Walter Collins’ home

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In Thursday’s column, I noted that Walter Collins lived in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. A reader writes to correct that by noting that Walter and Christine Collins actually lived in Lincoln Heights.

Here’s the note:


A slight correction on the “Changeling” story. Walter Collins was not from Mt. Washington, he was from Lincoln Heights and lived at 217 N. Ave 23. He was abducted two blocks away. The neighborhood where he lived was razed to make way for the transit village at the Ave 26/Lincoln Heights Gold Line Stop.

Old L.A. Times and other media often mistook L.A. neighborhoods. The borders of where Mt. Washington is, where Highland Park is, etc is far more distinct now. It wasn’t always the case.

I’ve created a map that shows some of the locations from the story:

View Larger Map

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  • johnny

    hey guys i bin on line researching this place for hours the i found were the house is exactly, if you are on the I15 going towards the sixty get off exit limonite make a right when you come up to wineville ave. make a right and follow that street. you will go through a fairly large residential area and you will come to 65th str. pass that up and you will see open land were on the left side you will see the house 6330 wineville ave its a brown house and you will notice a wooden wheel leaning on the mailbox. believe me you will know when you get their your gona get instant chills throughout your entire body. this was the home of gordon stewart northcott and his mom which really turned out to be his grandmother louisa northcott. gordon was a child produced by his mother and his grandfather. yes they kept it in the family if you know what i mean. you can also find the house on google maps and see the satelite view its like 5 t0 10 minutes of the I15 frwy.

  • Hey Dumbo

    Johnny
    The story above was not where the wineville area is- It was about where Walter collins lived and was abducted from.

  • Nicole

    Anyone that reads this, I just recently watched “Changeling.” The movie was very good. I’ve been researching more about it ever since but haven’t found an answer to my question. Was Walter ever found? My grandparents and my mother were police officers in El Segundo, near L.A. and Riverside, not during this, but much later. They are all famiiar with the story and the events, as it was still one of the most shocking decades later when they were all working. I would like to find the answer so if anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

  • renata

    hi, I’m from Poland (it’s in Europe). I’ve just watched the movie ‘changeling’ and I’m searching for any news that would prove Walter had survived. But there isn’t anything. Even if he had, he couldn’t live till now, so I’m afraid we’ll never find the truth.
    The story of these people, the children was so tragic, and in reality it was even worse than in the movie.

  • JWEBB

    Info you’ve been looking 4

    Gordon Northcott
    Kill Count: 4+
    Location: Californai, USA
    Date: 1928
    Nickname: -

    Canadian born in 1908, Northcott would later claim that his father sodomized him at age ten. The old man finished his life in a lunatic asylum, and one of Northcott’s paternal uncles died years later, in San Quentin, while serving a life term for murder. A homosexual sadist in the mold of Dean Corll and John Gacy, by age 21, Northcott was living on a poultry ranch near Riverside, California, sharing quarters with his mother and a 15-year-old nephew, Sanford Clark. For years, Northcott mixed business with pleasure in Riverside, abducting boys and hiding them out on his ranch, renting his victims to wealthy Southern California pedophiles. When he tired of the boys, they were shot or brained with an ax, their flesh dissolved with quick lime and their bones transported to the desert for disposal. Only one was ever found – a headless, teenage Mexican, discovered near La Puente during February 1928 – but homicide detectives identified three other victims. Walter Collins disappeared from home on March 10, 1928, and Northcott’s mother was convicted of his death, but evidence suggests that she was acting under orders from her son. Twelve-year-old Lewis Winslow and his brother Nelson, 10, vanished from Pomona on May 16, 1928, and Northcott was later condemned for their murders, despite the absence of bodies. Gordon might have gone on raping and killing indefinitely, but in the summer of 1928, he visited the district attorney’s office, complaining about a neighbor’s “profane and violent” behavior. The outbursts reportedly upset his nephew, who was “training for the priesthood” by tending chickens at age 15. Under investigation, the neighbor recalled seeing Gordon beat Clark on occasion, and he urged detectives to “find out what goes on” at Northcott’s ranch. Immigration officials struck first, taking Clark into custody on a complaint from his Canadian parents, and the boy regaled authorities with tales of murder, pointing out newly-excavated “grave sites” on the ranch. Detectives dug up blood-soaked earth, unearthing human ankle bones and fingers on September 17. They also found a bloodstained ax and hatchet on the premises, that Clark said had been used on human prey, as well as chickens. Northcott fled to Canada, but he was captured there and extradited back to Riverside. His mother claimed responsibility for slaying Walter Collins, but Clark fingered Gordon as the actual killer. Convicted on three counts of murder, including the Winslow brothers and the anonymous Mexican, Northcott was sentenced to death. Spared by her sex, his mother received a life sentence in the Collins case. Marking time at San Quentin, Northcott alternated between protestations of innocence and detailed confessions to the murder of “18 or 19, maybe 20″ victims. A pathological liar who cherished the spotlight, he several times offered to point out remains of more victims, always reneging at the last moment. (Northcott also named several of his wealthy “customers” at the ranch, but their identities were never published.) Warden Duffy recalled his conversations with Northcott as “a lurid account of mass murder, sodomy, oral copulation, and torture so vivid it made my flesh creep.” Northcott mounted the gallows on October 2, 1930, finally quailing in the face of death. Before the trap was sprung, he screamed, “A prayer! Please, say a prayer for me!” His mother subsequently died in prison, of old age.

  • JWEBB

    Info you’ve been looking 4

    Gordon Northcott
    Kill Count: 4+
    Location: Californai, USA
    Date: 1928
    Nickname: -

    Canadian born in 1908, Northcott would later claim that his father sodomized him at age ten. The old man finished his life in a lunatic asylum, and one of Northcott’s paternal uncles died years later, in San Quentin, while serving a life term for murder. A homosexual sadist in the mold of Dean Corll and John Gacy, by age 21, Northcott was living on a poultry ranch near Riverside, California, sharing quarters with his mother and a 15-year-old nephew, Sanford Clark. For years, Northcott mixed business with pleasure in Riverside, abducting boys and hiding them out on his ranch, renting his victims to wealthy Southern California pedophiles. When he tired of the boys, they were shot or brained with an ax, their flesh dissolved with quick lime and their bones transported to the desert for disposal. Only one was ever found – a headless, teenage Mexican, discovered near La Puente during February 1928 – but homicide detectives identified three other victims. Walter Collins disappeared from home on March 10, 1928, and Northcott’s mother was convicted of his death, but evidence suggests that she was acting under orders from her son. Twelve-year-old Lewis Winslow and his brother Nelson, 10, vanished from Pomona on May 16, 1928, and Northcott was later condemned for their murders, despite the absence of bodies. Gordon might have gone on raping and killing indefinitely, but in the summer of 1928, he visited the district attorney’s office, complaining about a neighbor’s “profane and violent” behavior. The outbursts reportedly upset his nephew, who was “training for the priesthood” by tending chickens at age 15. Under investigation, the neighbor recalled seeing Gordon beat Clark on occasion, and he urged detectives to “find out what goes on” at Northcott’s ranch. Immigration officials struck first, taking Clark into custody on a complaint from his Canadian parents, and the boy regaled authorities with tales of murder, pointing out newly-excavated “grave sites” on the ranch. Detectives dug up blood-soaked earth, unearthing human ankle bones and fingers on September 17. They also found a bloodstained ax and hatchet on the premises, that Clark said had been used on human prey, as well as chickens. Northcott fled to Canada, but he was captured there and extradited back to Riverside. His mother claimed responsibility for slaying Walter Collins, but Clark fingered Gordon as the actual killer. Convicted on three counts of murder, including the Winslow brothers and the anonymous Mexican, Northcott was sentenced to death. Spared by her sex, his mother received a life sentence in the Collins case. Marking time at San Quentin, Northcott alternated between protestations of innocence and detailed confessions to the murder of “18 or 19, maybe 20″ victims. A pathological liar who cherished the spotlight, he several times offered to point out remains of more victims, always reneging at the last moment. (Northcott also named several of his wealthy “customers” at the ranch, but their identities were never published.) Warden Duffy recalled his conversations with Northcott as “a lurid account of mass murder, sodomy, oral copulation, and torture so vivid it made my flesh creep.” Northcott mounted the gallows on October 2, 1930, finally quailing in the face of death. Before the trap was sprung, he screamed, “A prayer! Please, say a prayer for me!” His mother subsequently died in prison, of old age.

  • Lovie

    I have drove by the chicken ranch as i live near by its owened by a hisbanic people now. a pedofile can never be cured. an these worthless humans should not be allowed to live with the general public. Children are so innocent and trusting. I watched the Changling and i did my own research. The rest of the bodies will probley be found near Joshua tree.How sad

  • Jennifer Williams

    I read through the passage that was posted but it doesn’t say for sure that Walter was dead, did they even find his remains? And, what is Joshua Tree?

  • ??????????

    ok so i am comfused i want to know who killed walter or if he escaped. i want to know more. i just watched the movie changling and if they know that walter tryed to escape but didnt know if he actully made it away from the farm why didnt they ask the boy who was with the killer gordon northcott

  • Carol

    I just want to know if Walter lived or died at the ranch. Did anyone find his remains? and what happened to his mother?

  • jay

    where is walter collins? I’ve search to and have found no additional information. it is sad. i think about the boys at northcutt ranch…..to gordon stewart northcutt, F??? you and the horse you road in on.

  • joe
  • Eisha

    I have found that Mrs. Christine Collins died not knowing what happened to her Son Walter Collins. No one has found any Remains that might resemble a 9 year old Cauc. Boy. I Think that this is the best Cold Case i have ever heard of. I Would love to be able to find Walter. Or if he did live and have Children just to talk to them .

  • Diane

    May all the innocent ones rest in peace. Christine Collins and all the other mothers must have hurt the rest of their lives. This world can be a cruel place.

  • jazmin

    i think her son was still alive when she was looking for him because was not that many proof of her son being dead. when i say that movie i started to cry because whan she did not find her son i felt like if it was me because i would have gone crazy but i have some kind of respect

  • Lu

    The authorities should be able to tell from the bones and other stuff on the ranch if Walter Collins is buried there or not.

  • Lee

    Wouldnt it be great if someone would take up initiative and exhume the body parts, do dna tests on them and find out who the parts belonged to. Walter Collins or the other boys that were murdered by this monster would be put to rest.

  • Lee

    Christine I. Dunne was born in 1888 in California and died at age 75 in 1964 in Los Angeles, Calif. She was married in 1916 to Walter J.A. Collins who was born in 1888 in Nebraska and died 1932 in Folsum prison in Represa, Calif. and is buried there. Walter C. Collins their son was born in 1918 in California and died according to record in Wineville, Riverside, California 1928.

    The Boy Who Vanishedand His Impostor
    Added by cj0rdan on 26 Feb 2009

    By Cecilia Rasmussen
    February 07, 1999 in print edition B-3

    The annals of child kidnapping are replete with heartbreaking tragedies, but probably none have been quite as bizarre as the crime that first mesmerized, then convulsed, Los Angeles more than 70 years ago.

    By the time it was over, it would involve not only an apparent abduction, but also impersonation, police coercion, false imprisonment, psychiatric abuse andthis being Los Angelesa court fight that stretched on for more than a decade. It was a story with victims and villains, but what it never had was a resolution.

    On a sunny afternoon in March 1928, 9-year-old Walter Collins disappeared after his mother, Christine, a telephone operator, gave him a dime to spend on admission to the theater near their Mt. Washington area home.

    Angelenos rallied behind the grieving mother and her missing boy while the police dragged Lincoln Park lake and launched a national campaign to find Walter.

    His apparent kidnapping struck a chord in a city still traumatized by a vicious crime only three months earlier. In that case, 12-year-old Marion Parker was kidnapped for ransom by a psychopath named William the Fox Hickman, who shoved her dismembered body from his car just before being captured.

    Countless tips on Walters location led to dead-ends. He was allegedly spotted as far north as San Francisco and Oakland. One reported sighting was at a Glendale gas station in the back seat of a car, wrapped in newspaper with only his head showing. The station owner described the driver as a foreign-looking man, probably an Italian, accompanied by a woman.

    The boys father, Walter J.S. Collins, who was serving time in prison for robbery, believed that former inmates out for revenge against him may have kidnapped his son, though there were no witnesses and no proof that that had occurred.

    Police continued their search until August, when a boy claiming to be Walter turned himself in to Illinois authorities. Christine Collins paid $70 in travel expenses so the boy could return to Los Angeles.

    When he arrived, however, Collins said that although he resembled Walter, the boy was not her son.

    You Are a Fool

    However, the Los Angeles Police Departmentunder terrific pressure to declare the case happily closedrefused to believe that the boy wasnt Walter, whatever the mother said.

    Emotionally drained, Collins caved in to the cops suggestion that she try the boy out, and took him into her home.

    But after three weeks of attempting to reconcile herself to the convenient fiction, Collins returned him to the police.

    Armed with proof in the form of her sons dental records and a troop of friends who agreed that the boy wasnt Walter, Collins still failed to convince LAPD Capt. J.J. Jones, who investigated the kidnapping, that the boy was an impostor.

    What are you trying to do, make fools out of us all? Or 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 Ive ever known. You are a . . . fool! Jones allegedly told Collins.

    Resolved to bend her to his willand the departments convenienceJones had the distraught mother committed to Los Angeles County General Hospitals psychiatric ward for evaluation.

    While she spent five days in the hospital, Jones extracted the truth from the faux Walter.

    The boy from Illinois confessed that he actually was 12-year-old Arthur Hutchins of Iowa. After his mother died, he had gone to live an isolated new life with his cold fish of a father and a malicious stepmother, he said. He ran away, hitchhiking around the country and working odd jobs.

    While stopped at an Illinois roadside cafe, Arthur said, he listened to a diner tell him how much he resembled the kidnapped boy from Los Angeles, whose picture had appeared in newspapers nationwide. Arthur quickly seized on an opportunity to see Hollywood, turned himself in to authorities and carried out the charade by assuming the identity of the missing boy.

    For Collins, however, there was more heartache and trouble to come.

    Released from the hospital, she filed a false-imprisonment complaint against the city, Police Chief James Davis and Jones.

    With the heat on the department, Jones, who also was being pressured to help solve a grisly murder mystery, insisted that Walter had been one of the victims of Gordon Stewart Northcott and his mother, who had recently been charged with beheading a youth, one of 11 children they sexually assaulted and murdered in Riverside County.

    But Collins refused to believe it, especially because her sons body was never found on the Northcotts chicken ranch in Wineville, now Mira Loma.

    More than 1,000 outraged Angelenos packed the council chambers in the newly opened City Hall to hear Davis and Jones testify in their defense against Collins allegations before the citys health and welfare committee. The crowd was in an uproar. Broken microphones prohibited them from clearly hearing all of the witnesses. Bystanders kept yelling, Louder! Louder! as the family dentist testified that the real Walter had several fillings and the boy claiming to be Walter had never seen a dentist in his life.

    In addition, Collins told her story to the Police Commission, which refused to discipline Jones, and a grand jury before finally going to court.

    In the meantime, the complaint against the city and police chief was dismissed and Jones was suspended. But that didnt stop Collins from going after him.

    A Lifelong Search

    More than two years and two trials later, a judge awarded her $10,800. She said she planned to use the money to continue looking for her son. But Jones never paid up.

    He was reinstated in the LAPD, but claimed to be constantly broke. Nevertheless, Collins remained a constant thorn in his side, summoning him back to court every few years to explain his failure to pay and to have more interest tacked onto something she would never see.

    Continuing her search and never giving up hope, Collins became the first woman in more than three decades to receive permission to visit a serial killer on the eve of his execution at San Quentin. In October 1930, Northcott sent her a telegram saying he had lied when he denied that Walter was among his victims. He promised to tell the truth, if she came in person to hear. But upon her arrival, he balked.

    I dont want to see you, he said when she confronted him. I dont know anything about it. Im innocent.

    Five years after Northcotts execution, one of the other boys he was accused of killing was found alive and well.

    This tiny bit of news gave Collins the hope she needed to go on searching for the rest of her life. If, somehow, Walter is alive today, he is 80 years old.

  • Anonymous

    The movie is a real insight on how you truly never know anyone in this life, they will always shock you and prove you wrong. Who knew that crazy lunatic from Canada would kill 20 innocent boys and for what? for nothing, self pleasure? That is disgusting. How could anyone in their right mind or even not in their right mind want or have the urge to kill another human being out of spite or self satisfaction. It is horrifying to know there are people in this world out there doing these actions who are running free as we speak. Just makes me want to puke. They should have never let the Canadian mother who was involved go free either she should have been hung right along with the killer son and as for the boy forced to participate, Clark, he is just as guilty as any to do such a horrible thing knowing he could have said No, no matter what pressure you are under you still have a choice, and he made the wrong one to follow in the killings. I still have not found any information on the missing Collins boy either and I wish that I could. I would like to know he made it out alive and well? He did an honorable thing helping to save the other boy who came forth and was safe in the end. If worst scenario at least he is in heaven, and to him, Mrs. Collins, and the other boys and their families, God Bless and I hope they found peace at one point in time. Sad stories that will never be forgotten.

  • Felicia Spencer

    I pray that someone who lives in or around that area for God to touch their heart to seek a forensics team who will exhume ALL REMAINS at the original site and anywhere others may be. No matter how long ago this crime happened, it is still unsolved. People want to know if Walter Collins was murdered on the ranch or did he possible escape. I know he is in heaven. As sad as this story is, it needed to be told. The only rule out that Walter did die there is to do forensics on the remains.

  • maria salazar

    I live in Mira Loma. Very close to this site. Me and my boyfriend drove by that house on 6330 wineville. That house is for sale and it appears to have a red notice paper on the window. Who knows what else happened there, besides the chicken coop murders. It is a brown house, not too big in size but the land it sits on is pretty large. Of course it’s surrounded by houses now but it still gives me the chills when I drive by there.

  • sahron

    Does anyone know where poor Christina Dunne/ Collins has been laid to rest?

  • Sammi

    They could not exhume the bodies and do DNA testing, because there is nothing to compare them to. They would also have to exhume the parents bodies to match the DNA. This would cost thousands of dollars, but if someone had the money, time, and authority to do this it would maybe solve one of the greatest cold cases ever recorded.

  • maria

    Yes, very interesting unsolved crime mystery what happaned exactly to Walter Collins? Was he killed or did he escaped from the axe of this crazy lunatic? I guess we will never know exactly what happaned to him. But, his mom always felt his presence that he was still alive somewhere in this world. That is all it mattered to her that she believed it very strongly that he was alive somewhere. Great idea that someone to come and offer money or reward to solve this mystery of a henious crime. Put, the pieces together so the murdered victims can rest in peace. We, as the people owe them that solve the crime with sophisticated technology DNA, exhume the parents and the remaines of the missing children found and perform DNA and solve the crime.

    Anybody, any comments about this topic??????

  • maria

    Yes, very interesting unsolved crime mystery what happaned exactly to Walter Collins? Was he killed or did he escaped from the axe of this crazy lunatic? I guess we will never know exactly what happaned to him. But, his mom always felt his presence that he was still alive somewhere in this world. That is all it mattered to her that she believed it very strongly that he was alive somewhere. Great idea that someone to come and offer money or reward to solve this mystery of a henious crime. Put, the pieces together so the murdered victims can rest in peace. We, as the people owe them that solve the crime with sophisticated technology DNA, exhume the parents and the remaines of the missing children found and perform DNA and solve the crime.

    Anybody, any comments about this topic??????

  • Dora

    I just watched the movie and i just sat there so sad and lost. He would be 90 years old right now if he still was alive. I really think when the boys ran he got away sometimes people block bad things in there minds away for years. Who knows he could be out there somewhere. This was a very sad story i wonder if David is still alive.

  • http://none Marcus

    Imagine if they had DNA testing back in the 1920/30′s, this would have been over really quickly or it would have changed the circumstances and events in significant ways.

  • Anon

    I agree with Marcus about the DNA testing stuff. I’ve read a couple of websites, and I honestly think that it was Gordon’s mom that killed Walter, but in the movie, it shows Sandford claiming that Walter had helped him escape. Damn confusing if you ask me.

  • Sean B.

    For those that suggested DNA testing, apparently no complete bodies were found, only a few body parts and the likely murder weapons. Clark, the boy in the movie who “helped” Gordon, testified in real life that they had used quicklime to dispose of the bodies and buried many of them out in the desert. Quicklime would leave no DNA to perform a comparison, were they ever to find any remains. I’m not saying Walter’s DNA couldn’t be in there somewhere with what they did find, but the lack of it wouldn’t necessarily preclude his awful fate at the ranch.

    Despite wishful thinking on all of our parts, and his mother’s unyielding insistence, I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that Walter was indeed murdered by these people. Ignore the wacko testimony of Gordon’s mother; we can’t be sure one way or the other based on her flip-flopping–not to mention the fact that she was psychotic to begin with. Yet given more reliable testimony of Clark and the boy who escaped, and the fact that Walter never returned to his mother, the simplest solution is that Walter perished at the hands of these nutjobs during the escape or shortly thereafter, and his remains were disposed of.

    I’m not a religious man, but here’s hoping the Northcott’s are rotting in hell and that the souls of Christine and Walter are at peace.

  • Anonymous

    actually jebb, northcott’s sister was convicted of the crime and served only 12 years. your story is all wrong. clark’s sister visited the ranch and became scared, went home and alerted the athorities of his wearabouts. that open’s pandora’s box.

  • http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime/2008/10/walter-collins-home.html Bree

    Walters remains were NEVER found, but only 4 boys were able to be identified when Gordon killed around 20. Walter and his mother were NEVER reunited, so he was presumed dead.

  • stella

    ive just watched the movie “changling’ and feel so sad, i thought i’ll try google and see if i can find any info about walter and if he is dead…and what happend to his mom. the movie ended on hope…its not good enough. I also just have one question was walter found dead?

  • Cyndi

    Ok, By leaving this hanging will there be another movie with all the answers? Yes, it was a great movie but too many unanswered questions.

  • Kate

    No full remains were found, so there was never any actual identification. The best the LAPD had was a decapitated body of a hispanic boy, (the unidenified mexican) As far as the Nelson boys and Walter, it was awfully convienent to pass the buck onto Northcott to make these highly publicized and negative stories go away so that the LAPD could go on with their corruption or at least get away with things that they had already done. The boy who was thought to have been killed by Northcott but turned up five years later unharmed: It was never actually said that he ever was kidnapped by Northcott, just that he was presumed to be among the victims because he was missing from the area.(except in the movie) In real life I can’t find any evidence that Sanford Clark identified Walter as a victim, nor that he witnessed any of the boys escape. So I believethat was just for the movie as well. Who knows maybe Walter was there, maybe he was a victim of somebody else, or a runaway. Lest we forget that his mother was doing the best she could but that meant she wasn’t around much. Also his father was a convict. Back in 1928, children of convicts and single mothers were treated as the scum of the earth. He may have been a troubled boy to begin with. Whatever the case, at the age of 9, I believe he did eventually fall victim to some nutjob. I think he would have returned home once he found out what a celebrety he was back home, and how much his mother did love him. It is my personal opinion that the LAPD had no idea whether Walter was out at that ranch, but so long as he wasn’t turning up else where, why the heck not.

  • Someone

    Lets get this straight. We was wondering and NEEDING i assume to know what happened. To be honest it is very simple. We saw the movie and we are told that is BASED not exactly what is told. But some of the information that was said seems to be real I will list the premises and i will state my conclusion and hopefully i can get feedback on what you think and you can ask questions about it that can also make me spark a thought to revise.

    1. Kid killer: said some escape but ID walter was a victim( i believe this is odd a victim; he would of said he never killed him DUH!)

    2. If they escaped and shown in the movie and the david survived. Did they chase? and caught…. some?

    3. If they caught some… and Northcott said he didn’t kill her boy and then refuse to give the truth later…. for what? GOD?

    4. hung…. said he never killed angels or something around the baseball outfield

    My conclusion.

    Based on the boy killer… he said some escape and id them… chased after some of the ones that attempted to escape but still id walter as a victim not an escape victim. After at that time being publized about a found kid… wouldn’t you think the boy would of said something and the “old information” that we tend to pass by would of been there…. big story right? I believe that the boy killer killed walter. and if not remains should of been found miles away. None… because i think during the process of escaping in the dark he could of trippde or hurt himself leaving him vulnerable not only to the killers but to the animals around during the 30s.. Your talking animails near i15 that seems to still look like long distances of emptiness sometimes. Walter is DIED. He is probably eaten us because the bones the boy killer digged obviously didn’t contain walter. and if it did contain them they it brings up back to the boy being the one that had to kill him because he escaped and northcott wanted to watch…. watch instead of doing. It is over people. The child is resting in peace with his mother and trying to seem if he was alive and found would of been found. we have the internet and people are looking and i believe it will NEVER been found because the child was killed by the boy killer or eaten by a beast of another kind.

  • childadvocate

    I can relate to this movie because even today pedofiles are not taken as seriously as they should be by law enforcement. South Carolina just gave a registered child sex offender custody of a minor child for the first time in the state’s history. This registered child sex offender also lives right across the street from a middle school…so are the laws that are set in place for these individuals who commit such crimes against nature to young innocent children really being enforced any better than they were in Walter’s day?

  • RockStarJake007

    Most of you are way offbase on this case…Sandford Clark was not the boy who turned out 7 years later, and said Walter was with him in the chicken coop.
    It was another boy completely who said Walter had helped him escape…for one…so some of you need to get your facts straight…and furthermore, Christine did the right think to keep looking for her son, the killers recanted their confessions and the body was never found…so he could have gotten away.
    I would have did the same thing Christine did.
    I have a 13 year old son, so I know exactly how it feels to love your child so much, that if something has happened to them, you wanna find out what if you don’t already know.
    Some of you who aren’t parents wouldn’t understand this, but those of you who are…understand I’m sure.
    She had no hard evidence her son was dead, and a boy that was with him got away and lived terrified for 7 years…It makes perfect sense for her to hope that maybe her son got away as well and was just scared someplace.
    For those fools complaining cause the movie ended on “hope” and for those hoping for a sequel..get real folks…the fact is…Walter was never found, Christine died…never knowing what happened to her son, and they didn’t tell you anymore cause the case has never been solved officially.
    DUH!

  • http://www.myspace.com/hopkinslikebernard GeGe

    I just watched the movie and have been doing research to see if Walter Collins made it and survived. I am wondering why the movie does not include Northcotts mother in it, whom confessed to killing Walter. I have come to the conclusion that Walter did not make it after the escape simply because Clark (the cousin) so vividly remembers him from the picture. It is my opinion that he was caught on the night and tragically murdered. This is a sad sad story and It sickens me that the LAPD acted and treated women so harshly in those days.

  • mj

    Ok, understanding that the movie didnt show anything bout all the family in on the horrific act, but question remains of: why didnt they ask Sanford on the night of the kids escaping, did they manage to catch any of the fleeing kids…. that to me might answer the question of who might of been lucky to escape..

  • Jack

    I just finished watching the movie, “Challenge.” I am apalled that anything like that could have happened in the United States at that time. I can believe it now with the corrupt Democrats in charge, but not then. The police officers responsible should have been hanged along with the murderer.

  • http://williams1317@comcast.net Marion Williams

    I hope you get this comment because i have submitted this twice and it keeps saying incomplete. WHAT is URL??

  • vanessa and katy

    im very sad and wonderous about this cold bloody case.I also was thinking so much after the movie “Changling” it was very good,but someone please tell me if Walter Collons died..?im very sad and questioned to know.

  • Anonymous

    you people are a bunch of luck tards. the movie is a true story, not BASED on true events, it is TRUE. there are a miniscule amount of differences:

    1.) Gordon Northcott (the grown man that was killing little boys in a chicken coope) had a lucked up family. His mother and his grandfather had relations to create him. The woman who helped him kill the kids was his grandmother(his mother’s mother). She is not in the movie.

    2.) David (the boy at the end who escaped and was found 7 years later) told a story about Walter helping him escape, this was for dramatic effect. David really did escape, but the part about Walter and the other boys was made up for the movies sake.

    3.) Aurther (the boy who pretended to be Walter) confessed to being a 12 yr old from Iowa while Mrs. Collins was locked away in a mental facility. In the movie he doesn’t confess until after she is released.

    4.) Sanford Clark was the boy who was helping Gordon Northcott and his grandmother kill these boys. Sanford was Gordon’s nephew. Sanford did not “escape” he was arrested. Sanford and David are not the same guy. Sanford was not a victim but an accompliss. Granted he was being held against his will, he was still a participant in the murders, not a boy locked in the chicken coope.

    go to google.com and type Christine Collins. click on the wikipedia article and read it.

    they NEVER FOUND WALTER. stop asking.

  • http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime/2008/10/walter-collins-home.html just a thought, only if

    mitochondrial dna, they could compare the mothers hair strand to the bodies of the boys found at the ranch.

    The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. (Y chromosomal DNA, paternally inherited, is used in an analogous way to trace the agnate lineage.) This is accomplished in humans by sequencing one or more of the hypervariable control regions (HVR1 or HVR2) of the mitochondrial DNA. HVR1 consists of about 440 base pairs. These 440 base pairs are then compared to the control regions of other individuals (either specific people or subjects in a database) to determine maternal lineage. Most often, the comparison is made to the revised. Vil et al. have published studies tracing the matrilineal descent of domestic dogs to wolves.[4] The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the same type of analysis, attempting to discover the origin of humanity by tracking the lineage back in time.

  • just a thought, only if

    mitochondrial dna, they could compare the mothers hair strand to the bodies of the boys found at the ranch.

    The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. (Y chromosomal DNA, paternally inherited, is used in an analogous way to trace the agnate lineage.) This is accomplished in humans by sequencing one or more of the hypervariable control regions (HVR1 or HVR2) of the mitochondrial DNA. HVR1 consists of about 440 base pairs. These 440 base pairs are then compared to the control regions of other individuals (either specific people or subjects in a database) to determine maternal lineage. Most often, the comparison is made to the revised. Vil et al. have published studies tracing the matrilineal descent of domestic dogs to wolves.[4] The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the same type of analysis, attempting to discover the origin of humanity by tracking the lineage back in time.

  • Melissa

    Dna is tricky. As old as the case is, results, provided the experts had a viable sample of Walter’s and Christine’s would not be conclusive. I believe that he was among those murdered on that ranch in 1928, and I believe that his death was vindicated with the execution of Gordon Stewart Northcott. It doesn’t matter that it was Louisa Northcott or her son who murdered him. They both were punished, whether by the court systems in CA at the time, or by Saint Peter when it was time to answer for all their sins, they paid?

  • Tricia

    Hopefully my take on what happened will help shed some light on what happened… I was not there, do I know anything more than you do. But I’m trying to take an education guess at what most likely happened.

    If David is advising that Walter helped him escape, it’s most likely that Walter escaped unharmed. In fact, my guess is all 3 boys that made it out that day were fine. There were some shots fired in the movie and it’s possible that one of the 3 boys was hit and died from wounds. The desert at night is something you would easily get lost in. So if any of those shots hit they would have died from that and not being caught again by the abductors. Remember, those 3 that did this were crazy but not stupid. You don’t think clearly when you are crazy though. It was dark, headlights back then were horrible at best, my guess is finding either of the 3 boys that escaped that night was impossible.

    They were smart enough to destroy tissue. My guess is whatever chemicals they were using to destroy the body’s also destroyed any evidence to be able to DNA test now. Yes, we could exhume Christine and all the other body parts to see if Walter was in fact a victim or not. And perhaps the same could be done for all the body’s that were found. It would be expensive but not out of the realm of possibility. But I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t think they will be able to match DNA some 70 years later. Not when the tissue had been treated chemically. I just don’t see doing that would do any good.

    But, I think this is probably the most likely chain of events. Remember, this was in 1928. Print media didn’t get to everyone. Remember, we are talking about a very poor time, our poorest in history. You were lucky to eat at all. Media isn’t like it is today. Back then, Walter probably never knew his mom was looking for him. Especially if he ended up really far from home. Also kids were a dime a dozen back then. You had so many orphaned children, runaways, and abandoned children back then you wouldn’t have thought anything of one working on your land for a day. And kids lie. There is a very good chance Walter would have made up several stories along the way to explain to someone why he needed a meal, a place to stay for the night, or a chance to work as a day labor. Whatever families if any that took him in wouldn’t remember Walter from the other dozen or so kids that they took in that year. Anyone that found him would have just turned him in to an orphanage at best, or put him to work for a day and he would have moved on the next day to the next place. Remember, runaways, abandoned children, orphans, and the like were not favored back then. People barely had enough money to feed themselves let alone their own kids, or other people’s kids. They were generally considered pretty low on society totem pole. Walter was raised by a single mother, because his father was in prison all his life. Walter already knows from his classmates how unfavorable his situation is. Remember too, there is a good situation he left home. This is one of the poorest times ever, he was probably pretty skidish and always worried that he might get left. His father had already abandoned them as far as Walter was concerned. And when his mother hadn’t shown as she had promised, he might have worried that she left him.

    The movie didn’t depict their family as struggling, however she was a single mother probably not making as much as a man would have trying to raise a family. She worked long hours to work her way up to a supervisor, and Walter knew times were tough. He might have been teased in school that his father left him and just a matter of time before his mom left him. He might have worried about her and tried to go looking for her when she didn’t show when he was picked up. It’s hard to speculate 70 years later what happened really.

    Walter was 9 when he was taken, he probably wouldn’t have remembered much. And last he knew of his mother is that she was killed in an accident. He was probably told something to that affect when he was taken to get him in the car in the first place. But regardless of what happened his ordeal was horrific. Even if he didn’t completely understand what was going on at the time he was in flight or fight mode and probably was that way his whole life.

    Remember too, the Walter depicted in the movie was afraid of just about everything. He almost never left the house, didn’t like to be left alone, and afraid of the dark. You put a 9 year old kid like that in the worst case scenario, fighting/running for his life and he will pretty much forget everything from his past.

    My guess is Walter escaped and survived. But probably never heard that his mom was still looking for him, and even if he had I’m actually guessing he didn’t realize it was him. The one that turned himself in a few years later as one of the missing boys admits himself he was afraid to turn himself in. That means Walter was probably in the same situation. At best, he was just afraid to turn himself in. Most likely he has no memory at all of that being him.

    When human being suprese memories as often happens in stressful situations, it takes a specific trigger to bring back the memory. He would have needed most likely one on one interaction before he would recognize Christine as his mother. A black & white photo of a woman that he probably doesn’t recognize it, won’t do any good.

  • Katie

    Ive just watched the movie and I’m guessing maybe they didnt have the technology to identify remains from DNA like we do these days, also they may not of had the means to find or trace people. I’m not an expert, I’m just guessing.
    Things were very basic back then.
    What a moving story and my heart goes out to Christine Collins and her dreadful trsdgedy.

  • kris

    I too just watched the movie and it was really good. unfortunately, i do not think we will ever know the truth or what really happened. i read that clark, the nephew never mentioned of an escape attempt. read it was clarks sister who called authorities and said that her brother clark was in the states illegally. she did this because she was afraid of gordon and feared for her brothers safety. i read that gordon and walter were aquaintances, that gordon also worked at a grocery store where walter and his mother went and that is how gordon new of walter. when gordons mother found out that her son took a boy who could identify him, she said that walter should be killed and all 3 took part so no one would tell on eachother. while walter was sleeping they killed him. i do believe that walter was among the victims. and if they had the resources like we do now, i am sure his remains would have been found. or at least a better record of what took place.

  • Anonymous

    i feel sad for him

  • charlotte

    Just thinking I think sadly Walter Collins did get murdered as surely if he survived with all the press his mother christine was getting he would of known she was still looking for him and would of gone to the police.
    Or maybe he couldn’t forgive his mother for going to work and leaving him that day and he was traumatised by the events that happened at the ranch he blamed his mother and didn’t want to be with her again.
    I guess we will never know but it must of been hell for christine not knowing what happened to her son all those years her spirit can’t be at rest i don’t think.
    Or maybe she is reconciled with walter now who knows but it is a fascinating film and really does make you want to try and solve the mystery of walter.

  • roger dinh

    Like everyone else I just finish the movie, looking up google about Walter Collins. 3 boys make a run that night and see if Walter ever founded. Good and sad movie.

  • kat

    Walter Collins is so young at that time.

  • MISSRN

    Anyone who has questions on this subject should really read the book Sanford Clark’s adopted son wrote.It’s called The Road Out Of Hell by Flacco/Clark. It tells a detailed account from Sanfoed Clark what really went on at the farm..I live about ten minutes from the farm and it is still there andf newley renovated..Very creepy…

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  • calvin

    http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/542413/Walter-Collins.html
    after doing alot of research I just began to start looking for children he might have had and the first idea I got was to put jr after his name because it was real common to keep names in the family back then and the site above was of a 68 yr old man with 2 kids who passed in virginia take it how you want but I feel that walter got away and began a family tree of his own.