Wineville Chicken Murders, Walter and Christine Collins: the Inspiration for Eastwood's Film Changeling

Clint Eastwood has gathered a cast of gifted actors to create a compelling film based on fact. Angelina Jolie stars as Christine Collins, mother of a missing child and central character of the film. John Malkovich brings to life the Rev. Gustav Briegleb, a radio personality and supporter of Christine, with newcomer Jeffrey Donovan, playing LAPD Capt. J.J. Jones. The inspiration that led to Eastwood's new film Changeling, is a true crime story filled with the horrors of child murder, police corruption, and injustice. The peculiar twists and turns of the story are as bizarre as any fiction and provide a backdrop of heartbreak and outrage. Eighty years ago, the disappearance of a young boy in Los Angeles captured the attention of the city and ultimately the country. The story was so sensational that the town made famous by the crimes, changed its name. Wineville officially became Mira Loma in 1931. Eastwood's Changeling looks at the crime and the characters central to the disappearance and subsequent "replacement" of Walter Collins.

In the spring of 1928, a telephone operator named Christine Collins alerted the Los Angeles Police Department that her son, 9-year old Walter, was missing. He had not returned home after going to the movies at the neighborhood theater. Christine's husband, Walter J.S. Collins, was in prison serving a sentence for robbery. He suggested that perhaps ex-cons whom he had dealings with in Folsom prison wanted revenge and kidnapped his son. Police followed every lead, even the most outlandish including a report given by a gas station attendant who stated that he had seen Walter, wrapped in newspaper except for his head, lying in the back seat of a car.

Several months after the child was reported missing, a boy in Illinois turned up at a police station claiming to be Walter Collins. Christine Collins paid the train fare for the boy's trip to Los Angeles but upon seeing him, she declared that he was not her boy. The police refused to believe her and badgered Collins until she gave in and took the child home with her. Convinced that the boy was not Walter, Christine continued to plead with police to find her son. After weeks of conflict between Christine and the LAPD, the child made a full confession that he was not Walter but was actually Arthur Hutchins of Illinois. He said his reason for the impersonation was that he wanted to see Hollywood.

In September 1928, six months after Walter's disappearance, police found portions of the bodies of two other missing boys, Nelson and Louis Winslow of Pomona, buried under a chicken coop at ranch in Wineville, CA. The discovery came after Stanford Wesley Clark, the nephew of Gordon Stewart Northcott, told police a horrific story of sexual abuse, torture, and death in his uncle's home. There are conflicting stories as to how police first heard Clark's story with some reports stating that his mother called police from Canada to alert them of her son's imprisonment, and others that say Clark approached the police with his story himself. The investigations eventually uncovered enough evidence to arrest both Stewart Northcott and his mother Louise Northcott on kidnapping and murder charges. Louise admitted to killing Walter Collins a week after his abduction. Although police found no evidence of Walter's murder, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Gordon Northcott was tried and found guilty of the murders of an unnamed Mexican youth and the Winslow boys. He was not charged with Walter's death however. Northcott died by hanging in 1930.

Christine Collins never saw her son again but did not give up hope that he was alive. Hoping to find closure, she even went so far as to visit Northcott the night before his execution. He had promised to tell her the truth if she visited but then refused to see her. Northcott never admitted to killing Walter Collins and no evidence of his death has ever been found.

The Los Angeles Public Library has a collection of LA Times photographs that ran in the papers of the time. They include photos of Christine Collins, the chicken range, and Gordon Northcott.

Changeling opens Friday, October 31, 2008.

Sources:

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/feb/07/local/me-5769

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/oct/31/local/me-then31

http://usacitiesonline.com/camiralomahistory.com

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-changeling19-2008oct19,0,7763296.story