Johnny Gosch
John David
"Johnny" Gosch (born
November 12,
1969) was a 12-year-old
paperboy in
West Des Moines,
Iowa when he disappeared on
September 5,
1982, presumably
kidnapped. Gosch has never been located by authorities.
On Sunday, September 5, 1982, in the affluent suburb of West Des Moines, Johnny Gosch left home for his paper route before dawn. Though it was customary for Johnny to wake his father to help with the route, the boy took only the family dog, Gretchen, with him that morning. Other paper carriers for
The Des Moines Register would later report having seen Gosch at the paper drop, picking up his newspapers. It was the last sighting of Johnny Gosch that can be corroborated by multiple witnesses. Gosch was last seen wearing blue rubber thong sandals, warm up exercise pants, and a white sweatshirt reading "Kim's Academy" on the back.
John and Noreen Gosch, Johnny's parents, began receiving phone calls from customers along their son's route, complaining of undelivered papers. John Gosch performed a cursory search of the neighborhood around 6 AM. He immediately found Johnny's wagon full of newspapers, two blocks from their home.
The Gosches immediately contacted the West Des Moines police department, and reported Johnny's disappearance. Noreen Gosch, in her public statements and her book
Why Johnny Can't Come Home, has been critical of what she percieves as a slow reaction time from authorities, and of the then-current policy that Gosch could not be classified as a missing person for 72 hours. By her estimation, the police did not arrive to take her report for a full 45 minutes.
Johnny Gosch quickly became a poster boy for missing children across the nation. The case snowballed into a national interest as Noreen Gosch became increasingly vocal about the inadequacy of law enforcement investigation of missing persons cases. Police turned up no evidence, and arrested no suspects in connection with the case.
Gosch's disappearance became something of a cautionary tale to midwestern youth, Johnny Gosch jokes swept the nation's schoolyards, and dollar bills began turning up with "Help me! - Johnny Gosch" scrawled across them.
In 1984, Gosch's photograph appeared alongside that of
Juanita Rafela Estavez on milk cartons across America; they were the first two abducted children to have their plights publicized in this way.
["100 Photographs That Changed the World," Life Magazine, 2003, p.86]John and Noreen Gosch divorced in 1993. Around this time, Noreen Gosch hired retired -turned-
private investigator and government conspiracy theorist
Ted Gunderson to assist in locating her son.
Noreen Gosch left her porch light on for her son for 11 years.
In February, 1999, Noreen Gosch testified in Omaha Federal Court, during a case involving
Lawrence E. King, Jr. and the
Franklin Credit Union scandal, that her son had visited her in 1997.
By Noreen Gosch's account, she was awakened one night in March, 1997 by a knock at her apartment door. Waiting outside was Johnny Gosch, now approximately 27 years old, accompanied by a man she had never seen before. The other man never identified himself, and never spoke, but seemed nervous and serious. Johnny divulged that his had been a targeted, not random, abduction, in 1982. His captors had forced him into a decade of child sex-slavery. Johnny explained that as his survival was a potential security breach for the conspiracy, he was currently, and probably permanently, in hiding, and would likely never see her again. Johnny and the unidentified man left the apartment. After this visit, Noreen Gosch finally turned off her porch light.
Prior to her 1999 testimony, Noreen Gosch had not mentioned this incident in public. Johnny Gosch was not seen by a single witness save his mother, nor had he returned to the childhood home still occupied by his father.
Noreen Gosch, in her book
Why Johnny Can't Come Home and on her
johnnygosch.com website, continues to assert that her son is alive and in hiding, and to publicize the notion that an international government conspiracy of Satanists, pedophiles, and pornographers is behind the disappearance of the young paperboy from West Des Moines.
The Bonacci connection
Conspiracy theorists focused on an international government-organized satanic child sex-ring operating out of
Bohemian Grove have linked Gosch's disappearance to the case of
Paul A. Bonacci and the
Franklin Credit Union scandal. In 1989, Bonacci told attorney
John DeCamp that he personally participated in Gosch's abduction. Bonacci has also implicated other seemingly unconnected public figures in his sex-ring/
Satanism/
necrophile snuff film stories, including
Hunter S. Thompson.
On
her website, Noreen Gosch fully believes, endorses, and publicizes Bonacci's claims.
Johnny Gosch and Jeff Gannon
In 2005, Gosch was the subject of a conspiracy theory centering around conservative journalist
Jeff Gannon. In the 1990's, Gannon ran a homosexual escort service under his real name, James Guckert. Gannon/Guckert's escort service reportedly serviced
Washington, D.C. political clients, and paid visits to the White House. The first public speculation linking the two cases occurred on February 26, 2005, on The Democratic Underground, a liberal political website.
Skeptics of the Gannon connection point out that no DNA evidence has ever been tendered, the ages of Gosch and Gannon do not match, nor do they resemble one another. Gannon himself does not lend any credence to the theory and flatly denies that he is Johnny Gosch. Conspiracy theorists counter that Gannon may be unaware he is Gosch, all memory of his past life perhaps obliterated by
MK-Ultra,
Project Monarch, or complicity with the conspiracy.
On July 8, 2005 Jeff Gannon called into the radio program
A Closer Look hosted by Michael Corbin and agreed to take a DNA test to prove he was not the missing boy. As of June 2006 Gannon has not taken the test even though the offer remains open with Johnny's mom Noreen Gosch. [
1] On May 10, 2006 occult author William H. Kennedy was a guest on
A Closer Look and renewed the offer for Gannon to take the DNA test with Norren Gosch. [
2]
*
johnnygosch.com Noreen Gosch's website*
John David Gosch in Iowa Missing Persons database*
John David Gosch in National Center for Missing & Exploited Children database*
Des Moines Register story on Gosch-Gannon* http://www.kwwl.com/global/story.asp?s=3226392&ClientType=Printable local TV station article, "Conspiracy of Silence".
