John David Gosch: The Unexpected Twist You Never Saw Coming

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In the early morning of September 5th , 1982 , 12-year-old Johnny Gosch set out for his morning paper route in West Des Moines, Iowa. Typically, Johnny’s father woke up early to help him, but Johnny had been begging his parents to let him complete the route on his own. Noreen Gosch , of West Des Moines, Iowa, whose 12-year-old son, John David , vanished from his paper route on the morning of Sept. 5, 1982, recalls the sheer “physical pain” of the vigil. 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. She claimed she was visited by her son when she testified during a 1999 pedophile crime organization trial in Nebraska. In the early hours of September 5, 1982, the quiet suburb of West Des Moines, Iowa, was shattered by the disappearance of 12-year-old paperboy Johnny Gosch . What started as a routine day for young Johnny, delivering newspapers with his trusty red wagon, soon turned into one of the most chilling cases of a missing child in American history. John David Gosch , born November 12, 1969, was a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa, who vanished on the morning of September 5, 1982, between 6 and 7 a.m. His disappearance is widely believed to. John has never been seen or heard from again. They immediately phoned authorities to report Gosch missing. Authorities initially treated the case as that of a runaway but his parents were adamant that he was abducted or that foul play was involved. On Sunday , September 5 , 1982 , Johnny got up early but didn’t wake his father up like he usually did. Instead, around 5:45 am he quietly slipped out of the house, taking only his dachshund,. The unsolved case of Johnny Gosch , a West Des Moines paperboy, transformed missing person investigations and eroded confidence in child safety. West Des Moines paperboy Johnny Gosch , 12, disappeared in the early morning hours on Sept. 5, 1982, after setting out to deliver the Sunday paper.