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HBO: This is an extremely personal film. Why did
you decide to make it?
Melanie Perkins: Well, I was with Andy at the pool the day he
disappeared. I was nine years old, and he was
ten. He was my summer crush, and we were
playing together at the pool that day along
with hundreds of other kids, and I went home
at the end of the day, and Andy never came
home. After dinner people started to call his
name. In the middle of the night the police
knocked on our door, and they were asking us
if we had seen Andy.
Initially, I thought maybe he had stayed
somewhere that he wasn't supposed to, and
there was some misunderstanding, and he
was going to get in trouble when he got home.
Then as the morning came and the National
Guard started marching through the housing
projects where we lived, and helicopters
started flying overhead, I realized that
something was really, really wrong.
And as corny as this might sound, I visibly
remember that day. I couldn't understand
why the adults couldn't find this boy. And I
thought, "when I grow up, I'll try to find him".
I moved shortly after that, and went to a
different high school. But Andy was never
really far from my thoughts, and I often
wondered what happened to him.
Ultimately, I came out of college hoping to
make social issue documentaries. And after
about a decade of working in television, I
decided it was time to make my own
documentary.
I knew it was going to have to be about
something I cared passionately about. I
decided to make a film about what happened
to Andy. And I was incredibly naïve. But
sometimes I think that's what it takes to make
things happen.
I picked up the phone and contacted people. I
kept a really good database and conversation
records. And after a couple months of doing
that, and with the family's blessing, I started
filming, initially just with friends that had
equipment and were doing me a favor. And as
the documentary started to get going, it
picked up some momentum, and eventually
got the attention of the press. And that
opened up a number of doors for me in terms
of the police investigation.
Once the press covered the story, particularly
The Boston Globe, I was getting contacted by
people from all over the country with tips and
new information, and some with just general
interest in the story. And it confirmed for me
that Andy's story is a universal one, and a
very good one.
HBO: What were some of the things you discovered?
Melanie Perkins: One of the most important things I discovered
is that the feelings I had about Andy all these
years, the longing and wanting to know, is not
unique to me, that this whole community,
literally hundreds of kids were deeply affected
by Andy's disappearance, even thirty years
later. And that became a really important
part of what I wanted to include in the film.
Because there are many studies about
missing children and the effect it has on
parents, but I haven't seen anything that
considers the children who are left behind.
Also, there was a lot of information that
hadn't been followed up on in Andy's case and
it was unclear to me why, and so I had to
continue to pursue those leads. I initially
assumed that the authorities knew what they
were talking about, and that's not always the
case. You just can't take things at face value.
And I think another really big surprise for me
was going inside the mind of a pedophile to
understand why they think the way they do
about children. They believe that children
have a legitimate right to have sex with adults
and that we, as a society, are withholding
their civil liberties by not allowing them to do
so. That was really remarkable to me.
I don't think when I started out that I was
really prepared for what I was going to learn.
There was a lot of darkness that I had to let
into my life. And that doesn't go away. Once
you learn something, you can't unlearn it, and
that's always going to be there.
Ultimately, I think that was part of the bigger
picture. It was a journey that I went on and I
learned something very valuable from it, and
I'm a different person now as a result. It
answered the questions for me that I needed
answered about Andy's abduction.
Melanie Perkins:
Another part of it is--Andy was a poor kid
from a broken home in a housing project.
And even today, thirty years later, poor kids
from broken homes in housing projects who
go missing tend to not get the kind of
attention that upper middle class blond girls
do. And they may never.
And that's one of the things I hope this film
demonstrates: how many children have fallen
through the cracks over the years. And that
there are inequities in law enforcement just
like there inequities in social and class
structures in our country.
HBO: What kind of conclusions and truths did you
take away from this?
Melanie Perkins: I set out in 1998 to find out what happened to
my friend Andy. And now I feel like I found
out more than I could have wanted to know.
But at the same time there's peace in finding
out what happened, and to be able to share
his story with the rest of the community of
kids where we lived, and let them know that
our experience is universal.
I also think it's amazing that these children
who were at the pool the day Andy
disappeared can go back to the police officers
who investigated the case, or to the person
believed to have abducted him and say, what
happened? We were children then and we
couldn't ask for answers because we weren't
allowed a voice. But today we have one, and
we want to know.
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