When This Woman's Son Went Missing The Police Tried To Give Her A Replacement Son

Imagine losing your son, and the cops giving you a random boy and calling you crazy

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• August 9, 2020

Whether you realize it or not, you're probably vaguely familiar with the harrowing real-life story of Christine and Walter Collins. Christine, a single mother who worked as a telephone operator in the late 1920's lived in California with her 9-year old son, Walter.

On March 10, 1928, Christine gave Walter some money to attend the cinema and she never saw him again because he never returned home after the show. Naturally, Christine reported her son missing and for five aching months the police could turn up no evidence or tips to run off regarding Walter's whereabouts.

Until 5 months later in Dekalb, Illinois, nearly 2,000 miles away, when a young boy who fit Walter's description claimed to in fact be Walter Collins.

Eagerly, Christine paid for the boy to travel safely from Illinois to California.

When the boy arrived, he did look like Walter... but he was not Walter Collins.

Christine knew without a doubt that the boy was not her son.

Despite her protests, the police department felt an immense pressure to close the case of the missing child and convinced Christine to take the child home and "try the boy out." After months of not knowing where her son was and exhausted from arguing with the police department, Christine brought him to her home.

Over the course of the following three weeks it became ever more obvious to Christine that this child was not her son, Walter. She collected some hard to argue against proof and brought it to the police captain, J.J. Jones and told him this was not her son.

Along with some friends who believed her, the proof Christine brought with her were Walter's dental records that showed her son had several fillings. It was easy to prove that the child in her custody did not have the same fillings: he did not have any evidence whatsoever of dental work!

Despite some pretty damning evidence in hand, Chief Jones refused to believe Christine Collins.

Instead, he made matters significantly worse! Allegedly, he yelled at her:

“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 I’ve ever known. You are a . . . fool!”

Chief Jones had Christine committed to the Los Angeles County General Hospital’s psychiatric ward, under “Code 12” internment – a code to commit someone who is “deemed difficult or an inconvenience.” For the next ten days she remained under observation until at last the boy admitted he was indeed not Walter.

The child was in fact 12-year old Arthur Hutchins Jr., a runaway from Iowa. The boy ran away because his home life made him unhappy and he had been repeatedly told that he looked so much like the missing Walter Collins.

Realizing he had an opportunity to get away, he pretended to be Walter and got a free trip and short stay to California. When Hutchins admitted the truth, Christine was released from the psychiatric ward and she immediately filed a false-imprisonment suit against the city, LAPD, and Chief J.J. Jones.

Christine won the case after two trials in two years and Jones was ordered to pay $10,800 to her! Christine had hoped to use the funds to continue her search for the real and still very much missing Walter Collins... but Jones never paid.

That's not where the Collins' Family story ends, though.

Eventually, the police did turn up a real lead on Walter's disappearance but it was far from a happy ending. They found evidence that Walter was a victim of of Gordon Stewart Northcott, an infamous murderer of little boys at the time.

The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders near Los Angeles was responsible for an unknown amount of victims. In fact, Northcott never admitted to having anything to do with Walter Collins but the police found bits of body parts and clothing that matched Walter’s inside Northcott’s chicken coop.

The investigators felt this was strong evidence that Walter was one of Northcott's victims.

In the end, Northcott was convicted of murdering only three boys but he did receive the death sentence. As far as closure for Christine Collins was concerned, however, it never came.

Christine Collins refused to accept that the evidence found was proof enough that her son Walter was a victim of Northcott. Even more so, five years after Northcott's conviction, another one of the boys believed to be his victim turned up alive!

The boy had escaped the chicken coop and gave Christine the energy she needed to never give up hope that Walter was out there somewhere. She spent the rest of her life searching for her son and passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 75.

Christine's story eventually inspired the award-winning film, The Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie.

Elana