On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do a true crime dive and look at the case of a missing paper boy named John Gosch. This one starts a simple missing person case and then gets pretty strange, delving into child sex trafficking, a mysterious man named Sam Soda, and a possible connection to the infamous Franklin Child Prostitution Ring. It gets even more strange when an adult John Gosch shows up for a brief visit with his mother, all the while waiting for permission to speak from the man who accompanied him. The basics of this one are, well, basic, but the details added by his mother Noreen really make it a next level case.

On September 5, 1982, twelve year old John Gosch got up early and started his paper route at 5:45 in the morning. He always went with his father, and asked his dad if he could go alone that morning, and he was told he could not. Either way, John woke up, got his trusty dachshund to go with him, and did the route solo. His father John Sr. and his mother Noreen were woken up to multiple phone calls from customers who never got their papers delivered. John’s dad walked the neighborhood and found his son’s wagon, full of papers and abandoned.

They called the cops, who wouldn’t start it as a missing person case for 72 hours, and in the meantime clues rolled in. Neighbors and other paper boys saw a creepy man in a blue car talking to John and asking around for directions. The paperboys said John was scared of him and planned to go home. But he never made it. The family assembled a 20 person search team to look through the woods, but the police showed up and dispersed the crowd claiming there was no missing person.

Cut to a couple of years later, and a private Detective named Sam Soda contacted Noreen. He said another paperboy was going to be abducted in August, and he was right. On August 12, Eugene Martin went missing on his paper route. Sam Soda also got a pedophile busted and fired from the local newspaper. And then there sighting of kinds in other cities claiming they were John Gosh, a dollar bill with his name written on it, and strange writing on a wall in Colorado.

The case takes a strange turn years later, when Noreen claims a 27 year old adult John finally made his way home, talks to her for a while, and leaves to never see her again. Oh, and then there is Paul Bonacci who showed up and claimed he himself was an abducted child turned sex worker who knew John. He was the one who initiated the famous Franklin Child Abduction case involving a credit union and a sex ring. So, if you like true crime, mystery, and conspiracy, you’re in the right place! Welcome to the Sofa King Podcast!

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Johnny_Gosch

https://medium.com/the-true-crime-times/the-twisted-unsolved-tale-of-the-johnny-gosch-disappearance-part-1-a52496d1887f

http://charleyproject.org/case/john-david-gosch

https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Tragedy-Of-Johnny-Gosch

https://www.ranker.com/list/what-happened-to-johnny-gosch/anna-lindwasser

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/16/Fired-newspaper-worker-They-said-dont-talk/6783466747200/