Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box: Episode 2


As she begins researching suspects in Andy’s disappearance Melanie learns the main suspect, Wayne W. Chapman confessed to another boy’s murder! We explore the story of 6-year-old David Louison who was abducted in Brockton, Massachusetts in 1974 and whose remains were recovered in 1980. We learn the similarities between Andy’s and David’s cases. Both boys had a young child who witnessed their abduction. A child who tried to tell adults what they had seen but were initially dismissed. The search for both boys was called off prematurely based on advice from local law enforcement. We hear the effects of trauma directly from an archival interview with David’s parents, Mel and Naomi Louison.

 
As Melanie learns about David she realizes Andy’s case is not an anomaly. She finds other cases of missing boys that resemble Andy’s like Leigh Savoie who disappeared from Revere, MA in 1974 and has never been found. And Jimmy Teta who was from Revere, MA and whose remains were found on a roadside in NH. Jimmy, Andy, Leigh and David have similarities in their cases. Another boy, Cliff Pisano is abducted around the same time as Leigh from the same location but survives to have his story told and his abductor incarcerated. 

 
Melanie begins using data to tell a story. She researches missing and murdered children’s cases from the 1970s and begins building the first of its kind database documenting the cases. She brings the cases to the attention of District Attorneys, the Attorney General, local law enforcement, the FBI and the United States Attorney. Some of the cases, like Jimmy Teta’s, are reopened after decades of inactivity. 

This episode signifies the turning point in the story when Melanie realizes Andy is not the only child missing in MA, that there are dozens of others some of whom, like Denise Cochrane, weren’t even counted in the state’s data.

Next time on Open Investigation: The Other Boston Sex Scandal, Episode 3
follow the investigation as we reveal a child trafficking ring in MA in the 1970s that includes doctors, teachers and millionaires. 


National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Now You See Suffolk Campaign
Mass State Police Unresolved Case Unit
Timeline of Events in this episode

Follow: @openinvestigation
Support: Patreon.com/OpenInvestigation
Based on the HBO Emmy award-winning documentary "Have You Seen Andy?" - haveyouseenandy.com | @haveyouseenandy

Transcript

Ep 2 Pandoras Box Recut 9_15

[00:00:00] 

Melanie McLaughlin: Previously on Open Investigation. 

 You know, in 2005, I could go back and read my notebooks from 2000 and things might not be the same make a lot of sense in 2010. But now they're do.. 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 the story much more clearly now than I ever have. 

Open Investigation shares two decades of my research and dozens of unsolved cases, many of which have connections to Andy's case. Some cases have even been reopened as a result of our investigation. 

This episode contains material related to child abuse and homicides. Please take care when listening.[00:01:00] 

In our pilot episode for the series, we shared the backstory of the disappearance of my childhood friend, Andy Puglisi, featured in the HBO Max documentary I produced and directed called Have You Seen Andy? The documentary won an Emmy for outstanding Investigative Journalism. I thought by making the film, I would be able to put this story to rest. I didn't know that it was part one of a much bigger story. But I have put together over 20 years of investigative research, hundreds of interviews, countless hours of audio recordings, A closet full of police records, court documents, tips, and newspaper articles, as well as quantitative data on death statistics from the 1970s, and qualitative data with survivors, families, law enforcement, and case analysts, and a remarkable story has unfolded.

In our previous episodes, we learned about alleged pedophiles in the area when Andy vanished, including convicted serial child rapist Wayne W. Chapman. Convicted child murderer and necrophiliac Charles E. [00:02:00] Pierce, Lawrence Stadium project neighbor Gary Thibodeau, Herbert Husky, a young adult from Lawrence working for the city with several accusations of CSA.

Child sexual abuse of a five year old and her brother, Lawrence children, who said they were abused by Husky at a municipal pool right around the time Andy vanished. Ray D'Arville, a disgraced former Lawrence police officer and school safety officer, also the officer for the Stadium Projects, where Andy lived, who was let go after an incident with a teenage boy from the Stadium Projects, and a Lawrence native, a priest, Father Tom Curran was several accusations of CSA who lived in Lawrence just a short distance from the pool where Andy was last seen and who was alleged to be scouting children for another pedophile priest, allegedly raping them and trafficking them in Boston.

And let me be clear, this isn't even all of the sex offenders in the area in the 1970s. But in 1976, there was no [00:03:00] sex offender registry. We didn't know if any of our neighbors, coaches, priests, teachers, ice cream men, or police officers were actually charged with abusing children. And while we don't know for certain these men were involved in Andy's abduction, we do know they were either convicted pedophiles, or there were public allegations against them made by multiple children.

And they were all in the same neighborhood as Andy, with direct ties to him or our community. One thing that always stood out to me was why were there so many pedophiles in one concentrated area near the stadium projects where Andy and I lived. We were located right off the highway, next to a patch of woods where the housing projects, teeming with children.

An elementary school and a middle school right next to it. There was a bowling alley on the other side of the projects and a football stadium. I guess it was easy access to lots of vulnerable children. But still, I mean, who were these guys? For more UN videos visit www. un. org And did they know each other?

I learned [00:04:00] pedophiles prey on the weak and vulnerable. Children, especially children who have little or no social capital, who may be seen by society as runaways or throwaways. Poor children. Kids from the projects. Kids like Andy. And me. 

I often talk about growing up in the stadium projects in Lawrence as being part Stand By Me, part Lord of the Flies. It was survival of the fittest among kids. But we also really had each other's backs. And when one of us was stolen, it really felt like it could happen to any of us and nobody would care. People would stop looking, and life would just go on. I hope you can understand the complexity in sharing this story with others.

I've been researching for years, because the story is so complex. It really is like an enormous jigsaw puzzle, with the tiniest of pieces. Putting the puzzle together takes time, and continuous attention. Sometimes, I have to walk away and come back to it. One piece of information that seemed [00:05:00] irrelevant in the early years, can take on significant meaning when combined with additional information years later.

We'll include additional information on our website, like a thorough timeline, each individual named in every episode, and an explanation of who they are, evidence, articles, and documents. I've amassed a unique archive of Andy's case and several other cases of missing and murdered children in Massachusetts during the 1970s, and you'll have access by following our podcast.

The first pedophile I learned about was Wayne W. Chapman. He was the only publicly named suspect in Andy's disappearance at the time. My original research started in 1998. It was old school at the public library, looking through microfilm of newspaper articles from the 1970s. But when I searched for articles on Andy's abduction, the first thing that popped up on the screen wasn't about Wayne W. Chapman and Andy. It was the story of Wayne W. Chapman and [00:06:00] another boy. This was the first inkling I had that there were dozens of children that went missing or were found murdered in Massachusetts in the 1970s. Before this, I thought Andy's case was an anomaly. I couldn't have known then what I would actually find out, and I was about to open a Pandora's box that I'd never be able to close again.

This episode features the story of several of those children. It is dedicated to them and to all the others who remain missing or who have been recovered as homicide victims. I know this content can be hard to hear, but please listen for the kids who deserve justice and for the people who love them, so that maybe one day, We can get some of these cases resolved.

Act 1, David Louison, Brockton, Mass. 

On September 16th, 1976, the Brockton Enterprise front page headline read, Providence [00:07:00] Man Charged With The Murder Of David Louison. That man was a 28 year old janitor from Providence, Rhode Island, Wayne W. Chapman. David Louison was a 6 year old boy, At just three feet nine inches tall and was last seen alive at about 3 30 p. m. 

On Tuesday, June 18th 1974 David was abducted in broad daylight Not far from his home at 467 West Elm Street in Brockton, Mass David was described by the Boston Globe as a precocious little boy who liked to play in the woods According to the Brockton Enterprise, just two days after David disappeared, a Brockton police lieutenant said, quote, there was not even the remote suspicion of foul play, end quote.

The search for David was called off after four days at the request of David's parents, according to the Boston Globe. There was speculation That this was because kidnappers, if there were any, might be discouraged to get in touch [00:08:00] with the family because of all the attention the search was causing. In July of 1974, the Boston FBI got involved.

A Brockton Enterprise article quotes, FBI Special Agent Vincent Ruehl as saying, quote, The more we get into the search, the more possibilities we see, and it expands the effort, end quote. The special agent didn't elaborate. Two men were arrested for separately attempting to extort the Louison family, but it was determined they were unconnected to David's disappearance.

David's father, Mel Louison, was a prominent trial attorney. He had once campaigned to be the mayor of Brockton. Unlike most of the other missing children's families, the Louison family was well off and well connected. They were also devastated by the loss of their only son. During the initial search, Mel Louison reportedly passed out on his front lawn.

By all accounts, the family was never the same. [00:09:00] 

This is a rare find, an archival interview with David's parents. Mel and Naomi Louison on the one year anniversary of David's disappearance, June 1975.

Reporter: The death in the family is painful, but usually with time that pain subsides. For the members of one Brockton, Massachusetts family, the pain keeps hurting. It's the pain of not knowing.

Their young boy has been missing for a full year. 

Exactly one year ago, five year old David Louison disappeared without a trace. For days, the people of Brockton, Massachusetts, combed through the woods and ponds trying to find him. with no success. He was the youngest of four children, the only son. David's room is as he left it. His blocks, his books, all his playthings. Even after a year, his family hopes he will return to enjoy them once again.

Mel Louison: I've had the, either the premonition or the nightmare at times that he's got to be in his room or if I go down on the street, [00:10:00] I'll find him.

That it's just not possible for a human being to disappear like this. And it's frightening that it can happen. And it's frightening that it leaves a, uh, scar on people. And we have to live with this. And it doesn't ease up. We've been told that maybe time will help. Time doesn't help.

Naomi Louison: There's no way to understand it. There's no way to explain it. You know, if loss is bad enough when you know what happened, but when you don't know, it's worse 

Melanie McLaughlin: the last few people to see David included a neighbor and her 16 year old son, and a four year old playmate of David's named Victor. After David vanished, four year old Victor reportedly told his parents, the police, and [00:11:00] His classmates and anyone that would listen that he had been playing with David at a construction site and a man Victor only identified as Africa dragged David into the woods.

Importantly, Victor also said that same man had taken away Victor's toy gun days before David was abducted. According to the Boston Globe, Victor's story was partially supported by a neighbor, Mrs. Connor. Mrs. Connor told the Globe that 6 year old David Louison had been in her home visiting her 5 year old son the night before David disappeared, and she overheard David tell her son that they had a plan to get Victor's toy gun back.

Initially, police dismissed young Victor's story. But not long after David disappeared, Victor's toy gun was found at the entrance to the woods, where search dogs lost David's scent. Two years later, in September of 1976, shortly after his arrest in upstate New York, Wayne W. [00:12:00] Chapman confessed to the murder of six year old David Lewisohn.

The Brockton Enterprise reported Wayne Chapman brought the police to a wooded area, behind a cemetery where he said David was buried. Then Plymouth County District Attorney Thomas Finnerty said searchers, quote, positively expect to find something, end quote, but nothing was found. However, Wayne W. Chapman was arrested for the murder of David Louison, but a Plymouth County grand jury returned a no bill, refusing to indict Chapman for the murder of a little boy whose body had not been recovered.

On February 18th, 1986, Years after David disappeared, the remains of a small child were found in a footlocker in the basement of a three tenement home on 47 Highland Street in Brockton, Mass. According to the Brockton Enterprise, the remains were identified as David Louison's. Based on a pelvic x ray, he had had a few months before he vanished after having fallen [00:13:00] out of a tree.

David was buried on February 22nd, 1980. There were over 400 mourners at his funeral, including dignitaries from across the state. Three years later, David's father, Mel Louison, died suddenly from a heart attack. He was just 57 years old. Fifty years after the abduction and murder of six year old David Louison, his case remains unsolved.

The similarities to David's disappearance and the abduction of Andy Puglisi The searches for both boys were called off under false pretenses. Andy's mother, Faith, also agreed to call off the search for Andy after just six days because she said the Lawrence police chief told her it would help them flush the suspect out if they thought the investigation had died down.

Wayne W. Chapman was a suspect in both David and Andy's cases, and both boys had [00:14:00] child witnesses to their abduction. There's a lot more to Wayne W. Chapman. You can find bonus episodes and additional material by subscribing to our Patreon. 

The Louison family members said police told them there was a suspect who was in jail and was never getting out. The first thing I was told by police officers when I went to the police station in 1998 was they already knew who abducted Andy. That he was in jail for another crime against children, and he was never getting out. They said his name was Wayne W. Chapman. That was the first time I had even heard that there was a suspect in Andy's abduction.

In addition to his multiple convictions for raping children and having admitted to at least a hundred victims, Wayne W. Chapman was also charged with a civil commitment of what's called one day to life. Meaning, as long as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts determined him to be still sexually dangerous, he would stay [00:15:00] incarcerated for one day to life.

Too many law enforcement officers thought that meant Chapman was never getting out. Unfortunately, they were wrong. There are also some distinct differences between David and Andy's cases. David's family were upper middle class professionals. David's search was called the largest search ever for a missing child in New England.

By the Brockton Enterprise. The Governor of Massachusetts at the time, Michael Dukakis, extradited Wayne Chapman from Rhode Island, specifically over David Louison's case. David's remains were recovered six years after his abduction, and his family was able to put him to rest. Andy, on the other hand, was economically disadvantaged.

He was a kid from a housing project whose mother had been divorced, and who was a white woman pregnant with a biracial baby in the 1970s. For more stories, visit nyseagrant. org Andy Puglisi is still missing, more than 45 years later. I [00:16:00] did have the chance to speak to David's childhood friend, Victor, the boy who witnessed David's abduction.

Victor contacted me shortly after Wayne Chapman died in October of 2021. Victor told me he had been following my work for years and thought I was brave. Victor and I met for breakfast, two middle aged adults, discussing some of the worst childhood trauma imaginable. Over eggs and coffee. I distinctly remember the 1970s song, Desperado, by the Eagles was playing in the background.

It was a really intense experience. Especially knowing how trauma like this affects children and their entire communities. I could see on Victor's face and by his body language. He was right back to that day in 1974. The children and families in Lawrence have never been the same since Andy vanished.

Children like Victor, Andy and David's siblings, [00:17:00] friends, neighbors, and classmates are forever haunted by what happened to the child they knew when they were children. We grow up, but they remain frozen in time, forever young. Victor considered joining me on the podcast. But ultimately decided it was too difficult.

I 100 percent respect Victor's choice and hope he continues to heal. Knowing he has helped David by always standing by his truth. I think Victor is the brave one.

After learning about David, I realized Andy wasn't the only child who went missing in Massachusetts at the time. Remember. This was before there were milk cartons with missing children's pictures on them and before there was an Amber Alert or National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I had no idea how many children were missing in Massachusetts in the 1970s, but I knew I needed to find [00:18:00] out.

If you have information about Andy Puglisi or any of the unresolved cases, please contact 1 855 MA SOLVE. That's 1 855 MA SOLVE. That's the Mass State Police Unresolved Case Unit. 

Act II The boys from Revere. 

I started sorting through news articles on microfilm first, and then things started coming online.

I searched the National Missing and Exploited Children's website, also known as NCMEC, for kids from Massachusetts. And I learned about a few missing kids, by word of mouth, from other people in the community. I noticed a lot of the cases, from around the same time as Andy's, involved other boys close to Andy's age.

A few cases in particular really stood out to me, like Leigh Savoie, who was from Revere, Massachusetts. Leigh Savoie vanished on April [00:19:00] 7th, 1974, two years before Andy and Lawrence, and just months before David Louison in Brockton. All three of the boys lived about 30 miles from each other. There are also a lot of similarities in Leigh and Andy's cases. Both Andy and Leigh were 10 years old when they vanished. They bear a strong resemblance to each other, with olive skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. And both boys disappeared on a Sunday afternoon.

Leigh was a little over 4 feet tall and weighed about 60 pounds. According to interviews with family members, Leigh had recently made his first communion at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Revere. This is an important detail that I'll remind you of later. The Revere Journal reported Leigh left his home on State Road in the Beachmont section of Revere in the morning on his way to shine shoes outside of the Suffolk Downs racetrack.

Leigh was wearing blue pants and a blue sweater that [00:20:00] read, Try it, you'll like it. A 1970s slogan for Life Cereal. According to the Revere paper and members of Leigh's family, Leigh planned on using his shoeshine money to buy his mother an Easter present. In 2020, Leigh's brother Eddie told me Leigh had to walk past a local bar on his way to Suffolk Downs called Meedees. That's M E D E apostrophe S. This is also a bit of information to remember. And I will remind you later. I also spoke with Leigh's sister Janice. Here's what she told me. 

Janice: He was tough. He was nine. He was gonna defend mine. He was gonna defend me. You know what I mean? He had that. He was husky. You know what I'm saying?

Me and my mom were his everything. I think it was Beaumont Station. The station after Wonderland, I remember a man standing there, he was maybe about 5'8 5'9 He looked like a drunk, but he moved quick, because we ran like bats [00:21:00] out of hell, because we didn't feel safe. And you know, we were scared, you know, and then when Leigh disappeared, that same man was still hanging at that train station.

He called me home and I ran. From that point on, I refused to go to school, I refused to go outside. To the point, I got so bad with the anxiety and OCD at age 8 that my parents had to move away. We were both grounded that day. 

Melanie McLaughlin: What were you grounded for? 

Janice: I can't even remember to be honest with you.

Probably something dumb. Right? And, uh, we had to re You know, that was our punishment. You know, at that time, we were kids. That was boring. Okay, so we had to do that. And he just kept on and on and on. We were at the table with our stepdad. He kept on and on and on. And he finally relented and let him go. I was like, no, I'm going with him.

And they wouldn't let me go with him. And the sun started going down. And I went into his room and held his pillow while I'm looking out the window. I told my mom, I said, he ain't coming back. [00:22:00] She was like, what do you mean? And I'm like, he ain't coming back. He'd be back by now. And you know, for weeks I stood at that window waiting for him to come back.

Day, night. It's just weird. I mean, you know, human trafficking is a real thing, but you know, it wasn't brought to light because there was no internet, there was no cell phones. It was none of that. And you know, it screwed me up for my whole life. It really did. I'm not living my life fully because I miss my brother.

He should be having a family of his own. You know what I'm saying? I do. 

Melanie McLaughlin: It was reported in the Revere Journal Leigh left his shoeshine kit at a local restaurant telling the owner he was going to Revere Beach. A year into investigating Andy's disappearance, I reached out to Leigh Savoie's family. I found his mom, Dolores, and her boyfriend, Albert Pascal, living in Norwood, Mass.

When I arrived, Dolores entered the door wearing a floral print [00:23:00] housecoat. Before I could sit down, Dolores asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. Coffee. Coffee. She reminded me of my grandmother, mixing tablespoons of Maxwell House instant coffee with the boiling water as she smiled at me. Dolores looked like an older woman to me, of Latina descent.

She was attractive, even without makeup. Her boyfriend Albert was smoking. One arm had an empty sleeve pinned to the elbow. Albert was missing his forearm, apparently from a military accident. Dolores told me about the last time she saw Leigh, and how she tried to get the police to pay attention to his disappearance, but they didn't seem interested.

Dolores thought, because she was poor, the police paid less attention to Leigh's disappearance. I promised I would reach out to the Revere Police to see if there was anything that was being done on Leigh's case. When I did that, the Revere Police promised They would reach out to Dolores. Then she and I lost touch.[00:24:00] 

In 2001, I saw an article in the Connecticut newspaper, The Hartford Courant, entitled, Why Are They Still Missing? by Dave Altimari. The article featured several unsolved missing children's cases across New England, and started with Leigh Savoie's. It included an interview with Albert Paskell who had reached out to the reporter after reading newspaper articles about the Massachusetts sex offender and alleged serial killer Nathaniel Bar Jonah, which the Hartford Courant had covered.

Bar Jonah, a Massachusetts resident, had been arrested. had recently been arrested for the suspected murder of a boy in Montana, Zachary Ramsey. Bar Jonah is a suspect in several missing children's cases in Massachusetts. We'll have another episode later in the series that includes information on Nathaniel Bar Jonah and his friendship with none other than Wayne W.

Chapman. According to the Hartford Courant article, it was 2001 when Albert Paskell discovered neither the Revere detectives, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, [00:25:00] Or the detectives investigating Bar Jonah seem to know anything about Leigh Savoie's disappearance. Luckily, Detective Amy O'Hara was on the Revere PD in 2001.

She took Leigh's case and has held it close since. In 2007, Captain O'Hara worked with NCMEC to get a reward offered for information on Leigh's abduction. In 2018, I met with now Captain Amy O'Hara. Who told me, quote, there's so much to this case, there's just so much. It's much bigger than I ever thought, much bigger than you can imagine.

I shared a lot of my research over several years with Captain Amy O'Hara. Some of the research she was able to use to work with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office and get some of the cases in Suffolk County reopened. I'm grateful that Captain Amy O'Hara and the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office believed me. And were willing to look beyond the data. 

[00:26:00] Captain O'Hara told me about another child who had been abducted from the Suffolk Downs racetrack in Revere just months after Leigh vanished. 

According to court records, the same year Leigh vanished, just a few months later, September 16th, 1974, three 10 year old boys were outside the Suffolk Downs racetrack selling newspapers.

At approximately 5 30 PM. A man in a white Oldsmobile with Michigan plates pulled up to ask the boys if they wanted to earn some money waxing his car. All three boys eagerly offered to help the man, but only one could get the job. The boys decided to buck up. Odds out. And 10 year old Clifford Pisano got in the car with the man.

The man drove Cliff to the beach near East Boston, which borders Revere, and told him to go get a bucket of water from the ocean. Cliff remembers crossing the reeds to get to the ocean when the man ordered the boy to perform fellatio on him. [00:27:00] Frightened for his life, the last thing he remembers is the man kneeling down to pick up a piece of wood with rusted nails on it.

Then suddenly, the boy's world went black. At 7 a. m. the next morning, a young man was walking his dog on the beach when he came upon the severely beaten Cliff Bizzano. The boy, nearly beaten to death, was rushed to the hospital, clinging to life in a coma. The Revere Police drove the two children, who had been with Clifford at Suffolk Downs, around the Revere area as they searched for the assailant.

A week passed when one of the boys spotted the man who had taken Cliff, a man named Kenneth Magnasco, driving his white Oldsmobile with Michigan plates. Magnasco was arrested and served time for the assault on Cliff Pisano. But that's the thing about the 1970s. Stuff like this seemed to be happening all the time.

I looked through the newspaper articles and police logs, [00:28:00] and kids were getting picked up and molested all the time. And it doesn't seem like anyone thought maybe some of these abductions could be connected to kids who went missing? I don't understand. 

In August of 1973. Less than a year before Leigh Savoie from Revere and David Louison from Brockton vanished, 15 year old James Jimmy Teta also vanished from Revere, Massachusetts.

A year before and just two miles away from where Leigh Savoie was taken and where Cliff Pisano was beaten nearly to death. This is Jimmy's sister Lauren recalling that terrible day. 

Jimmy's sister, Lauren: Everybody loved him. He was extremely intelligent, and likeable. The girls all loved him. 

 The day he was murdered I woke my brother up and made him some eggs. And I said, what time do you think I'll see you? He said, I should be to the youth center by noon time. So at noontime, I went down to the youth center in Revere, [00:29:00] and no Jimmy. And I'm waiting and waiting, and this was very unlike my brother. It just didn't happen. We had very strict parents. 

So when I left the day he was murdered. My mom talked to him. She said around 10 o'clock in the morning. The way we figure is that after that he must have gotten a phone call and he must have gone to meet the person who murdered him.

So I went home at like 2. 30. My mom would get home from work around 4. 30 and she came in and she said, where's Jimmy? So, at 5 o'clock, my mother said, he has to be to work at 6 o'clock. So we knew right then and there something was wrong. The police were called. And the revered police came up, the detectives, whatever. And they mostly asked questions of me, as opposed to my mother or my stepfather. Because I was with him all the time. So they, the first thing they asked was, Do you think you ran away? And I said, he would never run away [00:30:00] without me. So the first week, just waiting and wondering,

The other part of the coin here is that we were at this age all smoking marijuana. And my thought was that he went to meet somebody to buy some. Who knows? But Jimmy was spotted by someone, a girl in Revere and I cannot recall her name now. He was spotted on the train by her and she asked where he was going and he said Government Center.. Why would he go to Government Center? And it's kind of crazy, because at that time, in Revere, there was an organization called the Man Boy Are you familiar with that? 

Melanie McLaughlin: Here Lauren is referring to the North American Man Boy Love Association, a pedophile group that was actually founded in Revere in the 1970s. We'll do a deep dive into Nambla in another episode. And Government Center is the name of an area in Boston, not far from the bus station, and what was called the combat zone at the [00:31:00] time, where prostitution and drugs were common.

Let's hear more from Lauren. 

Jimmy's sister, Lauren: So, the Man Boy organization was there. And the only reason why I knew this is because the director of the On Site Academy called me and talked with me and said, Lauren, your brother was last seen on the train going to Government Center. He said a lot of boys, in the seventies were taken from Government Center from what we believe was this man boy organization and he also told me that there was one on Mountain Ave in Revere at that time.

 the next Friday morning, my mom got a call from the state police in New Hampshire, and they said, we think we have your son. So my mother and my stepfather, drove to New Hampshire, and my stepfather identified the body. He was found on the side of the road, tied up, naked, with some bruises.

My dad and my brother are sitting on the couch, and my brother Stephen stands up and walks to me, crying his heart out and hugging me, saying, We have no more brother. That [00:32:00] did me in, right then and there this is a trauma nightmare that's come back to me so many times. 

I spent my entire life after that crying almost every single morning. And every day is a struggle, every day, you know, 

Melanie McLaughlin: 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 8253. 

The remains of 15-year-old Jimmy Teta were found on the side of the road in New Hampshire. His cause of death was strangulation. Almost 30 years after Jimmy's body was found, the suspected serial killer and alleged cannibal, Nathaniel Barjona, who we mentioned earlier, would be linked to Jimmy Teta and Andy Puglisi.

We were able to get the Suffolk County District Attorney's Homicide Department and the Revere Police to take another look at Jimmy Teta's case in 2020 when we brought it to them with the hunch that some of the cases [00:33:00] may be connected.

To their credit, they reopened Jimmy's case and they reached out to Jimmy's sister to let her know Jimmy hadn't been forgotten. They also featured Jimmy in their child abuse and anti trafficking awareness campaign called Now You See. We'll share information about that campaign in our show notes and on our website, openinvestigationpodcast. com. 

Personally, I do believe several of the cases are connected, and I know many people in law enforcement do as well. There's too many coincidences in the cases. The type of boy. The way they looked, their ages, their proximity to each other, and to several of the suspects. Leigh and Andy were the same age and looked a lot alike. Jimmy and Leigh are both from Revere, Mass. Evidence found among one of the potential suspects links Andy and Jimmy Teta. They're all marginalized inner city boys who likely crossed paths with some of the same individuals. The boys all disappeared or were [00:34:00] found murdered in the 1970s. And like I've said, their cases all remain unsolved. 

I think at the very least, the data begs the question.

Act III Data Tells a Story

The more unsolved cases of missing and murdered children I learned about, the more there was to learn. I needed to know how many children vanished in Massachusetts in the 1970s. AND How many were found murdered? 

I had stopped working on Andy's case after the documentary was released. The film came out in June of 2007. Six months later, our youngest daughter was born with Down syndrome and a large hole in her heart. Suddenly, our world was turned upside down. And our family's health and survival became the center of our focus. Of course, I thought about Andy and the other children often. It was nearly a decade before I opened Andy's case again. 

 I pulled out all the case files I opened letters that have been mailed to me years earlier But had gone [00:35:00] untouched because they had been put away for the time being while I dealt with my own life Sitting in my office, surrounded by all these files and years of research, I accepted the fact that the end of Andy's documentary wasn't the end.

It was the beginning of a much bigger story. I started researching Andy's case back in 1998. It was 2017, almost 20 years later. And as much as I wasn't sure I wanted to go down this path again, I knew I couldn't unlearn what I found out. Andy is one of several children who went missing or were found murdered in Massachusetts in the 1970s whose cases remain unsolved.

Some people have asked me why I've gone back to do this work. Why can't I just leave it alone with the documentary? Am I not re triggering the trauma and living in it? And I guess I would say to them, how can I just leave it alone? Would you be able to leave it alone if you found out about other missing and murdered children whose cases remain unsolved, that have similarities, that law enforcement might not even know about? Who you might be able to help?

 [00:36:00] I decided it was time to get organized. 

It was 2017, and I was in grad school studying policy. I had to take a statistics class. In that class, it occurred to me, one of the ways to tell this bigger story could be to use data. Data tells its own story. And if it's reliable data, it's generally considered irrefutable. I reached out to the Department of Public Health and asked for data on all deaths in Massachusetts from birth to 19 for one decade

I had a hypothesis. Could some of the cases involving child homicides in Massachusetts inform some of the cases of missing children in Massachusetts? Some of the children were considered missing children for quite some time until they were recovered. and were recategorized as homicides, like David Louison for example, who was considered a missing child for six years before his body was recovered and he became a homicide victim.

So maybe there's something to this. 

In most of the missing kids cases, there's no evidence. But for [00:37:00] kids who were recovered as homicide victims, there could still be evidence, even DNA. I started working through my list of unsolved missing and murdered children in Massachusetts with researchers I hired or interns who volunteered their time for the experience. I'm so grateful for all the work they've done. 

We collected death certificates and disaggregated the child data by county. Then we did our best to identify cases that appeared to be homicides. There's this whole coding system that is used to identify type of death. Typically, each individual death gets coded using a particular coding process from a gruesome but useful resource called the International Classification of Diseases, or ICD.

In this case, we used ICD 8 and ICD 9 based on the dates of death. These classifications include three or five digit numerical codes for things like 9 6 2, assault by poisoning, or 9 6 6, assault by cutting and piercing instrument. There's a code for pretty much any death you can imagine, and every death [00:38:00] gets a code.

At least, it's supposed to. The numbers 960 through 969 are the code range for homicide and injury purposefully inflicted by other persons. So we started there. Then we combed through others that weren't coded as homicide, but were interesting to us because of details like weapons used or similarities in deaths or the children's ages.

We built the first database that we believe exists of missing and murdered children in Massachusetts from the 1970s. We color coded the information with the murdered children's information in red and the missing children's in blue. And then we started comparative research to see if there was anything of interest.

We met with several Massachusetts District Attorneys, the Mass State Police, the Mass Attorney General, the FBI, and even the United States Attorney, sharing our disaggregated data with them and expressing our concerns that some of the cases may be related, and that most of the cases we were finding of missing and murdered children from Massachusetts in the 1970s were unsolved.

And we hadn't even gone through all of the [00:39:00] data. 

During this process, we noticed something really disturbing about the data set. We had come across an article about a missing girl from Brockton, Denise Cochrane. According to the Brockton Enterprise, Denise was 11 years old when she vanished on May 23, 1975, after leaving her home on Essex Street in Brockton, Mass.

According to Denise's brother, she disappeared on a Friday, but police didn't come to investigate until Monday. They treated Denise's case like a runaway. A May 29th article in the Brockton Enterprise quotes a Brockton police lieutenant as saying, quote, there's absolutely no sign of foul play, end quote.

Just four feet tall and weighing 70 pounds, blonde haired sixth grader Denise Cochrane was missing for more than a year when her skeletonized remains tumbled out of a transformer casing in the Brockton Iron and Steel Yard on Freight Street in Brockton. According to the Boston Globe, Denise's mother identified her remains from a pair of sneakers and a stocking.

A two paragraph article on page [00:40:00] 23 of the Lowell Sun indicates the Brockton Police were investigating the child's death as a homicide. As if all of this isn't horrible enough, one of the most disturbing parts of Denise's story is that Denise Cochrane is not listed in the Department of Public Health Vital Death Statistics.

I couldn't find her, for 1975 when she went missing, or 1976 when she was recovered. And Denise's actual death certificate was left blank under the section asking if the death was an accident or homicide. It reads only, quote, fractured skull from external violence. So even if Denise was in the death records, she wouldn't have been coded under homicide. In fact, Denise's death would receive no categorization. She wouldn't even make the data set. 

I think about Denise often. Her father was a mailman who worked in Quincy, Mass. I found a listing online from someone who said they attended a camp for troubled girls with Denise in Dublin, New Hampshire. Denise's brother told me their mother would go to the police station, often asking about Denise's case.

According to him, [00:41:00] one day, a police officer gave his mom Denise's clothes and any other evidence in the case and told her the case was over and to go home. And that is pretty much all I could find about this beautiful little girl. 

Denise's case is a terrible example of how a child could be forgotten by society and by law enforcement. How is it that an 11 year old girl disappears for over a year and then her skeletonized remains are accidentally found? Her skull is crushed, similar to several other unsolved cases. She gets less than two paragraphs in the newspaper and nothing on her death certificate. Except for this disturbing note, that Denise's remains were found in a junkyard.

Like many of the other children's cases. Denise is one of who knows how many children from the 1970s who have fallen through the cracks, whose cases remain unsolved, who remain unidentified, or who may have been identified as runaways and never been found and never recorded as missing. 

The records aren't complete. Therefore, the data is not entirely reliable. There's likely a lot more children [00:42:00] that we don't even know about. 

I had opened Pandora's box. 

If you find our investigation compelling, please consider joining our Patreon as a supporter, which helps us continue the work. This is an independent podcast, and we're doing our best to investigate and bring awareness to these unsolved cases.

You can also help out by offering a rating or commenting on the show on Apple Podcast. This helps us get more listeners and may lead to more information. 

If you want to learn more about additional research on individual cases, check out our website and join us on Patreon. If you have a tip or any information on these unresolved cases, please contact the Mass State Police Unresolved Case Unit at 1 855 MA SOLV, S O L V E.

If you want to reach out to me, you can email me at openinvestigationpod at gmail. com. 

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

Editing by Mike Gioscia. 

[00:43:00] Original music and additional editing by Drew O'Doherty. 

Consulting producer, Anngelle Wood. 

Graphics and website design by Cheryl Crawford Design and Anngelle Wood.

Research by Melissa Ellen and Maggie Schneider. 

Production assistance by Darren McFadden, Sarah Rumenapp, and Alexandra Vega. Our social media producer is Carla DeStefano. 

And special thanks to George. You know who you are.

Next Time on Open Investigation: The Other Boston Sex Scandal - we reveal a child trafficking ring in Massachusetts in the 1970s involving doctors, teachers and millionaires.