WEBVTT - Season 07 Episode 11: Through the Looking Glass 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.400 Please note this episode contains disturbing reports of child murder 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:21.599 and sexual abuse. Parental discretion is advised. March tenth, nineteen 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.000 twenty eight, was a bright and crisp Saturday morning in 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:30.200 Los Angeles. In Mount Washington, a suburban neighborhood tucked into 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.840 the hills northeast of the city. Kids rode bikes along 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.479 neat sidewalks and played kickball in their front yards, but 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.440 nine year old Walter Collins was restless. It spent all 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.080 week looking forward to Saturday, the day when he got 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.080 to do his favorite thing in the entire world. Walter 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.880 loved movies, and every Saturday afternoon he went to see 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:01.240 whatever was playing at the local theater. Sometimes his mum, Christine, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.560 would go with him, but that day Christine was tired. 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.679 She was a single mother working long hours at a 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.399 telephone company to support herself and her son, and she 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.280 desperately needed a rest, so she gave Walter a dime 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.440 and sent him off to the pictures. She watched as 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.760 he paddled off down the road just before noon in 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:29.200 his cordroy suit with a shirt, polished black shoes, and 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.640 a gray cap. Walter liked to dress up for the cinema. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.800 It was only a short bike ride from the house, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.920 and the area was safe and sleepy. Parents didn't think 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.919 twice about letting their kids go out alone during the day, 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.840 But when Walter hadn't returned by four p m. Christine 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.600 began to worry. She called round to the houses of 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.600 Walter's friends to see if he'd made a detour on 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.000 his way back from the cinema, but nobody had seen 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.840 him back home. Christine paced back and forth in her 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.160 living room, staring out the window as every worst thought 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.239 raised through her head. After five hours, her son had 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.440 still not turned up. Unable to bear it any longer, 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:22.680 she called the police and reported her son Walter as missing. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.880 You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean Smith. 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.640 Walter Collins's disappearance would have been alarming for Christine under 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:45.200 any circumstances, but that spring there was even more reason 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.600 to be fearful. Just three months earlier, a young man 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.440 walked into Mount Vernon Junior High School in Ali's Lafayette 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.480 Square and introduced himself as mister Cooper. He claimed to 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.400 be an employed joy of local banker Perry Parker, whose 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:09.000 twelve year old daughter, Marian, attended the school. His instructions, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.240 he said, were to collect Marian immediately and take her home, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.480 as her father had suffered a terrible accident. Only Perry 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.600 Parker had suffered no such accident, and he had never 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:27.800 heard of any mister Cooper. The following day, Parker and 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:32.160 his wife received a series of ransom notes demanding money 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.200 in exchange for the safe release of their daughter. A 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.800 rendezvous was arranged for two days later, whereupon Perry went 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:45.360 to meet with the mysterious mister Cooper. When he got there, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.320 Perry was hugely relieved to find the man waiting for 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.000 him in his car, while his daughter, Marian was clearly 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.680 visible in the seat beside him, staring out at the window. 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.840 Perry was happy to see she was still alive, but oddly, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.240 when he called out to her, she seemed not to 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:11.160 register him. Terrified that she'd been drugged, Perry hurriedly bundled 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.400 the money over to the man, who grabbed it, then 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.400 jumped straight back into his car and drove off, but 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.560 not before shoving the young girl out of the vehicle. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:27.000 As he sped off, Perry rushed toward his daughter, only 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:32.120 to be suddenly gripped by a paralyzing horror. Marian's body 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.640 lay still on the road. Her eyes were open, but 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.400 only because they'd been fixed that way with piano wire. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.679 She'd been dead for some time, and both her arms 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:52.039 and legs were missing. Her limbs were later found in 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.960 a Lycian park, barely a ten minute drive from Walter 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.479 Collins's home. However, Marion Parker's his murderer was caught a 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.560 few days later and identified as nineteen year old William Hickman. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.599 After committing what the Los Angeles Times called the most 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.840 horrible crime of the nineteen twenties, he was sentenced to hang. 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.160 But in February of nineteen twenty eight, just as Hickman's 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:26.240 murder trial was beginning, La Sheriff's deputies found the headless 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.039 body of a teenage boy in a bag left in 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.400 a ditch in Laparuente. He'd been shot through the heart 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:40.440 and then decapitated. His murderer was very much still on 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:51.360 the loose. After Christine called nine one one and reported 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.120 while to missing, police officers across the region were given 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.960 his description. A nationwide search was launched, along with an 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:04.200 appeal to the public for any information over the next 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:09.080 few weeks, the Los Angeles Police Department received countless tips 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.640 and leads from across the state of California. One person 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.160 claimed to have seen Walter at a gas station in Glendale, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:22.840 a suburb of LA. The description was eerie. They said 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.000 that the boy was dead in the backseat of a car, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.160 wrapped in newspaper like a mummy, with only his head 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:35.880 peeking out. Others reported that they'd seen Walter in San Francisco, 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.479 more than three hundred miles north of Los Angeles. Walter's father, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.440 who was serving time in Falsome Prison, wondered if his 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.680 son had been kidnapped by a former inmate with a 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:53.360 grudge against him. When one lead suggested he might have 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.279 been drowned in LA's Lincoln Park Lake, just south of 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.800 Walter's home, they dragged the whole of it but found nothing. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.280 Time and again the police came up empty handed, and 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.240 even as the case gathered attention across the US, the 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:17.239 trail went colder and colder. One bright day in May 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.600 nineteen twenty eight, twelve year old Lewis Winslow and his 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.480 ten year old brother Nelson left their home in Pomona, California, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.560 just east of La to attend a meeting of a 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:34.280 local model yacht club, but the boys never came back. 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.440 For two weeks, the police followed all leads again to 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:44.320 no avail. Then one morning, the boy's family received a 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.600 note in the post, supposedly from the two brothers. It 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.840 was scribbled on a page of a book taken from 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:57.480 their local library. It made no sense whatsoever. The message 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.000 stated that the boys had apparently gone on a trip 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:06.000 to Mexico to find gold. A handful of police officers 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.960 were sent to the Mexican border to look out for 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.400 the boys in the hope they might spot them coming 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.440 back into the United States if indeed they were even 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.200 in Mexico in the first place, but they failed to 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:25.560 find them. The disappearance of the Winslows piled even more 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:30.840 pressure onto the LAPD to find Walter Collins. All the while, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.360 the public were growing increasingly scared for the safety of 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:41.760 their children. They needed answers. For months, the police continued 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:47.040 in their efforts to unlock the mystery, until finally, in August, 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:59.440 something extraordinary happened. It was one day in August, while 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.880 walking her beat in DeKalb, Illinois, that local sheriff Helena 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.280 Dolder picked up a young boy who seemed to be 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.440 living on the streets. The boy said little as she 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.280 took him home and let him play with her children 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.400 while she figured out what best to do with him. Then, 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:23.800 finally the boy began to talk. He was Walter Collins, 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.400 he said, and all he wanted was to go home 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:34.200 to his mother in Los Angeles. Astonished, Sheriff Dolder quickly 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:39.280 passed the information on to the LAPD. After months upon 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:44.200 months of dead ends, it seemed finally the case was solved. 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:51.400 But better yet, Walter was alive. It's hard to imagine 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.320 just how his mother, Christine must have felt when she 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.880 received the calls that day. She drove faster than she 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.520 ever had in her life to get to the police 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:08.160 station to confirm Walter's identity. Sheriff Dolda's team in De 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:12.160 Kalb had sent photos in advance of bringing the boy 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.400 to the city so Christine could confirm it was indeed 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.400 her son. It was just a formality as far as 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.960 she was concerned, just one final hurdle to clear before 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.920 the nightmare could be over. Waiting to meet her at 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.480 the station was Captain Joseph Jones, the head of the 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:38.720 LAPD's juvenile division. He took her into his office and 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.480 handed her the photographs, unable to suppress the triumphant smile 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:49.160 that spread across his face. But when Christine looked down 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:55.320 at the first picture, her face fell. It isn't Walter, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.600 she said. Sure. He had the same hair, the same dimples, 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.200 and was a similar build, but as far as she 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:11.880 was concerned, it wasn't him. Captain Jones was stunned. Are 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:17.080 you sure, he asked her, looking skeptical. Maybe all the 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.480 stress of the last few months had clouded her memory 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:26.280 of him, He said, Perhaps she should look again, and 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:31.160 so she did. To lose a child is the worst 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:36.200 thing that can ever happen to a parent. Christine wanted 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.400 the boy to be Walter. She wanted it more than anything. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:48.960 Maybe I was wrong, she said, much to Captain Jones's relief. Congratulations, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.400 he said to her, You've got your son back. Christine 0:11:53.440 --> 0:12:08.840 smiled weakly in return, Yes, she said, I have. It 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.720 was a sweltering August morning when a crowd of reporters 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:17.680 warmed the LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, jostling for 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.920 position on the concrete steps. Only a select group of 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.520 media outlets had been given access to go inside the 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.920 building where Christine Collins would soon be reunited with her 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:35.760 missing son, Walter. Christine hadn't slept at all the night before, 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.160 the image of the boy in the photograph loomed before her. 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:45.640 Every time she closed her eyes, her mind raised, consumed 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:51.040 by two completely contradictory thoughts. It wasn't him and it 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.600 had to be him. Now, she stood stiffly in the 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:01.120 police station hallway, trying not to visibly shake. Then, finally, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.520 she watched on as a small figure silhouetted in the distance, 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:11.200 walked towards her, flanked by two police detectives. As the 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:16.600 boy drew closer, Christine felt dread curling in her stomach again. 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:22.400 The physical resemblance was undeniable, but he didn't carry himself 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:27.280 like Walter at all. His gait was stiff, almost formal, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.080 with none of the energy she associated with her son, 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.560 and when he smiled at her, her chill ran down 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.000 her spine. When she looked into his eyes, all she 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:46.120 saw was a stranger. Christine looked round at the gathered journalists, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:51.520 their pens poised impatiently over their notepads. She knew what 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.080 they were expecting from her. Knew the role she was 0:13:55.080 --> 0:14:00.280 supposed to play, but she wasn't about to lie. She couldn't. 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:06.559 She looked to Jones and said, loudly and clearly, I'm sorry, Captain, 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:11.080 I do not think that is my son. Shocked murmurs 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.600 broke out among the gathered reporters, who all began frantically writing, 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.640 trying to take down every detail of this bizarre exchange. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:25.040 But Jones didn't seem fazed. He simply continued to smile 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.560 and told her that she was mistaken. The boy standing 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.760 before her was Walter Collins. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:42.000 Christine was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, wrung out by 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.600 months of terror and by the confusion of the past 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.880 few days, and as she looked around at the police 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.560 and the reporters, she saw only shocked and surprised faces. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.800 Were some even angry at her, She wondered, did they 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.560 think think she'd gone crazy? Not Able to recognize her 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.360 own son, She looked down at the boy, who'd remained 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.960 still and smiling up at her throughout. He held his 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.280 hand out for her to take it. Could she be wrong, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:23.320 she thought, Captain Joan stepped forward, why don't you just 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.800 take him home for a while, try him out, And 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.560 with that, Christine took the boy's hand and led him 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:42.160 away from the police station and into her car. For 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:47.760 three weeks, Christine Collins did exactly as Captain Jones had asked. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.640 The boy slept in Walter's bed, wore Walter's clothes, and 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:59.280 played with Walter's toys. He was polite and pleasant, well behaved. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.320 He ate whatever she put in front of him, brushed 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.120 his teeth, and went to bed when she told him to. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.320 And all that time Christine tried her hardest to believe 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.440 it was Walter, But whenever she asked the boy anything 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.560 about where he'd been or why he'd run away, he 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.960 went quiet. It felt, for the most part that she 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.520 was living in some kind of waking dream or a 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:33.400 parallel reality. Her house had been painfully empty for months 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.840 in Walter's absence, but the presence of this child was 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:42.240 even worse than the emptiness. It began to unnerve her. 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.200 After some time, Christine invited a few of her most 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.240 trusted friends into the house to see the boy for themselves. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.080 Much to her horror, they all agreed with her. The 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.120 boy was not Walter. As much to prove it to 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:06.760 herself as anything else, Christine procured copies of Walter's dental records. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:12.080 It confirmed her worst fears. Walter had had several fillings 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:17.000 over the years, whereas this boy had none. In fact, 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.840 judging by the state of his teeth, he'd never visited 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.760 a dentist in his life, and so three weeks after 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.520 bringing the boy home, Christine took him back to the 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:35.320 LAPD and brought Walter's dental records with her. In addition, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:40.119 Christine took a handful of sworn statements from various people 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.280 in her life who knew Walter, testifying that the boy 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:49.800 was not him. Once again, Captain Joseph Jones was there 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:55.760 to meet her, but this time without the smile. As 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.359 he led her into an interrogation room, she felt like 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:04.040 a criminal. As she laid out her evidence piece by piece, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:09.560 Captain Jones's face hardened and the muscles in his neck tensed. 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.320 He wouldn't even look at her as she spoke. When 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.400 she finished, he stayed silent for a long time, then 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:24.280 finally asked quietly, what are you trying to do? Christine 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:28.960 didn't understand the question, are you trying to make fools 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.320 out of all of us, he hissed, Or are you 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.240 trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.680 the state provide for your son? You are the most 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:44.879 cruel hearted woman I've ever known. Christine was stunned into silence. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.840 Perhaps Captain Joseph Jones genuinely believed what he was saying, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.359 or perhaps he was so committed to the idea of 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:05.240 himself as the heroic cop who'd successfully brought Walter Collins 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.800 home that he just wasn't willing to give that away. 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:14.880 Either way, his mind was made up. You're under arrest, 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:22.320 he said. Christine blinked, had she heard that correctly? You're insane, 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.159 said Jones, and you belong in the madhouse. Then he 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.840 promptly handcuffed her and told his officers to prepare a car. 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:37.960 Captain Jones had Christine committed to the Los Angeles County 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.000 General Hospital, where she underwent a battery of cognitive and 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:47.600 neurological tests. She was given no indication of when or 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:52.520 if she would ever be released. Based on what Jones 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:57.159 told them, psychiatric staff at the hospital probably suspected that 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:02.800 Christine had a psychological condition called capgrass syndrome, which is 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.320 also called the delusion of doubles. The syndrome is an 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.960 extremely rare delusion in which a person believes that a 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.000 loved one has been replaced by a doppel ganger, a 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.440 change link, if you like. It can be a symptom 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:25.359 of psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia or schizo effective disorder, and 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.119 can also be caused by brain damage or by neurological 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:36.840 conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Christine had none of these. With 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.080 Walter Collins's mother out of the way, Captain Jones had 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.640 hoped the issue would quickly disappear. He could maintain that 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:50.440 she was the problem. But with the supposed Walter now 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.840 back in police custody, things soon began to unravel when 0:20:54.880 --> 0:21:01.000 its colleagues questioned him. At first, he seemed shy, maybe nervous, 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:06.680 unwilling to answer their questions, But when one officer demanded 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.680 to know directly if his name was Walter, the boy 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:17.000 finally cracked. No. He said his name was Arthur Hutchins 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.240 and he was from Iowa. He'd made it all up 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.040 like something from a grim's fairy tale. Twelve year old 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.840 Arthur Hutchins had a lot to run away from. After 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.840 his mother's death the year before, he'd been sent to 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.240 live with his emotionally distant father and his stepmother. Their 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.800 house was in an isolated part of Iowa, where Arthur 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.680 had felt cut off from the rest of the world. 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.880 He was miserable and lonely and couldn't see any future 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:01.959 for himself. So in June of ninetheen twenty eight, he fled. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:05.640 He hitched a ride out of the state, ending up 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.840 in Illinois, where he tried to scrape a living through 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:13.560 odd jobs. It was tough. He worried constantly that his 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.919 father and stepmother would catch him and force him to 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.080 come home. What he needed was a whole new identity. 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.960 One day, when Arthur was at a roadside Dinah, a 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:31.640 couple stopped him. They asked if he was from California. Confused, 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.160 he said no. The couples shook their heads in astonishment. 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.800 He looked so much like him that boy who went 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:47.159 missing in La Walter Collins. Arthur was intrigued. Back at 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.159 his father's in Iowa. One of the only things that 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:55.159 brought him comfort had been watching cowboy movies. He'd sometimes 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.200 fantasized about going to Los Angeles and meeting his favorite 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:04.959 Western star Tom Mix. Now an opportunity had been dropped 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.080 in his lap, and he knew he had to seize it. 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:13.560 He didn't hesitate, didn't stop to think. So when he 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:17.600 bumped into Sheriff Elenor Donder, he told her that he 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:24.400 was Walter Collins, and so the erard began hearing all this. 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:29.679 Captain Joseph Jones finally had to admit to himself that 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:33.920 Christine Collins had been right all along. Not only had 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.880 his department failed to bring home her missing son, they 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.960 had treated her like a criminal and put her through 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:46.160 psychological hell. When she was finally released from the psychiatric 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:51.439 ward after five days, Christine, still without any news on 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:56.000 the fate of her real son, was furious. She filed 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:01.520 a false imprisonment complaint against Jones, his police chief James Davis, 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.119 and the city of Los Angeles. With his career and 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:10.320 reputation on the brink, Captain Jones was now hell bent 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:16.800 on finding something, anything, to redeem the bungled Walter Collins investigation. 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:28.919 They needed a breakthrough and fast. Around the same time, 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:34.080 when Albert Hutchins ruse was discovered, nineteen year old Jesse 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:38.040 Clark traveled from her home in Canada to a small 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:43.399 farm holding in Riverside County, California, about fifty miles east 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:48.920 of la The land belonged to a mister Northcott, who 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:52.120 two years previously had bought it up for his then 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:57.240 nineteen year old son, Gordon. Under the pretext of needing 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.800 help to build a house and a chicken coop, Gordon 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:05.320 invited his nephew, the then eleven year old Sandford Clerk, 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:11.320 Jesse's brother, to come and stay with him. Having not 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:15.359 heard from her brother for a few years, Jesse decided 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:18.760 to travel down to Riverside County to see if he 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:24.440 was okay. What Jesse found there shocked her. Her brother, 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:28.440 Sandford was no longer the bright young boy who'd left 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:34.080 Canada four years before, and he was clearly terrified of Gordon. 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:39.280 Late one night, he revealed that Gordon was keeping him 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:43.040 a prisoner at the ranch and that he'd done unspeakable 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:47.600 things to him and had also murdered at least four 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:53.399 boys during his time there. A terrified Jesse returned home 0:25:53.480 --> 0:26:00.520 the following week and immediately contacted US Immigration services were 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:04.600 sent to the Northcott branch to question Gordon, but When 0:26:04.640 --> 0:26:09.200 he saw them approaching, he fled. He and his mother, 0:26:09.720 --> 0:26:14.720 Sarah Luise, were eventually picked up in Vernon in Western Canada. 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:21.280 As it transpired, it was all true. Gordon, with the 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:25.360 help of his mother, had murdered and molested those boys, 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:31.159 along with possibly sixteen others, including the Winslow brothers and 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:35.000 the boy whose decapitated body was found in a bag 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:40.720 in Lapoente, and according to Sanford Clark, he had murdered 0:26:40.760 --> 0:26:47.240 Walter Collins too. Six months on from Walter's disappearance, the 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:53.080 LAPD finally had a suspect. Now the truth was finally 0:26:53.119 --> 0:26:57.400 out and people understood the full extent of what Christine 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:01.480 Collins had been put through. The story spread like wildfire, 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:07.240 drawing outrage across the country. The Police Commission held a 0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:13.000 hearing but ultimately refused to discipline Captain Jones. However, the 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:17.200 city's Health and Welfare Committee didn't let him off so easily. 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:22.160 With Christine there to give testimony, backed up by her dentist, 0:27:22.800 --> 0:27:25.960 the committee felt they had no choice but to recommend 0:27:26.000 --> 0:27:30.960 the removal of both Captain Jones and his chief James Davis. 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:35.960 Both were suspended from the department and Captain Jones was 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:40.160 ordered to pay eleven thousand dollars in damages to Christine, 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:45.600 close to two hundred thousand dollars in today's money. But 0:27:45.720 --> 0:27:50.840 what Christine wanted more than anything else was answers. She 0:27:50.960 --> 0:28:01.240 wanted to know what had happened to her son. When 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:05.320 the police searched the north Cott's chicken farm, they found 0:28:05.359 --> 0:28:09.919 at least two graves containing human remains. They also found 0:28:09.960 --> 0:28:15.360 clothing and possessions belonging to several of Northcott's victims, strongly 0:28:15.400 --> 0:28:19.840 suggesting that the remains were theirs, but they found no 0:28:19.960 --> 0:28:26.640 trace of Walter Collins. In December nineteen twenty eight, Gordon 0:28:26.760 --> 0:28:30.639 Northcott was charged with four counts of murder in a 0:28:30.720 --> 0:28:34.680 spree that became known as the Wineville Chicken Coop murders. 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:40.680 Walter Collins was among the named victims, but Gordon's mother 0:28:40.840 --> 0:28:45.520 and accomplice, Sarah Louise Northcott, was first to stand trial. 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:51.200 Much to the surprise of everyone present, she confessed to 0:28:51.320 --> 0:28:56.920 murdering Walter herself with an axe. She claimed that the 0:28:57.000 --> 0:29:01.360 murder took place on March sixteen, six days after Walter 0:29:01.480 --> 0:29:06.480 had gone missing. Everybody was stunned by this admission, not 0:29:06.640 --> 0:29:10.920 least of all Gordon Northcott himself, who called his mother 0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:15.200 crazy when he heard the news, but her confession was 0:29:15.280 --> 0:29:18.440 good enough for the judge who sentenced her to life 0:29:18.480 --> 0:29:24.000 in prison. Two months later, Gordon Northcott was found guilty 0:29:24.040 --> 0:29:28.480 of killing three of the four victims, all except Walter. 0:29:29.840 --> 0:29:32.680 Given the lack of physical evidence and the fact that 0:29:32.760 --> 0:29:37.440 Sarah Luise had already confessed to killing Walter, this didn't 0:29:37.480 --> 0:29:42.720 come as a surprise to anyone. On paper, Walter's killer 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:46.400 had been captured and convicted, but the lack of clarity 0:29:46.840 --> 0:30:00.240 surrounding the Northcott's confessions left a lingering sense of confusion. Christine, 0:30:00.400 --> 0:30:04.200 who'd endured close to a year of agony, was still 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:08.760 desperate for concrete answers, and so when she received a 0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:13.160 telegram from Gordon Northcott in the fall of nineteen thirty, 0:30:13.760 --> 0:30:18.400 she clung onto every word. Northcott was on death row 0:30:18.680 --> 0:30:23.160 at the time, and his execution was days away. He 0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:25.959 told Christine that if she came to visit him in 0:30:26.040 --> 0:30:29.800 person on the eve of his execution, he would tell 0:30:29.840 --> 0:30:35.320 her the truth about what happened to Walter. Christine didn't hesitate. 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:40.719 On October twod she arrived at San Quentin Prison and 0:30:40.920 --> 0:30:45.160 was escorted in to see north Cot, but when they 0:30:45.200 --> 0:30:49.200 came face to face, Northcott seemed to lose his nerve. 0:30:50.280 --> 0:30:53.160 I don't want to see I don't know anything about it. 0:30:53.600 --> 0:30:59.840 I'm innocent, he pleaded pathetically before being led away. Chris 0:31:00.040 --> 0:31:03.840 Rostein hoped to use the ten thousand dollars that Captain 0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:07.600 Jones was ordered to pay her to continue her search 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:11.960 for Walter, but he never paid it. Every time he 0:31:12.080 --> 0:31:15.920 was called back to court to explain himself, he simply 0:31:16.480 --> 0:31:21.360 claimed to be broke. To add insult to injury. He 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:25.680 was soon after reinstated at the LAPD, as was his 0:31:25.760 --> 0:31:31.760 superior chief, James Davis. But some things did change. As 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:36.680 a resolve to Christine's relentless pursuit of justice after her 0:31:36.720 --> 0:31:42.200 wrongful imprisonment claim, California lawmakers passed a bill that drastically 0:31:42.240 --> 0:31:46.360 limited the police's ability to commit people against their will. 0:31:48.680 --> 0:31:54.200 Much ambiguity and unanswered questions still surrounded the Wineville Chicken 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:59.600 Coop murders. Five years after Gordon Northcott was hanged, one 0:31:59.640 --> 0:32:02.920 of the boys he was accused of killing turned out 0:32:03.160 --> 0:32:09.720 to be alive. Sadly for Christine, it wasn't Walter. Buoyed 0:32:09.760 --> 0:32:13.560 by this development, However, she never gave up hope that 0:32:13.680 --> 0:32:17.960 her son was alive. She continued to search for him 0:32:18.400 --> 0:32:23.400 write up until the day she died in December nineteen 0:32:23.520 --> 0:32:28.640 sixty four. To this day, no physical trace of Walter 0:32:29.280 --> 0:32:37.400 has ever been found. This episode was written by Emma 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:44.320 Dibden and produced by me Richard McLain smith Unexplained as 0:32:44.360 --> 0:32:48.680 an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. 0:32:49.360 --> 0:32:52.640 All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were 0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:57.320