IA IA - Johnny Gosch, 12, W Des Moines, 5 Sept 1982 - What happened? - #2

[Mr. E]

The $20 bill isn't on the website anymore, is it? It seems like she has kept everything up, but the bill is gone.

I heard it was a message to Johnny. If that's true, she must really believe he's alive. Which means she really was visited in 1997 by somebody, either Johnny or someone claiming to be him with enough evidence to make Johnny's mother believe it.

She keeps mentioning a birthmark on his chest. On one picture I saw, one that she said has been confirmed as Johnny (it does look like him, and he is dressed in the same sweatpants Johnny was wearing), Noreen says you can see the birthmark. "It is the birthmark I've been telling people about all these years," she says. I don't see it, though. Anybody else see the identifying marks on those horrible pictures?

 

[Dr. Doogie]

The $20 bill isn't on the website anymore, is it? It seems like she has kept everything up, but the bill is gone.

I have a copy of it. See attachment below.

I heard it was a message to Johnny. If that's true, she must really believe he's alive. Which means she really was visited in 1997 by somebody, either Johnny or someone claiming to be him with enough evidence to make Johnny's mother believe it.

That was my (and many others) theory. Noreen obviously altered the serial numbers on the bill as part of the message. The first two digits of the number are "GJ" (Gosch Johnny?) The number on the front side starts with a "4", but on the back side this is replaced with a "U". So it would appear that this means "Johnny Gosch - for you". The significance of the rest of the numbers or any imagery on the bills is anyone's guess.

Noreen does seem to sincerely believe that she was visited by Johnny since his disappearance. What is to be decided is whether it really happened or is she delusional. There was a time when I would given Noreen the benfit of doubt, but her recent behavior and associations open up the question of her mental state.

She keeps mentioning a birthmark on his chest. On one picture I saw, one that she said has been confirmed as Johnny (it does look like him, and he is dressed in the same sweatpants Johnny was wearing), Noreen says you can see the birthmark. "It is the birthmark I've been telling people about all these years," she says. I don't see it, though. Anybody else see the identifying marks on those horrible pictures?

I don't see this mark that she is talking about either. At first, I wondered if it was on the original, but got lost in a scan, but then I remembered - the pictures that Noreen received were from the Internet and had already been scanned. Many of the pictures that she has posted are merely "right-clicked" and copied from the Jacobstales site. Thus, what we have is exactly what she has. This is one more (admittedly minor) bit of evidence that Noreen is willing to see and believe things that others do not.

 

[Taylor]

"I'm not willing to dismiss a pedo ring, though. Clearly those do exist. We see them being busted in the news all the time now...Some of it I can wrap my mind around, like pedo rings that snatch kids, fly them around, trade/sell them, etc. Some of it seems too farfetched, like the president and vice president and other high-ups involved with child sex parties."

Not merely far-fetched, but highly improbable. The F.B.I. has undertaken advanced psychological studies of pedophiles, and these show that many peds, while generally clever, suffer from at least one serious Achilles' heel: they often cannot control their urges for immediate self-gratification. This is the sort of man who might impulsively snatch a lone, vulnerable child away from a bus stop, rape him, then murder him to conceal his crime, but he is a poor candidate for membership in a "pedophile ring." Organized child sex-slave rings loom large in the worried minds of many American parents, but, in reality, they probably don't exist in the United States, at least to the degree the urban-mythmakers would have us believe. The risks are simply too great on account of the socially taboo complexion of pedophilia. Moreover, the secretive, selfish, loner-like nature of individual pedophiles make them intrinsically unlikely to participate in "rings" of like-minded perverts.

Finally, the "pedo rings" that Mr. E says "clearly do exist" are often found, after years of investigation, to be nothing of the kind. How many sensational news stories about "lurid child sex rings" have we seen, only later to learn that they were concocted by over-zealous district attorneys and child sex abuse "experts" who coached young children to say things that could be used as "evidence" against their parents and teachers? The McMartin Day Care scandal in California some years ago is a perfect example of this phenomenon, and there are many, many others similar to it.

Are there cases in which one, two, or perhaps even a handful of perverts have kidnaped, molested, and even murdered children? Yes, of course there are. But my point is that such cases are comparatively rare when juxtaposed against the crimes of individual, "non-organized" pedophiles, whose conduct is dictated largely by impulse and opportunity. The notion that efficient, highly-organized, technologically-advanced child sex and bondage rings operate in multi-state jurisdictions for the sick, twisted pleasure of cadres of pedophiles is fantastical. The concept of such organizations existing in the U.S. defies simple logic and logistics.

 

[Dr. Doogie]

Forgot the attachment of the $20 bill photo. :doh:

 

[dorca the just]

Personally I’m not sure if NG has retained her connection with Patricia Johnson. The quote on her website that directs anyone with problems with PJ to contact her directly indicates to me that she might just have recognized that there are problems with this woman. I’ve read some of her allegations, and when I compare them to NG’s, they’re way out there for me. If the allegations raised by NG are hard to believe by many, they are nonetheless coherent, consistent and in my mind deserving of consideration. Some of the details of this case over the years have convinced me too firmly on this point.
But here’s yet another wrinkle that gives me the hinkies. NG claims to have taped a conversation with an individual who warned her that yet another paperboy was going to be kidnapped in Des Moines. Several months later EM was abducted/disappeared. She attempted to interest the media and the Des Moines police in this tape, but no takers. I’m wondering where that tape is, and I’d like her to put that recording on her website if she can do so. By this encouragement I’m not saying she is lying; I amm actually more in her corner than against her. I merely think it would increase her credibility even further.

 

[Mr. E]

In response to my comment about pedo rings, Taylor said,

Finally, the "pedo rings" that Mr. E says "clearly do exist" are often found, after years of investigation, to be nothing of the kind. How many sensational news stories about "lurid child sex rings" have we seen, only later to learn that they were concocted by over-zealous district attorneys and child sex abuse "experts" who coached young children to say things that could be used as "evidence" against their parents and teachers? The McMartin Day Care scandal in California some years ago is a perfect example of this phenomenon, and there are many, many others similar to it.

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of that case in England (last year? last spring?) involving a man named Cox (Son of God is what he called himself online), which involved something like 30+ kids and some 700 perverts. I recall it being internet based -- kids being abused online while club members watched.

Another one I recall was Club Orchid, later called Wonderland. That one was a few years ago.

In both of these pedo rings, pictures and victims were recovered, so it wasn't just hearsay. All I know is what I read in the news, so who knows if the children in these cases were actually traded or sold. I'm just saying that if these internet pedo rings do exist, and if I believe what the news tells me, then they do, then the trading and selling of children doesn't seem that farfetched to me. Especially in the years before the availability of the internet, such as when Johnny was taken.

 

[Taylor]

Mr E, there is no question that children are being sexually molested --- "abused" is too kind a word --- and that, in some cases, there is a level of organization to the act sometimes involving one, two, or perhaps a few people. This is not in dispute.

However, I object to the term "child rings" because of the lurid, steamy dime-store novel connotations that these words conjur in the minds of ordinary folks who are worried about the safety of their children. The word "ring" is particularly loaded and apt to build false impressions in the imaginations of frightened people who possess only a cursory knowledge of how these crimes occur.

With due respect, I have observed the concept of "child sex slave rings" taken to rather absurd extremes in these discussions. Were the issue not so serious, much of this type of hyperbolic commentary would be laughable. When, on top of all of this, folks nurture wildly improbable scenarios involving nefarious government conspiracies, kiddie bondage farms tucked away on remote ranches, and other nonsensical, far-fetched flights of fancy, it becomes almost impossible to have a logical discussion of the topic.

So, let us be clear: the vast majority of child molestation in the United States is perpetrated by single individuals upon single children in vulnerable environments where the criminal has sufficient control of the child to perform these acts. These are mostly hastily-conducted crimes of impulse and opportunity. In far rarer instances, chidren are occasionally nabbed off the street boogeyman-style, raped, and murdered. Again, these facts aren't in dispute.

But, when the speculation turns to the putative existence of highly organized, effieciently-managed, multi-million dollar, widespread "child rings" operating in multi-jurisdictional regions of the country, my eyes glaze over and I must fight the urge to impotently shout "Nonsense!" at the computer screen. Anybody with even a superficial understanding of pedophiles knows that these are men who, despite possessing some crude level of cleverness, are mostly anti-social, dysfunctional malcontents who would be emotionally and practically incapable of acting in concert with other like-minded perverts to run the kinds of sophisticated "black helicopter" operations I've seen described here.

If, in fact, the "trading and selling of children" is taking place on a widespread basis by groups of well-organized, high-tech perverts, I rather doubt it is happening in the United States. The cultural obstacles and legal risks of running an operation such as this would be prohibitively high in an industrialized, educated nation such as the U.S. I could, perhaps, be persuaded to concede the possibility of such an organization in a Third World setting such as Africa or parts of Asia, but not in Europe or America.

As a professional person who has commuted internationally for some 40 years, I have seen the ugly underbelly of most of the world's industrialized societies. Some of these experiences I sought intentionally. Yet, never once in those decades of travel, have I been made aware of organizations offering children for sale on a widespread basis for deviant sexual purposes. Such a thing is an aberration, not a norm, a fact that too often gets lost in the debate.

 

[Mr. E]

Taylor, I agree in that I would be more worried about my child being victimized by a single perp or by someone they knew than I would worry about a big-bad spooky child sex ring organization.

I just like to keep an open mind. With internet child trading that seems to be prevalent in the news in the past few years, I don't find it beyond the realm of possibility that pre-internet days saw more child trading.

I don't think this happened to Johnny because, as you say, it's just too far out that a bunch of dysfunctional pervs could be organized enough to pull it off. I just can't be willing to dismiss anything.

Does anybody remember reading that Johnny had been spotted shortly after his disappearance by two truckers, a black man and a white man?

 

[dorca the just]

Mr. E., I don't remember this particular sighting to which you referred, but would be anxious to read/hear all about it if you have a link to anything in particular. I do remember hearing something in late February/early March of '84 which disturbed me greatly, and that was a series of three telephone calls the Gosches received in the middle of the night. They were from a boy who claimed to be Johnny, and his voice was muffled. I believe NG said they were of her son since she recognized his voice. They all lasted less than the time it would have taken to trace the phone calls, and apparently the boy was crying and his voice slurred. Drugs? Were they of JG? He supposedly told her that "they" wouldn't let him go, and that he was in New York. If it were JG, and if he were being abused at that time, whether by a lone pedo creep or a ring, I believe they forced him to call, and that this was done so that his will would be broken further. Whoever the sicko was that did it, assuming the calls were genuine, probably got off on the power trip. I believe one can find articles referring to this phone escapade in the Chicago Tribune, for Bob Greene had an editorial about it it at some point. I think it was dated March 4 or 9, 1984. I know for a fact that when his parents appeared together on the talk show to which I earlier referred, they referenced these phone calls and indicated their belief at the time that JG might have been in the southwest. Given what we know,, or think we know, about JG, I think this is entirely possible. I don't know for sure, but I think there may have been other calls in the very early days of this case, one of which was received by one of JG's sibs. JG apparently asked to speak with his mother, but the connection was cut short rather unceremoniously. I forget, unfortunately, which newspaper the story came from, and I don't know if I'm remembering it accurately.

 

[Taylor]

"Taylor, I agree in that I would be more worried about my child being victimized by a single perp or by someone they knew than I would worry about a big-bad spooky child sex ring organization."

My point, precisely. But, keeping the discussion to logical, realistic themes can, I admit, be difficult when overwrought people are desperately, vainly, searching for the "truth" about children who have been missing for months, years, or decades. An emotional mind tends to defy gravity and soar to great heights of fanciful thinking.

My gut instinct tells me that Johnny Gosch's fate was rapid, ugly, and fatal. No high-tech perv squads. No government conspiracies. No kiddie-bondage merchants. No long-term imprisonment in a sex-slave ring watched over by murderous thugs with knives and guns. No UFO's whisking the hapless kid back and forth in time to "visit" his distraught mother.

No, none of these scenarios makes sense in the case of Johnny Gosch. Instead, a more mundane and decidedly unglamorous reality must be considered: this young man was probably a victim of a rare street-side kidnaping by one or maybe two pedophiles who likely raped and murdered him and quickly disposed of his body not far from where he was taken.

The conspiracy theorists don't much like simple, depressing answers such as the one I submit, but from the standpoint of logic, it makes far more sense than the ridiculously far-fetched theories I've seen whenever the subject of Johnny Gosch is debated.

 

[Taylor]

Or, perhaps Johnny simply ran away from home and his parents cannot bring themselves to acknowledge their complicity in a dysfunctional domestic environment.

 

[dorca the just]

I’d be far more willing to accept the simple assumption that JG was raped/murdered within hours/days of his disappearance were it not for more compelling evidence suggesting otherwise. Are we going to say that the Oklahoma incident of 1983 didn’t happen? What about the dollar bill in July of ’85? Also, the bathroom wall? Maybe there wasn’t a highly-organized pedo ring that involved government officials, but all it might take is two, three or four men (even a woman or two) that could have kept one or two boys under their control for some time — even a number of years. And this evidence I just spoke of is absent PB or Gibson. Again, I just think it’s too far in the middle of the two extremes so that neither the typical rape/murder after kidnapping nor the organized government-sponsored pedo ring applies here. Sometimes kids are taken for months or years a la Steven Stayner, Elizabeth Smart, Shawn Hornbeck, that girl in Austria and probably a few others I can’t name right now. More often when kids are taken by strangers, they don’t stand much of a shot once their cases become a long-term manner.
But then — and again I warn I’m all over the map on this one — I don’t think I’ve heard too often about any possible sightings of EM, except for maybe one or two, and neither one of these was confirmed. This fact may lend more credence to the lone perv theory. Guess I really can’t make up my mind.

“I’ll be damned if I’m not getting tired of this.”—William Howard Taft on being president.

“If you can’t say anything nice, come sit here next to me.”—Embroidered pillow allegedly found in the home of Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

 

[Taylor]

"I’d be far more willing to accept the simple assumption that JG was raped/murdered within hours/days of his disappearance were it not for more compelling evidence suggesting otherwise."

Dorca, you clearly regard the "evidence" as compelling, but I am far less persuaded by it. But, then again, I am jaded, world-weary, and generally a hard sell. I admit it.

Many professed to be shocked by those photos of the bound and gagged boys, but to me they simply look like some kids having a little naughty fun. Try as I might, I just couldn't bring myself to "see" Johnny in those images. This, despite the fact that many of the conspiracy proponents continue to point to these pictures as the "best evidence" to support their cherished theory that Johnny has been kept against his will in a "sex slave ring." From my perspective, there are so many holes in this scenario that I barely know where to begin pointing them out each time I discuss this topic.

I respect your right to have your own opinion on this matter, Dorca, but, for me, the "evidence" you cite is largely meaningless.

 

[Mr. E]

Are we looking at the same images? In all the photos of the single boy on the bed, some in pajama bottoms, some in sweats, some in full outfits, he definitely does not look as if he's having "naughty fun." He looks drugged or terrified, mostly. In some of those jacobstales images, yeah, the kids looked like they were goofing off. But some of those images indicated abuse to me, or a very clever and sick hoax. Even if the kid isn't Johnny, and like I said, I didn't see any of the markings Noreen claimed to see, I hope the authorities do their best to track him down and find out about him.

Dorca, there are two sightings I remember hearing about, but I was very young (well, in my teens) when I heard them. One was the sighting(s) of Johnny with the two truckers, one black and one white. Another was something about a person in a city (Chicago? NYC? I can't remember) who reported that a boy was being abused in a nearby apartment. The police even investigated, but said it was a domestic issue and didn't get involved. Later, the witness watched "Adam" on TV and recognized Johnny's picture after the show. She called the number with the sighting, but when it was investigated the apartment had been abandoned.

Those are hazy memories at best. I saved a lot of those newspaper articles...I'll try to find them.

I keep looking for info on those Mount Ayr remains, but so far I haven't found anything new. Anyone else?

 

[dorca the just]

Taylor, please understand that I’m not a major conspiracy freakazoid either. The whole government angle is at least a little bit out there for me. I’m just saying that if one takes a look at certain pieces of evidence absent the whole Franklin thing, of which I’m still not certain, one has questions. Well, I do, anyhow.
I just find it a little bit difficult to dismiss the Oklahoma incident of 1983. Granted this isn’t necessarily as tangible a bit of evidence as I’d like, but I’m not sure how prominent the Gosch case was in March of 1983. I first heard about it when I lived in upstate NY in December of ’82, but short of that I don’t know how much it was covered. This unnamed woman in OK specifically stated that the boy identified himself as “John David Gosch.” If the boy fit the description of JG, and if she’s not out there in left field, I find it difficult to simply dismiss it out of hand.
So, too, there’s the dollar bill in Sioux City in July of 1985. I find it difficult to dismiss if three forensics experts definitively identified the handwriting on the bill as JG’s. I’ll warrant you that if there are any experts out there who claimed otherwise, then I’m willing to suspend my disbelief a bit. But if none have ever come forward to say otherwise, I don’t see how I can personally dismiss the evidence except to merely say “Well, I don’t believe it.” My next question then has to be, “Okay, why?” No intense offended, but it seems to me that saying “Just cuz,” doesn’t work for me.
This goes for the incident of the bathroom wall. Have any forensics experts either confirmed or disputed that the writing was JG’s? If so, I’m open to say that maybe there’s some doubt. But this evidence seems pretty hard, even if one is willing to dismiss the possible sightings.
Again, I don’t consider myself out there in Cuckooland. I have a hard time swallowing the whole government-sponsored pedo ring deal, but I don’t think the Gosch case is your typical snatch, rape and kill scenario. My opinion again is that it’s somewhere in the middle, and that somebody had this kid for some time. Maybe not a ring; maybe not a cabal. But it went on for longer than what is typical, and that’s the part that blows my mind. Wish I could expose the (s) who did this, though. I also feel for NG. I hope she’s not getting a gigantic snowjob; nobody deserves that.

“Dear me, I think I’m turning into a god!”—Emperor Vaspasian of Rome

 

[iNTERESTEDWOMAN]

Dorca, I have to agree with just about every thing you have written. While I'm not a conspiracy monger either, I CAN open my mind to the idea. I hope that our past presidents have never raped little boys, and I want to believe the government has never been involved in such a thing, but me, just being an average Joe on the street, will never be privy to Oval Office secrets. With that said, I will move on to what I think happened to Johnny.

According to the Doe Network, there are at least 5 adult males missing from IA during the same time frame as JG and EM. The first missing since July 28, 1982 the last July 1, 1984. Any of them could have been old enough to have abduct these boys.

This one intrigues me the most:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/53dmia.html

He was from the same metro area, he had a "shy" nature. He was reported missing in July of 1983, but no one really knows when he was last seen. He was a pretty big guy, big enough to over-power a big kid. He's fairly attractive and doesn't look scary, someone the boys might have trusted at first appearance. Didn't Parnell, (Stayner's abductor) estrange from his family after he abducted Steven?

What are the ties to Johnny's case and Colorado? I've seen Colorado mentioned a few times lately, but have to admit I don't know what was meant by it.

This guy's car was found abandoned in Grand Junction CO.

 

[dorca the just]

I’ve been trying to leave alone the whole high-level executive branch stuff involving JG, EM and co. The Colorado angle, however, is intriguing and annoying because given the evidence I’m rolling around on my tongue, which tastes pretty foul anyway, it seems to bring the government back in again if only on a peripheral level.
See, according to the interviews I’ve seen/heard and accounts of what happened to JG shortly after his abduction, he was sold to a guy who took him to Colorado. Maybe he was passed around, because there were again various alleged sightings of JG throughout the country. But the guy who took him to Colorado was this Aquino character who supposedly was a high muckety-muck in the military, so obviously he must have had some peripheral connection to the government. Some have said he was high enough to have had some dealings with the White House. Dunno.
Absent this governmental assertion, however, is the following: The story goes that some friends of NG and Gosch Sr. claimed that while they were in Colorado, they were in a Mexican restaurant. Obviously the guy of the couple must have gone into the men’s room, for he found the words “Johnny Gosch was here” written on a wall in red nail polish. I believe that according to some accounts, there were actual witnesses who saw JG and a couple other teens doing their nails in the restaurant. They made fun of the boys, and so the boys went into the bathroom where JG apparently wrote his name.
So far, we’re leaving out the PB angle, or at least I haven’t discussed it. But wait.
Tenn years after the Goschh case first arose, there was a program on NBC that used to air. Ironically enough, I believe it was called “A Closer Look” — the same name as that radio interview ten years thereafter.
But I remember the show very welll because my office in the Court building was just around the corner from where I lived. We attorneys never had to do anything inside the actual courthouse, stuck as we were in our own offices and doing appeals. But we had a lot of freedom to come and go, if only for a few minutes. I took advantage of that freedom and wennt home to tape the show (didn’t have a VCR back then; just a boom box with a radio/television.)
That show was the first time I’d ever heard of PB (Paul Bonacci). He claimed that he had seen JG in March of ’86. A private detective on that same show, who incidentally believed PB’s account(s), brought up the Colorado bathroom incident. At the end of the show, the anchorwoman pointed to evidence in the form of a letter from a boy who was presumably part of that same ring. He (the unnamed boy) claimed that he had been with JG when the two went into the bathroom. The boy claimed to have seen JG write his name, and that at some point in time he knew that JG had been taken to Mexico by “The Colonel.” This, apparently, was Aquino.
Now we have the November ’92 segment about JG. I didn’t see that show, but my mother did. She spoke of the ’88 letter the Gosches received, allegedly from their son. Dunno if I remember right, but I venture to say I probably do. But my mother said that JG had signed his name to that letter. She also thought she remembered that again, forensics experts confirmed the handwriting again as JG’s. Coincides with that dollar bill incident in ’85. That is, unless someone can point to evidence that it wasn’t his handwriting.
I saw the May ’93 segment involving PB and Jimmy Gibson. (Anyone think it weird that there are so many JG’s involved in this case?) My belief is that if we’re going to consider PB’s account(s), we can’t necessarily dismiss them in their entirety. He seemed, during this segment, to have reacted rather emotionally to having viewed the house where the boys were allegedly kept. I conclude one of three things, from which everyone is free to pick (this is still America.) One is that PB’s a great actor, and none of it ever happened. One is that it didn’t happen, but for some reason PB is so out there that he isn’t lying because he really believes it did. The third, unfortunately, is that it did actually happen the way NG says it did. So there’s your Colorado angle.
I said earlier that I was going to go all over the map here.. Maybe I’m just prattling on for no apparent purpose.. But I just have to wonder about a couple points. That whole “Conspiracy of Silence” embroglio. Supposedly it was to have aired on the Discovery Channel in ’94. Supposedly nobody in the government was ever involved in some giant pedo ring. I gotta wonder something. We can leave JG totally out of any connection having to do with this video that was never aired, and that was supposedly bought and destroyed at someone’s instigation. I’ve seen a lot of this video seeing how it was on the Net and all. I don’t think JG was mentioned on the parts that I did see. But even if JG was never a part of this deal with the video, I wonder why someone relatively high up, no matter who it was, would have even bothered to snag this video in order to prevent its airing if some parts of it didn’t wash. Leaving JG totally out of the picture, shouldn’t we nonetheless be concerned that something was going on? Seems to me that at least a few lives were ruined here, and all because of a few highly-placed dirty rotten hogs with no regard for simple human decency.

 

[Taylor]

"I have a hard time swallowing the whole government-sponsored pedo ring deal, but I don’t think the Gosch case is your typical snatch, rape and kill scenario. My opinion again is that it’s somewhere in the middle, and that somebody had this kid for some time. Maybe not a ring; maybe not a cabal. But it went on for longer than what is typical..."

Perhaps you're right, Dorca. I do not claim to be omniscient in my interpretation of the sparse facts available in this very disturbing case. But, again, I find the "evidence" you cite to be, to say the least, unconvincing. Much of it is hearsay, and the items that include physical components --- the note, for example --- could be elaborate pranks pulled by sickos who get their jollies inflicting further anxiety on Johnny's mother and family.

Have you ever taken a moment to sit back and take a hard, critical look at what actually is known for certain about Johnny Gosch's disappearance? If you do, you will come to the same conclusion I did --- that there is shockingly little real evidence to support any specific scenario that would explain why this child went missing.

Almost all of the so-called "evidence" in this case cannot demonstrably, factually, empirically be shown to be connected to Johnny Gosch. I ask only that you keep this fact in mind when assessing information that you assert is evidentiary, but in fact might be nothing more than wishful thinking, coincidence, or outright fraud.

 

[Taylor]

"Are we looking at the same images? In all the photos of the single boy on the bed, some in pajama bottoms, some in sweats, some in full outfits, he definitely does not look as if he's having 'naughty fun.' He looks drugged or terrified, mostly."

Yes, we are, Mr E. The child, or children, depicted in those images simply do not look "terrified" to me. "Bored" would be a more likely description of their countenance --- as though they were very familiar with the poses they are being compelled to submit to and have done it many times before. To me, the look on their faces is one of "OK, let's get it over with."

As you probably know, I consider myself to be an expert in the art of consentual adult bondage games. I am personally familiar with the human body's reaction to being bound. This type of restriction, when imposed for lengthy periods of time, induces surprising volumes of perspiration on the part of the bound person. Some people experience panic attacks after only a few minutes of the safest bondage. As they strain against the ropes, their veins extrude, they sweat profusely, and their faces turn varying shades of red. The boy, or boys, in those photos exhibit virtually none of these sure-fire symptoms of real bondage. They look, to me, to be willing, if grudging, participants in the exercise, and about as "terrified" as learning that Al Gore was on his way to lecture them on Global Warming.

Moreover, in my opinion the gags depicted in the photos are dead giveaways that these scenes were staged. The gaggings in the photos are poorly administered and highly inefficient as tools of genuine restraint. This is the work of rank amateurs, not professional bondage practitioners who are photographing children for the lascivious pleasure of pedo-pervs. This is a topic that I discussed at some length on a related thread.

"But some of those images indicated abuse to me, or a very clever and sick hoax. Even if the kid isn't Johnny, and like I said, I didn't see any of the markings Noreen claimed to see, I hope the authorities do their best to track him down and find out about him."

On this, we can agree. If those images --- however harmless they appear to me at first glance --- can be shown to depict children who were coerced by adults into posing for them, then clearly a crime has occurred and the authorities should apprehend and prosecute the responsible parties. Even though I am a practitioner, and defender, of consentual adult bondage, I vigorously disapprove of children being involved in bondage activities in any way, shape, or form, particularly where that activity is specifically intended to cause sexual arousal in either the child or the adult. While I am am not offended by kids having some innocent fun among themselves playing cops-and-robbers tie-up games, it's a whole different matter when adults enter the picture. The line between what you referred to as "goofing off" and actual criminal behavior can be fine, indeed. It is a line defined by the presence, or absence of, adults.

 

[Taylor]

"I’ve seen/heard and accounts of what happened to JG shortly after his abduction, he was sold to a guy who took him to Colorado. Maybe he was passed around, because there were again various alleged sightings of JG throughout the country. But the guy who took him to Colorado was this Aquino character who supposedly was a high muckety-muck in the military, so obviously he must have had some peripheral connection to the government. Some have said he was high enough to have had some dealings with the White House..."

Eyes glazing over, big time.