Episode 7 Connections

In this episode of Open Investigation, host Melanie Perkins McLaughlin continues the journey into the chilling connections between child disappearances, abuse, and organized crime networks. Episode 7, "Connections," unearths disturbing details surrounding the missing and murdered children of the 1970s, focusing on how individuals within criminal circles, including pedophiles and traffickers, formed complex networks to perpetuate child exploitation.

Witness Testimonies:
Several survivors from different institutions recall vivid memories of abuse, including the presence of cameras, gang assaults, and darkrooms.

The Bigger Picture:
Early signs that the disappearance of Andy Puglisi was part of a much larger, interconnected network of child abuse.Eric MacLeish and Ernie Allen shed light on how the abuse wasn't isolated incidents but part of a broader, organized effort with little law enforcement action.

Charles Pierce's Confession:
Pierce, a convicted child murderer, provided a deathbed confession detailing the murder of several children, including a boy from Lawrence, MA. His ties to known child trafficker Wayne Chapman are explored.Pierce’s dark connection with other notorious criminals, such as Nathaniel Bar Jonah and Wayne Chapman, suggests a coordinated abuse network within the Merrimack Valley.

The Merrimack Valley:

The episode explores how neighboring towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire became hotspots for child abduction and abuse.

Case Details:

• Charles Pierce: Pierce's disturbing confessions, his ties to Andy Puglisi’s case, and his link to other criminals like Wayne Chapman and Nathaniel Bar Jonah, suggest the existence of a secretive, organized network of child abusers.
• Nathaniel Bar Jonah: Known for cannibalistic practices and sexual assaults, Bar Jonah’s criminal history intertwines with Wayne Chapman, who impersonated police officers to lure children.
• Missing Children: A list of over 29 children from Massachusetts who went missing or were murdered in the 1970s, including cases that remain unsolved, highlights the deep tragedy and widespread exploitation during that period.

Call to Action:

Don’t miss the next episode, where Melanie Perkins McLaughlin will explore ways we can help prevent child exploitation and protect vulnerable children. Subscribe, rate, and leave a review to support the podcast. For more updates, visit [website] and follow us on social media.

Additional Links & Resources:

Boston Globe 8-part series from 1999 on Melanie’s search for Andy

Nathaniel Bar Jonah (Wikipedia)

Follow: @openinvestigation
Support: Patreon.com/OpenInvestigation
Based on the HBO Emmy award-winning documentary "Have You Seen Andy?" - haveyouseenandy.com | @haveyouseenandy

Transcript

Open Investigation Ep 7 Connections

Montage of voices talking about connections…

Witness X: He said, Don't you remember the kids out there? They're out there. He had taken many children out there, and they were still out there playing. Would I like to go out and play with them?  And I told him, No.  I'd be a good boy 

Ray Clark:I turned to look, and I saw, I saw Andy on a rock, and two people were holding him, holding him down.I couldn't see their faces, but he was crying and screaming… 

Lawrence Victim 1975: While all this was going on, I could hear, you know, a lot of noises in the woods, like somebody walking around or, you know, sticks breaking or a clicking noise, and it just seemed that there was somebody else up there. 

4H Victim: I saw cameras. Tripods and cameras all around the bed.  And he had a darkroom. It was a little closet that was straight across from the bedroom.I remember he had a red light in there. I didn't know what it was then, but if I look back now, I, it  tells a dark room

St. Mary’s Victim: and while being blindfolded, I  perceived flashes of light. Um,  and I now believe that this was a gang rape photoshoot.  Um,  Father Gallagher,   told me, um,  that,  you know, if I behaved, I would be okay. 

Faith Puglisi: There were five known child molesters at the pool that day.  The police told you that? Mm, yeah. Yeah, they were there. They said they weren't breaking any laws, so there was nothing they could do about it, you know, but  there was all those children laying prey. 

Melanie McLaughlin: He also said they sell children for child pornography and once they get too old,  They kill them.  When I asked who they are, he responded,  you know, people who have sex slaves. (Ep. 5)

Eric MacLeish: I knew that there was a big problem out there  with Roman Catholic priests molesting children. I didn't understand the scale of it. I didn't understand the interconnection of how  these people all knew each other. 

Ernie Allen: Not only is there a community of these individuals, but they're actually groups. They're advocacy groups where these people join together, both to advocate fundamental changes in the law. They're groups that would argue that sex with children should not be criminalized. But that sexual contact is, is essentially an act of love.

RC Stevens: They meet the criteria for RICO,  racketeering influenced organized crime. They meet the criteria by transporting children across state lines for means of sex, prostitution. They meet it. Why aren't the feds starting a grand jury and starting a RICO case on this stuff? There doesn't seem to be any consequences for the church and I think that's the problem. 

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin: 
Back in 1998 when I first started working on Andy’s case I naively thought a child going missing in the 1970s was a rarity. We didn’t have the internet then or world-wide news. If it wasn’t on the 3 or 4 channels we got on the TV then we pretty much didn’t know about it. Even local cases. If you didn’t happen to be watching the news that night or weren’t reading the paper you would have no idea what was going on just a few towns over.

Probably the first inkling I had that Andy’s case was bigger than I realized was when I learned Andy’s mom, Faith, said there were five known pedophiles at the pool the day Andy went missing. That made me wonder who the pedophilesactually were. That is where this journey into understanding connections between individuals and groups began….

This is Open Investigation, a true-crime podcast about the search for answers to the disappearance of my childhood friend Ans and the incredible story of dozens of other missing and murdered children disappeared or were found murdered around the same time Andy vanished.All while a hidden network of child trafficking was thriving in our community. 

I’m your host, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. This is Episode 7. Connections.

Act I First Inkling

In November of 1998, I was able to get access to a memo in Andy’s file from 1989. The memo was from Lawrence Police Captain Joseph Fitzpatrick. It documented a conversation Fitzpatrick had with State Trooper Joe Flaherty working as part of a special unit in Norfolk County. The memo indicated Flaherty said a prison inmate, Charles Pierce was dying and wanted to confess to the murder of a Lawrence boy. The memo was followed up with a letter from Trooper Flaherty to Cpt Fitzpatrick, 6 days later, asking someone from the Lawrence police to come out and interrogate Pierce. As far as anyone can tell they never did. 

In 1998 a Boston Globe reporter named Judith Gaines was following me as I worked on Andy’s documentary. When I learned about Charles E. Pierce I shared the information with Judy. She ran Pierce’s information through the Globes files and discovered Pierce was a convicted child murderer. 

Charles Pierce was from Haverhill, MA 9 miles from Lawrence. Bordering cities, Lawrence, Haverhill and Methuen are considered the Merrimack Valley. The Merrimack Valley is a bi-state region including cities in  NH and MA that border the Merrimack river. The cities and communities frequently overlap.  Charles Pierce worked as a dishwasher at Captain Chris’ seafood restaurant in Haverhill and at the Woolworth store on Essex street in Lawrence. Andy Puglisi and his family frequented both establishments. Pierce also worked setting up tents and rides at the Topsfield Fair, which Andy and several children attended. 

Charles E. Pierce was convicted for the murder of Michelle Wilson, a 13-year old Boxford girl whose remains were found near Baldpate pond in 1969. Michelle was sexually assaulted and strangled. According to the prosecutor at the time, Robert Weiner, Michelle had been abducted while riding her bicycle, sexually assaulted and strangled then taken to a wooden area where Charles Pierce had sex with her dead body, beat her remains then covered her with leaves and a 98 pound boulder. Michelle’s white hat and one of her mittens was missing. 

Charles E. Pierce was arrested in Florida for assaulting a child in 1978. He confessed to the murder of Michelle Wilson and was extradited to MA. In the Boston Globe series written by Judith Gaines and published in July of 1999, Gaines describes one local police officer describes a conversation with Charles Pierce from 1979. He asked Pierce where children he killed may be buried. Pierce only responded “....there are so many….”

Pierce was still alive in 1998 when I learned the news that he was confessing to the murder of a Lawrence boy. I sent two letters to the prison asking for visitation. I received no response. Instead I learned on the news that Charles Pierce had given a deathbed confession to a Mass State Police detective and Lawrence captain of police. Shortly before he died, Pierce told the detectives that he murdered several children, including Janice Pockett, a 7-year-old girl from Tolland, Conn., and a 10- or 11-year-old Lawrence boy, whom he will not name.

Pierce said the Lawrence boy had olive skin and wanted to go fishing, Pierce says. Pierce claimed to have killed the boy in his van, had sex with his body and with the body of Janice Pockett whose remains he had been carrying in the vehicle. Pierce said he buried the children in graves about 30 feet apart, in a field in Lawrence, which he marked with pieces of coal. We found a former prison inmate who knew Charles Pierce. Here’s how he described him.

Former Prison Inmate:
I remember that when I first met him, I remember that he was just like  the creepiest,  you know, like he, he was, uh,  he just had an, an, an aura about him that was just  weird, you know? He was a real creepy motherfucker. I mean, Charlie, Charlie was a creepy dude.  You know, like he had, he had a presence about him not only being tall, you know, white hair, you know, and kind of  You know, kind of hunched over, but  he, he, he just, he had an air  about him ]  But again, because  He was so big, you know, he was so tall  and he was old and people just didn't mess with him. You know, they didn't, they didn't mess with him like they, like   they would normally mess with some other child molester or rapist, you know?

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin:
Do you think he he did kill kids? Or do you think he was full of crap?  

Former Prison Inmate:
I think he did  No, I think he did. He had he had a he had a he had a coldness about him  He had a he had a I can't even put my finger on it because i've never seen it in a human being before  I've never been so close to somebody  he was just like creepy as shit and  and he had a presence about him So you think he did kill kids  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was something like, it was terribly long  and just can't be made up about some of the stuff that he did or some of the stuff that he said.

The police recruited a cadaver search team with search dogs and allowed me to attend the search. We went to an empty lot of West Street in Lawrence, MA but the dogs did not respond. 

You can join our Patreon as an Insider for exclusive access to video footage of the search initiated by Charles Pierce’s confession. 

Another important point Charles Pierce shared before dying was that he knew Wayne W. Chapman the main suspect in the abduction of Andy Puglisi. Pierce said he knew Chapman from seeing him in the area. The police reviewed their incarceration time. The only time they may have crossed paths in prison was in Bridgewater at the MA Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. 

The MA Treatment Center is a medium security prison housing criminally sentenced male inmates identified as sex offenders and those who have been civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons. The Treatment Center was founded in the 1950s after two brothers, John and Paul Logan ages 11 and 12 were found murdered in Brockton, MA. A house key found under one of the boy's bodies led to the 21-year-old killer, Raymond Ohlson a sex offender who had recently been released from a reform school where he had been held since the age of 15 for sexual offenses. The center was created especially for repeat offenders. 

One of the repeat offenders that was also there in the 1970s was a man with a simple name who would become notorious. David Brown was a Webster man sentenced in 1978 to the Treatment Center after he abducted two boys in Webster, MA assaulted them and left them for dead. David Brown had begun his sexual offenses when he himself was just 7 years old. As a young adult he impersonated a police offier to lure children. Brown would change his name in prison to Nathaniel Bar Jonah. In 1991 Wayne W. Chapman and Nathaniel Bar Jonah who according to author John Espy were friends before they were incarcerated hired the same two Christian psychiatrists, Dr. Richard Ober and Dr. Eric Sweitzer to find them no longer sexually dangerous and get them released from the Treatment Center. Bar Jonah was released into the community. Chapman was sent to the prison system to serve the remainder of his criminal sentence. All three men, Pierce, Chapman and Bar Jonah had allegedly been friends before being sent to the Treatment Center. According to Espy the older Pierce acted as a mentor to Wayne W. Chapman and David Brown aka Nathaniel Bar Jonah. Espy writes Pierce even told Bar Jonah never to tell where the bodies are buried. Nathaniel Bar Jonah and Wayne W. Chapman kept in touch after their release. The FBI have copies of correspondence between them such as this letter:

12/15/1995 

Merry Christmas Nathan:

Thanks Nathan for answering my letter.  I pray 1996 brings a top position at Hardee's with top pay.  My hometown, Jamestown, New York, had two Hardee's in the 70's. I am waiting on a judge to respond to rule 29.  It's rumored that the 300 men High jacked to Dallas county jail have offered the governor the opportunity to give all sex offenders statutory good time credits rather than to sue….

Your friend, Wayne

On August 9, 1991, just a month after being released from Bridgewater, Bar-Jonah observed a seven-year-old boy sitting alone in a car outside of a post office in Oxford, Massachusetts. Bar-Jonah, who weighed 275 pounds (125 kg) at the time, entered the vehicle and sat on the boy's chest. Some witnesses, along with the boy's mother, observed the event and ran to the boy's rescue, causing Bar-Jonah to flee. An officer recognised Bar-Jonah's description from over fifteen years earlier, and he was later arrested for the attack. At first, Bar-Jonah claimed that he entered the car to get out of the rain, but later admitted that he intended to kill the boy. For the attack, Bar-Jonah was given permission by the Worcester county District Attorney to enter a guilty plea to assault and battery  in exchange for a two-year probationary period and the promise that he would move to Great Falls, Montana to live with his mother.

 The author of several books about Bar Jonah, John Espy, a former forensic interviewer, spent several hours interrogating Bar Jonah. Here’s how he describes him.  

John Espy:
Barjonah was a big man  and he had very, very strong hands, and he was able to use those hands in a very deadly way to say the very least. He would sit on Children, use his size to control him that way. Well, even, you know, after he got out of, um, of jail and he assaulted the little child in the post office parking lot, uh, the mother came out and Barjona was in hurt the backseat of her car bouncing up and down on top of her child in the backseat, trying to smother the child that way.  
Melanie McLaughlin
And the favorite, my favorite part about that story is this mother opens the door and hauls this 350 pound pedophile off the child and drags him across the parking lot. 

John Espy:
He would, go to schools and watch children and that, that was pretty much how he did it, um, very early on. Um, you know, he would follow Children home from school. He would plan. He would, uh,  discover what their roots were,  um, in terms of how they walk to school or if they rode their bicycle to school

Both Wayne Chapman and Nathaniel Bar Jonah impersonated police officers to lure children. They were at the Treatment Center when the North American Man Boy Love Association was recruiting members. They both admitted to assaulting children in Webster, MA. They were lifelong sex offenders having started offending themselves before they were 10 years old. And as several law enforcement officers said the Treatment Center became a sort of graduate school for sex offenders. 

Not long after Bar Jonah moved to Montana, 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay went missing. In 2000 Bar Jonah was charged with the abduction and sexual assault of  Zach Ramsay (although he remains missing) as well as the abduction and assault of four other boys one of who he had hanged from his ceiling while torturing him. During his trail a 36-year old woman recognized Bar Jonah as the man who had attempted to abduct her when she was a child in Connecticut. A second woman after hearing the first woman’s description of the vehicle used also recognized Bar Jonah as as the man who had attempted to abduct her in December of 1975 in Putnam CT. Here is her story:

CT Girl

Um, I was seven. I was walking home from school,  um, pulled up in a vehicle, told me my mother wanted  for him to pick me up because she was working late. And I said, but I'm almost home. And,  he stopped his car and  picked me up and put me in.   I remember him telling me that the passenger's door didn't work. And we had to go get milk and bread.  And  we passed,  several local places that we would normally stop for milk and bread.  And I always assumed that I had fallen asleep in the car.  I spoke with,  a state trooper that was working with the case years later, and he, he said that his M.O. was, uh, , to, to chloroform people. So, that may have happened.  I woke up in front of the Big Bunny supermarket in Sturbridge, Mass.  Um, the door that didn't work. My coat was shut in between. The door,   drove down a road  somewhere in Sturbridge,  and he told me I had to get out because he had to go make a phone call, an important phone call, and he'd be right back. As soon as he was out of sight, I went to the house nearby. No one was home.  Went, hid under the pine trees, and then I saw a high school kid walking home,   I told him what happened, and he took me to a house, and,  they called the Sturbridge police,  and,  um, that's really all that, that I remember happening.  

The FBI got involved in Bar Jonah’s case in Montana. Bar Jonah had coded writing that the FBI special agents were working on decoding. They decoded the name Zachary Ramsay, the word DIE and recipes for little boy stew. It seems Bar Jonah was also a cannibal.  

John Espy

They opened the freezer and it was stuffed with meat. just stuffed with meat and it was a wretched smell. Even though it was frozen, it was still generating a very wretched smell. And so they just took it and pitched it.  They found bone fragments buried in the brother's garage. And  part of the problem was that, DNA extraction in, 1999, you know, was significantly different than it is now. And so they weren't able to extract, uh, much from that

Bar Jonah said very directly that he and Wayne Chapman had known each other prior to going into Bridgewater. Barjona said that they met in a park. Um, when they were both watching children,  and that's how they first began to, um, establish a relationship. And Barjona also said that he, in essence, saw,  uh, Wayne Chapman and Charles Pierce as, in essence, um, um,  what were they looking for? Um, they were grooming him. They were teaching him,  um, I guess the finer aspects of, of being a more refined pedophile.

 Everything he did, every breath he took was in some way, um, structured around how he could be a psychopathic pedophile. It just was.  That was where his entire life's focus was, was, was, um, his  facade of being a quote unquote antique dealer specializing in toys. All of this was designed to be, um, to lure Children in  And to molest them in some way or another, or to take advantage of somebody else in order to get access to their children. 

He said that Charles Pierce said to him you know, one thing about you, fat boy, and that's what he said he called him was fat boy. Was that, you don't know when to keep your mouth shut.  And he said, the bottom line is that you never admit to anything, nothing,  absolutely nothing.  And that was pretty much Bar Jonah's, mantra after that. He never fully admitted to anything.

The detectives in Great Falls went back and interviewed Wayne Chapman. They spent about two hours with him.And they said that it was,  quote unquote, a waste of time, other than that their impression was that, he was just a supreme psychopath. And that they believed that Bar Jonah had also been involved ultimately, in the disappearance of Andy Puglisi.

Detectives mentioned in addition to coded words Bar Jonah would use anagrams and similar sounding names to identify children. One of the names Bar Jonah wrote was “Alonzo Puggy” similar to Angelo Puglisi. I later learned Andy’s nickname was “Puggy”. His brother, Michael shared Andy had the name “Puggy” on his little league jacket. 

When detectives sprayed Bar-Jonah's garage with phosphorus chemical while investigating the Ramsay disappearance, the word "Tita" appeared, which led authorities to believe that he may have been responsible for the abduction of 15-year-old James Teta. You may recall we talked about Jimmy Teta in Ep 3 Pandora’s Box. Jimmy was from Revere, MA and was last seen near Government Center in Boston. His remains were found in a wooded area in Rindge NH. Jimmy had been sexually abused and strangled. Nathaniel Bar Jonah was also named as a suspect in several other unsolved missing NE children’s cases including Janice Pockett of Tolland, CT who vanished in 1973, Kathleen Terry, a 12-year-old girl who vanished from a campground in Mashapaug, CT and whose remains were found in Sturbridge, MA in 1974 just a year after Janice Pockett was kidnapped and only 20 miles away from Tolland. Kathleen died from a crushed skull. and Andy Amato, a 4-year-old boy from Webster, MA who went missing in 1978. All of these children’s cases remain unsolved. 

John Espy 

The FBI, that was, investigating the case also believed that he may have been a far, far, far more prolific serial murder of Children than what anybody would have imagined.  just about everywhere Barjona lived Children went missing in one form or another.  

Act II Missing and Murdered

Melanie Perkins McLaughlin:
As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, several of the unsolved missing and murdered children’s cases are similar. We have already mentioned Jimmy Teta and Leigh Savoie of Revere, MA. And David Louison and Denise Cochrane of Brockton, MA. As well as Janice Pockett of Tolland, CT. Kathleen Terry recovered in Sturbridge and Andy Puglisi missing from Lawrence, MA. As we’ve said, all of these cases remain unsolved. The recovered children, Denise and Kathleen had crushed skull. Jimmy was strangled. David’s cause of death is unknown because of the 6 year delay from the time he went missing until the time he was recovered. 

Here are a few other cases from the list of cases we’ve put together over the years of unsolved missing and murdered children from the 1970s as well as their similarities. 

1. Michelle Wilson, 1969 age 13 Boxford, MA crushed skull Charles Pierce convicted.
2. Robert Jankowski, 1972 age 3 Roslindale, MA strangled - unsolved
3. Daniel Croteau, 1972, age 13, Springfield, MA crushed skull Father Richard Lavigne named as suspect
4. Jimmy Teta, 1973, age 15 from Revere MA recovered in Rindge NH, strangulation unsolved 
5. AnnMarie Grew, 1973 age 16, from Chelsea MA worked as a dancer in Revere, MA stabbed
6. Jessica Moynihan, 1973 age 4, Rutland, MA found in the woods in Rutland with her mother Maureen stabbed - unsovled 
7. Henry Bedard, 1974, age 15, Swampscott, MA crushed skull unsolved 
8. Michael O’Gorman, 1974 age 12, Gloucester, MA found in 1979 Crushed skull unsolved 
9. Leigh Savoie, 1974, age 9, Revere, MA missing and unsolved 
10. David Louison, 1974, age 6 Brockton, MA recovered 1980 cause of death unknown - unsolved 
11. Kathleen Terry, 1974, age 12, Sturbridge, MA crushed skull - unsolved 
12. Susan Rhona Labbe, 1974, age 17, Lawrence, MA missing - unsolved
13. Kathleen Williams, 1974, age 16, Andover, MA homicide unsolved
14. Steven Barnes, 1975, age 8, Dennis, MA homicide unsolved, stabbed
15. Denise Cochrane, 1975, age 10, Brockton, MA Recovered in 1976 crushed skull - unsolved
16. John Leary, 1976, age 15, Jamaica Plain, MA crushed skull - unsolved
17. Angelo Pugllisi, 1976, age 10. Lawrence, MA Missing - unsolved
18. Thomas Willet, 1976, age 17, Jamaica Plain MA homicide unsolved 
19. Michael Cody, 1976, age 11, Revere MA alleged suicide 
20. Gary McCormack, 1976, age 14, Lawrence, MA alleged suicide
21. Nelida del Valle, 1976, age 9. Boston, MA Missing - unsolved 
22. Carla Fowler, 1976, age 14, Salisbury, MAcrushed skull
23. Deborah Ann Quimby, 1977, age 13 Townsend, MA missing - unsolved
24. Judy Belfrey, 1977, age 17, Boston, MA homicide unsolved
25. Simone Ridinger, 1977, age 17, Sherborn, MA missing - unsolved
26. Andy Amato, 1978, age 4, Webster, MA missing unsolved
27. Theresa Corley, 1978, age 19, Bellinghan, MA strangled and sexually abused
28. Paula Kallenback, 1979, age 15, Lynn, MA crushed skull
29. Richard Greenidge, 1979, age 14, Framingham, MA crushed skull. 

That’s 29 children that we know of who are missing or were found murdered in MA in the 1970s. All of whom have unresolved cases. 14 girls and 15 boys. 20 homicides, 9 missing. The average age of the children is 14. All of the cases remain unsolved. How do 29 children (and counting as we continue to do the research) go missing or are found murdered in MA in the 1970s and all of their cases remain unsolved?

Act III Coordinated Abuse and CP

Wayne W. Chapman was arrested with a cache of child pornography, 8 mm films and polaroids. One of his victims talked about the dark room in his apartment. Chapman was producing child pornography for distribution. Today those materials are more aptly named child sex abuse materials or CSAM.

Several downtown bookstores in Lawrence, MA had been cited for selling child pornography. The man who worked at the 24 hour store where Andy and I bought candy was arrested for selling child pornography. He was fined 10,000 in 1976. The equivalent today is about 50,000. One polaroid of a child was said to be worth between $50 and $200.

One of the last images Andy’s mother, Faith, has of Andy is a Polaroid picture he shared with her just weeks before he went missing. When Faith asked where he had gotten it Andy replied a strange man had asked to take his picture and gave him one. Faith told Andy to never let anyone take his picture again. 

In 2016, 40 years after Andy vanished I learned there were children, juvenile delinquents to be more precise, creating child pornography in the very projects where Andy and I lived. Here is the story from one of those children. 

Project Kid

The thing with the pictures is that there was someone in the neighborhood That lived there,   making us all pose as, as young kids. We had to pose in sexual positions, I, I'll never forget it. He was fascinated more with young boys posing and posing really disgusting, too.   I  was, I was 13. I believe he was a year older than me.  

I think it was always, you know, the summertime because he could get us downstairs,  you know, walking over from the pool. He'd be outside and like, Hey, come here. Downstairs in his basement.  And,  you know, that type of thing in that. Yeah, they were Polaroids, yeah. Yeah, you remember that Polaroid camera? Yeah. Way back when, yeah, because you couldn't obviously, you know, do like a 38mm  or whatever, 35mm. No, they were Polaroids.  And I can still hear that sound. K tchhh.  You know, you can hear it.  And every time I hear that clicking sound, I know it's a picture being taken, and it just, you know, it makes my skin crawl And like I said, I don't like my picture taken for anything. I hate it. 

Melanie McLaughlin:
You never told your family about what happened in the basement? 

Project KId:
Nope, Nope. Never told anybody except the police? Nope. Nope. It was a very secretive, it was a secret society, put it that way. We kept, we kept those secrets hidden.

I told, I told the police  briefly. I mean, oh my boy, that was really hard for me to do. But  I, and I talked with him briefly.  And then I just had to back off because to me,  they didn't seem like they, um, they cared.  I don't know, man, I just got a feeling that they didn't understand where I was coming from. 

He was young and that's maybe the reason why the police don't want to, um, didn't want to look into it because they probably figured, well, he's a kid, but he wasn't just a kid.  If you knew him, he was not, he was the epitome of the evil . And, um,  you know, he's ruined people's lives. I'm going to tell you that right now. I mean, I used to have a really good friend and he ruined his life.  You know, having your picture taken and posing as a 13 year old young person,  it stays with you for the rest of your life. 

The woman told me there was another juvenile delinquent. A kid I knew who was also taking pictures with his 5 siblings. I believe there had to be an adult in the projects that was paying for these pictures.

Was it Wayne Chapman. I don’t know. We do know he had been to Lawrence more than once in at least 1975 when he abducted the two boys he was charged with raping and in 1976 when he was identified by at least five eye witnesses as being at the pool the day Andy vanished. Did Chapman take Andy for child pornography?

We know from the affidavit in the Catholic priest Father Paul Shanley’s file that the uncle of mine and Andy’s friends, another Catholic priest named Father Tom Curran lived in Lawrence and allegedly scouted boys to bring to Father Shanley to rape and traffic them. Father Tom Curran told me that Andy is dead and that children like Andy are abducted, used for child pornography and then killed when they get too old.

According to one of Shanley’s victims he had a camera mounted in his ceiling over the bed. We were told from the corrupt social worker, Dick Bavley’s foster son, that Father Paul Shanley and Dick Bavley worked together trafficking runaways and fostering children to pedophiles. Bavley was closely associated with the millionaire Roger Spear who was arrested in the 1977 Revere ring that ultimately formed the pedophile organization NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association.

Based on our investigation there were at least 15 credibly accused pedophile priests in Lawrence in the 1970s. According to the incredible researchers at the website bishopaccountability.com, there were hundreds of pedophile priests in the Boston area alone. Many of them shared children with each other, orchestrated and coordinated group child abuse and took pictures. In 

You may recall the 1975 Lawrence victim abducted by Wayne Chapman who said he heard a second person in the woods and a clicking noise, like a camera. And the Father Gallagher victim who so bravely shared the story of being raped in the basement at St. Mary’s by men and boys while she could see flashes from a camera. 

We were able to document trafficking of children from the early 1970s - remember Dick Bavley trafficking foster children. Bavley was involved with Father Paul Shanley and Roger Spear who was arrested in the 1977 Revere ring. So, children were being trafficked in MA throughout the 1970s, before there was even a name for it. 

The 1977 Revere sex ring revealed individuals from all walks of life involved in the exploitation of children. During our research we discovered credibly accused teachers, doctors, millionaires, bus drivers, priests and parents. Were all of these pedophiles child killers? No. But as one law enforcement stated, there were child killers among them. 

The child pornography industry was already a billion dollar industry in the 1970s. And it was unregulated until a large number of children went missing across the country during that one decade and advocates pushed for congressional hearings and laws to prevent child exploitation. But no one has gone back to find out who these children were. As the Fessenden victim John Sweeney said 

John Sweeney

Listen, I'm telling you, and, and people think that I'm crazy, okay. When I tell them that they hit only one house in Revere. They only found out about the one house. At the same time they were doing this stuff at Spears house, okay? 

I told 'em all about Spear's House In Wellesley. and you know, what's even more messed up these guys i'm convinced of this right. That they have got So much power still in the media because nobody in the media wants to cover that story  I try to get spotlight to listen to that, right?

I try to get spotlight to go back. Okay, because they said tell me about the You know about you know spear and all this other shit, you know, so I told him I says listen That that that place in Revere okay, wasn't the half of it  

Next time on Open Investigation. Join us for Episode 8, Advocacy and Call to Action. You’ve come this far listening to our series on the history of human trafficking of children in America and unsolved cases of missing and murdered children. Stay with us for this next episode. We will hear from survivors and advocates on what we can do to create change and to protect children from child sex abuse and support children and families.

This episode was produced, written and hosted by me, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin

Editing by Mike Gioscia

Original Music and Additional Editing by Drew O’Doherty

Consulting Producer Anngelle Wood from Crimes of the Truest Kind

Research by Maggie Schneider and Melissa Ellin

Production Assistance by Darren McFadden, Sarah Ruemenapp and Alexandra Vega

Our Social Media Producer is Carla DiStefano

And special thanks to George…you know who you are.