Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
James Robert Hutchinson
James, date, approximate 2021; Brittany Gosney; James Hamilton
Date Missing 02/27/2021
Missing From
Middletown, Ohio
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Male
Race
White
Age 6 years old
Height and Weight 3'0, 45 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A red shirt and blue and red Batman pajama bottoms.
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian male. Red hair, blue eyes.
Details of Disappearance James lived in Middletown, Ohio in February 2021. His mother, Brittany L. Gosney, and her boyfriend, James Russell Hamilton, came to the police station and reported him missing on February 28, 2021, the morning after they said he disappeared. The couple gave conflicting accounts as to the circumstances of his disappearance, and eventually admitted he was dead.
Gosney stated she took James and his older brother and sister, then aged seven and nine, to Rush Run Nature Preserve in Preble County, Ohio after 3:00 a.m., with the intention of abandoning all three there. She dropped them off, but James tried to get back into the car and she drove away, dragging him for a distance as he held onto the door handle.
When Gosney returned to the area thirty or forty minutes later, she found James dead of a head injury in the parking lot. She took his body and the other two children back to their home on Crawford Street in Middletown. On the night of February 27, while the children were asleep, Gosney and Hamilton put James's body in the car. They tied it to a cinder block, drove to the Ohio River and dumped it off the I-275 bridge near Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
Gosney was charged with murder, child endangerment, kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Hamilton, who was not present when the child was killed, was charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Photos of them are posted with this summary.
Gosney told police that Hamilton was abusive to all three of her children. Hamilton admitted that he would hog-tie the children, gag them with cloth and leave them like that for hours at a time. Gosney stated Hamilton said he wanted to get rid of the children by leaving them at the nature preserve so coyotes would eat them. She said she offered to drop the children off at a firehouse instead, but Hamilton was against the idea, so she took them to the nature preserve on her own.
In August 2021, Hamilton pleaded guilty to kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and two counts of child endangerment. He was sentenced to the maximum term of 19 years in prison, with eligibility for parole after 15 years. Gosney pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including murder, and was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 21 years.
Extensive searches of the Ohio River have not turned up any sign of James, but foul play is suspected in his due to the circumstances involved. He was a first-grader at Rosa Parks Elementary School at the time of his presumed murder.
Investigating Agency
Middletown Division of Police
513-425-7700
Other
NamUs
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WFFT Fox 55
WLWT 5
The Butler County Journal-News
Ohio Arrests
Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
