The Puzzling Disappearance Of Walter Collins

this week on BuzzFeed unsolved we look into the disappearance of Walter Collins a 90 year old case about a nine year old boy who vanished on his way to the movies not the time you want to vanish vanish on on your way back from the movies after having seen a lovely film you'll come to see that there are lots of twists and turns to this case it's a it's hard it's a hard one to pin down huh so let's pin it it's gonna get weird so let's strap in on March 10th 1928 nine-year-old Walter Collins donned a lumber jacket brown corduroy trousers black Oxford's a great camp and set off to see a movie in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles Walter never returned home his mother Christine Collins a telephone operator reported her son missing five days later on March 15th well immediately there are some red flags because we do the math and the math involves me here and you swear it's five days later yeah that is five yeah that is true it's a bit that's a bit a bit of a difference it is 1928 I don't know if people just wander off maybe I mean you you strike me as a kid who wandered off maybe a wanderer but I always reported back by you know the certain time 10:00 p.m. or so yeah you know it was a cul-de-sac where were we gonna go also they'd find you rather quick do you wanna look out for a big head boy a big good boy that's what they called me my parents yes at that time the city was still reeling from the kidnapping and gruesome murder of a 12 year old girl Marion Parker that had happened only three months earlier tips of alleged Walter sightings started coming in from as far away as San Francisco and Oakland and one bizarre tip someone claimed they saw the boy at a Glendale gas station his body wrapped in newspaper with only his head visible police searched for months but still no Walter finally in August Illinois police picked up a runaway boy who matched Walters description the child told authorities he was Walter Collins and gave authorities a quote hazy story about his abduction end quote he spoke to Christine over the phone and Christine paid $70 to bring her son back to Los Angeles for the next three weeks the boy stayed with Christine until she realized this boy was not her son that's C okay well now I'm on to something because it took this lady three weeks to realize that this boy who probably oh okay I'm gonna cut you off right there he's nine years old that's a full person yeah but here and she's like I'm pretty sure he's my boy well he's got the same haircut and wears the same clothes yeah but you got to add in the grief factor this mom thinks she lost her son and she is now hoping for the for any sign of good news and they say this is your boy he says he's your boy you're gonna naturally want to believe it but after a while you you gotta face the facts that's not her son he's you know you're right he's 90 years old he clearly has defining features at that point so is the idea here that maybe this was just some down-on-his-luck boy who would read the paper and thought well here's a meal ticket I look kind of like this boy maybe a little bit like him I'll tell him I'm this boy well I guess we'll have to find out okay detective brain Christine found it suspicious that the boy was one inch shorter than Walter and she used dental records to prove that this was a different kid Christine told police quote yes he looks like Walter and in some ways he acts like my son but still I'm not certain about it you see Walter was quiet and well-behaved he always called me mother this child calls me ma and at times he is hard to handle I certainly hope he is my son but somehow I can't bring myself to believe it and I love this new Walter I'm a big fan of him Oh like he waltzing into the place like he oh hey ma why don't you make me some apple pie ma PB&J now I asked you five minutes ago what's up the police fixated on closing the case because of public pressure insisted it was Walter they conducted a series of tests to prove the boy was Walter they had the boy find his way back home from memory and brought in Walters pet dog who allegedly recognized the boy as its owner still Christine was not convinced hmm I mean dogs are dumb I love how she was like look at his dental records it's not him and they're like hey does this doggy recognize ya what's a puppy's just like little boys puppies always like oh it's a little man let me wag my dumb tail and lick'em allegedly LAPD captain JJ Jones told Christine quote what are you trying to do make fools out of us all are you trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have the state provide for your son you are the most cruel hearted woman I've ever known you are a fool end quote but from from a comic book character JJ JJ Jones does sound like the name given to a bad cop like a comically bad cop if he was a character in a movie I would say this man's a caricature no one's that evil why is he going woman a fool he called her cruel-hearted - yeah he also like you mean it all about him this woman is missing her kid and he was like what are you trying to do make me look like a fool and incompetent at my job and she's like no I'm just trying to find my son oh yeah this is very rude of him the police then had Christine forcibly committed to the Los Angeles County General Hospital psychiatric ward on September 8th while Christine sat in the psych ward JJ Jones again spoke to the boy police had picked up in Illinois during that discussion the 12 year old confirmed - JJ Jones bat he was not Walter Collins but instead Arthur Hutchins well JJ Jones it looks like you've got egg on your face yes do you think when the kids said yeah that's not me was he like man I really thought that was you or do you think he was like at that point yeah because now he's now he's a fool now he's equal was him now he's now realized the folly of his ways I kind of love when someone gets a good dose of Karma you get their their Instant Karma their comeuppance but yeah this guy definitely deserved it he the psych ward because he she wouldn't agree with him about who her son was Christine had been correct the entire time the kid the police had dumped on her was not her missing son but instead Arthur Hutchins after Arthur's mother died the boy ran away from his father and stepmother he was hitchhiking around the u.s. when in a DeKalb Illinois cafe someone told him he resembled a missing boy from Los Angeles when he was picked up juvenile authorities were skeptical about his story but police were so desperate to close the Collins case that they insisted on its veracity as for why Arthur lied the twelve-year-old told authorities he wanted to go to Hollywood to meet cowboy actor Tom Mix boy yeah I mean there's nothing wrong you can't indict this boy for being an opportunist like well yeah and that's what I'm saying this is a beautiful story for him I really love this kids Moxie because he's sitting in some rundown cafe in the middle of the cornfields someone walks in and says hey you know you look like this missing kid and he goes is that so where is he from from Hollywood you say get the cops in here he's cops come in he's like yeah I'm that boy sent him out to LA he's gonna meet his favorite cowboy person but they're like well first you have to go hang out with this crying woman for a while that's probably why he was so grumpy of course because he was like he's one of me Tom yeah yeah this like whale is like can we please go to the movies Christine was released from the psych ward on September 13th and sued the LAPD captain JJ Jones was suspended from duty by the LAPD though he was later stated and ordered to pay Christine ten thousand eight hundred dollars for the abuse she suffered under his custody however JJ Jones never paid unbelievable believable but ten thousand eight hundred dollars is actually quite a bit for that time yeah I wonder what the inflation cost would be there I mean it's definitely not cheap no and not a big shocker that JJ didn't pony up the dough I'm proud of her for suing him yeah dudes a freak instead of clown shoes he deserves it it seems like you know there's a lot of this is America you know people people pressed charges people sue a lot but apparently the LAPD took that very seriously by reinstating him and not making him pay the amount that you know we don't need to get into the practices of the LAPD yeah we do not and we as we all know we do know that you believe they are corrupt from past episodes that's true I do believe it meanwhile the real Walter Collins was still missing so with that let's get into some theories our first theory was put forth by Walters father Walter J s Collins who was serving time in Folsom Prison on robbery charges at the time the elder Walter worked at the prison cafeteria and his responsibilities included reporting the violations of other inmates because of this he could have made many enemies which is why he believed his former fellow inmates may have kidnapped Walter for revenge alright I guess that is a theory that is a theory not my leading theory but it is a theory you wouldn't just like knock him on the head or something a guy writes you up for like taking too many mashed potatoes and you're like I'll tell you what we're gonna do we're gonna disappear his boy once we're out of here I don't think they have like the foresight to plan that out you get angry in prison it's happening right there and then you're not gonna be like I could I just want to say I'm gonna wait you'll execute your revenge quite swiftly exactly you're gonna take like a fork and stab him that's the cafeteria it's the only place where there's weapons on hand the second theory one with substantial weight behind it is that Walter was kidnapped by a pathological liar named Gordon Stuart north shot and murdered a North COTS chicken farm days after Christine was released from the psychiatric hospital and approximately 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles immigration officers were closing in on a three acre chicken farm in wineville California they'd received a tip about an illegal worker who had been smuggled across the American border with Canada the chicken farm belonged to Gordon Stewart Northcott after he convinced his father to buy him the land in 1926 Gordon claimed he needed help running the farm he drove to Canada to visit his sister Winifred in Saskatoon he talked Winifred into letting him take her fourteen-year-old son Sanford Clark with him to the farm chicken farms why is that I think it may be sort of a Texas Chainsaw v any sort of like a super rural area where's one guy in a lot of animals there's some crazy stuff happening in that farm probably smells yeah just a fair warning you know I want to buckle off for this one because it gets this is not my favorite story Baer Gordon began to physically emotionally and sexually abuse Sanford Sanford story unfortunately was only the start of the horrors young men met at the hands of Gordon Northcott Gordon had a pattern of kidnapping and murdering boys then dissolving their bodies in quicklime in August 1928 Sanford's 19 year old sister Jessie Clark came to visit her brother on the farm Sanford told her everything that had happened Jesse alerted their mother angley's contacted the American Consul telling them that Gordon had smuggled Sanford from Canada when investigators got to the chicken farm Gordon along with his obsessive mother Sarah Louise Northcott had fled so this is just a serial killer who may have been involved in all this may have been involved and we're gonna get it definitely a serial killer he is a serial killer I would say and we're going to get into how he was maybe involved okay police found blood-soaked ground and bodily remains around the ranch and Sanford was safely taken into police custody items belonging to missing young boys from Southern California were found about the property including Boy Scout badges library books and letters written to their parents Nelson and Lewis Winslow ten and twelve year old brother is missing from Pomona as well as a Mexican boy named Alvin Gothia were among those victims whose possessions or remains were found on September 15th Sanford told investigators his story police showed him 30 photos hoping to identify other victims who met their fate on the farm one that Sanford positively identified was Walter Collins so yeah no I mean I don't think you would forget that right I don't know there was no reason for him to lie no one no reason for him to lie it's just uh I guess I don't know how many people he'd come into contact with while he was there right yeah I mean pretty damning though I would say yeah not great no Gordon and his mother were arrested in Calgary Canada on September 20th and extradited back to the United States to stand trial Gordon initially confessed to the murder of nine young boys but was only charged for the deaths of three there wasn't enough evidence for him to be charged in the death of Walter Collins but Gordon was nevertheless sentenced to death by hanging and was executed on October 2nd 1930 the Gordon wasn't convicted for Walter Collins's murder his mother spent the rest of her life in prison after confessing to having killed Walter with an axe and burying him in a chicken coop the notoriety from the gruesome murders was so bad the town of wineville decided to separate itself from that chapter of its history when in 1930 it renamed itself Mira Loma never been no I haven't been the mere 11 but if I had oh you're a Southern California guy before this story I would now be a little unnerved well the change with me but just the idea that something so bad happened in the town that had changed its name ah bad things happen in every town I'm telling you yeah that's true we living in LA a little Los Angeles I'm sure there's dozens and dozens of bad things happening every day in Los Angeles it's a it's a dark town sometimes it's one of those things as he awaited execution Gordon sent Christine a telegram saying he tell the truth about Walter if she came to talk to him in prison Christine went to San Quentin on the eve of Gordon's execution but Gordon backpedaled saying quote I don't want to see you I don't know anything about it I'm innocent end quote Gordon also left several notes in his cell some saying he'd never met Walter some accusing Gordon's father of kidnapping and murdering the boy a pathological liar it's impossible to know what Gordon said was true and what was fabricated it's weird that this case is unsolved because it seems pretty cut and dry but he wasn't convicted for the murder he's saying that he didn't do it but then his mom is saying that she did it he confessed to nine other ones though in some of the letters in his cell he said that he didn't even know the boy mm-hmm it goes back to that deathbed confession thing where he knows he's about to be executed why not just come clean yeah so in a weird he said yeah I mean he's already taken the rap for yes I might as well just come clean but you know we're really we're trying to you know dissect the mind of somebody who was clearly capable of very very evil acts so I don't really know if there's much merit to that but this is I guess technically still unsolved because he wasn't convicted for the murder and he's saying that he didn't do it when I think it's safe to say that he did hmm well I'll never know five years after Gordon was put to death one of the young men thought to have been murdered on the chicken farm turned up alive and well opening up the possibility that Walter too had escaped a fatal encounter in wineville on that chicken farm for the rest of her life Christine Collins never gave up hope that her son was alive while Walter's most likely fate was at the demented hands of Gordon Northcott and his mother what actually happened to the young boy remains unsolved [Music] yeah that was a long windy uncomfortable road to get to the conclusion there but trust me when I say that I tried to make that as palatable as I could because I would not recommend looking up this man's history because he is far more of a monster that'll be presented here well I will take you up on that recommendation and you don't wait it entirely yes I mean I would do the same it's been a treat here today thank you for inviting me on another belittle tale yeah let's go home take a shower I'll call my mom you call your mom in the shower hey ending on a funny joke okay see you next week it was a beautiful sentiment you ruined it [Music] you [Music]

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 6,978,303

Rating: 4.9554586 out of 5

Keywords: BuzzFeed, Buzzfeed unsolved, SffZ, buzzfeed ryan, buzzfeed shane, buzzfeed unsolved network, case, cold case, cold-case, creepy, crime, criminal, detective, detectives, disappearance, disappearance of walter collins, eerie, investigate, investigation, investigative, mystery, ryan bergara, scary, shane madej, strange, theories, theory, true cime, true crime, unexplained, unexplained mysteries, unsolved, unsolved mystery, unsolved true crime, unsolved true crimes, weird

Id: ZMu7_Xpp1SM

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/dejahisashmom]

The real Walter Collins was never found, but police believe he was one of the victims of serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott and his mother Sarah Louise Northcott. The Northcotts kidnapped, sexually abused, and killed several boys in their chicken coop in Wineville, California.