This Case Is TERRIFYING - Johnny Gosch

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: John David Gosh, Norin Gosh, United Methodist Church
2. 5:00 – 10:00: John Rossy
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Eugene Martin, Jim Rothstein, Johnny Gosh, Mark Allen
4. 15:00 – 20:00: America's Most Wanted, Paul Bonini

Notable quotes from "This Case Is TERRIFYING - Johnny Gosch"

• John David Gosh, known as Johnny, was 12 years old at the time when he went missing from his family's neighborhood in Iowa. He lived at home with his parents John and Norin Gosh, and he was.

  about John David Gosh · at 0:11

• Greton. Johnny's destination was the paper dropoff point two blocks from his home located near a local United Methodist Church. This was the corner where the delivery truck…

  about United Methodist Church · at 3:20

• Awake in the neighborhood that morning was a 42-year-old local attorney named John Rossy. This John Rossy said that the original man in the car drove around the block and…

  about John Rossy · at 5:17

• Shouted for help before two men pulled him away. The boy allegedly cried out I'm Johnny Gosh. as he was being dragged away. She called the police, but by the time they arrived…

  about Johnny Gosh · at 10:27

• On the 12th of August 1984, another young paper boy, 13-year-old Eugene Martin, disappeared under eerily similar circumstances while delivering the De Moines Sunday Register on the south side of the city. This was 2 years after.

  about Eugene Martin · at 11:32

• 13-year-old Mark Allen. Although Mark disappeared from home at night and was not a paper boy, the media initially lumped Mark's case with Johnny's and Eugene's as a possible trio of related.

  about Mark Allen · at 12:51

• Search where official efforts have let off. Among these were well-known figures like retired New York City detective Jim Rothstein and former FBI LA Bureau Chief Ted Gunderson.…

  about Jim Rothstein · at 13:41

• Exhaustive investigations, task force meetings, and even segments on national programs like America's Most Wanted, the identity of Johnny's kidnappers remained elusive. By the…

  about America's Most Wanted · at 14:58

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• John Rossy — Person · 2 mentions · first at 5:22
• John David Gosh — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:11
• Norin Gosh — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:19
  Missing from his family's neighborhood in Iowa. He lived at home with his parents John and Norin Gosh, and he was their youngest child. In 1982, he was a seventh grade student…
• Johnny Gosh — Person · 1 mention · first at 10:32
• Eugene Martin — Person · 1 mention · first at 11:34
• Mark Allen — Person · 1 mention · first at 12:51
• Jim Rothstein — Person · 1 mention · first at 13:45
• Ted Gunderson — Person · 1 mention · first at 13:52
  Like retired New York City detective Jim Rothstein and former FBI LA Bureau Chief Ted Gunderson. Both men took an interest in Johnny's case and they offered their expertise. In…
• Robert Herman Mia II — Person · 1 mention · first at 14:06
  Occurred when Johnny's family fell victim to a cruel hoax. A 19-year-old man from Michigan named Robert Herman Mia II contacted the family claiming to have information about…
• Paul Bonini — Person · 1 mention · first at 16:08
  Trafficking theory were a few unusual developments. In 1989, a 21-year-old prisoner in Nebraska named Paul Bonini came forward with a shocking claim. He alleged that he had…

Concepts & topics

• America's Most Wanted — Concept · 1 mention · first at 15:03

Places & events

• United Methodist Church — Place · 1 mention · first at 3:25

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Hello, happy new year and please subscribe. Please subscribe. This case takes place in the USA in the year 1982. John David Gosh, known as Johnny, was 12 years old at the time when he went missing from his family's neighborhood in Iowa. He lived at home with his parents John and Norin Gosh, and he was their youngest child. In 1982, he was a seventh grade student, described by those who knew him as a friendly boy. He played on a junior football team and practiced karate. Johnny also had a strong sense of independence and a sense of responsibility far beyond his years.

0:40 He took on a part-time job as a paper boy, delivering newspapers each morning in his suburban neighborhood. By the summer of 82, Johnny had been working that paper route for nearly a whole year and was regarded as a reliable paper boy by his route manager. In fact, he had just recently won a sales contest for new subscriptions, earning him a prize of an airplane ride over his hometown. He was also known as a thoughtful son. Some sources say that with his earnings Johnny would occasionally purchase a single rose to bring home to his mother as a small token of affection. Because Johnny's paper route required him lugging heavy bundles of Sunday papers his parents typically set a rule that an adult should accompany him on the early rounds. On weekdays, Johnny usually delivered papers after school. But on Sundays, he and his father would go out together before dawn to ensure the large Sunday editions reached customers on

1:34 time. But Johnny didn't always like the adult supervision. Despite his young age, Johnny often insisted that he could handle the early morning paper deliveries all by himself, and he wanted to prove that he was old enough to do it alone. On the Friday night before he disappeared, Johnny had a small encounter that later struck his mother as rather strange. The Gosh family had attended a local high school football game on the 3rd of September, 1982. During the game, Johnny went to go and buy popcorn, but he didn't return right away. After a few minutes, his father went looking for him, and he found Johnny under the stadium seats in conversation with a non-uniformed police officer. The officer had apparently called Johnny to come and speak with him alone. When Johnny's parents questioned him as to why he did this, Johnny replied by saying, "He was a policeman.

2:31 Don't you have to do what he says?" The mother found it strange that an officer would engage her 12-year-old son in private for a chat with no clear reason. At the time, the family did not pursue this matter any further. That Labor Day weekend, Johnny was focused on his paperroot duties, and on the 5th of September, he had the Sunday edition to deliver in the early hours of the morning. Johnny woke up before dawn, as he had done many times before, to start the route. Although Johnny would usually wake up his father to go with him on his Sunday rounds, on this particular morning, Johnny decided to head out by himself. At about 5:45 a.m., whilst the rest of his family slept, Johnny quietly slipped out of the house with his red radio flyer pullalong wagon and the family's miniature dashound called Greton. Johnny's destination was the paper dropoff point two blocks from his home located near a local United

3:27 Methodist Church. This was the corner where the delivery truck would leave bundles of newspapers for the neighborhood carriers to pick up. Johnny walked the short distance to the drop off site. Other paper boys from the area were also arriving to collect their papers around the same time. Among them was a 15-year-old friend of Johnny's called Mike, who also had a route in the area. The two boys chatted briefly as they waited for the truck, which arrived and unloaded the newspapers shortly after 6:00 a.m. Johnny and Mike helped each other load their respective bundles into their wagons. As they did, a man in a car pulled up alongside the curb near the drop off point. Mike later said that this vehicle was a two-toned Ford Fairmont and that the driver was a stocky middle-aged man. This man asked Johnny for directions to a local street.

4:17 This man's presence struck the boys as a little bit strange given that it was the early hours of the morning. Johnny had a brief conversation with this stranger through the car window, telling him how to find the street that he was looking for. After the man drove away, he went and spoke to Mike again. He said that something about this man and the whole situation the man was in was strange and it made him want to get his route started right away. After loading his newspapers, Johnny told his friends that he was going to begin delivering and that he would catch up with them later on. He set off pulling his wagon with Gretchen trottting alongside him. The other paper boys finished up at the drop site and went their separate ways. No one realized that within minutes something dire was about to happen along Johnny's paper route.

5:08 Just moments after Johnny left the paper drop off site, several witnesses noticed an unfamiliar man following a short distance behind him. One witness who was awake in the neighborhood that morning was a 42-year-old local attorney named John Rossy. This John Rossy said that the original man in the car drove around the block and stopped again to ask Johnny for directions again, as if still confused about where to go. Sensing that the encounter was strange, Jon tried to note the car's license plate number as the conversation wrapped up and the car prepared to leave. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember the full license plate. The mysterious man in the Ford car eventually drove off and Johnny continued on his route. But as he proceeded down the street, another neighbor heard something alarming. A nearby resident was still in bed when he heard the slam of a car door followed by the roar of a car engine at roughly 6:15

6:04 a.m. When this neighbor looked out of the window, they saw a Ford Fairmont speeding away northbound, driving erratically away from the area where Johnny's trolley would soon be found. Following this, Johnny's faithful dashound, Gretchen, wandered back to the Gosh family home by herself. And at around 7:00 a.m., customers on Johnny's route began to notice that their Sunday newspaper had not yet arrived. This was very much unlike Johnny, and his parents realized that something was terribly wrong. Johnny's father throw some clothing and went out to look for his son along the route, retracing the usual path where Johnny would have been delivering the papers. Not far from their home, he made a grim discovery. He found Johnny's red trolley abandoned on the side street. Scattered nearby on the ground were some rubber bands that Johnny would have used to wrap the papers. There was no signs of Johnny

6:57 himself. The father realized at once that his son had very likely been snatched off the street. He hurried back home with devastating news. The mother then called the police department at approximately 8:30 a.m. to report that her son was missing and that he may have been abducted. Officers were soon dispatched to the scene and the first patrolman arrived within the hour to begin the investigation. In those frantic moments, neighbors joined the search, fanning out to scour the area for any trace of Johnny. But aside from the abandoned wagon and the few witness recollections of a man in the car, there were no immediate clues. No blood, no torn clothing, and no cries for help reported by anyone. Johnny seemed to have just vanished without a trace in an instant. The investigation was well underway, but according to Johnny's mother, Norin, she recalled that it took approximately 45 minutes after her 911

7:55 call for an officer to show up at the scene. She found this to be incredibly frustrating. They also treated Johnny's disappearance as a missing child case and they hesitated to classify it as an abduction on day one. With no body and no immediate ransom demanded, some officers initially wondered if Johnny might have run away or simply gotten lost, an assumption that infuriated his parents. And so Johnny's mother and father took steps on their own. Within hours after Johnny's disappearance, they organized friends, neighbors, and local volunteers to start searching parks fields, and hiding places around the area. Dozens of people joined in on the search. The police participated in these searches to some extent. But despite these extensive efforts on foot, no trace of Johnny was found that day. As hours turned to days, the police department began to take the case more seriously. Soon enough, authorities

8:53 officially publicly acknowledged that foul play was likely involved. The classification of Johnny's case was changed from missing person to probable kidnapping, and the FBI was notified to assist. Investigators started piecing together witness statements. They compiled a description of the man seen talking to Johnny, the stocky middle-aged man driving a two-toned blue Ford Fairmont. A composite sketch of the suspect and an alert about the vehicle were circulated regionally, but without a license plate number or name, the trail was limited. The attorney who saw the vehicle underwent hypnosis to recall the license plate number. This was partially successful. The plate that John Rossy recalled under hypnosis were followed up on. The police checked records for matching plates from Warren County. It seemed promising, but this lead did not point to any obvious suspects. There were no local residents

9:47 who owned that car and matched the description, raising the possibility that the vehicle and suspect might have come from outside the immediate community. The case soon drew intensive media coverage in Iowa and beyond. By midsepptember of 1982, local law enforcement was looking through tips from across the state as people phoned in with any sightings of a boy that matched Johnny's description. One of the earliest and most tantalizing tips came about a few months after Johnny vanished when a woman in Oklahoma reported a possible sighting in March of 1983. This witness told police that she had been approached by a distressed boy who shouted for help before two men pulled him away. The boy allegedly cried out "I'm Johnny Gosh." as he was being dragged away. She called the police, but by the time they arrived, the people involved were gone. This gave the family some hope that Johnny might still be

10:44 alive, but also anguish and the thought of him being moved from place to place by his captives. Numerous other leads then trickled in. Witnesses in other states claimed to have seen a boy resembling Johnny in the company of suspicious adults, but again, none of these sightings could be substantiated. Investigators followed each claim sometimes even traveling out of state to chase down rumors, but every promising lead eventually hit a dead end. As the case dragged on into 1983, the lack of any solid evidence or suspects became deeply frustrating. The police had not named any person of interest publicly.

11:22 There was simply no one identifiable to accuse. And then in 1984, it happened again. On the 12th of August 1984, another young paper boy, 13-year-old Eugene Martin, disappeared under eerily similar circumstances while delivering the De Moines Sunday Register on the south side of the city. This was 2 years after Johnny's abduction. Eugene went missing during the early morning hours on his paper route, and once again, there were no witnesses to the actual crime. The parallels between these two cases were unmistakable and raised fears of a serial child abductor at large. Johnny's mother immediately suspected that the same perpetrator was responsible both for her son and Eugene. The national media took notice of the pattern. In an unprecedented move at the time photographs of Johnny and Eugene were featured side by side on Milk Gardens.

12:21 They were among the first children in US history to have their missing person cases publicized on milk cat and photographs. This was a practice that would soon become a cultural phenomenon in the fight to locate missing kids. Despite this heightened awareness and hundreds of new tips that poured in after Eugene's disappearance investigators were unable to find concrete evidence linking the two cases. And then in March of 1986, a third boy also from De Moine, vanished. 13-year-old Mark Allen. Although Mark disappeared from home at night and was not a paper boy, the media initially lumped Mark's case with Johnny's and Eugene's as a possible trio of related kidnappings. However, detectives could not establish a common thread of suspects among the three incidents.

13:09 After exhaustive efforts, the official conclusion was that no definitive link could be proven. between Mark, Eugene and Johnny. They may have been coincidental or copycat crimes, or they may have been connected in ways that police could not substantiate at the time, but with no perpetrators identified, the truth was unknown. Meanwhile, Johnny's family refused to let the case fade away. Over the years his mother and father have hired several private investigators to continue the search where official efforts have let off. Among these were well-known figures like retired New York City detective Jim Rothstein and former FBI LA Bureau Chief Ted Gunderson. Both men took an interest in Johnny's case and they offered their expertise. In 1985, a strange twist occurred when Johnny's family fell victim to a cruel hoax. A 19-year-old man from Michigan named Robert Herman Mia II contacted the family claiming to

14:11 have information about Johnny. Writing under an alias, Robert alleged that he was a guard for a motorcycle gang that had kidnapped Johnny and the other boy and that the two had been sold into a child slavery ring. He offered to return Johnny in exchange for ransom money. First, he requested $10,000, which Johnny's family paid, but then he demanded $100,000 more. The FBI soon became involved and they tracked down Robert's communications. In an undercover operation, Robert was caught at the US Canada border and arrested. He eventually confessed that his story was fabricated and that he had no actual ties to Johnny's disappearance. Robert was charged with fraud. This incident was a painful setback. Despite exhaustive investigations, task force meetings, and even segments on national programs like America's Most Wanted, the identity of Johnny's kidnappers remained elusive. By the late 80s, the active

15:11 investigation had largely wound down though the case was never officially closed. Police admitted that the evidence they gathered had been minimal. There was nothing solid enough to charge a suspect. In the absence of an official conclusion, numerous theories have emerged over the years to explain what happened to Johnny. The most prominent theory is his mother's. Norin thinks that he was abducted by a sophisticated PDF file ring engaged in child trafficking. From early on, Johnny's mother, Norine, publicly rejected the idea that her son was taken by a lone opportunistic kidnapper. Instead, she became convinced that Johnny was targeted and sold into the dark world of trafficking. This belief was fueled by various pieces of information that she gathered through private investigators and self-run inquiries. Supporting the trafficking theory were a few unusual developments. In 1989, a 21-year-old

16:08 prisoner in Nebraska named Paul Bonini came forward with a shocking claim. He alleged that he had been forced as a teenager to participate in Johnny's abduction as part of a trafficking ring. Paul was a convicted sex offender with known mental health issues. He provided detailed testimony to his attorney and later to a judge, describing how a powerful group had kidnapped children and sold them. According to Paul, Johnny was taken into this network and transported across state lines. He was subjected to horrific things and controlled by high-profile individuals.

16:46 Paul even identified specific people that he claimed were ring leaders. Norin met with Paul and found his account credible, noting that he even knew distinguishing features about Johnny that had not been made to the public. For example, details of a birthmark and a scar. However, law enforcement has officially cast doubt on Paul's story. The FBI and local police investigated his claims, but ultimately they did not find any evidence to verify them. Paul's own sibling even claimed that Paul was in Omaha at the time that Johnny was taken. No charges were filed based on Paul's statements, but his testimony later became part of numerous books and documentaries exploring the possibility of a nationwide child exploitation ring connected to the case. Another event that intensified the trafficking theory occurred 15 years after Johnny disappeared. In 1997, Johnny's mother publicly announced that Johnny had paid

17:45 her a secret visit in the middle of the night. According to the mother, a 27-year-old Johnny showed up at her apartment front door at 2:30 a.m. one night in March of 1997. She claimed that Johnny was accompanied by a man that she didn't know. She said he confirmed that he was indeed alive, but had been held captive in a ring for many years. She said that Johnny had told her that he had finally escaped, but he remained in great danger. He was now living under a new identity and could not permanently return home. Apparently, this was to protect himself and his family from reprisals. Norin claimed that the emotional reunion lasted only a brief time and that Johnny left again, urging her not to tell anyone for a while.

18:33 Johnny's father has expressed doubt about the visit, stating publicly that he was not sure it ever actually happened. The police were informed of Norin's claim, but without any proof they could not verify it. The man claiming to be Johnny might have been an impostor praying on a grieving mother's hope. Norin, however, insists that it was truly her son and that he briefly came out of hiding to see her. Additional fuel was added to these theories in 2006 when out of nowhere Norine received a package at her home that contained several disturbing photographs. The images showed three boys bound and gagged, looking terrified.

19:16 In one black and white photo, a boy about Johnny's age in the early 80s is gagged and tied up with a brand mark visible on his shoulder. Norin believed that this particular boy in the photograph was Johnny. She turned the photographs over to law enforcement for analysis. The police stated that they had traced some of the images to a case in Florida and determined that those were unrelated pictures of abuse from a past investigation. However, one of the photographs could not be conclusively identified, and it may have been legitimate. To this day, the origin of that image is not fully explained.

19:52 Johnny's mother views the anonymous delivery of the photographs as a form of proof,, or, at least, a, hint, that, Johnny was indeed trafficked. The police, on the other hand, cautioned that there is no confirmation that the boy in the photograph is Johnny and noted that cruel pranks or internet hoaxes could be at play. Aside from the trafficking there are some simpler theories. Some investigators and journalists believe that Johnny may have been victim to an opportunistic offender unrelated to a larger ring. But for over four decades the case of Johnny has generated countless leads and hypotheses, but none have conclusively answered the question of who took Johnny and why. His mother continues to believe that he may be alive somewhere, living in secrecy.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "This Case Is TERRIFYING - Johnny Gosch"?

In order: 0:00 John David Gosh, Norin Gosh, United Methodist Church; 5:00 John Rossy; 10:00 Eugene Martin, Jim Rothstein, Johnny Gosh, Mark Allen; 15:00 America's Most Wanted, Paul Bonini.

What is mentioned in this Disturban episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including John Rossy, John David Gosh, Norin Gosh, United Methodist Church, Johnny Gosh, Eugene Martin. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "This Case Is TERRIFYING - Johnny Gosch"?

The episode runs 21 min; the transcript is about 3,321 words in 24 timestamped sections.

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