Movie Spotlight: Who Took Johnny

Who Took Johnny is a 2014 documentary about 12-year-old Johnny Gosch, who disappeared while delivering newspapers in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1982. The documentary focuses on Johnny's mother, Noreen Gosch, who is still trying to find out what happened to her son more than three decades after he went missing. Johnny was last seen around 6 a.m. on September 5, 1982; he had taken his dog with him when he left to deliver papers that morning, and though Johnny never made it home, the dog came back on her own a few hours later. Neighbor John Rossi saw Johnny talking to a driver who was asking for directions, and when Johnny asked John if he could help the man, the car took off. A fellow paperboy saw a tall man follow Johnny that morning, and a neighbor witnessed (from his bedroom window) a car stop at the corner of 42nd and Marcourt Lane, where Johnny was parking his wagon of newspapers. When the car drove away, the wagon was still there, but Johnny was gone. Noreen and her husband, John, were frustrated with police from the beginning; they wouldn't consider Johnny a missing person until he had been gone for 72 hours, and they seemed to be convinced that Johnny had run away. Noreen later asked about bringing the FBI in, and police chief Orval Cooney told her that he didn't see a reason to involve the FBI since there was no crime (kudos to Noreen for not slapping him senseless...I don't know if I could've had that much self-control). Noreen and John were told that they had to prove Johnny was in danger and wasn't just a runaway, which is ridiculous because even if he were a runaway, it still should've been investigated...12-year-olds can't be on their own! The incompetence in the handling of this case is infuriating...I can't even imagine how the family dealt with this.

I don't want to give too much away for people who don't know about this case, so I won't get into specifics about the rest of the documentary. I didn't know anything about Johnny Gosch before I watched Who Took Johnny, but I thought the documentary was fascinating (and also disturbing since it touches on the dark, depraved side of human nature), and I really hope this case is solved someday. If you're interested in true crime, missing persons cases, or stories about hope and perseverance, you should check out Who Took Johnny.

My rating: 8/10

Who Took Johnny on Netflix:

Who Took Johnny on Netflix

The Johnny Gosch Foundation:
http://www.johnnygosch.com/