On September 5, 1982, Johnny Gosch, a 12-year old boy, disappeared in the middle of his daily job route. Speculations of him being kidnapped by child molesters arise not long after his disappearance.
In 1997, his mother claimed that Johnny visited and talked to her for one and a half hour then left. This claim was never confirmed despite his mother’s detailed descriptions of the said account. 35 years passed and Johnny Gosch is still identified as a missing person.
Johnny Gosch doing his job as a paperboy
John David “Johnny” Gosch was born on November 12, 1969 in West Des Moines, Iowa – a suburb of about 22, 000 people. He is the only child of John and Noreen Gosch. He worked as a paperboy for The Des Moines Register.
Disappearance
On Sunday, September 5, 1982, Johnny left their house before dawn to start his paper route. Strangely, he did not wake up his father to come with him even though it was customary for them to do the work together. The last sighting of Johnny that was authenticated by multiple witnesses was on The Des Moines Register paper drop where he was seen picking up his newspapers. One of the Gosches’ neighbors, Mike, reported that he saw Johnny, from his bedroom window, talking to a man in a Ford Fairmont. He also said that he saw a man following Johnny on the kid’s way home.
Johnny Gosch’s red wagon was on display at the 2017 Iowa State Fair.
Almost an hour after, Johnny’s parents started to receive phone calls from customers saying that they haven’t received their newspaper for that day. John performed a search around their neighborhood but found no traces of his son’s whereabouts except for his red wagon, found two blocks from their house, that was full of undelivered newspapers.
Johnny’s parents immediately reported his disappearance to the West Des Moines police department. Unfortunately, the policy that time says that a person can’t be declared missing unless 72 hours had passed. After he was classified as missing, police claimed that he was kidnapped even though no clear motive was found and no suspect was interrogated.
Milk carton with Johnny Gosch and another missing child’s photo
Two years after he disappeared, Johnny Gosch became the third child to have his photograph on milk cartons across America as a way to publicize his disappearance.
Claims:
- A few months after her son disappeared, Noreen said that her son was spotted in Oklahoma yelling to a woman for help but was dragged off by two men.
- On March 1997, almost 15 years after he vanished, Johnny Gosch, now a 27-year old man visited her mother. According to Noreen, she was awakened around 2:30 a.m. by a knock on the door. Never did she expect who to witness behind that door: two men – one is unknown, the other is familiar. But it did not take Noreen to second guess that the other man in front of her is her son, Johnny, who then open his shirt and reveal his birthmark on the chest to her mother.
John and Noreen Gosch pleading for help to find their son
Noreen claimed that they “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 to the other person for approval to speak. He didn’t say where he is living or where he was going.”
Noreen said, “The night that he came here, he was wearing jeans and a shirt and had a coat on because it was March. It was cold and his hair was long, it was shoulder-length and it was straight and dyed black.”
35 years passed but there’s still no trace of Johnny Gosch. Is he still alive? Where can he be?
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