The Mysterious Case Of Johnny Gosch

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The hope that this could be a photo of Johnny Gosch was dashed this week. Tampa, Florida cops say this picture was evidence in a case in the late 1970's.

More than any other missing child case in U.S. history, the disappearance of 12-year old Johnny Gosch has spawned a multitude of conspiracy theories that follow the elusive trail of tantalizing clues from a middle class community in Iowa, to an underground pedophile ring in Nebraska, to the powerbrokers of Washington, DC.  Now, 24 years after Johnny's disappearance, it appears a new chapter to this puzzling mystery is beginning to unfold.

The Disappearance

On Sunday, September 6, 1982, in the bedroom community of West Des Moines, Iowa, 12-year-old Johnny Gosch is headed out on his newspaper route. He brings with him the family dog and his red wagon to carry the papers. That is the last time Johnny is ever seen again.

Johnny's parents, Noreen and John Gosch, launch the initial search for their son because the West Des Moines police were short staffed due to the Labor Day weekend.  Noreen knew in her heart that her son had not run away from home, as the police suspected, but had been abducted by a stranger.

Because both the Gosches were asleep when Johnny left the house that morning, there is conflicting information on what he was wearing that day. Their best guess, was either dark sweat pants, or a white t-shirt with blue jean cut-offs.

Another newspaper boy named Mike tells police that a stocky man in a 1979 or 1980 blue two-tone, two-door Ford Fairmont with Iowa plates had been driving around that morning asking the newspaper boys for directions.

Johnny told Mike that the man made him feel uncomfortable when he asked him for directions. As the boys noticed the Fairmont circling the area again, Johnny said he was heading home. Mike watched Johnny walking down the street, and noticed another man he hadn't seen before, walking closely behind Johnny as he turned the corner.

A police artist creates a composite sketch of the stocky, dark-complected man seen driving the car. Witnesses describe him in his 30's, with a mustache.  The sketch is released to the media but nothing solid comes from the lead.

Days turn into weeks, and weeks bleed into months. Noreen becomes obsessed with finding her son.  Every night she leaves her porch light on.  She does numerous television interviews hoping that Johnny will see her and know that help is on the way.

Sightings

Usually when a child is abducted he's not seen or heard from again. But in the years following Johnny's disappearance there were sightings, evidence, and bizarre coincidences. And to this very day, many believe Johnny was the victim of a bizarre and insidious plot and is still alive and in hiding. See a detailed timeline.

On August 12, 1984, two years after Johnny disappeared, 12-year old Eugene Martin, another paperboy for the Des Moines Register disappears while on his newspaper route. The FBI jumps on the case immediately, but like Johnny, it's as though Eugene has disappeared without a trace.  On August 16, President Reagan phones the editor or the Des Moines Register, James Gannon and asks what if anything he can he do to help in the disappearance of the two boys.  To date authorities have been unable to positively link these two cases.

For the next two years, there are sightings of Johnny all over the US, including a dollar bill which shows up in Sioux City, Iowa. Written on the front of the currency is "I am alive -- Johnny Gosch." 

Then on Valentine's Day, 1988, a typed letter arrives at the Gosch home.  It's postmarked, Idaho. The writer say's he's Johnny and he's been kidnapped and forced to do terrible things. He says his kidnappers have dyed his hair and given him a new name. He types at the end of the letter, "Your son, Johnny Gosch."

The note also mentions the incident in Oklahoma where Johnny approached a woman for help. According to Noreen, that tip was never made public, which validates for her that the letter is authentic.

A Conspiracy Theory Is Born

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Bonacci standing in front of the ranch where he claims he, Johnny Gosch, and other boys were held captive.

In 1989, 21 year old Paul Bonacci, a convicted child molester surfaces with a tale that is still spinning conspiracy theories today. While serving time in an Omaha, Neb. prison for molesting a young boy, Bonacci admitted to his psychiatrist he helped abduct Iowa newspaper boy Johnny Gosch. He claimed there was an organized ring of pedophiles in Omaha that abducts children and forces them into a life of pornography and prostitution and in some cases auctions off these children to clients for sex.

Bonacci, who suffers from a multiple personality disorder, had been a key witness in Ohmaha's Franklin Federal Credit Union bank scandal. He testified that Larry E. King, who was charged and convicted with embezzling $40 million from the bank, had wild sex parties at his home and Bonacci himself had sex with several prominent Omaha citizens who were there.

Larry E. King, was a major Republican fundraiser based in Omaha and sang the national anthem at both the 1984 and 1988 Republican conventions. Bonacci claimed that he and others were taken to the Republican convention in Dallas and also made numerous trips to King's Washington, DC apartment on Embassy Row where they were offered up for sex-for-pay with prominent Republican politicians.

Bonacci claims that this organized ring picked him up at the age of eight and forced him into prostitution. He says he was photographed, blackmailed and later forced to be a decoy to lure young boys, like Johnny, into waiting vehicles. Bonacci admits that he became a molester himself.

Bonacci's attorney, John DeCamp, phoned the Gosches with this story and the Gosch's private investigator Roy Stephens spent two years trying to disprove Bonacci's claims. Because Bonacci had been charged with perjury and perpetrating a hoax by the grand jury in the Franklin Credit scandal, neither the FBI nor the West Des Moines Police would even interview him about the Gosch case.  They still feel he is an unreliable witness.

In the two years Roy Stephens investigated Bonacci, he went from skeptic to supporter, and some of Bonacci's story and the evidence Roy Stephens uncovered is compelling:

John DeCamp, legal counsel to the Chairman of the State Senate Committee that investigated the Federal Credit Union, and who later became a state senator, wrote a book on the scandal called "The Franklin Cover-up." At first he too was skeptical of Bonacci's claims, but now he believes that high level government officials wanted to keep everything quiet and did everything they could to discredit Paul Bonacci. He wonders why the FBI completely refused to investigate Bonacci's claims regarding Johnny Gosch, "It was a forbidden zone, they wouldn't even talk about it," says DeCamp.

DeCamp says Bonacci's multiple personalities, at last count 28, is a result of years of sexual abuse. "It's caused by the very things he describes."

In 1990, Investigator Gary Caradori who was investigating Paul Bonacci's claims for the Nebraska State Legislation, urgently phoned State Senator Loran Schmit from Chicago saying he had found "the smoking gun." Caradori told Schmit he would fly that night from Chicago on his private plane with his son back to Lincoln, Nebraska. The plane exploded over Aurora,Illinois, killing Caradori and his eight year old son. According to an eyewitness, just before hearing the explosion, he saw a "flash of light." Caradori's briefcase and the rear seat to the plane never were recovered.

In October 1991, Noreen Gosch met Paul Bonacci, in a face to face meeting. She said Paul described to her things about Johnny that she had never released to the press: that Johnny Gosch had a stutter and that he had taken yoga. Because of those small details she believes Paul Bonacci's story is true.

In a bizarre coincidence, that summer a friend of the Gosch's was in a Denver restaurant and noticed painted on the bathroom wall, in bright red nail polish, Johnny Gosch was here. Roy Stephens showed a series of photos, including the Mexican restaurant, to Bonacci. Without prompting, Bonacci identified the restaurant and recalled how he, Johnny, and Mike went into the bathroom and Johnny painted "Johnny Gosch was here" on the wall. Bonacci even produced a letter from his friend Mike mentioning how JG wrote on the bathroom walls in a Mexican restaurant --  in red nail polish.

In 1992, AMW aired the Johnny Gosch story and with the help of Paul Bonacci several composite sketches were drawn of the principals involved in the alleged pedophilia ring. After the show aired, Noreen Gosch received a 14 page letter from a boy named "Jimmy" who said the same men who had abducted her son had abducted him and he told her that Johnny was still alive. Noreen said he knew personal details about her son that had never before been released and she believes him.

AMW aired a series of interviews with Jimmy in March 1993, in which Jimmy talked about his friendship with Johnny. He said they had made a blood oath to protect and help each other and to trust each other always. Jimmy said he was with Johnny at the ranch in Colorado for four years and that when Jimmy was overheard talking about escaping, he too was branded. Jimmy lifted his pant leg and revealed a large brand on his leg similar to the brand Paul Bonacci had seen on Johnny. 

Jimmy later met with Noreen and John Gosch and gave them a diary he had kept of his life. Included in it were some of Johnny's memories of the time when he was a paper boy.  Jimmy wrote that Johnny had 37 customers and how proud he felt when he won the local paper boy competition and won a free airline ticket. Noreen says all of that, is true.

AMW producers took Paul Bonacci to Colorado in an attempt to find the "The Colonels" ranch where these boys say they were held.  Outside of Bueno Vista, Bonacci recognized a piece of property. He physically reacted when he walks up to the front door, and began to cry uncontrollably.  Paul showed AMW the secret underground chamber where he says the children were put in case authorities came by. Paul says some of the boys were placed there blindfolded, as a form of punishment.

Is Johnny Gosch Alive?

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24 years after her son's disappearance, Noreen Gosch believes he is still alive today. Johnny Gosch would be 37 years old.

In 1997, Noreen Gosch, says Johnny himself paid her a visit. He stayed for an hour and told her what happened to her and why he could never come home or see her again because of the criminal activity he's now involved in. That sparked a book penned by Noreen called, "Why Johnny Can't Come Home." 
 
But the latest twist is the most bizarre. On August 27th, 2006, two photos were left at the home of Noreen Gosch. In one photo a young boy is tied up and gagged and a brand mark is seen on his upper arm, which surprisingly appears identical to the brand mark on "Jimmy's"ankle that AMW videotaped in 1993.  It is also identical to the one Paul Bonacci described to AMW in 1992 that he claimed to have seen on Johnny Gosch's rear end in the late 1980's.  The other photo shows three boys lying side by side on a bed, also bound and gagged.  Noreen Gosch was certain her son Johnny is in two of those photos and quickly turned them over to the police for analysis.

But just this week, the West Des Moines police say Johnny Gosch is not among the boys in the photos. Nelson Zalva, a retired detective from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office in Tampa recognized the photos as evidence in a case he investigated in 1978 or 1979, which predates Johnny Gosch's 1982 disappearance. Ret. Det. Zalva says all the boys in the photos were identified but failed to provide authorities with enough evidence  to prosecute the man who took the pictures.

Hillsborough Sheriff's department is now researching their files to locate the orginial photos because Retired Det. Zalva does not recall seeing a brand mark on the boy in the photo.

Which raises the probability that this is in all likelihood another cruel hoax played on Noreen Gosch, a mother so desperate to have her son back. 

Timeline: