EP 78 | Andy Puglisi & The Failed Children of Massachusetts, with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin (part two)

This is about the abuse of children by those who should be trusted figures. Listen with care.

Episode 78, part two of my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, host of Open Investigation, the 9-part investigative podcast, and documentary filmmaker of "Have You Seen Andy?", we explore classism, child exploitation, and the vital role of advocacy in creating safer communities for all children and adult survivors of CSA, revealing dark realities and how society was largely silent or ignorant to such horrors. Horrors like the institutional failures that allowed predators to thrive, from widespread clergy abuse, to sex abuse rings and their use of CB radios in targeting children. We see the role of advocacy with the creation of the sex offender registry and A.M.B.E.R. Alert System, established because of children like Jacob Wetterling, Johnny Gosch, Etan Patz, Adam Walsh, and Amber Hagerman, emphasizing the need for legislative reforms to protect our most vulnerable.

• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) 
• Kristen Lombardi, reported on clergy sex abuse for the Boston Phoenix before the Spotlight team broke the story on a larger scale
• Gisèle Pelicot, SA survivor who refuses to stay anonymous
• Ann Burgess, Boston nurse and author how studies America’s Most Notorious in order to stop them
• Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
• Judy Herman, Truth and Repair  

Chapters

• 0:00 True Crime Podcast
• 17:00 Child Sex Abuse Advocacy
• 24:52 CB Radio and Missing Children
• 33:50 Teenage Misconceptions and Missing Children
• 40:01 Understanding Trauma and Healing
• 49:32 Empowerment Through Sharing Trauma Stories
• 58:24 Uncovering Systemic Clergy Abuse
• 1:05:33 Child Sex Abuse Awareness and Advocacy
• 1:08:48 Exposing Systemic Abuse in Institutions
• 1:17:03 Fighting for Justice and Empowerment

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. This is a true crime, local history and storytelling podcast. My focus is advocacy, supporting victims and families of violence and crime who've suffered catastrophic loss. I advocate for those people, all of those people. I write about crimes. Yes, I set the scene, connect story themes. I talk about things that happened here in Massachusetts, in New England.

Anngelle Wood: 0:53

In this episode we continue our conversation about what we learned after a boy went missing in the summer of 1976 in Lawrence. This episode is about murdered and missing children, about child sexual abuse, csa attitudes, about child exploitation, systemic abuse, and we do talk about the role the Catholic Church has played in the serial abuse of children. But it doesn't stop with the Catholic Church. The systemic abuse in organizations is on the forefront of this particular subject matter. It is important for me to say, if this is a subject matter that might hurt you, impede your own healing or possibly offend you, it may not be something you wish to listen to and this often goes unsaid that this podcast is not for children. Please listen with care. Big thanks to newest patron Holly you rule. I do have merch that I will share. And also I should tell you I'm doing a redesign for the look of the show. Thanks to all of our patrons. The show. Thanks to all of our patrons, most especially to our superstar, ep Lisa McColgan. You also rule. Thank you for those who came out to the Kodo show in Lowell Mass. That turned into kind of a fireside chat. We have a way of doing that. New show Thursday, february 20th at Stoneham Public Library, stoneham Massachusetts. It is free. There are no tickets. I guess you just show up the second part of my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, who spent decades researching the disappearance of her childhood friend. His name is Andy Puglisi. He disappeared without a trace from a pool that had been filled with children.

Anngelle Wood: 2:51

We return to the Merrimack Valley, an area that was greatly impacted by what was happening to children, particularly in the 1970s, and we talk about why that period was so active we'll call it and what role Lawrence Massachusetts had. We return to the stadium projects, summer 1976. It's the bicentennial year. We were celebrating the country's 200th anniversary. Everything was eagles, liberty bells, waving flags and commemorative coins. They even sold bicentennial wallpaper. It was both a time of celebration in America and for tremendous marketing opportunities. Ten-year-old Andy Puglisi vanishes from the public pool. Here's what we know about that day and what came after, but we also have much more information about what came before. This is episode 78. I continue my conversation with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, andy's childhood friend, who lived in the stadium projects back in the summer of 1976. Someone who decided the day Andy disappeared that she would one day set out to discover what happened to her friend, and someone we owe a debt of gratitude for the work that she has done In researching Andy's case, in making the documentary have you Seen Andy, for uncovering the stories of so many other children like him and from what we've learned in season one of her podcast, open Investigation.

Anngelle Wood: 4:42

First, the city's origin story. What is the history of the city of Lawrence? I have certainly talked about hallmarks of the city through the years. Do go back and listen to the two prior episodes I did about Andy Puglisi's case. Start with those American merchants and philanthropists for whom Groton's Lawrence Academy was renamed Abbott and Amos Lawrence. They were instrumental in the development of the textile industry here. In 1845, the brothers founded the city of Lawrence as a textile town, building a complex of mills producing cotton and wool. By the early 20th century, with a soaring population close to 95,000, its highest ever, the city was a world leader in the production of textiles. In those massive mills they purchased the seven square miles of lands on either side of the Merrimack River and called on engineer Charles S Sturrow of the Sturrow family, for which Boston's Sturrow Drive is named. This Sturrow would design the industrial city that would rival all textile makers.

Anngelle Wood: 5:59

In the late 19th century, the city hadn't forgotten about the Pemberton Mill collapse, though An epic disaster. On January 10, 1860, it crumbled under the weight of poor design, the weight of the workers and the machinery, the floor separated from the walls and the floors collapsing on top of those workers, mostly women and children, like the mill girls who came from Maine and New Hampshire and many Irish immigrants who escaped the potato famine, a time known as the Great Hunger, where the Irish starved to death. Respect to my people. I got my DNA back 48% Irish and Irish. Hey, I'm working on it. The rubble formed a pyramid 50 feet high. The Pemberton Mill disaster was the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history, rivaling the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in Greenwich Village in New York City. Some 50 years later, in October of 1910, the air mill opened, built to spin and dye yarn, the treasured icon of Lawrence and its contribution to the Industrial Revolution. The Airmill Clock Tower is the largest mill clock in the world. It stands as a legendary landmark of the Merrimack Valley, an absolute crown jewel, and I hope you think about its history when you drive by now. The Ayer Mill operated for the next four decades, slowly shrinking in production as mill companies moved to the southern states with cheaper labor by the early 20th century and that population swelling to almost 95,000,.

Anngelle Wood: 7:44

The city of Lawrence was a world leader in the production of textiles and a workforce that was run by those hardworking people. Work that was done in oppressive conditions, didn't they learn from the Pemberton? Lawrence had the eighth highest death rate per 100 in the country. Lowell was the worst 36 of every 100 mill workers died by the time they were 25. Many worked in extremely damp and humid space. They were vulnerable to tuberculosis, pneumonia. Then, when their hours were cut and their pay was threatened, the workers rose up for what is now known as the Bread and Roses strike of 1912. It was one of the most significant labor movements in US history. It was a milestone for the city, for labor and American immigration. On March 14th the nine-week strike ended. 15,000 mill workers gathered in Lawrence Common to agree to the new terms. The Bread and Roses strike was not just a victory for Lawrence workers. By the end of March, 275,000 New England textile workers received similar raises and other industries also followed suit.

Anngelle Wood: 9:02

But its post-war history looks very different. The textile boom went bust in the 1950s. A once flourishing city was now struggling with a declining population. That went from over 80,000 residents in 1950 to approximately 64,000 residents by 1980. Replacing the loss of those jobs proved very difficult. Though Malden Mills makers of polar fleece run by the Feuerstein family for decades, they remained in Lawrence, even rebuilding, after a fire nearly destroyed the entire mill in December of 1995. Aaron Feuerstein, who took over running the mill for his family, was known as the mensch of Malden Mills for caring for his employees while they rebuilt. Malden Mills would eventually be sold in 2007, and the company that bought it left Lawrence in 2015. And today, today, the city celebrates their place in that history. The Bread and Roses Heritage Festival happens every year on Labor Day to recognize the labor history and the cultural diversity of the city.

Anngelle Wood: 10:18

I really do love learning about all of this regional history. I find it very interesting. Maybe you do too. Coming up the second part of my conversation with Melanie Perkins-McLaughlin, she produced the film have you Seen Andy, the documentary about her search for information about her missing friend, andy Puglisi. What that investigation uncovered and what she continues to uncover about Andy and children just like him who went missing or were found murdered in Massachusetts in the 1970s, support Crime of the Truest Kind, and there are many ways you can do that.

Anngelle Wood: 11:03

Follow us on socials at Crime of the Truest Kind. And there are many ways you can do that. Follow us on socials at Crime of the Truest Kind. Tell your friends about the show. Share it on social media. Tell people about it in the groups that you post in. Leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Drop a tip in the jar you will be giving all my dogs a bone, at least one. Become a patron on Patreon Four tiers starting at just $1. I've got new merch on the way. There is a redesign in the works Everything online crimeofthetruestkindcom.

Anngelle Wood: 11:35

Thank you. By supporting the show, you help send me to AdvocacyCon that happens at the end of March in Indianapolis. It is exactly what it sounds like a conference about advocacy in the true crime space. You brought up a very important point. When Andy went missing, it was way before we knew of little Etan Pates and Adam Walsh some of the names that were in the news after and that really did change how we deal with missing children Absolutely. When Andy went missing, we know that there are some other implications. He was a kid in the projects. Police didn't take it. They took it far less seriously. Look at what we learned. They didn't even report it right. They didn't even file the report for this missing boy.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 12:30

No, not right away. And also, you know it wasn't just that. Yeah, andy was a poor kid from the projects and we lived in a very classist community at the time. You know, Lawrence was the 23rd poorest city in the country and probably still is. I don't know what the rating is now, but it's still a very, very poor city and it's also a city very much built on class, which is so ironic for so many poor people to live there and for it to be so classist. But it was, and I guess part of the reason is that when you're just a little bit higher than the lowest, you know, then you feel like you have a little bit of capital or something like that. Higher than the lowest, then you feel like you have a little bit of capital or something like that. So for people that lived in Lawrence that maybe owned a single family home were considered much higher on the sort of class scale than kids that lived in the projects, that had single moms and again, this was the 70s and that was a big part of it and Andy's mother had had a biracial child.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 13:22

She had had three caucasian children and then she had his baby sister, Mandy, a biracial child. Right, she had had three Caucasian children and then she had his baby sister. Mandy was biracial and again, this was 1976. That was noticeable. People noticed that a lot.

Anngelle Wood: 13:34

Part of the investigation really did focus in on the relationship with her partner at the time, who was an African American man, and we know that as part of many other aspects of the investigation which we can talk to a little bit about how they handled the investigation and how short of a time they actually looked for this boy.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 13:53

And you know there are still people, up until recently you know a few detectives that have passed away but there is still people that were on the force, on the Lawrence police force, that were, that are convinced that it was that individual, the boyfriend, right, or that it was, you know, a family member, or that it was what have you. But you know, I think there could be a million theories out there, but what I want to see is evidence, right. What I want to see is okay, well, what evidence do you have that suggests that it was the boyfriend, Okay, and you know the boyfriend was in the house and you know he was not seen outside, he was not seen at the pool. He had been, you know, except for a 10 minute window when Faith went to the store that he had been on, you know, unattended, if you will, and in 10 minutes. That wouldn't have been enough time, you know, to do anything at that point, and he was still with Faith later. So it just is not reasonable to suspect that he had an alibi. But there are things that are reasonable, right, Like the police officer who was, you know, later found with a boy in his cruiser and he was, you know, allegedly molesting this boy and wearing women's clothes and, you know, had to leave the police force quietly as a result of that in the early to mid 80s.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 15:03

And that was a boy from the project, or Wayne Chapman, who was identified by multiple people as being at the pool that day the day before the year before, who we know had an incredible record of abusing over 100 boys. Wayne Chapman also had a lot of camera equipment. He had a lot of high-end, expensive camera equipment. So Wayne Chapman was not just abducting boys, he was producing photos which I think he was very likely selling because I don't know where else he would get the money for the high-end camera equipment because he was a janitor. It was him. There was a neighbor who you know we talk about, who allegedly we had gotten anonymous tips that he knew Wayne Chapman. But also there were several children in the projects who had been approached by this neighbor and so they had shared that information. So the neighbor was known to be a pedophile.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 15:55

There was a lifeguard that we found out way late in the game. This was not until the podcast that we found out that there was a lifeguard or he says he wasn't a lifeguard, he says he worked for the youth services system, but he assisted at pools. I don't know the exact details, but certainly we had someone contact us that said that children had been abused by him in pool settings, in swimming pool settings in Massachusetts, in Lawrence, at the time, and so I found that too incredible to be true. I really couldn't believe it when they said that and I thought for sure it had to be a different summer, it had to be a different summer. And then when they told me that the person was arrested and that there was a court record, and I went back and found the court record and the arrest record and it was literally weeks after Andy disappeared.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 16:37

The same summer this guy was arrested for sexually abusing a five-year-old and a two-year-old in swimming pools in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and had never, ever been questioned. As far as we know, His name had never been brought up, Nothing had ever come up about this guy at all, and, as it turns out, the guy knew the family. Right, the guy knew the Puglisi family. So you know I did have the district attorney. One of the district attorneys say to me that the podcast was really incredible and they found it so informative, but the problem that they said they found with it was that now that felt like there are so many suspects right, Not just you know a few and I said, yes, exactly, that's the point. There were so many because there were so many pedophiles in the area, because there was human trafficking happening in this area, because it was a hotspot for this kind of activity.

Anngelle Wood: 17:30

There's an incredible piece of film in the documentary and I know that you've used it subsequently of Faith Puglisi saying that law enforcement told her that there were at least five pedophiles in the vicinity of the pool that day that Andy went missing.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 17:49

The way she says it is, there were five known child molesters at the pool that day. So back then that's the other piece is we didn't have this lexicon human trafficking. We didn't have the word pedophile, right. We didn't say that they called human trafficking of children, child prostitution, as though a child can prostitute themselves. They called pedophilia, child molestation or child molesting. There weren't terms for it like that. But she did say law enforcement told her there were five known child molesters at the pool that day and that haunted me from the day I heard it, like who were these people? And so I started to try to put together a list of who were the five known child molesters at the pool that day.

Anngelle Wood: 18:33

And while I don't know who, exactly was at it was a longer list.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 18:36

Yes, it was a much longer list. It was longer than five, wasn't?

Anngelle Wood: 18:39

it.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 18:39

Yeah, it was more than five. I think we're up to like 13 now at this point it's crazy, but again, within a half mile radius, put it that way. If they weren't at the pool that day, they were within a quarter mile, half mile radius from a little league coach to a bus driver, to a lifeguard, to a neighbor, to a cop, to a priest to. I mean, it just went on and on. It was crazy. Priest too, I mean. It just went on and on. It was crazy. And it's like is this typical? Like, are there that many pedophiles concentrated in one area? I don't know, but there certainly were. At that time there was no registry.

Anngelle Wood: 19:16

There was no registry and a lot of these people didn't have any kind of criminal record at that time.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 19:23

Or if they did, in some cases it could be covered up like a police officer or a priest. They wouldn't arrest people like that for this behavior, as we know all too well from Boston Globe Spotlight right Like they would just sort of ignore it, let them go on and sort of hope it went away and not talk about it. But yes, that's very important to note that there was not a sex offender registry at the time, which you know. How do you think a sex offender registry came about, angel?

Anngelle Wood: 19:48

It was after children went missing and it was discovered there were people around there.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 19:52

It was. Yes, I forget exactly. The law Isn't it Johnny Gosch.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 19:57

It wasn't Johnny Gosch, it might have been Jacob Wetterling, was it Jacob Wetterling? I can't remember which of the cases it was, but the point is it was a child who went missing, who was a high profile case, whose parents and whose loved ones advocated for legislation to change the system. And that's how sex offender registry came about. That's how the Amber Alert is an Amber Alert, because you know these cases, and that's why we have the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and that's why we have child pornography laws. I mean literally, if you listen to the podcast, the reason the child pornography laws were created in 1978 is because there was so much effing child pornography Like. And then people are like oh, I don't know if this was really true. It's like listen to the you know, or look at the transcripts of the congressional hearings. It was true to the you know, or look at the transcripts of the congressional hearings. It was true, it was true, and that's why the law was created.

Anngelle Wood: 20:47

But and that's how and why laws are created, you know, and that's why we encourage families and loved ones and people who care about this cause to advocate, and it's been something that really the general public still still now, even after all of these years and after all of this information, and after all of these years and after all of this information and after all this evidence, quite frankly, that has been presented, the general public still doesn't want to think about these kinds of things. Is it possible that people were stealing children off the street and putting them into sex trafficking?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 21:18

Yes, and not just into sex trafficking, into unwilling being unwilling participants in a child sex abuse image industry, and so, yes, abusing, being abused, but also for photographs, and there was a lot of money to be made. There was a lot of money that was being made, but I just wanted to fact check. The sex offender registry was actually part of the Amber Alert. So in 1996, bill Clinton President, bill Clinton signed the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act law into law, creating the Amber Alert System and the National Sex Offender Registry. You can read more about Amber Hagerman if you want, if you Google her, whose murder is still unsolved it's still unsolved and thank her and her family for all of the hard work they did to create the Amber Alert. It's probably saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives and the sex offender registry. So, yeah, it's children and the legacy of these children that change systems.

Anngelle Wood: 22:17

We simply, as a society, couldn't function without things like this, and we still need so much more. There's so much more legislation that we need. You summed up a couple of those things, but there's so much more that still needs to be put in place.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 22:31

I mean just the statute of limitations. You know the fact that there's a statute of limitations on child rape. You know that should not be the case and that a lot of folks, you know, don't even start to deal with their trauma till they're in their 50s, which is incredible. The statute of limitations has likely passed at that point and now in Massachusetts it's 53. It was changed in 2015. But we're trying to eliminate the statute of limitations altogether because there shouldn't be a limit on individual trauma and especially if there's corroborating evidence, if people, you know, if there's other people come forward that have been abused by the same person, there's lots of ways to determine whether the stories or how the stories are accurate.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 23:10

So there's that no-transcript the Catholic Church was able to do. They let people go quietly. You know, if there's an allegation, they generally can just offer them to leave their position and the person can go down the street and get a job at another school and not necessarily have anything in their record, especially if there wasn't a criminal conviction. So there's lots and lots of work to be done and also, even with the material that had been created, there's people who are actively advocating against the sex offender registry right. So there's the defense counsel for a lot of registered sex offenders who try to claim double jeopardy or that. This is, you know, unfairly labeling people or any number of things. So and they stay active, they stay.

Anngelle Wood: 24:03

Yeah, how does that go over?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 24:05

in the court of law. Well, it's interesting because Massachusetts is generally pretty lenient on defense attorneys. So I would hate to see the day that that would ever happen and I would hope that there would be people out there who would advocate against, you know, a sex offender registry being taken away. I would certainly think that there would be, but you know, the people who are on the other side of that argument don't rest. They continue to advocate. So that's why it's so important to have families and loved ones and people who care about these stories advocating. So if you're listening and you're interested in advocacy in Massachusetts to prevent child sex abuse and to help support families of missing and murdered loved ones, please, please, reach out to us and let us know, because we're working on getting that rolling and really offering some resources for that.

Anngelle Wood: 24:52

Having the experience of meeting family members, speaking to family members who have a missing loved one, who have a murdered loved one, an unsolved case, hearing the stories about how this happened to them and they had absolutely no idea what to do, where to go, who to talk to. They go to law enforcement. Law enforcement has said oh, they're not missing. They're not missing, which is not that different from Andy's case, let's face it. He was a child but and you can tell me exactly how this happened for you when you were researching it but he went missing. His mother could not find him. His mother went around asking have you seen Andy? Have you seen Andy? No one saw him. And then she tried to report him, which eventually they showed up. They didn't file it and for only six days they looked for a missing child and there are all kinds of excuses and theories that came into play, one of which became after speaking with you about this. I learned that they started, they, law enforcement started to say well, he's really not missing.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 25:58

Yeah, you know there was Faith talks about having been approached by law enforcement a couple of days into the search. They wanted to call the search off. Police chief was Chief Hart at the time and I believe he was the person who had approached the Puglisi family. And they approached with the idea that they would call the search off, not because they didn't think he was missing, but because whoever was holding him might have been intimidated by all of this search activity and that this would help them get their defenses down. Let the person who might be holding Andy sort of put their defenses down and be less likely to be so sensitive to the issue and what have you?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 26:39

So Faith agreed to letting the search be called off. She says she would have never called the search off had it not been for that and you know, six days is not a long time to look for a 10 year old missing boy and at the same time in some ways it felt like forever. It was a slow start and then, once it started, it was like it felt like the entire world was descending on us. There were helicopters everywhere, national guards everywhere and they had set up a, of all things, a CB trucker station which was the which was the search headquarters, which we find out later.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 27:13

As you hear in the podcast, that amateur radio and CB radio was a really one of the ways that pedophiles communicated with each other back in the day, because they didn't have the internet.

Anngelle Wood: 27:22

So they Twitter of the day.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 27:24

It was actually, to be honest, it was a major way that they communicated. Who knew that? And truck driving, and so you know, the truck driving could transport children across state lines, right? So, and a lot of the truck drivers were the ones who were running the CB radios, right Like, if you remember, that was what was the? What was the um think about this in the 70s and 80s? 10-4 Big Trucker, I forget 10-4.

Anngelle Wood: 27:48

Big Daddy.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 27:49

Yeah, something I forget, but everybody had like a handle, just like they had a nickname. Yeah, you know you had a handle, like you do on Twitter. I mean you had everybody. You know people had a handle. And you know, right before Andy went missing he got a really nice CB radio for his birthday. And it wasn't an amateur, I mean, it wasn't a kid's, it wasn't like a little plastic Fisher parties toy thing. It was a heavy duty. I remember putting this real thing, it was the real deal.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 28:14

I remember putting the walkie talkie in my hand and being like this is the real deal.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 28:17

It was like a heavy one, it was like a police radio, you know, it felt really real and I just you know one of the very few memories I have of me and Andy is playing with that and it was just such a funny scene because we just walked out of each other's sight. We weren't, you know, we literally went around the corner so we couldn't see each other, but we would use the radio to communicate and you could hear our voices in the air, nevermind over the radio. So like it wasn't even. It was kind of funny. It was a child's way of you know, out of sight, out of mind, so you don't you think that like you can't see each other. So the CB radios were, you know, sort of effective, but it was kind of this cute scene where we just were like probably you know, 10 or 20 feet away from each other but blocked from each other's sight, while we were using this very nice CB radio set that he had gotten, just before he disappeared and do you remember who gave that to him?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 29:06

You know what it just occurred to me to ask? You know, as you were saying, that I was just like who gave that CB radio set to Andy.

Anngelle Wood: 29:13

I mean, it raises my red flags. Is this something that may have contributed to his disappearance?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 29:18

Well, it's interesting that you say that, because Wayne Chapman talks about having taken the boy from the pool with a much younger child and the boy talking about CB radios. So that was another sort of piece of information that was interesting with Chapman. But you know, it's so funny these are the things that happen, angel, in the course of this decades of stories that you get so caught up in the facts and all of the information or whatever, and then, just as I was telling you that story, I literally was thinking in my brain gee, you know, I never asked who gave him the CB radio right, and not that that I mean it could be completely inconsequential who gave him.

Anngelle Wood: 29:54

It's not going to crack the case, no, no, it's an important thing to maybe try to find out, if it's possible. It's an interesting question.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 29:59

Right, it's an interesting question and again, it wasn is relevant for a long time because I didn't know until probably the last couple of years that CB radio was the way that you know pedophiles communicated. I didn't know anything about the trafficking and use of amateur radio and CB radio really until I was reading Ann Burgess's work and also, you know, interviewing her for the podcast, where she confirmed and talked about that that was the way that they communicated but also that truck drivers would transport the children. That was a big way of transporting children. And again, her research comes from the 70s and 80s. She was out of Boston University a forensic nurse and again is featured in Mindhunter, I believe, for Netflix, as the forensic nurse and she did a lot of research back in the day on these cases and quite remarkable in the work that she's done and the way that she studied this and actually wrote a book called Child Pornography and Sex Rings from the 1970s and 1980s, which you know.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 30:55

I love to bring that book with me as like a hard copy book when I go to share a presentation with law enforcement .

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 31:09

I literally just put it on the desk and I say when people try to tell me that no, this wasn't real, I mean just having this tangible book and say really, because here's a book written about it. Here's a book from an esteemed professor at Boston University that a lot of the history, not the entire history, but a lot of the history of the trafficking of these children, and again, they didn't call it trafficking, they called it child prostitution. So even the ring that was broken up in Revere in 1977, they call these kids child prostitutes.

Anngelle Wood: 31:37

And, once again, the victims of crime get essentially blamed for their own abuse

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 31:44

100%, , especially if they're poor kids without a lot of social capital whose parents can't defend them while they're being blamed. So these kids were being enticed with, you know, pizza and beer and maybe some small change and money to come to this apartment. And, yeah, guys would ask them, you know, they would have to perform sex acts or, you know, be raped, essentially by adult men, and maybe have some pictures taken and everything. But hey, they got some pizza out of it, right? So that must mean that they, you know, wanted to do this.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 32:11

is so vile and so wrong. But the interesting thing is, I've talked to adult survivors of these crimes who, particularly men, who I'm sure very much, still struggle with the experience. And I will have men who say to me I knew what I was doing at the time and I will say you were 13 or you were 15. And they'll say, yeah, but I knew what I was doing at the time and you were under the age of consent. You might think that you consented, but you legally were unable to consent and psychologically you were unable to consent.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 32:50

And we know that, along the lines of their interaction with law enforcement and other entities, that they were told that yes, you agreed to it. So actually a lot of these children, now adults, are programmed to believe that. Well, you were there there and you kept going. The same thing we see in sex abuse cases or sexual assault. Well, you went back.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 33:12

Yeah, yeah, it's just wrong. And so again, thank you for saying that, because if there are survivors out there that are listening that experience this sort of trauma, we want to let you know that you're not alone. It was not your fault. We believe you. And the age of consent was 16. And actually not even at the time I don't think. Yeah, they did have the age of consent at 16. And NAMBLA was trying to lower it to 13 and the law would not allow it because 13 year olds cannot consent, 14 year olds cannot consent, 15 year olds cannot consent, and even I mean I think back to my I was thinking about this the other day because I was thinking about myself as a 15 year old and boy did I think I knew everything?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 33:50

Right? I mean like I literally thought I knew everything. I was what? Maybe a freshman in high school, a sophomore in high school, and I thought like I knew it all. I knew what it meant. You know, I knew what all this stuff sex and, you know, physical intimacy, whatever meant, you know, I had no idea. I had no idea. And even at 18, I remember thinking what else is there to know? I literally was like I think I'm good.

Anngelle Wood: 34:20

I pretty much Were you the. What do you want to know? I'll tell you. Totally, there was always that person around that was like you, were young and having the sex talk, somebody that professed to know everything they clearly didn't.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 34:33

Well, I mean, I didn't necessarily in that realm because I hadn't been active earlier in life, but you know, 16, 17, 18, but I did seek out friends. I did, that's for sure, and when I got the skinny then I would let other people know, that's for sure. Friends, that did, that's for sure, and when I got the skinny then I would let other people know, that's for sure. But I did I always and I say this now and it's one of my, you know, one of my with I say it with all the humility that I, for a very long time, unfortunately, thought everyone was entitled to my opinion. Yeah, so that took years of work to be able to understand that. You know what? I don't know everything and everyone's not entitled to my opinion.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 35:10

But that's why facts are so important, right? That's why having hard facts and data is important. And so when we're telling stories like this, to be able to say, well, here's the data. And, like you know, in the film and have you seen, andy, I never say in that film what I think happened. I never say for people this is what I think happened. I do in the podcast because so much time has passed at this point and I feel like I have decades and decades of research to say oh, I know Andy was used for human trafficking. I believe he was taken for that. I believe he was likely being scouted before he was taken.

Anngelle Wood: 35:44

And that's what the CB radio red flag comes up for me.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 35:47

And the Polaroid. Yeah, remember the Polaroid that he gave to his mother, you know, a couple of weeks before he disappeared, and when she said, where did you get this? I mean, polaroid film was expensive back then, you know, it was fairly new technology and it was expensive. And you know, she asked Andy where he got this picture. He had given her a Polaroid and he said, you know, oh, some man had asked him to take his picture, you know. And she said don't ever let anyone take your picture. And we've come to find out through the podcast that there were actually individuals in the projects taking Polaroid pictures of children and selling them for child sex abuse material.

Anngelle Wood: 36:22

And subsequently that put him. It may have happened prior to that, it may have happened after that, but that put him unfortunately on a radar Yep.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 36:32

And I believe that people and it's not just my belief but it's, you know, scientific evidence that pedophiles have a type or a certain type sells better. And you know there's all this misinformation out there that they would say Wayne Chapman's type was blonde hair, blue eyed children. And there's all this misinformation out there that they would say Wayne Chapman's type was blonde-haired, blue-eyed children. And it's so interesting because if you look at his victims, none of them were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. None of them were. They were dark-haired and dark-eyed and in some of the cases of some of the children they look so similar. Some of the cases of the children that went, you know, I see resemblance with Michael O'Gorman and Andy Puglisi. Michael O'Gorman disappeared in the 70s and his body was subsequently found. Or even Lee Savoy. I see similarities in their coloring, in their brown eyes, their wavy hair, you know, just sort of things like that.

Anngelle Wood: 37:21

Lee Savoy is another child that has been blamed for their own disappearance.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 37:26

Not by me.

Anngelle Wood: 37:27

No, certainly not, savoy is another child that has been blamed for their own disappearance.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 37:30

Not by me? No, certainly not by me, not by you. Lee Savoy was a little boy who went missing from Revere, massachusetts, where there were certainly five known pedophiles within a quarter mile radius of when Lee went missing. We know that for sure. And he was also only 10 years old. He was very independent and he was shining shoes that day outside of Suffolk Downs.

Anngelle Wood: 37:51

It was a very different time. We were all feral children.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 37:59

It's true, we would be gone all day long, Could be gone all day long, and people wouldn't even ask where you were. You know, you came home at dinner and that was pretty much it, and we had no phones. You know, we didn't tell people we're going. We had bikes where you could go miles away from where you actually were. So, yeah, it's true, we were just all out on our own, which again leads me to believe. I know the data says that the seventies is the highest number of missing children of any decade. Unsurprising, um, because you know, there was not a lot of laws in place, but I also think it was because it was the onset of a booming industry.

Anngelle Wood: 38:30

They started to realize how lucrative that this sort of thing could be, so much so that they wanted to basically make it an organization.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 38:40

Yeah, they had to monetize it. Yeah, they had to monetize it.

Anngelle Wood: 38:46

So you did all of the decades and decades of research that you created the documentary have you Seen Andy? Several years passed and you released Open Investigation eight episodes that came out in just this past fall.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:04

It's technically nine, by the way, Because we have an episode zero. You know it's actually nine episodes.

Anngelle Wood: 39:10

That's right. I forget the zero thing always.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:12

I know, I know it was a weird little pilot thing. Nine episodes.

Anngelle Wood: 39:16

So that was one plan and, as we know, the research never ends, and that leads you to what will be season two, which is coming very soon. Let's talk a little bit about where you're going next.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 39:34

Yeah. So first of all, it was the first podcast I have done, which I cannot thank you enough, Anngelle Wood of Crime of the Truest Kind, for really just putting my feet to the fire and making me do it. You know we met. I didn't realize it was Andy's birthday the day that we met. You said we met for coffee in a coffee shop a year or so before the podcast actually came out. I had been working on the podcast on and off for years.

Anngelle Wood: 40:04

I've been looking for it for once.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 40:07

I learned about the documentary and went to the website and I saw you talking about how we're working on a podcast and this was I don't know how many years 2017 is when we started working on the podcast, started the idea and again, if you listen to the podcast, something happened that made me decide, you know, okay, I need to go back in and you know, and podcast was a fairly new genre at that point and it was less expensive than creating a full scale documentary. So I decided I would try this route and but I had no real experience with it, and so what I did was I listened to a lot of podcasts, and I listened to podcasts that I liked and podcasts that I didn't like, and I really thought about what made me like what I liked and what made me not like what I didn't like. I'm very much a storyteller, obviously as a documentary filmmaker, so I wanted real stories from real people. I know how much music matters and how evocative. You know, being able to tell a story with music matters. So I was so grateful that we got Drew O'Doherty to score the podcast and, you know, got editing help from Mike Gioscia and, again, recommendations from you, angel, and just, really, you know I kept saying I was so stuck on the RSS feed. I'm like what's the RSS feed?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 41:19

And like the technical piece of it and it was just like you know what, just you know, do it and you know, and you helped me with some of the technical, and now just it's one of those things where you don't know what you don't know and then, once it's done, you're like, oh, that wasn't so bad, I can do it again. And although there were parts of it that were pretty bad I mean staying up till midnight on some nights, getting the show out the next morning because something had gone awry or just because it was the nature of doing what we were doing. And I also really have to throw myself into this story in a way that you know, andy's family, andy's mother and father and brothers and sisters, have had to live with their brother missing at the table you know missing at life events for their entire lives. You know, every day they are dealing with his disappearance and they are victims and survivors in this case.

Anngelle Wood: 42:16

Our friend Julie Murray calls it ambiguous loss.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 42:19

Amen. It's such ambiguous loss and I love when Julie says that because she articulates it so well and sometimes just giving words to something matters, right, like human trafficking, and you know, and naming it really matters. So that ambiguous loss is real and I think for a long time I didn't identify myself as a victim of Andy's disappearance because I was so focused on the truth telling and the getting the story out and amplifying the voices so that you know, more people knew about this injustice that had happened to this little boy and all these other children across the country that I had really forgotten about that nine-year-old girl that was there that day and I don't think I really honored that experience for her or for me in a way that needed to be honored.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 43:13

And I, you know, um, I have been sober for 20 years and I actively attend a 12 step program and I learned a lot about myself through that program and I also about, you know, eight years ago maybe, you know, or so probably coinciding around the time that I started the podcast, or you know, a few years maybe before I started actively doing trauma therapy and so I had had a therapist on and off throughout my life. I had, you know, a very complex childhood and a lot of trauma as a child, but I never had a name for it. I did not call it trauma. In fact, when my trauma therapist, who was just a therapist but had had a doctorate, got a doctorate in trauma and I didn't know that when I, you know, got this therapist, it just, you know, the universe collided and I ended up with this fantastic therapist who had a doctorate in trauma, unbeknownst to me, but I remember the first time she called what I had experienced as a child trauma. I was like, oh, I think you're being a little traumatic, aren't you Like, really trauma. I mean I had a tough childhood but come on and um, and I didn't name it and I had dismissed that and sort of um and not just Andy's abduction.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 44:31

A lot of things happened. I was, I went into foster care, you know a lot of other things. I lived in a, in a home where there was a lot of abuse and neglect, but I didn't name it because I didn't know that it had a name and the name is and it's complex childhood trauma, cptsd, complex post-traumatic stress disorder from complex childhood trauma, which means sustained trauma over a long period of time, specifically developmentally, when you're developing as a child. So I didn't know any of that and I learned it all, and by no means all, because, right, I'll go back to that. I don't know it all at. And I learned it all and by no means all, because, right, I'll go back to that, I don't know it all at this point. The older I get, the more I realize, the less I know. But I learned about trauma through this trauma therapist and I read this fantastic book in the sense that it named it, and it showed brain scans of people who had been traumatized as children and what their brains look like today and how, you know, we have a higher level of cortisol in our bloodstream and how we don't process information the same way, because, you know, when we're triggered by that cortisol, our hippocampus stops. You know. I don't know the exact words in terms of the brain, so don't hold me literally here, but basically, you, you know your trait.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 45:45

I could be triggered in a situation and I might not be able to function where I, you know, might be trying to call a phone number or pay a bill or something like that, and I'm triggered and I can't remember that basic stuff and I get frustrated and I'll be like why can I not remember this number right now? Or why cannot I not, you know, whatever stir, you know, get open this can of soup or something very basic right now. And it's like because I'm triggered at a higher level and I'm on a fight. I'm in a fight, flight or flee or fawn or whatever mode where my body is just trying to survive and doesn't know that it's not in danger anymore, because I had, you know, lived this way for so long as a child. I also didn't know that when I would share these stories of childhood trauma, when I would tell somebody about Andy's story. In fact, when I was telling you about Andy's story and the history of my relationship with Andy and friendship with Andy in our childhood, I remember I was shivering and I going to your main organs so that it's thinking a lion's chasing you and you have to fight. And so you know your extremities will get cold and you might shiver, and people didn't know. You know this biologically, you know back in the 70s, but since so much trauma research has happened since then, they do, and for me, that data and that information was tremendously important and I wanted to share that information with survivors as well, because survivors are trauma survivors and understanding one's trauma helps us to learn, a, that we're not alone and and B, that what's happening to us physiologically is not our fault, like it's not.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 47:25

You know, you can't remember something because something's wrong with your memory. You can't remember something right now because you're triggered, right, you're in a trauma mode. And so what do you do when you're in that trauma mode? Well, you ground yourself, right. You do things where you might, like, you know, feel your feet on the ground or chew some ice or, you know, just make yourself sort of be present in the moment, which is why mindfulness is so important, right? So I learned all about trauma through, you know, trauma therapy, years of trauma therapy and this book the Body Keeps the Score, and then also Judy Herman's book, who's featured in our podcast, open Investigation.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 47:58

Judy Herman wrote a book called Truth and Repair and Judy is considered the mother of trauma research, which essentially happened in the 90s. And Judy is considered the mother of trauma research which essentially happened in the 90s, where you know they really identified that trauma is not just for war veterans, that it exists in, you know, with everybody, and what that looks like again in brain slices, right brain scans, how that affects us physiologically, all of those things. And so she wrote a book recently, in her 80s, actually called Truth and Repair, a book recently in her 80s, actually called Truth and Repair. And I remember reading chapter five of that book and I was so blown away because it was like reading about my life and you know the reason again, trauma survivors might be overachievers or just all of these other things that I didn't know but also the way in which truth-telling and advocacy helps repair trauma and I was like, oh my God, like my whole life I've been doing this. Truth-telling and advocacy helps repair trauma and I was like, oh my God, like my whole life I've been doing this truth telling and advocacy and not knowing that that was me healing myself and not realizing that that's what I was doing. And so you know, kudos to that nine-year-old little girl who knew a hell of a lot more than you know the adult Melanie, I think, when you know I was standing outside that tree that day knew that what happened to Andy was such an injustice and that when I grew up I was going to try to find him. You know, and um, that little girl went through a lot and, you know, continues to go through a lot by telling this truth and telling these stories. But now I know that it's, you know, helps with the healing. It helps with empowerment. Empowering other families is incredibly meaningful to me and empowering other victims is incredibly meaningful to me.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 49:32

And you know one of the you know the podcast got downloaded, you know, 80,000 times, I mean for your first podcast. I thought that was pretty fucking amazing. I was like, really, I was so happy and part of the reason that I was you know that that happened too was because you know another podcast or another woman featured the story. You know she had done a story on Andy years ago and then she featured the podcast right before it came out and it was women helping women, which I love in this business and this industry, and it's so important, like you and Jal helping me and you know doing this story as well, and you know it's so meaningful and it's funny because when I listened to your podcast about Andy's story the first time and you're like, oh, I reached out to Melanie but I didn't hear back. You know, oh, you know that that happens, or whatever, and I was like, wow, you know, thank you for telling the story.

Anngelle Wood: 50:28

And there are things that I left out because I couldn't quite. I didn't quite, you know, talking to you, I know that that was another piece of it that I could very well have included, but I didn't quite there's. There are things about the Georgetown case, yeah, that I removed.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 50:44

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 50:44

Because it didn't quite all line up for me.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 50:47

Yeah, yeah, a lot of people don't even know the association because it was never mentioned. You know, when it came out in the news about you know the Georgetown witness and victim X or whatever, that it was no indication that the way that you know he had come to police was you know, sort of shortly after watching the you know documentary.

Anngelle Wood: 51:06

And I'm not being secretive about that. You talk about. That I do In the podcast.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 51:10

I do, I do and so, but to that end is I guess what I was saying is that you know women helping women, but you know the downloads are so important to let people know that it does matter and people are listening. So thank you, you know you, to folks out there who downloaded the show, who are following the show, who are subscribed to the look at season two, listen to season two. We so appreciate you doing it and we know it's a hard listen but it's an important listen. And so there's been hundreds of reviews as well and the podcast has gotten hundreds of five star reviews.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 51:43

And when I was making the podcast and I was really in the middle of the trauma, right, like to do this you have to, especially if you're a victim, right, like it's one thing if you're a person telling the story from the outside and you didn't really live it, like I can tell the other children's stories, you know, other than Andy, with a little bit of a distance, of a perspective, right, because I wasn't involved in that particular story the way that I had been with Andy's.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 52:12

But with Andy's, you know I am a victim of his disappearance and it has affected me for my life and it will affect me for my life and I know that now and that's okay, like, like, it's okay in the sense that I can acknowledge that and, um, I don't need somebody else to tell me that I know why I do what I do, um and um, why it's important to me and why I'll continue to do what I do. And so season two you know, part of what I found with Andy's story is that there's a whole other character in the story, right, one of the people when I was making the documentaries, one of my mentors, said oh, you know, the pool needs to be a character in the story and I was like right, like the pool, is a character in the story in the documentary and Lawrence is a character in the story and Lawrence is a big character and people.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 53:05

It's very hard to understand Lawrence and the community and the culture not having experienced it. However, there are Lawrence, massachusetts, city-like places all over the country. It's an urban mill city, extreme poverty, lots of immigrants, lots of corruption.

Anngelle Wood: 53:24

For a period of time it was really up and coming for all of the textile production that was coming out of. Lawrence, and things shifted as they did when we hit the Great Depression, etc.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 53:37

Yeah, when the mills closed it turned things around a lot for it and I didn't know why there was so much Irish in Lawrence and I was surprised to find out that when they couldn't find work here they would walk the 30 miles to the textile mills. You know, and there's a lot of great Lawrence History Center's great and the Bread and Roses, you know. I mean there's a lot of fantastic history in Lawrence. So I don't want anybody out there to be like Lawrence bashing. I do have a sign literally in my office that says you can take the girl out of Lawrence but you can't take the Lawrence out of the girl. And it's true, you know we can talk about our city, but anybody else talk about our city and you know we'll, we'll. Those are fighting words, you know.

Anngelle Wood: 54:13

Well, we're mass holes, so we'll you know I.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 54:16

I.

Anngelle Wood: 54:17

I wear it as a badge of honor. I wear my mass wholeness as a badge of honor. It's like we're kind of in on the joke and sorry people from elsewhere, it's like we'll let you in on it eventually maybe Right Right, and I'm proud to be from Lawrence.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 54:31

You know I, you know the systems weren't good to me as a kid, and it was. I tell people it was part. You know. I hope if you've seen the films you'll know, but I say it was part stand by me, part Lord of the Flies, right. So Stand by Me is a story of these kids, that sort of stick together through this trauma, and Lord of the Flies are these kids who kill each other through this trauma.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 54:55

And so it was those extremes, literally it was a tough place and it was a tough place for kids from the projects and it was a tough place for kids that didn't have an adult who could stand up for them. There were a lot of us. There were a lot of us and I 100% believe that there are hundreds of victims that experienced trauma, child sex trafficking in Lawrence in the 1970s, in the Merrimack Valley in the 1970s, and the Merrimack Valley includes, you know, haverhill, lawrence, lowell, methuen, I think, but it wasn't technically on the Wikipedia, which I was like what, like how could that be? But of course, methuen, methuen is like almost Lawrence really, and you know some of the Southern New Hampshire cities as well they say is Merrimack Valley. But essentially I felt like Andy and kids like Andy were targeted. We were targeted by people who were of higher means, who had more than we did, and exploited us for their benefit. Exploited us for their benefit because they knew they could, because they knew they had power and we as children, and more so as marginalized, underrepresented children, did not have power.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 56:13

And I want to reclaim some of that power and I am hoping that in season two, and I am hoping that in season two we will be able to share andack Valley at the time in the 1970s, who were credibly accused of abusing children. So I wanted to show systemic abuse and I think that I showed that in season one in Open Investigation. But this is sort of just a deeper dive into some of the systemic abuse of children in the Merrimack Valley through the clergy abuse stories and what was happening. And it's interesting because I think I've talked to some people about this and they think that they know this story and they don't know this story. They know what they've read in newspapers perhaps, and they know what they've seen on the Academy Award-winning Spotlight film and in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe Spotlight series.

Anngelle Wood: 57:24

I do have to take a moment to say this, though Kristen Lombardi in the Boston Phoenix reported on that before Amen, amen.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 57:31

Kristen Lombardi in the Boston Phoenix uncovered that story, and how many people know Kristen Lombardi's name right?

Anngelle Wood: 57:37

I've tried to reach out to Kristen Lombardi. Me too I understand why she probably wouldn't want to talk about it with me.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 57:44

I've tried to reach out to her as well. And so, kristen, if you're out there and you're listening, we'd love to elevate you and tell your story, because we think you're amazing and, having gotten the story out there, and really making a difference in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of children's lives. So thank you for that.

Anngelle Wood: 58:02

Because the Boston Globe had so many more resources, they were able to attack it in a different way.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 58:07

That's right. That's right. That's a huge part of why, you know, it takes so long sometimes to make podcasts or to do the things that it's been. You know decades of me doing this work because I'm not an organization or an entity that has a lot of resources, but I keep on doing it because it's important. Getting back to the way that people think that they know this story, I think that they know that you know there was clergy abuse and know that. I don't know that they understand the systemic nature of it. I also don't know that they understand what actually happened to children. And when I think you know people, like maybe listening and thinking, well, why do I want to hear that which people have said about open investigation as well? Like, well, why would I want to hear you know these stories? And I think that if you read the reviews, you'll see why you want to hear the stories have to listen because it's real life.

Anngelle Wood: 58:53

I mean, people watch the keepers and that was really, really uncomfortable, in addition to so many other things, for those people who haven't aren't aware of the keepers. It's a case of a murdered nun in Baltimore in the you know 60s, late 60s.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 59:12

Yeah, baltimore, maryland, late 60s. She was Catholic school, keough school, because children were being abused in the school and it's's believed she knew something, and have all been in Bear Brook and they've all been inspiration to me to tell the truth about. You know what happened and as much of the truth as I can find in terms of people willing to tell the stories. And, you know, come forward If there are people listening that have experienced abuse in the Merrimack Valley. I do want to hear from you that have experienced abuse in the Merrimack Valley, I do want to hear from you. I do think it's important, and even if you're not ready to share your story on the record, it's important just to understand the scope and scale of what was going on at the time and also to understand any of the organized nature of it. So I appreciate anybody willing to reach out. Openinvestigationpod at gmailcom. I'm sure you know Angel will put this in the notes and stuff as well. But so what I really want to focus on is the survivors.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:00:25

But I'm going to be profiling the priest and so I want to characterize these priests, because too often I think people see them as oh, it was one priest, it was just this bad one, bad apple priest, you know, and what have you?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:00:38

And it's like I actually want to get into who were these priests, what were they doing, what were they about and why did they do?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:00:46

You know what they did, and not that there's any excuse for any of the things that they did, but there's generational trauma as well and there's a lot of you know, I know with Ronald Paquin. You know he talked about having been abused by a priest when he was a child, and so how was that perpetrated? And also sort of looking at the grooming process and the hidden nature of this story and the ways that boys in particular because Lawrence is such a strong city in terms of resilience and being tough, right, we always consider ourselves tough as kids, and so boys in particular had to be tougher than girls, and so that toughness made them much more unlikely to tell what was happening to them sexually as kids. And I think that there is hundreds, if not thousands, of survivors out there who haven't heard this story, who haven't told their stories because they think that they're the only one, and I don't want them to think that they're the only one anymore.

Anngelle Wood: 1:01:44

And the shame of it? Right, the shame of it needs to be placed on the people who did this.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:01:49

That's right. That's right and I love that. You know, I love the way that Giselle Giselle Pellicot, who is the hero in France, who came forward and wanted to publicize her story because she said the responsibility needs to be placed on the abusers, not the victim, and she was so brave and really I think should have been the time person of the year and I just admire the woman so much. And if you know, giselle Pelico, who has been through so much, was willing to come forward and go public nationally and internationally. What a brave soul. And the people that were on my podcast, open Investigation, were incredibly brave souls for sharing what they did and I think if you talk to any of them today they would say that it helped them and it continues to help them. In fact, they're active in advocacy and legislative advocacy.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:02:40

I think that we also try to be very trauma-informed when we're doing interviews.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:02:46

I do pre-interviews before I do any interviews, but I also make sure that there's support systems in place for the person, that they have other people that they can talk to, that we stop if they want to stop, that we don't use information, that if they don't want it to be used, that they have power over their story, that they have agency over their story.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:03:04

But, most importantly, I want to make sure that people in the Merrimack Valley, that survivors in the Merrimack Valley and I know you're out there know that we believe you, that you're not alone, that it's not your fault and that you can make a difference. If you're not ready to share your story, that's okay too. You don't have to. When you're ready, there are people who are ready to listen and there are people who are ready to help you. If you are ready and you want to share, we're here. If you're not sure, if you're ready and you want to share, we're here. But really, it's about naming trauma and calling it out and telling truth and speaking truth to power and hoping that by speaking that truth it changes systems down and, as you said it, the body does tell the score, doesn't it?

Anngelle Wood: 1:04:01

Because it's going to come out one way or the other. Yeah, folks that have, you know, addiction issues and and just traumatic responses to things in their own lives, who haven't been able to deal with these things for all of these reasons and more, who wants they, have an opportunity to try to just even talk about that. There's a relief that comes.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:04:25

Right, and I love what Billy Giblin says, you know, in our final episode, when we're talking about advocacy as well, though, and he talks about how it's so important to have a support system in place before you start to tell your story, because if you don't, it can be even more detrimental, right, because all of these things can, especially if you don't have substance like there's a lot of substance abuse in these situations, because people think it quiets the sort of memories, it quiets the whatever, but eventually it doesn't right. Eventually they come up anyway, and you know, like I said, I'm in a 12-step program, and in that program there's a saying we're only as sick as our secrets, and you know being able to, I think, no-transcript what can be done today, because there's still a lot that happened that people weren't held accountable for. You know, like in Louisiana they're trying. There's a lot. You know there was a Louisiana was one of the oldest um archdiocese in the country.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:05:43

Long history of abuse, not unlike boston um, a lot of clergy abuse across the country. This is not unique to massachusetts, right. This is not unique to the united states. This is around the world and sort of what still needs to be changed, like you know again the statute of limitations right and opening a window. Even if they don't eliminate the statute, you can open a window where people they did that in New York where people could come forward for a year and be able to make a claim and unfortunately, what a lot of um organizations are doing now is they're claiming bankruptcy to avoid, you know um, to avoid responsibility and for a criminal um uh case, I think it's only no-transcript these are problems that are going away, but they're really not because we see it in school systems.

Anngelle Wood: 1:06:58

It's not just the Catholic Church, I mean we. Because we see it in school systems, it's not just the Catholic church, I mean we know we see it in religious organizations. We sure as hell see it in cults.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:07:06

Schools, boy Scouts, anywhere there are children, you know. So that's why there's child abuse prevention at a larger, at a larger level that needs to be addressed. And yeah, I mean, I'll never be wanting for work, you know, working in this field. I know that I'm not going to cure, you know, child sex abuse, but I think I can help some people along the way and I know that I'm, you know, certainly helping myself with being able to share these stories and affect change.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:07:30

And you know, in the reviews, one of the reviews that you know stays with me often is this one where a person wrote in and said I knew what had happened to me as a child. I didn't have a name for it, I didn't know what it was called. And now I know it was CSA, the acronym for child sex abuse, and I'm going to begin to do something about it. And I thought, yeah, that's it, name it, call it out, name it, tell it what it is and then do something about it. And that's really why I'm doing this For the season two. It's about Merrimack Valley, it's about the kids. It's about as kids we were told we were to be seen and not heard, and I'm not having that anymore. We're gonna be heard.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:17

You're supposed to put up with it. You're just supposed to just let it happen and just go about your day.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:08:22

Right and forget about it. You're grown up, now it doesn't matter. But really, then, how come I have a hard time getting up for work, or how come I can't stop drinking, or how come I can't stop doing drugs, or how come I can't have an intimate relationship?

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:35

Or how come I can't I'm filled with anxiety.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:08:36

Right, I'm filled with anxiety. How come I sweat every time I walk by a church? You know what I mean?

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:41

It's all of those things it's like okay, I drive by, there's this one particular church that I've driven by a number of times and it's boarded up. And I've seen conversations in town about this one particular church that's boarded up and you see the same conversations. You see the oh, what a shame. And then you see people bring up the comment. You know lots of these comments. Well, if they weren't expletive expletive you know CSA with children then this wouldn't have happened. And then you see the people say, oh, you shouldn't be so disrespectful to the Catholic church. I drive by that church and I say and I stand by this if you weren't doing these things, if you weren't abusing children and sweeping it under the rug and reassigning and sending these priests to this secret camp or putting them on the island for a little while to get fixed quote, unquote, fixed which they never got fixed you wouldn't be bankrupt and losing churches. People wouldn't be running from churches. I mean they're losing members, membership is dwindling.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:09:48

But I mean at the same time, it's still a multi-billion dollar organization and again, I'm not out for the Catholic Church, believe me. That's not what I'm interested in. I'm really interested in exposing the way that underrepresented, marginalized children are abused by systems. Help prevent this from happening to future generations. It's like if people really don't want this to happen anymore. We know that it's one in four girls and one in eight, they say, boys, although I think it's higher. Boys tend to report less a whole bunch of other things. But you know, if you look around a room and you're in a room and you're with more than five women, one of them has been sexually abused as a child. I mean, it is such an epidemic in our society that nobody talks about and I get it. Who wants to talk about it? I don't want to talk about it. But guess what? If you don't talk about it, you don't get better.

Anngelle Wood: 1:10:56

Right. And what angers me a lot about this is these priests knew that they would get away with it because they were allowed to the archdiocese of Worcester, of Boston, et cetera, across the country, across the world.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:11:13

they have shown us that they're going to let them get away with it because they have Well, one of the things that really interests me about the story as well is that you know, in Massachusetts, you know, unlike other places like Philadelphia, we have not had a grand jury report on all of the diocese in Massachusetts. So we had Boston in 2003 by the Attorney General, tom Riley, when the Boston Globe story came out, excuse me or shortly after. You know, they reported on the Boston Archdiocese, but again, that was 20 plus years ago. We've learned a lot more about the Boston Archdiocese since then. In addition, the other diocese Fall River, worcester and Springfield have not had a grand jury report done on them and no investigation into what was going on. They're not responsible for reporting all of the credibly. Worcester and Springfield have not had a grand jury report done on them and no investigation into what was going on. They're not responsible for reporting all of the credibly abused accused priests or all of the children and who came forward with allegations of abuse.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:12:08

So there's so much more. That is not like if you ask Mitch Garabedian, who was, you know, played by Stanley Tucci in the movie spotlight the attorney who represent a lot of these victims. You know, I asked him once and I have a soundbite from him where I say do you think that the whole story has been told? And he said we're not even at the first layer of the onion. Like this is so much more to the story. And again, like you said, it's a lot of organizations. So for me it's also, like you know, dss at the time Department of Social Services and DCF. You know today, you know how many of these foster kids were part of this abuse.

Anngelle Wood: 1:12:41

You touched on that but it's huge.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:12:44

That's a whole other season, I mean literally, it's a whole season that I hope to do at some point in terms of the foster care and what continues to happen in foster care. And you know that's a system of abuse and neglect that all too often we, you know, is covered up for so many reasons because the kids don't have social capital, because you know they're so hurt and damaged by the time they become adults that they're not allowed to do a lot of things about it Because secrecy right. If you try to get anything from DCF or DSS, it's private, everything's private. We can't. You know there's secrecy. No, these records can't be shared because of you know these are juvenile personal records.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:13:19

It's like, well, you know how much abuse has not been shared as a result of that. I mean there's a lot. There's a lot not just in Massachusetts, it's around the country as well, and so that's just one part of the story. But you know it's these systems of abuse and you know, yeah, law enforcement, that were. You know you look at the Sandra Birchmore case. You know, I mean there are people and it's so heartbreaking, it's so heartbreaking.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:13:46

I look at that little girl and I can't tell you how often I look at that woman really. You know when she was 23 and she still looks like a little girl to me and I just identify with her so much. I was that freckle face, little light skinned, you know girl that looked way younger than I was even you know when I was a teenager and and that so easily could have been me.

Anngelle Wood: 1:14:04

You know she was so energetic and interested in the program that she was involved in and. Stoughton, and as her abuse continued and continued, and continued, because we need to remember she was a child, yeah, who was groomed by an adult.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:14:22

She was yes, when they call it a sexual relationship they did not, they were not dating she had it by the time.

Anngelle Wood: 1:14:29

She was 23 when she died, and let's call it what it is. She was murdered and they tried to cover it up. There was an arrested development that happened with a woman 100%. Because she didn't have an opportunity to have quote unquote regular adolescence.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:14:45

Because of the abuses?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:14:47

No, and she had been groomed for so long and she had lost all these people that loved her and she just wanted to be part of and I mean a million different things.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:14:53

But Laura Cromaldi of the Boston Globe did an excellent job, I think, covering this case and I hope continues to cover this case, and one of the things that she wrote in her series that was in the Boston Globe magazine that just tore my heart out and it really hit home for me was that Sandra Birchmore was so excited to be the mother that she didn't have and I identified with that so much because when I became a mother, that was all I wanted.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:15:22

It was all I ever wanted was to be the mother I didn't have and I had the opportunity to do that. Thank God I had the opportunity to do that and I know how that felt for her and how much she wanted that and that just broke my heart. And so Sandra Birchmore is one of you know a thousand stories, if not more, and and she's not here to speak for herself anymore and people have to speak for her and for children like her and to reveal these systemic abuses, and I think that you know it's too easy for people to be like oh, that was one bad cop. No, it was three bad cops and maybe more. And why is that not being looked at?

Anngelle Wood: 1:16:03

And she can't be the only student of that program at Stoughton Police Department that this was happening, amen.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:16:11

And I think Kirk Minahan did a great piece on one of his episodes on the Sandra Birchmore podcast where he talked about the police explorer program around the country and how kids from that program have been abused regularly. And because it is another system of abuse where they have access to kids, that is unquestioned right.

Anngelle Wood: 1:16:30

It's another organization that is so completely supported by the public. That's right. It's hugely funded Right.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:16:38

Law enforcement is hugely funded in every town, every county, everywhere across the US by somebody in authority a teacher, a Catholic priest, a Boy Scout leader, a cop. You know any of those things and you come from a dysfunctional family background. You're already experiencing potentially neglect, abuse, poverty, any number of things that are social determinants of health right, that sort of change outcomes for people, and you know that person in authority says to you who's going to believe you.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:17:25

That's right and it's you know in your heart of hearts that that is so true. Who is going to believe me? Who do I have to go to that would actually believe me. And most victims that I know, that I've spoken with, told people and they didn't believe them, or they told them to be quiet because it was, you know, they didn't want, you know, the attention or they didn't want any number of things. But it's like you know, it's just terrible.

Anngelle Wood: 1:17:48

And that's really what happened to her, right down to the very ends, when that officer allegedly came in, murdered her, tried to make it look like she took her own life and thought the same very thing. Who's going to believe that I did this? I'm going to look like a crazy bitch. Quote unquote crazy bitch because I had a long conversation with folks that are part of the Sandra Bunchmore movement. Right, those are the things that we said that they, that these men, they did.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:18:21

They wave the hands like well, not only that, because they had systems, they had other systems supporting them. So you have the medical examiner's office supporting you, you have the district attorney's office supporting you, you have all these other people that aren't even questioning your word.

Anngelle Wood: 1:18:35

We're saying this. You have to look at this again. It was the family that did this.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:18:40

It was the family that advocated and this is again another great example of advocacy, you know, and the family did, you know, advocate for Sandra and for justice for Sandra and to get an expert that they had to hire themselves to bring in, to get people to take another look at this and to get publicity, and so that's some of the things that we talk about when we're talking about advocacy training with MPAC. It's like we can talk about ways to get publicity and ways to, you know, do appeal to your legislators and share your story and, you know, get experts if needed and so many things that are an approach that people can do to these, for these cases and for people who don't have voices. So we're here and we're happy to help.

Anngelle Wood: 1:19:24

And you know all this information that we've talked about will be available and, you know, when you're ready to roll out the next episode, we'll definitely be able to, you know, spread that information and let people know that it's coming.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:19:36

Thank you, and also Angel. What we're going to do is we want to go out and do some events that we can talk with people.

Anngelle Wood: 1:19:41

Well, it's great that you bring that up, because I was going to say we really want to have an in-person event to talk about this and what happens in Lawrence and what happens, you know, and what we know about the Merrimack Valley. We want to have an in-person thing and I really, I really want folks from Lawrence to come and be part of this conversation.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:20:01

From the Merrimack Valley for sure, and you know there are other people from Essex County and the Merrimack Valley that are part of that 27 unsolved cases that I've talked about, a number of other people, and so there are a number of cases that we can talk about as well. You know, regarding some of you know the unsolved situations and ones that you know, regarding some of you know the unsolved situations and ones that you know I think potentially could be related to Andy's and why. So we'd love to have an in-person event, and that's something that we are in the works on planning. So definitely follow us on our socials and also on our websites or what have you and you know, so you can be kept up to date on the information, so that we can see you at these events, because we want to see you and we want to move the issues forward and you know, 2025 is going to be be a big year for a couple of things.

Anngelle Wood: 1:20:47

it's going to be a big year because open investigation season two is coming out. That's going to have massive impacts on the region, for sure, and we're working on uh, you've talked about MPAC a number of times, which I continue to talk about too. It's Massachusetts Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition. It's Melanie, it's me, it's Dr Anne-Marie Myers. We have had great folks involved, like Shana from Light the Way, which is a great advocacy missing persons organization. You know we have had input, consultation, maybe from Julie Murray, sister of Maura Murray, who's been missing for almost 21 years, so we have people that really know about these things.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:21:32

Right, and we host an annual event and we'll be hosting more and you know we'd love for people to find out more because, again, it's about empowering families to be able to make the systemic change and being able to feature your stories to be able to make the change. You know there's lots of folks out there whose cases have not been heard and we think are really important in terms of being able to bring them forward and and and we care and in the open investigation piece. It's, like you know, for season two and you know I'm sure there'll be seasons after that and we'll see what those are as we're moving forward. But you know we'd love to introduce you guys as well to Dr Ann Marie Myers. If you don't know Dr Ann Marie Myers, you can Google her. But she is phenomenal. She's a forensic anthropologist with the medical examiner's office for quite some time, is now a professor at Anna Maria College but had been instrumental in recovering a number of missing children, including Molly Bish and Sarah Pryor, holly Peranian she worked on the Lady of the Dunes case in the early years. She was the expert witness who recovered, physically dug out of the ground, the bodies of the infamous crime boss Whitey Bulger. She recovered Whitey Bulger's victims and was delivered fascinating expert testimony in his trial when he was found guilty.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:22:47

And I've known Dr Myers. If you watch the documentary we met you'll see. The first day we met is on this dig. Dr Myers and I have known each other since 1999 and became friends while searching a clandestine grave. What we were told was a clandestine grave, or believed was a clandestine grave where Andy might have been buried. And we became friends, you know, through that experience and have had many, many experiences since then. And Dr Meyer's commitment to missing persons and to the cause has been just incredible and so much of the work she does is just above and beyond what I've seen, you know so many people do, and she is just amazing. And I think that at some point we'll have her as a guest as well. And, angela, it would be great to have you be part of that. And you know we can all talk together and maybe just have a conversation, that, even if it's a live, maybe we'll do a YouTube live. That's. The other thing is we're starting a YouTube channel.

Anngelle Wood: 1:23:44

So when.

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 1:23:45

Angela and I get off the off the recording here. We're going to be updating my YouTube to have a YouTube channel going, so I'll definitely be hosting guests on the YouTube channel and we'll be talking more about these stories. And again, what makes it unique in terms of the podcast and the YouTube and all of those things is that I'm an experienced investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker with lived experience as well. That is, telling these stories in a fact-based way, in a documentary style, to show people the truth and to elevate the voices of the underrepresented kids and survivors.

Anngelle Wood: 1:24:27

Thank you, melanie Perkins McLaughlin. Her podcast Open Investigation nine-part series available now everywhere you listen. Open Investigation Season 2 is coming. Massachusetts Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition, mpac online massmissingandmurderorg you can follow it online. We are ramping up events coming soon and going to AdvocacyCon that happens the end of March in Indianapolis, and True Crime Podcast Festival, which happens in July in Danvers, is coming to Massachusetts this year. That's cool. Thank you for listening.

Anngelle Wood: 1:25:06

Sunday, february 9th, the vigil for Maura Murray will be happening in Woodsville, new Hampshire. I do plan to attend. 21 years she has been missing. Please support Crime of the Truest Kind and follow at Crime of the Truest Kind everywhere. Everything about the show Crimeofthetruestkindcom. Next live show Thursday, february 20th, free show Stoneham Public Library, stoneham Massachusetts, 6.30 show. It's early and I have another date confirmed that I will tell you about next show. It's early and I have another date confirmed that I will tell you about next show. I continue every other week releasing on Fridays because that is what my work schedule is going to allow. If I have a part two of an episode, I try to get it out the following week and please do send me your show ideas. All of you are really great at doing that. Crimeofthetruestkind at gmailcom. Melanie's show openinvestigationpodcastcom. Haveyouseenandycom If you have not watched the documentary. Have you Seen, andy, about missing 10-year-old boy, andy Puglisi, who disappeared from Lawrence, massachusetts? Please watch it. All right, I gotta go now. Lock your goddamn doors. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.