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On a hot summer day in August 1976, 10-year-old Andy Puglisi
disappeared while playing with dozens of other kids at the Higgins
Memorial Pool in Lawrence, MA. Andy's mother Faith recalls that morning
was like any other day. She had given him some soup, which he slurped
audibly. She almost scolded him for this, but instead just told him,
"Honey, go ahead, eat your soup." She went upstairs and when she came
back down, he had left for the pool to join his siblings. When her other
children returned from the pool that afternoon, Faith wasn't initially
worried, thinking perhaps Andy was at a friend's house, but after a few
hours her concern grew. She walked through the neighborhood calling his
name, asking everyone she passed if they'd seen him. She contacted
police at about 10:00 that night. Despite a round-the-clock search that
lasted for six days, Andy was never found.
Years later, filmmaker Melanie Perkins (Andy's childhood friend) returned
to Lawrence to fulfill her lifelong promise to search for Andy. Melanie, who
narrates the film, says, "I had no idea that my journey would reopen a
case considered closed for more than twenty years." Andy and Melanie
lived in the Stadium Projects, along with hundreds of other children,
mostly from single-parent households. The state pool, which was across
the street, was a summer haven for the kids, but the surrounding area
proved to be not entirely safe - beyond the pool were woods, the
Shawheen River and the highway. As Jeff Perkins, a childhood friend,
points out, "Within seconds [Andy] could have been in the woods, within
minutes he could have been in the river. Five minutes or less he could
have been on the highway, in a car."
As Melanie begins her investigation, she learns that though there were
several initial suspects, no one was ever charged with the abduction. As
the case dragged on through the 1980s, it became increasingly bizarre. A
woman claimed to be channeling the voice of Andy, and the Lawrence
Police brought in a psychic from Texas, who they thought might help
uncover some clues. The addition of the psychic to the case caused a
media frenzy in the Lawrence area, but when he failed to turn up a lead,
the media soon lost interest.
Seventeen years later, spurred on by Melanie and an article that appeared
in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, police revisited the case. Melanie asked
them to look into a letter in Andy's file, written by an inmate named
Charles Pierce, who confessed to the murder of a Lawrence boy. Pierce
had been convicted of killing a girl ten miles from where Andy was
abducted, yet at the time no one had questioned him about Andy's case.
Appalled, Melanie set out to interview Pierce, but soon found out that
Pierce had died in prison of prostate cancer. She also learned that hours
before his death, Lawrence police did finally question Pierce about Andy.
He admitted that he had been to the Higgins Pool to observe children from
time to time, but he had no connection to Andy. Pierce was, however,
acquainted with another pedophile who was also a suspect in Andy's
abduction: Wayne W. Chapman.
Chapman had been arrested two weeks after Andy's disappearance for a
traffic violation, and police found a cache of child pornography in his car.
After his arrest, two boys who had been lured from the state pool and
raped in the nearby woods the year before were shown a mug shot of
Chapman and positively identified him as the perpetrator. Chapman
became a suspect in Andy's case, but was never charged. Instead, he was
convicted for the rape of the two boys and was committed for life to the
Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. Melanie
says, "Lawrence police did not prosecute ... because they felt like Chapman
had been sentenced to life in the Treatment Center." They didn't know
that 20 years later, Chapman would successfully petition to no longer be
deemed sexually dangerous and subsequently became eligible for parole.
After years of researching the disappearance of her childhood friend,
Melanie says she began to realize she was up against a system where
thousands of missing children's cases fall through the cracks every year.
Andy's family, coming to terms with the fact that he may never be found,
held an emotional memorial service for Andy, 30 years after he
disappeared. At the service, Andy's mother says, "I didn't get a chance to
say goodbye. I had no idea when he left that day that was going to be the
last time.... That's a hard truth to face."
CREDITS: Produced, Written and Directed by Melanie Perkins; Edited by
Rachel Clark; Music by John Kusiak; Director of Photography:
Stephen McCarthy; Associate Producer: Julie Rosenberg; Audio
Mix: Richard Bock. For Cinemax Reel Life: Supervising Producer:
Nancy Abraham; Executive Producer: Sheila Nevins.
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