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Nancy Grace
Johnny Gosch Still Missing
Aired March 02, 2011 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to kind her.
GRACE: So many cases --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: -- so few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness had seen the suspect on NANCY GRACE.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The NANCY GRACE show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found alive.
Fifty people, 50 days, 50 nights.
Let`s don`t give up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): It`s Sunday morning, and thousands are about to begin their morning ritual, the morning paper. Twelve-year- old Johnny Gosch delivers it, but this morning the papers don`t arrive, and Johnny won`t return home.
By daybreak, the Gosch family`s phone begins to ring, customers inquiring about their papers. Dad goes looking and finds Johnny`s wagon just blocks from home. The papers, still stacked and untouched, but no sign of Johnny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the weeks and months that followed, Johnny reportedly was seen at least twice, identifying himself to strangers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But according to those same reports, a man quickly grabbed him away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman received in change in a store a dollar bill with the writing on the front of it, "I am alive," signed in cursive writing, "Johnny Gosch."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s just one more roadblock the family says it`s encountered while searching for Johnny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We sold candy bars. We sold buttons.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To find (ph) Johnny they`ve spent $75,000.
NOREEN GOSCH, JOHNNY`S MOTHER: We`ve had benefit dances. We`ve had garage sales, rummage sales, back sales.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which they raised themselves.
GOSCH: Anything that would be considered a fund-raiser, we have done it.
All we want is our boy back. And we`re willing to do anything to get him back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JEAN CASAREZ, CO-HOST: Every day 2,300 people go missing in America. They disappear. They vanish. Their families are left waiting and hoping, but never forgetting.
And neither have we. Fifty people, 50 days. Fifty nights, we go live, spotlighting America`s missing girls and boys, mothers and fathers and grandparents. They`re gone. But where?
Tonight, September, 1982, a 12-year-old paperboy, Johnny Gosch, wakes up early to deliver Sunday morning papers. His route, in Des Moines, Iowa.
He never comes home. His wagon is found just two blocks from his home. It`s still filled with the morning papers.
Now, over two decades later, his mother firmly believes photos of her son Johnny mysteriously appear at her doorstep.
Tonight, who took 12-year-old paperboy Johnny Gosch?
I want to go straight out to Brad Ehrlich. He is a reporter for WHO Radio joining us tonight from Des Moines, Iowa.
Take us back to those early morning hours on September 5, 1982.
BRAD EHRLICH, WHO RADIO REPORTER: It was predawn, that Sunday morning, as Johnny Gosch woke up, as he usually did on Sunday mornings, to go pick up the paper just a couple blocks away where "The Des Moines Register" had a large drop-off for all the paperboys in the neighborhood to pick up their newspapers and deliver them.
So, a little before 6:00, 12-year-old Johnny, who, by the way, is taller than most people in his class and looks just a little bit older, goes out to go pick up his papers. Paperboys at the scene do see him there go and pick up the papers. But after that, things do get just a bit sketchy.
What happens next is he continues to -- what happens is, is a blue car, what one witness says is a Ford Fairmont two-tone blue or black, pulls up to ask directions from Johnny. From that point, the car whips around, talks to an adult to finish off the directions, and supposedly leaves the scene. And that is where the trail goes cold.
It picks up just a little bit later, when the phone starts ringing off the hook at John and Noreen Gosch`s home because people in the neighborhood, in West Des Moines, a quiet suburb just west of downtown, are wondering where their Sunday paper is. So John picks up his shoes, gets the dog, heads out, and just five blocks away finds a radio flyer wagon filled with the newspapers and Johnny Gosch nowhere to be seen.
CASAREZ: And that was the beginning.
Natisha Lance, take us back out to that street corner where that wagon was and that 12-year-old boy. How far away was it from Johnny Gosch`s home?
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, it was just five blocks away, according to police. And there were two brothers who were there who witnessed Johnny speaking to this man in the car.
Johnny then came back and spoke to the adult carrier, who was also there to deliver papers. And the car came back around and also spoke to this adult, asking for those directions again. Now, when these two brothers had walked away, they came back 10 minutes later, Johnny wasn`t there but the wagon was still there.
Now, another thing, there was a neighbor who was inside their house that morning. They were in the bed. And they say that they heard a loud muffler from a car, allegedly from this same car, the two-tone car that was just previously described.
He looked out the window, he saw a man in the car, but there was no Johnny who was inside that car. Police do not know if this car was connected to the disappearance of Johnny, but it is one of the things that has been going along with this case as suspicious.
CASAREZ: You know, everybody, this is an amazing case. It`s Johnny Gosch. It`s from 1982.
A little paperboy, 12 years old, went out every morning to deliver papers. But this morning he never came home.
You`re not going to believe some of the things that have happened since 1982, allegedly, in this case.
I want to go back to Natisha Lance.
In the late `90s, Noreen Gosch, who has been so critical to this investigation and so devoted to finding her son, says that her son appeared at her doorstep after he was a grown young man.
LANCE: He would have been 27 years old at the time. And this would have been March of 1997.
At this point, she didn`t live in the same house that she lived in before when Johnny was a young boy. She now lived in an apartment.
But she says at about 2:30 in the morning, two men came to the door. She let the men in and she immediately recognized one of those men to be her son Johnny.
She says that she asked him to let her see a birthmark that she knew that he had on his chest. They talked for about an hour and a half. And he told her about his past, what he had experienced over the last couple years.
And she says that he said that he had been involved in a child sex pornography ring and that he had to get out of the city. He said that there were people who wanted him to be dead, and that she offered to call the police at that point. He told her not to call the police because there were possible dangers that would be lurking if police got a hold of what was going on.
CASAREZ: All right. Now, we have spoken with police. Police say that they cannot verify this happened, but they also can`t say that it didn`t happen.
Joining us tonight is a man that has devoted many years to this case. It is James Rothstein. He is the private investigator for Noreen Gosch, joining us from St. Martin, Minnesota.
Mr. Rothstein, thank you so much for joining us.
Now, this story that Noreen has in regard to her son appearing on her doorstep in the late 1990s, she actually testified in court to that in a case that was not related to this case, but she testified under penalty of perjury that her son appeared on that doorstep so many years later.
Did you meet with someone in Chicago that actually allegedly arranged this meeting?
JAMES ROTHSTEIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: No, I did not meet with them in Chicago. I spoke to the individual who told me that he was brought in out of retirement to go to Chicago and meet with people who arranged and set the rules for Johnny Gosch to go home and meet his mother.
CASAREZ: And when did you have this conversation in relation to when Johnny Gosch allegedly appeared on her doorstep?
ROTHSTEIN: This happened about six years ago, about 2004, 2005.
CASAREZ: Do you believe that her son actually found her but told her she couldn`t report it?
ROTHSTEIN: Yes. That would not be out of the ordinary at all. Over the years, when I was a detective in New York, there were many situations where people would never, ever divulge what had happened, and they would never go home. And when they did, it was not to stay permanently.
CASAREZ: Now, this is just the first of many sightings allegedly of Johnny Gosch.
Mr. Rothstein, I want to ask you, what do you believe happened to him? If he is alive somewhere in this country, what do you think actually happened to him? Was he sold into the sex trade industry?
ROTHSTEIN: Normally what happens -- and during the time that I investigated this, I personally was involved in many of these types of cases. What normally happens is there`s a customer for a certain type of kid, and somebody goes and grabs them, and they usually get paid. It can vary from $2,500 on up. And then it`s delivered to the customer.
So, in this particular case, I believe that there was a customer looking for a young newspaper boy. That was probably his fetish. That`s why there were a couple of other newspaper boys that were also involved, one in the area there and one somewhere else.
So normally that`s how it works. Those that survive and don`t get killed right away, many of them survive and become part of the system. And they go underground.
We had many cases of children in New York, young men. They ranged all the way. And then eventually they also became users of children. So this is not out of the ordinary at all.
CASAREZ: To Marc Klaas, president of KlassKids Foundation, joining us from San Francisco.
How prevalent is something like this, being sold into this type of an industry, but yet surviving these many years.
MARC KLAAS, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: We have learned in recent years the enormity of the sex trade -- of the human sex trafficking industry in the United States. It is estimated, Jean, that between 200,000 and 300,000 of our own children in any given year are victims of human sex trafficking.
Now, this was an entirely different time, however. The Internet has provided sex traders and pornographers with a much greater ability to reach out and network with each other. So they were much more isolated at that time, probably much more careful and much more behind the scenes.
But I would never discount the theories that have been presented thus far. They sound entirely plausible to me.
CASAREZ: To C. W. Jensen, retired Portland Police captain.
What are your thoughts on that if this young man did appear at his mother`s doorstep saying, I am alive, here`s my birthmark, I want you to see it, but you can`t tell anybody because I could be harmed if you do? To not go to law enforcement with that in any capacity -- until she testified was when it came out -- does that have a ring of truth or distruth to you?
C.W. JENSEN, RETIRED PORTLAND POLICE CAPTAIN: I have to say that I disagree with the detective and Marc Klaas. I mean, this just seems like probably a horrible, horrible tragedy that this young man was killed, was murdered back at the time. And all of these things that have happened over the last 25 years just don`t seem to ring true to me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOSCH: Basically, in the beginning of our case, we were told that we did have no crime, and that at that time frame, any child over 10 years old was considered to be a runaway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was before dawn on the morning of September 5, 1982.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnny Gosch had done it plenty of times before.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twelve-year-old Johnny Gosch prepared his paper route.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Loads his papers into the wagon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Johnny set out to deliver the papers for his West Des Moines neighbors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Johnny never completes the paper route.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometime during that route, police say Johnny was abducted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnny`s paper wagon found only two blocks away from his home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Filled with copies of the paper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police struggle to find leads and solid evidence in the case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was no sign of Johnny.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Decades later, new tips continue to emerge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Since that morning, police have never been able to confirm a credible sighting of Johnny or find viable clues in his disappearance. Johnny`s mother insists Johnny was taken for human trafficking and believes he may still be alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez.
Everybody says Johnny Gosch was a good kid, that he was so respectful, and he wanted a job at 12 years old to earn money.
We do want to tell you police say that there is no evidence that Johnny Gosch was sold into the sex trade business at all, but they also say they have nothing to disprove that at this point.
We are taking your calls live. I want to go to Tiffany in Ohio.
Hi, Tiffany.
TIFFANY, OHIO: Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for calling, Tiffany.
Your question?
TIFFANY: I was wondering, when he showed up at her door with the man, why didn`t she do anything to try and help him?
CASAREZ: All right.
To James Rothstein, the private investigator for the mother in this case, Noreen Gosch.
Why didn`t she do anything to help her son in any way, to call 911, or get the authorities in some way to reunite him and save him from danger?
ROTHSTEIN: Well, in previous cases that I worked on as a New York City detective we found that that was very plausible because these people are kept in total fear and are always told that if they talk or do anything, they will be killed. Not only them, but their family.
We also know that if they have these people more than 72 hours, these children are gone. And they firmly believe that anything they do or say will not only cost them their lives, but the lives of everybody else they were involved with.
And I base my information on actual cases I worked on, and at the time we had actually infiltrated the whole underground operating in these type of things. So that`s what I base my opinion on.
CASAREZ: Brett Ehrlich, anchor/reporter, WHO Radio, joining us from Des Moines, Iowa, tonight.
Early on in this case, after little Johnny Gosch went mission, there was not only a sighting of him in the Southwest -- and I think it was El Paso, Texas -- but a little boy went up to a lady in a store. And what did she say?
EHRLICH: And what he said is, what Johnny Gosch, or purportedly Johnny Gosch -- went up to her and said, "I`m Johnny Gosch. Please help me."
And the woman remembered that after seeing one of those national programs, and it reminded her of it, in the Southwest. Now, they never actually said what city it was in the Southwest, but by 1984, so just two years from when Johnny Gosch was abducted, there were 12 separate sightings of Johnny Gosch down in Texas.
So that gives you an idea of the amount of times he was being seen. But you have to take it with a little grain of salt, because Johnny Gosch was the second boy ever -- or second person ever to be on those cartons of milk. You remember they used to publish those and put those on there?
He was number two. So he was literally the poster boy of abducted children. And so that came out. Those milk cartons started being distributed at the same time these tips started to come in.
CASAREZ: But Pat Brown, criminal profiler, on the other hand, this is someone separate and distinct from Johnny Gosch`s mother that says a little boy came up to her and said, "Help me. I`m Johnny Gosch."
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Yes, Jean, but we hear that all the time when somebody goes missing. They are seen every place, and there`s lots of stories. And I do want to clear up one thing.
This sex trade thing, they do not race around kidnapping tons of people. They don`t need to. They can just use runaways and children getting into prostitution. They`re not kidnapping everybody.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOSCH: We sold candy bars. We sold buttons. We`ve had benefit dances. We`ve had garage sales, rummage sales, bake sales. Anything that would be considered a fund-raiser, we have done it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just before dawn on a quiet Sunday September morning, 12-year-old Johnny Gosch wakes up early to make some money as a paperboy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Johnny set out to deliver the papers for his West Des Moines neighbors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened after that remains a mystery.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The wagon Johnny used to deliver the Sunday paper was found near his home. The wagon, filled with copies of that morning`s newspaper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who would take an innocent 12-year-old boy?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Johnny`s been missing nearly 30 years, but his family has never given up the fight to find him and are still hoping to find the now 42-year-old alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez.
You know, in 1982, when 12-year-old Johnny Gosch went to go sell his newspapers that day, you know who went with him? His dog.
There was an eyewitness to this abduction. It was his dog.
His dog was with him. And the dog ran back home and made it home. If only that animal could talk.
We`re taking your calls live.
To Audrey in Illinois.
Hi, Audrey.
AUDREY, ILLINOIS: Hi, Jean.
Johnny Gosch has been compared to a young boy in Rockford, Illinois, named Joseph Didier (ph) who disappeared exactly like him before Johnny Gosch. And there were questions in Rockford, Illinois, if the same man who had taken Joseph Didier (ph) had taken Johnny Gosch.
Joseph Didier`s (ph) body was found in a Boy Scout camp in Illinois eventually, but Johnny Gosch of course has never been found. But they had always linked the two because their disappearance were exactly the same.
I`m wondering if the investigators have ever looked at the link between the two.
CASAREZ: Well, we`ll find out about that. But Audrey, listen to this. There is another missing child that allegedly could be linked to this.
To Brad Ehrlich, anchor/reporter, joining us out of Des Moines, Iowa.
The name Eugene Martin, tell us about that case.
EHRLICH: Yes. Eugene Martin was on August 13th of 1984. So this is just about two years after Johnny Gosch was abducted.
And he went missing. He was also a Des Moines paperboy. And the difference this time around is the legwork that Noreen Gosch had done before.
She helped pass the Johnny Gosch Law, which means in this state when someone went missing, the police now have to start looking immediately. They can`t treat it as a runaway. It`s now treated as a kidnapping or something like that.
That`s the difference in those two years. But they searched and searched for Eugene, and they never found him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOSCH: A woman received in change in a store a dollar bill with the writing on the front of it, "I am alive," signed in cursive writing, "Johnny Gosch."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to find her.
GRACE: So many cases.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: So few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness seen the suspect on Nancy Grace.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy Grace show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found. Alive. 50 people, 50 days, 50 nights. Let`s don`t give up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s Sunday morning, and thousands are about to begin their weekend ritual, the morning paper. Twelve-year-old Johnny Gosch delivers it, but this morning, the papers don`t arrive, and Johnny won`t return home. By daybreak, the Gosch Family`s phone begins to ring. Customers inquiring about their papers. Dad goes looking and finds Johnny`s wagon just blocks from home. Papers still stacked and untouched, but no sign of Johnny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the weeks and months that followed, Johnny reportedly was seen at least twice identifying himself to strangers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But according to those same reports, a man quickly grabbed him away.
NOREEN GOSCH, MOTHER OF JOHNNY GOSCH: A woman received in change in a store, a dollar bill with the writing on the front of it "I Am Alive," signed in cursive writing, Johnny Gosch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s just one more roadblock, the family says, it`s encountered while searching for Johnny.
GOSCH: We`ve sold candy bars. We`ve sold buttons.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To trace Johnny, they`ve spent $75,000.
GOSCH: We`ve had benefit dances. We`ve had garage sales, rummage sales, bake sales.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which they raised themselves.
GOSCH: Anything that would be considered a fund-raiser, we have done it. All we want is our boy back, and we`re willing to do anything to get him back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": I`m Jean Casarez. Johnny Gosch`s mother, Noreen Gosch, she testified in court in an unrelated action under penalty of perjury that 15 years after her son went missing in 1982, that he came to her home in the middle of the night with another man, and he said, I want you to know I`m OK, I`m alive, I`m safe. He showed her his birthmark on his chest, but he said I`ve been sold into the sex trade industry. Don`t try to find me or I will be hurt.
Police say they don`t know. They don`t know if that`s true or not. She says it is true. I want to go out to Natisha Lance. Natisha, on the morning in 1982, when Johnny Gosch was beginning to deliver his papers, there were other little paper boys out there, too. I don`t understand why anyone didn`t see him abducted.
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right. There were three or four other newspaper carriers and an adult paper carrier who was out there that day, too. There were two brothers who saw him. They say that they saw him at his wagon there. They walked away for a bit, and when they came back 10 minutes later, Johnny was gone, but his wagon was still there.
Now, this man who apparently approached Johnny and his vehicle, he also approached another man, an adult carrier of the newspapers and asked him for directions, too. But again, what happens after that point is still such a mystery. Phone calls began to come into the Goschs home saying that newspapers had been undelivered that morning.
Johnny`s father went out to look and find out what was going on. He ended up delivering all those papers. The family dog had gone home. The dog who had gone out with Johnny earlier that day, but it wasn`t until 8:30 a.m. that morning when Johnny was reported missing to police.
CASAREZ: Taking your calls. To Fran in Tennessee. Hi, Fran.
FRAN, TENNESSEE. Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for calling.
FRAN: I know it was - I just watching this, it was early morning, but a lot of people are up awaiting their newspaper. Didn`t anybody see a vehicle or have the police -- did the police look for tire tracks or something?
CASAREZ: So, good questions. First of all, there was a vehicle that was spotted in the area. The man that was actually talking to Johnny Gosch, and he went and he spoke with an adult carrier. At the time, they said it was a Ford Fairmont, a two-tone vehicle, silver and dark black and dark blue. So, there was a vehicle reported.
To James Rothstein who is the family investigator, do you know at all if there were tire tracks spotted? Did they go door to door canvassing the neighborhood to see if anybody saw anything?
VOICE OF JAMES ROTHSTEIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR FOR NOREEN GOSCH: Yes. There were no tire tracks there that I know of. And I do believe that the family did go at that time door to door and talk to everybody. And over the years, there`s been a lot of information that came forward. And because I wasn`t directly involved in the case, I don`t know if the police ever did the follow-up investigations to determine what was accurate or if any of it was inaccurate.
So, I don`t know what the police have done on that part, but I don`t believe there were any tire tracks found.
CASAREZ: I want to go to Natisha Lance. I want everybody to hear this story about the dollar bill because it is another amazing alleged fact in this case.
LANCE: Right. Well, it was 1985, and Johnny`s parents, we`ve seen in some of the videos coming into the show tonight. Johnny`s parents gave a press conference, and his mother revealed that there was a dollar bill that was given in change to a woman at a supermarket in Sioux City, Iowa and written on that dollar bill it said "I Am Alive" and then signed in cursive, "Johnny Gosch."
Now, the mother says that she had three handwriting experts look at that dollar bill, look at the signature, compare it to samples of Johnny`s writing from before he disappeared, and those handwriting experts said that it was a match. However, police have not been able to confirm whether or not it was a match to Johnny`s writing.
CASAREZ: Just amazing. This is an amazing case with so many -- so many particulars that are individual to it. To Alan Ripka, defense attorney, I want to go back to when Noreen Gosch testified under penalty of perjury that her son came to her doorstep. That was in a court of law. It was an unrelated action, but the fact that she testified to that, knowing that she could be charged if it was not true.
They did actually charge someone else in the case on an unrelated matter with perjury, but they didn`t charge her at all.
ALAN RIPKA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, they couldn`t prove that she was lying. And a woman like this who has been through hell, her son being kidnapped and going through, I think a massive depression, might believe that this actually occurred. And whether or not it did or did not, the court was not interested in charging her with perjury.
But I`ll tell you this, I do believe that this was a preplanned kidnapping. I doubt that a sexual predator coincidentally was driving down the street, and they watched this boy, and they knew his newspaper delivery patterns.
CASAREZ: To Patricia Saunders, clinical psychologist, joining us from New York. Noreen Gosch, the mother of Johnny Gosch, also has said through the years that early on in 1985, I believe, she got three different phone calls, about 40 seconds in length each, and it was her son. Can someone be so distraught that to allow themselves to keep going that these things can be figments of their imagination to believe their son is alive?
PATRICIA SAUNDERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes, Jean. That really can happen. In order to keep hope alive, out of desperation and severe trauma of this kind, people can distort reality to a point where it`s delusional. But you know, in the end, this mom has done an awful lot of good by raising people`s consciousness, by making people more aware, and in that way, maybe she`s helped some other parents protect their kids a little bit more and people be a little more vigilant.
CASAREZ: And remember, everybody, there is legislation now in place because of Johnny Gosch and his abduction, but that legislation is, that if a child goes missing, there must immediately be police attention and law enforcement investigation into that disappearance, and that is a very, very good thing. To Jody in North Carolina. Hi, Jody.
JODY, NORTH CAROLINA: Hi, Jean. How are you?
CASAREZ: I`m fine. Thank you for calling.
JODY: My question was kind of answered by the psychologist. The mother sounds like -- my question initially was, was the mother investigated? Because what she`s saying sounds a little far-fetched, but I just wondered if she was also so desperate for her child to be alive that she was kind of having delusions of seeing him.
CASAREZ: Let`s ask the family investigator. James Rothstein joining us. Why should we believe what Noreen Gosch has said? Because law enforcement says we can`t confirm any of this.
ROTHSTEIN: Well, there`s a very simple answer to that. Johnny Gosch has not been found. He was kidnapped. Anything is possible. And like I said, I base my information on things I have seen in the past in similar cases. And I can tell you that that visit by Johnny Gosch, as I said, I personally interviewed the man that was called to set it up. And if anybody --
CASAREZ: And you believe it. All right. You believe it and you have credibility.
Tonight, everybody, please help us find Destry Rhinehart. He is 18 years old. He vanished on August 1st, 2004 from Orlando, Florida. He is 5 feet 5 inches tall, 135 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. If you have any information, please call 407-254-7000.
If your loved one is missing and you need help, go to CNN.com/nancygrace. Send us your story. We want to help you find your loved ones.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iowa authorities believe 12-year-old Johnny Gosch was abducted before dawn on September 5th, 1982.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnny Gosch wakes up early to make some money as a paper boy. He loads Sunday copies of the "Des Moines Register" into the red wagon he wheels around the neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The wagon Johnny used to deliver the Sunday paper was found near his home. The wagon filled with copies of that morning`s newspaper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnny never seen or heard from again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police have never been able to confirm a credible sighting of Johnny or find viable clues in his disappearance. Johnny`s mother insists Johnny was taken for human trafficking and believes he may still be alive.
GOSCH: All we want is our boy back. And we`re willing to do anything to get him back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Do you know that Johnny Gosch had been a paper boy for 13 months? So, he had been out there a long time. If anybody wanted to follow him and see his patterns, they would have been able to. His mother, the family`s private investigator, believes he is alive, that he was sold when he was abducted into the sex trade industry in 1982, and his life went that direction, and to this day, he cannot show his identity because he could be harmed. We`re taking your calls. Melissa in Texas. Hi, Melissa.
MELISSA, TEXAS: Hello. My question is why would she answer the door to two men in the middle of the night? I mean, and also, did they ever identify the other man that was with Johnny?
CASAREZ: OK. Some good common sense. James Rothstein, did she ever tell you why she opened the door to two men at 2:30 in the morning?
ROTHSTEIN: Yes. I believe she had probably known that he was coming because there were two people that went there, Johnny and one other individual, and that was the original plan when Johnny was allowed to go home from my source. And the other part of this is everybody is questioning Noreen`s integrity, and in the 12 years that I`ve been working with her, there`s never been a question in my mind about her integrity.
The big question is how come this case hasn`t been solved by law enforcement? Why do we want to blame Noreen? Let`s go looking for the criminals, not blaming somebody.
CASAREZ: So, did you set up the meeting? And did you know ahead of time that these two men, one being Johnny, were going to go to her apartment?
ROTHSTEIN: No, I did not set up that meeting. This is information I received a couple of years ago, about five, six years ago, from the individual who did set up that meeting. And he was well known to Noreen. He, in fact, had testified in front of Arlen Specter`s committee in the United States Senate on this case. And he had credibility when he testified there. So, I give this man a lot of credibility in the information he gave me.
CASAREZ: So, you believe, obviously, that this is true. I want to go to Natisha Lance. Talk to me about Ron Bonacci, if I am saying that name correctly. This is someone who said hey, look, I was involved. I was involved in the abduction, but law enforcement says they don`t think so.
LANCE: Right. Paul Bonacci, he is actually the reason that Noreen was testifying in that case back in 1999. What he says is when he was behind bars is that he was involved in Johnny`s disappearance. He says that he was there to help lure him into the vehicle with that man, that car that was seen by three witnesses the day that Johnny was kidnapped. And he says he was involved that day.
Now, police have said that there`s been no evidence that leads them to believe that his story is true. And he was also involved, he says, in another child sex ring that was going on and that is why he was testifying in that case back in 1999.
CASAREZ: To Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaaskids Foundation. You know, in so many of these cases that we cover, I mean, we applaud law enforcement. What would we do without law enforcement? But, in this case, Noreen Gosch has said from the beginning, law enforcement is not helping me. They`re not doing what they need to do. But, yet, I have read in the case file, law enforcement did a lot. But is there a point where law enforcement doesn`t go that extra mile to solve the case?
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Well, we have to understand that this was nearly 30 years ago, Jean, and they didn`t have any kind of training whatsoever in how to investigate missing child cases. Even now, when they do have training, we see a lot of criticism in an awful lot of the cases. These are very, very difficult cases to crack. You know, this is about a little boy who goes out one morning, and before the sun even comes up, has completely disappeared off the face of the earth.
We`re literally trying to pick a needle out of a haystack in the best of these cases, and unfortunately, we`re not always able to find that needle. So, you know, there`s a lot of criticism that can go around everywhere, but law enforcement is under enormous pressure. And when they don`t have the training and the know-how to go about investigating these things, they are really double down on the pressure.
CASAREZ: To Pat Brown, what should law enforcement do now? They say that when a tip comes in, they investigated, but it doesn`t look like they`re actively doing anything at this point so many years later.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: That`s probably correct because they can`t really do anything. This boy was probably dead very quickly, probably buried in some remote location, maybe on a farm, they`re not going to find him. But I want to point out what`s really sad with this poor mom and other family members like her, they become ripe for people who want to abuse them and use them. They spend fortunes on private investigators when there`s really no hope of finding anything.
There are psychics that come in and take advantage of them. Sometimes, they search out every expert in the book, one after the other, until somebody tells them what they want to hear, and it`s just extraordinarily sad. I think, you know, they`re in such a bad place, and no one should take advantage of them.
CASAREZ: And Pat Brown, do you realize that this mother, Noreen Gosch, was extorted for money and it resulted in a prosecution and a conviction? I want to go out to Darlise in Washington State. Hi.
DARLISE, WASHINGTON: Hi. My question is, is that could anybody identify the man in the vehicle that pulled up and asked him questions? Hi.
CASAREZ: Boy, oh boy. James Rothstein, you weren`t with the case at that point, but could anybody see that man? We know it was a man that was in the vehicle that morning.
ROTHSTEIN: I have never heard that he was identified, and I don`t know all the information, but what Mr. Klaas said, I want to add one thing to that. There`s another thing that gets involved here. It is very, very expensive to do these types of investigation. And that`s why, in New York, we could do it, because we had the money to do these types of cases. This is a very expensive investigation to conduct.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CASAREZ: These are the faces of America`s missing. Every 30 seconds, another child, a sister, a brother, a father, a mother, they disappear. Their families are left behind, wondering and waiting and hoping. We have not forgotten.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Marshall Austin is an endangered missing adult who disappeared from a residence in the Houston area in 2003. If you have any information, call 713-731-5223.
Kemberly Ramer disappeared from Opp, Alabama in 1987. At the time, she wore clear braces and had dark eyebrows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kemberly went missing. It`s going on 13 years ago. Kemberly was at home, and she was by herself at the time, and someone came into the house and took her. Everything was left there. Her contacts, her clothes, her shoes, car keys, everything. There was a struggle in her bedroom. There was picture that had fallen to the floor, you know, in her bedroom.
There were things that were scattered around that I could tell that there had been a scuffle or something in her bedroom. No one else was at home. She was home alone. She was 17 years old. It`s just something that we have to cope with every single day or try to cope with it. It is just very, very hard for all of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jesus Dominguez was allegedly kidnapped from Golden Acres, Texas by his non-custodial father in 2008. They may be traveling in a Green Ford F-150 pickup truck with Texas plates.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jesus has been missing for about three years. I have no idea where he`s at. We think he may be in Mexico with his paternal grandparents and his family members. Once his father found out that I had gotten custody, he took off with him, and we didn`t -- we haven`t seen him since.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. See you tomorrow night, 9 o`clock sharp eastern. Until then, we will be looking. Good night, everybody.
END
