I think about this one a couple times a year. Still crazy. I can’t think of a good reason why that one would have happened. I’ve heard gang initiation, but in suburbia?? Very odd…
Iowa Cold Cases
- Thread starter wxman1
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There was a true crime series on hulu where this was one of the episodes they did.
Edit series was in Killer Cases but video quoted is what was there. A&E must have a deal with Hulu.
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Johnny Gosch/Eugen Martin disappearances changed society. I had been a Register paper boy a decade earlier. Kids quit doing that, parents quit letting kids take off on their bikes for the day, unsupervised basketball at the park and sandlot baseball.
So terribly sad to never know what happened to your child.
So terribly sad to never know what happened to your child.
Another solved Iowa case that recently listened to a podcast about was the Breasia Terrell case. That's only a few years old but until I heard the podcast I don't remember hearing about it. Crazy how something can happen in state and you can miss it.
That surprise interview that the cops did when they dropped in on Burns at his office was great. Burns was very cool under questioning but his eyelids started going bonkers as they turned the heat up on him...he he he
The cops during the interview take a DNA swab, and Burns if probably thinking that'll give him time to go kill himself instead of rotting in prison, but then the cops say nah we already have your DNA and we are now going to arrest you......
Eugene Martin as well. He also disappeared two years after Gosch under the same circumstances as Gosch and never has been found.
I find it sad that he has been forgotten unlike Gosch. This is a pretty good article about the two cases:
How Two Vanished Paperboys Changed the Face of the “Missing Kid” Forever
Johnny Gosch and Eugene Wade Martin were never found.
This one hits close for me. We lived about 7 blocks from her apartment when it happened. Mason city was rough. We had our basketball hoop ripped off our garage, my brothers bike stolen out of the garage, my dads 8 track player, read that again 8 track player stolen out of the car in our driveway, and someone tried to kidnap my brother and I while we were walking home from school which was 3 blocks from our house. Oh yeah and the D.A.R.E officer was arrested for guess what... selling drugs to minors. At the time we lived there when Jodi Huisentruit was kidnapped Mason City had the highest crime rate of a city it's size in the country.
It's not a cold case anymore but one that always fascinated me was the Ethan Kazmerzak case. That dive team from Adventures with Purpose basically found him in a quarry close to where he disappeared from. It sounds like he was wasted and just drove off into a pond that should have been relatively easy to locate.
One thing ive learned from watching that channel is there are many cases that go unsolved because the police simply aren't trying hard enough.
There was one where they found a guy not even 20 yards off the side of a boat ramp in a lake where his last known cell location was. They show up and right away find a grill from his car right on the ramp and proceed to locate him within 5 minutes. Just really poor police work.
One thing ive learned from watching that channel is there are many cases that go unsolved because the police simply aren't trying hard enough.
There was one where they found a guy not even 20 yards off the side of a boat ramp in a lake where his last known cell location was. They show up and right away find a grill from his car right on the ramp and proceed to locate him within 5 minutes. Just really poor police work.
I knew the man murdered in this one. Never seemed to get a lot of attention. Probably because they were an older couple. Super nice guy, and really sad what happened to them. Never did find her, but I'm sure she was murdered as well.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...orwalk-cold-case-bill-wood-kay-wood/13383117/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...orwalk-cold-case-bill-wood-kay-wood/13383117/
If there were any other gang initiation activities in the news over the last 20 years, I suppose you could consider the possibility, but that seems incredibly unlikely at best.
My recollection, possibly from a discussion on CF, is that law enforcement, in spite of what has been said publicly, has a pretty good idea who did it, but doesn’t have the evidence to prosecute. So they wait, and hope someone slips up or talks.
Gosch case happened first and caught everyone off guard, plus his mother kept the story in the news for years. There was also some racism involved with the case. Missing white kid tends to get more people involved then a kid like Martin.Eugene Martin as well. He also disappeared two years after Gosch under the same circumstances as Gosch and never has been found.
I find it sad that he has been forgotten unlike Gosch. This is a pretty good article about the two cases:
How Two Vanished Paperboys Changed the Face of the “Missing Kid” Forever
Johnny Gosch and Eugene Wade Martin were never found.slate.com
Johnny Gosch was still fresh news when I moved here with two little boys. And Eugene Martin happened not long after we got here.
Ten years later that was still on my mind when my older son wanted to go down to one of the malls in Des Moines with his buds. It was irrational of me to not be a big fan of him going down there without parents, but sometimes you just can't quell that protective instinct.
Ten years later that was still on my mind when my older son wanted to go down to one of the malls in Des Moines with his buds. It was irrational of me to not be a big fan of him going down there without parents, but sometimes you just can't quell that protective instinct.
Not that it matters but I am pretty sure that Eugene Martin was white.
It's a reminder that while it may not seem that way with the media attention it gets, these types of instances are rare.
Best you can do as a parent is educate your kids on what precautions to take, and how to spot the signs that something isn't right and call for help.
Oh, he went with his friends. I'm just saying those two stories had a lasting impact on me, and I had to learn to let my boys be independent. My "boys" are in their mid 40s now, and I STILL worry about them.
