West Des Moines police confirm that they’re checking the authenticity of photos that purport to be pictures of Johnny Gosch. Sergeant Jason Bryan says everyone on the force knows the story of the West Des Moines paperboy who vanished on his early-morning route in 1982.
He says the missing boy’s mother, Noreen Gosch, came to police on Thursday. She brought them some photos and turned them over to the criminal-investigation unit. Bryan says the lead detective on the case is now researching their authenticity. A lot of claims by people who said they’d seen the boy, and some who said they were Johnny, over the years have been debunked, but the sergeant says this one will get the same attention as any case.
The same approach, he says — any case that’s open and active, and any new information regarding a case, is looked into to the fullest extent. “Then we go from there, basically,” he says.
Detective Boyd is assigned to the case and will be working on the new photos. He isn’t the original member of the force who handled it back in 1982, but currently is the detective on the case. It was September 5, 1982, when Johnny Gosch was last seen, picking up papers that had been dropped off for his regular route.