Missing Paperboys /// Chapter 1 /// Johnny Gosch

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4.7 • 35.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early eighties middle America experienced tragedies that no parent could imagine, until it happened for the first time. Newspaper boys were disappearing. They would step out into the dark of the early morning hours to deliver the daily news to their neighborhoods and some of them did not return. It started in Iowa and then moved to Nebraska. Kids were plucked off the street just a few steps into their routes and some have vanished forever. The first boy gone was Johnny Gosch.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The The
0:23.6	The The
0:40.3	The The
0:57.0	The In the early 80s, middle America experienced tragedies that no parent could imagine,
1:30.7	until it happened for the first time. Newspaper boys were disappearing from the streets.
1:36.9	They would step out into the dark of the early morning hours to deliver the daily news to their
1:42.4	neighborhoods, and some of them did not return.
1:47.1	It started in Iowa, and then it moved to Nebraska.
1:51.8	Kids were plucked off the street, just a few steps into their routes, and some have vanished forever.
2:00.7	The first boy gone was in West Des Moines, Iowa.
2:04.6	The papers he carried read,
2:07.4	Des Moines Sunday Register.
2:09.9	The newspaper Iowa depends upon.
2:13.1	September 5, 1982.
2:16.4	$1 for a single copy. $0.85 by motor route, and 80 cents by carrier.
2:24.2	The top story headline read,
2:27.4	Good news of Iowa humanity emerged in tragedies of summer.
2:33.1	The day's weather forecasted on the front page,
2:36.3	partly cloudy,
2:37.6	with a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon.
2:42.6	Highs, 80 to 85 degrees.
	...

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