When a young teen vanishes on his way to school, a single note left behind pushes police toward the idea that he was a runaway. But the people who knew him best never believed that. As the days stretched on, that theory began to crumble and a prime suspect emerged. On this podcast, I never center the perpetrator, and that remains true here. But to show just how unsafe the so-called simpler times could be, today I am walking you through a pattern of violence and how one man’s repeated behavior, combined with a weak response from the systems meant to protect children, allowed him to continue harming young boys and likely take multiple lives.
This week I’m doing something a bit different. Because the crime spree here stretches over decades and involves so many people, this episode will focus first on the disappearance of a boy named Kipling, how a suspect emerged, and then backtrack to the earliest known crime that suspect committed.
The following day, Part 2 will be released which will focus on the crimes that occurred after the suspect’s release from prison. The cases featured in part 2 will largely be that of teen Keith Flemming and young adult Charles Collingwood, but Kipling’s story will continue to be woven in as well. Police finally close in on the suspect, but another boy will go missing first. While these two episodes do have a highly probably suspect and may appear as solved, Kipling, Keith, Charles and a couple of other boys I’ll get into are still missing and their families still don’t have answers.
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