Episode 7, Connections

I hope you are continuing to follow the excellent podcast Open Investigation as it examines the history of child trafficking in America and the unsolved cases of missing and murdered kids from the 1970s, a decade that truly favored child predators and sexual deviants.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-investigation/id1757196345

Podcast HYSA: Open Investigation

As previously noted in earlier posts, the podcast is a follow up to the Emmy Award winning 2003 HBO documentary, “Have You Seen Andy?,” hosted by Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, chronicling her search for answers in the unsolved abduction of her childhood friend, 10-year-old Andy Puglisi in 1976.

Lots of takeaways from Episode 7, including:

McLaughlin has created a database of unsolved cases of missing and murdered children from Massachusetts in the 1970s, including 14 girls, 15 boys, 20 homicides, 9 missing, the average age of these kids is 14.

One CSAM polaroid could be sold for between $50 and $200 in the 1970s. Adolescents were used to help create/obtain these photos and when they got too old, they were killed.

A law enforcement agent explains that among the pedophiles and CSAM producers of this era, there were most definitely child killers among them.

Child porn (CSAM) was already a billion dollar industry in the 1970s and it was completely unregulated until a large number of children went missing across the country during that decade and laws began to be enacted to attempt to protect kids going forward. No one has gone back to find out who these missing and murdered children were or the real circumstances surrounding their murder or disappearance.

This episode sheds light on how the abuse of children did not involve isolated incidents but were part of a broader, organized effort with little law enforcement action to slow them down.

Just a very powerful podcast and if you follow the OCCK case (such as it is), you should listen for the corollaries in these cases.