Gosch, again

"You have an overactive imagination."
"These are just the facts, Rich. I mean, I haven't even begun
to let my imagination loose on this thing." - Cutter's Way

Briefly, there's some movement on the story of the photographs left at Noreen Gosch's door.

A tip out of Florida is apparently prompting West Des Moines police to conclude that not only do the photos fail to depict Johnny Gosch, but they don't even show a crime scene. (First reports spoke of an "anonymous tipster," but that has since been spiked from the corporate news.)

The unattributed lead drew police attention to Nelson Zalva, a retired Florida sheriff's investigator currently employed by the State Attorney's Office, who claims, with remarkable imprecision, that "he investigated a case in either 1978 or 1979. He said he identified the boys in the photos. Zalva said they voluntarily posed for the pictures, but he couldn't recall why."

On apparently nothing more than the strength of Zalva's word, police in Des Moines appear ready, and relieved, to accept that the delivery of the photos was simply a cruel hoax.

Noreen has responded:

The West Des Moines Police released a statement, indicating that they received an anonymous note saying "there was an investigator in Florida who had investigated and identified the boys in the recent photo, which they appeared bound and gagged in 1979". They also stated this photo had been on the internet since 1979.

Unfortunately, this press release caused a media storm and much confusion because they neglected to also mention that the detective only saw the photo of the "THREE BOYS ON THE BED". At no time had he ever seen the photo of Johnny Gosch ... the black/white photo below. We also know that the internet as we know it ..... did not exist in 1979.

We want to let people know so this will answer the questions you all must have in your minds by now. This press release was issued incorrectly and prematurely by the West Des Moines Police.

Johnnygosch.com has also posted the following photograph which accompanied the other two left on Noreen's doorstep. (There may, in fact, be many more.) The man depicted, according to information accompanying the package, was a perp who abused Johnny and many others. Noreen handed it over to police, who remarked that the man is "dead and there is a device around his neck called a ligature." ("Dream's End" asks on the RI forum: "Was it already understood by the rest of you that the idea that this perp has a ligature around his neck brings us back to the JonBenet case?")





According to Noreen Gosch, the only photograph Nelson Zalva has claimed to ID is the colour picture of three boys bound and gagged on a bed. According to Zalva, he remembers the photograph well enough but can't remember the year, and reassures police that no crime was committed but can neither recall why, nor apparently produce evidence to support his claim. And perhaps most suspicious, there's the "anonymous tipster" who was both following the Gosch story and who also claimed to knew the details of an obscure case which came across the desk of a Tampa investigator nearly 30 years before. If there's nothing to the story and the boys were bound, gagged and photographed voluntarily all in good fun, then why the need for anonymity from the tipster who hooked up Zalva with the police halfway across the country?

Given Florida's record on missing, abused and murdered children - it was in a Tallahassee park that the CIA's predatory paedophilic cult the Finders were arrested - tips from state officials ought to be, shall we say, thoroughly vetted.

Coincidentally, Monday was Florida's eighth annual Missing Children's Day, which this year fell on September 11. Jeb Bush remarked, "We feel sorrow for the children we have lost and we also feel sorrow for the Americans and others, frankly, that lost their lives five years ago in the cowardly attacks on our country."

Bush added, "I'm not sure why God decided to bring these two acts together." But they do seem to go together, don't they?