Speaker 1: Please note this episode contains disturbing reports of child murder
Speaker 1: and sexual abuse. Parental discretion is advised. March tenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight, was a bright and crisp Saturday morning in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. In Mount Washington, a suburban neighborhood tucked into
Speaker 1: the hills northeast of the city. Kids rode bikes along
Speaker 1: neat sidewalks and played kickball in their front yards, but
Speaker 1: nine year old Walter Collins was restless. It spent all
Speaker 1: week looking forward to Saturday, the day when he got
Speaker 1: to do his favorite thing in the entire world. Walter
Speaker 1: loved movies, and every Saturday afternoon he went to see
Speaker 1: whatever was playing at the local theater. Sometimes his mum, Christine,
Speaker 1: would go with him, but that day Christine was tired.
Speaker 1: She was a single mother working long hours at a
Speaker 1: telephone company to support herself and her son, and she
Speaker 1: desperately needed a rest, so she gave Walter a dime
Speaker 1: and sent him off to the pictures. She watched as
Speaker 1: he paddled off down the road just before noon in
Speaker 1: his cordroy suit with a shirt, polished black shoes, and
Speaker 1: a gray cap. Walter liked to dress up for the cinema.
Speaker 1: It was only a short bike ride from the house,
Speaker 1: and the area was safe and sleepy. Parents didn't think
Speaker 1: twice about letting their kids go out alone during the day,
Speaker 1: But when Walter hadn't returned by four p m. Christine
Speaker 1: began to worry. She called round to the houses of
Speaker 1: Walter's friends to see if he'd made a detour on
Speaker 1: his way back from the cinema, but nobody had seen
Speaker 1: him back home. Christine paced back and forth in her
Speaker 1: living room, staring out the window as every worst thought
Speaker 1: raised through her head. After five hours, her son had
Speaker 1: still not turned up. Unable to bear it any longer,
Speaker 1: she called the police and reported her son Walter as missing.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean Smith.
Speaker 1: Walter Collins's disappearance would have been alarming for Christine under
Speaker 1: any circumstances, but that spring there was even more reason
Speaker 1: to be fearful. Just three months earlier, a young man
Speaker 1: walked into Mount Vernon Junior High School in Ali's Lafayette
Speaker 1: Square and introduced himself as mister Cooper. He claimed to
Speaker 1: be an employed joy of local banker Perry Parker, whose
Speaker 1: twelve year old daughter, Marian, attended the school. His instructions,
Speaker 1: he said, were to collect Marian immediately and take her home,
Speaker 1: as her father had suffered a terrible accident. Only Perry
Speaker 1: Parker had suffered no such accident, and he had never
Speaker 1: heard of any mister Cooper. The following day, Parker and
Speaker 1: his wife received a series of ransom notes demanding money
Speaker 1: in exchange for the safe release of their daughter. A
Speaker 1: rendezvous was arranged for two days later, whereupon Perry went
Speaker 1: to meet with the mysterious mister Cooper. When he got there,
Speaker 1: Perry was hugely relieved to find the man waiting for
Speaker 1: him in his car, while his daughter, Marian was clearly
Speaker 1: visible in the seat beside him, staring out at the window.
Speaker 1: Perry was happy to see she was still alive, but oddly,
Speaker 1: when he called out to her, she seemed not to
Speaker 1: register him. Terrified that she'd been drugged, Perry hurriedly bundled
Speaker 1: the money over to the man, who grabbed it, then
Speaker 1: jumped straight back into his car and drove off, but
Speaker 1: not before shoving the young girl out of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: As he sped off, Perry rushed toward his daughter, only
Speaker 1: to be suddenly gripped by a paralyzing horror. Marian's body
Speaker 1: lay still on the road. Her eyes were open, but
Speaker 1: only because they'd been fixed that way with piano wire.
Speaker 1: She'd been dead for some time, and both her arms
Speaker 1: and legs were missing. Her limbs were later found in
Speaker 1: a Lycian park, barely a ten minute drive from Walter
Speaker 1: Collins's home. However, Marion Parker's his murderer was caught a
Speaker 1: few days later and identified as nineteen year old William Hickman.
Speaker 1: After committing what the Los Angeles Times called the most
Speaker 1: horrible crime of the nineteen twenties, he was sentenced to hang.
Speaker 1: But in February of nineteen twenty eight, just as Hickman's
Speaker 1: murder trial was beginning, La Sheriff's deputies found the headless
Speaker 1: body of a teenage boy in a bag left in
Speaker 1: a ditch in Laparuente. He'd been shot through the heart
Speaker 1: and then decapitated. His murderer was very much still on
Speaker 1: the loose. After Christine called nine one one and reported
Speaker 1: while to missing, police officers across the region were given
Speaker 1: his description. A nationwide search was launched, along with an
Speaker 1: appeal to the public for any information over the next
Speaker 1: few weeks, the Los Angeles Police Department received countless tips
Speaker 1: and leads from across the state of California. One person
Speaker 1: claimed to have seen Walter at a gas station in Glendale,
Speaker 1: a suburb of LA. The description was eerie. They said
Speaker 1: that the boy was dead in the backseat of a car,
Speaker 1: wrapped in newspaper like a mummy, with only his head
Speaker 1: peeking out. Others reported that they'd seen Walter in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: more than three hundred miles north of Los Angeles. Walter's father,
Speaker 1: who was serving time in Falsome Prison, wondered if his
Speaker 1: son had been kidnapped by a former inmate with a
Speaker 1: grudge against him. When one lead suggested he might have
Speaker 1: been drowned in LA's Lincoln Park Lake, just south of
Speaker 1: Walter's home, they dragged the whole of it but found nothing.
Speaker 1: Time and again the police came up empty handed, and
Speaker 1: even as the case gathered attention across the US, the
Speaker 1: trail went colder and colder. One bright day in May
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight, twelve year old Lewis Winslow and his
Speaker 1: ten year old brother Nelson left their home in Pomona, California,
Speaker 1: just east of La to attend a meeting of a
Speaker 1: local model yacht club, but the boys never came back.
Speaker 1: For two weeks, the police followed all leads again to
Speaker 1: no avail. Then one morning, the boy's family received a
Speaker 1: note in the post, supposedly from the two brothers. It
Speaker 1: was scribbled on a page of a book taken from
Speaker 1: their local library. It made no sense whatsoever. The message
Speaker 1: stated that the boys had apparently gone on a trip
Speaker 1: to Mexico to find gold. A handful of police officers
Speaker 1: were sent to the Mexican border to look out for
Speaker 1: the boys in the hope they might spot them coming
Speaker 1: back into the United States if indeed they were even
Speaker 1: in Mexico in the first place, but they failed to
Speaker 1: find them. The disappearance of the Winslows piled even more
Speaker 1: pressure onto the LAPD to find Walter Collins. All the while,
Speaker 1: the public were growing increasingly scared for the safety of
Speaker 1: their children. They needed answers. For months, the police continued
Speaker 1: in their efforts to unlock the mystery, until finally, in August,
Speaker 1: something extraordinary happened. It was one day in August, while
Speaker 1: walking her beat in DeKalb, Illinois, that local sheriff Helena
Speaker 1: Dolder picked up a young boy who seemed to be
Speaker 1: living on the streets. The boy said little as she
Speaker 1: took him home and let him play with her children
Speaker 1: while she figured out what best to do with him. Then,
Speaker 1: finally the boy began to talk. He was Walter Collins,
Speaker 1: he said, and all he wanted was to go home
Speaker 1: to his mother in Los Angeles. Astonished, Sheriff Dolder quickly
Speaker 1: passed the information on to the LAPD. After months upon
Speaker 1: months of dead ends, it seemed finally the case was solved.
Speaker 1: But better yet, Walter was alive. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: just how his mother, Christine must have felt when she
Speaker 1: received the calls that day. She drove faster than she
Speaker 1: ever had in her life to get to the police
Speaker 1: station to confirm Walter's identity. Sheriff Dolda's team in De
Speaker 1: Kalb had sent photos in advance of bringing the boy
Speaker 1: to the city so Christine could confirm it was indeed
Speaker 1: her son. It was just a formality as far as
Speaker 1: she was concerned, just one final hurdle to clear before
Speaker 1: the nightmare could be over. Waiting to meet her at
Speaker 1: the station was Captain Joseph Jones, the head of the
Speaker 1: LAPD's juvenile division. He took her into his office and
Speaker 1: handed her the photographs, unable to suppress the triumphant smile
Speaker 1: that spread across his face. But when Christine looked down
Speaker 1: at the first picture, her face fell. It isn't Walter,
Speaker 1: she said. Sure. He had the same hair, the same dimples,
Speaker 1: and was a similar build, but as far as she
Speaker 1: was concerned, it wasn't him. Captain Jones was stunned. Are
Speaker 1: you sure, he asked her, looking skeptical. Maybe all the
Speaker 1: stress of the last few months had clouded her memory
Speaker 1: of him, He said, Perhaps she should look again, and
Speaker 1: so she did. To lose a child is the worst
Speaker 1: thing that can ever happen to a parent. Christine wanted
Speaker 1: the boy to be Walter. She wanted it more than anything.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was wrong, she said, much to Captain Jones's relief. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: he said to her, You've got your son back. Christine
Speaker 1: smiled weakly in return, Yes, she said, I have. It
Speaker 1: was a sweltering August morning when a crowd of reporters
Speaker 1: warmed the LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, jostling for
Speaker 1: position on the concrete steps. Only a select group of
Speaker 1: media outlets had been given access to go inside the
Speaker 1: building where Christine Collins would soon be reunited with her
Speaker 1: missing son, Walter. Christine hadn't slept at all the night before,
Speaker 1: the image of the boy in the photograph loomed before her.
Speaker 1: Every time she closed her eyes, her mind raised, consumed
Speaker 1: by two completely contradictory thoughts. It wasn't him and it
Speaker 1: had to be him. Now, she stood stiffly in the
Speaker 1: police station hallway, trying not to visibly shake. Then, finally,
Speaker 1: she watched on as a small figure silhouetted in the distance,
Speaker 1: walked towards her, flanked by two police detectives. As the
Speaker 1: boy drew closer, Christine felt dread curling in her stomach again.
Speaker 1: The physical resemblance was undeniable, but he didn't carry himself
Speaker 1: like Walter at all. His gait was stiff, almost formal,
Speaker 1: with none of the energy she associated with her son,
Speaker 1: and when he smiled at her, her chill ran down
Speaker 1: her spine. When she looked into his eyes, all she
Speaker 1: saw was a stranger. Christine looked round at the gathered journalists,
Speaker 1: their pens poised impatiently over their notepads. She knew what
Speaker 1: they were expecting from her. Knew the role she was
Speaker 1: supposed to play, but she wasn't about to lie. She couldn't.
Speaker 1: She looked to Jones and said, loudly and clearly, I'm sorry, Captain,
Speaker 1: I do not think that is my son. Shocked murmurs
Speaker 1: broke out among the gathered reporters, who all began frantically writing,
Speaker 1: trying to take down every detail of this bizarre exchange.
Speaker 1: But Jones didn't seem fazed. He simply continued to smile
Speaker 1: and told her that she was mistaken. The boy standing
Speaker 1: before her was Walter Collins. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 1: Christine was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, wrung out by
Speaker 1: months of terror and by the confusion of the past
Speaker 1: few days, and as she looked around at the police
Speaker 1: and the reporters, she saw only shocked and surprised faces.
Speaker 1: Were some even angry at her, She wondered, did they
Speaker 1: think think she'd gone crazy? Not Able to recognize her
Speaker 1: own son, She looked down at the boy, who'd remained
Speaker 1: still and smiling up at her throughout. He held his
Speaker 1: hand out for her to take it. Could she be wrong,
Speaker 1: she thought, Captain Joan stepped forward, why don't you just
Speaker 1: take him home for a while, try him out, And
Speaker 1: with that, Christine took the boy's hand and led him
Speaker 1: away from the police station and into her car. For
Speaker 1: three weeks, Christine Collins did exactly as Captain Jones had asked.
Speaker 1: The boy slept in Walter's bed, wore Walter's clothes, and
Speaker 1: played with Walter's toys. He was polite and pleasant, well behaved.
Speaker 1: He ate whatever she put in front of him, brushed
Speaker 1: his teeth, and went to bed when she told him to.
Speaker 1: And all that time Christine tried her hardest to believe
Speaker 1: it was Walter, But whenever she asked the boy anything
Speaker 1: about where he'd been or why he'd run away, he
Speaker 1: went quiet. It felt, for the most part that she
Speaker 1: was living in some kind of waking dream or a
Speaker 1: parallel reality. Her house had been painfully empty for months
Speaker 1: in Walter's absence, but the presence of this child was
Speaker 1: even worse than the emptiness. It began to unnerve her.
Speaker 1: After some time, Christine invited a few of her most
Speaker 1: trusted friends into the house to see the boy for themselves.
Speaker 1: Much to her horror, they all agreed with her. The
Speaker 1: boy was not Walter. As much to prove it to
Speaker 1: herself as anything else, Christine procured copies of Walter's dental records.
Speaker 1: It confirmed her worst fears. Walter had had several fillings
Speaker 1: over the years, whereas this boy had none. In fact,
Speaker 1: judging by the state of his teeth, he'd never visited
Speaker 1: a dentist in his life, and so three weeks after
Speaker 1: bringing the boy home, Christine took him back to the
Speaker 1: LAPD and brought Walter's dental records with her. In addition,
Speaker 1: Christine took a handful of sworn statements from various people
Speaker 1: in her life who knew Walter, testifying that the boy
Speaker 1: was not him. Once again, Captain Joseph Jones was there
Speaker 1: to meet her, but this time without the smile. As
Speaker 1: he led her into an interrogation room, she felt like
Speaker 1: a criminal. As she laid out her evidence piece by piece,
Speaker 1: Captain Jones's face hardened and the muscles in his neck tensed.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't even look at her as she spoke. When
Speaker 1: she finished, he stayed silent for a long time, then
Speaker 1: finally asked quietly, what are you trying to do? Christine
Speaker 1: didn't understand the question, are you trying to make fools
Speaker 1: out of all of us, he hissed, Or are you
Speaker 1: trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have
Speaker 1: the state provide for your son? You are the most
Speaker 1: cruel hearted woman I've ever known. Christine was stunned into silence.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Captain Joseph Jones genuinely believed what he was saying,
Speaker 1: or perhaps he was so committed to the idea of
Speaker 1: himself as the heroic cop who'd successfully brought Walter Collins
Speaker 1: home that he just wasn't willing to give that away.
Speaker 1: Either way, his mind was made up. You're under arrest,
Speaker 1: he said. Christine blinked, had she heard that correctly? You're insane,
Speaker 1: said Jones, and you belong in the madhouse. Then he
Speaker 1: promptly handcuffed her and told his officers to prepare a car.
Speaker 1: Captain Jones had Christine committed to the Los Angeles County
Speaker 1: General Hospital, where she underwent a battery of cognitive and
Speaker 1: neurological tests. She was given no indication of when or
Speaker 1: if she would ever be released. Based on what Jones
Speaker 1: told them, psychiatric staff at the hospital probably suspected that
Speaker 1: Christine had a psychological condition called capgrass syndrome, which is
Speaker 1: also called the delusion of doubles. The syndrome is an
Speaker 1: extremely rare delusion in which a person believes that a
Speaker 1: loved one has been replaced by a doppel ganger, a
Speaker 1: change link, if you like. It can be a symptom
Speaker 1: of psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia or schizo effective disorder, and
Speaker 1: can also be caused by brain damage or by neurological
Speaker 1: conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Christine had none of these. With
Speaker 1: Walter Collins's mother out of the way, Captain Jones had
Speaker 1: hoped the issue would quickly disappear. He could maintain that
Speaker 1: she was the problem. But with the supposed Walter now
Speaker 1: back in police custody, things soon began to unravel when
Speaker 1: its colleagues questioned him. At first, he seemed shy, maybe nervous,
Speaker 1: unwilling to answer their questions, But when one officer demanded
Speaker 1: to know directly if his name was Walter, the boy
Speaker 1: finally cracked. No. He said his name was Arthur Hutchins
Speaker 1: and he was from Iowa. He'd made it all up
Speaker 1: like something from a grim's fairy tale. Twelve year old
Speaker 1: Arthur Hutchins had a lot to run away from. After
Speaker 1: his mother's death the year before, he'd been sent to
Speaker 1: live with his emotionally distant father and his stepmother. Their
Speaker 1: house was in an isolated part of Iowa, where Arthur
Speaker 1: had felt cut off from the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: He was miserable and lonely and couldn't see any future
Speaker 1: for himself. So in June of ninetheen twenty eight, he fled.
Speaker 1: He hitched a ride out of the state, ending up
Speaker 1: in Illinois, where he tried to scrape a living through
Speaker 1: odd jobs. It was tough. He worried constantly that his
Speaker 1: father and stepmother would catch him and force him to
Speaker 1: come home. What he needed was a whole new identity.
Speaker 1: One day, when Arthur was at a roadside Dinah, a
Speaker 1: couple stopped him. They asked if he was from California. Confused,
Speaker 1: he said no. The couples shook their heads in astonishment.
Speaker 1: He looked so much like him that boy who went
Speaker 1: missing in La Walter Collins. Arthur was intrigued. Back at
Speaker 1: his father's in Iowa. One of the only things that
Speaker 1: brought him comfort had been watching cowboy movies. He'd sometimes
Speaker 1: fantasized about going to Los Angeles and meeting his favorite
Speaker 1: Western star Tom Mix. Now an opportunity had been dropped
Speaker 1: in his lap, and he knew he had to seize it.
Speaker 1: He didn't hesitate, didn't stop to think. So when he
Speaker 1: bumped into Sheriff Elenor Donder, he told her that he
Speaker 1: was Walter Collins, and so the erard began hearing all this.
Speaker 1: Captain Joseph Jones finally had to admit to himself that
Speaker 1: Christine Collins had been right all along. Not only had
Speaker 1: his department failed to bring home her missing son, they
Speaker 1: had treated her like a criminal and put her through
Speaker 1: psychological hell. When she was finally released from the psychiatric
Speaker 1: ward after five days, Christine, still without any news on
Speaker 1: the fate of her real son, was furious. She filed
Speaker 1: a false imprisonment complaint against Jones, his police chief James Davis,
Speaker 1: and the city of Los Angeles. With his career and
Speaker 1: reputation on the brink, Captain Jones was now hell bent
Speaker 1: on finding something, anything, to redeem the bungled Walter Collins investigation.
Speaker 1: They needed a breakthrough and fast. Around the same time,
Speaker 1: when Albert Hutchins ruse was discovered, nineteen year old Jesse
Speaker 1: Clark traveled from her home in Canada to a small
Speaker 1: farm holding in Riverside County, California, about fifty miles east
Speaker 1: of la The land belonged to a mister Northcott, who
Speaker 1: two years previously had bought it up for his then
Speaker 1: nineteen year old son, Gordon. Under the pretext of needing
Speaker 1: help to build a house and a chicken coop, Gordon
Speaker 1: invited his nephew, the then eleven year old Sandford Clerk,
Speaker 1: Jesse's brother, to come and stay with him. Having not
Speaker 1: heard from her brother for a few years, Jesse decided
Speaker 1: to travel down to Riverside County to see if he
Speaker 1: was okay. What Jesse found there shocked her. Her brother,
Speaker 1: Sandford was no longer the bright young boy who'd left
Speaker 1: Canada four years before, and he was clearly terrified of Gordon.
Speaker 1: Late one night, he revealed that Gordon was keeping him
Speaker 1: a prisoner at the ranch and that he'd done unspeakable
Speaker 1: things to him and had also murdered at least four
Speaker 1: boys during his time there. A terrified Jesse returned home
Speaker 1: the following week and immediately contacted US Immigration services were
Speaker 1: sent to the Northcott branch to question Gordon, but When
Speaker 1: he saw them approaching, he fled. He and his mother,
Speaker 1: Sarah Luise, were eventually picked up in Vernon in Western Canada.
Speaker 1: As it transpired, it was all true. Gordon, with the
Speaker 1: help of his mother, had murdered and molested those boys,
Speaker 1: along with possibly sixteen others, including the Winslow brothers and
Speaker 1: the boy whose decapitated body was found in a bag
Speaker 1: in Lapoente, and according to Sanford Clark, he had murdered
Speaker 1: Walter Collins too. Six months on from Walter's disappearance, the
Speaker 1: LAPD finally had a suspect. Now the truth was finally
Speaker 1: out and people understood the full extent of what Christine
Speaker 1: Collins had been put through. The story spread like wildfire,
Speaker 1: drawing outrage across the country. The Police Commission held a
Speaker 1: hearing but ultimately refused to discipline Captain Jones. However, the
Speaker 1: city's Health and Welfare Committee didn't let him off so easily.
Speaker 1: With Christine there to give testimony, backed up by her dentist,
Speaker 1: the committee felt they had no choice but to recommend
Speaker 1: the removal of both Captain Jones and his chief James Davis.
Speaker 1: Both were suspended from the department and Captain Jones was
Speaker 1: ordered to pay eleven thousand dollars in damages to Christine,
Speaker 1: close to two hundred thousand dollars in today's money. But
Speaker 1: what Christine wanted more than anything else was answers. She
Speaker 1: wanted to know what had happened to her son. When
Speaker 1: the police searched the north Cott's chicken farm, they found
Speaker 1: at least two graves containing human remains. They also found
Speaker 1: clothing and possessions belonging to several of Northcott's victims, strongly
Speaker 1: suggesting that the remains were theirs, but they found no
Speaker 1: trace of Walter Collins. In December nineteen twenty eight, Gordon
Speaker 1: Northcott was charged with four counts of murder in a
Speaker 1: spree that became known as the Wineville Chicken Coop murders.
Speaker 1: Walter Collins was among the named victims, but Gordon's mother
Speaker 1: and accomplice, Sarah Louise Northcott, was first to stand trial.
Speaker 1: Much to the surprise of everyone present, she confessed to
Speaker 1: murdering Walter herself with an axe. She claimed that the
Speaker 1: murder took place on March sixteen, six days after Walter
Speaker 1: had gone missing. Everybody was stunned by this admission, not
Speaker 1: least of all Gordon Northcott himself, who called his mother
Speaker 1: crazy when he heard the news, but her confession was
Speaker 1: good enough for the judge who sentenced her to life
Speaker 1: in prison. Two months later, Gordon Northcott was found guilty
Speaker 1: of killing three of the four victims, all except Walter.
Speaker 1: Given the lack of physical evidence and the fact that
Speaker 1: Sarah Luise had already confessed to killing Walter, this didn't
Speaker 1: come as a surprise to anyone. On paper, Walter's killer
Speaker 1: had been captured and convicted, but the lack of clarity
Speaker 1: surrounding the Northcott's confessions left a lingering sense of confusion. Christine,
Speaker 1: who'd endured close to a year of agony, was still
Speaker 1: desperate for concrete answers, and so when she received a
Speaker 1: telegram from Gordon Northcott in the fall of nineteen thirty,
Speaker 1: she clung onto every word. Northcott was on death row
Speaker 1: at the time, and his execution was days away. He
Speaker 1: told Christine that if she came to visit him in
Speaker 1: person on the eve of his execution, he would tell
Speaker 1: her the truth about what happened to Walter. Christine didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1: On October twod she arrived at San Quentin Prison and
Speaker 1: was escorted in to see north Cot, but when they
Speaker 1: came face to face, Northcott seemed to lose his nerve.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: I'm innocent, he pleaded pathetically before being led away. Chris
Speaker 1: Rostein hoped to use the ten thousand dollars that Captain
Speaker 1: Jones was ordered to pay her to continue her search
Speaker 1: for Walter, but he never paid it. Every time he
Speaker 1: was called back to court to explain himself, he simply
Speaker 1: claimed to be broke. To add insult to injury. He
Speaker 1: was soon after reinstated at the LAPD, as was his
Speaker 1: superior chief, James Davis. But some things did change. As
Speaker 1: a resolve to Christine's relentless pursuit of justice after her
Speaker 1: wrongful imprisonment claim, California lawmakers passed a bill that drastically
Speaker 1: limited the police's ability to commit people against their will.
Speaker 1: Much ambiguity and unanswered questions still surrounded the Wineville Chicken
Speaker 1: Coop murders. Five years after Gordon Northcott was hanged, one
Speaker 1: of the boys he was accused of killing turned out
Speaker 1: to be alive. Sadly for Christine, it wasn't Walter. Buoyed
Speaker 1: by this development, However, she never gave up hope that
Speaker 1: her son was alive. She continued to search for him
Speaker 1: write up until the day she died in December nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. To this day, no physical trace of Walter
Speaker 1: has ever been found. This episode was written by Emma
Speaker 1: Dibden and produced by me Richard McLain smith Unexplained as
Speaker 1: an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard McClain Smith Unexplained. The book
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