The Christine Collins Story

that you didn't say a dish. Yeah, true Crime Edition we do these sometimes we uh, without getting a bandwagoning. We've kind of always done them here and there. Hey update, Yeah, I'm sure we'll get a million emails between now and then. But the chow Chilla bus kidnapper, did you see has been granted parole? Yeah? I did see that. So that was one of our recent true crime episodes. And we've had a few people right in. It's the guys. Looks like he's getting out, yeah, the last one, right, the

other two are out. The last one, Yeah, the main jerk with that all the money, he was the main jerk for sure. So um, this is true crime too. As you were saying, it probably won't be an update on this one. I don't think so that it was most possible, but probably not. The most recent update was a movie from two thousand and eight called Changeling, not the Changeling, which is maybe the greatest horror movie ever made, starring George C. Scott back in Man, that's a good movie.

This is a totally different kind of movie called Changeling and started Angelina Joe Lee, who was directed by Clint Eastwyd And I watched I watched it last night, made it through the whole movie and still had an hour to go. Yah, it is pretty long. Um, it was okay. I thought it was had a little bit of a movie the weak quality to it definitely because some of the acting was way for the top. Yeah, I mean I give it medium, Like I give it a two and a half thumbs out of five. Okay, what would

you give it? You know, I would probably give it precisely the same amount of thumbs. Like it's watchable, it's engrossing and all that, but it's also hard to look past some of its flaws. No exit, I'll tell you that. And there was some parts that like it's sort of hard to parse out the you know, the dramatic license, uh, and the fictionalized aspects of it with the true story. And I even tried to look up some to see like, well did this happen? And it seemed like it was

verified that it did. But then I was like, or is this person just writing from seeing this movie the Ladder? Probably so, so we might mention a few of those in there. Yeah, because he did take a tremendous amount of license and just little details, nothing that ultimately changed the story, but you know the important stuff when he's reunited with his mom. No, well we'll point it out at the end. You'll just stick around for that, please do, because like I said, I split, like before the end,

I was like, I'm going to bed. I'm okay. That was I thought that was a joke about it. I mean I was joking. I would have been blown away if you've been like yeah, but but I mean small things. So we'll get into it a little bit. We'll just pick on Clint Easwood from time to time for fun. So what we're talking about is a is a disappearance um, a very sad case of a famous disappearance that took place in nine in Los Angeles, back when you could like pick oranges on any given street. Back there. It

was still a still weird town, Is that true? Um? It was a town trees in their yard, sure, but not everybody where everybody. Yeah, okay, thank you for that. But I was trying to find its its feet, it's purpose, it's point. It was a freaky little town back then. Still is a freaky town, but it was really freaky for some reason to me, Like the n twenties in Los Angeles is as weird as it gets for that city.

And this is a this is it was during that time that this boy went missing, a nine year old named Walter Collins, and that in and of itself is extremely sad. But the different twists and turns in horrors of this case and not necessarily horrors in the traditional true crime sense. So there were some of those, but just bizarre horrors, things that just shouldn't have happened. And that just compounded to the tragedy of this case. It makes it one of the most unique, I think true

crime cases in American history. If you ask me, yeah, and trigger warning if serious harmful gas lighting triggers you then skip the episode or hold onto your hats because oh, boy, it's infuriating. Yes, all right, I guess we should start with the simple fact that in March mother named Christine Collins uh told her nine year old son he could go to the movies and gave him a dime to go do so, and he disappeared or she was called

in to work and he disappeared from their home. If you're Clint East, were just making stuff up, that's right. A little bit of backstory here. Um, she was a single mom in a sense that her husband was in prison, Walter's father, Colin Sr. Whose real name, it turns out, was Walter Anson. She had married about ten years prior to Walter Junior's disappearance, and did not know that he had a criminal background. Uh it were a different name now, and he was in ne put in prison for uh

multiple armed robberies. And I believe the sentence was about five to ten years. Yeah, And I mean, like that was just totally unbeknownster. She thought she had a good one, or at least a mediocre one, not an armed robber who was gonna get sent a full awesome. I think mediocre was about what you could shoot for sure. Um, So she was the sole breadwinner in the house. She was supporting their son by herself. Um, and this is

just a generally unplanned life. But from all accounts, including Clint Eastwood's, um, she was a good She was a good mom who was making her way and just kind of took took the hand that was dealt to her and was making making it work as best she could. Right.

And a little more backstory to kind of color what was going on in terms of the Los Angeles Police Department at the time, because that figures in and a very key way here is they had just right before his disappearance had been recently fairly um exposed slash embarrassed by another kidnapping case in December of seven when a twelve twelve year old named Marion Parker was a very prominent banker's daughter was kidnapped, held for ransom, and then when it came time to do the money exchange, he

just dumped her her body, her dead body on the lawn and was arrested and convicted of murder, which was a big black eye and staying on the l a p DS reputation. Yeah, it was a like her her case, I mean, like we bring it up just to kind of set the tone like this happened and was in all the papers. It was a huge piece of news in Los Angeles, like just a month or two before um. But also like if you it's a really if you're into true crime, like that case is really heartrending. It's

really awful too in and of itself. But of course you can imagine that Miriam Parker's case is you know, front and center on Christine Colin's mind. Then she realizes that Walter has not come home from the from the movies. Yeah, so sort of a double whammy. It's it's on every parent's mind and l A p. D is gotten mud on their face or egg or do you. Plus also they seem to be widely considered and extremely corrupt, but then also just as bad, if you know, just as bad,

almost as bad incompetent. I guess if you have a police force that is well meaning but incompetent, like maybe the Keystone Cops or something, it's hard to get mad at them all the time. But if they're corrupt and incompetent, like that's about as bad a combination you can ask for in a police force. Incompetent police force is only funny in slapstick comedies. It's not funny in real life, no, but but yeah, no not it's funny on the indy

grific shoe. Yeah, but I mean, ultimately, was Barney incompetent, Like you dropped his gun and stuff. But he always got the bad guy, didn't he. That's pretty funny he dropped his gun and stuff. But is that really incompetent? I mean, if the if the it all turned out well in the end, is all I'm saying, you know, that justifies the incompetence, because all it's gonna do is drop and go off and shoot the dinner bell and

he's gonna go dinner already. A right dinner happens early and the criminals sits down to dinner with the family. Nothing like an Andy Griffith show reference to just keep us popular with the kids. Yeah, where are we? Please stop a kid? I'm sorry we are, Chuck to answer your question, um, at about the point where Christine has just realized that Walter is missing, which is a terrible point to be at, it is, she goes to the cops.

I'm not sure if this happened in real life, but in the movie there was a twenty four hour wait period before they would do anything because kids usually come home, and I think that has been the case historically and a lot of missing uh person's cases, right, they will delay it for a minute. Yeah, you know. I wondered though, how, um,

what anachronism that is in the movie. I don't know if that was like something that came later or whatever, but that's like the first thing Angeline and Jolie is told when she calls the cops that you gotta wait twenty four hours. Whether that happened or not. The Los Angeles Times had an article about the case back in and they said that the lap D mounted national search. It was a big deal. So whether it started twenty four hours or later, whatever, there was like a big

search for Walter. It wasn't just like, you know whatever. At some point it picked up and became a legitimate, like missing child case. Yeah. Um. There were a few tips. One of the best ones was from a gas station worker in Glendale said they saw someone who looked like Walter in the back of a car hiding under some newspapers right right, but only his face wasn't covered, so it was like the worst covering job of all time. The worst covering job or the kid managed to wriggle

out or something. Okay, well, yeah, I guess that could be the case too. But the driver was described as Italian looking. Uh. And then there was another report of a quote foreign looking end quote couple roaming Walter's neighborhood looking suspicious in the days before the disappearance. So the first you know, posters that were put up by the cops said to be on the lookout for a middle age Italian man and a very small woman. Yeah. So, and Walter's dad said, hey, hey, I don't want to

be left out of this. I want to contribute. What if it's one of the enemies I've made here in prison. Apparently he worked in the kitchen and part of his responsibility was snitching on other prisoners. I guess they kind of came with kitchen duty. Um. So he he was like, of course I've made some enemies here there. Maybe it's one of them exacting revenge. And that apparently was the lead that the police followed, but it didn't go anywhere. So Walter Senior can go step back out for a

little while of the picture. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of stymying at this point because they didn't have money, so it wasn't a clear case of ransom like it was with the the wealthy banker. Uh So, I don't know if that's better or worse for a parent to have money and think it's probably a ransom situation. Shian. It seems like it's probably more distressing in this case because your child was just gone and like what could

they possibly want and return? Yeah? Um yeah so but also I could see it giving you hope to that maybe he's just missing, maybe ran away or something like that. But that the reports of that couple and then from the gas station attendant to it certainly didn't help ease any concerns that he had been kidnapped for one reason or another. And that seems to be the premise that

everybody was moving on. That he wasn't just missing, he hadn't just run away, um, And if Angelina Jolie is to be believed, um, his mother would have known that he wouldn't have just run away, that he he would have had to have been taken against as will. Right. So they've I think about five months go by. Uh, no more big leads, no clues, no um forward movement of the case really and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, and it's a very dramatic moment in

the film. Obviously. Uh, they call up Christine and said, we found your son. He's in Illinois, cab Illinois. Uh, he's doing fine. All you gotta do is is scrape together the money to pay for him to come back. When I was like, really and that was actually true and they were reunited. Uh. Dave Bruce, who utput us together, said it was in a juvenile hall, but in the movie it's by a train at a train station, because that looks great on film. It does. Yeah, the cook happens, josh. Um,

something really terrible happened in the film and in real life. Um, when Christine Collins saw her son, she said, that's not my son. Yeah, that's someone else. I don't I don't know who that is. But I think the quote was, I don't think that's my son. And here's where the gas lighting begins, by the way. Yeah, so the villain the one of the villains. But um, yeah, one of the villains of the story is a guy in m J. J. Jones.

He was a police captain with the L A p. D. And he was in charge of the juvenile crimes unit, so he had this missing person's case of Walter on his hands. So he was there presiding over this reunion because, um, you know, the l a p D could use the good press, and it was a happy story. It was a huge story, and this was definitely more of a feather in the cap for the l a p D versus a black eye for the l a p D. Like the Miriam Parker case was. Um, so of course

they wanted to play it up. So it did not settle well with Captain J. J. Jones that the mother of this boy, who was supposed to be happy and crying and and thanking the l a p D. Was saying, essentially, you brought the wrong kid. This is not my kid. Yeah, so he starts gaslighting right out of the gate. Uh, in the room, saying oh no, no, no, no, mom, you're just not recognizing your son. He's been away for

five months. Uh. He's acting weird. And in the movie it's hysterical because I guess it was a directorial decision to have the boy be sort of stilted because you know, he's not the real son. But in the movie he's just like, hello, I am Walter and you are my mother, and I would like to hug you. Now basically, yeah, it was really pretty bad. But maybe that was the point. Um. But anyway, they he starts gas flaring. Understand, No, he's changed,

he's lost some weight. Uh, he's gonna return to normal. And what was the classic line was try the boy out. Just take him home and try him out for a little while and maybe, you know, see if you like him, maybe he'll fit. Um. But yeah, that set off this,

like like you said, you know, campaign of gaslighting. That Christine was clearly you know, distressed, fraught, Um was still recovering from the shock, and that Walter had changed in some ways out on this five months that he endured at having god knows what, you know, and being involved in god knows what, and that those two things put together or making her think that that this wasn't her kid, and there's um she finally relents, actually and Dave tries

to tries to kind of gas at what what it was, and I think he kind of paints a really good picture of you know, the pressure from the police, the press, they're taking photographs, everybody wanting this to be a happy occasion, a little boy looking up at her. I'm sure wanting this kid to be her little boy, but also being repelled by the idea that that, you know, she's gonna take some other kid as her boy. She did, she did relent there at the juvenile detention center and basically

agreed to take the strange kid home with her. Uh. She agreed to try him out. And there's a photo of Christine Collins with this boy, UM that's pretty famous. You can find it very easily, I think if you just type in Christine Collins um and you see her face, the expression on her face, and you know the backstory. It's one of the most heartbreaking photos you'll ever see.

When you know the full story, It's it's awful because you can see all of these thoughts that are in her mind, like and just the the the just the terrible everything that she's going through just right there on her face. But she's also trying to smile in a way too, and that little boy is just beaming, grinning from ear to ear. It's a really weird juxtaposition. Yeah,

it's very distressing to look at. Uh. And the gas lighting continued with the psychologists later and the doctors who had examined the boy, Uh psychology and nineteen I mean, feel what you feel about it now. But you know, they basically said, and this is a quote, he has certain aisles of memory that are apparently blank. And Uh then went on to say, you know, he he doesn't remember any of the toys he played with, and he doesn't remember any of the people from before, his neighbors

and stuff, or any of his classmates. But this will all pass and and he's your son, and he'll be he'll be normal pretty soon. Yeah, and she knows it's not her kid. Like that's what's so maddening, is that it's a parent and their child. Right. Yeah, So imagine like being in that position where everyone is telling you, like, no, you're wrong, not just this one police captain, but the people.

The police captain is basically hired and recruited to come back his his point in the l a p d S position up that you're wrong, this is your kid. Stop stop being a weirdo and just accept this kid. And also, and um, the movie really does a good job of hitting this uh several times. If the if the l a p d Thinks that they brought Walter back, and that's their position. They're not out looking for Walter,

so therefore who who knows where Walter is? And like just more and more time is being wasted while they're not looking for Walter because they're saying this kid is Walter,

even though she knows that this is not Walter. So I just I can't imagine having been in that position and just the you know, just when you're stressed out about normal stuff like work stuff or whatever like that, the attention you can have in your in your shoulders, around your neck, and like just how your face can just feel weird sometimes and you're you can get headaches

and stuff like that. Imagine having that starting to creep up and develop and compound because that's your situation, and then having no framework, no guidelines, no nothing to help you say, oh well, when this happens, when somebody says that a kid that's not your kid is your kid, this is what society is prescribed for you to do to kind of as a release or an outlet. Having nothing like that and having to figure out what to

do on your own. I cannot imagine the turmoil that Christine Collins went through just from this part, all right, I think we should take a break. It's a nice robust first act. Yes, yeah, yeah, and we'll come back and talk a little bit about what happened once you

got this boy home right after this. All right, So Christine Collins has fake Walter Collins back at her house and she uh, and this is one of those things where it was a scene in the movie that I looked up, and I did see another article that mentioned this, but I couldn't tell if it was taken from the

movie or not because I didn't find it elsewhere. But one of the big giveaways to her was when she was bathing the boy that he was circumcised, and I couldn't find out if that was really the case, um, which is frustrating. But in the movie, you know, when she tells this to the officer to to uh what's his name owns, he basically says, you know, it's amazing what people might do to a kid, like basically gaslighting, further saying like, well, he was circumcised while he was

after he was abducted during these five months. But I don't know if that's true or not, and that's really frustrating. What I do know is that she knew it was a charade. Uh, she got dental records. She went to his teachers and like everyone, you know, these teachers who spent every day with them during the school year. We're like, no, this isn't Walter. Obviously. Yeah. So she got people who were who were not only willing to back her up, but we're like, we're willing to testify to this. Here's

this kid's dental records. Here's Walter's dental records. Apparently Walter head fillings and this kid had never seen a dentist before I saw somewhere. Um. And she went back, after I think three weeks of trying to make this work three weeks, she went back to um, Captain Jones and said, here's the gental records. Here are all these people who say, no, this is not Walter. And Captain Jones had a very um, unpleasant response to that, to being challenged by this again,

this thing that he had decided was settled. Um. He basically charged her with being a terrible mother. He said, Um, you are the most cruel hearted woman I've ever known. Accused her of trying to shirk her her motherly duties. Um, and to get the state basically to raise her kid, as if she didn't want her her son anymore, so now she'd seen a chance to kind of pawn them off. Um And as she persisted during I guess this conversation, um, he I guess, brought the hammer down. He like played

an even harder card than continuing gas lighting. He had her committed to the state hospital against her will. Yeah, I mean, I think it's that deal where like, you get caught in a lie, so you just keep lying. Like the l a p d already looked bad, They all of a sudden looked pretty good with this case. But if it came out that they gave purposely gave her the wrong kid, like what that would do to

the l a p D's reputation. He was desperate and just dug himself into a pit and had her, like he said, had her committed using what's called a code twelve, which means that you were dangerously disturbed, uh, dangerously disturbed criminal And she was none of these things. And they sent her away. And this was at a time when you could do that and sneak her out the back door and no one knows anything happened. Basically, Yeah, so she spent I believe, six full days in um, in

this this psychiatric unit at the l A County Hospital. Um, again against her will. She was medicated there, she was held there, she was putting a room with um. She had to share a room with a woman who she said she could feel her hands around her throat every time she does. Um. Who. By the way, Chuck, if you noticed in the movie that that roommate at the mental hospital was played by Dale Dickey, who is also

in Mela's movie No Exit. Oh wow, So Um, it really is so and she's actually just really like she's one of those character actors you've seen a bunch of different times but never paid attention to. Really like she's in Winner's Bone. Um, she plays a pretty pretty prominent role in that at the end anyway, Um she plays uh oh, Angelina Jolie's roommate and they're a great effect. But um, she spent So the real Christine Colin spent six days in this hospital against her will. And it's

not entirely certain. Well, I guess it is certain she would have gotten out because at the end of six days of psychiatrists finally got a chance to see her and said, um, you're totally saying you can go. But in that six days, this whole story took and even more incredible twist. Yeah, and just quickly, like if you've seen the movie, I'm guessing that that sort of evil doctor was a movie addition, uh, because I think they probably needed like a Nurse Ratchet type in there. I

don't think that was a real person. No. And not only did they have the evil doctor, they had a nurse Ratchet and then a nurse Ratchet's assistant, like he just threw everything. It was just really ham fisted. Nurse Ratchet was Ricky Lindholme, which is weird. Who's that. She's a comedic actor, so it was strange to see her in this role as like an evil nurse. Oh really Okay?

And then I don't know if you noticed, also, but Michael Scott's girlfriend, Holly Flax, plays a sex worker um who ends up befriending and Angelina Jolie in the mental hospital. Did I notice Amy Ryan? I noticed her and everything? Okay, great? Did you like her in Only Murders in the Building? I did. I liked her. I like Amy Ryan and everything. She's one of my favorite actors. She's great, and I really love that show, by the way, yea, and not

because they have sponsored the show. Oh have they? Yeah, they were there, maybe that's coming down the pike. But they asked. They were like, they're gonna come on as a sponsor, and I was like, great, I love that. Oh yeah, well nobody asked me, but I'm on board too. They did ask you approved it? Oh yeah, okay, I do remember, I do remember. Okay, You're right, all right,

So you were talking about things getting really crazy. Uh. They had managed to keep this quiet that she was falsely arrested and basically stuck in a mental hospital that did not get out. She got out, she went home. Uh Walter. At this point, fake Walter is kept in Juvie as a ward of the state. And there was another kid in Juvie, a fifteen year old named Sanford Clark, who had quite a story to share in that right. Yeah.

So Sanford Clark is the nephew of a guy named Gordon Stewart North Coop, and um Sandford says he wants to speak to the cops because he wants to say that he has been forced to participate in the murder of a number of little boys, and that one of those little boys was the boy who was in all the newspapers, Walter Collins. So you can just like if I guess, they had gramophones back then, so you just hear the needle scratch on the gramophone at the right.

So at this point in the story, the evil police Captain Jones is put on that murder case and he's in a position where he's on this new case. This boy says that Walter Collins was murdered, but he had just you know, stuck Christine Collins in a mental ward for a week. So he starts lying even more and told reporters that Christine Collins just told me a day before that she didn't think Walter was her son, that was a fake Walter, when it was actually a week earlier.

And so he was just again just digging holes here with these lies. And they also said the reporters said, sir, sir, okay, where's where's Christine Collins? We want to talk to her, And he's like, oh, well, she's at the County hospital for observation. She obviously had you know, she took it really hard when she heard that her her son had been you know, was a murder victim. So we put her in there yesterday and she'd already been in there

for six days. So, um, the question was raised just immediately if Walter Collins was was killed um by Gordon Northcott and with an assist by his nephew Sanford Clark. Um, who was this little kid who was saying he was Walter Collins and everybody else was saying, yes, he's Walter Collins. And that was a pretty interesting story in and of itself, for sure. Why don't we take a break? And now you're so mean? Who fake Walter is right after this? Alright, late,

honest fake Walter Chuck was drummer? Will please Arthur Hutchins Jr. That was a Michael Scott reference joke, it was. Uh. So here was Arthur's story. In June, which was the summer before the disappearance of Walter, Arthur ran away from home in Illinois. Uh. He had a bad step mom, he had a dad that wouldn't do anything about it. Just not a good home situation. And he was a you know, it was the time in America when a twelve year old was also like a full grown adult

that they wanted to be. So he kind of took off on the road. He worked jobs, he hitchhiked, and it gets old dodgy about what exactly happened. Uh. In the movie, he basically levied a charge against the police, saying like this was their idea, Like they kind of picked me up and told me to pretend I was this kid. Other people say that he hatched the plan. He always want to go to l A to meet Tom Mix, the Cowboy movie star, Silent Error movie star, So like he saw this kid was missing, so he

hatched the idea himself. Other people say that they picked him up in the cab Illinois. The police did, and when they were um talking to him might have mentioned Walter, and the kid had the idea from there. I don't know. Yeah, either way, this kid saw his chance for a free one way ticket to Hollywood and his cowboy hero Tom Mix, and he took it. Um. He styled himself, we should say, as a boy adventurer. So that was like kind of

the mindset this kid had totally lost on him. From you know what, I can tell the gravity of what he was doing to Christine Collins, that that he was perpetrating knew it was perpetrating a fraud, But it seems like he considered it harmless. And it wasn't until it was pointed out like do you understand what you've done to this this poor woman that that he was like, yeah, I guess I owe or an apology or something like that.

It just didn't occur to him. Um, however you want characterized, he was a bad kid or thoughtless or careless or whatever. But um, he finally gets He finally confesses and apparently put up a fight too. That it wasn't until they had um a proof that his handwriting didn't match Walters that they finally and the cops, by the way, finally said, you're not Walter kid. You make different rs here. Apparently the way that he wrote ours was in a way that was in Illinois. But you couldn't find that kind

of our teaching anywhere in California. The old Illinois are that's right. They had him dead to rights and he finally confesses and tells them all this that he's he's a little Arthur Hutchins Jr. So he gets reunited with his family. Um, but then that leaves us back at square one. Walter is still missing, and then now there's Sanford Clark, who was saying that Walter is actually not missing. Walter is dead because my uncle and I, against my will,

killed Walter among some other boys. That's where we're at with Christine. Yeah, I mean the story of Sanford Clark is equally sad. He he did participate in these crimes, but he was uh, he was there getting sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused, was told that he would be killed if he didn't help out. So this is a kid who um who, who didn't know what he was doing and fortunate into doing these things. He's also a

victim here. So at this point in the story, it could have been the end, Like Christine could have said, my son is dead, the boy fake Walter is gone back to his family. I'm a woman, It's what recourse do I have. But to her credit, she stood strong and said, no, I'm not taking this. Uh. Not only am I not convinced that Walter's dead, but that aside, I need to tell I need to expose my treatment and I need to expose Captain Jones and the l A p D. And so I'm going to come forward

with his information. Yeah, which she did. So remember like by this time, the press had no idea what had happened to her, and she just dropped this this truth bomb on him, saying, so the l a p D heard from me for a long time that this was not my kid, and not only told me it was, they institutionalized me against my will. Told the presser story. Um, with the help of apparently local women's leagues took up

her cause. And then so did Reverend Gustav Brieglib who's played by Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich in the in the movie. I think he got involved way earlier in the movie than he did in real life. Yeah, yeah, but he helped publicize her. He was an anti l a p D corruption crusader, um and this is a great example of the corruption and incompetence of the l a p D. UM, And he helped take up her story and publicize it.

But um, she probably thought that was going to be enough, because the county convened a grand jury and they heard her testimony and they didn't even bother calling Captain Jones to testify. They just basically gave her a chance to tell her story and then hope that it would go away, and they demonstrated that they hoped it would go away because they referred the matter to the Police Commission to handle itself. That's right, the commission said no disciplinary action

against Captain Jones. Arthur Hudgins fooled everybody, um and Dave points out like, yeah, except for mom who was screaming the whole time that this is not my kid. So that was such a flimsy argument to to not do anything to Captain Jones. And this could have been the end of the story. And Christine Jones was what met with another brick wall. But no, she said, huh, I'm going to hire a lawyer and I'm gonna sue the l A. P D And Captain Jones for false imprisonment.

It made all the news. Sued for a half a million bucks, and again the reverend in the Women's league got you know, press going and got everyone whipped up into a frenzy about it and got a lot of support, and the l A. County opened up a grand jury investigation. Again, the city Council Welfare Committee recommended that Jones and police chief resign. That didn't happen. He ended up getting a

four month suspension without pay. And Uh, the civil suit did make it to court and she won, but uh was never paid a dime, which is what happens in a lot of cases. Yeah, and she kept she she kept doggedly pursuing Captain Jones for decades. She would drag him to court every once in a while, and um, have a judge say you have to pay her, and Captain Jones would be like, I don't have any money, can't get blood from a stone, sorry, and she she has.

She never got a penny out of him, Uh, despite being owed about a hundred and eighty grand in today's money ten hundred dollars back then, which is just so infuriating. But at the very least she was like, Okay, if you're not gonna pay me, I'm not I'm just not gonna drop it. At least I'm still going to drag you to court whenever I can to make you have to talk about this again. Um. And so uh, apparently Christine, like you said, she did not believe, don't you want

to say? Apparently she definitely did not believe that Walter was killed um by Gordon Stewart Northcott and Gordon Stewart Northcott turned out to be a serial murderer, and his murders are called the Wineville Chicken Coop murders because apparently the actual murders took place with an axe in the chicken coop on this remote ranch about an hour east of Los Angeles. Um and Sandford Clark was there, but

also too, and this isn't portrayed in the movie. Gordon's mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, was also an active participant in all this too, which makes the whole thing about a hundred million times more horrific than it would have been had she not been involved. Frankly, Yeah, now it's like a Texas chainsaw mask. Her family, Uh, living out in the Sticks at the time, it was the Sticks east of Los Angeles. Now, like everything else in the south Land,

it's just one continuous suburb. Back then it was just farmland. And uh, these you know, he could have murdered up to twenty kids. We'll talk a little bit more about the case, but um, he sexually abused these boys. He kept them in the chicken coop. Um. He originally lived not too far from the Collins Is And what started here was this weird game between uh north Cut, his mom and Um and Christine of him telling her like

he's dead. That had been him saying I didn't kill him, and then him saying well I did kill him, and then him saying no, I didn't, and then the mom saying well, no, I killed him, and then the mom saying no, I didn't. And I just can't imagine after all Christine Collins has been through, Like how upsetting it was to go through this emotional roller coaster still of

them admitting and then recanting their murder. Yeah, and even worse than that, Gordon Northcott UM represented himself in court and he called Christine Collins as a character as a defense witness and said, UM put her on the stand and said do you think I killed your son? And

she was like, no, actually I don't. And she produced a piece of evidence that had been left out of the papers that a few days after um Walter went missing, someone threw a rock through her window and on the rock or attached to the rock, it's not clear to me. Um something said uh boy bad sick, afraid to call doctor, And to her that meant that somebody had abducted Walter, but it just wasn't. Gordon Northcott. Yeah, that's A. I

still don't know what to make of that one. I don't either, But what Christine made of it is that Gordon Northcott did not kill her boy, that he had been abducted by somebody else in that to her, he was still out there. And she was so either convinced of this or wanted to believe it so badly that she went on to the stand to this serial murderers trial and acted as a witness in his defense. Um.

And in the end, it didn't it didn't work. Um. Gordon Northcott was convicted of killing a handful of boys, multiple boys. But it's I think you said before Sanford Clark said maybe as many as twenty boys that I think he was convicted of four and the mom was convicted of killing Walter specifically. But yeah, the boys said that you know, there's uh twenty bodies buried, which wasn't

exactly true because they burned a lot of the bodies. Uh. There ended up being bones and evidence though there was enough, like they found letters written by two of the boys that he was accused of murdering Um that was written by them to their parents that were that never went um,

that were never sent um. But they they um they got enough of evidence at least against Gordon to convictim, and then apparently he was all circumstantial against his mother, but she was convicted any away, and so Gordon was sentenced to hang. His mother was sentenced to life in prison, and a couple of days before he um was executed, Gordon sent a telegram to Christine Collins and said, um, I lied about uh not killing your boy. If you'll come visit me in prison before I'm executed, I'll tell

you the truth. Okay. So remember, she thinks she's testified at his trial that he didn't do it, that this terrible person had not killed her son, and now he sent her a telegram two days before he died saying he did. So of course, she goes to San Quentin, meets with him, and he says, I don't want to meet with you. Um, I didn't have anything to do

with your boy. Go away. Yeah. I mean, I just can't imagine her mental state at this point of being jerked around by the cops for all that time and now being jerked around by this guy on death row. Just I don't know if he was just sick and like toying with her or that sort of prisoner thing. I feel like I've seen this in movies before, where they do something like this just to like have one last meeting with somebody before they die. That isn't a

prison guard. Everybody loves a good meeting. But he was hanged right in front of her face. Apparently, Yeah, she stuck around. I guess the warden was like, he did, what to you listen if you want to stick around and witness his death too. And apparently she did not out of vengeance necessarily, but um, because she was she was hoping that at the at some point before he died, he would tell her the truth or tell her something. And he didn't. He went like a schmo because he

was a schmo. He was a terrible child murdering schmo. Um. And so Gordon Northcott is executed. And these these Wineville Chicken Coop murders are so notorious and so disgusting, um as child murders tend to be. That the the town changed its name a couple of months after Gordon Northcott was executed to mirror Loma. It's what it's called today. Yeah, Like just drive east from Los Angeles, you'll hit it.

They didn't like that name anymore. Change the name. Uh here's where the what what you missed at the end of the movie. And I think this was created out of whole cloth to give everyone like a good feeling in their tom toms uh in the movie version. And if you don't want to hear this, you stop listening right now. Give you a plenty of warning. Uh. So this part we know it's true. Uh it was how many months later did another boy show up that said that he had escaped from I heard five years Oh?

Was it five years later? All right? So in the movie they squashed that down. So that's obviously licensed dramatic license. But I think the true story is that this boy just said that he had been a kidnapping victim of north Cut but got out. Didn't that right? Wasn't that kind of the end of it. I don't know. I saw that that a kid had been who had who north Cut had been accused of killing, turned up safe

and sound five years later, and that gave her hope. Yeah, that gave her hope for the rest of her life. She died in I think nineteen sixty four and apparently was looking for Walter the whole time. So in the movie version, and this is clearly dramatic license, the story the boy tells is that there was a late night escape after they dislodged the wire of the chicken coop, and that he had gotten stuck, and that Walter had had already run away and came back and saved him.

And if it hadn't have been for Walter, he never would have gotten out of there. So in the movie version, obviously felt the need Old Clint felt the need to paint Walter or whoever that screenwriter was to uh as a as a hero in the end who gave his life to help this other boy get saved, which like, you don't even need to do that. It was so aggravating, No, it really is. The writers like, how am I going to get out of this? So that's it. One little

footnote of this. If you didn't think Christine Collins had it hard enough, um this whole time, at the peak of this stuff, at the at some of the worst parts of it. Um, her husband remembers in prison the whole time. And so she's petitioning the parole board. Actually has friends. There's record of a friend writing the pearole board talking about what a terrible state Christine is in and what you please let her husband out so at the very least he can go to work to support

her because she can't work anymore. Um. And the Pearl Board wrote back in the movie version and said, we're sorry, but Walter Collins died in prison in N two. Very interesting and sad. So you got anything else about the sad story of Christine and Walter Collins? No, it is, Uh boy, it's a lesson in in uh hard lesson in gas lighting and and what still happens, but what definitely stoppened a lot more back then. Yeah, heavy stuff man. Uh well, since Chuck said it used to happen a

lot more back then, followed by heavy stuff. As everyone who listens to the podcast knows, that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this rewolving follow up. Hey guys, long time listener. Really interesting episode and rewilding. I'm glad you got the point across at the end, goal to let nature do its thing, but the humans have messed things up so much in places that sometimes we need to give it a little helping hand to help it along its way before stepping back and giving

its space. Right. You mentioned that we tend to be very short time frame focus, but there is a distinction between cultures. Many indigenous cultures have a mindset that focuses on much longer time frames. The specific practices in place for thinking of future generations. I believe one is to think about things for seven generations time. Getting indigenous cultures involved in projects and stewardship of the land serves to gain wisdom from cultures that have been living harmoniously with

nature for generations. Plus brings in the mindset of thinking for generations to come, not even mentioning the ethical reasons for involving them. That is from Paul uh with the question mark. Now, that is from Paul who was the chief technology officer at Massy Earth, helping to rewild our planet. So wow, go to the Mossy Earth website and check it out. See what they're up to. Yeah, but I mean we got one from like a legit insider. That's great, I think so, and that is a massy dot Earth. Cool.

How do you get a dot earth website? Uh? You pay through the wazoo, use a lot of donations. I want to be Josh and Chuck dot Earth. Yeah, that'd be good. I was thinking Josh and Chuck dot biz, but sure that one works too. About dot earth biz. So thanks a lot, Paul. We really appreciate you, uh you writing to us, and if you want to be like Paul, you can send us an email to stuff podcast. Man. I'm going to get it after we're done at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a

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