Photos of missing child Johnny Gosch end up on his mom Noreen Gosch's front step 24 years later

It is a strange and harrowing tale. I don't know that I am ready to write my full thesis on the topic, so let me just start with this recent development in an old, disturbing case.

Johnny Gosch was delivering papers in 1982 when he was kidnapped. Noreen Gosch, his mother, has never stopped searching for what happened to him. In 1997 Johnny returned and revealed that he'd been forced into an elite, criminal pedophilia ring. He didn't stick around to elaborate. After his disappearance, his mother continued on her indepedent investigation (after finding the FBI and local authorities both inept and dismissive she began her own).

Now, someone has sent her photos of her son, reopening old wounds and begging new questions:

The mother of a boy abducted 24 years ago said she's bewildered by two photographs left at her front door, apparently showing her son and two other children bound and gagged.

The old photos appear to show 12-year-old Johnny Gosch with his mouth gagged and his hands and feet tied. The boy is wearing the same sweatpants Johnny was wearing when he disappeared while delivering newspapers on the morning of Sept. 5, 1982, his mother said.

"It's like reliving it," Noreen Gosch told The Associated Press on Thursday night. "But the bigger picture is, 'Why are they doing this?'

"Whoever had these photos had them for 24 years. I don't understand why they would do this now. It must be some kind of message."

Gosch said investigators confirmed the photos were authentic and likely taken within "hours or days" of the abduction. She said they were checking for fingerprints that could lead them to the source and possibly a breakthrough in a case that has long baffled authorities. The other boys in the photo were unidentified.

Curious. Who would want those photos released? Maybe somebody is trying to help her out by shining a little more light on a dark, dark case.

How dark? Well, I guess you'll have to wait. I'll have more on the bizarre connections later.