these two individuals? But we're going to have to wait and see a little bit. And I think the same thing goes with the case of Madeline McCann. That's a huge case. I mean, there are so many people that have been following that case. There have been documentaries on it. You know, it's received quite a lot of media coverage over the years.

Andrew's case is really strange. There's a lot of twist and turns as far as clues, directions you could go in. We don't know what the evidence is that connects these two individuals to Andrew's case, but obviously the police feel there's something strong there. So as you mentioned, we'll have to wait to see what that is. I do hold out hope that somehow Andrew's out there safe. You know, we just did our 200 episode. were three women who had been missing for a very long time and who a lot of people had given up hope on were found alive and survived the ordeal. So I hope somehow, some way that Andrew might be out there as well.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you have to keep hope a lot. No doubt about it. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for help with writing and research for this episode. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute. go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. Morph, I really don't know if people realize how big a deal word of mouth is in podcasting.

It is absolutely huge. Yeah, no doubt about it. It helps us grow and helps more people find the show. As far as social media, you can find us on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion, and fans. So that is it for our episode on the disappearance of Andrew Gosden. Again, just another case where we're going to have to keep an eye on what comes out.

I think there will be hopefully a resolution. And I'm hoping that it leads to some answers as far as what happened to Andrew. like you said Morf, we hope he's alive, but at the very least, let's say he's not. The family deserves answers. And then Morph and I will be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.