Investigator: "Photos not of missing boy" (Johnny Gosch)

[Divine Discontent]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14818169/

DES MOINES, Iowa - The photos of bound and gagged boys that were sent to an Iowa woman whose son disappeared 24 years ago were investigated in the late 1970s and are not her missing son, a retired Florida sheriff’s investigator said Wednesday.

Nelson Zalva, who now works for the Hillsborough County, Fla., State Attorney’s Office, said he investigated the same photos while working for the county’s sheriff in 1978 or 1979.

“I remember this case,” he said

<snip>
Lt. Jeff Miller, a West Des Moines Police spokesman, said the investigation is continuing into who left the photos at Noreen Gosch’s house.

“If they are not of Johnny Gosch, someone is playing a horrible prank,” he said.

Miller said Gosch has been informed of the Florida investigation.

A telephone message left Wednesday morning for Gosch was not immediately returned.

[Poll_Blind]

1. That this...would be part of something different is equally grotesque. n/t

PB

[Divine Discontent]

2. sadly

Florida Investigator??? WHY is it that Florida is involved in everything bizarre??

I bet there's thousands of those things happening every week in the USA, alone, and I'm not talking about teens experimenting with whoever they want with their own decisions on doing what they want - I'm talking about abusing young kids, kidnapping them, rapes, or kids who are afraid to tell that their Dad, Mom, relative, authority figure are molesting them because they're confused about it all.

THIS MAKES ME FURIOUS!

I don't understand how Noreen Gosch could be confused about the photo of just the one boy she said IS her son, it's not been released so I don't know how the quality is, but the one of the 3 is kinda hard to be certain about what the boy on the right looks like. But she says it's her son.

such a bizarre story.

[Joanne98]

3. Florida Investigator? Oh Pleeze!

[Name removed]

4. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lars39]

5. So the mother doesn't recognize her son?

What about the parents of the other children? Have they identified their sons?

[Divine Discontent]

6. exactly

he's saying she's lying? so creepy it's unreal. I know there's a chance she's so out of it, that she thinks it's him because of what anguish she's been through, but wouldn't the one photo with him by himself that is not released, show clearly it's her son? No response yet from her.

[pitohui]

8. she appears to be a hysteric?

i'm sorry to say that this poor woman strikes me as mad w. grief and not terribly credible

[brentspeak]

9. Sad to say, that seems to be the case

[lisby]

11. That is completely untrue.

I've heard her interviewed and she not "mad with grief." She's perfectly sane and perfectly capable of identifying her son within the same limiations of human memory that we all possess. If the photo is truly not her son, then blame time, not wild grief.

Lisby

[LeftyMom]

7. Anybody got a link to the pic?

I don't want to look at it again either, but it seems to me it'd be pretty easy to look at a pic and tell by the clothes if it was taken in '82 or '78-79. Fashion changes in four years, although usually less in boys' clothes than girls'.

Besides, didn't the boy's mother identify his outfit? If doesn't really make sense that a boy who looks enough like him to fool his mother was photographed hogtied in a outfit close enough to fool his mother years before and half a country away, and that that photo just happened to wind up on his Mom's doorstep.

[pitohui]

10. don't have the link any more but i'll give you a bump so someone else will

however as an FYI it would not be possible to date the photo to 82 as opposed to 78, the boys were wearing jeans which were the same on boys over that time frame (bells had passed from fashion and jeans were just unremarkable jeans in those years)


what disturbed me was the mom claimed to see her son, in sweatpants, in the photo, even tho all 3 boys in the photo were wearing jeans -- she described an outfit that no
boy in the photo was wearing

i wish people would stop screwing w. this lady's grief

she is ill and someone even sicker is messing w. her

[kma3346]

12. Here's some more information

http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5405269&nav=1LFX:

"Investigators say it looks like the mother of a missing West Des Moines boy is the victim of a cruel prank.

Last month, West Des Moines Police began investigating two photos left on the doorstep of Noreen Gosch, Johnny Gosch's mother. Gosch disappeared while on his morning paper route on the morning of September 5, 1982.

The photos show boys, believed to be ages 10 to 14, lying on a bed, bound and gagged. Ms. Gosch was convinced her son was in the photos.

Today, an investigator in Tampa, Florida says that's impossible. He says he investigated those exact photos in the late 1970s, before Gosch went missing. "This case was investigated from '78 to '79. It's sad. Our feelings go out to the mother. It's pretty sick, pretty sad," said Nelson Zalva, the investigator in Florida.

He says the boys in the photos were identified and questioned, but the case was never prosecuted because the boys said they willingly posed for the photos.

West Des Moines police confirm the pictures are authentic. They're now waiting for the investigator in Florida to find the case in old archives to prove the pictures did indeed come from their 1970s investigation. Police say they're also working to find out where the pictures came from."

That's really weird about the boys in the photos posing for these pictures. Where are these boys (now men) today?