Yesterday, CNN published an incredibly detailed and harrowing article by Thomas Lake, “An Iowa paperboy disappeared 41 years ago. His [80-year-old] mother is still on the case.”
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/us/johnny-gosch-missing-iowa-boy-cec-cnnphotos/
I have studied and followed this tragic case, as well as the Franklin scandal, for a long time. Johnny Gosch, age 12, vanished on an early morning in September 1982 while on his newspaper route in West Des Moines, Iowa. It is another one of those horrifying investigations where “countless hours of police work had led nowhere near the truth.” His mother is Noreen Gosch. She has been through a “special” kind of hell. The kind where you lose your child to a monster or monsters, have no answers, and get fucked over by most of the police and some in the “true crime” and “just get on with your life” communities.
The reasons for Johnny’s disappearance would be fiercely debated. Theories would proliferate. Some would call it an impenetrable mystery, insisting that countless hours of police work had led nowhere near the truth.
Johnny’s mother would open a parallel investigation, one that continues to this day. In August 2023, not long before her 80th birthday, she pointed to her own skull and said, “I’ve got pretty much all of it in the file cabinet up here.”
By then she had named the names of more than half a dozen alleged perpetrators or potential suspects, none of whom had been arrested in her son’s case. She’d been ignored and dismissed, threatened and ridiculed, but Noreen Gosch kept searching for answers. The loss of Johnny changed the way she saw America. She said it convinced her of the corruption in our institutions, the injustice in our justice system, the breathtaking power behind the men who took her son. A force none other than evil itself.
The Gosch case is a vast labyrinth, full of wonder and terror, a place so dark you can barely see your hand in front of your face. I spent several months there while reporting this story, trying to reconcile Noreen’s findings with those of the authorities, hoping to gather all the objective facts. Many of those facts remain undiscovered.
And so, a warning: Any conclusion you make about the fate of Johnny Gosch will require some combination of guesswork and faith. Most people who study the case eventually settle on one of the following two theories.
You can choose to believe that Johnny was murdered soon after his disappearance, even though no killer has been identified and no remains have been found.
Or you can believe Noreen Gosch, who says she saw Johnny years later, very much alive, and talked to him just long enough to know why he had to disappear again.
CNN, Lake, 12-15-23
Hopefully, you are a reader not a skimmer and hopefully you have not lost the ability to read and consider more than a blurb on social media. Read Lake’s article and consider the corrupt police chief in this case, Orval Cooney. That should make your blood run cold. This man is comparable, but perhaps much worse than the fuck up police chief involved in the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation, Suffolk Co. New York PD chief James Burke. (Google The Botched Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer, New York Times, Oct. 19, 2023. Corrupt district attorney added to the mix.). In early 2003 Noreen Gosch and attorney John DeCamp were preparing a lawsuit against Cooney for his misconduct in the Gosch investigation, when the POS had the good sense to take himself out with a sudden heart attack at age 69. There is more about Cooney in this YouTube interview with Noreen Gosch, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrYAb5DFEyE .
Over the decades, many have opined in the OCCK case that a police officer was involved. Two names, Robert Van Hengel (ATF agent and suspect in the murder of Gail Webster in 1978), and Richard Clayton (Detroit PD, buddies with Arch Sloan), immediately come to mind. There are no doubt others who are “candidates,” but the OCCK investigation would never touch any of these suspects in any kind of depth.
Lake asked police to comment for this article.
(The West Des Moines Police Department declined to release its full investigative case file, because the Gosch case is still an active investigation involving state and federal authorities, and declined to make any current investigators available for an interview. It also declined to answer my extensive list of questions about the case. But the agency did send me a statement, which read, in part, “We understand how deeply this case has affected the family, the community, law enforcement officials and the nation. This case will remain open, and we won’t stop investigating until we have closure and answers as to what happened to Johnny Gosch.”)
Sound familiar?
The frightening and likely correct theory Noreen Gosch developed in her search for the truth and to make it safe for her son to come forward is this:
Her son was kidnapped. The kidnappers were part of a sex-trafficking ring. She believed it had ties to a sexual-blackmail operation, in which her son said he’d been forced to participate, and it was all so big, so powerful, so pervasive, that the authorities would never solve it, would never arrest anyone, because, as Noreen had come to believe, this is America, where some people are sacrificed because others are above the law.
CNN article
Some people are sacrificed because others are above the law. Such sacrifices include Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich and Tim King. People like L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson knew this equation decades ago. Collateral damage must be expected, but not attach to them. ”We [think we] know how hard this has been for the families . . .,” BUT . . . . That it is so difficult to even read an entire article like Lake’s is part of the reason this sacrifice continues.
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The Boiler Plate response from Iowa- I just don’t know what to say. I can repeat it in my sleep and insert different names. One of my greatest fears (the kind that stays with you even on the happiest of moments) is that as we approach age 80, we will still be running on this gerbil wheel. Keep fighting.
I know this case quite well, there was a very good documentary a couple of years back. I would never presume to doubt a victim like Noreen Gosch, but I do find it hard to believe if my missing child came back and showed up at my door that I would allow him to go away. Haunting case for sure.
If you haven’t bought John DeCamps book on the Franklin Community Credit Union DO SO!
Once you start you won’t want to put it down, you won’t want to pick it up. I knew John DeCamp and we talked many times about the book and his continued collecting of information. The book is probably as relevant today as it was in the 1990’s.
Robert Mueller FBI director was head of Omaha office.
Robert Mueller was agent who found (OKC Bombing Hero) Terry Yeakey’s “suicide weapon” as he stepped off helicopter in a field.
Robert Mueller’s daughter was Procecutor in Jeffery Epstein case (who had control of Epstein’s suicide video).
It’s a generational thing I suppose.
John DeCamp’s book is called The Franklin Cover-up; Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska (1992, AWT, Inc.). There have been numerous editions–I have the 2004/2005 edition. It is dedicated “To the children who have been, or will be, abused because of the Franklin cover-up.” Decamp explains in his author’s note that he did not spend one penny advertising or promoting the book but as of 2005 had sold over 110,000 copies. “Hopefully, it will do some good for someone and give courage to others to Fight Back and Tell the Truth.”
Nick Bryant wrote a book on the same subject in 2009: The Franklin Scandal; A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal (2009, Trine Day LLC). The book’s epigraph is one very familiar to those of us close to the epicenter of the OCCK case: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”–Attributed to Edmund Burke. The book includes a timeline that spans from 1965 to 2003. It also contains over 100 pages of relevant documents and more are at http://www.FranklinScandal.com.
Bryant’s book ends with this cautionary warning: The Franklin story not only provides “a glimpse at a stratum of government corruption that is opaque and unfathomable to the majority of Americans, it also demonstrates that the government, together with the media, have the potential to spin fictions into facts and facts into fictions. . . . The titanic media conglomerates of today are beholden to the federal government because its policies allow for their existence. So early 21st century America may be even more susceptible to the cover-up of a scandal as horrific as Franklin than it was two decades ago.” (The Franklin Scandal, p. 512.)
Both books are amazing, well-researched and written at great risk to the authors’ personal safety. AWT, Inc. and Trine Day LLC had the balls to publish. Eye-opening, distressing and horrifying–and instructive on a number of levels in evaluating the OCCK case.
I have also done a lot of reading/watching regarding The Franklin Scandal and Johnny Gosch. Nick Bryant’s book was amazing. Have you read Noreen Gosch’s book? For the uninitiated regarding the Franklin Scandal, if you’re not quite ready to read one of the two above-mentioned amazing books on it, there is a mind-blowing documentary you can find on YouTube called “Conspiracy of Silence” that covers it. Warning: it is HIGHLY disturbing.
Cathy, I noticed something extremely odd (and new to me) on the OCCK Wikipedia page (by the way, I do not trust Wikipedia; I have attempted to add info on numerous controversial topics involving corruption by high-up people, only to see it deleted almost immediately– on topics such as Johnny Gosch, Lawrence King, and ritual abuse, among a few others.)
I noticed that the Bob guy who came forward way back claiming to have info on the OCCK case was called Jeff Gannon on the Wikipedia page, and I found another article stating that was his name, although it seems unknown whether that is/was his real name. From what I read, this Jeff/Bob guy was not seen as credible or respectable by the families of the victims. But what I wanted to say was, this struck me greatly due the name Jeff Gannon being involved in theories about Johnny Gosch.
Many people think that the Jeff Gannon who appeared during George W. Bush’s presidency was, in fact, Johnny Gosch. Trust me, I know many people also think this is absolutely ridiculous, but let me explain more of where I’m coming from. Noreen Gosch answered a question I asked on her Facebook page for her son, saying that she absolutely does not think Jeff Gannon is Johnny. At the same time though, she had previously stated that she thought it might be him, and she has also stated repeatedly that she cannot share any information about Johnny’s current whereabouts in order to protect his safety. She has also said Johnny became a bit of a master of disguises, and has done many things over the years to alter his appearance.
Now, I really have no idea if Jeff Gannon is Johnny, but I want to point out a few very odd things. Perhaps most importantly, James Gannon was the name of the editor in chief of the Des Moines Register newspaper when Johnny was kidnapped, a newspaper that routinely mocked Noreen and tried to make her look crazy for the endless work she put into trying to find her son and discover the truth. Jeff Gannon (initials J.D.G) previously went by the name James Dale Guckert (initials J.D.G,) which are the same as Johnny Gosch’s initials (J.D.G.) So some people have pointed out that mixing the names Jeff Gannon and James Guckert is odd due to the Des Moines Register’s editor in chief being James Gannon.
I’m sure you know of Paul Bonacci from the Franklin Scandal. He spoke with Noreen Gosch and claims to have been present for the kidnapping and know who did it. I’ve always believed Bonacci in interviews and court testimony. So, Paul Bonacci (you might know all of this, so please excuse me if so) claims that the famous writer Hunter S. Thompson was present for some major child abuse events and recorded them. Now, maybe that was someone else claiming they were Hunter Thompson, I don’t know, but I do know Hunter Thompson once “bragged” to a friend that he owned (or even recorded? i can’t remember) snuff films.
So to connect some of this now, RIGHT AFTER Jeff Gannon first appeared publicly at George Bush’s press conference and people starting wondering if he could be Johnny Gosch, Hunter S. Thompson died, allegedly by suicide. This Jeff Gannon guy became known because he showed up at Bush’s press conference and asked him such ridiculous “softball” questions that people began looking into him, only to find he was not actually a journalist and had no credentials anywhere near what should be needed to be in the White House in that capacity. Furthermore, he had history of being a male prostitute, which is a bit odd considering him then popping up in the White House. But this made the Johnny Gosch/Jeff Gannon theory even stranger, as Noreen is certain her son was taken by traffickers and s. abused, and because Paul Bonacci was abused in the Franklin Scandal, which had connections to “boy prostitutes” taking midnight tours of the White House back in the 80’s; the whole case was, as you know, about kids being trafficked and abused by high up politicians.
So one last point, a number of years ago I started looking into whatever happened to James Gannon (the editor in chief for the Des Moines Register when Johnny was taken.) Guess where he ended up? WORKING FOR THE DETROIT NEWS as their “Washington D.C. bureau chief.” So that puts this guy in Detroit, which is what made it all the more odd to see the name Jeff Gannon on the OCCK wikipedia page.
I know this may sound kooky and out there, and I apologize if so, but I just had to mention it. This guy (who maybe was a total fraud and liar) claimed to know what happened in the OCCK case, perhaps somewhat similarly to how Bonacci claimed to know what happened to Johnny Gosch. I have never heard the name Jeff Gannon anywhere else but in relation to Johnny Gosch and now to the OCCK case.
FYI, this comment was diverted into a “pending” comment file, probably because of its length. It happens with comments that have a lot of links, too. They can wind up in “pending” or “spam” and I don’t see notifications for them. I have to manually check all the “mail boxes,” and don’t do it more than once a day, so I apologize for the delay in posting.
Thank you. I just wanted to add that the so-called Jeff Gannon aka Bob in the OCCK case– I know he could not have in any way actually been Johnny Gosch, as Johnny was around 7 years old at that time. But the situation was so striking, I just wondered if there was something to it. All my best! Happy holidays.
Noreen Gosch interview talking about Jeff Gannon. Paul Bonacci (and “the majority of the other Franklin kids”) and Ted Gunderson said Jeff Gannon is Johnny Gosch. Rusty Nelson (of the Franklin Scandal) stated he feels almost certain that Gannon in Johnny Gosch. Noreen says she knows Johnny had plastic surgery and began shaving his head.
a must-read:
https://rense.com/general67/gannn.htm
“Daily Press
Newport News, Virginia
17 Sep 1986, Wed • Page 9
Boy’s kidnappers known, mother says
“The mother of missing paperboy Johnny Gosch said Tuesday that both she and police know who abducted her son four years ago…”
Noreen Gosch said she has known the identities of three Des Moines men and a pedophile “contact” in Houston for six months…”
Wow! Eh? Noreen solved the case, back in 1986! And she’s not talking about Paul Bonacci’s alleged “Emilio” ring, which she knew nothing about prior to early 1990’s.
But, sad & tragic, this was just one out of a long list of con-jobs, that heartless and unscrupulous “&R$&$s” pulled on her over the years.
Similar to fraudulent liar Richard Lawson; “Bobby Moore was the OCCK!”, he’s alleged to have told journalists, but when he was polygraphed he confessed that he did not know who killed the kids. Beware of people telling you things you want to hear!
If you’ve seen “Sound of Freedom”, you’ll understand the real reason why Noreen has ALWAYS (since 1983, anyway), wanted to believe -and publicly claimed, Johnny was kidnapped by a boy prostitution and pornography ring. Noreen wants to remember her missing boy, as a heroic “child victim turned pedo-hunter”, and that’s how she wants ALL of us to think of him, too. (If she has to ‘lose him’, that can at least have some meaningful and purposeful ‘ending’, is the fantasy). It’s a popular fantasy, “child victim turned vengeful vigilante”, one that con-artists have exploited several times over the years. Google; “David ‘race’ Bannon” for example.
In Noreen’s case, her original inspiration for this seems to have been a man named Paul Bishop, who “dropped in” on her sometime in 1983, claiming to be a pedo-hunting PI who was exploited and abused by a boy prostitution & porn ring in the 1970’s. No one here needs reminding, that was a reality all over US at that time, so it’s possible he really was a commercial CP victim. But he was no pedo-hunting PI…he was in fact a “juvenile BDSM” obsessed, child sex abuser himself!
Sorry, didn’t mean to be “Anonymous” in that last reply. That was me; RD1
It’s annoying, that CNN’s Thomas Lake jumps straight from 1984, to 1991, giving the impression that Paul Bonacci was the only person who ever ‘came forward’ to claim they “had new information” about the case, based on their personal involvement. He wasn’t even the first, to do that, he was the 4th.
“In 1985, Noreen Gosch received a letter from Robert Herman Meier II, 19, of Saginaw, Michigan. The letter had been signed “Samuel Forbes Dakota”. In the letter, Meier stated that he was a guard in a motorcycle club when Gosch’s son disappeared in September 1982. According to Meier, Gosch’s son was taken as part of a large child-slavery ring operated by the club. According to the FBI, Meier requested from and received $11,000 (about $32,000 in 2023) from the Gosches…” ”
“Meier was arrested in Buffalo at the Canadian border by FBI agents, and was later charged with fraud by wire. The letter Meier wrote had stated that Gosch’s son was sold to a man whom Meier identified as a “high-level drug dealer residing in Mexico City.”–(Wikipedia) – as one example, Paul Bishop was another back in 1983…
And this game-playing, by Noreen and Bonacci, the “I have had, (and maybe still do!) have contact with Johnny!” His alleged visit to Noreen, and things like this’;
“Bonacci says he’s seen Johnny Gosch 15 or 20 times in all, the last time around 2018. He says Johnny is in hiding, afraid to come out and tell what he knows.
“He’d be killed,” Bonacci says. “That’s what he’s afraid of. He’d be silenced.”
“He’s probably wanted for all kinds of things,” George says, raising the notion that Johnny was forced into criminal activity the same way Paul Bonacci says he was”
Very simple solution; Johnny makes a video, to be played on Youtube or Tik-Tok or whatever. Shows his scars, the ones Noreen says she used to ID him at 27, identifies himself as J. D. Gosch and endorses everything Bonacci (and Noreen) have said. Not hard to have that transmitted, untraceably, to the Google-drive of a trusted someone – he supposedly trusts Noreen and Paul for example. Game over.
I suggested that to Nick Bryant, set off a bomb in his brain apparently. He was foolish enough to suggest it to Noreen, I’m told. She freaked on him, kicked him out of Franklin Files and out of her life. She’s happy with the Johnny Gosch story she has now, thanks.
She has said that John DeCamp advised her (as her lawyer), not to ever give a sample of her DNA to any law enforcement agency. As far as I know, she also has the only copy of Johnny’s dental records (Cooney thought he was a runaway, remember, so why would West Des Moines PD have a copy?). If Noreen chooses not to co-operate, no one will ever be able to definitively ID potential remains, and since she’s stated she believes that he’s alive…
But there’s more possibilities than these two;
“You can choose to believe that Johnny was murdered soon after his disappearance, even though no killer has been identified and no remains have been found.
Or you can believe Noreen Gosch, who says she saw Johnny years later, very much alive, and talked to him just long enough to know why he had to disappear again”
Or, you could look beyond “every missing child case must be about pedophiles and pedo-rings”. MANY missing child cases involve relatives of the child, and NOT pedophile relatives. Relatives who believe sincerely and fervently, the child must be taken away from a custodial parent – for their own good – and ‘kidnapping’ them would be cheaper, faster and more certain than years-long custody battles in family court.
That’s just one of the possibilities, that no one has ever explored in this case.