Speaker 1: This week's episode deals with disturbing themes of child sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Parental discretion is advised. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me
Speaker 1: Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes,
Speaker 1: we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason
Speaker 1: or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In
Speaker 1: our last episode, once there was a Way, we heard
Speaker 1: the horrifying story of twelve year old Johnny Gosh, who
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two disappeared from the streets of West
Speaker 1: des Moines in Iowa while out on its paper round.
Speaker 1: Then two years later it happened again. This time it
Speaker 1: was fellow newspaper deliverer and Des Moine resident, thirteen year
Speaker 1: old Eugene Martin. Local police believed it was highly likely
Speaker 1: that the two disappearances were linked. It's been said that
Speaker 1: for many parents in the USA, these disappearances, coming so
Speaker 1: soon after the high profile abduction of six year old
Speaker 1: Eton Pats in New York and the murder of Adam
Speaker 1: Walsh in Florida, also six years old, marked a moment
Speaker 1: of profound change. No more could children be left to
Speaker 1: roam the streets on their own or stay out after
Speaker 1: dark when even supposedly safe Midwestern suburbs offered no protection
Speaker 1: from monsters. A culture of stranger danger had taken hold,
Speaker 1: which later became a full scale moral panic, with some,
Speaker 1: including Johnny Gosh's parents, raising the possibility that their son
Speaker 1: had fallen victim to a highly organized child abuse and
Speaker 1: pornography ring that had links reaching far into the corridors
Speaker 1: of power. One suggested link with the Franklin credit union
Speaker 1: scandal soon morphed into a fanciful conspiracy theory that rich
Speaker 1: and powerful individuals were facilitating the snatching of young children
Speaker 1: from the street so that they might later be abused
Speaker 1: and even murdered at depraved sex parties up and down
Speaker 1: the country. This idea is echoed in much of the
Speaker 1: present day preoccupations of Quanon followers, such as the supposed
Speaker 1: Pizza Gate conspiracy, which alleges that a cabal of powerful
Speaker 1: Satanists are currently engaged in the ritual abuse and murder
Speaker 1: of America's children. Since it isn't actually known what happened
Speaker 1: to Johnny Gosh or Eugene Martin, it isn't known if
Speaker 1: they were sexually abused at all, although if they had
Speaker 1: been abducted and murdered, the likelihood is high. In truth, however,
Speaker 1: children are far more likely to be abused by someone
Speaker 1: they know as opposed to a random stranger snatching them
Speaker 1: from the street. More often than not, the abuse will
Speaker 1: be perpetrated by a member or friend of the family,
Speaker 1: or indeed somebody working within their local community in a
Speaker 1: position of care or authority. Such details are of little
Speaker 1: use for the Gosh and Martin family, however, since there
Speaker 1: are of course exceptions to that rule, and of what
Speaker 1: happened to Johnny and Eugene turned out to be one
Speaker 1: such exception. For their families, that is the only experience
Speaker 1: they would know, and in the absence of an explanation
Speaker 1: as to what happened exactly, it's easy to see how,
Speaker 1: in the desperate hunt for answers, anyone might start to
Speaker 1: draw a number of disparate dots into something that begins
Speaker 1: to look like a cohesive theory, no matter how outlandish
Speaker 1: it might sound. And in the wake of numerous historical
Speaker 1: cases of abuse recently coming to light across the world
Speaker 1: from within religious institutions or care homes, for example, among
Speaker 1: other supposedly good organizations, it can be easy to get
Speaker 1: sucked into outlandish theories when the reality it's not always
Speaker 1: a million miles away. Back in nineteen ninety three, forty
Speaker 1: two year old Bulick Forsythe was an office manager for
Speaker 1: Lambeth Council Social Services in South London. A trusted and
Speaker 1: efficient employee, Bulick's primary job was to manage ten properties
Speaker 1: belonging to the council, as well as drawing up numerous
Speaker 1: health and safety policies for them. His home was a
Speaker 1: ground floor flat in Foster Court at the corner of
Speaker 1: Clapham Park Road and King's Avenue in Clapham, London, where
Speaker 1: he'd lived for four years. Although he lived there alone,
Speaker 1: his wife, Dawn, who was American and six months pregnant
Speaker 1: with their first child, was in the process of moving
Speaker 1: to the UK to join him. Bulick is said to
Speaker 1: have mostly kept himself to himself and was thought to
Speaker 1: have had few friends, and there was no reason to
Speaker 1: suspect anything untoward when he clocked off from work on
Speaker 1: one afternoon in February nineteen ninety three. That Wednesday, February
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, however, was the last time anyone would see
Speaker 1: him alive. According to an episode of Crime Watch, a
Speaker 1: British TV show dedicated to solving unsolved crimes, broadcast five
Speaker 1: months later. At nine am on the morning of Thursday
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, one of Bulick's neighbors noticed his curtains were
Speaker 1: wide open. Thirty minutes later, another neighbor, a resident of
Speaker 1: eighteen years is, claim to have witnessed three men who'd
Speaker 1: never seen before, leaving Foster Court from the direction of
Speaker 1: Bulich's flat. The men were described as being smartly dressed
Speaker 1: and carrying briefcases in their hands and folders under their arms.
Speaker 1: That same neighbor saw a white car parked up behind
Speaker 1: the property that he'd also never seen before. That day,
Speaker 1: Bulick failed to show up at work. At five pm,
Speaker 1: A colleague went round to his flat to check on him,
Speaker 1: but found nobody home, although strangely, the curtains were by
Speaker 1: then closed, suggesting that someone at least had been inside
Speaker 1: the property since nine am that morning. Sometime later in
Speaker 1: the early hours of Friday, around one am, another neighbor
Speaker 1: described hearing a commotion outside their window and the sound
Speaker 1: of people running hurriedly from the air. A short time
Speaker 1: after that, Bulick's flat went up in flames. When firefighters
Speaker 1: finally brought the fire under control, Bulick's dead body was
Speaker 1: found inside, and autopsy revealed that he'd most likely been
Speaker 1: murdered way back on the Wednesday night after being violently
Speaker 1: beaten around the head by a hard object. As mentioned
Speaker 1: in the episode of Crime Watch, some important documents was
Speaker 1: said to be missing from his flat. Now a word
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Speaker 1: this day, Bulick for science murder remains unsolved. In twenty thirteen, however,
Speaker 1: a witness claiming to be a former colleague of his
Speaker 1: toll police that Bulick had confided in her shortly before
Speaker 1: he died that he believed child sexual abuse was taking
Speaker 1: place on Lambeth Council property. It later transpired that at
Speaker 1: the time of his death, the London Metropolitan Police, in
Speaker 1: what was called Operation Bell, were conducting an investigation into
Speaker 1: scores of allegations from children living in Lambeth Council care
Speaker 1: homes who claimed they were being sexually and physically abused
Speaker 1: by staff members. The allegations also included reports that videos
Speaker 1: and photographs had been made of the abuse and implicated
Speaker 1: police and some local politicians. Simultaneously, in the wake of
Speaker 1: these allegations, an internal review was set up conducted by
Speaker 1: Lambeth Council, in which it was uncovered that Bulich had
Speaker 1: indeed spoken to a colleague shortly before he died, telling
Speaker 1: her that he suspected hard abuse was taking place in
Speaker 1: council properties and he was gearing up to reveal everything
Speaker 1: he knew to the police. Three days later, he was murdered.
Speaker 1: Operation Bell concluded in nineteen ninety two, the year before
Speaker 1: Bulich was killed, four individuals in total were charged with
Speaker 1: committing abuse. One was found not guilty because their twelve
Speaker 1: year old accuser was too upset to give evidence in
Speaker 1: the trial, while another was acquitted because it was decided
Speaker 1: not to pursue the accusation because it was more than
Speaker 1: three years old. Only one of those charged was found guilty.
Speaker 1: The man was employed by Lambeth Counsel from nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine to nineteen ninety one, and before that had worked
Speaker 1: as a part time volunteer for the Metropolitan Police. Throughout
Speaker 1: his time in the care homes, numerous children made allegations
Speaker 1: against him, accusing him of raping them and photographing them,
Speaker 1: among other offenses, but they were continually dismissed. In the end,
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Speaker 1: After this man's conviction, it was decided not to look
Speaker 1: any further into what exactly had been taking place in Lambeth,
Speaker 1: but the abuse allegations did not stop. In nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: a second investigation was carried out by the police, which
Speaker 1: this time resulted in five more arrests, including a second
Speaker 1: arrest for the man convicted in nineteen ninety two. He
Speaker 1: was convicted again and sentenced to only another eighteen months,
Speaker 1: while a second man was charged and sentenced to ten
Speaker 1: years is in prison. One of those accused killed himself
Speaker 1: before the conclusion of his trial, another had the charges
Speaker 1: dropped when it was decided there was not enough evidence
Speaker 1: to pursue with the case, while the last was also
Speaker 1: facing a charge for firearms offenses at the time he
Speaker 1: was accused of indecent assault. When he pled guilty to
Speaker 1: the firearms offenses, it was decided that would be sufficient
Speaker 1: and the indecent assault charges were discontinued. In the end,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be until twenty twenty one that the full
Speaker 1: scale of what had been going on was finally uncovered.
Speaker 1: An independent inquiry into child sexual abuse found more than
Speaker 1: seven hundred allegations against Lambeth Council care home staff from
Speaker 1: at least three separate homes, with the true extent of
Speaker 1: the abuse thought to be even higher. It was also
Speaker 1: disclosed in the report that during Operation Belle it was
Speaker 1: discovered that the man, first convicted in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: had made a film showing the abuse of a child
Speaker 1: in the care of Lambeth Council. Concerns have endured that
Speaker 1: he was involved in the large scale production of pornography
Speaker 1: and in decent images of children, and that other staff
Speaker 1: from Lambeth Council may have been involved. The report also
Speaker 1: recommended that police launch an investigation into the death of
Speaker 1: a boy found dead in a bathroom at Lambeth's Shirley
Speaker 1: Oaks care home in nineteen seventy seven. At the time,
Speaker 1: staff at the care home neglected to tell the coroner
Speaker 1: that the boy had accused one of the staff of
Speaker 1: sexually abusing him shortly before he died. The children in
Speaker 1: the care home were overwhelmingly black, and it is thought
Speaker 1: that racism played a significant part in their stories being
Speaker 1: dismissed and in the minds and actions of their abusers.
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Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
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