IN IN - Joseph Spisak, 11, Hammond, 27 January 1974

There are numerous articles from the time and his friends all told police that he ran away and wanted them to go with him. The article I mentioned above quotes a Joseph Spisak as saying he rode the bus up to 4 times a day in 1975. Maybe he really did run away...
 
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The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Hammond police have released a new age progression image showing what a boy missing since 1974 might look like now.

Age progression image released of Joseph Spisak, missing from Hammond since 1974
 
I'm confused by the discussion above that he may have run away. Are some of you thinking that he came back by 1975? Or is he definitely missing? Thanks.
 
There are numerous articles from the time and his friends all told police that he ran away and wanted them to go with him. The article I mentioned above quotes a Joseph Spisak as saying he rode the bus up to 4 times a day in 1975. Maybe he really did run away...
Where are these articles? Ive been looking for some time and cant find any articles suggesting this..
 
So one weird thing I found was that despite Joseph going missing in January of 1974, an article appeared in the newspaper with an interview from a Joseph Spisak of the same address. That article was in August 1975 about bus ridership in the Hammond area.
Found the article. Very odd. Was there an older relative with the same name?

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Where are these articles? Ive been looking for some time and cant find any articles suggesting this..
There were apparently 3 playmates who claimed he told them he was going to run away. However, he had nothing but the clothes on his back and $5. I can't imagine how an 11-year-old would pull this off without ever being seen. Sadly, I think the parents' suspicions of an abduction are the most likely.

<modsnip - images of newspaper articles are a copyright violation. Please use link to the image instead>
 
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Found the article. Very odd. Was there an older relative with the same name?

<modsnip - images of newspaper articles are copyright violations. Please use links>
It would be the same name AND address seems too coincidental to me. I think more and more the running away was true. At least for the short term. As a former resident in that area I can say that there was a LOT of marshland/forestry that abutted McCook ave. It's entirely possible that he didn't meet foul play at all, but had an accident in the wilderness after he had already been missing. If he fell into the little Calumet, he wouldn't have been found until the river eventually spit him out...and well, they may not ever happen now that it's been re-engineered in recent years due to flooding.
 
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Did the grandfather live at the McCook street address too then? Because that is why I thought it was the missing Joseph.
 
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This case hasn't gotten as much attention as it should. It's interesting how some cases get a lot of attention and others don't. The article below mentions how when his siblings were looking into his disappearence as an adult, they heard from people who said he had knocked on their doors during his newspaper route that morning and said a blue car was following him. Yes, he made it home, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that happened the day of his disappearence. So perhaps the blue car was waiting for him to leave his house, or saw him again. I'd say this info is the biggest clue to his disappearence, but there is limited info as these peoole didn't report it at the time, and memories fade, and perhaps Joseph didn't give them more info like a description of who was driving it, etc. Leader-Telegram 10 Mar 2019, page F3 - Newspapers.com
 
And personally, I just want to point out how TINY he was at the age of 11. 4ft tall and 65 pounds? You do not run away at that size, blend in and start a new life for yourself. That is pretty much impossible, IMO. Not like an older teen, closer to being an adult in maturity and stature. At that size in our modern era, he would still need a carseat. :(
 
I did not have much luck searching for a blue car, however thought perhaps narrowing down by young missing boys who were also small and a similar age range(Joseph pops up as well)--I set the range as 0-18 just to see, and will look through these to see if anyone has a similar appearance, similar circumstances, anything that might be helpful/ Adding in case anyone else has thoughts/suggestions too. Screen Shot 2024-02-13 at 2.48.44 PM.png
 
Another thought: IF Joseph was toying with the idea of "running away", or just trying to seem cool to peers as kids sometimes do, I wonder if he may have set off for Chicago? Hammond is so close, so it seems possible with $5 he might have been able to set off on a bus/train etc and intended to be home for dinner and the blue car or someone else/something else happened?
 
OK, from the list above, most of the young boys seem to have some possible family link connected to their disappearance, OR the vanished in a wilderness setting.

One who did not, while he went missing in Massachusetts was also associated with a blue vehicle....there are suspects connected, so perhaps some way of determining where they or the blue delivery vehicle may have been in 1974 Angelo Gene Puglisi – The Charley Project
 

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