Return To Andy

Return to Andy: An Update to the Disappearance of Andy Puglisi Ep 1

We return to the investigation into the disappearance of Andy Puglisi a decade after the HBO documentary, Have You Seen Andy?, was released. This episode is structured around intimate conversations between Melanie and Andy’s mother, Faith, as they review information they realize is relevant now but may not have back when the documentary was broadcast. 

Melanie uncovers new information as she picks up the investigation. The first question she asks is who were the “five known pedophiles” at the pool when Andy was abducted? She believes Andy may have been stalked before he was abducted, possibly for child pornography aka CSAM. She explores Wayne W. Chapman’s penchant for expensive camera equipment and hears from a witness who observed Chapman’s dark room. She reveals never before published audio of Wayne W. Chapman’s police interrogation. We learn how the advent of digital media allowed Melanie to uncover new evidence in the complicity of Wayne W. Chapman in the abduction of Andy Puglisi. We also hear from one of Chapman’s victims who realizes serendipity likely saved his life.

The episode culminates in Melanie sharing details of other known sex offenders in Lawrence at the time Andy vanished.

Wayne W. Chapman died in October of 2021. He continued to deny any involvement in the disappearance of Andy Puglisi.
 
Show Links
Have You Seen Andy website with timeline
Wayne W. Chapman About to Be Released is Arrested Again
Wayne W. Chapman To Be Released
Wayne W. Chapman Placed Near Andy’s Childhood friend, Melanie McLaughlin
Wayne W. Chapman Dies
Database of Accused Priests

Based on the HBO Emmy award-winning documentary "Have You Seen Andy?" - haveyouseenandy.com | @haveyouseenandy

Follow: @openinvestigation

Support: Patreon.com/OpenInvestigation

Transcript

Open Investigation: Return to Andy (1)

Melanie McLaughlin: [00:00:00] He came to my house and had said to me if I confronted him on this that he would deny ever telling me these things, but he had told me that he had to stop investigating Andy's disappearance because he was getting threats, death threats. Not just for him, but for his family.

This is Open Investigation, a true crime podcast about the search for answers to the disappearance of my childhood friend Andy Puglisi and the incredible story of dozens of other missing children who disappeared Or were found murdered around the same time. Andy vanished all while a hidden network of human trafficking Was thriving in our community.

I'm your host Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. Please keep in mind this podcast deals with crimes against children Which may be triggering for some. Please take care. Open Investigation shares two decades of investigative research uncovering dozens of unsolved cases, many of which have connections to Andy's case.

Some have even been reopened as a result of our investigation. 

Now, here's episode one, Return to Andy.

I started working on Andy's story in 1998, over 20 years ago, but really the story started on August 22nd, the day Andy disappeared. Telling the truth about what happened to Andy and to so many other children has become my life's work. I spent years making that documentary about Andy's disappearance, and I was so happy that the film broadcast to over 35 million viewers. 

It uncovered new evidence and reopened the investigation. But when the film was done, I thought I was gonna be able to move on. I didn't realize that by telling Andy's story, I was uncovering a secret, a much bigger story. I still vividly remember the first time I talked with you on the phone. You said to me, Melanie, Andy's disappearance is much bigger than you realize, and there's much more at play than you could understand, and it's just way.

And I was 30 years old, I think, maybe younger, and I couldn't understand what in the world you meant. Like, I didn't give it. the weight, I guess, that I should have. And maybe because I was just so naive that I couldn't give it the weight that I should have. Yeah. Tell me about that. It was a lot to swallow.

Faith Puglisi

First of all, you thought you were just calling your friend's mother. 

Act 1:  More to the Story

Melanie McLaughlin

On August 22nd, 1976 10 year old Andy Puglisi disappeared on a Sunday afternoon from a public swimming pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I was with Andy at the pool the day he vanished. The search for Andy only lasted six days, and when it was called off, I told myself, When I grow up I'm going to try to find him.

Tell me about how you thought, even on that first phone call that you had with me back in 1999, there was more to Andy's story than met the eye. 

Faith Puglis

All right. There was several things. Number one was learning about Revere. Number two was that relationship I had with Carelli. He came to my house and had said to me, If I confronted him on this, that he would deny ever telling me these things, but he had told me that he had to stop investigating Andy's disappearance because he was getting threat, death threats, not just for him, but for his family.

Wow. 

And he was telling me that in confidence. And when I put that together with What went down in Revere. 

Melanie McLaughlin

Andy's mother Faith and I talk every few months. This is a conversation we had recently. We were talking about a child prostitution ring that was broken up in Revere, Massachusetts in 1977, just a few months after Andy vanished.

This ring is an important part of the overall story and will be fully investigated in an upcoming episode. And Corelli is Mike Corelli, a Lawrence police detective working Andy's case in 1984, who Faith said came to her in the middle of the night to tell her that his life was being threatened. because he had reopened Andy's case. 

None of this information was in my original documentary, mostly because I didn't understand the significance of it at the time. 

Melanie McLaughlin

How did you find out about Revere? 

Faith Puglisi

Revere? Okay, I found out by watching the news. I literally was watching the news that night, and they said they had confiscated some children from this apartment in Revere.

And that's all I had to hear. And I was like, children, you know, I want to, I want to see, we'll see if my son's among them, you know? And we went driving around in Revere till we found the right police station that was involved with the raid. And when we got there, they said that everything had been confiscated by the FBI, you know, so they had nothing there.

That's when I went to the FBI in Boston. And they let you look at pictures there? They did, but they were very selective in what pictures I could look at. And they had, like, this cutout where, you know, they'd only let me see a portion of the picture. One little boy that had the framework of Andy, [00:06:00] but his hair had been dyed blonde, and you could tell that the hair had been dyed.

It wasn't a natural blonde. 

Melanie McLaughlin

So do you still feel like Andy's story, there's more to meet the eye in regards to his story? 

Faith Puglisi

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I think because of the players, Melanie, you know, I behind the scene that I don't know how Andy's case became this big. I don't know. Was he kidnapped for child trafficking? I don't know.

Melanie McLaughlin

It's interesting. Cause there's other kids around the time, as you know, that he disappeared. And so now I'm doing research on other. Unsolved, unsolved, missing and murdered children. There's a couple that really stand out that remind me of Andy. They look like Andy, you know, Lee Savoy, he reminds me of Andy.

James Teta who was also from Revere. He disappeared and was found murdered. He reminds me of Andy. Michael O'Gorman reminds me of Andy. Through years of research, I ended up discovering that there were dozens of children who were missing or found murdered in Massachusetts during the decade that Andy disappeared, 1970 to 1980.

And there were so many similarities in the cases. The boys looking alike was just one similarity. In several cases, the children who were recovered murdered had all died the same way, from a crushed skull. And remember, all of these cases are still unsolved. Eventually, I began building a database of all the individuals in Andy's file, including those from Revere.

What I didn't know at the time was the Revere child trafficking ring was just one of several child trafficking rings. around the state and across the country. We just didn't call it human trafficking at the time. What happened in Riviera was a microcosm of what was happening across the country. All of these child trafficking rings were being broken up in the1970s, 78.

And it was because Of a bunch of missing children's cases across the country that brought to the attention of the United States Congress. They had congressional hearings and then they created the first ever National Child Exploitation Act in 1978 and that made child pornography illegal. 

Faith Puglisi

What I did remember was at that time there were over seven children missing and unaccounted for in the New England area, you know, and that shocked the hell out of me.

Melanie McLaughlin

Back in the 70s. We thought Andy's disappearance was rare. How could we have known there were literally dozens of children missing or found murdered across the United States? The Chicago Tribune ran a newspaper series in 1977 on a child pornography network operating across the United States. It rocked the nation.

Time Magazine featured a cover story on the problem, and 60 Minutes ran a controversial episode [00:09:00] on their investigation into the network. After congressional hearings in 1978, With new laws established, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was created because of, and I quote, a spate of missing children's cases across the country.

Faith Puglisi

I remember, uh What was another one? Another big case. This was, this was a bad guy involved, um, as a clown. He used to like to play. Oh, Gacy. John Wayne Gacy. Gacy. Gacy. Yeah. I remember them pulling bodies out of his house and I literally jumped off the couch and got on my knees by the TV and like as if I could look underneath the blankets that were covering these bodies, you know, to say, is that my son?Is that my son? Is that one my son? I remember getting, um, getting as much information as I could off the TV, and then I called [00:10:00] the police station. They were like, oh, what are you worried about that for? That's in Chicago. I couldn't get them to act on it. They just basically blew me off, like, Andy's from Lawrence, how do you think he got to Chicago?

Well, how the hell do you think he got there? He was taken there, if he was there. 

Melanie McLaughlin

You guys sent his dental records to Chicago. 

Faith Puglisi

I did send out his dental record and I sent the report from his, uh, head x ray. He had had some head x rays done because he had epilepsy. And they wanted the x ray itself and they had destroyed them.

Somebody in that hospital got rid of those x rays and I can't believe That nobody knew they were getting rid of x rays of a missing boy. It could be such a vital tool, you know? 

Melanie McLaughlin

Yeah. The miscommunication and missteps are just crazy. And the thing is, is that that still happens today, just like you said, because of lack of [00:11:00] communication, lack of a consistent process or procedure.

It's just so critical. And I also believe that the unsolved murdered children can give us answers to the unsolved missing children. But in Andy's case, I've started to just do this database where I am putting every single name that has ever come across my radar into a database for Andy, like everybody, anybody that's ever been mentioned, because I do think a lot of the information is there.

It's just a matter of sort of figuring it out. And I'm like, you go back, you know, in 2005, I could go back and read my notebooks from 2000 and things might not make a lot of sense in 2010. Right. 2010 they might, or 2015 they might. It's like a name gets repeated or we've been working on the edges of this puzzle for so long and now the edges are complete and I feel like we're moving towards the center and honestly Faith, I feel like every single week. A new puzzle piece comes in and the puzzle pieces are coming fast and furious. I really feel like I see this story much more clearly now than I ever have the child trafficking. And like the Revere police officer was saying to me, it doesn't mean that every single one of the people in that ring was a child killer, but there were child killers among them.

Faith Puglisi

Yes, there were. 

Melanie McLaughlin

I returned to Andy's story and reviewed everything I had uncovered over the years. I went through all of my old notebooks. Created databases and cataloged every name in the files. I made timelines and cross referenced material. I organized all of the things I had put down for years while I was busy raising my own children.

And then just like that. I was back in the middle of it all over again. But with the wisdom of the years and decades of research, things were coming into view much more clearly. One thing that had continued to haunt me wasa Polaroid picture Andy had given to his mother. Just weeks before he disappeared, he told her it was one of several pictures a strange man had taken of him. 

I think the thing that really bothers me is that Polaroid that you found, you know, I mean that Andy, that Andy gave you. The child pornography was really easy to do using Polaroids because you didn't have to take them anywhere to be developed.

But also, one Polaroid back in the day in 1977 of a, of a, uh, Yes. And so I think that whoever was taking Andy's picture and those Polaroid pictures was potentially scouting him and stalking him to come back at another time because I think they had a type too. 

Faith Puglisi

Yes. Definitely. They had a particular type.It was boys that were soft looking. Yes. Yes. You know, 

Melanie McLaughlin

Andy was pretty. 

Faith Puglisi

Pretty, yes. Exactly. Oh, could it pass for girls? 

Melanie McLaughlin

The documentary about Andy was finished in 2007, before social media was an everyday item. HBO didn't even have a streaming service at the time. We were an analog world about to go digital, and online access changed everything in the world of investigative research.

I was suddenly getting tips via Facebook and Direct Messenger, or finally locating obscure court records online. I was able to find people I hadn't talked to in 40 years with the click of a button. And I couldn't stop thinking about something Faith had said to a reporter from Channel 5. 

Faith Puglisi

There were five known child molesters at the pool that day.

Reporter

The police told you that? 

Faith Puglisi

Yeah, yeah, they were there. They said they weren't breaking any laws, so there was nothing they could do about it, you know, but there was all those children laying prey. 

Melanie McLaughlin

The police told Andy's mother there were five known pedophiles at the pool that day. How could that be? And who the hell were they?

In the film, Have You   Seen Andy?, we learned about Wayne W. Chapman, the main suspect in Andy's abduction. Chapman was arrested just two weeks after Andy disappeared. He was stopped in upstate New York for a traffic violation. Police saw a starter pistol in his van that allowed them to search the van where they found dozens of Polaroid pictures of naked children.

Wayne Chapman eventually admitted to raping at least 100 boys. We found one boy who was part of a 4 H club Chapman had organized in Providence, Rhode Island, and who Chapman had attempted to molest. The boy describes being in Chapman's house After watching his friend go into a bedroom with Wayne Chapman, who then locked the door.

Boy #1

We had a sleepover at his house. I knew something was wrong. But I was ten, so I didn't, couldn't put my finger on it. I just had that gut instinct that said something was wrong. I had went to go use the bathroom, and when I had went toward the room, I saw, because being a ten year, ten years old, I never, I saw cameras.

Tripods and cameras all around the bed. And I was just kind of fascinated a little bit, but there were a lot of tripods. All around the bedroom. Um, And when he used to take pictures of us, he had a timer. One of those cameras that had timers on. You just set the timer and it would pose and take the picture.

And he had a dark room. A little closet that was straight across from the bedroom. I remember he had a red light in there. I didn't know what it was then. But if I look back now, I tell it was a dark room. 

Melanie McLaughlin

Here's an interview of Wayne Chapman with Rhode Island police detective Al Mintz. Mintz interrogated Chapman when he was first arrested, two weeks after Andy disappeared.

Al Mintz

And there was one boy, a swimming pool, he went into the bathroom, and he came out, and he came out behind him. Can you tell me about that? Tell me about it, Wayne.

Melanie McLaughlin

Once we started to go digital, I was able to take these analog audio cassettes and digitize them. It was the digitization [00:17:00] of this interview that made all the difference in the investigation. Wayne Chapman is talking about taking a boy from a pool. Before the cassette was digital, the transcriptionist could never pinpoint exactly what Chapman was saying because of tape slippage when rewinding and playing.

Once the cassette was digitized. We could listen to the recording bit by bit. What I initially thought was Wayne Chapman saying, I took the boy from the pool with a towel. My editor discovered was actually Wayne Chapman saying, I took the boy from the pool with a much younger child. My editor had no idea that I had been following a lead that Andy had been abducted with another child.

Act III: Working Together

Melanie McLaughlin

It took me years to find the younger child. He's grown up now, of course, and his name is Ray Clark. This audio is from an interview Ray gave to the state police back in 2006. I was at the state pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. 

Ray Clark

I was there with my brother Wayne, sister Kim, Angelo Puglisi.

My brother Wayne, my sister Kim left, left me and Angelo by ourselves there. Angelo was 10, I was 4. It was coming to the end of the day, to closing. It was probably like 5, between 5. 30 and 6. We took a left, uh, out of the entrance area, took a left out, up a little, like a little sidewalk. When we got to the front, there was, um, a gentleman there.

He was looking around for a dog. He had a scar on him, if I remember. It was on his head. Angelo was pulling my hand to go home. I was tired. I was crying. And, uh, the gentleman said, can you guys come over here? And me and Angelo went over to him, and he said, can you guys help me find my dog? He said, yeah, and I was crying, and I wanted to go home because I was tired.

He said, okay, you go that way, he'd be pointing towards the back of the state pool. Uh, Wayne Chapman [00:19:00] said that to Angelo. He said, you go around the back of the state pool, and I'll go up this way towards, towards the, uh, stadium. He walked down the middle of the, um, pocket lot, looking for a dog named Coco.

He was holding my hand, pulling me towards the back, down the hill, down the path. We kept calling for this dog. It would come up to you, there was a water. Like a stream that goes on your 495 road pretty close to there. And then he said, bro, bro, there's two people hiding behind a bush. Like bushes on the right side of the path.

I'm, I'm scared and I don't know what's going on. He's pushing me on the ground. And then he's like, get up. And then he's pushing me the whole time. He didn't, he didn't leave me, you know, behind me. He was always behind me. He was pushing me. So I got to the hill. I did see two people to the right. So I know something was wrong.

So when I got to the hill, he was pushing me up the hill. And I got about three quarters of the way up the hill. He wasn't behind me no more. He wasn't saying nothing. And I was falling up the hill. I was trying to crawl up the hill as hard as I could. I was doing my best. [00:20:00] And I got to the top of the hill.

I turned around and he's gone. And I was crying. I was screaming for him. The stake pool was closed. And I was crying and crying and kept saying, Angel, Angel. But finally, I, uh, went back down the hill. And I looked. I see him on a rock. And I looked. I see Angel on the rock and I see two people holding him down.

And I'm crying for him and I'm screaming. And there was someone with long, long blonde hair and another person with dark hair. And they were holding him down and it was like, I don't know what they were doing but one of them was raising his hand to him like hitting him or something. So I started running back up the hill and I heard someone behind me running with footsteps.

And I didn't know what that was but I didn't look back, I just ran up the hill. And that was the last time I saw him. He says it was Wayne Chapman who approached him and Andy at the pool, asking them to look for a lost poodle called Coco. He said Wayne Chapman sent them toward the back of the pool and told them he was going in the other direction, toward the [00:21:00] stadium.

Melanie McLaughlin

But once Andy and Ray were deep in the woods, Ray said Andy saw two other people in the woods coming toward them, and he told Ray to run. Ray insists the people in the woods With two additional people, not including Wayne Chapman. This was the first inkling I had that maybe Chapman didn't work alone. In an interview with Rhode Island detective Al Mintz, Wayne Chapman also talks about the shopping plaza near the stadium projects where Andy and I lived that included a department store named Turnstile.

Wayne Chapman was ultimately convicted of raping two boys who he took from the same area the year before Andy disappeared, August 1975. Here is Mintz talking to Chapman about the 1975 incident in Lawrence and also about a boy in a swimming pool who Mintz says is Andy.

Al Mintz

When you was in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the pool, across the street from the pool, there was a housing project.There was an Army Reserve Center. There was a place called Turnsytle, a big parking lot, a bowling alley, with a very large parking lot, a stadium near the Army Reserve Center. You were there. Where did you go after you left the Turnstyle? 

Wayne Chapman

City park. 

Mintz

Alright. Was there a pool there also? 

Wayne Chapman

No. 

Al Mintz

You asked two boys.

They were at the city park. Where did you go? 

Wayne W. Chapman

Um, between the exit on the ramp to, uh, I don't know, the interstate or something. 

Al Mintz

That's correct. That's what we talked about. And what happened after you got off the interstate exit ramp? 

Wayne W. Chapman

I walked up between the two wooded area, really wooded area. And, uh 

Al Mintz

How did you get them to come with you, Wayne?

Wayne Chapman

Lost a dog. 

Al Mintz

What kind of a dog? [00:23:00] 

Wayne Chapman 

Poodle

Al Mintz

There was another time you went back after. That was one time at that place. You went back again. Describe what happened the second time, a year later. 

Wayne W. Chapman

It was only there once. 

Melanie McLaughlin

Wayne Chapman never admits going back to Lawrence a year later, but he does talk about taking the boy from the pool and leaving him tied up in the woods.

Recently, as I was listening to the audio tapes again for this podcast, I found another glaring omission in the original transcript of the tape. In this recording, Detective Mintz is questioning Wayne Chapman about an incident where Chapman said he had raped a boy that had come from a swimming pool, took him into the woods, and left him tied to a tree.

Al Mintz

Where is the boy that had the towel and the bathing suit? I don't know where he left him, he was tied to a tree. Behind him. 

Al Mintz

Are you sure he was tied? Are you sure about that? Or you just think that you might have tied him?

What happened in the woods, Wayne? Why didn't he come out of the woods, Wayne?

Wayne W. Chapman

I don't know. 

Al Mintz

You said something. You remembered blood. What was that blood ad that you remember? 

Wayne Chapman

My blade

Al Mintz

On who? 

Wayne Chapman

After I wiped my blade.

Melanie McLaughlin

When asked where the blood was, Chapman says, My blade, after I wiped my blade. The original transcript had this line as unintelligible, because of tape slippage. Even Detective Mintz didn't understand what Chapman had said. 

Here it is again. 

Al Mintz

You said something, [00:25:00] you remembered blood. Where was that blood at that you remember?

Wayne W. Chapman On my blade

On who? 

Wayne W. Chapman

After I wiped my blade.

Melanie McLaughlin

 Incredibly, we heard this statement Wayne Chapman made about a knife while we were preparing for this podcast, nearly 45 years after Andy disappeared. And Chapman's mention of a blade related to the swimming pool is particularly important, because as we said, Chapman was ultimately convicted of raping two boys he abducted from the pool the year before Andy vanished.

And one of those boys said just before Chapman approached them, they found a knife hidden under a bush. They played with the knife for a bit and then threw it in another location. To this day, one of the rape victims from Lawrence believes the only reason he survived is because he moved the knife that belonged to Chapman.

Here's his version of the story. 

Rape Victim

I can remember being down by the naval station earlier in the day and, you know, looking around through the woods, through the bushes, and stuff like that, like kids doing, finding a knife, and you know, we, um, picked that up and unfortunately, we threw it away. Or maybe fortunately.

Maybe that was a good thing, but, uh, so we ended up in the, up in these woods. And, um, next thing you know, um, this guy won't let us go. And, um, You know, we're trying to get away and he's just trying, trying to get us thinking of excuses to make us stay. And, um, you know, he starts asking us if you've ever seen this?

And I'm like, well, what? And he's going through his pockets and things and, and uh, finally, you know, we just tried taking off and, and, and he grabbed us and from there on he molested us. And, and, um, you know, I don't know what he was looking for, but that bothers me still to this day. You know, I, I'm, I'm wondering if it was that knife we found, you know, we might've.

Saved our lives then, because We had been down there earlier with him, [00:27:00] and he was looking around down there too, and we thought nothing of it We just figured he's looking for his dog But it just sticks out in my mind that I think Coincidentally we might have found what he was actually looking for up in those woods 

Melanie McLaughlin

Because all of the old audio cassettes were now digital, I was able to easily duplicate them and share them with prosecutors, ABC News, and even the Oprah Winfrey Show.

I believe the tapes being played in the courtroom helped keep Wayne Chapman in prison in 2007, 2012, and 2013. in 2015 when he petitioned to be found no longer sexually dangerous. But in 2017 all that changed. Chapman had served decades for sexually assaulting young boys and he admitted to raping as many as 100 others after serving his time to mental health professionals.

Professionals determined he was not sexually dangerous, but victims families had hoped that he would stay behind bars after he was then accused of exposing [00:28:00] himself to prison staff. That's right. Before Chapman even left the building, he allegedly exposed himself to prison staff. He was arrested on the spot for lewd and lascivious conduct.

Chapman did have a trial, but the jury wasn't allowed to learn about any of his previous offenses, including his admission of having raped over 100 boys, starting when he himself.

And in a life stranger than fiction moment, in 2020, Wayne Chapman ended up moving about half a mile away from my home. Once that was discovered, Chapman was quickly moved to an out of state nursing facility in Connecticut, where I'm told, his window overlooked an elementary school.

On Wednesday, October 20th, 2021, Wayne W. Chapman died of natural causes at the age of 73. He never admitted to being involved in the abduction of Andy Puglisi, and ever having been to Lawrence, Massachusetts. 

As for the four other pedophiles who police said were at the pool, we can only guess who they are, but here are a few good leads. I received several letters in my PO box about a neighbor named Gary Thibodeau. Here are a few excerpts from those letters. 

This is an anonymous letter dated August 3rd, 1999.

Chapman and Gary Thibodeau. As a condition of their probation and parole, both must attend AA. Both meet at AA. Their newfound friendship, both realize that they are both gay. But most importantly, they like young boys. Separately and together, they've lured young boys to a shack in the woods or found them playing in it.

Too embarrassed now to tell. Try to find one of them. One day, Andy helps Mrs. Thibodeau into her house with groceries. The end. While in the kitchen putting things away, she asks Gary to give Andy a couple of dollars for helping her. Gary takes Andy into the other room, and instead of giving him a couple of dollars, he puts his hand over Andy's mouth and says, and forces [00:30:00] him into the basement where he ties him up as he knows his mother will never go into the basement for several days.

He, Gary, sexually abuses Andy. While under the influence of alcohol, Gary tells Chapman. For several weeks, both Gary and Chapman sexually abused Andy. During one of their sexual assaults, Andy is killed as is planned, as both Chapman and Gary were tired of Andy and were getting scared of getting caught.

Chapman requested some overtime work, stating that he needed the money to pay some bills. He requested the night shift. As it was a hospital, it would be easy to dispose of Andy. Both Chapman and Gary or are armed members of Mandala or Nambla or something like that. It's a group that likes to have sex with young boys. Best of luck, Miss Perkins. Take care. 

Another letter, quote, Gary Thibodeau almost killed me in his basement when I was a kid. Another letter, quote, Gary Thibodeau abused me. I knew Gary Thibodeau. He lived between the pool and Andy's apartment. He had a criminal [00:31:00] record for petty theft and was rumored to be a pedophile.

He was weird, but that's pretty much all I remember about him. I heard he ended up getting shot and killed in a drug deal in Florida. I also got a tip on Facebook about a man who was believed to be a lifeguard in Lawrence when Andy disappeared. A female victim told me that this person, the lifeguard, had raped her and her little brother when they were only 5 and 4 years old.

She said the man sexually abused her in several pool locker rooms while a second man watched. She wasn't sure about the year, but knew it was around when she was 5 or 6 years old, which would make it the summer of 76. The summer Andy disappeared. I thought there was no way she could be right about the time frame, but she told me the case had gone to court and the man had been prosecuted.

That meant there were records. I did some digging and learned the woman was telling the truth nearly 44 years later. This is read from the Lawrence Eagle Tribune police logs. A Lawrence man was arrested last night and charged with the indecent assault of a brother and sister four and five years old at the Vaudreil swimming pool on Tower Hill in August and September.

Herbert P. Huskey, 21, was arrested by Lawrence police last night following a month long investigation. He was charged with unnatural acts on a child under 16. 

Melanie McLaughlin

I was stunned by this story. Herbert Huskey was charged with raping the two children on August 26th and September 7th of 1976, days after 10 year old boy, Andy, was arrested.

Vanished from a public swimming pool in the same city, and his name was never in Andy's file. As it turns out, Herbert Huskey and his family were friends of Andy's mother, Faith. And then Herbert Huskey, remember I told you about him recently? 

Faith Puglisi

He was the life… Yeah! Uh, he was a younger bro Herbert, Herbert. I think he was the younger brother, wasn't he? Of, like, the one I knew was Donald. 

Melanie McLaughlin

I learned police questioned Herbert Huskey in 2021. He denied  knowing anything about Andy Puglisi’s disappearance or being at the pool. He also said he wasn't a lifeguard, but that he worked as a camp counselor for the CITI program. Andy's mother, Faith, also told me Andy had been molested as a seven year old boy by a couple she knew from the Salvation Army.

You mentioned Andy had been molested, and I also saw that in Andy's file, that he had been molested. 

Faith Puglisi

That was a friend of mine's husband, Dennis Collier, that was his name. From the Salvation Army. The way I found out was that he ended up getting caught with molesting other children.And that made me question Andy, and I asked Andy and he said yes. 

And just about when the documentary was finished, I learned there was a Lawrence police officer with a shady secret. Ray D’Arville was the uniform cop patrolling the projects most nights when I was a kid. In fact, we had a dog named Kayak who would chase Ray and try to bite him whenever he could.

Ray was also the school safety officer. And in 1980, a few years after Andy vanished, Ray D'Arville was found in a compromising position in the back of his vehicle with a teenage boy, a boy from the projects, who lived across the way from us. Officer D'Arville was quietly let go from the police department.

Beverly Preneveau

My boys were at the pool that day. Andy was there. They were not with Andy at the pool, but when the pool closed that evening, they came back together. There was um, two of them that came back and another boy from the project that came back, four of them all together. And the last they saw of Andy was he was walking towards his house.

And that was it. That was it for that night until I heard what I heard. It was late at night. It was dark. It was after the pool had closed. I was in the bathroom. All I heard was a boy saying, No, no, I don't want to. Leave me. Leave me alone. I don't want to. And then the only other words I heard was that of a man saying, Shut up.

Melanie McLaughlin

Do you think it was Andy that you heard that night? 

Beverly Prenveau

I think it was Andy that I heard that night. I always believed that for years. I believe that it was Andy. I mean, in the project you heard a lot of things. There were fights with the kids. There were, um, adults, you know, calling out for their, their kid.

But this was, it wasn't like that at all. It was totally different. And he, he had fear. That little boy had fear. Calling out the way he did. And there's no doubt in my mind, I just wish that I had been able to, at that particular time, look out then. I guess the police were investigating it, they were there, but I went to them and told them what I had heard, and that was all there was to that.

I don't even know if they took my name or not. I always wondered where the police officer that was patrolling the projects was on that particular night. If he was in fact there on that night. 

Then where was he when Andy, uh, disappeared.

Melanie McLaughlin

And then there were the priests. Lots of them actually, over a dozen priests were sexually abusing children in Lawrence and the Merrimack Valley in the 1970s.

Priests from St. Mary's and St. Lawrence. St. Patrick's and St. Joseph's, and even Central Catholic School. 

One of the priests, Father Tom Curran, lived practically across the street from the pool where Andy vanished. He is the uncle to a large and prominent Catholic family in Lawrence, with a nephew on the police department.

I was childhood friends with his nieces. 

In 2002 the Boston globe reported. The Reverend Thomas M Curran, 65, was placed on administrative leave from 2002 to 2007 following allegations from a prison inmate who accused Curran of abusing him in the 1970s. An affidavit on Bishop accountability.org shares the sordid details of the allegation. The affidavit claims Curran would scout children for a notorious priest father Paul Shanley, the so-called street priest who allegedly helped runaway boys  

tThe affidavit further alleges Curran would take boys to Shanley for his approval. Then he and Shanley would allegedly rape the boys, bring the boys to the Trailways bus station and have them prostitute themselves so that they could have money. But the boys were forced to tell the priest what the Johns did with them. It further alleges that Curran and Shanley would take the boys to the monastery and let other priests abuse them.

The Boston Globe reported Curran was one of a small number of accused priests who strongly and publicly denied sexual misconduct charges against them. He told the globe in a telephone interview in January, 2003, that ", [00:38:00] none of it is true". He said he did not know either his accuser or  Shanley who is serving a 12 to 15 year sentence for rape and sexual abuse of children. At that time, Curran stressed his long service at five parishes and his ministries to prisoners and disabled children lamenting that " now some psychopath from a prison gets me thrown out of the ministry. 

In 2007, the Boston globe reported that the Boston archdiocese found the allegation unsubstantiated. The Archdiocesan announcement in 2007 said, Curran has been removed from administrative leave and placed on permanent disability after suffering several heart ailments. Though all complaints against him were found to be unsubstantiated, according to the Globe the archdiocese said, " nonetheless, Father Curran's ministry will be restricted to sacramental celebrations with members of his family.

so Curran was placed on administrative leave from 2002 to 2007 while the Catholic church investigated itself. They found the accusations [00:39:00] unsubstantiated. 

But in 2010, the Boston Globe reported once again quote a Catholic priest who had been cleared of allegations of child sex abuse is facing new ones. And has been barred from any ministry. The new allegations, date back to the 1970s and eighties. The Archdiocesan spokeswoman at the time said church officials notified the attorney General's office and the Middlesex district attorney's office. She said the church would investigate internally.

 The article includes this quote from then Cardinal Sean P O'Malley. " it is with great sadness that we announced these additional allegations of sexual abuse. As new information and accusations emerge. We again, experience the painful reality of this crisis... 

In 2024 I contacted the archdiocese victim services unit. They could not tell me anything about an outcome of an investigation. In other words, the allegation was not ruled substantiated or unsubstantiated. It was just dropped. 

I did notice that father Tom Curran is listed as having settled a case against him.

In 2022, I paid a visit to father Tom Curran. I asked him about these allegations and about Andy Puglisi.  

We'll have another episode specifically about clergy abuse in the Merrimack Valley, and Priest.

Melanie McLaughlin

So how do you feel, I mean, I feel like you and I have gotten to know each other so much over the past 20 years. And I also, I feel, I find myself feeling guilty for calling you and talking about this stuff. 

Faith Puglisi

You shouldn't. You shouldn't. 

Melanie McLaughlin

I don't want you to see me as somebody who's constantly triggering you and your trauma.

Faith Puglisi

I won't. I don't. I, you're my lifeline, okay?  If I lived to be a hundred, I couldn't thank you enough. All the, all the dedication and the sacrifices that you have made over the years. Just the fact that you've picked up my burden for me so that I get a big break because I know I have you out there that's doing impeccable investigative work.

You are amazing because this is so ugly. It's so ugly and it makes you fearful for the children you still have. It's like being tattooed, God's sakes. It's marked, it's embredded in our skin, you know, we can never walk away from it or get away from it. Even if we solve it, we still are marked. We're marked for life.

Melanie McLaughlin

We continue to bring information forward on Andy's case to the district attorney's office and to anyone, frankly, who will listen, you'll learn more about these leads and other episodes. And even as we're making this podcast. New information is unfolding and cases are being reopened. It's our hope that some of these children will be found and some of these cases will be solved.

Next time on Have You Seen Andy? Open Investigation, Episode 2, Pandora's Box. Follow the story as I begin cataloging missing and murdered children from the decade Andy disappeared. What I find is startling. At first 16, then 27, and growing. An incredible number of unsolved cases involving missing and murdered children in Massachusetts. Many of whom share similarities. Learn more about their stories next week on Open Investigation.

Melanie McLaughlin: 

This episode was produced, written and hosted by me, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin

Editing by Mike Gioscia 

Original music and additional editing by Drew O'Doherty 

Consulting producer Anngelle Wood 

Graphics and website designed by Cheryl Crawford design and Angelle Wood 

Research by Melissa Ellin and Maggie Schneider

Production assistance provided by Darren McFadden, Sarah Ruemenapp and Alexander Vega. 

Our social media producer is Carla Stefano

If you or someone, you know, is a victim of child sex abuse. You can find help. At the national sexual assault hotline for free. Call 800-656-HOPE that's 800. 6 5, 6, hope.

If you have information about Andy Puglisi or any of the unresolved cases regarding children, please contact the mass state police unresolved case unit. 1 855-MA-SOLVE that's 1-855-MA-SOLVE. 

If you found the podcast informative. And you want to do more about CSA. Please share it, find us on social media. You can see our link tree on our website open investigationpodcast.com. 

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