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- [00:00]
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- [00:19]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
A dusty old Chevrolet slips past a house on Frazier Avenue in Des Moines, Iowa. Inside the house, Sue Martin sees it, and in an instant, the room changes. She says, don, it's that car again.
- [00:32]
Sue Martin
Get the license number.
- [00:34]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
Don Martin moves fast. He's out of the chair, across the living room, and through the screen door before the car can get too far out of sight. The car is already moving down the street, so Don watches. He studies the plate and tries to hold the numbers in his mind before the Chevy turns the corner and disappears. A year earlier, a car passing the house might not have meant anything. But now, every car could be the car. Every stranger could be the man. Every phone call could be the lead. By now, dawn and sue had spent almost a year chasing anything that might bring their son home. Phone calls, sightings, license plates, psychic tips, and any name somebody thought might matter. Every tip was documented in their Apple II computer. At home, more than 1600 names would be entered. They weren't detectives. They were parents. And parents do not really get to stop looking when their kid goes missing. Before Eugene Martin became part of a larger story. Before his face appeared beside another boy on reward posters and grocery sacks. Before Des Moines began to wonder whether one missing paperboy had now become two. Eugene Wade Martin was just Gene, a 13 year old boy five days away from his 14th birthday. He was saving up part of his paper route money for the fair. Looking forward to picking out a bicycle with his dad. But on that Sunday morning, he stepped into the dark with a paper route to finish and never came home. I'm Sarah Reid and this is sequestered season four. The year is 1984. We're in Des Moines, Iowa, and this is the day Eugene Martin disappeared. It's Sunday morning, August 12, 1984, in Des Moines, Iowa. Most of the city is still asleep. The streets are quiet, the kind of quiet that belongs to the hours before a neighborhood has fully woken up. And 13 year old Eugene Martin had a job to do. Eugene delivered newspapers for the Des Moines Sunday Register. It was the kind of job kids had back then. A paper route, early mornings, bundled newspapers. A route everyone knew. A neighborhood that felt familiar because he had walked it so many times before. And in 1984, that kind of independence still felt normal. It was normal for kids to move through their neighborhoods before school. They rode bikes, walked to friends houses, crossed streets and delivered newspapers in the dark before most adults had poured their first cup of coffee. But in Des Moines, that normalcy had already begun to crack because less than two years earlier, another Des Moines Register carrier, 12 year old Johnny Gosch, had disappeared from his paper route in west Des Moines. And now on this Sunday morning, another paperboy moved through the dark before most of Des Moines was awake. Eugene's family called him Gene. And that week he had been looking forward to something simple. Celebrating his 14th birthday, his dad had planned to help him pick out a bicycle. Gene had also been saving up part of his paper route money for the fair, which was set to begin just four days later. A bike, the fair, a birthday, those were the normal things a 13 year old boy should have been thinking about that August. According to reporting from the time, Gene left home around 5 o' clock that morning to deliver his route on the southwest side of Des Moines. His route covered an area near Southwest 14th street and Highview Drive. A later Des Moines Register account described Gene standing near the curb at the intersection folding newspapers. Some were already folded, others were still waiting in a bundle. It looked like somebody had just stopped in the middle of working. Folded papers, unfolded papers, and Gene was gone. There was no signs of violence, no obvious struggle, no clear trace of where he went.
- [05:15]
Reporter/News Correspondent
It was 30 years ago this month that Eugene Martin went missing. His paper bag that he used to hold his newspapers was actually found at this intersection here at Southwest 14th and Highview. And while three decades have passed, police say they still need your help.
- [05:31]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
Soon customers started calling the Register saying their paper was not delivered. And that's when a circulation manager noticed something was wrong. Gene had not finished his route and he had not returned home by about 8:40 that morning. Eugene's father, Don Martin, alerted authorities and the timeline began. We know now that once a child disappears, every minute starts to feel important. Every delay becomes a question. Every person who saw something, heard something, or noticed something unusual becomes part of the map. But on that morning, the map was still mostly blank. There was the paper route, a street corner, a bundle of newspapers, and no sign of Eugene. Police began treating the case as an abduction. Immediately, the FBI joined the search. Local officers, state authorities, volunteers, and Eugene's family began looking for anything that could explain how a boy could disappear from a familiar route. In the early morning hours, they searched the immediate area then parks, riverfronts, warehouse districts and the sparse edges of the city. But in those first hours, there was no answer. And honestly, that terrified people, because Des Moines had already seen something like this once before. Just 23 months before Eugene Martin disappeared, another boy had vanished from another paper route across town. His name was Johnny gosch. Johnny was 12 years old, and he was also a Des Moines Register carrier. On September 5, 1982, he disappeared while delivering newspapers in a West Des Moines neighborhood. By the time Eugene disappeared In August of 1984, Johnny's case was still open, still raw, still unanswered. So when another Des Moines Register carrier vanished on another Sunday morning route, the comparison came immediately. Not because police had proof that the cases were connected. They didn't. Not because every detail matched perfectly. It didn't. But because Des Moines already knew this nightmare. A boy, a newspaper route, the early morning dark, A bundle of papers left behind. And then nothing. The paper route had once represented responsibility. A first job, a way for a kid to earn money, a reason to get up early, walk the neighborhood, and feel a little older than they were. But after Johnny Gosh disappeared, that familiar childhood job carried a shadow over it. And now, after Eugene, that shadow became impossible to ignore. It's every parent's nightmare. Your kid is there, and then all of a sudden, they're not there.
- [08:32]
Police/Investigator
Two years after Johnny Gosh, another paperboy vanished.
- [08:35]
Private Investigator John Dolan
What it's doing is creating a climate of fear.
- [08:38]
Reporter/News Correspondent
Pictures were on milk cartons, billboards, posters,
- [08:41]
Community Member/Commentator
grocery sacks, even on the sides of truck convoys rolling cross.
- [08:47]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
That phrase is exactly right. A climate of fear. Because this was no longer one family's nightmare. It had become something Des Moines could feel in its streets, in its neighborhoods, and especially on those early morning paper routes. The Des Moines Register understood that, too. This was not just another story in the paper. This was one of their own carriers. Again, Register editor James Gannon said the newspaper and the community were, quote, again confronted with another carrier disappearance. And honestly, that word again says everything. Because as we now know, Des Moines was already carrying the weight of Johnny Gosch's disappearance. The reward quickly expanded to include both Eugene Martin and Johnny Gosh. Within days, it climbed from thousands of dollars into tens of thousands. By the end of August, according to reporting from the Gazette, the reward fund connected to both boys had grown to more than $93,000. But the reward money did not bring either boy home. Instead, it became one more sign of how desperate the search had become. Eugene and Johnny's faces were printed together on posters, reward materials, and in places all over town. Before missing children moved across Facebook posts and neighborhood apps, before Amber Alerts appeared on iPhones before digital flyers could be shared thousands of times. In a matter of minutes, Eugene and Johnny's faces moved through Des Moines on paper, on flyers, in newspapers, on grocery bags. People carried them home with milk and bread, cereal and potato chips. With the ordinary things of everyday family life. Imprinted beside those ordinary things was an extraordinary question. Have you seen them? When Eugene disappeared, many of the systems people now associate with missing child cases barely existed. There were no Amber alerts or social media campaigns, no databases connecting tips from across the country in real time. Families relied on hotlines, television coverage, physical posters, witness accounts, and hope. And this is one of those details that really places Eugene's case in the 1980s. Because the search really depended on what people physically saw, what they remembered, what they clipped from the newspaper, what was taped to a window, and what they carried home from the grocery store. That's the part that still feels impossible, because Eugene disappeared in public. Not from his bedroom, not from a remote field, not from a place where no one could have seen him. He disappeared while doing a job that put him in a neighborhood, on the streets that people used, near houses, near passing cars, near people just starting their day. And still there was no clear answer. Police were careful not to definitively link Eugene Martin's disappearance to Johnny Gosch's. That mattered, because fear can connect things faster than evidence can. And in a case like this, the differences are important. But for the public, the emotional connection was already there. Two boys, two paper routes, two families with two empty places at home. Johnny's parents, John and Noreen Gosch, had already become vocal advocates since 1982. They pushed for attention, appeared in the media, and advocated for missing children At a time when the country was still learning how to respond to cases like this. And when Eugene disappeared, the Gosch family came to the Martins. Don Martin later told the Register that John and Noreen had been helpful and understanding. Of course they were. They already knew what this kind of grief looked like. For Don and Sue Martin, Johnny's case was no longer just a headline from the past. Now it felt like a mirror, a warning, a possible clue, because the Goshes had already spent nearly two years searching without an answer. And now the Martins were standing at the beginning of that same road. Don Martin seemed to understand that quickly. He said if the Gosches had not given up after almost two years, then neither would they. That was not optimism exactly. It was survival. But even as Eugene and Johnny's cases became publicly linked, Eugene's story had its own facts, his own route, his own witnesses, his own family with their own unfinished mourning. And I come back to that because Eugene Martin was not just the second paperboy. He was Gene, a 13 year old boy just five days away from his birthday, the fair and his new bicycle. In the first days after Eugene disappeared, investigators were not starting from nothing. There were witnesses. According to the Des Moines Register, by Tuesday, police believed as many as six people may have seen Eugene talking with someone on his route that Sunday morning. The reported sightings placed Eugene somewhere between roughly 5:15 and 6am near the corner of Southwest 14th street and Highview Drive, the same area where his newspapers would later be found. And if those witnesses were right, then Eugene did not simply vanish. Somewhere along the route, at least for a moment before he disappeared, someone was with him. The man witnesses described was white, somewhere between 30 and 40 years old, about 5 foot 9 to 6ft tall, with a medium build, medium length hair and a cleanly shaved face. He was described as neat in appearance and wearing light colored clothing. It was enough for police to issue a bulletin, enough to ask the public for help, enough to make people look twice at men who passed through their neighborhoods. But it was not enough to give investigators a name or a face, not even enough to make it a case. And honestly, this part is hard because people may have seen him, they may have seen the person standing near him. But as I always say, people don't always realize they're witnessing something important while it's happening. Not on a quiet Sunday morning when a kid delivering newspapers still looked completely normal. Police hoped more interviews might sharpen the picture. Assistant Police Chief Donald Knox told reporters that investigators were going back to witnesses trying to build a clearer description. There was even discussion of bringing in artists from Washington, D.C. to help create a composite. But the accounts were difficult. The descriptions were vague, and the man, whoever he was, remained just out of focus. Then the tips started coming in. Some were urgent, some were strange, some sounded promising, and some led nowhere. On Tuesday evening, an anonymous caller contacted the Des Moines Register. The caller said they had seen a man matching the police description standing near Eugene. According to the caller, the man was standing outside a 1972 or 73 green Chevrolet Malibu with gray primer marks. The caller said the man had his hands on Eugene and you can understand why that tip got attention. But a tip is not proof, and a car seen once can disappear into a city full of cars. Another report came directly to Eugene's father. Don Martin said a man came to his house Monday night and told him he may have seen a Boy who looked like Eugene. Later that Sunday evening, the man said the boy looked beaten. He said he saw him riding in a car near Southeast 14th street and Indianola Road. He had stopped for gas, seen Eugene's picture, and thought that the boy in the car looked like him. For a parent, a tip like that is almost impossible. Because if it's true, your child may still be alive. And if it's wrong, you've just been handed another way to imagine his suffering. By then, the phone lines were filling. Police were receiving calls about possible sightings, objects found, suspicious men and details that might matter or might not. One officer later told the Register, the phones rang all night Sunday. And honestly, that quote tells you exactly what Des Moines felt like after Gene disappeared. Everybody started searching their memory. Did I see something? Did I pass him? Did I notice the wrong car? Did I miss something important? Each fragment carried possibility. But possibility is also not proof. And again and again, the investigation seemed to reach for something solid, only to come up empty. By Monday, the FBI had joined the investigation. State and local police were involved, and volunteers came out. The Des Moines Register reported that Civil Air Patrol members helped search wooded areas along the Raccoon river southwest of downtown Des Moines. They moved through poison ivy, nettles, tall weeds, trees and underbrush. Some searchers formed long lines stretching hundreds of yards, calling out numbers to stay organized and make sure no patch of ground was missed. That is the strange thing about searches like this. Everybody wants to find something, but nobody wants to find what they're afraid of. Police followed leads. They interviewed witnesses. They searched isolated parts of the city. They looked in places where a body might be hidden and places where a child might be held. They searched the city's edges and every place in between. But Eugene was not found. According to later reporting from the Des Moines Register, police searched every house within a 50 square block area. They searched garbage cans. They boarded garbage trucks. They searched backyards and areas along the Des Moines river. And after three weeks, searchers had covered approximately 70 square miles. 70 square miles for one 13 year old boy. And still they found nothing. No Eugene, no clear scene, no confirmed suspect, no physical evidence that could explain how a child folding newspapers on a Sunday morning could simply disappear. By late August, the public search began to change. The urgent, massive volunteer effort could not go on forever. Police said they had searched the large, isolated areas around Des Moines. They were no longer asking for large numbers of volunteers. For investigators, that may have been a practical decision. There are only so many fields to walk, only so many riverbanks to check Only so many wooded areas to comb through before the search has to narrow into something else to interviews, tip sheets, follow up, calls to waiting. But for Eugene's family, hearing the search scale back meant something much heavier, because Eugene was still missing. And if the search got smaller, their fear got bigger. Eugene's father, Don Martin, tried to put words around that line between patience and panic.
- [20:56]
Don Martin
He said, as long as they don't give up, I'm satisfied. If they give it up, then I'm going to come unglued.
- [21:06]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
Meanwhile, Des Moines kept moving through ordinary life with Eugene's absence printed into it. The reminder that a boy had disappeared before breakfast and still not been found. For parents, it changed the meaning of an unfinished paper route. A late child was no longer just late. A bicycle left behind was no longer just a bicycle. A bundle of undelivered papers was no longer just a missed delivery. Everything became a possible beginning. And that fear did not stay contained to Eugene's neighborhood. It didn't even stay contained at des Moines. Two months later, in Waterloo, Iowa, another 13 year old register carrier reported being grabbed from behind while delivering newspapers. Her name was Jennifer Hewer, according to the Gazette and other reporting. She later turned up at a school crying and said she had awakened in a wooded area of Galloway Park. She was alive, but she was not Eugene. And there was no public proof connecting what happened to her with Eugene Martin or Johnny Gosch. But the public reaction revealed something important. By then, the paper route itself had become frightening. Eugene's disappearance changed more than one family. It changed the emotional weather around childhood. Independence, the job that once made kids feel responsible suddenly made parents look out the window. The early morning route that once seemed ordinary suddenly felt exposed. And in Iowa, every story about a missing or late carrier began to echo the same fear. Not again. But for the Martins, it was not an echo. It was their life. The search had widened, then narrowed. The reward had grown, the tips had come, the city had looked, and still their kid was missing. By the one year mark, the case would no longer look like an urgent search. It would look more like a vigil, like a family keeping records, chasing cars, writing down names and following leads, no matter how thin. Because when your child is missing, you do not get to move on. You only learn how to keep looking in a world that has already started to look away. By now, the search had moved primarily inside the Martin home into folders, phone calls, license plate numbers, newspaper clippings, and names. So many names. In August of 1985, reporter Frank Santiago of the Des Moines Sunday Register described Don and Sue Martin inside their home on Fraser Avenue. A dusty old Chevrolet passed the house. Sue saw it and called to Don.
- [24:10]
Sue Martin
Don, it's that car again. Get the license number.
- [24:14]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
Don ran out the screen door. He watched the car and tried to catch the plate before it disappeared. And sue said what both of them already knew.
- [24:22]
Sue Martin
We're paranoid, I know.
- [24:25]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
And honestly, after a year of this, how could they not feel paranoid? For Don and Sue, every car could matter. Every name and every phone call could matter. Every rumor or sighting, every person who looked familiar or even looked wrong or claimed they had seen Eugene. By then, their home had become part family home and part command center. They kept posters, folders, records, age progressed images, and a list of names compiled by private Investigator John Dolan. 1,656 names Known sex offenders, psychics, people who said they saw Eugene. Police officers, reporters, public officials, anyone touched by the case. Anyone who might somehow connect back to Jeanne. Before shared databases, before a case could be tracked in cloud folders and spreadsheets, Don and Sue Martin were building their own universe of leads on an Apple II computer, a machine full of names. Because one of them maybe could be the name that mattered. This is the part of a missing child case that can be so hard to understand. From the outside, the first search is visible. People see the volunteers, the police cars, the dogs and news trucks and the reward posters. But the long search is quieter. It happens after the cameras leave, after the public stops checking every headline. After the tips slow down and people start assuming that no news means there's no story. But for the family, no news is still the story every day. Eugene's birthday came on August 17, five days after he disappeared. He should have turned 14. His father should have gone to help him pick out a bicycle. Gene should have gone to the fair. Instead, his family was searching for him. And by the one year mark, reminders of the life he should have been living were everywhere. A fine Jean license plate, posters, files, a birthday cake with Eugene's face on it. Every room in the house now carried two realities at once. A family trying to live and a family trying to find their son. And that refusal to let Eugene disappear completely came with a cost. By early 1985, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that the Martins were spending enormous amounts of time, money and energy trying to keep Jean's case in the public eye. They paid for ads, flyers and news releases. They chased psychic tips. They even bought a $1,200 ad in the Des Moines Register to renew attention. At one point, they paid $5,000 for a detective. The Martins were not wealthy people with endless resources. They were just doing everything they could to keep Eugene from slowly disappearing from public memory. Sue Martin said it plainly.
- [27:36]
Sue Martin
It's really devastating to know Jean is out there. Somehow, regardless of whether he is dead or alive, we want him found.
- [27:44]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
And then she said, we want to
- [27:46]
Sue Martin
bring him home, no matter whose toes we have to step on.
- [27:50]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
When there is no answer, frustration needs to go somewhere. Sometimes it goes toward the police, sometimes toward strangers, sometimes toward yourself, sometimes toward every lead that did not become proof. The Martins believed investigators were not doing enough. They believed some information was not being used. They believed leads should have been pushed harder. But police disagreed. Des Moines Police Chief William Mulder said all leads of substance had been pursued. He said the department was not at odds with the Martins. And he admitted the case had left police frustrated, too.
- [28:30]
Community Member/Commentator
We're extremely frustrated. We know he has disappeared, and we haven't a shred of information.
- [28:39]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
And that really is the terrible part. Everybody is frustrated. The family, the police, the city. And Gene was still gone.
- [28:51]
Sue Martin
We don't forget him. I don't think we ever will. No matter what happens.
- [28:54]
Police/Investigator
KCCI was there. As Eugene Martin's family gathered for their first Christmas without him.
- [29:00]
Family Member (possibly Eugene's sibling)
We kept Christmas presents from him for almost five, six years. We just kept them.
- [29:06]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
That is the part that makes Eugene's disappearance feel so painfully unfinished. Not just the unanswered investigation, the missed birthdays and Christmases, the presents kept for a boy who never walked back through the door. Even national attention did not break the case open. After Eugene's picture appeared on a missing children segment on Good Morning America, the family said calls came in, but none of them brought Eugene home. The hotline stayed active. Hundreds of sightings were logged. Businesses had contributed to a reward fund that eventually reached around $125,000 for information leading to the recovery of Jean Martin or Johnny Gosh. But money could not buy the missing piece. Attention couldn't force someone to talk. And hope could not become evidence just because people needed it to. One year after Jeanne disappeared, the official status was blunt. In August of 1985, Sergeant Jim Thoma told reporters, we're no closer now than a year ago.
- [30:11]
Police/Investigator
It's basically at a standstill. There's nothing developing.
- [30:17]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
A standstill. That word is brutal in a missing child case because the family is not standing still. They're still answering the phone, still jotting down names, still watching cars, still wondering whether a boy in another city could be their son. They're still imagining every possible version of what happened and waking up to the same absence. In unresolved missing person cases, that absence becomes permanent. And not knowing is its own kind of grief. The Martins kept looking because they had to. Giving up was not emotionally possible. Stopping would feel like abandoning him. If Eugene was alive, he needed them. And if he was not, they needed to bring him home. Don Martin eventually put that plea into words.
- [31:14]
Don Martin
I want to believe that he's still alive and whoever's got him, all they have to do is let us know where he's at. We'll go get him and bring him home. But if he is dead, I still want to know so we can bring him home and give him a decent burial.
- [31:29]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
And still the answer did not come. Not in the first year. Not after the ads or the hotline. Not after the computer full of names. Not after the reward climbed to over $100,000. Not even after people carried his face home on grocery bags. Eugene Martin remained missing. In February of 1985, six months after Eugene disappeared, another Iowa newspaper carrier was reported missing. His name was Perry Bowers Jr. He was 16 years old. He lived in Gilman, Iowa, and delivered the Des Moines Register. That Monday morning, Perry did not come home from his route. His father became worried around 8 o', clock, went to the corner where Perry picked up his newspapers and found a sack with bundles of undelivered papers along with Perry's bicycle. For a few hours, law enforcement braced for the worst because by then Johnny Gosh and Eugene Martin were frank fresh in everyone's mind. So when Perry's newspapers and bicycles were found, the fear arrived fast. And by 10 o', clock, according to the local police chief, the media had already spread the missing boy story on radio and television. This time the ending was different though, because Perry was found safe. He had apparently hitchhiked to visit his girlfriend out of her parents trailer. He was alive, unharmed and coming home. But the panic around his brief disappearance revealed something important. The old confidence was gone. One Iowa police chief said he would not let his own 12 year old son deliver newspapers because of what happened to Johnny and Eugene. And then he said something that feels like the emotional weather of that moment.
- [33:17]
Community Member/Commentator
Here in Iowa, we are paranoid with our kids, perhaps frightened about life and living more than we should be.
- [33:24]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
Maybe that was true. Maybe Iowa was frightened. Maybe parents were watching too closely. Maybe every late child had become a catastrophe in the making. But after Eugene Martin disappeared from his paper route, how could it not feel that way? Cases like this changed ordinary things forever. This episode is not about making Eugene fit inside someone else's theory. And it's not about turning him into a supporting character in Johnny Gosh's case. Johnny's disappearance matters significantly. It shaped the way Eugene's case was understood from the very beginning. The reward connected them, the newspaper connected them. The public fear connected them. But Eugene Martin was not just the second paperboy. He was Gene, a son, a brother, a 13 year old kid who was just five days away from turning 14. A boy working hard, saving his money for the fair and a bicycle. A boy who should have grown up.
- [34:30]
Police/Investigator
Des Moines police say they followed every lead they could.
- [34:33]
Private Investigator John Dolan
It fills an entire filing cabinet, a full size office filing cabinet. Those tips have filled to the brim.
- [34:39]
Police/Investigator
The one question on everyone's mind, are the disappearances of Johnny Gosh and Eugene Martin possibly connected?
- [34:47]
Private Investigator John Dolan
That's one of the questions that just pounds on us that we would love to have an answer for. If you could connect the cases, it might make the investigation, you know, go a little quicker in one direction or another. But so far, investigators, with all the information sharing we've done, we've not found a connection.
- [35:03]
Police/Investigator
Both cases are cold, according to Sgt. Paul Pericic.
- [35:06]
Private Investigator John Dolan
They go cold because a lack of information coming in. So you always hope that there's that one piece that we're looking for, that
- [35:13]
Police/Investigator
one piece, that one, something to solve these two cases.
- [35:18]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
We still think about him daily, one way or another. Just want closure.
- [35:24]
Family Member (possibly Eugene's sibling)
My mom and dad never gave up hope on it. So as long as they thought he was still out there, then I assume the same thing.
- [35:36]
Narrator (Sarah Reid)
That is the line I keep coming back to. His mom and dad never gave up hope. And honestly, you can hear how that hope gets passed down. Not as something easy, not as something clean, but as something a family carries because they do not know where else to put the love. Don Martin never got that answer. He spent years carrying Eugene's absence. When don died in 2010, his obituary named his children. His service in the army, his family, his life. And it also said he was preceded in death by his son, Eugene Wade Martin. It's such a small line in an obituary, but it stayed with me. Because Eugene was never found, no one ever got to say exactly what happened to him. But his family still carried him as their son, still named him, and placed him inside the story of their lives. And in Dawn Martin's memory, the family asked that memorial contributions be made to the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. Even at the end of Don's life, Eugene's disappearance was still part of the family's grief still part of their purpose, still unfinished. Eugene Wade Martin disappeared on August 12, 1984 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was 13 years old. He was last seen near Southwest 14th street and Highview Drive on his Sunday morning paper route. He was described as 5ft tall and around 105lbs with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a gray midriff shirt with white stripes and red sleeves, and blue tennis shoes with white diagonal stripes. Witnesses reported seeing him talking with a white man, possibly between 30 and 40 years old, clean shaven, medium build with medium length hair. Eugene Martin has never been found. If you have any information about the disappearance of Eugene Wade Martin, please contact the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4811 or the Iowa Missing Person Information Clearinghouse at Missing Persons. We also have photos, source material and additional case information linked@sequesteredpod.com because Eugene deserves to be remembered by name, not as a footnote or an echo, not as another missing paper boy, but as Eugene Wade Martin, a 13 year old boy who left behind folded newspapers, unanswered questions, and a family that never stopped looking for him. Next time on sequestered. It's 1985 in West Seneca, New York. A 21 year old woman leaves a restaurant in the early morning hours with an off duty state trooper. He comes back. She does not. And what follows is a case filled with silence, suspicion and a question that has lasted for decades. What happened to Leash to Riley? Sequestered is created by Sarah Reid and Andrea Clyde, hosted and produced by Sarah, written and researched together.