'Missing Johnny' Documentary on MSNBC Sunday Traces Disappearance of West Des Moines Paper Boy

Filmmaker David Beilinson shuddered a bit at the timing – first last summer when Evansdale cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins disappeared, and then again over a week ago when their bodies were found by hunters in northeast Iowa.

When the Evansale cousins vanished, Beilinson and his film crew were in Iowa interviewing West Des Moines mom Noreen Gosch for a documentary on her 30-year search for answers about the disappearance of her son, Johnny, who never came home from his morning paper route on Sept. 5, 1982.

The film, “Missing Johnny,” premieres Sunday, Dec. 16, on MSNBC’s Maximum Drama program. It airs at 8 p.m. CST.

When the cousins’ bodies were discovered, Beilinson was again focused on the Gosch case and was contacting media for the one-hour documentary.

In a news release, Beilinson and his Rumur Inc. co-producers – Suki Hawley and Michael Galinski – said the one-hour program “chronicles the endless intrigue and conspiracy theories surrounding the eyewitness sightings, physical evidence and case-turning discoveries which span across three decades.”

Besides Noreen Gosch, those interviewed included her former husband and Johnny’s father John Gosch Sr., convicted child molester Paul Bonacci (who confirmed his role in Johnny’s abduction), West Des Moines Police Lt. Cam Coppess, retired police Capt. Bob Rushing, and Eileen Wixted and Frank Santiago, reporters for WHO-TV and the Des Moines Register, respectively, who covered the then 12-year-old’s disappearance.

Beilinson said in an interview with Patch that he and his co-producers have been aware of the Gosch case for about a decade and view it as a watershed case that changed how law enforcement officials respond to reports of missing children.

For example:

• The Johnny Gosch Bill struck down the provision of an Iowa law that let authorities wait 72 hours before declaring a child missing. It’s been cloned by at least eight other states.
• Because of her efforts, Johnny’s and Eugene Martin’s pictures were among the first to be printed on milk cartons, yesterday’s low-tech version of today’s Amber Alerts. (Eugene Martin, also a Des Moines Register paper boy, disappeared two years after Johnny and has never been seen again.)
• Gosch’s testimony was instrumental in establishing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a national clearinghouse for missing children cases.

Delving into the various aspects of the story, Beilinson said he and his colleagues experienced a range of emotions, from being “sad, angry and inspired by Noreen and inspired by the comradery of people who helped in the beginning.”

Beilinson called Noreen Gosch “an amazing character” who has been judged unfairly.

“It was kind of a, ‘I feel bad for her, but jeez, does she have to go on the media all the time?’ “ Beilinson said. “I think they wanted her to be quiet and go away. It’s much easier to deal with murders and out-there crimes than sexually exploited children, and she felt the brunt of that.”

One of the biggest surprises was that since the 1980s, big media stories about human trafficking and child prostitution are rare. “People think of it as a problem from the ‘80s and not something that happens now,” he said.

A second installment of “Missing Johnny” may air within six months on MSNBC’s Maximum Drama, which takes viewers to places that are considered “off limits and out of bounds,” Beilinson said.

Other investigations this season have resulted in stories such as “Sex Slaves: Chicago” and “Ted Bundy’s Death Row Tapes.”
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In September, Patch’s “Iowa’s Missing Kids” project traced Noreen Gosch’s 30-year journey to find her son. Read her story:

• Innocence Abducted: Noreen Gosch Blinded by Ugly World of Sex Trade (Part 2 of a Series
• Johnny Gosch’s Mom ‘a Pioneer’ in Protecting Children (Part 3 of a Series)