New Discoveries In The Unsolved Case of Andy Puglisi, Lawrence, Mass with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, host of Open Investigation

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

In episode 77, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, creator and host of Open Investigation, the 8-part investigative podcast, and documentary filmmaker of "Have You Seen Andy?" shares her story of her missing childhood friend, Andy Puglisi, and the new discoveries in his almost 50-year-old unsolved case.

Melanie recounts meeting Andy - the cute older boy - their blossoming friendship, and the last day she spent with him. Within hours of her leaving the pool that day, Andy was gone. Last seen in the late afternoon of Sunday, August 22, 1976 - this date is a detail that developed in Melanie's research for the podcast. It is a detail that has an impact on how law enforcement handled the investigation. It is one of the most important discoveries made during the research for the podcast. An unexpected revelation in a recorded audio tape uncovers a crucial clue, challenging previous assumptions about Andy's disappearance. As we recount childhood memories, we recognize the profound impact of childhood trauma. I believe the day Andy disappeared, marked the beginning of Melanie's advocacy journey to uncover the truth of her friend.

We discuss the importance of scientific advancements DNA technology, genetic geneology, and  in identifying  solving cold cases.

Massachusetts Missing & Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition (MMMPAC), massmissingandmurdered.org

Have You Seen Andy?, streaming on MAX

GedMatch

Advocacy Con, advocacycon.com

Power Twins Activate! Form of family advocates using true crime for good.

Chapters

• 0:00 Advocacy in True Crime Community
• 16:00 Childhood Memories at the Pool
• 27:20 Search for Andy - Date Discrepancy
• 34:53 Organized Human Trafficking in Massachusetts
• 47:28 Enhancing DNA Technology in Missing Cases
• 51:23 Advocating for Missing Persons

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. Hello, listeners, Anngelle here. Earlier this week, I dropped a replay of the two episodes I recorded back in June of 2023 about missing little boy Angelo "Andy Puglisi. He vanished without a trace from the public pool in Lawrence, massachusetts, on August 22nd 1976. Everything was different then, including how the authorities dealt with a missing child. I went over a lot of that in those two episodes episode 43 and 44. So please, if you have not listened to the two prior episodes about Andy Puglisi from Lawrence, massachusetts, please stop here and go back and listen. Andy Puglisi's story is not at all what it seems on the surface. Yes, he's a little boy who disappeared from a swimming pool. He is a little boy who was growing up in the projects.

Anngelle Wood: 1:32

If you didn't grow up spending any time in like a housing project or an apartment complex, there's something kind of special about it. There's a certain I don't know membership to this unspoken club. I did live in an apartment complex for a couple of years. A vast majority of the kids that I met while I lived there, their moms were single moms and in the 80s we were free range children out all the time. I say this for a couple of reasons, not to judge. Times were tough. Moms had to work, kids stayed home and we kind of looked out for each other. I have a vivid memory of an afternoon at that pool where the cool kid lifeguard was playing the radio. Each and every time I hear the human league don't you want me? I think about that pool. There was one pool for a lot of apartments in that complex and it was usually packed Kids, teenagers, some adults. Summers were rough and I don't remember having AC. There wasn't a lot of swimming going on. There were so many kids in the pool that it was just kind of floating in place and splashing at each other and playing games. We didn't care because we were with our friends.

Anngelle Wood: 2:57

These stories often have some personal connection. I grew up in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, not far away from where Andy Puglisi lived with his family in the summer of 1976. His story is far more complicated than it appears on the surface. It's a Pandora's box, a title that I borrow from Open Investigation, one of the episodes in Melanie Perkins McLaughlin's eight-part podcast series that was released this past September. I met Melanie through. Andy, you're saying how did you meet a woman through a little boy who's been missing for almost 50 years. I researched Andy's case. I watched the documentary that Melanie put decades worth of work into to research and write and direct and produce. The documentary is called "have you Seen Andy? It's streaming now on HBO Max. I should add Melanie won an Emmy for this documentary.

Anngelle Wood: 4:05

Melanie heard those podcasts and I guess I did something right because she reached out to me, we spoke and then we met and then we talked about projects. Melanie was working on a podcast and had been for a number of years. I wanted her to produce it and I wanted her to release it and I wanted to help her do that. And in speaking with Melanie about Andy Puglisi's case, what we were able to learn after documentary, " ave ocumentary,ave H d d dAVE AVE hY Y You Y you Seen Andy? Was released in 2007, much more information became available. Where did that information come from? It came from Melanie digging and researching In the podcast worlds or maybe more appropriate to say, true crime worlds. These creators air quotes, are often quick to jump on stories. A fair amount of them take other people's hard work without giving them any kind of credit. They often just behave as though they did all that work on their own, and we've seen some of these same kinds of creators take a family story. I'm saying make shit up to create a sexier narrative.

Anngelle Wood: 5:23

No case, has any proprietary information. Well, technically that is true. If the information is out there, it's free to whomever finds it. But let me be clear the reason why any of us in this quote-unquote true crime space know anything about the days leading up to and the days that followed Andy Puglisi's disappearance it's all because of the work that Melanie Perkins McLaughlin did. Andy was her friend, she knew him. She spent time with him on the day he disappeared, time with him on the day he disappeared. Season one of her podcast, open Investigation, is out now, an eight-part series that starts with Andy Puglisi and his disappearance and goes well, way beyond that.

Anngelle Wood: 6:21

Doing this kind of work can be hard. If you really care about it, you want to do the right thing. You don't want to exploit families and you don't want other creators to exploit families and you don't want to cause any more trauma than they've already experienced. Over time, you get to know these families and if you're anything like me, you get protective. Andy Puglisi is still missing. Someone took him, someone hurt him. Someone took him, someone hurt him and he's out there somewhere and he needs to be found.

Anngelle Wood: 6:58

And in this advocacy slash true crime space that I have found myself in. I live with a condition. I call hope and hope that these people who are missing will come home, that these families will find some kind of answers to this ambiguous loss that they face, some for decades. I talk about this more and more. You will hear how important it is for families to make sure they have their DNA in the GEDmatch database Advancements in scientific technology, genetic genealogy, dna. It is identifying the unidentified. It is giving names to the nameless. It's solving crimes. The amount of I don't have the data, I don't know that it's quantifiable of how many unidentified, unclaimed remains of missing and murdered people have been found and remain unidentified. We will talk a lot about this stuff. It's all part of advocacy. So Melanie and I Melanie and me sounds like a buddy comedy where the dog lives Through Andy Puglisi, a 10-year-old boy who has been missing for almost 50 years. We've teamed up, we've joined forces Power Twins, activate form of victim advocates using true crime for good for families like Andy's. Together, along with Dr Anne-Marie Myers, who is a forensic anthropologist who has worked on a number of missing persons cases and criminal cases, with the guidance of Shana at Light the Way and Julie Murray, sister of missing woman Mara Murray. We have formed a Massachusetts coalition. It's called MPAC and it occurred to me very recently that it's like impact Massachusetts Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition M-M-M-P-A-C MPAC. In the new year, we have many plans for outreach and events to support families through advocacy and legislative advocacy.

Anngelle Wood: 9:18

Open Investigation Season 1 is available now everywhere that you listen to podcasts. Open Investigation Season 2 is coming. That's all I can say about it. Melanie has to tell you the rest and I did want to talk to her when I did those initial episodes about Andy's case back in 2023. We didn't know each other yet.

Anngelle Wood: 9:38

Open Investigation picks up. Where have you Seen Andy? The documentary leaves off. During this time, a lot of new information has been uncovered, not only about Andy's case, but a number of other children just like Andy who disappeared or were found murdered in the 70s and 80s around New England. It was a dark time and there were forces working in concert. Children went missing. They were forces working in concert. Children went missing. They were abducted off the street. You saw Mystic River right At Saturday night show at Kodo and Lowell. It's about Merrimack Valley crime stories and Andy's story will definitely be included in the evening. Coming up part one of my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. Advocate, filmmaker, podcast creator and host. Oh Emmy winner. This is episode 77. We will travel back to that swimming pool in Lawrence, massachusetts, on a hot summer day in August 1976, where a little girl named Melanie has a friend named Andy Coming up. Part one of my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin.

Anngelle Wood: 10:52

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Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 12:25

Thank you. Doing right now is a lot of intake. I'm doing a lot of reading, research, sorting, kind of like in my mind. I go to bed at night and think about it. I wake up in the morning and think about it. I'm thinking about the series arc. What do I want to focus on? And just like with everything in this case, like I think the story's down and then more comes up. You know what I mean Like. So it's always the more I dig, the more I find. So it does have to come to a point where I, when you know it's, you know pen to paper or you know keyboard to screen or however you want to put it. When it comes down to that, there does come a point where I have to stop that, that gestating, that researching, that, what have you. But I could just keep going and going.

Anngelle Wood: 13:07

You have to find where to end. We have to then decipher, like what is really adding to the story or what is just you know sort of coloring the scene that we're. I do this, am I right?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 13:19

Yeah, and I just also feel like there's a million stories, right, like there's a million stories to tell. And so what story am I going to tell in this instance? Like I have so many offshoots of the story to tell, of the big story which is Andy. You know there's a million other offshoots of it and you know it was interesting I ran into one of our early, early research assistants from the podcast when we started back in 2017. And we didn't publish until 2024.

Anngelle Wood: 13:43

So say that again. You did the documentary. It took a lot of time and then you had this podcast gestating in your mind seven years before.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 13:53

Yeah, and again, not just gestating in my mind. I started recording, probably in 2017. But you know, again other things would come up, or I'd record more, I'd research more, what have you. But you know, I tell people I started working on Andy's disappearance in 1998. It is 2024. So it's been 20, or more than 25 years that I've been working on this.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 14:13

However, in reality, this has affected me since I was nine years old. I'm 58. It's been 50 years, really 49 years, that this has infected me in my life, and way more so. Andy's family and his life. They live it every day, they breathe it every day. They miss him every minute. Obviously, this has affected my life and has changed the whole course of my life in terms of the work that I do and why I do what I do. So, yeah, just for people that are out there listening about, even like the podcast or the book writing or the documentary making or any of it you know, just keep going, just keep doing it. It can take a long time, you know, but if it matters, if it means something to you, just keep doing it, because truth telling is so important about what we do, people like you and I.

Anngelle Wood: 15:03

We're different kinds of creators I'll use that term that gets tossed around so much. We're different kinds of creators and you know we'll lean into more of the advocacy conversation that has been very much a part of our relationship you and I. Melanie, let's go back to those days. You incredibly have a pretty vivid memory about being an 8 or 9-year-old little girl growing up in Lawrence, massachusetts. I wish I had, for better or worse, wish I had a better memory of my childhood, and obviously it's driven by the fact that that was a very traumatic experience for you as a child to lose your friend in this way. Let's talk about in the summer of 1976, when you are friends with this little boy, andy Puglisi, who was almost 11, this wonderful, joyful, agreeable sort of protector of all of his siblings. Let's talk about how you met him and how your friendship developed.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 16:00

76, for those of you who were around will remember this, but it was like the Star Spangled Banner threw up all over the country. I mean, you could not escape paraphernalia from the Bicentennial. It was everywhere Pens, pencils. You know we were all dressing up in pilgrim costumes and you know, it was just, it was just nonstop. We were being inundated with, you know, 1976 paraphernalia. Jimmy Carter, who just died, was president at the time.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 16:28

You know, it just was a whole different time and it was the end of fourth grade and I remember it was in the spring of fourth grade and I remember a lot of things and it's been interesting because I've been doing some memoir work and we remember a lot of things based on like events in time, right, like the bicentennial, for example. Right, that was 1976. We remember that, who your teacher was, what grade you were in, you know so those sorts of things and you can backtrack times in your life by looking at these societal events. So it was spring of 76, andy had moved in and he was my brother's friend first. So my brother Jeff was in the same grade as me. He had been retained early in elementary school, so we were in the same grade so everybody thought we were twins. You know, um, it was great we I had a brother in the same grade as me. They never put us in the same class for obvious reasons, but it was nice because we had it just sort of expanded our world in that grade and later, you know, in middle school and high school, we would date each other's friends right. But I guess this was sort of the early gestation of that.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 17:30

You know, andy was Jeff's friend first and I was the youngest and only girl in a house of four, three older brothers all about a year apart, and my brother was outside playing football with Andy and I came out of my grandmother's house my grandmother lived a couple of units over. I spent a lot of time over there and I can still see them in my mind's eye. You know, out on this little postage stamp of grass, really, you know playing, tossing a football around. And I came out and I didn't know who this boy was. He had long hair that sort of covered the front of his eyes, and I just saw that they were playing football and I was like hey, I want to play. And my brother's first response, as always, was like no, you know, get lost. And Andy stopped and he just looked at me and he's like well, if she can't play, I'm not playing either. And I was like oh, you know who's that?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 18:21

you know who's that boy, and so that caught my attention, his kindness. Somewhere along the line we just, you know, we became friends ourselves, and so it wasn't Jeff didn't necessarily have to be in the picture. My brother and I remember we just started to hang out on our own and I had a crush on him. I don't think I ever verbalized that I had a crush on him. He didn't. You know, we weren't like I, like you, you know we were nine and 10 years old. He was about to be 11.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 18:49

Let me see, he had Barry, michael, gina, so he had three younger siblings and his mother was pregnant and he was the oldest and so he was very paternal. He was typically the oldest brother, he was always taking care of them and I remember being afraid of his mother. She always seemed like, you know, and we were afraid a lot of the project. Mothers like you were like oh, don't go near that one, she's going to tell you what to do. And they were everyone's mother. That was just the projects, right, you had to listen to every, and it was the time, you know, kids had to listen to any adult. And I have a couple of vivid memories, like one time he was babysitting his siblings and his mom wasn't home and I was sitting on the porch of his house and he was handing out chocolate chip cookies to them and you know, he had passed the package around to. Everyone had had one, including me. It started with me and then, when he was done, there was an extra cookie or something left and he came back to me and offered me an additional one, which again was another sort of, you know, sealed the deal for me. He's like, you know, you can play with me and I'm going to stick up for you and I'll give you chocolate chip cookies and I'm cute. You know he was cute.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 19:54

He was tan. You know he's Italian descent, so he had like a olive colored skin and he just the sun would sort of pick it up and he'd get tan, you know, before everybody else. And he had a really nice smile. His hair sort of covered his eyes a little bit and he'd flip his head to the side and I remember his eyes were brown and I talk about this when I write. They sort of reminded me of like the center of a Tootsie Pop, right, like they were that sweet brown. Yep, I had a crush, like I said. But it was an innocent crush. It was nothing more than like I like him, he likes me, we like to spend time together, he's nice to me.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 20:29

But there were some, you know, like pivotal moments. Like I remember he had a CB radio walkie talkie that he had gotten just before he disappeared and he brought it outside and we were playing with it and it was heavy. It was a heavy duty, adult one. It wasn't like a kid one that had been refashioned, it was a real CB radio walkie talkie and we were just such kids with it that we would literally just go out of eyesight of each other, like around the corner where you could still, if we said hello without a walkie talkie, you would still know we were there. But just being kids, we would go out of eyesight of each other and use the walkie talkie and think it was the best thing in the world. So he was super excited about that.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 21:05

I do remember and I talk more to law enforcement about this, and I have talked to Andy's mother about this a little bit too. I do remember a couple of weeks before Andy disappeared maybe longer. You know, it's hard to know in kid time something had changed and my brother, jeff, and I talk about this. It was just like there was a shadow over him. I don't know how else to explain it. He was a little bit more somber. He was keeping me at arm's length. I mean, we had just met each other in March anyway. It was August now, so we hadn't known each other very long. But initially when you like somebody, you want to spend all your time with them, right, and so maybe the bloom was coming off the rose a little bit. I don't know. Or maybe there was something more going on with him. I suspect there was something more going on with him.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 21:53

I don't know what that was, but I do remember the day at the pool. You know it was the dog days of summer. We were tired and bored and hot. You know we were getting ready for school to start again. Fifth grade was starting in a couple of weeks. We were excited, waiting to figure out who our teachers were right, whose class we were going to be in, all that excitement around that. But you know we did what we did every day pretty much in the summer was go to the state pool, which had been built right across the street a few years earlier, and it was such a gift. It was like our vacation, for kids didn't really get a vacation. It was there every single day and you could go at any given time. So, you know, we woke up. I remember it being one of the hottest days of the summer. It was so hot and we went to the pool shortly after we woke up, my brother Jeff and I, which was probably around 10 or 11. Andy was there and a couple of other kids from the projects, mostly boys that I can remember, and that was often the case because I had three older brothers. I was often hanging out with their friends and so it was mostly boys around.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 22:54

I think it was around two o'clock or so in the afternoon, because I remember it was after lunch and I was hungry. I was, you know, my stomach was starting to hurt because I was hungry and they had a snack bar there that would just like tease you. Right, you could smell the pizza cooking and you know you just get really hungry and it was like, oh, I couldn't put it off anymore, especially having expended all that energy swimming, because we would just be swimming nonstop for hours. So say, we got there at 10, it's now two. We've been swimming hard, you know, for like four hours, with the exception of the mandatory 10 minute breaks where they blow the whistle and everybody has to.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 23:30

And I was hungry and I wanted to go home and it was hot and I remember there was a little tiny overhang at the pool where there's some shade and you would, you know, fight for the shade when it was hot like that, and we, the boys, were all under the shade, sort of lined up, and we were all sitting there and I stood up and I said I'm going home. You know, andy, will you walk me home, me home? And I didn't normally ask anybody to walk me home, as far as I can remember, I mean, I think we usually went in groups and left in groups, so I didn't have to ask anybody to walk me home. But for this day in particular, I asked to be walked home, which was a little unique I think. I think it was probably my own intuition as a kid. You know, I don't know that I try to listen to much more now as an adult.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 24:12

Andy said no, he didn't want to leave yet and I was a little bummed and annoyed because he was the kid that if you asked him to do something, he would generally do it. And so I said to my brother, jeff, will you walk me home? And Jeff said no, I don't want to go either. And I said, you know I'm telling Ma, and I turned on my heels and you know, sort of storming out, you know, annoyed, and I guess from my brother's telling he thought twice about it, didn't want to get in trouble, you know, jumped up and decided he would walk me home. So we went home and you know, home was probably, I mean, andy's house was only a couple hundred feet. You could see Andy's house from the pool parking lot, no-transcript, andy's mom's looking for him and I was like, really, you know it was around dinner time and I was like, oh, you know, and I thought he was going to's in trouble. Right, we know that if we didn't show up for dinner we're going to be in trouble. So that was about it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 25:35

And then, you know, did whatever. You know, watched TV that night probably, you know solid gold answers and you know happy days or something like that, who knows and went to bed it was a Sunday night and went to bed and at some time in the morning, you know in the darkness, my mother woke us up and brought us downstairs to the kitchen table and there was a police officer there and he was asking us if we had seen Andy. When was the last time we were with him? What had he been wearing? Just sort of all of that. And I remember being puzzled by it and it was so interesting because the next morning it was still just before the, you know the alarm really started to ring and once that happened, the whole projects changed and it was like a cacophony of sound and helicopters and low-flying airplanes and National Guard and people yelling Andy's name, and just like horror.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 26:24

But just before that, that quiet, just before that, I remember my first thought being maybe he was taken by a rich family, right, maybe he was taken by a rich family and like the little princess, right, like that he was going to be, like he's going to go to Disney all the time, right, like it was just sort of this kid's thing of like maybe, you know, and it was so such a, you know, strange thought to think, but it was sort of the first thought. And then, and maybe it was a way of comforting myself, and then, you know, strange thought to think, but it was sort of the first thought. And then and maybe it was a way of comforting myself and then you know otherwise I thought he was going to be in trouble, like I didn't think somebody had taken him, I thought he had done something wrong and he was going to get in trouble, and that was it, and then we were off and running. You know, once the search started, then it was a whole different, a whole different ballgame.

Anngelle Wood: 27:15

Have you since made the connection with whatever that odd feeling was. For you that day was maybe some kind of foreboding about danger lurking around you? I know it sounds very movie of the week, but it's legitimate no, I don't think it sounds movie of the week.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 27:32

I think the kids are way more sensitive to that stuff than the rest of us are and I now as an adult especially, you know, an adult in my third act, if you will I'm trying to pay a lot more attention to that intuition that we all of danger around me, because I didn't want to walk home alone. And it's interesting because now when I try to figure things out about what was going on in the projects and stuff like that, I actually literally walk myself through the projects mentally and I let my body feel where I knew not to go right Because the kids knew for the most part where not to go right or where you know there was suspicious activity, or where you know what I mean. Like we sort of you have a sense of that. And so as I look at what was happening in the projects and sort of considering the bigger picture, I do go back to that child intuition a lot and think, well, you know who made you uncomfortable, or you know where did you send, sort of any of these things. And and in retrospect I also think that was probably part of what was going on with Andy, when I say there's a shadow about him, right, I think that there was something going on with him that maybe he was protecting other kids from with him, that maybe he was protecting other kids from it would be very like him to be doing that in terms of protecting kids. So I don't really know, but yeah, I do and I also really I do think that you know, now, as I'm older, I think about sort of again Carl Jung and the collective unconscious, right, that's a famous psychoanalyst who was a student of Freud and I always was really interested in his theories and sort of the way that we're all connected and how we're all sort of part of the universe, if you will. And today I think that it's not a coincidence that I do this work, you know, I think that when Andy disappeared after that horror show of a search and you know, witnessing it as a nine-year-old little girl being really like, one of the most stark memories I have is standing underneath this tree outside of my bedroom.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 29:45

That was a friend to me. Like. I love that tree. I brought my kids to meet the tree. It's so funny. I'm so corny now as an adult, but this tree meant a lot to me. It sounds corny, but like I'd be in my room and it would make shadows on my wall and you know I just liked it. I liked nature. There wasn't a lot of it in the projects. Now I use it to heal myself when I'm, you know, out in the community walking and you know all that stuff. Nature is really healing and it was sort of this little piece of nature in my bedroom window, if you will. And so I liked this tree. It sounds corny but and I would never say it to any of the project kids and anybody out there listening that's a project kid, don't make fun of me, I don't care. It was my tree layoff.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 30:22

You know, I was standing under the this tree and I was looking over at Andy's unit which, as I said, was diagonal to me, and I just could not wrap my mind around the fact that they had stopped looking for him. Like how do you stop looking for somebody and how does somebody? He didn't just disappear. Like people don't just vanish. I mean I knew that, like you couldn't just disappear. So I didn't get it. I just didn't get it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 30:47

And I said to myself and to my tree tree with really firm resolve, like when I grow up, I'm going to find him, you know, and I meant it and I didn't think that it would turn into this, right, like I didn't think I. I, you know, but I love that little girl now, you know, now I've grown to love that little girl. Through a lot of trauma, therapy and through a lot of other stuff, I've grown to love that little girl and I think the conviction of that nine-year-old little girl, you know, and that turned into what it is today, you know, looking for this friend because knowing that it was wrong, that it was wrong that the search had been called off, that it was wrong that he hadn't been found, that it was wrong that kids in the project were treated as less than you know that all of that was wrong, and so today I can do something about it, and I am.

Anngelle Wood: 31:45

You are the one who discovered his actual date of disappearance was not Saturday the 21st, it was in fact Sunday the 22nd, which, as we know. All of that is very pertinent to an investigation. It has to do with alibis and where people were, and how did that happen?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 31:56

It has to do with a million different things really Alibis, where people were what time the pool closed, a whole bunch of things. So it's really interesting and it's actually a bone of contention because some of Andy's family members don't want to believe this at this point and so I'm actually working on, you know, just getting them the evidence to prove it, because I have physical evidence to prove it. Trauma does a lot to our brains, right. But also they don't, you know, they don't trust the police. So they're like, just because this police dispatch report says it doesn't mean that that you know, the police could have changed it and she's right, there was some funky stuff going on with the police. It's not just the police report. I have have a news story from an independent news station that talks about the date specifically, and then we have an eyewitness.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 32:41

When I first started researching Andy's disappearance, which was in 1998, I had the experience of researching because I had been a researcher on documentary films for 15 years at that point. So I had done a lot of research, a lot of archival research, a lot of, you know, documentary research, going to the National Archives. I mean, I knew how to do research. And so I started researching his disappearance and building files and you know categorizing things and what have you, and I was noticing a discrepancy in some of the material. Like, some of the newspaper articles would say Andy's disappearance was on August 22. And some of them would say it was on August 21. Or you know, police reports would say August 22. And some of them would say 24. It was just like that it was. And so after a while I remember asking Andy's mother, faith, what date was it? And the National Center for Missing and Exploded Children had the date of Andy's disappearance as August 21st 1976 on all of their material. But remember, the National Center for Missing and Exploded Children was not created until 1982. So that was six years after Andy had disappeared. And it wasn't until the late 80s really that police were encouraged, if not required, to enter missing children information into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So they were adding kids retrospectively in terms of the early the 70s, were adding kids retrospectively in terms of the early the 70s, and so it could very well be that whoever added Andy's information in to the National Center for Missing and Splitted Children either just read a newspaper article to get the date or was looking at something to get the date and, just you know, got the wrong date by mistake. Or it could be that somebody gave them the wrong date on purpose. It's hard to know.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 34:38

Late 1990s, early in the project, I asked Faith if she knew the date and she said it was the 21st. And I said are you sure? And she said of course I know. I'm sure, you know, I know the date. My son went missing and I said yes, of course I'm sorry. I even asked, and that was the end of it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 34:53

And then years went by, very late in the project for the film, which was broadcast in 2007, so, say, 2006. So now we're editing the documentary and we're trying to get it into a stage where we can get HBO to pick it up and others to pick it up to pick it up and others to pick it up and the editor is working on the film, and by this time the world had changed from analog editing to digital editing, which was fairly new in 2005, 2006. So it was a big difference, though, because you could take audio and scrub it and listen to every teeny tiny little bit of it, whereas before, if you were listening to it, you would have to use an audio tape, you know, get it converted, it would just slip. There was tape slippage. You would never get right on the breath, right Like. It didn't work that way, as you know from working in radio.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 35:46

So there were these tapes from Wayne Chapman that we had secured. That were audio tapes when they were initially taken from him when he was arrested in 1977. And Wayne W Chapman was one of the main suspects in Andy Puglisi's disappearance. So there were audio tapes of him recording himself and of an interrogation of him shortly after he was arrested in upstate New York and in the interrogation he is talking about taking a child from a pool and I always thought that he said I took the child from a pool with a towel and we had sent out these tapes to transcriptionists, right, but they couldn't. Chapman has a little bit of an accent. The tapes were not the best quality, you know, so there would be times when they would just have unintelligible written in the transcript and this was one of those times. So we assumed it said I took the boy from the pool with a towel, and it wasn't until my editor was editing this audio into the fine cut of the film that I remember, like it was yesterday.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 36:50

I was downstairs making lunch for us and she came downstairs Now she didn't know that I was working on this angle. I was researching something where a boy had told me he had been with Andy when he was abducted and he had witnessed his abduction. But I hadn't told her that yet because I still didn't know the details. I was still trying to find the kid. It was just like we weren't going there. But she comes down into the kitchen for lunch and she says Melanie, I've been listening to this audio tape of Chapman and I know you have it in the script that it says you know, I took the boy from the pool with a towel. She said. But I've listened to it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 37:21

And he says I took the boy from the pool with a much younger child, which was huge, because the boy that said he had witnessed Andy's abduction was six years younger than him. He was a four-year-old at the time. He's a grown man, obviously, today, and his story has not changed in all those years. In all the 30-plus years he's had the same story. I can tell you more about the story if you want, but I won't get into it now. People can also watch the film, what have you?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 37:49

But essentially the boy said he had witnessed Andy's abduction and he had been with him and he had details of his abduction. And he said, at the end of him witnessing the abduction, he said Andy saved his life, he was pushing him up this hill to get away from these men that were chasing them. The boy gets to the top of the hill and nobody's there. He wants to cry for help and he says nobody's there. And I think I don't know if I believe this kid because you know, I knew at this point that August 21st was a Saturday and if he had come up around the time that he said between you know, 530 or so the pool would have been thriving, you know, teaming with people, because it closed at eight on a Saturday night and it was hot that weekend, so there would have been people all around. So that didn't make any sense to me and I kind of just like kept that as a mental note and that was about it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 38:40

And then, you know, as I went out and interviewed this person and talked with him more and believed more of his story because he was he is so convincing and he's never changed his story and he had some data. He had a nervous breakdown in seventh grade, telling people the same story. You know, all of it was the same that I decided to just sort of check the discrepancy again. You know what? What is going on? Was this a Saturday or a Sunday? And I think I looked at one of the police reports and I noticed that it said a Sunday, august 22nd.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:10

And so I called Faith back and I said is there any chance this was August 22nd, a Sunday? And at that point she was like you know what, I don't even know. So much time has passed. I don't know. I always thought it was August 21st, but maybe that's just because of what I was told and what I saw. I don't really know.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:27

And I said, okay, well, it's a really important piece of information because if this occurred on a Sunday, then this kid's story would be more validated because, coming up from, you know, behind the pool at 5.30 or 6, the pool would have been empty.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:40

On a Sunday it closed at like 5. So it was substantially validate his story in my eyes. And so, you know, I chose to move forward with his story and include him in the film because he is so believable and because he also identified Wayne Chapman as the man who approached them initially and Wayne Chapman was approaching a number of people at the pool that day, according to a number of eyewitnesses. So I included his story in the documentary and that you know, and that was that. Was that pretty much. And then, more recently, when I was working on the podcast, I have been spending some time doing some additional research, because the story is such that the research is never done, like the more you dig, the more you find, and like I keep trying to get to the end of this research, this story, if you will, and it's never going to happen.

Anngelle Wood: 40:32

There's never, there's no end to these stories.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 40:34

There is no end to these stories. There's no end to these stories and there's no end to, unfortunately, what I believe Andy became a part of and was involved in not involved in in the sense that he was, you know, doing things himself, but that he became part of this organized human trafficking of children, I believe. And so I started to do some more research around that theory because you know it had popped up so many times since the time the film was released in 2007. There was so much, even at the end of the film you can tell that I am uncovering more and you know I talk about the child ring in child sex trafficking ring in Revere, massachusetts, that was broken up in 1977 and formed the North American man Boy Love Association. That's the end of the film. You know that's the end. That's the last part of the film where I say there's all these unidentified children's remains and so on and so forth.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 41:26

So I knew the story wasn't ending and I started to really dive into this organized nature and you know, again, you can listen to the podcast and understand more about how I came to the point of the historical trafficking of children in Massachusetts and you know where that all derived from, but suffice it to say it was decades of research. Decades of research, very intensive, and the podcast really brings that research to you. Open Investigation really shares the data. It was important for me to share the data and the facts. I wanted people to know that this is not just, you know, a theory, it's not just sort of an idea. It's proven in fact in so many different ways that you know there was for sure trafficking of children in Massachusetts in the 1970s, without a doubt, and for sure there are at least 27 unsolved missing and murdered children cases in Massachusetts. And for sure there are at least 27 unsolved missing and murdered children's cases from Massachusetts in the 1970s, going back before.

Anngelle Wood: 42:31

Andy disappeared.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 42:32

Before Andy disappeared. And you know that's just the 70s and that's just what I was able to uncover. I'm sure that there are ones. As I say in the podcast, there's information that slips through the database and falls through the cracks for any number of reasons, through the data set and falls through the cracks for any number of reasons, like Denise Cochran who continues to haunt me right. So, and that's only the 70s, we're not talking about the sixties and the fifties. You know we're not talking about all those. You know earlier times, but you know there was human trafficking, was a billion dollar industry in the 1970s in America, and people just don't realize that. And so the podcast really gets into the deep dive of that.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 43:08

And as I'm researching for the podcast this organized nature I really start looking through old records that I hadn't had access to before, and I became really interested in finding out whether this was the 21st or 22nd, and so I ended up finding a police log, a dispatch log that has the time of dispatch at 1140, time of police dispatch to talk to faith about her child who went missing that day at 3 30 PM was the last time they were reported seeing him. The dispatch log has the police dispatch to faith that around. You know I don't have it in front of me, I read it from the podcast, but it's 1130, 1140 PM that night. The police go to Faith and take her information and then they say, right on the log, no report filed at this time. So they take the information but they don't even file a report. And, interestingly, one of the police, one of the people that took that report on that same day at 1130 pm on that Sunday August 22nd, was a police officer who was subsequently found to be ina, compromising position with a teenage boy from the project. So a police officer who is said to be a pedophile took the report that Andy was missing and decided not to file the information. The evening they took the report and that police dispatch log clearly says Sunday August 22nd. So I was like, okay, there's that piece of information but, like with any good journalist, you need a second source, right? What's another piece of information? And then I ended up finding this story, this old news story from a local news station and it's a reporter shot on film. It's interesting because it's out of sync, right, you have to record the audio and film differently back in the day and it's out of sync, right, you have to record the audio and film differently back in the day and it's out of sync and everything else.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 44:57

And I got this news report from the day after Andy disappeared. And it is so incredible Like Faith looks like she's about 12 years old. She's really very much affected by her trauma. You can see she's just like the child who witnessed Andy's abduction. In his interview you see him very sort of stoically looking at the camera with his eyes. He barely blinks as he's telling the story. And that's how Faith is in this interview with this reporter. She's barely blinking. She's just very matter of fact trying to tell the story, which is again very much a trauma response.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 45:32

And the reporter clearly says it's Monday, the day after Andy disappeared from the swimming pool, monday, august 23, the day after Andy Puglisi disappeared from the swimming pool in Lawrence. So that was my second piece of corroborating information. But interestingly, since then you know so then the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got this information from the police department, from the state police, saying the state was wrong and they fixed it with NCMEC, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But interestingly, since then Andy's mom and dad have not agreed with that. They now feel like Saturday, the 21st, was the day he disappeared and his dad says something about he was working that Saturday and so he was at work at that time. So he remembers that and the police got information wrong, so they probably got this wrong.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 46:22

And so I understand that and the family is entitled to their opinions of everything. And they were there and they lived it. It's not just their opinion, but we also know that trauma memory can be faulty, right, and it can have all kinds of issues. So I would never want to say that Andy's parents are incorrect in the information. All I can say is that these are the two documents that I found that say that it was Sunday, august 22nd, and also you know the young man Ray who says he was with Andy the day he disappeared. His story is also sort of corroborating that it was Sunday because there was no one at the pool when he says he came back from witnessing that abduction where Andy saved his life.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 47:05

So it's a strange set of circumstances and it leads to all kinds of questions because that little mistake whether it was an accidental mistake or a purposeful mistake, at this point it doesn't really matter, it's lost to the years, but it caused a lot of issue because people's alibis, right, like where were you on Saturday versus where were you on Sunday is a whole different question, right.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 47:28

And so there's all of that, and at this point, do I think we're going to find the person that abducted Andy and, you know, be able to hold him responsible or her responsible? I don't, you know. But what I do believe is that we'll find more answers to what happened to Andy and, along these lines of what we've talked about in the podcast, I believe, and also I still very much hold out hope that we will bring Andy's remains home, for his life to be celebrated and for him to be put to rest and for his family to be able to have a place to go to be with him. And you know, every family has a right to be able to put their loved one to rest.

Anngelle Wood: 48:09

And.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 48:11

I believe that that will still happen for Andy and I always have.

Anngelle Wood: 48:14

There are many important things to bring up when it comes to cases like Andy's and children like Andy's and family members that have gone through things like the Puglisi's have One of the things that we're finding more recently due to DNA and the technology. As technology continues to grow and I know that you've said this a number of times and you have impressed this upon the Puglisi family to make sure that they have information, that they have DNA in the database. So, as we continue to find, you know there are remains of people found all the time. It may not be highly publicized, but we're seeing more and more of these cases be brought to a close because of DNA evidence.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 48:59

Right, and part of the issue with unidentified remains or remains that have been found is that there isn't, like we say in you know, the film and even in the podcast, there isn't a system in place really for how to deal with these unidentified remains, which is a bigger issue, right, and so if remains are found, there are literally, like we talked with a forensic anthropologist out of another state, not Massachusetts, and they were sharing with us that there are literally, you know, remains in laboratories, in funeral homes, at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in police officers' desk drawers I mean literally unclaimed, unrecorded, you know and these all need to be in a system like Name Us, where the information is put into the system and so that families who can and should very much put their DNA into a system like GEDmatch, which is one that law enforcement uses. So if you've already put your DNA into an entity like AncestryDNA, you can download that file and then upload that file to GEDmatch, which is the law enforcement system that is used. Or if you do I think it's 23andMe you can check off that you want them to go ahead and send that profile to GEDmatch. And that's what we recently did with Andy's mom, because over a decade ago we begged police to take a DNA sample from Andy's mom and put it into CODIS, which is the Criminal Offender Database Information System, and so, or Crime Offender I don't know exactly the acronym, but CODIS is the National Law Enforcement Database System. So they did, they had state police come out where she lives, in the state that she lives in, and take her DNA and you know they processed it and put it into CODIS and I thought that meant that, oh, okay, every time there's an unidentified remains, you know, put into CODIS, it checks to see if it matches Andy's mom and then, nope, it doesn't.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 50:52

You know, okay, and that's not true. That's not what happens. You have to have someone from law enforcement actively say oh, run this remain. You know this bone that was found in Tennessee against Faith Puglisi's DNA, from what I understand, to see if it potentially is this kid. Now they say there are some random matches. You know there are some ways that they run it and I'm hoping with artificial intelligence that will happen more and more, but I just don't think it's a system that exists today.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 51:23

So the best bet today is, you know, getting the remains into a NEMA system, which is also attached to you know GEDmatch and searches GEDmatch and having family members' DNA in the GEDmatch so that unidentified remains can be compared to missing persons' DNA. And if folks don't know how to do that and they're listening they can contact their local police department or their district attorney's office, and so the local police might not know how to do it, but certainly the district attorney's office will, and some of the district attorneys like Hampton County offers free DNA testing. They'll give you a free DNA test. I think they do want you to pick it up and do it in person so that they're not just mailing out tests because of the cost.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 52:04

But there are sites that do that and even now the cold case unit has started to have events where they're hosting events that families can attend, where they can give their DNA sample to help with these unidentified remains, and so I think there's a lot, a lot, a lot of remains that have been found over the years that have not been identified, and I think we'll see more of that over the, you know, the next decades. We see it all the time 50 year old, you know crime solved. 50-year-old, you know crime solved. And every time I see that, I post it on our social media because it just gives me that bit of hope and I'm sure you know, gives Andy's family that bit of hope that it doesn't matter how long has passed, you know he's coming home and we'll still advocate and continue to advocate for that and believe that.

Anngelle Wood: 52:47

It is completely possible for these cases, cases like Andy's, we've seen it. The longest unsolved cold case, unidentified persons in the state of Massachusetts was the Lady of the Dunes who now has an identity, ruth Marie Terry, and we now know the cause of her death the person she was married to closed case who subsequently we found out is dead. So they face no repercussions. But that person who's responsible for Ruth Marie Terry's death is probably responsible for others you know. Another case very close to home for us is the Bear Brook murders. We know the identity of three of the four people. There's one child we still don't know, but I believe very soon we will know.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 53:35

I believe that too and I mean there's no reason that we shouldn't. Now, with family, you know genetic genealogy and family, you know familial DNA. I think there's no reason that we should know that, but you know. The other thing is that the advocacy piece is really important because there are costs involved. Money, you know, is an issue. It comes down to money too, right. So you know, if a bone is found, for example, you know there was a priest, if you remember in the podcast, there was a priest that told me that Andy was dead and that we would never find him unless someone happened upon his bones while they were walking their dog in the woods. And I said what woods you know? And he was like I don't know, but in the woods.

Anngelle Wood: 54:11

And I said what woods?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 54:12

And he was like I don't know it was oddly specific, frankly, and also very full of conviction, like when I said how do you know when he's dead? He said I know. And I said how do you know? He said I know. And I said but I understand you're saying I know. I said, but tell me how do you know? And he got firm and he said I know. And then he kind of smirked.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 54:39

Somebody could be in the woods and come across a bone and wonder if it's human remains or not. If that ever happens, please you know, err on the side of caution and get the bone to the police. They can get an expert to determine whether it is human or not. I encourage you very much. If you're going to do that, though, keep a picture of the bone, you know. Keep a documentation of the police in the meeting so that you found it where you found it, of course, and also you know having given it to the police and ask them to make a record of that, so that it's all documented and you have that information. But then it's in the hands of law enforcement to decide what they're going to do with that bone, and it depends on whose budget is going to pay for that. Unidentified remains to be tested and people don't have unlimited budgets, right, and so that's another piece of advocacy we could be doing level where we require that any remains found are tested, right, that they have to be tested. I don't know that that's the case today. I mean, one would think that they would be, but again, you know, there are other pressing budget items and it all depends it's at the discretion, I would assume, of the district attorney whether they want to do that.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 55:48

So these are all issues that we have to face when we're advocating for missing persons and, angel, we've worked together and with Dr Anne-Marie Myers and other folks to enlight the way and other folks to create the Mass Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition MPAC, and we really just sort of identified it last year and sort of have branded it and are wanting to move forward with it and the whole purpose is to be able to empower families to get legislation, to move their cases forward and to understand legislative advocacy and why it's important and you know how to change systems and we really want to teach folks that and we really encourage folks.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 56:24

If you know you're interested in MPAC, please reach out to us. Either you know Angel's email website or openinvestigationpodcastcom. You can email me or Angel and we'll give you information and we're collecting folks who are interested in advocating with us through MPAC and also, more importantly, families who want to be involved, because it really is about the families and we need family involvement and so many of these families, especially from the cases that I've been researching from the 1970s it's been 50 years, you know, and sometimes the parents directly are no longer around, but maybe the siblings are, you know, and I don't think these people understand the power of their voice and the power of their story. If you come to the state house or even you know, or videotape talking about your story and people understand the impact that this has had on you all of these years and why these laws need to happen, it really can make a difference and we really do want to make a difference for everyone's child and everyone's missing person out there.

Anngelle Wood: 57:30

Thank you, melanie. Openinvestigationpodcastcom HaveYouSeenAndycom To learn more about MPAC MassMissingAndMurderedorg. We will be hosting a Missing Persons Day this spring. We will also be in attendance for any and hopefully all of the Massachusetts State Police Family Days where we invite families of missing and murdered loved ones to come. The first of its kind happened in November and I submitted my own DNA. I met a woman from GEDmatch and we talked about much of this technology and the work that they're doing and bringing answers to families who have been languishing some for decades. My name is Angelle Wood. Thank you for listening.

Anngelle Wood: 58:27

This is Crime of the Truest Kind Massachusetts and New England crime stories. I talk about historical kinds of things and advocacy A-B-A Always be advocating. Follow the show at Crime of the Truest Kinds on all the places Facebook, instagram, blue Sky, tiktok, youtube. Thank you to Patreon supporters. I am revamping some things here on the show Special shouts to superstar Lisa McColgan. I have some revamps in the Patreon department coming your way and a new look for the show. That is all planned for this first quarter-ish of 2025. And I will be going to AdvocacyCon, the first conference of its kind, happening in Indianapolis at the end of March. It is exactly what it sounds like it's an advocacy conference about people who advocate in this crime space for families. I will be taking Crime of the Truest Kind and MPAC Massachusetts Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition. It is advocacy in action.

Anngelle Wood: 59:47

All right, thank you for listening. I'll be back next week with part two of my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, host and creator of Open Investigation. All right, take care of yourself. It is okay to shut everything down if you need it. It's okay to close the computer. Shut down the social media. Give yourself a breather. There is a lot going on in the computer. Shut down the social media. Give yourself a breather. There is a lot going on in the world. I hope to see you Saturday night at the show at Kodo and Lowell. I have two shows scheduled that I will tell you about next week One in February, one in March. Okay, I must be going. Lock your goddamn doors. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.