She said that her son told her that he had been the victim of a pedophile organization and had been cast aside when he was too old[1] but subsequently feared for his life and lived under an assumed identity, feeling it was not safe to return home.
The case received renewed publicity in 2006 when his mother said she had found photographs on her doorstep depicting Gosch in captivity.
[3] On Sunday, September 5, 1982, in the suburb of West Des Moines, Johnny Gosch left home before dawn to begin his paper route.
[4][5] Although it was customary for Johnny to awaken his father to help with the route, the boy took only the family's miniature dachshund, Gretchen, with him that morning.
Another paperboy named Mike reported that he observed Gosch talking to a stocky man in a blue two-toned car near the paper drop;[7][8] another witness, John Rossi, saw the man in the blue car talking to Gosch and "thought something was strange.
"[9] Rossi underwent hypnosis and told police some of the numbers and that the plate was from Warren County, Iowa.
[8] A neighbor heard a door slam, and saw a silver Ford Fairmont speed away northwards from where Johnny's wagon was found.
[7] John and Noreen Gosch, Johnny's parents, began receiving phone calls from customers along their son's route, complaining of undelivered papers.
[10] The Gosches immediately contacted the West Des Moines police department, and reported Johnny's disappearance.
[14] A few months after his September 1982 disappearance, Noreen Gosch has said her son was spotted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a boy yelled to a woman for help before being dragged off by two men.
[22] On March 29, 1986, the day before Easter, then-13-year-old Marc James Warren Allen told his mother he was going to walk to a friend's house down the street.
[24] Authorities were unable to prove a connection between the three cases, yet Noreen Gosch says that she was personally informed of the abduction of Eugene Martin a few months in advance by a private investigator who was searching for her son.
In the letter, Meier stated that he was a guard in a motorcycle club when Gosch's son disappeared in September 1982.
On September 1, 2006, Gosch reported that she found photographs left at her front door, some of which she posted on her website.
She says that a black-and-white photo appears to show 12-year-old Johnny Gosch with his mouth gagged, his hands and feet tied, and an apparent human brand on his shoulder.
[30]Nelson Zalva, who worked for the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's Office in the 1970s, said the details of the letter were true and adds that he also investigated the black-and-white in "1978 or 1979", before Gosch's disappearance.
[34] In her 2024 updated edition of Why Johnny Can't Come Home, Noreen states that she believes child pornographers Phillip Paske and John David Norman were responsible for her son's kidnapping.
She established the Johnny Gosch Foundation in 1982, through which she visited schools and spoke at seminars about the modus operandi of sexual predators.
She lobbied for "The Johnny Gosch Bill", state legislation which would mandate an immediate police response to reports of missing children.
[39] Gosch also testified before the U.S. Department of Justice, which provided $10 million to establish the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.