The following episode contains difficult subject matter.

Please take care while listening.

I'm Kathleen Goldhar.

This is crime story.

Every week a new crime with the storyteller who knows it best.

Thank you. best. As one could imagine, it's just, it's a blur and it's chaos.

I had these moments that I remembered, some of which I wasn't really sure whether they'd

happened because I was so young.

How much of what I remember is real and what does that mean if it's not?

In 1973, David Kushner was four years old and living with his family in a suburb of Tampa, Florida.

David was the youngest of three brothers.

One morning when John, the middle brother, was jumping on his bike to go for a spin,

David asked for a favor.

Would John please stop at the local 7-Eleven and pick up some of his favorite candy,

snappy gator gum?

The store was a quick bike ride through a forest, and John had made the journey many times.

These were the days before Amber alerts and locked doors when little kids roamed the streets

on their own.

John agreed, and David watched his big brother cycle off.

He didn't know it, but that would be the last time that he would see John alive.

Eight days later, John's body was discovered in a shallow grave.

He was 11.

...