Johnny Gosch was born November 12, 1969 in West Des Moines, Iowa. A paperboy in his hometown, 12-year-old Johnny went missing on September 5, 1982 and was presumed to have been kidnapped. A neighbor named Mike told police that he saw Johnny talking to a man in a blue car with Nebraska license plates. Despite this tip, there have been very few leads in the case and Johnny has now been missing for over 32 years.
Johnny’s mother Noreen believes that he is still alive and is being held captive. She claims that on a morning in 1997, when Johnny would have been 27 years old, that Johnny and the man who captured him visited her and told her that he was alright. According to Noreen, Johnny looked over at the man multiple times for permission to talk. No evidence has ever corroborated Noreen’s story.
In 2006, Noreen received pictures of a man she thought was Johnny who was bound, branded, and gagged. Police say this was a cruel prank on a devastated woman and that the pictures were from another case that had already been solved. They say there is no evidence to prove that the man in the photos was indeed Johnny. There have also been rumors and conspiracies that Jeff Gannon, famous white house reporter, is Johnny Gosch. No DNA tests have proven this to be true.
Noreen is now a missing child advocate. Johnny would be about 44 years old. If you have any information to help this case please call West Des Moines Police Department at 515-222-3320.
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