Scope and Severity

Scope and Severity - Ep 4

In Episode 4 of Open Investigation, host Melanie McLaughlin continues her inquiry into the disappearance of her childhood friend, Andy Puglisi, and the broader human trafficking ring that thrived in 1970s Massachusetts. The episode uncovers an extensive network of child exploitation, focusing on the infamous North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and how societal norms of the time allowed such abuses to flourish.

McLaughlin's research reveals disturbing connections between organized pedophile rings across the U.S., including a 1977 Chicago Tribune investigation and cases in New Orleans, Tennessee, and Michigan. She emphasizes that child sexual abuse (CSA) was, and still is, a systemic issue, often involving high-profile figures who used their power to conceal their crimes.

The episode explores different types of child sex rings, based on forensic nurse Ann Burgess's work, and reveals how networks operated across industries, including trucking. McLaughlin details how these rings normalized abuse, using code words and front organizations, leading to widespread media coverage and new laws in the late 1970s.

McLaughlin highlights ongoing CSA cases involving figures like Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly, drawing parallels to past abuses. She stresses the importance of confronting CSA's history to prevent future crimes and concludes with a call for continued vigilance, citing the lasting impact of investigative exposés like Spotlight and Leaving Neverland.

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

Editing by Mike Gioscia 

Original music and additional editing by Drew O'Doherty 

 Consulting producer Anngelle Wood from Crime of the Truest Kind 

Graphics and website by Cheryl Crawford design and Justin Stasburg 

Research by Melissa Ellin and Maggie Schneider 

Production assistance by Darren McFadden, Sarah Ruemenapp and Alexandra Vega

Our social media producer is Carla de Stefano

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

Links:

Boston Globe Spotlight Series on Clergy Abuse

Boston Globe Spotlight Series on Private School Abuse

Boy Scout Perversion Files

Sexual Exploitation Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Crime 1977

Vanity Fair Article Boy Scout Abuse Story

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

Transcript

Ep 4 Scope and Severity

Previously on Open Investigation…

Foster Son: Well, first, let me just say that I was a foster child that lived with him. 

He was my legal guardian. I was living with a legal guardian. Who was placing foster children or street kids with pedophiles, you know. 

Melanie McLaughlin: This is Open Investigation, a series investigating the disappearance of my childhood friend, Andy Puglisi, and the unsolved cases of dozens of missing and murdered children in MA in the 1970s while a human trafficking ring was thriving in our community. 

This is Scope and Severity, Episode 4

In the last episode we learned about the child trafficking ring in Revere, MA where over 24 men were arrested in 1977 for abusing children ranging in age from 8 to 15. This ring was the foundation for one of the first publicly identified pedophile organizations in the country. The organization, the North American Man/Boy [00:01:00] Love Association also called NAMBLA went national shortly after first forming in Revere, MA. a city that borders Boston. 

I’m your host, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. I’m a documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist, producer/director and childhood friend of Andy Puglisi, a 10-year-old boy who vanished from a public swimming pool in Lawrence, MA on August 22, 1976.

I have amassed hundreds of hours of interviews archival and contemporary, binders of court records, countless digital records and decades of investigative research working on this story. It has become my life’s work. And I’m sharing it with you because I’m hoping this time things will change. This time someone will listen and a task force will be created to investigate these cases. This time an adult in pain who has suffered from the trauma of CSA will recognize themself in this story and know they aren’t alone. And that there is help. That the [00:02:00] children of Lawrence, MA who had their childhood stolen from them the day Andy disappeared, many of whom are likely child sex abuse/CSA victims themselves are able to find healing in truth telling and empowerment in advocacy.

This episode is dedicated to the disbelievers; who choose to doubt the veracity of children without further investigation. I hope you are able to listen.

So, now, let’s get to the story of this episode. 

This episode is about the scope and severity of CSA, organized pedophilia and child trafficking rings that existed in America since at least the 1970s and perhaps longer. These are the same or similar organized rings that continue to exist today as seen in news stories like those about Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelley, Larry Nassar, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jerry Sandusky, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, the Mormon church, etc. . 

So much of the time society chooses to brush these stories off as lone perpetrators. Do we really think Jeffrey Epstein was the only guy involved in abusing all those girls? Or that the hundreds of priests in the Catholic church who abused children weren't part of a community, didn’t associate with each other, share information and even share children? Or that the Boy Scout leader was just that one bad actor? Society has created a stereotype of a pedophile as the guy in the trench coat lurking around playgrounds luring kids with candy. 

The truth is pedophilia is invisible. And it is not to be confused with being gay. Pedophiliac Disorder is a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses DSM-5. It is highly resistant to treatment and rates of recidivism have been estimated to be between 25 to 50% (Harvard University 2010) To be clear pedophiles are sexually attracted to children. They often meet in groups, organize parties and share like interests as most other groups do. Sports enthusiast? You go to a sports bar, hang out with other sports fans, go to games. Same with music lovers. You go where there’s live music, take up an instrument, hang out with other musicians. Pedophiles are no different. They go where children are, they find each other, share stories, sell pictures, make videos. They normalize their behavior as best they can because they think it is not them that are wrong but society for judging them for loving children. They are teachers, police officers, priests, coaches, Boy Scout leaders, camp counselors, relatives and even parents. And while people don’t want to believe that pedophilia is as prolific as it is consider the statistics. 

A compilation of research according to the National Incident Based Reporting System and other research articles indicate 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18 and differing rates of 1 in 12 to 1 in 20 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (with the idea boys may be less likely to report) In general, 1 in 10 children will experience CSA by the ate of 18. An estimated 39 million Americans are CSA survivors. 

So, the question I have is, how many pedophiles does that make? 

Act I 1970s “Child Prostitution”

The 1970s were a different time. If you weren’t alive then you wouldn’t know but it was a time when we drank out of the water hose, sat piled up in the back seat of a station wagon with 5 kids and a dog with no seat belts. We were free-range kids meaning when we left the house we could be gone all day and our parents or caregivers would have no idea where we were until supper time or “when the street lights came on '' which meant it was time to go home. There were no cell phones to check in, no security cameras tracking every move. I walked a mile or two to school by myself in kindergarten. Smoked my first cigarette when I was 8. My first joint not long after. We were inner city kids living in a housing project with dozens of other inner city kids. And we wouldn’t have had it any other way. Here’s a clip from a scene in my documentary, Have You Seen Andy, where several of the project kids reminisce about growing up back then. 

Audio of kids from the stadium projects reminiscing…

What we failed to realize is how vulnerable we were. But people who prey on children know where the vulnerable ones are. 

Back in the 1970s many forms of child abuse weren't even considered illegal There were little or no laws against child pornography which today is referred to as child sex abuse materials or CSAM. Children could be physically reprimanded in public without so much as a second look. Children were to be seen and not heard. We didn’t talk back. We ate what we were told. We were not seen as having basic human rights. In fact, you could even transport a boy across state lines for the purpose of illicit activity and there was no law against it. 

In 1972 a pamphlet was published out of Hollywood, California called "Where the Young Ones Are". THe pamphlet listed 378 places in 59 cities of 34 states where "the young can be found". The pamphlet reportedly sold 70,000 copies at $5 per copy according to the Los Angeles Police department. 

Also in Los Angeles a pedophile organization was formed called the Rene Guyon society. In 1977 the society was said to have 5,000 members. Their slogan was 'sex after eight or else it’s too late'. 

In 1976 NBC correspondent Robin Lloyd Wright published the book "For Money or Love: Boy Prostitution in America" in which he estimated an immense child prostitution network across the country. Here's a news story on boy prostitution from that time.

Reporter: The authorities call them boy prostitutes. The street name is Chickens. Boys as young as 11, hunted by chicken hawks. Older men, most of them homosexuals, who pay for the bodies of the young. And pay well. 

It's a national problem found in every large city, even in some small towns. Police say the number of boy prostitutes may be as high as a million,

Melanie McLaughlin: 1977 Congressional hearings on child exploitation document Adult bookstores were set up around the country selling CSAM materials on a black market basis. in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, New Orleans, Detroit, Flint, [00:09:00] Chicago, San Francisco. San Jose, Lose Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne Some of the titles of magazines include Nudist Moppets, Lollitots, Chicken Delight, Lust for Children, etc. 

in 1977 The Chicago Tribune published a 3-month investigation into child prostitution and child pornography by reporters Michael Sneed and George Bliss. "Chicago is the headquarters of a nationwide ring trafficking in young boys - "chickens" ...and placing them in various "homes" to serve male customers, or "chicken hawks"....so extensive are the nationwide dealings that the Tribune was able to obtain a list of 5,000 names and addresses of the ring's clients living in every part of the country." It went on to report the men communicate through newsletters for the "boy love" trade. and "pornographers in at least five states Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee and Louisiana and Florida have use or attempted to use federal state and county funds to establish foster homes and [00:10:00] child care camps for their operations, and some have used foster children in pornographic movies. 

The article included a 1970s New Orleans ring that established a Boy Scout Troop "for the purpose of using boys ranging from 11 to 15 years old for homosexual purposes...multiple men have been arrested...among them are two Boston area millionaires". 

A Michigan newspaper, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported the two Boston millionaires arrested as part of the New Orleans ring were Richard C. Jacobs and Hugh Scott Mellor. Richard C. Jacobs of Waltham MA was listed as the President of Jet Spray Corp with corporate offices in Brookline, Mass and subsidiary offices throughout the world. Jacobs was reported to be a part owner of the New England Patriots at one time. Hugh Scott Mellor of Brighton Mass was the President of Reservoir Regra, In a real estate holding company. The New Orleans ring was said [00:11:00] to include both members of the boy scout troop and several Louisiana state wards or foster children. 

Unbelievably, the raid on the New Orleans ring included CSAM that led police to another 1970s child prostitution ring in Tennessee called Boys Farm Inc, a non-profit formed by an Episcopalian priest to house wayward boys from throughout Tennessee. 

And there was a separate Michigan child trafficking ring that was operated by millionaire Francis D. Shelden an Ann Arbor Michigan millionaire who purchased an island, North Fox Island, a lush 835 acre hideaway for the purposes of trafficking children to wealthy men. He had a private airstrip for transporting children to the island...

One of the detectives investigating the Michigan case said of the child prostitution / child trafficking arrests, "it seems to be like spider webs strung out all over the nation". 

I vividly remember when I came across this series of investigative [00:12:00] news stories by the Tribune. It was in 2017 when my research started up again after I had been triggered by a news story on national public radio while driving down the highway, but more about that later.

For so long, it was like I had been working on a jigsaw puzzle by myself, close up piece by piece. But when I read the Chicago Tribune series I was able to step back from the puzzle and see the bigger picture. I didn’t have access to the series until digital media allowed me to find newspaper articles from around the country at the touch of a keyboard. 

I knew what the Tribune recorded in Chicago, in Florida, in New Orleans, in New York and Michigan was happening in MA too! In fact, I had a feeling this massive child exploitation was happening across the country in the 1970s. I started [00:13:00] researching child pornography or child prostitution rings in each state in New England. But in those days the words we used were different. And, remember words matter. Child trafficking was called child prostitution. Child sex abuse material was called child pornography. Child pornography films were called ‘obscene materials’ and sexual activity between a man and boy was called a ‘homosexual act’. Talk about euphemisms!

My search found rings broken up in CT, RI, NH, ME, and MA around 1977/1978? 

In 1978 a child pornography ring was broken up in Warwick RI about 12 miles from where Wayne W. Chapman the main suspect in Andy's case lived. Child porn / CSAM magazines “Love” and “Hate” were confiscated and police said a mailing list included names of nationally known figures. One of the men arrested, an organized crime figure, would go on to become the “Ted Turner of adult entertainment” who today runs [00:14:00] a billion dollar empire. 

In 1979 a major child pornography ring in Tolland, and Willington CT involving children as young as 6 was broken up by CT state police and the FBI. The head of the ring was a scout leader and little league coach. State police said the ring had national and international connections. (Hartford Courant 3/14/1979)

In 1977 NH man Robert Wayne Decker was arrested for child pornography and a Supreme court ruling upheld the right for journalists to attend the hearing. In 1984 an admitted member of NAMBLA, Kenneth Hunter was arrested in Berlin, NH as a suspect in a multi-state homosexual ring pleaded guilty to possession of hundreds of pornographic photos of boys that authorities said he planned to sell. Coded letters were found among Hunter’s belongings 

In 1977 in Bangor, Maine a man was arrested for running a business called “Teddy Bear Publishing” which distributed “obscene films” of boys as young as 8 in “homosexual acts” 

In 1979 one of the largest stashes of child pornography was seized in Falmouth, MA. Photographer George Jacobs was arrested with over 90,000 slides of what was then called “kiddie porn”. The State Police officer who arrested Jacobs said they found a distribution list of 178 names that looked like a “Who’s Who” including school teachers, doctors, members of the clergy and scout masters. 

And, of course, right here in Revere, MA, miles away from where my friend and dozens of other children disappeared or were found murdered was what was called the Revere child sex ring. 

ACT II Rings Around the Country

In 1999, I came across a critical book written by a forensic nurse at the University of Pennsylvania named Ann Burgess. The book, “Child Pornography and Sex Rings” detailed the history of child sex rings and pornography in Massachusetts, across the country and even internationally. You might recognize Dr. Ann Burgess as the model for the forensic nurse in Mindhunter and Hulu recently produced a documentary about her. She is a pioneer in the field of CSA prevention.

In her book , Child Pornography and Sex Rings Burgess researches the typologies of different kinds of rings. . There is the solo ring which Burgess describes as a ring involving one adult and several children where the adult is in a position of power and the children are aware of the activity involving others. These rings often work using peer pressure. Another type is the Transition Ring where multiple adults are sexually abusing multiple children most of whom are pubescent. The children are tested as prostitutes to advance their role in a syndicated ring. A Syndicated Ring, according to Burgess, is a highly organized ring involving the recruitment of children, production of child pornography (now referred to as CSAM) the delivery of sexual services and a network of customers. 

Ann Burgess describes three types of pedophilel rings - solo, intermediate and syndicate. Burgess also describes how these pedophile networks would use the truck driving industry to transport children and CB radios to communicate.

Melanie McLaughlin: apparently this information was all common knowledge to academics, state and federal law enforcement. And yet whenever I mentioned my suspicions of something more organized in Andy’s abduction or other children’s cases I was looked at as though I was crazy.. 

Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, New Orleans

In 1976 in New Orleans 19 men were arrested from across the country including Arlington Massachusetts millionaire Richard C. Jacobs, part-owner of the Patriots and Brighton MA based Hugh Scott Mellor, another Massachusetts millionaire. The millionaires would fly from MA to LA to abuse boys as part of an organized network of pedophiles. Two of the leaders of the New Orleans ring, operated out of a Boy Scout Troop. Troop 137. They would take some of the boy scouts on trips with them trafficking them to men across the country. It would be another 35+ years before the Boy Scouts would publish what’s referred to as the “perversion files”. Lists of over 1200 pedophile troop leaders for abusing children within the Boy Scout program from 1965-1985. The list was not published until 2012 and only then because of a court order. Oregon Live reported the list of men came from all walks of life, a psychiatrist, a milkman, an IRS agent, a policeman, a laundromat owner, a pilot, a prison guard, a college student, a steel-worker, elementary school teachers…”

Other leaders of the ring would target runaway homes for children or community agencies that support troubled children. Does this sound familiar? Remember episode 3 The Boston Sex Scandal where we talked about corrupt social worker Dick Bavley and his grooming of foster children. These things are not random. They are planned best practices if you will. 18 suspects across several states were arrested as part of the 1977 New Orleans ring. 

According to the Chicago Tribune series, leaders in the pedophile community including a man named John Norman who operated a mail-order business selling magazine style newsletters featuring pedophilia, created a manifesto of how to organize pedophile rings. The manifesto included tiered systems of support similar to organized crime where older more experienced pedophiles like “capos’ or leaders groom younger juvenile delinquent types to act as lures for younger children creating generations of criminals and victims. The manifesto instructed people to create camps or non-profit organizations that could serve as a front for child abuse and pornography. When Norman was arrested there were index cards of thousands of individuals he worked with. The cards were, unsurprisingly, lost in evidence. Among Norman’s contacts police found a Tennessee man named Reverend Claudius Ira “Bud” Vermilye Jr. 

The Reverend created a camp called Boys Town Inc partially funded by state and county funds. The camp was a front for child pornography. Reverend Bud had dozens of boys he would force to engage in CSA with while he secretly recorded them. The Reverend would sell the films to “sponsors’ who donated to the Farm. The sponsors would also come to the camp and engage in sexual activity with the boys. The Chicago Tribune reported the Reverend had over 270 active sponsors. 

Two rings in Michigan in the 1970s. Much like the Jeffrey Epstein case a ring was broken up in Michigan in the 1970s. The ring was operated by a millionaire, Francis Sheldon, who bought an island, North Fox Island. The only way to get to the island was by plane. Sheldon would bring in boys to be abused by his friends and colleagues. What was [00:23:00] called a child prostitution ring in urban Detroit's Cass Corridor was broken up in the early 70s.

There was organized Child Sex Tourism like in New Orleans where they set up companies one called Adelphi Tours that offered transportation, hotel accommodations, etc. and that would provide boys for SA. 

In all of these rings the rich, connected ones are the ones that get off the lowest person on the totem pole and take the fall. They connected through magazines. One was called Hermes, another called the Broad Street Journal. Often they would post ads for what type of victim customers might want. Often code words were used. Boys would be referred to as ‘chickens’ and men who liked boys ‘chicken hawks’. What is consistent with all of these rings is the pedophile involved rationalizes their behavior. They insist they weren’t hurting children. That children were co-conspirators. What they were doing was loving boys and just another form of sexual ‘choice’. 

The 1977 newspaper series is akin to the 2001 Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning Spotlight coverage of the clergy abuse crisis. The series resulted in US Congressional hearings on the sexual exploitation of children, the creation of child pornography laws, stories on the cover of Newsweek and TIME magazine, a federal investigation into child pornography and pedophile rings. Laws are created including the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 and The Missing Children’s Act of 1982 which included the establishment of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children NCMEC in 1984. Here is audio of children's rights activist Judi Densen-Gerber at the 1977 Congressional Hearings on Child Sex Exploitation.

Reporter: In Washington, a House Subcommittee on Crime began hearings today on a kind of pornography about which there is virtually no public disagreement. The sexual abuse of children. More than a fourth of the members of the House already have [00:25:00] endorsed legislation to stop such abuse of children.

Psychiatrist Julianne Vincent Gerber is the loudest and perhaps the leading expert on pornography involving children. She wants Congress to outlaw child porn, a million dollar business, and she says First Amendment freedoms are irrelevant to the pornographic abuse of children.

 She and the front load of dirty books she brought got heavy news coverage. Her shocking show and tell testimony upset some committee members.

Don't you think you've been a little counterproductive in showing all those titles, all those books which may appear on that press, but my four year old, my eight year old, my twelve year old watch? Let me answer you very strongly that I believe that the situation in this country is so terrible now, and the leadership so poor, that only if the American people become informed will we be able to protect our freedoms.

Are you going to inform my 12 year old, my 8 year old, my 4 year old? But madam, they have no way of selecting, and my wife would have no way of selecting what you have presented here. So why don't you clean it up, so I don't have any magazines to show. Well, ma'am, [00:26:00] we are trying to do that. 

Act III The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same

Reporter: The former president of USA Gymnastics is facing charges now. Steve Penny is now accused of hiding evidence in connection to the Larry Nassar investigation. 

Reporter 1: Breaking news billionaire Jeffrey Epstein arrested on new sex trafficking charges. In 2008, the wealthy hedge fund manager pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting and procuring minors for prostitution.

Reporter: Jerry Sandusky back in cuffs, wearing a Penn State tracksuit, taken from his home in the middle of the afternoon, and today charged with abusing more children.

Reporter 1: at 12 o'clock today, Michael Jackson was taken into custody. At the Santa Barbara airport.

Reporter 3: watch how federal agents took Sean Diddy Combs into custody. When agents from Homeland Security Investigations approach and separate him.

Reporter 4: The embattled R& B singer R. Kelly was picked up in Chicago on two [00:27:00] separate federal indictments One is a five count indictment charging the singer with racketeering, The other, charges Kelly with child pornography, enticement of a minor, and obstruction of justice.

Melanie McLaughlin: In 2012 The Atlantic ran an article about what they referred to as a former child prostitute alleging that Jerry Sandusky, Pennsylvania States’ infamous coach and foster parent to multiple children was part of a tri-state child prostitution ring. Sandusky had created a non-profit organization to support marginalized kids. The same kids he abused. 

Five years later, in 2017, I set up meetings with District Attorney's, The Attorney General's office and local publications to share what I had found regarding the high number of unsolved missing and murdered children’s cases in MA and the connection to some of the clergy cases. I laid out the whole story. The child sex rings, the missing kids, the murdered kids, unsolved cases, child pornography, the Chicago Tribune series, [00:28:00] etc. I thought for sure something would be done.

In one meeting someone calmly replied, “Why would we care what happened in Chicago? We’re Boston”. I tried explaining the complicated chain of events that led me to document this same story repeated in Boston as it was across the country. Where dozens of runaway, missing and exploited children, including my childhood friend Andy, may have been involved. I was met with steely dismissal and the suggestion that maybe I was a hammer who sees everything as a nail. They didn’t ask about proof or research. 

On my ride home from one of those meetings, I was reminded of a scene in the Spotlight film where whistleblower and clergy abuse survivor Phil Saviano explains how he had tried for years to convince the Globe that priests were abusing kids and he was met with that same steely dismissal - even a raised eyebrow or two. 

So, I went to another media outlet. I just couldn't understand why people weren't interested in dozens of unsolved missing and murdered children’s cases. Some of which may be connected to organized child trafficking rings that were operating in MA at the time. 

Sadly, in a matter of minutes on the phone one man abruptly said, “maybe you lost your credibility”. I was almost speechless! What the fuck did that mean? I tried one more time explaining that the United States Attorney had started a human trafficking task force and we were looking at working together to review some of these unresolved cases. “Well”, he replied, “if you could get the US Attorney to talk to you then that might be a story”. It was at that point, I decided it wasn’t worth telling him I was already collaborating with the US Attorney and that several cases had been reopened as a result of my research. Here's an interview from 2022 with former US Attorney Rachael Rollins who we were working with on unresolved cases.

Rachael Rollins: I remember you coming in and just how prepared you were. And one of the things I remember, of course I was aware of it, but it was not as profound as when you said it, is that my list of unsolved homicides doesn't even include the missing. And after the meeting with you, realizing that Robert Jankowski, who was three, Um, murdered, unsolved, Jimmy Teta, 15 years old, murdered, unsolved, um, and who was looking out for them, um, but also with you recognizing Leigh Savoie who's 10, still missing, right? Where is Leigh Savoie on our list? Um, where [00:31:00] is Lee Nelida DeJesus DeVille, who is nine, still missing.

Wilfredo Torres, who is 12, still missing. And Christopher Brian Lewis, 13, still missing, and the list goes on.

I know it's not easy to think about pedophilia and child sex rings and , it's easier to try to pretend things like that don't happen. We cannot live in a world where we pretend

Melanie McLaughlin: I know the most important thing about listening to a victim is that first you must believe them. 

In 2017 I reached out to a child advocacy center through the Suffolk County DA’s office.I met with a female police officer and victim advocate. Before I even began to share the story of what I had uncovered, they stopped me to tell me the first thing they wanted me to know is that they believed me. I choked back tears. I have been working on this story for so long. And I have amassed so much research. And the truth is, a lot of people just don't want to hear it. They’ll say it was too long ago or information is lost to time, etc.

That same local police officer opened up two unresolved cases and spent the next several years reaching out to multiple districts to put pieces of this puzzle together no other law enforcement officer has. She continues to work on these children’s cases. I am forever grateful to her for believing me before I had to prove anything. 

The bottom line is child pornography was already a billion dollar business in 1976 when Andy vanished. Children were being trafficked across the country. There was a huge market for boys like Andy. The main suspect in Andy’s abduction, Wayne W. Chapman was arrested with several pictures of naked children, 8 mm movies and high end camera equipment. One of his victims shared that he had a dark room in his apartment. Several of the priests in the clergy cases highlighted by the Spotlight team were taking pictures of abusing children, making videos of child abuse, sharing victims with each other. One notorious Boston priest even had cameras installed in the ceiling of his bedroom. 

If you don’t believe me then do the research, like I did. Or read my show notes. 

And right back here in Boston, or Revere - a suburb of Boston - was the creation of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association. As we said earlier, NAMBLA organized to provide legal support for people arrested in these pedophile rings. They petitioned legislators to lower the age of consent so it would be legal to have sex with boys as young as 13 or younger. Most people think pedophiles operate alone. Yet every time I researched any of the pedophiles linked to Andy’s case there were always more. One police detective from New Orleans said law enforcement should remember wherever there’s one pedophile there are more. And more victims than imagined. 

In May through September of 1977, not even a year after Andy disappeared the federal government convened congressional hearings on the sexual exploitation of children. This was yet another document that added to the big picture of this puzzle I had been putting together for years. The document reads like a fiction novel. 

And even when pedophiles go to prison they remain connected to like-minded people. For example, the Bridgewater Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. 

When people ask me “why does what happened 50 years ago matter today?” My response is because if we don't know our past we cannot change our future. Child exploitation is still happening today! And it is still happening to the most marginalized children as demonstrated in cases like Jeffrey Epstein, Jerry Sandusky, Michael Jackson, etc. where the victims are most often marginalized kids .

In 2022 the LA Times just reported that hundreds of former foster children from the MacLaren Children's Center in El Monte, CA an agency with the state Department of Children and Families were coming forward with allegations of child sex abuse, from the 1970s all the way until 2003! A Johns Hopkins University study found that children in foster care are four times more likely than other children to be sexually abused. 

And, as one law enforcement officer said to me, while not all pedophiles are child murderers there are child murderers among pedophiles. Most people have heard of the notorious John Wayne Gacy, the child killer from Chicago who was responsible for the murders of 35 boys, most of whom he buried in a crawlspace under his house. Gacy was a well-respected local contractor who would impersonate a police officer to lure his victims. Many people have not heard of another serial child killer arrested just a few years before Gacy. A man named Dean Corll from Dallas, TX sexually abused, tortured and murdered 28 boys with the assistance of two juvenile delinquent co-conspirators. Both Corll and Gacy were linked to national pedophile rings either by their own admission or testimony from their co-conspirators. Corll had a list of 30,000 pedophiles according to the Chicago Tribune. The Dallas police sent the list to the State Department. The State Department claims to have destroyed the list due to ‘privacy concerns’. 

There are several additional resources from films to [00:37:00] research articles that document the pandemic of child sex abuse in America. Some of the few that have influenced me include the Academy-award winning film, Spotlight about systemic clergy abuse in the Catholic church and the Boston Globe Spotlight series; one on the clergy abuse and another on systemic abuse in private schools in New England. The Keepers, a Netflix series about the unsolved murder of a Catholic nun and systemic CSA, the Chicago Tribune series from 1977 Netflix What Happened to Johnny, the story of Johnny Gosch, Investigation Discovery's The Clown and the Candyman series, Jimmy Savile, A British Horror Story, Quiet on Set, the story of CSA on Nickelodeon, the HBO series Leaving Neverland and my own HBO documentary, Have You Seen Andy.

The list goes on. The point is how can we prevent something we won't even talk about? I sincerely hope this series gets people talking. And, as importantly, it gets law enforcement and others to look at the correlation between systems of abuse and unsolved missing and murdered children's cases in MA and across the country. Honestly I think this podcast could be repeated in every single state and the data from the 1970s would be the same across the country. I believe it is not just the responsibility of law enforcement but of the community and society at large to better understand the history of human trafficking of children in America and to do something about it because as one law enforcement official said to me, "....because truth has no statute of limitations..."

Next Time on Open Investigation: Episode 5 Pedophile Priests 

We hear directly from survivors as we reveal the organized nature of clergy sex abuse within the Catholic Church in MA; especially in Lawrence, MA the city where Andy vanished. 

Credits

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 from Crime of the Truest Kind 

Graphics and website by Cheryl Crawford Design and Justin Strasburg 

Research by Melissa Ellin and Maggie Schneider 

Production assistance by Darren McFadden, Sarah Ruemenapp and Alexandra Vega.

Our social media producer is Carla de Stefano. 

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

Links:

Boston Globe Spotlight Series on Clergy Abuse

Boston Globe Spotlight Series on Private School Abuse

Boy Scout Perversion Files

Sexual Exploitation Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Crime 1977

Vanity Fair Article Boy Scout Abuse Story