Clint Eastwood’s new movie The Changeling sounds like it should be some kind of low-rent horror film starring the likes of Paris Hilton. In fact, the actual star isn’t that much of an improvement, but I know there are some people out there who inexplicably think Angelina Jolie is a great actress so I won’t go on about that. In fact, The Changeling is based on a true story about a woman whose missing son is returned to her by the police. Only thing is, she knows the boy is not her son. The police tell her the boy is her son and eventually her complaints land her in a psychiatric ward. The movie is based on a series of events known, unfortunately, as the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders. And these events provide further evidence, as if any was needed, that the LAPD’s well-earned distinction as being the most corrupt police force in the city goes way back. All the way to the late 1920s at the very least.
The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders story on which The Changeling is based is truly maddening. Eastwood’s film is one that authentically necessitates having a reminder that it is based on a true story because otherwise nobody could possibly believe that such a thing was other than the work of some frustrated screenwriter who decided to go the route of writing the most outlandish story he could come up with. For those who think that child abduction is a relatively recent phenomenon created as a result of TV, movies and rap music, the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders is a wakeup call. It sounds like something out of Stephen King’s “It” and indeed the malevolence at its center is not totally unlike Pennywise the Clown. A group of young boys goes missing in California in 1928. Eventually it will be discovered that a deviant named Gordon Stewart Northcott abducted them, tortured them, killed them and then dismembered their bodies along with the help of his mother. (No, this is not the story on which Psycho was based.) Remember now, this was long before punk rock or The Simpsons came around to poison and corrupt impressionable young minds. Northcott somehow became a lunatic sex maniac even before Marilyn Manson was born. Not sure how that happened; better ask those decency in media folks. If the story ended right here it would be grotesque enough for one of those Saw-type flicks, but The Changeling is directed by Clint Eastwood. And Eastwood’s view of corruption goes beyond the individual. He has his eyes set on something far more collective and, indeed, far more admirable some hick chicken farmer.
A young boy named Arthur Hutchins, Jr. was meanwhile leading a not very interesting existence in the Midwest and wanted to try out a new life in California. He somehow found out about the case of a missing boy named Walter Collins and figured he could wrangle a free trip to California out of it. He told the LAPD that he was the missing boy and they promptly returned him to his mother. The police, still ignorant of what really happened at that chicken farm, closed the missing persons case on Walter Collins. Walter’s mother, however, refused to let that case stay cold. She persistently went to the police and told them this boy was not her son. The LAPD, in their infinite wisdom, responded by doing all they could to get Walter’s mom institutionalized, successfully convincing others that she simply could not recognize her own son. Why?
The answer is simplicity itself. There are a tremendous number of crimes committed in Los Angeles every day; always has been since those movie folk turned up. It is impossible to solve every crime and when you’ve got a perfectly legitimate excuse (in the eyes of the LAPD) not to pursue a specific crime, well, who can blame you? After all, one ten year old boy is as good as another, right? Except. Well, except that perhaps if the LAPD had investigated the claims of a mother who told them the boy they said was her son was not really her son…perhaps some children might not have died. And even if they were already dead by the time Arthur Hutchins, Jr. found out and following up on the mother’s claims would not have saved lives…wouldn’t it still have been worth it? I mean, if for no other reason, than the fact that you are being paid to do a job. Would it really have been so hard to just investigate a little bit more? Unfortunately, it appears that this mindset is still all too often standard operating procedure for the LAPD. And that is why even though everyone in the world knew O.J. Simpson killed his wife, half the people in the country still refused to believe the LAPD over a murderous hack actor.
If you are one of those people who get fascinated by stories of serial killers and like to visit the places where the murders occurred you should be aware that the town of Wineville, California no longer exists. Well, that’s not entirely true. The town is still there, of course, only it is now known as Mira Loma. The town officially changed its name in 1930 because it had grown tired of its notoriety.
