Carnival of Lies ////// Part 1 | Forensic Files

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>> Today is National Missing Children's Day. President Ronald Reagan declared the commemoration in 1983.
The day was meant to honor the life of 6-year-old Etan Patz, who went missing on May 25th, 1979 in Manhattan. Patz's
case garnered nationwide attention and sparked prevention and education around missing children. We spoke with a
representative from the State Division of Criminal Justice Services about their prevention and education efforts. Um
when children go missing, you know, either uh runaway or or abductions, and the importance to be able to have close
communication with not only the families, but community organizations and law enforcement agencies that are
doing the work. And so, I view this as a spectrum of raising awareness, um doing
preventive efforts, but then also having a strong response um to uh to make sure
that we're reuniting families wherever possible. According to the New York State Division
of Criminal Justice, in 2024, the state had over 12,000 reported missing children's cases. Over 11,000 of them
were runaway cases, and substantial majority of those cases were white and black girls between the ages of 13 and
15. Roughly 7,000 of those children were returned home. Over 4,000 were found. Timothy Wiltsey entered this world on
August 6, 1985 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father was George Wiltsey, a man who had grown up
in Walker, Iowa. His mother Michelle Lodzinski, originally from Lawrence Harbor, New Jersey. Their
relationship started the year before Timothy's birth when Michelle, only 16 years old at the time, traveled out to
visit her brother. During that visit, she met George. And what began as a teenage relationship moved quickly into
something much more serious. Before long, Michelle was pregnant. Now, not long after Timothy was born,
Michelle made a decisive choice about where she wanted her life to be. Within only a few months of giving birth, she
chose to leave Iowa and return to her home state of New Jersey taking her infant son with her. She said that she
did not like Iowa describing it as dull and isolating. It was an unfamiliar place for her where she
knew few people and she felt cut off from the support that she wanted and needed in her life at that time.
Now, in the aftermath of that move back to New Jersey, Michelle would later say that George at
some point became abusive in that relationship. Whatever the exact nature of their conflict, the result was clear.
George did not remain a presence in Timothy's life. From that point forward, George had essentially no role in
raising his son. He did not pay child support. There were also claims that this distance was at least in part
exactly what Michelle wanted. That she requested that he stay away. George would later say that when he tried to
reach out, she would return the mail that he would send for his son, Timothy. By the time Michelle and Timothy were
settled back in in the state of New Jersey, the father-son connection had pretty much completely been severed.
Michelle and Timothy first lived with her sister and brother-in-law in South Amboy, New Jersey.
They stayed there for about 2 years. And after that, Michelle moved out on her own renting the first of what would
be three apartments, all of them in the same town. She was a single mother with limited formal
education. She had dropped out of high school in her late teens. And so she worked a patchwork of
low-paying jobs to keep their small household afloat. Her work was largely clerical,
office task, secretarial duties, and at one point employment in a legal office. She also
worked in retail and spent some time as a bank teller. Yeah, it seemed like she had a
tough time keeping down a job. Michelle was determined, however, not to go on welfare, and she declined public
assistance even as money stayed tight. Instead, when she needed help, she relied on support from her father,
who was willing to step in at different points in her life. There were stretches
when Michelle did work two jobs at the same time, pushing herself to cover rent, bills, and child care, and such.
To friends, she sometimes described herself as a, quote, weekend mom, a phrase that reflected how much of her
time was consumed by work and how often her weeknights were swallowed by shifts,
commutes to and from, and simply exhaustion. People who encountered her in day-to-day life
saw both effort and strain. Her landlady described her as a hard-working single mother, but
maintaining stability required constant coordination. Right? She's a single mother. So, this
means babysitters, relatives, friends helping out, and those arrangements don't always hold.
Right. So, when child care fell through, Michelle sometimes brought Timothy to work with her because she simply
there simply wasn't another option for her. Now, co-workers and employers remembered patterns that suggested how
overwhelmed she could be at times. Michelle was frequently late arriving to work. On other
occasions, when she knew she would be late getting home, babysitters said that she sometimes failed to call ahead of
time to explain or adjust the plans, creating friction and stress for the people watching her son Timothy. So, her
life really ran on tight margins. Right? One miscall, one canceled babysitter, one late shift could throw
the entire day into chaos. That fragile system became even harder to maintain in January of 1990.
This is when Michelle's sister and brother-in-law, the very people that she leaned on heavily
for help and child care and general support, the two of them moved to Florida. Their departure removed a
critical safety net for Michelle and Timothy. The everyday help they provided had been woven into their routine, and
without them, Michelle had to find new solutions quickly. It might have been one of the reasons why they chose to
leave, too. Around this period, when Timothy was about 4 years old, another temporary arrangement was made.
Michelle's brother, who lived in another state, took Timothy in for about 2 months' time.
So, he lived there with his uncle, with Michelle's brother, for about 2 months. The purpose of this was
was very practical, actually. Michelle wanted a window of time to work additional hours. Probably working
multiple jobs at this time, Captain. She was trying to get ahead financially because what she wanted to do was save
up some money with a very particular goal in mind, school tuition. She wanted Timothy to attend private school.
And so, she needed some time to be able to focus on making that goal possible. Friends and family also remembered her
in a more tender attentive mode with her son. They recalled that she took Timothy to the dentist
regularly and brought him on camping trips and vacations. They described her saving carefully so
that she could enroll him in kindergarten at St. Mary's school. That's that private school. Once he
reached school age. When Timothy was in school, she did help him with his homework and routinely
bought him new clothes. She seemed committed to his care and committed to investing in her son's
future. Now, we talked about some of her complications with her work. And a lot of that seems to have to do
with child care. We're going to see this in Timothy's school life, too, once he gets of school age. Because at the same
time, the record of Timothy's school life reflected that same instability at the home.
Right. He had notable attendance problems. He missed 25 days of school. And on 63 of the days that he did
attend, he arrived late. So, meaning that even on many of the days that he was in school, he started behind.
>> miss so many days or you're late so many times, they won't give you that special
permission to go to that school anymore. >> So, during these years, the time that
she moved back and getting Timothy, her son, to school age, Michelle's personal relationships also added tension to
their small household. Timothy became a point of friction between Michelle and what's reported as two men that she
dated during that five-year stretch. Uh one of these men she was briefly engaged to.
Both men would later say that they liked Michelle and they really liked Timothy,
but they they felt that they were just simply too young to commit to the role of being a stepfather. You
know, being a husband and being a stepfather. Keep in mind, when our case breaks, Michelle's only 23. Now, I don't
know the ages of these men, but I'm assuming they're roughly about the same age as, you know, Michelle. Now, thank
you for listening, but you knew before you stepped into the garage that this would all lead up to something bad
happening. Our good folks listening from the great state of New Jersey, where you
never have to pump your own gasoline, have already likely heard of this case. This is a case that has stretched on for
decades. >> Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice just one episode we explain this person's
background, we and then we go then he went to college and had a successful career and nothing bad
happened. Saved 40 kids from a burning building. >> Yep. End of the episode. Thanks for
listening. In fairness, there are a lot of good people woven into these stories that we've told over the years, but they
usually don't take center stage. And if they do, they're usually the victim. Right. So,
if we didn't have your full attention, we are going to need it starting now as we're going to move into the day in
question and things are going to move rather rapidly and we have a lot of moving parts and pieces here. So, pay
attention. All right, let's let's lead into it. This is Friday, May 24th, 1991. It's the
first day of the Memorial Day weekend that year. Michelle Lodzinski was in the middle of
making small ordinary plans that felt big because summer was so close. The school year was
winding down and she was already thinking ahead to what came next for her young son,
Timothy. And Timothy was nearing the end of kindergarten and Michelle wanted him to
look nice for this milestone. She took him shopping for some new clothes. She wanted things that would go
with the graduation gown. You know, sometimes these kids, fifth grade or kindergarten, they'll do these
moments where they'll host a graduation for the youngsters. So, she wanted to find some clothing that would go along
with that graduation gown that she had already purchased for him. And summer break was waiting right
around the corner. So, probably needed some summer clothes at the same time. Now, the other thing going on in their
lives, Captain, was Michelle was also mapping out something bigger. This was a trip. She
was making plans to visit her sister who lived in Florida. The idea was once that the school year
had ended, she would take Timothy down to Florida to spend some time with her sister and her sister's family and while
they are there, they would go to Disney World. So, this was really something big to
look forward to after the last day of school. That Friday evening, Michelle mentioned to a neighbor
that the next day on Saturday, May 25th, 1991, she intended to take her son Timothy along with a niece to the South
Amboy Elks Club Carnival, which was taking place in nearby Sayreville. The carnival was being held at Kennedy
Park. The neighbor would later recall that Michelle and Timothy both seemed to be
in good spirits. The kind of mood that really matched the vibe of the holiday weekend.
Then Saturday, May 25th, 1991 arrived. Around 11:00 a.m. a neighbor saw Michelle and Timothy
leaving their home. So, mother and son heading out for the day. But, we should note here that this
became the last time Timothy Wiltsey was seen alive by anyone who knew him other
than Michelle. Michelle later described the day as a series of normal family activities. She
said that she and Timothy went to a park in nearby Holmdel. That afternoon, they played kickball,
they walked around the lake, they visited the petting zoo. As the day moved toward the evening, the
plan about the niece and the carnival began to change. So, for reasons that remain unclear,
Michelle did not pick up her niece after all. Over the years, two versions of what
happened have circulated. In one account, Michelle called the night before and told the parents that she would not
be able to pick up the niece and take her to the carnival. In another account, she didn't call at
all. So, decades later, it's difficult to determine which version is accurate, but remains consistent is the outcome.
The niece was not picked up, and according to some reports, the family was not informed beforehand. Well, we
also have evidence that she wasn't the greatest communicator when it came to plans. That's
So, instead Michelle went straight to the carnival. She arrived at Kennedy Park Carnival in
Sayreville shortly before 7:00 p.m. that Saturday. The atmosphere there would have been
what people would expect from a community event. Crowds moving between rides and
games, families keeping track of children among lights, music, and noise and such.
At some point after arriving, Michelle encountered another niece. So, to be clear, this is a different niece.
Her name is Jennifer Blair, who was there with a friend. When Jennifer and her friend saw
Michelle, something about her stood out immediately. She appeared to be urgently
looking around. Michelle told them that something was wrong, that she had lost sight of
Timothy. According to what she said in that moment to her niece Jennifer, she said that she had left Timothy
waiting in a ride line while she went to buy a soda. When she returned, he was gone. So, with that situation suddenly
shifting from an evening outing to a search, the three of them moved quickly to report
the incident. They went to a Sayreville auxiliary police officer at the carnival
and told the officer that Timothy, the little boy 5 years old, was missing. And this is now the Timothy Wiltsey missing
persons investigation. Yeah, but just to be clear, we don't have anybody saying that they
saw them together. Well, that's where this gets all it gets all a bit hazy, right? We get
When we get down into the muck and the mire of this whole situation, it's it's complex. It might not need to be so
complex, but it but it is. Now, so to people that closest to the little boy, he's known as Timmy, the 5-year-old
boy who loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lived with his mother Michelle in South Amboy, New Jersey is missing.
Right? So, the story is that on that Saturday, May 25th, 1991, Timmy Timmy disappeared
during a trip to a carnival in Sayreville, in nearby Sayreville. Let's zoom in a little closer, shall we,
to take a look at Kennedy Park on that Saturday evening. The carnival was crowded with hundreds
of people moving through the park, drawn to rides, the booths, and such. This was on the fairgrounds along
Washington Road in Sayreville. Michelle said that after arriving, remember she said she arrived there around 7:00-ish,
she bought a bunch of ride tickets. Her and Timmy were having a good time. Then the time came for refreshments.
Michelle says she was standing in line to get a soda. Then she gets to the front of the line,
you know, you got to wait for a bit, then she gets to the front of the line, she buys a soda, she says she paid with
a $10 bill. So, she is waiting on her change. She's busy watching the people working the
refreshment stand. She gets her change, turns around toward Timmy, and he's gone.
It's just seconds. It was just seconds, maybe 2 minutes, and Timmy was gone. Michelle starts looking and calling for
him. So, this is all going down described as occurring sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Michelle's niece
arrives with another person. We had mentioned her already, Jennifer and the friend. The friend is someone
else, this other person is someone who already knew both Michelle and Timmy. Right.
They see Michelle, but no Timmy. Michelle said she had not seen Timmy for about 15 minutes by this point. The
three searched together and then alerted a police officer who was working the event. This is when mother Michelle
officially reports Timmy as missing. Right, but are they stating what her demeanor was?
Was she in a panic? Did she seem calm? Well, we get conflicting reports about her
demeanor, her actions that night. And and to to me there are great contrast in those
reports, which makes it difficult for me to figure out which side I believe. I also believe that in this state of
let's say she was panicking. I can't speak for everyone else, but me, I know that sometimes there's
there's highs and lows in those moments, right? And anytime I would imagine if you're looking for a child, there's
probably moments where you think, "Oh, I'm just seconds away from finding him." And you may be behave behaving one way
with optimism, or there's other moments of "Oh my god. Oh my god, where is he?" This report
of the missing little boy sent off an urgent response, obviously. Almost immediately though, the carnival itself
became the center of a widening search operation. Police focused first on the park where the
carnival had been held, moving through the grounds with the assumption that if Timmy had wandered off, someone would
find him rather quickly, right? He'd be at a ride or a booth. But as the initial sweep failed to
locate him, the situation escalated. The carnival was shut down, a decision that reflected both the
seriousness of the missing kid report and the need to freeze the scene before more people came and went.
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to you, Captain. I'm back, he's back. I wish Timmy was back. Mhm. We are back at
the carnival, but now where we left off, the carnival has been shut down. And we have responders moving
in force. Eventually, this is going to grow, Captain, to police officers, firefighters, even volunteers. And at
some point, we get trained dogs who are going to spread out across the grounds and the surrounding area searching with
intensity at a time when time matters most. Dogs are looking for a scent. Searchers checked places that a small
child might hide or even become stuck. They're really looking for any sign that Timmy had been there.
Maybe, you know, anything that he could have dropped. Right. Does the dog pick Do the dogs pick up on
any scent? I think they picked up on a lot of different smells. There's, you know, a lot of smells at this carnival.
This has a lot of smells here. But I I nothing that would lead to the boy, sadly. And really all this effort the
search produced a troubling absence, right? And a troubling absence of no Timmy, but also no evidence that he
had been in the area at all. Yeah, if I'm a police officer on the scene or detective on the scene, my first thing
is do I have anybody that sees them together? Does anybody see Timmy when she buys the tickets for
the rides? Does anybody see Timmy? Does anybody recognize her and Timmy going on any rides? And also,
how many tickets did she purchase? And were any of them gone? So, if we can get a receipt of all Well,
we know she bought 20 tickets and she has 20 tickets left, but she's telling law enforcement that they went on some
rides. Well, how did you get on those rides? Yeah, and I wouldn't expect a receipt to be available. Maybe it would
be, but I I mean, I I love these types of festivals and carnivals. Like I One of the things that I look forward to
the most every summer are these types of events and often times you buy ride tickets and it's cash
only and you you you hand them the cash and they hand you a a stack of tickets. Right. And but but you're onto the right
thing here, my friend, because what verification was done to back up any part or portions of
Michelle's story gets complicated. And the reason why I think it does is they're not in that
mode at that time. It's all hands on deck looking for the boy, not questioning mom. I know we're going
down a different road here than maybe some expected, but if you're trying if one were trying to cause confusion,
there's a lot of confusion going on at this time. So, as that night unfolded in the search
continued, attention naturally turned to the people at the center of this report,
especially Timmy's mother. So, let's get into some You had asked about her demeanor.
We have some stories coming out from that night. One is from a firefighter who says that they drove Michelle back
to her house with the purpose of retrieving something for the dogs to use for Timmy's scent. Yeah, also kind of a
weird thing because if you have a small child and you're going to this carnival, you'd think that should pack a
extra jacket or most of the time when somebody has a a child, they have other items in their car just in case. This
person who was driving her back to her house to retrieve these items said that they needed to make a stop
along the way. This was Michelle wanted to stop at the bar where her boyfriend, her then boyfriend at the
time was working. She wanted to inform him what was going on. This firefighter says that they remembered Michelle as
visibly overwhelmed with the situation, crying, and speaking incoherently. The search goes on and the search is
eventually suspended around 2:00 a.m. A Sayreville police detective was in charge of returning Michelle home for
the night. Yeah, well, this is not good sign. And and and look, to back up what you were saying, like maybe I get it,
maybe whatever extra items she brought with her, the boy had in his possession and then he went missing. But
the she had to be driven home. I think this is an indicator as to her state and to
me this is a bit of evidence backing up these accounts of people saying that look, she was
she was really messed up by this. Because what we do know is her she drove to the carnival. Now,
where where my mind goes to following you, you're good lead there, Captain, is there was nothing in the car that could
provide a scent of the boy? Anyway, we continue on. Well, and and a couple things because in the initial moments, I
don't know if there's any evidence as far as like is she involved? Was Timothy even there?
Whether she stays calm, some people in that moment in that moment of panic they're going to stay calm because
they're like, if I stay calm, I can figure this out. But once they're stopping the search, once they're saying
we're going to take you home." And like you said, she is in a state where they feel like they
have to drive her home. Mhm. To me, that can go two ways. It's either she is distraught and she's beside herself
because she can't find her her child, right? And and it's a appropriate it's a appropriate time
to freak out. But, if this is some kind of weird ruse that she has set up, this is all unfolding so you can see why she
would be overly emotional, also. Or, you know, like it could be an act or it could be
uh real because she is now contemplating whatever actions she did. Negative actions, if that makes any
sense. Yeah, the the police detective who drove her home that night in his report, he wrote that Michelle was
tearful. And in the time period after she was returned home, she did call her sister
to inform her sister about Timmy's disappearance. Her sister later said that Michelle
cried during that phone call. So, kind of taken together here, these accounts form a timeline of the start of
the search itself, but also the personal shock that seemed to be going on with Michelle
and with Timmy's family as the hours passed without any answers or without finding the boy. This case, just by its
nature, involves a lot of people, perhaps a lot of witnesses to both what did happen and maybe what did not
happen. So, to be thorough and to look from all angles, bear with me as we go through a summary from the Central
New Jersey Home News. The headline was, "Police Believe Lost Boy Abducted." This will lead into some of the key
events of the following day as well on that Sunday. Now, by the time the article was published on May 28th, the
search had already been been underway for days. The police were continuing their efforts
looking for the boy. The disappearance and the search traced back to Michelle realizing that he was missing
or as her story goes when she notified the carnival authorities. Mhm. So then at about 8:30
p.m.-ish, the police are called. Security at the carnival that night was said to include about six off-duty
officers, police officers who were working. Some of them were directing traffic and some of them were patrolling
the the grounds of the event on foot. But despite the presence of security and the density of the crowd, no witness
came forward to say that they had seen what happened, right? No Nobody comes forward at least to say that either
eyewitness seeing a little boy wandering off or being snatched up. Right. And this to me, this would be a hunting
ground, right? You have a carnival, there's going to be a lot of kids there. Probably more kids
to parents. So if you're a pedo, uh this would be a place that you could find a victim.
And then the other problem too with is with these little carnivals that some of these individuals are not
local. The ones that are providing a ride or possibly setting up to be a vendor of some kind.
A- And you're to your point, a lot of the visitors themselves might not be local local,
right? I mean, we know that >> from neighboring counties. >> Exactly. We know Michelle and and
Timothy were from a neighboring town. So, as we said, the the search expanded quickly.
And police would later describe the effort as exhaustive. A search that ran for more than 7 hours
the night that he vanished and then carried on early the next day. So, it sounds like I don't know what time these
resources were pulled in, Captain, but it's reported that a police helicopter was used, four-wheel-drive
vehicles, a boat, a search boat at one time. Yet, they get nothing concrete. No trace of
Timothy. We know no clothing was found that evening. No confirmed sighting of him being snatched
or "Hey, I saw a boy by himself outside of the festival grounds." Yeah. It And this might be a weird question,
but when >> Fire. Fire away. when her family members see her at the carnival, is she holding a soda? Mhm.
That's a detail that is not clear to me. Because That's her story, right? She should be holding a soda. Right. If
she's not, then you go is did Well, one, did she chug the soda? You get those fizzy bubbles all up in
your nose. Or again, is this uh is a is this a ruse? Because like you said, she was supposed
to take her niece. So, you go, "Okay, well, she doesn't take her niece." Cuz her niece would be
an eyewitness. That'd be more difficult. So, I think this story is very bizarre because I don't even
know if we can prove if Timothy was at the carnival. Well, and the the flip of that though is
I don't know that we can prove that he wasn't Right. at the carnival. And it goes back to the confusion of the
situation, and it's natural confusion, right? Because in that moment, these details absolutely matter to the story
now and they absolutely matter to the case and the investigation. However, in the moment, living in the moment, what
do we have going on? We have everybody that that's rushed into this idea of looking for this little boy. So, you
could have it could be that everything that Michelle is saying is absolutely the truth, but nothing was checked or
verified to confirm that because everybody was busy looking for the boy. Or, nothing she's saying is the truth
and these details were lost due to the confusion in the haste of looking for the little
boy. In a lot of these cases, it's time or the time period becomes really a big deal because like you were
just saying, oh well, most of these carnivals, you're just paying cash. Well, yeah, in '91, you do.
But, today, most of these places, you pay by card or most of these vendors will at least have that option.
So, if I go to a street festival or these, you know, beer fest or a um what do they call them? Street food fest
or whatever, I can go, well, I went and got this bratwurst at this time. Here's my receipt. And if I didn't get a
receipt, you can go, well, I got a bratwurst at this time. You can then go to that vendor and they can look up the
credit card transaction. So, now we get a better, more precise timeline. But, this is '91,
so I'm guessing everything that she did was in cash. Well, and one thing we don't
have the advantage of in this story that we did in a story that some might consider to be similar
in its nature is, you know, a long time ago, we covered the DeWaan Sims case. Four-year-old boy reported missing from
a Michigan mall in 1994. Yeah. It was the Wonderland Mall in Livonia, I think it was, Michigan.
And in that story, mom says that she lost track of her boy. He was holding his her hand and then let go and then like
30, 45 seconds later, she turns to look down at the boy and he's gone. Yeah. And she says that somewhere
between the corridor that ran from the Target store to the mall, the actual mall,
he he disappears in the crowd. In that story that takes place in 1994, they had security cameras and they reviewed the
surveillance footage and those cameras at no point what the security guards and what the police say is we never see the
little boy with the mother. Right. She does point to a little boy on the screen and says, "Well, that's him."
But the two don't seem to be interacting in the way that they thought a mother and son would or that, you know, as she
described by holding the hand of the child. Here, it's a carnival. I mean, we've all been to carnivals and it's not
Not everybody. It's It's You know, I know you keep going to receipts. I You know,
frankly, some guy asking for receipts at the carnival, we're going to kindly ask you
to leave, sir. Like, it's just not It's really not I won't take a handwritten receipt that kind of structure.
>> possible. But here's the other thing though, too. It's hard for us to visualize
what this carnival looked like. How many rides were there? How many rides did they have? How many
vendors did they have? How large I mean, just the area. You know, we used to go to a church
festival, but everything was contained to the front area of the church. And so Yeah, this was going to be larger than
that for my understanding as it was held at the fairgrounds. Right. So, you're talking about a a
a larger uh facility. And so, if there's more people, it like you said, to your point, you go, "Well, she bought
tickets." Well, if she does she have those tickets? Did Is she Is she holding the tickets? Is she holding her soda?
Can we go back to that ticket lady? And And it might not be possible cuz that ticket lady or the ticket man or whoever
sold her those tickets might have said, "Why, I sold tickets to hundreds of people. I can't remember
this person." So, it be it it becomes very um this this story becomes very difficult
because there's so much evidence. Well, was he there? We don't know, but we have no evidence that he wasn't
there. And every little point in the story, there's there's a argument for and against evidence of whether
it was just a just simply a mother taking her son to this event or was this some kind of
ruse. >> By morning time starting at 6:00 a.m., a larger, more systematic effort took
hold. A line search was conducted across approximately 1 square mile around Kennedy Park. Searchers formed a human
chain and moved through the area in coordinated sweeps east to west and then north to south. So, by this point, they
are scouring locations that bordered the carnival's footprint and then eventually
extending into nearby community spaces. And to me, this is actually scary because sometimes if if there's a
perpetrator in this case, they might have been involved in the searches. At the same time that morning
Michelle brought clothing to the police station. It's my understanding that this
clothing was brought there for the purpose that Timmy would something for him to change
into if he were in fact to be found. A detective who was there at the time would
recall Michelle's demeanor as distraught. So that's another person saying that describing her demeanor one way. I'm I'm
going into this and describing her actions and what would be her perceived emotional state because later there
going to be people that say, "Well, she didn't seem to care at all. She didn't She seemed unaffected by this." Well,
the initial reports are completely different than that. Yeah, and I actually think, like I said, if she's
distraught, well, you can make an argument she's distraught because her son's missing and you could then make an
argument that she's distraught because whatever plan that she had is now unfolding
and she has to deal with that, the reality of whatever her plan was, if she had a plan. Yes, and but also one could
make the argument that police are honing in on the people that say she seemed unaffected and unemotional unemotional
about the situation because she's guilty of something and they're purposely ignoring these statements,
some by their own department members that say the opposite of that. So this news article described
more than 200 rescue workers and volunteers involved over a 2-day period searching for the boy.
Uh as said, we used additional specialized resources all to which no trace of the child was
found. Now, a sergeant with the police department would describe the situation as and the people looking for the boy as
discouraging. The reasoning for this statement is blunt. If Timothy had simply wandered off,
they believe the search should have found him probably quickly. Instead of the absence of evidence combined with
time elapsed, I mean, this is leading to a troubling conclusion, right? They did
not feel that they that he had wandered off, wandered away. They felt he had been
abducted. Yeah, it'd also be difficult too because during the search they probably found other items left by
children or dropped by children that have nothing to do with Timmy. So, but in that moment when you see something
Oh, here's a stuffed animal or here's a shoe or here's whatever. Probably quickly able
to realize that these items didn't have anything to do with Timmy. >> In the paper, they openly spoke and said
investigators could not rule out different motives or possible scenarios. A kidnapping by a stranger, an abduction
by someone seeking to profit, an individual described as lonely, maybe a woman who wants a child, or someone who
is a pedophile. Words straight from the newspaper. Now, that widening focus included in attention on Timothy's
father, George Wiltsey, who lived in Walker, which is in Linn County, Iowa. Police said George had not seen Timothy
in at least 4 years. The account stated that the FBI interviewed the father in Iowa. So, this
would have been the very next day on that Sunday. He goes missing on a Saturday. The FBI interviewed the father
as well as them sending local police from Walker to interview the father and they
confirmed that he was still in the state of Iowa. So many many many miles away at the time
that Timothy disappeared in New Jersey. Additional background came through a telephone
interview with Jerry Wiltsey. This is a man identified as George's brother. So therefore Timothy's uncle.
Jerry stated that his brother George did not have a telephone. That it but in their small town, there's
only like 600 people that live there. So he said that he would see his brother or bump into his brother almost every
day. He did say he told the newspapers, "Look, my brother did not see Timothy, nor did he try to gain custody
of the child once the mother and the child left for for New Jersey." And Jerry said he's quoted as saying
"There is no question of a custody battle." He says, "Look, my brother did not want
Michelle to leave. He wanted her and the boy to stay, but once she left, she made
it clear we don't you know, we don't want nothing to do with you." When pressed as to well, "Why wouldn't
your brother own a phone? It's 1991." He simply says, "Look, the the place he lives next door to our mother and when
he bought the place, it didn't have a phone. He never put one in. He doesn't like to be bothered or disturbed. When
he needs to use a phone, he just walks next door to his mother's house and uses her phone." Yeah, that makes sense. I
think I think the other thing >> I'm jealous of that. I'm jealous of that. Take away my phone.
Yeah, hold on a second. I'm going to get this hammer and smash mine real quick. But also, you'd have to go
is we don't know if Timothy's father would even know what Timothy looked like. Right, that's a
good point. Cuz there's a there's a big difference. He was missing when he was five and if he didn't see
him for four years, so he he saw him as a one-year-old. He seemed to know where to send the mail, though. And I I would
like to, you know, >> interesting. But again, she lived with her brother or her sister, one of the
two. She lived with relatives for two years, so maybe he was sending the mail there, which are people that he would
know. Maybe he never knew the address to look up. Yeah. >> And again, he's not really part of the
equation, so I don't know how far down this avenue we need to to go. Uh he's ruled out rather quickly.
Meanwhile, we have Ron Romano, an FBI special agent based in the area that confirmed the FBI was assisting the
Sayreville police investigation, though he stated to the newspaper that he was not authorized to provide any details.
A physical description of Timothy was included in the reporting emphasizing what the public should be looking for,
stating that the little boy was last seen wearing a red tank top, shorts with writing on them, and Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle sneakers. He had brown hair and a crew cut, weighed between 45 and 50 lb and was between 3 ft 2 in and 3 ft
4 in tall. Tips did come in within the first couple days. It's reported that about 30 calls came in to police
headquarters and as we know, unfortunately, none of them led to finding Timmy. So, that's the search.
Let's get into some of the investigation and potential witnesses, right? And this
is Like we said, witnesses to what happened and maybe witnesses to what didn't happen. And this is where it goes back
to the question that you had asked or something you had presented earlier where I said, "Look, there's kind of
conflicting reports here." So, police interviewed carnival workers and people visiting the event trying to
reconstruct where Timmy had been and who might have seen him. They listened for details about
clothing, timing, other people seen in the area, maybe even direction of travel if somebody saw
the boy. Small facts that could really mean something, lead to something meaningful. One carnival worker reported
that shortly after 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, she had seen a boy come up to her stand. The boy, she said, was
wearing a red tank top, red printed shorts, and this all sounds similar to the clothing Michelle said Timmy had been
wearing. Right. According to that worker, the boy was then called away by a woman. Roughly 10 minutes later, this
same worker said that she saw that same woman walking around calling out loudly saying either Timmy or Jimmy. Mhm. And
she said that the woman she saw appeared to look concerned. The worker later identified Timmy in a
group photograph. Well, that's something. It is something. When she later saw Michelle in person,
she said Michelle might have been the woman she had observed, but she couldn't confirm that. Wh- Which is interesting
to me, right? She picks the boy out of a group photograph and then can't confirm
100% that Michelle is the woman that she saw. This to me, I get the vibe that this woman is doing her best to be
truthful. Right? Like some pe- some people are just trying to help the si- situation and they're overly helpful to
the point of where they go beyond being truthful and they're like, "Yeah, that's
the boy I saw and yeah, that's the woman I saw 100%." Right. That's not what's happening here. So, I think this woman's
doing her best to try >> One so it's also possible that she didn't see Timothy's mother.
It might have been a It might have been somebody else that was calling out cuz at some point people
were looking for Timmy, right? So, that becomes interesting. I don't I didn't want to get to this this
early, but maybe I should because it will make more sense here, but there's a different report of this same situation
here. The other report of this was that the officer that one of the officers that spoke with this
carnival worker didn't believe her simply because of her appearance. He said that she appeared to have been
up all night without saying it, I think he was trying to say that he believed she was on
something. Right. Cuz he's like, "She looked disheveled, she looked confused, she looked like she had been up all
night, she had body odor." And he is like, "Based on her appearance, I He's like, I think she might have been trying
to be helpful, but I I had a hard time believing what she was saying." I think what he's saying is that given her the
way he perceived her to be acting and the way she presented herself presented a less than credible person.
>> Right, but she could have been on something and still saw what she saw. >> Absolutely. Absolutely.
Now, another carnival worker gave a separate account that fixed the timeline even a little more tightly.
He said he recalled helping a boy in a tank top. Again, we know that Timmy was reported to have been wearing a tank
top. He reported helping a boy in a tank top, shorts, and sneakers that were decorated with the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles. He said he helped the boy off of a ride at around 7:15 p.m. So, he's working the
ride. And the boy was small, so he had to help him off of the ride. >> Right. He later told police that he was
certain that the child that he remembered was the same boy he saw on missing persons posters after the
disappearance. See, and that makes sense to me because if you're having a bunch of kids get on
rides, let's say 90 some percent of the time you don't have to help anybody. Mhm. So,
the fact that he would have to help this kid off the ride, more likely to remember him. Then came another piece of
recollection from three teenagers who told police that they had interacted briefly with a boy as they were leaving
the carnival. They say that they remembered warning the little boy to watch out for broken glass on a walkway.
In their account, the boy was accompanied by three adults, two men and a woman. Mhm. And the boy was wearing
Ninja Turtle sneakers. Each of these stories came from different people describing different
moments, and investigators treating them as possible fragments of the same larger
picture. A child in recognizable clothing moving through the carnival during the early
evening hours seen by multiple witnesses and then gone. Yeah, but these shoes, they're not one of one. Right. I'm glad
you pointed that out because these Ninja Turtles are making a resurgence. I'm seeing Ninja Turtles Go Ninja, go Ninja,
go go Ninja. But there was a I think there was a big time period or at least I I I just wasn't paying attention that
I didn't see Ninja Turtles everywhere. Mhm. 1991. Doctor, can you help me? What's What's
your symptoms? I'm seeing Ninja Turtles. Everywhere. >> Everywhere. Lock him up.
Um the in 1991, the Ninja Turtles would have been extremely popular. >> Yeah, I had a friend that went to see
him in concert and I was very jealous. Was it with Vanilla Ice? No, it was just Ninja Turtles and
I remember think And And also I think he went to see The Simpsons cuz The Simpsons had a album.
Don't know why that's a thing. Anytime somebody gets popular, we're like, they should make a record. Especially in the
'90s, that was a thing. So, to add a little bit to this story here, 1990, the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
come out. And this is after they're already very popular, right? The cartoon was a big thing. I'm I think arcade game
Arcade game came out at some point and then in 1991, so this would be just a couple months
before it would be 2 months before Timmy goes missing, the second movie comes out,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, The Secret of the Ooze, which I think might have been even a bigger hit than the
first one. Well, cuz they had the Ooze. They had the Ooze and it had Vanilla Ice. Mhm.
Um >> Ice Ice Baby. I I was in that weird age where I loved the first movie and I had outgrown them by
the time the second movie came out. So, I don't have to go and see them in concert. That's right. I was not lucky
enough to witness the Turtles in concert. And you know that there was a kid like that went to see all their
concerts and followed around the Ninja Turtles just like The Grateful Dead. While
investigators gathered statements from people at the carnival, both working and visitors, they worked to eliminate or
confirm potential avenues in their investigation. On the day following the disappearance,
the Sayreville police searched Michelle's car. This it was still parked at the carnival when they were searching
it. So, she didn't have time to go there, you know, she didn't retrieve the vehicle or drive it home and
manipulate anything in the vehicle. They said they found nothing that helped their investigation. Two days after
that, the county prosecutor's office searched her home. Again, they sound said that they found
nothing that helped the investigation. The FBI also analyzed her garbage. Now, usually when they're searching your
garbage, they don't let you know that this is going on. Right. So, they get per- permission to search the garbage
from the landlord, and they say that effort too produced no useful leads as to what could have happened with
Timothy. Police also arranged to place a register tap on Michelle's home telephone to record
the phone numbers of incoming calls. This is good work, my friends, because in high-profile missing child
cases, tips, threats, and hoaxes can arrive via telephone, and investigators want to
they want to clear record of what comes in on that telephone line, and from where
does it come? And like I said, if there's a perpetrator or unknown stranger to Timothy, this individual
might insert themselves so into the search, or they might just call the mother. Even just And it might not to be to
taunt her, it might just be to offer up some information or show their concern or whatever.
We see that all the time and uh especially in child cases. Yeah. And a hoax, unfortunately, we've reviewed
several missing child cases, especially in the '80s, early '90s, where someone will call in and pretend
to be the missing kid. And then later it's proven that that person is not the kid. It's just Usually it's just some
teenager or sorry some deranged woman. Yeah. >> Through this period uh people who were
regularly in contact with Michelle, they did describe her as deeply affected by Timmy's unexplained absence. She told
her sister during this time that she could not sleep at all or eat. Her boyfriend at the time recalled her
saying that she could not hold any food down. Now, to me this goes to the complete
opposite of that, but I've never been in these shoes. Thank God, and I hope that
I never am. But within 2 weeks of May 25th, the day that her son went missing, Michelle moved out of her house in South
Amboy saying that she was doing so to avoid the media attention. Now, this case is a little foreign to
us, Captain, as we're Ohio boys, but as I said earlier, people that grew up in New Jersey, they know this case well
because it was a bit of a media frenzy. And this case did receive nationwide attention very quickly. So, she
expressed, she being Michelle, expressed frustration with the expectations that she said had been placed upon her by the
public. Mhm. She said, so she's describing a sense that people were waiting for a
particular kind of televised grief. Quote, "Everyone is waiting to see a grieving mother on TV break down crying
hysterically because the public, they thrive on that stuff. But I am not going to do that." End quote. Well, and
everybody reacts differently. And I think when we see these cases, we we start judging. Well, I would handle it this
way or I would handle it this way. I mean, they did so in like the JonBenét Ramsey case, every little detail. But
like remember in the Ramsey case John Ramsey states, I felt if I could keep my wits about me that I'd be more
helpful, that I could solve this. And I feel like that's where I'd go to. So maybe that's where she was going to
and then probably hearing criticism because of that or people turning uh a suspicious eye towards her
because she's not acting in the way that people think that she should. And she's a single parent. So she's the
solo representative of this family at this point. Yeah, and I think it makes sense though. I mean I I I have to keep
my wits about me to try to figure out what happened. As the days became weeks and the weeks stretched into an
unresolved case, the search for Timmy broadened into the kind of public-facing effort
familiar to many missing child investigations. The case was televised twice on America's Most Wanted. Timmy's
photograph was circulated widely on thousands of missing child flyers and even on milk cartons
so that strangers far from Sayreville might recognize the face and connect it to a sighting. And
hanging over all of it was additional painful additional uh a painful detail, excuse me, noted in
a local newspaper. On May 25th, the day Timothy went missing this was the same day as National
Missing Children's Day. The newspaper called that coincidence a bitter irony, a phrase that underscored how on a day
meant to focus public attention on missing children, one more child's name had been added to the list. Timothy
William Wiltsey, or better yet simply Timmy. 5 years old, last reported missing from
a carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey. So much more to get to in this true crime story. Thanks for joining us here
in the garage until the next episode. >> Be good, be kind, and don't look back. For adults with Crohn's disease or
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Carnival of Lies ////// Part 1

Part 1 of 4

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May 25th is National Missing Children’s Day. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25, 1983 as the first National Missing Children’s Day. He established the annual observance to bring national awareness to child safety and encourage communities to prioritize protection efforts. The date was chosen to mark the sad anniversary of the disappearance of Etan Patz, a six-year-old who vanished from a New York City street corner on May 25, 1979. Twelve years after Etan Patz disappeared and on National Missing Children’s Day 1991, a five-year-old boy named Timothy Wiltsey vanished from a Carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey. This week in observance of National Missing Children’s Day, we take a look at a case that will never leave the hearts and minds of many. This is the unsolved case of Timothy “Timmy” Wiltsey. To learn more about National Missing Children’s Day and/or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children go to MissingKids.org (http://missingkids.org/)

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Brief Summary

Timothy Wiltsey vanished from a carnival in 1991, leading to a complex investigation and media frenzy surrounding his mother Michelle Lodzinski.

Key points

Your Killing Me. Brooke Shields stars in a new original murder mystery series.
National Missing Children's Day. A day to honor missing children, starting with the case of Etan Patz.
Timothy Wiltsey's Disappearance. Timothy goes missing during a carnival outing, leading to a complex investigation.
Urgent Search for Missing Boy. The carnival is shut down as police launch a massive search for Timmy.
Conflicting Reports on Demeanor. Witnesses provide varying accounts of Michelle's emotional state during the search.
Suspicion Around Michelle's Actions. Questions arise about Michelle's behavior and the timeline of events leading to Timmy's disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Boomers are so cute when they flirt.

A light-hearted observation about older generations.

0:24WatchMay 27, 2026

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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