REPLAY | EP 44 | What Happened To Andy Puglisi? Lawrence, Mass & The Suspects In His Disppearance

This is about abuse, missing, and murdered children. Listen with care.

In preparation for Friday's new episode with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, a replay of Andy Puglisi's case first released in two parts, in June 2023. There are many updates to this story, despite it being a decades-long mystery.

Explore the haunting case of Andy Puglisi, a young boy who vanished from a public pool in 1976, spotlighting the societal attitudes towards missing children during that time. There was no system in place, no organizations, resources or support. The discussion delves into a failed police response, and the lack of societal capital so many of these children had.  Andy's case shines a light on the systemic failures that persist in handling missing child cases. And worse, the cold realities of child exploitation, insidious clergy sex abuse,  and the loss and anger families have been left with.

The tale of 10-year-old Andy Puglisi, whose vanishing act in 1976 Massachusetts still echoes through time. What we learned from the documentary "Have You Seen Andy," that was researched, writted, and produced by Melanie Perkins McLaughlin—Andy’s childhood friend and neighbor in the Lawrence projects. We confront the epidemic of missing and murdered children during the 1970s and confront the unending threat of online child exploitation.

We travel the Merrimack Valley, remembering Michelle Wilson's 1969 murder, the ripple effects of these events are palpable. Hear about the grim confessions of Charles E. Pierce and the sinister connections involving Wayne W. Chapman, a known predator whose dark legacy taints this New England community.

We continue to advocate for these children and so many like them.

Crime of the Truest Kind, EP 44 for resources and links

Information at missingkids.org
The Cyber Tipline: 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)

Links

Have You Seen Andy?, streaming now on MAX
by Melanie Perkins McLaughlin

Boston Globe "Have You Seen Andy' series, July 4, 1999
by Judith Gaines

Chapters

• 0:00 Unsolved Missing Child Case in Massachusetts
• 18:00 Unsolved Boxford Murders and Justice
• 25:30 The Providence Pedophile Suspect

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Hello listeners, Anngelle here, back in the late spring of 2023, I shared the story of 10-year-old Andy Puglisi, the little boy who disappeared from the public pool in Lawrence, massachusetts, in the summer of 1976. All thanks go to his childhood friend, melanie Perkins. She spent decades researching, writing and producing the documentary, Have you Seen Andy" streaming now on Max? In the decades that have passed since Andy Puglisi disappeared, what we have learned about the fate of missing and murdered children, particularly around Massachusetts and New England in the 1970s? Well, it has been eye-opening. I am resharing episode 43 and 44 about Andy's case because on Friday I will share an update on Andy's case and what we have learned in the years since. Friday's episode will feature Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, creator of that documentary and who released Open Investigation, a brand new investigative podcast that starts with Andy Puglisi in a story that seems to have no end. Thank you for listening and, please, true crime is not for children, yet these children need these stories told. Please listen with care. Well, hello, my name is Angele Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Angela Wood, your host, creator, writer, editor. Well, everything on Crime of the Truest Kind Huge story making news in Massachusetts and New England this week.

Anngelle Wood: 2:07

The now former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue and his wife have been charged in connection with the theft and sale of human body parts from cadavers donated to the school. The couple from Goffstown, new Hampshire, are accused of conspiring with a Salem Massachusetts woman and others as part of a years-long effort to illegally buy and sell body parts and organs to people across the country. This supports my theory that there is truly a hustle for everything. I will begin this episode how I began the last one. This is a true crime, local history and storytelling podcast. I write about crimes. Yes, I set the scene, connect story themes. I talk about things that happened here in Massachusetts and New England. That happened here in Massachusetts and New England. This episode is about murdered and missing children, one in particular, and I talk about child sexual abuse, the attitudes among the public at large in regard to this topic. So if this subject matter is something that might hurt you or impede your own healing, you might not want to listen to this entire episode, and I do realize that this often goes unsaid with true crime podcasts, but this one is not for children.

Anngelle Wood: 3:40

This is episode 44, part two in the still unsolved disappearance of a Lawrence Massachusetts boy who simply vanished from his neighborhood in the summer of 1976?. What happened to Andy Puglisi of Lawrence, massachusetts, and the list of suspects in his disappearance? Please go back and listen to part one before beginning this episode. It's episode number 43. Now, there are always discrepancies in reporting. If you've done any kind of research in your life, you've probably figured that out. I try very hard to cross-reference facts in my writing. It is my goal to be as factual as humanly possible. Andy was reported missing late on the evening of August 21st. The investigation into his disappearance began in the early morning hours. Stop. We now know that, since I released this episode in June 2023, that Andy Puglisi disappeared on Sunday, august 22, 1976. Go on the police searched for six days before calling it off. That was the beginning of a 40-plus year mystery fraught with suspicions, slow response and missed opportunities.

Anngelle Wood: 5:04

June is Internet Safety Month. It's a good time to talk about what children face online and what we can do to help keep them safe. In 2018, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tip Line received more than 18 million reports of online child sexual exploitation. The majority of these tips were related to child sexual abuse imagery, online enticement, including sextortion, and child sex trafficking. They found that online enticement took place across every online platform, from social media sites to messaging apps to online gaming. It is shocking to learn how pervasive child sexual abuse has become online. With about 97% of American kids having access to tablets and smartphones. That opens up many opportunities for predators to get access to children online. Many opportunities for predators to get access to children online. Find out more information at missingkidsorg and the tip line 1-800-THE-LOST, that's 1-800-843-5678.

Anngelle Wood: 6:16

Police called off the search for Andy just days after he disappeared. The search began on August 22nd and ended on the afternoon of August 27th, something that simply could not happen today. Investigators hoped it would force whomever took Andy to make a mistake. The search of the areas around where Andy was last seen yielded nothing, not one thing that could be connected to Andy. From that day, they found nothing more than an old cannonball in the woods. A piece in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune announcing the end of the search the previous day said that a search along the river, from on a boat ramp to behind the Elks Club, found that someone had written Andy in the dirt. Elks Club found that someone had written Andy in the dirt. While samples of Andy's writing were compared, it was the belief of investigators that it was done that day after it had rained. Even more bizarre, they said that they had found intestines on a local sidewalk and sent them for analysis, but said they appeared to be too large to belong to a young boy and likely came from an animal.

Anngelle Wood: 7:26

Whatever the police thought might happen after that, public announcement that Andy was believed to be safe and would soon be returned did nothing but embolden his captor or killer. It removed any sense of urgency for the public and for the many volunteers who were vigilantly searching for him. And as time passed Andy's case faded. Investigators would try new searches over the years. They would follow news reports about crimes that involved young boys. That could maybe connect to Andy's disappearance. But his was a long-gone cold case. But his was a long-gone cold case.

Anngelle Wood: 8:05

In December of 1978, a 15-year-old named Robert Peast went missing in Des Plaines, illinois. He was one of many missing young men in and around the area of greater Chicago. Most of the other missing boys were said to be runaways by the police, but Robert Peast's disappearance would lead to a local businessman who authorities would learn met with Robert about doing some construction work for his business. Robert would never be seen after this meeting. After surveilling this man for a period of time, police executed a search warrant on his home on December 21st 1978, and they would find a macabre scene identifying John Wayne Gacy as one of history's most sadistic serial killers. The remains of several murdered boys were buried in Gacy's home. Victims would be found under the home, buried on the property and thrown in the Des Plaines River.

Anngelle Wood: 9:01

John Wayne Gacy would confess and be convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970s. It would take years to identify the remains of his victims. Families of missing people reached out in the hopes that their loved one would be identified. In January of 1979, andy Puglisi's dental records were sent to Chicago to rule out whether Andy was a victim of the notorious sexual predator who drove around picking up victims. Andy's records would be referenced against the remains of children found buried in Gacy's home. No match was made. Given that Gacy was actively murdering boys as early as 1972, anything would be possible and should not be ruled out. Only 28 of Gacy's victims have been conclusively identified. Five victims remain unknown.

Anngelle Wood: 9:56

Much has changed in the years since Andy Puglisi disappeared. Like how we respond to missing children in those critical moments, those neighborhood children near the Higgins pool have all grown, memories have faded or were buried. For many of them, though, they can't forget, it was Andy's friend, melanie, who breathed new life into his case. She began work on have you Seen Andy, the years-long documentary production in 1998, vowing to find out what had happened to her childhood friend. She reached out to relatives and contacts from the neighborhood. Taking it one step further, a post office box was set up to solicit tips from anyone who may have knowledge about his case. Anyone with information, large or small, could mail it in, and the tips came PO Box 156, andover, mass, 01810.

Anngelle Wood: 10:55

Ramping up the pressure, that summer the Lawrence police reopened Andy's case For the fourth time. Three detectives were assigned Captain Michael Mochan, sergeant Gene Hatem both with the Lawrence Police Department and Sergeant Jack Garvin, a state police investigator. They would need to go back and review all the evidence and the suspects from 1976 and look at whatever new info was received at that time. 76. And look at whatever new info was received at that time. Let's go back to the days immediately following Andy's disappearance. One of the things that likely slowed this investigation in its most vulnerable moments is the time it took for investigators to take his disappearance seriously and to send an investigator to follow up on his mother's report that she could not find her son.

Anngelle Wood: 11:46

Andy's parents were suspects. Faith and Angelo Puglisi were divorced Very unlikely that it was a harmonious uncoupling. Initially police considered Andy a runaway. Another theory that someone in the family was holding him as some scheme to get back at the other parent. That someone in the family was holding him as some scheme to get back at the other parent. There was family conflict but he was not stashed because he was torn between his two parents. Suspect two Jerome Phillips, faith Puglisi's live-in boyfriend at the time Andy disappeared. She had invited him to go live somewhere else. Jerome Phillips was with Faith when Andy went missing and passed a lie detector test. Jerome Phillips died from a heart attack in 1998.

Anngelle Wood: 12:33

Suspect number three Gary Thibodeau, a local kid who lived in the neighborhood not far from where Andy was last seen. He would have been 19 or 20 at the time. Thibodeau was interrogated by police about Andy and his whereabouts on the afternoon of August 21st. He claimed to be at work from 3 pm on. It wasn't a strong alibi and investigators didn't rule him out as being involved in Andy's disappearance. A high school dropout, gary Thibodeau, would pick up work, occasionally painting houses. He had spent a lot of time in the woods where a friend had a shack and he tried to grow pot none of which was odd for kids. In those days, kids built forts and shot BB guns, but 20-year-olds it threw up some red flags. It made parents nervous, but what got the attention of the police was the warnings from neighbors to look at him because he was rumored to have been inappropriate with boys in the neighborhood and there was an accusation that he molested one of the local kids. None of those accusations were proven and no charges were brought in any incidents with local boys.

Anngelle Wood: 13:47

Once Melanie Perkins began researching Andy's case, she was tipped off to him as well. The rumors of him being a pedophile didn't go away, a claim he denied many years later when Melanie Perkins tried to interview him for the have you Seen Andy documentary. By that time he had a long record and was known to police for substance abuse. According to the Boston Globe series written in 1999, thibodeau still lived with his mother in Lawrence. He never faced formal charges related to Andy's disappearance and it doesn't seem it was entirely ruled out as a suspect either. It's another, we just don't know because it is unclear whether investigators dug any deeper with him after Andy went missing. The background on the suspects will get darker and uncomfortable, with references to child sexual abuse and murder. Listen with care. Suspect 5, charles E Pierce, originally from Haverhill, mass, near Lawrence, was a pedophile, a rambling carnival worker, a sometimes restaurant worker and a reputed necrophiliac who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a young girl whose family had recently moved from Maine to Boxford, a town about 20 minutes from both Haverhill and Lawrence six weeks earlier.

Anngelle Wood: 15:10

Boxford, massachusetts, is a small rural town with winding back roads, almost no commercial development even still, and a population topping about 8,600 people. Today it is lovely. The median home price is $1 million. I was not surprised to learn that A few names we know live or live there Sports great and Hall of Famer. Carl Yastrzemski, who played for the Boston Red Sox for 23 years and still with the team as a roving instructor. And Ray Bork of the Boston Bruins, who now runs the Ray Bork Family Foundation out of Woburn. He is so beloved in Boston for his 21 years here that he won the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche and Boston still had a victory rally for him. That's love.

Anngelle Wood: 16:02

Deborah Jo Rupp, kitty Foreman on that 70s show and now that 90s show. She grew up in Boxford and went to Mascanama Regional High School. I was today years old when I found out that she was from Massachusetts. Boxford is sleepy and safe. So when 13-year-old Michelle Marie Wilson was abducted while riding her bike home in November of 1969 and found 19 hours later in a wooded area not far from her home, it was the first murder in the community since the 1800s. I cannot be sure when. The last murder was in Boxford.

Anngelle Wood: 16:41

On June 21, 1971, the town made unwanted news again when a 15-year-old girl named Barbara Anderson was reported missing from her Boxford home. Her father returned from their family store in Lynn to find the house ransacked, furniture tipped and money missing. Barbara was gone. Her mother would plead for her safe release from whomever her captors were. Three days later she would be found in Portsmouth, new Hampshire, where she reported she had been kidnapped by four men and abandoned there. She led everyone to believe she was hit over the head, knocked unconscious, kidnapped by these four men, held captive in a motel in New Hampshire and three days later awoke to find one man in a stocking cap who would eventually leave, allowing her to make an escape. It was all a gone girl tale before there was a gone girl. It soon became clear she left on her own due to a personal family problem and staged the entire thing. This was two years after Michelle Wilson's murder. It set the town on edge in a crime that would go unsolved for many years.

Anngelle Wood: 18:00

Boxford would make the news again when a doctor from the town was shot and killed in 2003. But that happened in his office at MGH in Boston. A woman who worked with Dr Brian A McGovern, a prominent cardiologist at Mass General Hospital, fatally shot the doctor and then herself in his office. It's an unexplainable workplace shooting and I don't think they ever made a connection to why a 51-year-old woman named Colleen P Mitchell, who lived on Beacon Hill and had a seemingly normal life, did what she did.

Anngelle Wood: 18:36

Another town reference I found in my research was about 20-year-old Keith Koster of Boxford. He was killed in May of 2006, trying to stop the theft of his Ford Explorer in nearby Danvers. Him being from Boxford is the connection to the town. A man named Roy Dowdge Jr of Lawrence, a habitual car thief decided he was going to steal the running vehicle, he was convicted of first-degree murder. Habitual car thief decided he was going to steal the running vehicle. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2007 for the killing of Koster, who was thrown from the car and died from massive head injuries. Dowd's conviction was reduced in 2019 to second-degree murder for what is said to be due to brain injuries he suffered as a child.

Anngelle Wood: 19:28

There is the murder of Ruth Ames in 1769. Crime is timeless, isn't it A history of the murder of Ruth Ames? The persons accused of her murder were her mother-in-law, elizabeth Ames, and her husband, jonathan Ames. Sounds like a Dateline episode. I fell down the well pretty hard researching the story, so I chose not to dig much further into the Ruth Ames case of 1769. I hope you understand but, as you can see, boxford the town is a place where brutal murders don't happen and this is where the crime show voiceover would say it's a town where they don't lock their doors. Oof, lock every damn thing. I'll be right back. I have a favor to ask you Please share the show. Tell your friends and others in your community that would enjoy Narrative New England Crime History Society Stories podcast. Thank you at $1. I will thank everyone later in this episode To support this show at absolutely no cost. Leave a review on one of the platforms that allow it. Tell me something you like about the show, your favorite episode, how you found out about it. I'd love to share it on an upcoming episode, and five stars are my favorite.

Anngelle Wood: 21:03

Michelle Wilson's family had moved to Boxford from Brunswick, maine, in early October 1969. She was last seen at 4 30 on Saturday, november 22nd after spending the afternoon with her school friend Mary working on a project. It was dusk so Michelle walked, mary also 13,. So Michelle walked Mary also 13, down her road in part of the way home. But when she didn't return her parents were immediately alarmed. It was November in New England and the sun sets early. Michelle was afraid of the dark. She was reported missing at 5.15 after her mother found her bike on Ballpate Road a few hundred yards from her home.

Anngelle Wood: 21:50

About 250 people joined the search party for her. State police brought out two bloodhounds, a Coast Guard helicopter was flying overhead, police fire and civilians all chipping in to help. Michelle would be found the following morning at 11 am in a ditch 15 feet off Mill Road, three miles from home. She was reportedly found with her corduroys ski jacket and boots but, to borrow a phrase from the Boston Globe's reporting, they were slightly disarrayed. Her white knit hat and one matching mitten were missing.

Anngelle Wood: 22:29

They would learn her death was homicide, caused by asphyxiation from strangulation, and it is really much worse. So this is the part of the show, like in the movie Old School, when Vince Vaughn says to his kids earmuff it for me, because he's about to say something awful, so that what we learn about her killer, charles E Pierce, suspect five in Andy's disappearance, is that he's barbaric. He was driving through Boxford, likely from a restaurant job in Haverhill, when he saw her. He likely drove his station wagon with the rear windows painted black, close enough to scare her, pulled her into his vehicle, strangled her, took her into the woods, had sex with her dead body, bit her on the breast, beat her and dropped a huge rock on her head and covered her with leaves. This is all according to the Essex County First Assistant District Attorney, who prosecuted the case in 1979 and 1980. It took a long time to find her killer and the community had worked to raise reward money with contributions from neighbors and businesses, the newspaper and fire department association. It was more than $10,000, the equivalent of about $88,000 today. It would all go to help fund solving Michelle's murder. More than 10 years would go by before they got their answer.

Anngelle Wood: 24:09

In November of 1978, former Haver resident Charles E Pierce, was convicted of sexually assaulting a child and was looking at a 10-year sentence in Florida State Prison. During a stay at their state hospital he was examined and diagnosed as a sex offender with a mental disorder. Could you be more specific? Tipped off by Florida authorities after he told a fellow patient at that psychiatric hospital that he had killed Michelle Wilson, boxford officers went to interview him. He would be turned over to Massachusetts police and charged with her murder. Upon arrival in Massachusetts they sent him to Bridgewater State Hospital for observation. Pierce would confess and lead investigators to the spot where Michelle's body was found. He would ultimately plead guilty to second-degree murder. That's after the prosecution played a tape recording of his alleged confession. He got two consecutive life sentences for murder and assault with intent to rape. This was three years after Andy Puglisi disappeared. Over time, charles E Pierce, the sexual deviant, would talk more. We'll get to that.

Anngelle Wood: 25:30

Suspect 6, wayne W Chapman, the Providence pedophile. He is the most plausible suspect. He has a pattern of behavior that indicates he was willing and capable. He was a known serial child predator and is known to have been in the vicinity of Higgins Pool on numerous occasions. He is also believed to be an associate in perversion with Charles E Pierce and others like him. Chapman was arrested less than a month after Andy's disappearance. Chapman was arrested less than a month after Andy's disappearance, on September 5, 1976, he was stopped in Waterloo, new York, in Seneca County, which sits between Rochester and Syracuse. For those of you curious like me, it was for a registration irregularity. The officer followed him, ran the tags and got a hit that the plates were lost or stolen. From outside that 1965 blue and white Dodge van police could see small caliber shells and Polaroid pictures of young males. When asked if he had a weapon, he said he did, but that it was legal. It was a starter pistol and it wasn't legal in New York State. Officers entered the vehicle and found more Polaroids of what was obviously young males, more child pornography in the form of magazines and movies. There was a bloody sock and a tape Chapman had recorded doing commentary about young boys getting out of the bus that he was following. He would be arrested for illegal gun possession and reportedly the blood on that sock was tested, but the results and the sock were lost. According to Lawrence Police, that blue and white van is said to resemble the one Andy's friends described they saw near Higgins Pool. Chapman had been accused of luring two boys from the same swimming pool. A year before Andy was last seen, in 1977, chapman was convicted of raping those two Lawrence boys. Those were far from his only victims. Chapman confessed to molesting dozens of children. A court found that it was at least 50, but Chapman himself told police it was closer to 100. Given all of this information, chapman was never sought out for questioning immediately following Andy's disappearance. When he was questioned later he denied any involvement in Andy's disappearance. After Chap was questioned later, he denied any involvement in Andy's disappearance. After Chapman's New York arrest, the first detectives to interview him at length were Richard Chapin, a state investigator from Waterloo, new York, and Al Mintz, who worked sexual abuse cases for Providence Police. They learned he worked as a janitor at Merriam Hospital in Providence where he was also tasked with incinerating amputated body parts. Unauthorized burnings reportedly did occur during the time that Andy disappeared. Detective Chapin believes that the possibility does exist for him to have disposed of his victims this way, but it would be nearly impossible to trace. After his arrest, chapman admitted to sexually assaulting at least 15 boys, all ages 7 to 10, from Providence, brockton, webster, worcester and Concord, mass, norwich, connecticut and towns in Pennsylvania, new York and Virginia. But Chapman would insist that he never intended to harm anyone. God was a fucking wrecking ball when he was young and naturally there was a history of abuse and neglect in his family. Chapman tried to molest his own brothers. Their parents chose to ignore the problems. The monster that he is can be seen in his prison reports, the story of a sexual predator who terrorized young boys up and down the East Coast. Included in his records are the following details he brutally abused cats. Now you don't need to be Candace DeLong to know the homicidal triad. Cruelty to animals, obsession with fire setting or pyromania, and persistent bedwetting past the age of five All bad signs of trouble ahead. He fantasized about fondling and killing a kid. He made advances on an 11-year-old stepson. Don't forget his own brothers. He convinced a 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy that he'd give him a paper route. It was a ruse to lure him into the woods and to molest him that he'd give him a paper route. It was a ruse to lure him into the woods and to molest him. Prison staff would say he had his own agenda and is capable of getting around. An entry from 2015 states Chapman is still capable of sexual functioning. He told children he was abusing, terrorizing, that if they ever told he would kill them and their families, yet he believed he had the right to do the things to them that he did. In 1976, chapman was charged with sodomizing children while working as a 4-H club leader in Providence and with the murder of David Lewison, the six-year-old boy who went missing from Brockton Mass in 1974. David's remains would be found six years later in a rotting footlocker in the basement of a multi-unit house that used to be used for transient folks. He would be positively identified using an old x-ray his doctor had taken for a potential ruptured spleen a few weeks before he disappeared. While Chapman was the main suspect in his murder, a Plymouth County grand jury would not indict him for killing Danny, citing no bills, saying there wasn't sufficient evidence to take it to trial. Sufficient evidence to take it to trial. A Bristol County grand jury indicts Chapman for charges of sexually assaulting three boys in 1975 in Fall River in Seekonk, mass. He eventually gets sentenced to six to ten years for sodomy and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. Chapman was suspected in a number of child disappearances. He was a prolific predator. Police departments all over the country asked about him in connection with their unsolved cases. And the children in those Polaroids who are they? Massachusetts began the process of Chapman's extradition from Rhode Island in the fall of 1976 when the then-governor, michael Dukakis, signed a warrant for him to face charges for raping the two Lawrence boys a year before Andy went missing. He was extradited in January for two counts of rape of a child. The two boys, aged 10 and 11, bravely gave grand jury testimony. State and local police searched the wooded area behind the pool again for Andy's remains and came up with nothing. Chapman was found guilty. A capital offense in the Commonwealth. The Essex County Superior Court judge hands down two concurrent 15 to 30-year sentences. Chapman is sentenced to no less than 15 and no more than 30 years. At MCI Cedar Junction In 1978, chapman gets a civil commitment as a sexually dangerous offender. An involuntary hospitalization the legal process by which a person is confined in a psychiatric hospital because of a treatable mental disorder. He is sent to the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. It is a medium security facility in Bridgewater, massachusetts, for the term of one day to life. He is a dangerous sexual deviant but over the years Chapman somehow catches breaks. At the end of 1989, he gets approved for a community furlough program that allows him to be released from the treatment center on weekends. You kidding me? Let us not forget that the center is called the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. It is believed that Chapman is acquainted with another sexual deviant whose name enters into Andy's story, someone he spends time with during their civil commitments in the treatment center, nathaniel Bar-Jonah. Bar-jonah had had brutal violent tendencies. Born David Paul Brown, he grew up mostly in Webster Mass. The convicted child predator would be called the cannibal killer. His first recorded attack was at age seven on a five-year-old girl he lured into his basement. That would be in 1964. The struggling of the little girl was heard by someone in the home and is believed to be the start of his long and disturbing list of red flags. His sickness only progressed to attacking other kids by 17,. He was impersonating FBI agents and police officers to snatch and attack kids. He would eventually go to prison but was transferred to the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. But in 1991, he would connive doctors into clearing him for release into the care of his mommy in Montana. He is believed to have cannibalized his victims, even serving them to guests. Bar-jonah is later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old and hanging an 8-year-old boy from the ceiling. He is sentenced to 130 years. Among Bar-Jonah's writing about his sick cannibal concoctions is an entry about a boy, alonzo Puggy, suggesting that maybe he was involved in Andy's abduction. I imagine it is possible, but I don't believe he was a suspect, though he was in the area in 19 in 1976. It is another question that will go unanswered. He died in prison in Montana in 2008. In December of 1991, chapman goes for a Section 9 hearing for his civil commitment. Despite protests from virtually every mental health professional and the treatment center, he is considered no longer sexually dangerous. He is released from his civil commitment and returned to the prison system to serve the remainder of his criminal sentence. In the years that follow, chapman refuses sex offender treatment on religious reasons. That's rich. He suffers a heart attack but he doesn't die In June 2001, the ABC news program Prime Time Live aired a disturbing news special called Predators Among Us. They investigated the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the sexually dangerous in Bridgewater Massachusetts, revealing how murderous predators were released from the facility only to rape and kill again. Therapist Paula Erickson worked at the center in the 1990s and spoke of the many dangerous men who were released from the facility. She said she tried to warn people but they wouldn't listen. She could not get anyone to investigate the center's practices and compiled a list of 26 men she thought were exceedingly dangerous and should not have been permitted to leave the center. The episode takes a look at those men 10 years later. Included in the piece profiles of Wayne W Chapman and Nathaniel Barr. Jonah Erickson would later be let go from her role at the facility and file a lawsuit against the state that they later settled. I tried to find the episode online to watch it. I didn't, but I did find an online piece about it. According to the Primetime Live investigation, there were huge problems and they looked into the list of 26 men too dangerous to be released from the treatment center. And here's what they discovered None of those 26 men were registered with the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board. Three were discharged from the center to serve in prison. They would be eligible for release soon. 11 of those men who were released were back in prison or awaiting trial, mostly for new sex crimes. Two include Bar-Jonah and another Massachusetts man named Michael Kelly from Pembroke, who was allowed to work while in the program, get married and even have a baby. He had his furlough suspended after he was found with a 14-inch knife and rope in his car. He made up a story and 16 days later the review board reinstituted his furlough and said he was no longer a sexually dangerous person. In 1992, less than a year after his release, while working for the same company he did while on furlough, he lured two women with the promise of jobs, then killed them. He met 21-year-old Deborah Leveney at a state unemployment office and after three attempts did lure her into a warehouse under the guise of hiring her. Instead, he beat, raped and strangled her to death and hid her body in a box. Colleen Coughlin, who he also offered work to, disappeared that April. She would be found buried in his yard five days after Deborah was found. Colleen lived 100 yards from the warehouse and of those 26 men, the remaining seven were unaccounted for this is how we protect our children. It comes as no surprise that the monster that was Wayne Chapman was approved for release from prison. He had one more repulsive act on his dance card, though. He had one more repulsive act on his dance card, though. In June of 2018, chapman exposed himself to staff at MCI Shirley and refused to cover up his gross old man genitals. He openly masturbated several times the next day. He would be charged with open and gross lewdness and lewd, wanton and lascivious acts. Maybe that would keep him behind bars. Not so fast. He was acquitted and cleared to be set free. Two qualified examiners whatever that means found that Chapman was no longer sexually dangerous because of his age and mental condition. Wrong-o these predators. They do not stop. What's that term? Leopards don't change their spots. Lawyers for both the Commonwealth and attorneys representing Chapman's victims had asked the state's highest court to block his release, saying they believe he is still a danger to the community, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered his release in 2019. He was in his 70s, sick with Parkinson's disease, weak, and the system just didn't want to take care of him anymore. No one else did either, and his attorneys had trouble finding a home for him. Serial child rapist, does not look good on a lease application. He was released in 2019 and sent to a hospital in Boston, then moved to a Medford nursing home that was not far from Melanie Perkins, andy's childhood friend and hero. For doing the work to find out what really happened to him, some people will tell you. Complaints from local residents forced the state's hand to move him, who knows. Finally he landed in a home in Rocky Hill, connecticut I believe it overlooked a schoolyard where he would die, bedridden at 73 on October 20th 2021, of natural causes or Parkinson's and evil. I think it was a mixed bag, but it's all completely terrifying. His case made way for a change in the law. Former Governor Charlie Baker pledged legislation at the time to change this process, filing an act relative to child predators, also known as the Wayne Chapman Bill. It requires mandatory minimum sentences for the rape of a child. The bill directs the Department of Correction to establish a five-member Sexual Dangerousness Review Board that would evaluate sex offenders nine months before they are to be released and make a recommendation to the district attorney or the attorney general about the present sexual dangerousness of such prisoners. The bill would also require that a judge or jury hear the evidence about whether a person remains sexually dangerous and make a decision regarding the person's release if there is a disagreement between experts over whether the person remains sexually dangerous. Attorney General Maura Healy gave their support to the bill at the time and now they are. Governor Healy, I tried to find out the status of the bill and I'm not quite sure where it stands, but I do have a friend who is a law librarian and sent me some info so I'm looking at it. We'll update. Wayne W Chapman died, a physically free man. I do hope he lived with the torments of what he'd done to all of those children. It's doubtful, as people like him rarely, if ever, feel remorse or sorrow for who they've hurt. He never spoke about his sex abuse victims. Melanie Perkins did get to speak to him face to face, but not on camera. She wanted to know what happened to Andy and he offered nothing and most of the time he denied ever being in Lawrence, massachusetts, which we know is a lie. Unlike Chapman, charles E Pierce lived out his life behind bars. After he faced charges for murdering Michelle Wilson, he confessed to two more abductions Janice Pocket, the seven-year-old girl who vanished from Toland, connecticut, on July 26, 1973, when she rode her metallic green bicycle with the banana seat and a bell down their street to get the dead butterfly she hid under a rock. Days earlier she even brought an envelope to carry the butterfly home. It was the first time she'd ever been allowed to go out by herself. It was likely due to a fight over toothbrushes that she and her little sister had had. So mom said yes, go and come right back. And not. Unlike Michelle Wilson's case, janice's mother found her bike a short time later On Rhodes Road near a wooded area not far from their home. The community carried out extensive searches to find her, but nothing Whereabouts unknown. Missing child cases were handled differently then in 1973, and the scene wasn't secured as it would be today. Janice Pocket was one of five young girls who went missing in the span of 10 years in that area. Two were found dead years after they disappeared, while the others Janice Pocket, lisa White and Deborah Spickler remain missing and their cases unsolved. Over the years theories have grown about their connections like that. Charles E Pierce is responsible. He did make confessions. Pierce is a suspect in Andy's case Because he committed crimes against children. He proved that he confessed to killing an unidentified boy from Lawrence. Pierce told investigators he is responsible for 15 to 20 child murders since the 1950s. He named several children claiming to be responsible for their disappearances and murders Billy D'Souza of Chicago, who disappeared in June 1972. Janice Pocket and 13-year-old Mary Catherine Olenchuk, who went missing from a gunk with Maine in 1970. She was found dead two weeks later in an old barn 20 miles away in Kennebunk. Pierce was also known to recant and get combative during some of these sessions. Then, when he was dying of the cancer that was eating away at him and serving time for killing a 13-year-old girl, he summoned police in January of 1999 and told them he had killed those two other children in Lawrence in the 1950s. Did he or was he just playing one last cruel game? Missing persons records in Lawrence only go as far back as the 1970s. Two Lawrence investigators went to MCI Shirley to talk to Pierce. He was weak, powerless, confined to a wheelchair and relying on oxygen. During that two or so hour interview Pierce spoke of how he murdered a boy he befriended at the Old Strand Theater in Lawrence, located at Broadway and Common Street. The old photos are something the little research that I did on that the Strand, broadway it was all part of a four theaters in a row feature in the city back then. It operated from 1917 to 1949, and then, as the Astor, from 1949 to 1956. There are so many great things I get to learn about the region through my reading and research Then to know that these monsters were walking free. Pierce claims to have buried this Lawrence boy in a field near the theaters and he claimed that months before that he abducted a little girl from Connecticut, killed her and buried her in the same field, 30 feet from the boy. Now Pierce knew the area, 30 feet from the boy. Now Pierce knew the area, but he gave vague directions to the fields, leading investigators to what is now a ball field on West Street. Investigators were working on the timeline. He said Janice Pocket, but she went missing in the 1970s, not the 1950s. He was a child murderer, so the possibility existed that he got his victims and timing wrong. He was dying and would be confused and sometimes fall asleep during the interview. On top of all that, he was notorious for confessing and recanting An unreliable creep. So was he trying to clear his conscience, as the media reports suggested? Then Charles E Pierce kicked the bucket, as we used to say dead of cancer, tuberculosis and what other afflictions, physical or psychological, that polluted his being, any secrets he had went along with him Over the years. Andy's case would go cold, be reopened, warm up, only to cool way back down again. There is the psychic of 1982, brought in by patrolman Mike Corelli, who was working voluntarily on Andy's case. That spring Corelli attended a seminar on forensic and investigative hypnosis at Texas A&M University. Psychic Andrew Barnhart was a featured speaker and Corelli had an idea. After the session he approached Barnhart and asked him questions we have a missing person. What can you tell me? He told the psychic nothing, and Barnhart's response was stunning the boy is dead and the body is still there. Adding that the boy was buried somewhere that was sometimes wet, sometimes not. Corelli was amazed and got permission to discuss the case with Barnhart. He had no leads, no new tips. Why not see what this guy could offer? Barnhart offered that a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair, a paunchy belly and screwed-up front teeth had walked all over the grave and the location he saw had some alphanumerical designations M19, m20, m21, and M23. Officer Corelli looked at the area that was the municipal dump, down the hill from where Andy was last seen where a new soccer field was being built. The contractor fit Barnhart's description of the man who had walked over Andy's grave A city engineer who photographed the area and assigned a series of grid numbers to it. The numbers of the dump were M20, m21, and M23. So close. But what happened to Andy? Could the psychic be for real? He said Andy died as a result of rape. Something had been stuffed in his mouth to silence him and he choked, adding that he may have had a seizure. They only learned later that Andy was prone to seizures because he had a mild form of epilepsy. So far, this is pretty good information. Barnhart described his attacker he was slim, had a mustache, dirty hair and walked with a limp. Officer Corelli went to his captain, joseph Fitzpatrick, the lead investigator, and the captain told him something no one but investigators knew Chapman had a slight limp in his left leg from a case of polio during his childhood. The psychic's description fit Chapman he was thin, had a mustache and scraggly, greasy-looking hair. This is all they had. Corelli wanted the psychic to come to Lawrence. Police wouldn't pay for it, so he organized an Andy Puglisi memorial fund to collect money from the public. Jars appeared all over town. It brought in about $1,500. They used that to fly Barnhart and his wife to Lawrence on two separate occasions. The area he said Andy's body would be buried in was a strip of land about 50 feet by 15 feet, up the bank and near the edge of the woods. If a grave were there it would be three feet below the original grade, which had later been covered by three additional feet of soil when the soccer field was made. When Melanie Perkins heard this much later during her own research, she was skeptical. Fraudulent psychics have been injecting themselves into the lives of vulnerable families, delicate cases and high-profile news stories for ages. Was it possible that the man didn't pick up info from conversations? The site, she would learn, was about 75 feet from the spot to locals, alan Roy and his friend Tony said they saw a freshly dug shallow grave in the woods about a year after Andy went missing. In July of 1982, they set up a dig. As the backhoe pulled in there was a growing group of looky-loos, including the Puglisi's and reporters, including the Puglisi's and reporters For the psychic Barnhart. The growing crowd was getting his signals crossed, all the static of emotion hanging in the air. It was not good for his juju or whatever. The hopes of finding Andy at last were shot. It turned into a circus and the plug was pulled before ever digging into the 3x3 area of the field where Andy may have been. The psychic and his wife left. He would come back in early 1983. They planned to see Chapman in prison and to see if Barnhart could get more information out of him. They spoke over the phone but Chapman got angry over something. He refused any more conversations. The psychic took some of Andy's personal items his teddy bear, a shirt I recall his mom saying his baby book. It was over about as quickly as it began. The Andy Puglisi Fund was closed. The dig was squashed. Officer Corelli blamed office politics. Officers who worked the case previously didn't want a patrol cop solving the case so they kept it buried and then the psychic disappeared. Calls to him went unanswered. Officer Corelli contacted Texas police to help find him. At least the Puglisi's could get Andy's things back. And just like Andy, the guy was gone, whereabouts Unknown. According to Officer Corelli, nearly everything the psychic said proved to be true. M-19 on the engineer's grid turned out to be the place where two Lawrence boys were raped, the 1975 crime for which Chapman was convicted. Around the same time the case was reopened, investigators locate a 10-year-old boy who said he was there when Andy was abducted in 1976. He was only four at the time. We'll get to that in a moment. There is an eight-part series written by Judith Gaines in 1999 for the Boston Globe. I link it in the show notes and at crimeofthetruestkindcom. It breaks down what came next. When Melanie Perkins returned to Lawrence in 1998 to look for answers, she had met with two local men who shared memories of their time in the neighborhood. They talk about finding that shallow grave-like hole dug in the ground in the woods near the pool. It was a year or so after Andy vanished. The next day it had been filled in. Searches continued in the subsequent years. Search teams with trained dogs would comb over the scene and leave with no more than they started with. When Melanie Perkins was researching the documentary have you Seen Andy, she learned a number of things. Several witnesses say they saw a man who matched Wayne Chapman's description at the pool the day Andy disappeared. A friend of Andy's said that a man was there at the pool that day asking for help to find a dog. That boy was more concerned with finding his lost bike than whatever this man and his dog had going on, but he said Andy agreed to help him. A little boy named Ray was four years old when Andy disappeared. A little boy named Ray was four years old when Andy disappeared. He saw a man asking Andy to help find his dog. The man led them to the back of the pool area. Once back there, ray said Andy told him to run. He pushed him to go. They saw people coming out of the woods walking toward them. Ray ran. He was scared. When he turned to look back, andy was gone. He walked back to find him. He saw Andy on a rock, two people holding him down. He said Andy was scared. The little boy didn't know what to do. He wanted to get help. There was no one left at the pool. He said Andy was screaming and Ray was traumatized by this. He was so young. It took years for him to tell that story. He believes that the first man with the dog was a decoy to get them to go behind the pool and near the woods. None of this would be included in Andy's case file. It is sickening to know that things like child predator and child pornography rings exist and exist in the underground, the dark web, the 4chan kind of places and exist in the underground the dark web, the 4chan kind of places. Now, given the dominance and the ease of the internet. Well, it's far worse than we even know. Wayne W Chapman is the likely predator in the disappearance of Andy Puglisi. There is far too much information about this case that I am sure we are not privy to for me to even make this declaration, but given what we do know and how he was so willing and able to go after kids in this way, he can never be ruled out. He's been interviewed years after Andy's disappearance, denied knowing anything about Andy his case, and even pretended that he'd never been to Lawrence. That was disproven. As we know, he was convicted of raping two Lawrence boys in 1975 at the city pool. Almost 50 years have passed and the Puglisi family still doesn't know what happened to Andy, why. It seems that if more was done in the beginning, they would have some kind of resolution today. Faith Puglisi suffered another painful loss when her 17-year-old son Chandler one of the twins and the youngest of her eight children died in a car crash in June 2000. He was found many hours later under a bridge. There was controversy surrounding his death because he wasn't found until hours after this supposed crash. Faith Puglisi wonders why no one seemed to know where he was or get help for him. Faith Puglisi, who moved to Colorado years after Andy disappeared, lost her oldest and then her youngest. No mother deserves that. Well, I know we could think of one or two, but not Andy's mother. That's the thing. It's unconscionable that families live an entire lifetime without knowing there was no one left to answer our questions. What happened to Andy? Thank you for listening, coming up, how we can be better and how we can engage with empathy. Here's your call to action tell someone about this show today and lock your goddamn doors. We'll be right back.