John David Gosch: The Unexpected Hero

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John’s mother, Noreen Gosch , hired private investigators to look into her son ’ s disappearance. She believes he was kidnapped and sold into a pedophile prostitution ring. On September 5 , 1982 , 12-year-old Johnny Gosch woke up early to deliver newspapers in his West Des Moines, Iowa neighborhood. His fellow paperboys spotted him at around 6 a.m. With his wagon full of deliveries not far from his house — but Gosch never made it home. Johnny Gosch , a 12-year-old paperboy, vanished in 1982, sparking one of America’s most chilling missing child cases. His whereabouts remain unknown. In March 1983, a 12-year-old boy matching Johnny’s description approached a woman leaving a store in Oklahoma. The boy said to her, “I’m John David Gosch . Please help me.” Two men came to the boy and led him away. When a 12-year-old paperboy named Johnny Gosch disappeared on the job in West Des Moines, Iowa at the crack of dawn on Sept. 5, 1982 – 40 years ago – America was just beginning to awaken to the problem of missing and sexually exploited children in this country. In 1989, 21-year-old Paul A. Bonacci told his attorney John DeCamp that he had been abducted into a sex ring with Gosch as a teenager and was forced to participate in Gosch’s kidnapping. John DeCamp met with Bonacci and believed he was telling the truth. In March 1997 , approximately fifteen years after Johnny went missing, his case took an interesting turn. Noreen reported she was awoken by a knock on her front door at 2:30 a.m. His disappearance was a near carbon copy of that of 12-year-old Johnny Gosch , who set out with his dog and his red wagon Sept. 5, 1982, to deliver the Sunday newspaper near his suburban West. In 1982, Johnny Gosch disappeared and the Gosch family found themselves living a parents’ worst nightmare.