Every Town - The Baffling 1982 Disappearance Of Johnny Gosch - Des Moines, IA

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

If only a miniature dachshund named Gretchen could talk, then it could be the star witness in the 4 decades old mystery behind the disappearance of John Gosch. In Des Moines, Iowa in 1982, 12 yr old Johnny went missing without a trace and since then his mother Noreen has been at the forefront in finding answers that simply can’t seem to  be found anywhere. Johnny’s case allegedly involves prostitution, pedophilia and a human trafficking ring controlled by the powers-that-be who vowed to protect America’s citizens. 💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thank you guys so much for tuning in. into another episode of Everytown. I'm Andrew, and if you're new here and you're into true crime, then you've certainly come to the right place. We give you the stories right out of the gate with no fluff and get you on to the next one, or if you want to go about your day, you can just go do that. If you do like this, then please subscribe and leave a review for us. Remember that you can always watch each and every episode of Everytown over on our YouTube

channel called Scary Mysteries. Now, enjoy the episode. Every town has a dark side. If only a miniature dashhound named Gretchen could talk, then it would be the star witness in the four decades old mystery behind the disappearance of John Gosh. In Des Moines, Iowa in 1982, 12-year-old John went missing without a trace. And since then, his mother Noreen has been at the forefront

in finding answers that simply can't seem to be found anywhere. Johnny's case allegedly involves prostitution, pedophilia, and a human trafficking ring, controlled by the powers that be who have vowed to protect American citizens. My hope is that the latest report saying you are still alive is true and that one day we will be able to see each other again. This was the heart-wrenching personal note in Orin Gosh as written on a website dedicated to her missing son Johnny, who disappeared on September 5th. 1982. He was the only child of Noreen and her husband, John Gosh. They were blessed with him on November

12, 1969. But after nearly 13 years of spending a good life with her son, the Gosh couple was confronted with any parent's worst nightmare. Johnny disappeared in unexpected and unexplained circumstances while doing his route as a paperboard for the Des Moines Register, the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa. On September 4th, the day prior to his vanishing, the then-12-year-old, light browned haired, blue-eyed, five-foot-seven-inch tall, and weighing around 140-pound adolescent, asked to be allowed to do his route alone, but his parents wouldn't allow it. See, Johnny usually asked his dad John to accompany him on his route, but he didn't do that thing on Sunday, September 5th. Instead, he woke up at 545 a.m. took only the family's miniature

Dashound Gretchen with him and left their home in the suburb of West Des Moines before dawn to begin his newspaper deliveries. He was dressed in a white sweatshirt with Kim's Academy printed on the back, warm-up pants, and blue rubber flip-flops. He also brought with him a yellow paper bag and his bright red wagon which he used to carry the papers in. Johnny wasn't able to deliver those papers. And at around 7 a.m., Noreen woke up by a telephone call from a neighbor, complaining about not receiving their newspaper. Naturally concerned John left the house and investigated, and he found Johnny's red wagon approximately two blocks away, filled with all the undelivered newspapers, as well as their pet dog right there. John immediately went back home to inform

Norrine and then they called the police, and a nightmare was staring them in the face. Johnny was missing. Unfortunately, a police policy back then was that Johnny couldn't be classified as a missing person until 72 hours had passed. Norine estimated that the police arrived to take her report after a full 45 minutes. When they did, their initial finding, was Johnny had run away, which his parents strongly objected to. Authorities let her change their statement and suggested that Johnny had been kidnapped, but they failed to establish a viable motive. Wanted to know the circumstances of how their only son vanished without a trace.

John and Noreen sought information from witnesses, and thank goodness there were some who gave them the real score. Johnny's parents gathered that his fellow paper boys had seen him that unfortunate September morning at the paper drop picking up his newspapers. Sadly, though, it was the last sighting of Johnny that can be corroborated by multiple witnesses. Mike, who was among the paper boys picking up their newspaper, said that a man driving a blue Ford Fairmount car approached Johnny. This man shut off his engine, opened the passenger's door, and swung his feet out onto the curb, right where the boys were assembling. He started asking where 86th Street was.

Mike told Noreen that Johnny turned to him and said, I've got my papers loaded in the wagon. I'm scared. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to head home. As a young teenage boy was leaving, the car also started to leave, but flick the dome light three times before pulling away.

It seemed as though he was giving a signal because a tall man came out from in between two houses, and he then followed Johnny along 42nd Street to Marquart Lane. Two other paper boys saw Johnny from across the street who set a low, but they ended up going their separate ways. Man, at about this same time, a man named P.J. Smith was awakened by a loud car door. 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.

These accounts were also witnessed by a resident in the area who observed Johnny, talking to a stocky man in a blue, two-toned Ford Fairmount, with Nebraska plates, but didn't know what was discussed. because he was observing him from his bedroom window. Another witness, John Rossi, saw a man in a blue car talking to Johnny and thought something was strange. He looked at a license plate but could not recall the plate number. Rossi underwent hypnosis and told the police some of the numbers

and that the plate was from Warren County, Iowa. West Des Moines Police Lieutenant Jeff Miller, a rookie cop back in 82, said the police began scouring the area immediately, but hit one wall after another. He recalled, they went ahead and called in the staff. The troopers, they called in detectives, reserves, contacted Polk County sheriffs, the state patrol.

At that point, they did a door-to-door canvas of that neighborhood trying to find someone who saw something of Johnny. But nothing was found, and nobody saw anything at all. The most disheartening thing for the gosh couple was the pronouncement from Captain Bob rushing of the West Des Moines Police Department, a man in charge of the investigation, when he said, there was no crime scene, nobody saw anything that to us was an explanation to the boy's disappearance. He just vanished.

Disappointingly, the police turned up little evidence and made no arrest in connection with the case. The gosses, futile efforts to work with police strengthen their resolve to conduct their own investigation, especially from Noreen, who took it as her crusade to search for Johnny and the truth, even after her divorce from husband John in 1993. She contacted local and national media to cover the story which was aired across the United States. She contacted private investigators Jim Rothstein, a retired New York City police detective, and Ted Gunderson, a retired chief of the Los Angeles FBI branch. They followed up on leads, that were never pursued by law enforcement in Des Moines,

and what Noreen learned horrified her. Johnny was apparently kidnapped for the sole purpose of use in a global pedophile and prostitution ring. Noreen became relentlessly unstoppable in her battle to attain justice for her son after that. A month after Johnny's disappearance, she founded the Johnny Gosh Foundation and likewise developed a program called In Defense of Children.

She began touring the nation, making nearly 1,000 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. The noise that Noreen created brought awareness about Johnny's plight, as signs and clues of his possible whereabouts started to surface. In March of 83 or six months, since Johnny went missing, A woman claimed that she was approached by a young boy in the parking lot of a convenience store in Oklahoma. He was screaming, I'm Johnny Gosh, I've been kidnapped.

However, he was immediately accosted by two men who grabbed him, and then they were never seen again. Then over the next few years, more evidence surfaced. A dollar bill was turned over to the goshes with the following message. I am alive, Johnny Gosh. Noreen confirmed it was Johnny's handwriting. In Denver, Colorado, the words Johnny Gosh was here were found written in red nail polish on the restroom wall of a public eatery. Whether they were real or just pranks is hard to tell. But Noreen knew in her heart that her son was still alive. She would never give up her fight to

reveal the hush truth about his abduction. In 1984, Noreen reaped major rewards for her efforts and hard work. A bill she authored named the Johnny Gosh Bill was passed into Iowa law on July 1, 1984. It mandated immediate police involvement whenever a child went missing and it was subsequently adopted by eight additional states. That same year, Noreen traveled to Washington, D.C., and courageously testified before Congress during hearings on organized crime. Although her incriminating testimony led her to getting death threats, it resulted in the eventual establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. President Ronald Reagan even invited her to the center's opening and dedication.

Noreen was victorious in her crusade, even though her son was still missing. But she scored another win in 1984, one you might be familiar with, when she gained the support of Anderson and Erickson Dairy, a dairy company in Des Moines. It was prompted by another missing paper boy, 13-year-old Eugene Martin. And just like Johnny, Eugene, disappear while delivering. newspapers on the south side of Des Moines on August 12, 1984. Based on their investigation, police didn't find a plausible connection between the two boys' cases of disappearances, even if there were similarities in the circumstances.

However, the persistently crusading Noreen had a different take on the matter. She claimed that she was personally informed of the abduction in a few months in advance by a private investigator who was searching for her son. She was told that the next kidnapping would take place the second weekend in August of 84, and it would be a paper boy from the south side of Des Moines. After Eugene went missing, his relative working at Anderson and Erickson Dairy, reached out to company president Jim Erickson for help in disseminating information about cases of missing children like Eugene.

Mr. Erickson, of course, agreed, and the company expressed support by running photos and short bios about the missing boys, boys on the sides of the dairy's half-gallon milk cartons. As a result, it got the boys' faces into thousands of homes all across America. Johnny and Eugene became the second and third abducted children to have their plights publicized in this way. And soon, Prairie Farms Dairy and Des Moines decided to do the same, and it expanded into a nationwide project after that. But the missing children milk cart campaign ran only for a few years and ended, after many parents' complain that seeing the pictures of missing kids every day who's scaring their own kids. Despite these

efforts to intensify awareness about unresolved abduction of children, another Des Moines boy, 13-year-old Mark Allen went missing on March 29, 1986, under suspicious circumstances. As for Johnny Josh's case, his mother's efforts in finding him never waned. Yet, as time marched onward, there was still no sign of him. In the succeeding year, years, Maureen had mind-boggling experiences that helped her put together the pieces of the puzzle and solidified her contention that her son's case wasn't just any ordinary abduction. In 1989, she had met with the young man who claimed that he was part of a child prostitution ring that kidnapped Johnny. Paul Benachi, who was 21 years old, was also a victim of the sex ring,

but had victimized him when he was young. He disclosed that the underage prostitution den was run by a prominent person, Lawrence E. King Jr., a Republican Party activist and businessman, who also served as director of the Franklin Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska. Allegations also connected high-level U.S. politicians as being involved in this child prostitution ring, which was said to be a cult of devil worshippers, involved in the mutilation, sacrifice, and cannibalism of numerous children. When interviewed, alleged abuse victims, claimed that children of foster care were flown to the United States East Coast to be sexually abused at bad parties. Paul Benacci said he was one of them.

Noreen 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, descriptions of a birth mark on his chest were circulated as part of his distinguished marks. But Paul told Noreen that he also knew of Johnny's scar on his tongue, a burn scar on his lower leg, and his stammering when he was upset. All these were never made known publicly. Noreen believed Paul's accounts, which confirmed her conviction from the beginning that Johnny was abducted by child prostitution and human trafficking criminals. However, the FBI and the local police didn't believe that Paul was a credible witness in the case.

and they simply never interviewed him. So once again, Noreen was at odds with the authorities, but never gave up the biggest fight of her life, all for the love of her only child. Adding insult to injury, though, was when separate state and federal grand juries concluded that the allegations were unfounded, and the ring was a carefully crafted hoax.

In 1997, Noreen had a surreal encounter, which she only declared in public when she tested, testified during a 1999 pedophile crime organization trial in Nebraska. It was a, as she put it, too near yet too far, almost there, but not quite yet, experience that she had in the wee hours of March of 1997 when Johnny himself visited his anguish mother 15 long years after he disappeared. In Noreen's account, she was awakened at around 2.30 a.m. by an unexpected knock at her Iowa apartment door. She looked through the people and saw two young men. She asked, who is it? The voice answered, Mom, it's me, Johnny. Can I come in? She immediately opened the door and instantly knew that it was her

son. Standing outside was Johnny Gosch, now 27 years old, accompanied by an unidentified man. Noreen immediately recognized Johnny, who opened his shirt to reveal a birthmark on his chest. He was wearing jeans, a shirt, and had a coat on because it was still cold that march. His black dyed, straight hair with shoulder length long. She said, we talked about an hour or an hour and a half. He was with another man, but I have no idea who the person was. Johnny would look over the other person for approval to speak. Johnny hadn't come home to stay.

He came to ask his mother for help. He gave her a brief account of the last several years. years, and then dropped the bomb that finally seal what Norena believed for a long time. Johnny told her he had been abducted by members of a pedophile crime ring. He said he had escaped from the group sometime earlier and was keeping a low profile to avoid repercussions from his former captors. His nervousness was palpable during their reunion, and he said he was still in great danger. 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. Sadly though, Johnny told Noreen he would probably not visit her ever again. She maintained that she had no further contact with her son since that time, as she feared for his well-being. Johnny left before daylight without disclosing where he was living or where he was going. After the visit, Noreen went to the FBI and had them create a sketch of her now-adult son. However, the lack of evidence to suggest that Johnny was swept into a pedophile ring. besides Noreen's story led the authorities to doubt that Johnny was still alive. But a brief yet memorable and poignant encounter with a long-lost son was Noreen's reaffirmation that he was abducted by a child sex ring,

that the investigation was hampered because of the big names involved in the unlawful operation. Nine years later, another possible lead in Johnny Gosh's disappearance landed on his mother's laugh. On September 1st, 2006, Noreen said a mysterious envelope showed up in her doorstep that contained three disturbing photos of three boys, all bound and gagged. One of the boys appeared to be Johnny, wearing sweatpants similar to the pair he had worn when he was abducted. Noreen said in an interview, I literally could not breathe. I could not get my breath. I was so totally unprepared to see something like that.

She believed the photos were authentic, so she took them down to the West Des Moines Police Department. The reaction of the police, when she spread the photos out, was, That's Johnny. That's Johnny. The media then went wild and reported Noreen's story. And then came a call from West Des Moines Police, who told her they were planning a press conference to announce the pictures weren't of Johnny after all. A Florida law enforcement officer stated he had investigated the very same photographs in the 1970s before Johnny disappeared and had identified all three boys in the

pictures who said they had willingly posed for those photos. Iowa police that whoever gave the photographs to Noreen may have played a cruel prank. Regardless though, Norin has always believed the boy in the photo is Johnny and that he was bound, gagged, and abused, and taken for the purpose of satisfying pedophiles. On the contrary, Police continue to insist it's not him. Despite the differing opinions about Johnny's case, which remains one of the most shocking accounts of child abductions in recent history, Noreen continues to dedicate her life to finding her son's abductors

and raising awareness about child kidnapping and human trafficking. She said, The things that are good is the awareness that this has brought. The case changed the country. It was a watershed case. Police, however, doubt Johnny is alive and believe the only real break in the case will come when his remains are found. As of 2019, Johnny Gosh's case is considered functionally cold as there are no real leads to pursue. He's still listed as a missing person, so the case remains open.

Perhaps Johnny, now 51 years old, is just somewhere out there, waiting for the justice. That's way long overdue. So that's going to do it, guys, for this week's episode of Everytown. Hope you enjoyed that one. It's a very interesting case with a lot of implications across the country. Go check out some more of our stuff over at our Scary Mysteries YouTube channel or podcast if you want some more true crime things. And tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because who knows?

Maybe your town will be next.