John David "Johnny" Gosch (born November 12, 1969) was a 12-year-old paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa when he disappeared on September 5, 1982, presumably kidnapped. His case and the subsequent publicity played an important part in the growing public awareness of missing children cases in the 1980s.
His mother, Noreen Gosch, maintains that Johnny Gosch escaped from his captors and visited her in 1997, but fears for his life and lives under an assumed identity. Gosch's father, divorced since 1993, publicly stated that he was not sure whether the visit occurred.[1] Authorities have not located Gosch or confirmed Ms. Gosch's account, and his fate continues to be a subject of speculation, conspiracy theories, and dispute.
The case received publicity in 2006 when photographs possibly showing Gosch in captivity were supposedly left at his mother's doorstep.
