Continuing with my deep dive into the Clown and the Candyman series, here are the notes from episodes 3 & 4 from my summary videos on the series. If you haven't seen episodes 1 & 2 yet, be sure to check out my previous posts on it!
EPISODE 3:
The episode opens up by reminiscing on how summer camp used to feel for children, the idea of being away from your parents for the first time, among friends, finding yourself in summer romances before everyone went back home at the end of the summer. It was in a place exactly like that where our story begins, which is on North Fox Island in Michigan.
Back in the 1970s, we trusted our camp counselor like our teacher or our coach
On North Fox island, an all boys summer camp would emerge, the brainchild of one Francis Sheldon. Though no one suspected it at the time, the veneer of the boys camp had a darker motive. This is where people like Jerry Sandusky got the idea of opening HIS foundation for boys.
(Note: although Francis Sheldon seemed to be a very early example of an Elite Pedophile utilizing a non-profit/charitable organization/child-focused organization to both shield him from scrutiny and allow his trafficking operation to work, I am not entirely convinced he was the first. Perhaps people like Sandusky did take a note out of Sheldon's book, but I imagine this trick has been used far, far, longer than we think)After Jeffrey Epstein's arrest in July of 2019 and his subsequent *suicide shortly after, a ton of publicity was generated throughout the media about the island he owns in the Carribbean called Little St. James. To many people that are unfamiliar with the human trafficking problem and how it relates to the higher echelons of society, they were astonished that such an operation could have ever happened. The idea that a pedophile owning planes, helicopters, multiple mansions, and his own island was so far outside of what an average person typically perceives a pedophile to be that it caught a lot of attention even among those that typically couldn't be bothered about these incidents.
However, what people should really be most surprised about is the fact that a trafficking operation just like Epstein's - island and all - occurred many years earlier, and it was barely ever talked about.
This is the story of Francis Sheldon, and his involvement with pedophiles and killers like John Wayne Gacy and Dean Corll, and the story about the first pedophile island.
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In the previous episode we covered the Oakland County Child Murders that occurred in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970s, and we learned that the pedophiles operating out of Detroit all seem to connect to each other. In this episode, we see that the connections between pedophiles in that Detroit group stretches far further than we had seen before.
In the middle of Lake Michigan lies North Fox Island. While flying over it and looking down, it looks like a tear drop. There is no dock and no harbor, and can only be accessed by air. Cut down the center is a small airstrip.
North Fox Island 
North Fox Island was home to a front for a child pornography ring disguised as an all summer boys camp.
In august of 1976, this pornography ring was exposed.
The story was initially broken by a small newspaper by that time, but it gathered little attention. Although it may have been buzzing for a short period of time, the story soon died out. After all, it was a rather small story in the way the media depicted it, and there was only one arrest made. However, a lot of that story disappearing had to do with money and power.
In July of 2020, former Detroit news reporter Martie Rich Keenan published the book "The Snow Killings", and the chapter on North Fox island is a must read.
- While writing the book, Martie says the 4 kids in the snow killings case were being used for child porn before they were killed
- Detective Corey Williams identified a child porn ring that was operating in the Cass Corridor of Detroit, and also had leads that suggested the Cass Corridor ring was being financed by Francis Sheldon, the man behind the Fox Island Ring
- Francis Sheldon was a wealthy real estate developer. He served on many prominent boards in the area, and in 1960 he purchased a small island in lake michigan, installed a small airstrip, and built some cabins. It would eventually become a multi million dollar child porn operation.
In fact, it was a business. They ran the business through the mail, and would send child porn all over the United States. They were filming in New York, or Bobby Moore's mansion, and anywhere else and send the content through the mail.
Through their parents, the boys were recruited to attend the summer camp which was called Brother Paul's Children's Mission. In this situation, though, the parents were completely unaware of this trafficking operation, and were not complicit in Sheldon's criminal dealings. Brother Paul's was a church, or in other words, an attempt at evading taxes. Regardless, the children on that island were there solely to be examined and purchased by Sheldon's powerful pedophile friends.
It is also worth noting that Francis Sheldon comes from a very wealthy and powerful bloodline who's lineage stretches all the way to the White House.
Anyone that spends more than a few hours looking into sex trafficking operations among the well-connected and powerful would quickly understand the vital role that shell companies play in these types of operations. Often times, shell companies are set up as a means to move money around as well as launder it, along with any of the numerous other perks a "creative" non-profit could provide a human trafficker (see: Terramar). With that, it is safe to say that Jeffrey Epstein and Francis Sheldon shared a lot in common, because Epstein knew his way around a shell company or two, and so did Sheldon.
Frequent guests on Sheldon's island was Dire Grossman, a private school teacher from New York, and Adam Starchild, a convicted fraudster and expert in offshore financing and financing. Interestingly, it was Sheldon, Grossman, and Starchild that would end up escaping the charges of child trafficking. The only person to be arrested in relation to the North Fox Island pedophile ring would be a lowly local gym teacher named Gerald Richards, the one with no money and no connections.
How did Gerald Richards from Fort Huron Michigan get caught up with all these rich pedophiles?
- Sheldon had employed Gerald Richards to be a director of the company
- Gerald Richards was a gymn instructor for a Catholic school, and was also a photographer. He did a lot of the filming for Sheldon's pedophile projjects
- He got caught molesting one of his students, and once he was arrested, he started to spill the beans on Sheldon. Once he told the police what he was a part of, Sheldon was tipped off and got a head start. He cleared out everything from his apartment in ann arbor and harbor springs and fled the country. He was never extradited.
BEFORE WE CONTINUE, HERE IS A MORE DETAILED BACKGROUND ON FRANCIS SHELDON: (source: https://catherinebroad.blog/2013/03/12/)
- The following information is not included in the Clown and the Candyman series, at least not all of it. Definitely be sure to read this in full, and visit the link above for the rest of the article.
Francis (Frank) Shelden came from an extremely wealthy Grosse Pointe, MI, family and was an Ann Arbor, MI, millionaire and philanthropist. He owned North Fox Island in Lake Michigan–a private island near Traverse City, approximately two miles wide by one mile long, paying $5,000 a year in taxes to Leelanau County. A Detroit Free Press article dated 12-28-75 describes the generosity of Shelden, a “wealthy Ann Arbor bachelor “ who was on the board of directors of The Cranbrook Institute (a private boys school in suburban Detroit), and Boys Republic, Inc., (a residential center for emotionally disturbed adolescents), who also devoted his time to the Big Brother program. Funny, Chris Busch was a Big Brother, too. Greg Greene was a boys’ baseball coach. Wow, all that community outreach by these model citizens. They all used the same playbook, and these types still do. According to a subsequent article by Wright, Shelden’s buddies Dyer Grossman and Gerald Richards tried unsuccessfully to join Big Brother, but their applications were rejected.
What the Free Press article in 1975 missed was that Shelden was also a staff writer in the 1970s for Better Life Monthly (“BL”), a magazine described as representing an international organization “seeking liberation for boys and boy-lovers.” Coded advertisements allowed subscribers to contact each other and to engage children in pornographic modeling and prostitution. Child pornographer Gerald Richards (a registered sex offender who apparently died in Port Huron in 1994–thank you to the person who sent me this info), met Shelden around 1974.
Richards was a gym teacher at St. Joseph’s Catholic Elementary School in Dexter, MI, who had run for public office. Some very bad things happened to kids in Dexter back then, according to the police file I looked at. The father of two young kids at the time, Richards was also a child counselor, licensed hypnotist, massage therapist and naturopath. In fact, he had a “clinic,” which a few child victims (both male and female) describe in great detail in police reports.
Shelden responded to an ad Richards placed in BLM, describing his “magic show.” The two corresponded and then met. Richards had been thinking of starting a boys’ camp and when he learned Shelden owned Fox Island, the two of them “naturally thought about organizing the camp.” (From police reports.)
The Church of Revelation ran an ad in BLM offering to help readers set up child-care organizations and camps. The Church of New Revelation was not a church at all, but just a referral agency that distributed child porn around the country. The “Church” was incorporated in New Jersey in 1974. The same people also incorporated “Educational Foundation for Youth,” allegedly based in Chicago. This foundation started out as the non-profit arm of a profit corporation that was listed as an “import/export” business.
Child-care sites/camps for boys were then set up under the auspices of the Church and the Foundation—charitable/educational entities that guaranteed state and federal income tax exemptions. These tax dodges were fronts for child pornography and pedophilia. Not only that, but some state welfare departments were duped into making payments for the support of the boys. At the time, counties would pay up to $150 a month per boy; the state up to $400, and the feds up to $700. In many cases these guys were actually getting paid by the government to rape kids and film child pornography.
Richards responds to the Church’s ad and the “Reverend” Dyer Grossman (aka Dale Osterman, Elliot Crossman, Elijah Crossman) came from New Jersey to Port Huron to help Richards set up “Brother Paul’s Childrens Mission.” Grossman came from a very wealthy Long Island family and had been—no real surprise—a science teacher at two boys schools, one of them a boarding school. Richards was the president of this newly formed Brother Paul’s and Grossman was the vice president. Richard’s wife was the secretary. The name of the treasurer was redacted from the case file. Why the MSP was able to redact that name under FOIA provisions, I do not know. God only knows who it was. Shelden was listed as a director of the corporation.
Also incorporated at the same time was the “Ocean Living Institute” of Kearny, New Jersey. Same officers as for Brother Paul’s. The mission was “to promote education and research in oceanography.”
(note: it is intriguing to me that the theme of ocean preservation and ocean-related endeavors pops up here, as that is a recurring theme when examining Ghislaine Maxwell's "Terramar" project, as well as the clique of tight knit people that conveniently own islands in the vicinity of one another. The islands vary in location of course, but those that seem most closely related to Maxwell/Epstein and other shady characters seem to be the ones that own islands near Little St. James and Haiti. Richard Branson, for example, owns Necker Island; Branson also publicly endorsed Maxwell's Terramar, and both share an interest in submersibles)
Richards ran Brother Paul’s “nature camp” for boys, ages 7-16, on Fox Island. It was classified by the Michigan State Attorney General as a charitable trust.
In Portraits in the Snow, The Oakland County Child Killings . . . Scandals and Small Conspiracies (2011), author M.F. Cribari explores the players in the Fox Island scandal and how this ring had to have been, in one way or another, connected to the child killings. http://www.amazon.com/Portraits-Snow-Oakland-Killings-Scandals-Conspiracies/dp/1432768026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363093801&sr=1-1&keywords=m.+cribari.
While police close to the investigation quickly dismissed it as bullshit, it is the bravest piece of writing I have ever seen. The author was threatened while researching the book and after it was published. If you don’t believe it, check out what happened to people involved in the investigation into a child sex ring in Nebraska in The Franklin Cover Up: Chile Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska, by John W. DeCamp, http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Cover-up-Satanism-Murder-Nebraska/dp/0963215809/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363093683&sr=1-2&keywords=the+franklin+scandal, and The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal, by Nick Bryant., http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Scandal-Story-Powerbrokers-Betrayal/dp/1936296071/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363093683&sr=1-1&keywords=the+franklin+scandal.
In July 1976 the party was over for Fox Island patrons when charges were filed against Richards and later against Shelden and Grossman for CSC 1st degree for the rape of two boys in Port Huron and on Fox Island. Richards was arrested but neither Shelden or Grossman were ever served with warrants. The foot-dragging by the prosecuting attorneys representing Port Huron and Ann Arbor ensured that these multi-millionaires would easily have plenty of time to destroy records and flee the country in their private jets. While Richards was arrested on July 23, 1976, according to a case file entry dated August 2, 1976, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Peter Deegan “wants to wait on warrant for Sheldon [sic] until invest. Is completed.” The thousands of boys these men raped over the next decades sure thank you for that, Pete.
The above article continues, and is quite lengthy - I suggest you definitely give it a read when you finish this summary. Now, back to the episode:
The narrator then goes on to explain how, due to a simple mistake made during the production of the Clown and the Candyman documentary, this next part of the story would probably still be hidden. When the documentary film makers were working on Children of the Snow, they received documents about North Fox Island. The documents and files that were those that were said to have disappeared...but apparently they did not. However, whoever it was that supplied those files made a mistake: they forgot to redact two words....the name of a witness from the island named Michael Farquar.
- It was a very simple beginning for Michael Farquar. At 12, he was out with his shovel and came across Gerald Richards house a few doors down. He shoveled his drive way and was given $5. Gerald Richards said he was a magician and showed him a magic trick as well. He also introduced Michael to his wife and his family. In a way, they became friends
- Richards worked for the YMCA, was as a schoool teacher, a priest, a magician, a clown - and he even taught photography at the YMCA. He was also teaching witchcraft at the YMCA, of which Michael Farquar got a Wicca award for
- Gerald Richards eventually asked Michael Farquar to be an assistant to his magic act, and Farquar was thrilled like any 12 year old would be. He even raised Richard's animals he'd use for the magic hat tricks.
Michael Farquar described how his relationship with Richards slowly devolved into abuse.
- It started out with the hugs, the squeezes, the "you're my friend" thing, the fact he was into photography eventually led to Richards taking pictures of Farquar, which then became nude photos
- Richards would often tie Farquar up with the ropes that they'd use in magic shows
- The abuse only got worse; other kids got involved, and had them taking pictures. Down the road, Richard's friends began to show up and see Farquar's pictures and would join in on the abuse.
- Within 6 months of knowing Richards, Farquar was firmly in his grasp and control, and was officially being prostituted.
- He explained either going to a church to do a magic show where they'd be a preacher or prisest or clergyman that he would be sold to
- There's places where he'd have to go where there were other kids, too
Farquar first met Francis Sheldon when Sheldon met up with Richards after Richards had sent photos of Farquar around through the post office. Richards was telling Farquar all about Sheldon: he's rich, he owns an island, he's a really nice guy, etc.
Farquar also recalled that Richards owned a doctor's office where he gave massages. That is another location where Richards met with Sheldon. After awhile, they felt comfortable enough to meet Farquar's parents.
Farquar goes on to explain a bit about the guilt he felt as a child having partaken in those sex acts, and that he couldn't look at his dad in the eye for the longest time. The most astonishing thing, he recalls, is that Francis Sheldon was guest for dinner one night at Farquar's house. He met Farquar's parents, and his parents liked him. His father thought he was a little weird, but a nice guy nontheless. Sheldon even took his parents on a private flight over the blue water bridge for sight seeing.
How many kids were on that island?
Michael Farquar goes on to state that there was about 6 to 8 kids on the island, and some of the kids had no clue what these guys were about. Basically Sheldon would get them to the island to get them all excited and then start grooming them at that point. Some of the kids knew exactly what was going on, and eventually they'd be left alone. For Farquar, the grooming and abuse happened bewtween 12 and 15. At age 15 is when the police came to talk to Farquar about the abuse, and in his words, "put the fear of god in me"
How did the North Fox Island Fall apart?
The collapse of the pedophile operation on North Fox Island began with a boy named Eddie who had been raped by Sheldon. He was 8 or 9 at the time.
Eddie was hurt, and Eddie's mom got the police involved. After Eddie, that's when the police questioned Farquar. What's really scary, the police questioned Michael, they didn't bring a social worker or a guidance counselor...instead, they treated him like a criminal.
He was dragged out of his drivers ed class, put into an empty classroom, and told that he'd be going to jail for life if he doesn't confess. Confess to what?
The idea that Michael was complicit in the boys camp pedophile scandal surfaced years later. Richards, while in prison, spoke of Michael as if he was a business partner aware of it all.
Michael's dad knew all of these detectives personally, so he had connections. Michael stated in this episode that he thinks the detectives told his parents something, because his mother was extremely fearful and wanted to relocate. They knew these guys that were molesting Michael were powerful, and that anything could happen.
This was a much bigger ring with tentacle sin a lot of places. When did you realize that he was attached to something much bigger?
Michael responds that it was in the early 1980s when he got an attorney involved and wanted to exptradite Sheldon. They said they also knew where Grossman was too. In the next 3-4 weeks, things started spiraling out of control.
What happened to Sheldon after all of this?
Michael never heard from Sheldon again, save for one incident where he had someone call Michael's house. The person on the other end of the line said that Sheldon has a lot of money, and they don't want Michael saying anything. Michael's dad had heard this conversation and took the phone out of Michael's hand, and he threatened to kill Sheldon and the others. Michael states that it could have been Adam Starchild on the other line.
The narrator then goes on to say: "want a weird sidebar of this story? Look into Adam Starchild who lives off shore, and faked his own death in 1967. Francis Sheldon left all of his money in a trust when he left the country, a trust managed by Adam Starchild. This was a bad decision. Later, Sheldon had to sue to get his OWN money back from Starchild."
Gerald Richards, or Gerry the Magician, was sentenced to 2 to 10 years in prison for all of this. He'd go on to give many interviews while incarcerated; once to 60 minutes, and once to Chicago Tribune. He was released in 1980. His wife had divorced him by then, and was living with his mother. However, old habits die hard.
In 1988, US Postal inspectors charged Richards with sending child porn in the mail....again. 8 years later, in 1996, at the age of 49, Richards committed suicide.
Dire Grossman, Sheldon's alleged co conspirator, was last seen in Washington State in 1978. From there, he disappeared into thin air...and has never been founnd.
Sheldon fled to Holland. He never faced Justice in the United States, and he died in 1996. Besides the trust fund he left for his brother, he also gave $25,000 to Yale.
Jeffrey Epstein was also known to donate to ivy league schools like Harvard, not to mention his donations to the MIT Media Lab.
The episodes ends with Michael Farquar went on to share an upsetting monologue with the audience about how he used to trust the police, and trust the legal system, but that he was betrayed by all of them. He states he wrote a letter to the Governor demanding answers, but he never received a letter back. He also states he never had any doubts about the prosecution team, but felt like they were getting stonewalled throughout the legal proceedings.
Michael then states that his attorney once told him: "some stories are too big to be told"
He states by saying "all those rumors about the government, it needs to be cleaned." and that "there is a boogeyman out there" and that you have to watch your children.
Earlier, when Michael Farquar was telling his story about being sent to all sorts of different areas around Michigan and sold to priests and clergyman at the magic shows, one of those trips included a trip to another boy's camp. However, this boy's camp too was another pedophile front operation - and was funded by Sheldon in an entirely different state.
We asked Michael about those trips. Michael is convinced that he visited another pedophile camp for boys in Tennessee, a place that Francis Sheldon sponsored with his charitable donations. I wondered if it was the Boys Farm, Inc in Winchester Tennessee run by a defraut priest named Bud fermile?
While Sheldon managed to escape, Bud wasn't so lucky. But the reason Bud was caught in tenneesee wasn't because of Sheldon and the North Fox Island bust, it was because of another ring of pedophiles that took over a boyscout troup and used it to molest children nationwide.
And that is where episode 3 ends.
EPISODE 4:
Episode 4 begins with John Wayne Gacy's flourishing art career he cultivated while behind bars. He sold his paintings, and would put the profits toward a potential retrial where he could hopefully end up proving that he didn't kill all 33 children buried under his house. His main objective was to obtain a retrial, and ultimately avoid the death penalty. Gacy stated that if the court tried him for each individual murder 1 by 1 as opposed to all 33 in bulk, they would only be able to tie Gacy to 1 or 2 of the murders, not all of them.
In 1989, Randy White began talking to John Wayne Gacy while he sat on death row. Randy calls himself an amateuur researcher, and his interest in Gacy started with him reading a book about him. Randy read the book, and in the back was Gacy's prison number and the fact you could write to him. So, Randy contacted Gacy being as he was fascinated by Gacy's case.
The calls between Randy and Gacy were never released to the public until this documentary.
Gacy told Randy that all the books about him were all trash, and garbage. THink back to my very first episode on this series, and what Gacy said about how the public perceives his case: he stated most of it was nonsense. He goes on to tell Randy that the books and documentaries say that sex played a role in like 95% of Gacy's life, and Gacy says in reality it was less than 5%.
The more Randy looked into news articles and books on the case, he began to wonder if there was something more to the Gacy case.
John Wayne Gacy tells Randy didn't commit the murders. Randy believes that Gacy DID kill, but maybe was not responsible for all of the boys murders.
Gacy was desperate to fight off his death sentence, so Randy began digging into the victims and some of the men who worked for Gacy.
This is when Gacy gives the name John D. Norman to Randy....a name that will change EVERYTHING about the case. John Norman, in fact, is at the center of the story of John Wayne Gacy and Dean Corll.
It all started with a raid on John Norman's apartment in Dallas on August 14th, 1973.
What they found was disturbing. They found pamphlets and papers with the names and pictures of boys and young men.
RC Nelson, a detective on the case, and was there when they raided John Norman's home. He explained that, as they were in the apartment, John Norman was sitting at the table and there was a couple of kids sitting around. They were underage boys. On the table in front of them were various cards and brochures on display.
Nelson goes on to say that Norman was recruiting teenage kids to go around the country and prostitute themselves.
Norman ran a newsletter called the Odyssey Foundation. Norman disguised the scheme as providing self-help for young men through travel programs. This was just a cover, as in reality it was really a "kids for rent" operation.
Law enforcement officials put together the names of 30 kids that were allegedly procured by Norman and the ring. These kids were going to be "companions" for older men, the older men being referred to as "Sponsors". There were over 100 cards in Norman's apartment that had the full names of these so called "companions" or "sponsors"
Police have uncovered a national child procurement, porn, and trafficking operation right there in Norman's apartment, and it was only a week after the discovery of Dean Corll's 27 bodies in Houston.
Skip Hollandsworth, executive editor at the Texas Monthly, states there were all these rumors about Dean Corll being a part of an organization where he was paid to send boys to California to be part of this "homosexual teenage ring".
If you recall, in an earlier video I did on the subject, I mentioned how one of Dean Corll's victim and recruiters, Elmer Wayne Henley, stated that Corll claimed to be a part of an organization in Dallas that sells boys. Henley's words are beginning to make more sense at this point.
Despite there being hundreds of names of adult men on those index cards, only Norman would end up being charged. And not long after that, Norman was released on Bond. there was no nationanl tracking system and no sex offender registry. Norman, a monster, was released back into the wild.
It wasn't long before Norman was back in business.
Less than a month after the Dallas Bust, Norman changes his name to Steven Gurwell and resurfaces in another location 1,000 miles north.
One day, a detective involved in the Norman case in Dallas receives a call from a Detective Flannery in ILlinois, and he told him that Norman was up there doing the same thing that they got him for in Dallas. It didn't take Norman more than 2 to 3 days before he was back in business in Illinois.
Frank Flannery, the detective from Illinois, received an anonymous call from a woman that said: "Mr Flannery, You don't know me, but im telling you there's a man in an apartment luring young boys and performing sexual acts on them."
The caller identifies one of the boys as being Kenny Helmstrom. Detective Flannery almost fell out of his chair at this point, because detective Flannery knew the Helmstrom family since grade school, and Kenny was the son of his friend. Flannery called Kenny's father right away, and demanded that he come intop the staton with Kenny right away.
Kenny told the detectives that he first met norman in a restaurant in Homewood, and the man asked him if he wanted a ride home. Kenny said sure, but instead of bringing him home, he brought him to his apartment and gave him beer to drink instead.
13 year old Kenny lived down the street from John D. Norman. Soon, all of Kenny's friends that live in the same neighborhood were gathering at Norman's apartment after school. Norman would ply them with beer, show them porn, and eventually he convinced the kids to perform oral sex on him.
Detective Flannery raids the home after Kenny gives his testimony. No one was home during the raid, but they found plenty of horrific things.
They found a camera and index cards. White 3 by 5 index cards in filed boxes just like in a recipe box. Norman had started a new list of boys, and the men who wanted them. There were over 2,000 names of boys on them ranging from age 14-20. The boys in many cases were from out of state; Florida, New York, Maine Connecticut....all over the country.
John Norman is not only a local nuisance...he is the leader of a nationla pedophile ring,and the index cards are his database. All the evidence the police needed were on those index cards. The detectives send the index cards to the chicago police to begin processing.
Chicago Police did end up prosecurting JOhn Norman, but that's where it ended. Where the cards are today, nobody knows for sure.
Police charge Norman with 3 counts of contributing to the sexual delinquency of a child, and 5 counts of indecent liberties with a child. He's sent to jail with a $525,000 bail.
Kenny was 13 when he testified against John D. Normon. One year later, Kenny was found stabbed to death on his way home from work. He was stabbed 6 time sin the back. He made his way home and was scratching at the front door where he inevitably died in his mother's arms. It was never discovered why he was stabbed. $250 were in his pockets, so robbery was ruled out.
Meanwhile, while in prison, John D. Norman meets a guy named Phillip Paske. Paske is awaiting trial on robbery and attempted murder. Using the jail's printing press, Norman with Paske's help gets his boys for rent newsletter back into print. When Paske was parolled in early 1976, Paske ran Norman's boys for rent newsletter from the outside. One yea rtlater, Norman is released and moves in with Paske where they continue the mail order sex business.
A journalist at the time was about to blow the lid off of the whole story. She worked for the Chicago Tribune, and was about 33 at the time. She's Michael SNeed, and one of the most powerful journlaists in the area. One day, she receives a mysterious item in the mail; it is a brochure or a flier that said "The Delta Project" and had to do with boylove stuff. They had no idea where it was coming from.
Sneed calls the police department's juvenile department, and asks them if they've heard of the Delta Project. She was met with total silence, and the police ended up hanging up on her.
Sneed tells her boss Bliss, a pulitzer prize winning journalist, that she isn't sure how much further they can go with the investigation after being stonewalled. Not long later, the police allow Sneed and Bliss to accompany the police officers on their investigations into it all. Every night, they were on stake outs in cars with police. They were watching what was going on in the streets, and they'd go to the chickenhawk area - the boys were the chickens, and the men pursuing them for sex were the chickenhawks. This went on for months, and a dark web of pedophilia and prostitution began to emerge in front of their eyes.
Sneed remarks on how she knew at the time that men were interested in little girls, but as I mentioned previously, the idea that men were interested in little boys was surprising to people. Sneed was astonished to discover that all of these men were interested in boys, not girls.
Chicago, 1977
The Delta Project was part of this boylove community, and stretched far beyond the streets of Chicago. Newsletter after newsletter promoting pedophilia as an unabashed lifestyle from coast to coast arund the world. They would send these brochures, unaffected through the mail. These periodicals were a way to summon pedophiles to certain locations, and was a pond of perversity. The ringleader was headquartered in Chicago. John D. Norman.
He was the head guy, the man that produced all this stuff. He had been arrested dozens of times over the years, all in different cities. All related to child abuse.
However, Norman wasn't the only pedophile involved in all of this, though he was the ringleader. Sneed discovers child ornography and prostituion operating across the country. It was organized, profitable, and most of it was on film. They were filming kids and sending the videos and pictures across the country and overseas in some cases. The customers were often the people that volunteered to help children.
On Sneed's last late night stake out in May of 1977, she sees for herself how shady it all it is. It was in a cheesy sleazy motel on Sheridan Road. Theguy that was the foster father of the foster kid, and he was filming the child having sex with another boy that was much younger.
After months of criss crossing the country, the Chicago Tribune finally publishes their series exposing this pedophile ring in America. The headline reads "2 seized in child sex ring". Sneed knew it was going to be a big story, but not nearly as big as it became. What originally began as a story into John Norman inevitably grew into the bigger story of boys around the country disappearing into thin air throughout the 1970s.
The series paves the way for new legislation to be passed on making child porn distribution illegal, and other laws to prevent child trafficking.
The episode then goes into a segment about the quest for forensic investigators to close the case and positively identify the last remaining Gacy victims that remain unknown. I'm not going to go into that as much here.
During those first few months, Randy White delves into the victims of JOhn Wayne Gacy, and as time goes on, Randy begins to wonder whether there was something to JOhn Gacy's claims about him not murdering all those kids.
Gacy goes on to say: "a lot of these stories are fictitious. I have no answers for you". Gacy also says "I was generous with people, same thing with letting them use the house while im out of town."
"The state sold the jury a fantasy about this being a sexual crime. If they tried me indivdually for each of those crimes, they would hav eonly been able to charge me with 1 or 2."
Randy begins to become suspicious that there's more to the story then meets the eye.
During a phone call between Randy and Gacy, Gacy says that Phillip Paske was the enforcer for John Norman.
Phillip Paske was the guy helping run the Delta Project from Jail with Norman, and continued to do so after both were out of prison. The thing about Paske though....he worked for John Wayne Gacy. Gacy told Randy that Paske worked for him, and that Paske was a good friend of David Kremp that also worked with Gacy.
Incredibly, Phillip Paske had a key to John Wayne Gacy's house. In fact, Gacy has stuck to his story that at least 12 people had keys to his home during the killings, which is why his argument has always been that his home was being used as a dumping ground by other people, possibly someone with a key. Gacy handed keys out to some of his employees and let them come and go while he was out of the house working.
In summary, there was a connection between John D. Norman and John Wayne Gacy through Phillip Paske, who was Norman's right hand man, business partner, and enforcer.
Randy, after being given the location of John Norman by Gacy over the phone, speaks to Norman. Norman brags about his boys for rent business, and rants about how he gave those young men a better life than they have ever known. Norman admits to his relationship with Phillip Paske in Chicago and the Delta Project.
In 1978, Paske wasn't just working for Norman - he was living with him. When Norman wa sbusted for molesting two foster kids, the Delta Project fizzled out. Paske was there at the time of the arrest, and even tho he was on parole at the time, he wasn't arrested for some reason. Shortly after that bust, Paske got the job working for Gacy through his friend Kram. What if Paske was using Gacy's property as a dumping ground for the kids that wanted out of Norman's operatinos? How involved WAS Norman with Gacy?
Norman was running a giant pool of boys across the entire nation, and his operation's tentacles extended into some of the nation's most trusted institutions.
NEW ORLEANS - 1976
Call it fate or serendippity, but a broken conveyor belt and a roll of film exposed one of those institutions.
August 23rd, 1976 - police receive a call from PhotoMat Labs in Dallas Texas. Apparently the conveyor belt broke down, and on the conveyor belt was a series of photographs depicting child pornography. It showed two adult males having sex with a young boy, and it came from a man named Harry Kramer in New Orleans.
The photos were examined for multiple days, and there was really no identifiers that would help them pin down who was in the photos, where they were taken, or anything else. However, another detective in the station passing through the research area looked at the photos himself and made an observation that would change things: on the coffee table in one of the photographs was a BoysLife magazine. That magazine is only available to Boy Scout troop leaders or a boyscout member.
The police headed over to the boyscout office right away, but they completely stonewalled them. They gave them just one sheet of paper and said that was all they had.
After months of work, the police eventually identified the two men in the photographs as assistant scout masters for Troop 137. 38 year old Raymond Woodall, and 22 year old Harry Kramer (the name on the original film receipt).
Woodall was probably the most devious and the smartest of pedophiles. He was the organizer.
These two men had name sof other adult males that weren't boy scout leaders or members, but were nontheless associated. THey had index files, handwritten and voluminous. They had business file cabinets filled with information, and a rolodex of index cards with a lot of names on it. There was a room full of evidence as a result of those searches
Troop 137 was a front.
They recruited boys from broken homes, and sent many of them around the US for the pleasure of men willing to pay for them. They called it a pedophile cell; they'd infiltrate organizsations like police departments and child protective services. They actually had like a procedure or guideline on what kind of kid to look for, and what to do if X happens, what to do if Y happens, so on.
Both Woodall, Kramer, and two others were arrested for their involvement. One received 75 years, another given 45 years. The police also arrested some of the John's involved; the men who paid for abusing the boys. One of the men, 41 year old Richard Jacobs, a one time part owner of the New England Patriots, was charged with 15 counts of aggravated crimes against nature, but he posted bail and skipped town. He was never brought to justice.
Woodall admits that top politicians from around the US were some of the boy scout troops customers. This was international. Pedophiles were identified in Bermuda, the UK, Germany, Australia, Checkoslavakia. And woodall's name was found in none other than John Norman's address book.
December 21st, 1978 - Gacy was arrested, and told the police in great detail how he picked up and murdered his victims. But by the time he started talking to Randy a decade later, his story changed immediately. However, there is information out there stating that Gacy told asked his arresting officers upon being arrested "what others did you get?" indicating that others were involved.
Back to Dallas in 1973 - at the time of the raid on Norman's apartment, Dean Corll's victims were being unearthed 200 miles south in Houston. Norman's client list was found, as well as the boys photos. Real prominent people were listed - phone numbers, addresses, and what kind of kid they liked were found as well. Hundreds of people, all over the country. The people came from all walks of life - some were federal employees in washington, one was from the music world. One was the head of a big orchestra...his card said that he liked the youngest kid that he could get.
After the police confiscated all the files, they were all sent to the State Department where they were inevitably destroyed. Why they were destroyed, nobody is able to say.
Think about it this way: as I mentioned earlier, John Norman was arrested a multitude of times in different states. Everywhere Norman went, so too did his index cards being as they served as his database. Everytime he was arrested, the cards were confiscated. Everytime they were confiscated, the cards would disappear. How is it that they disappeared permanently after being confiscated by the police every single time?
John D. Norman told Randy White that if his client list was ever made public, it would send shockwaves throughout the country. Norman said "what scared the hell out of everyone I think was my mailing list. It included the name sof a number of noted judges, legislators, and other officials."
Despite the arrests of the boyscout pedophiles and the other arrests, Federal Authorities ignored the evidence and didn't do anything. When they asked for help from the FBI, only one agent was sent to help the New Orleans detectives; the agent spent maybe 4 hours sifting through the evidence when he told the detectives he's going to leave for about an hour then come right back. The FBI never returned to assist.
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