Vanished Without a Trace: The Unsolved Abduction of William Vosseler and the Legacy of a Father's Betrayal

A Quiet Thursday That Changed Everything

On October 9, 1986, two-year-old William Martin “Billy” Vosseler and his three-year-old brother, Charles Jason “CJ” Vosseler, were picked up by their father, Charles Martin Vosseler Jr., from their home in Rochester, New Hampshire. Charles, who shared joint custody with his ex-wife, Ruth Parker, claimed he was taking the boys to visit relatives in Connecticut for the weekend. However, they never returned. This seemingly routine visitation marked the beginning of one of the most perplexing and enduring parental abduction cases in American history.

A Calculated Disappearance

When Ruth attempted to contact Charles after the weekend, he assured her they were in Connecticut and would return soon. But as days passed without any sign of her sons, Ruth grew increasingly alarmed. She visited Charles’s real estate office, only to find it shuttered and his employees dismissed. Back at home, she discovered that Charles had meticulously removed all photographs of the boys, their birth certificates, and other personal documents. He had also emptied their joint bank accounts and ceased payments on Ruth’s car, leading to its impending repossession. These actions revealed a meticulously planned abduction, leaving Ruth devastated and authorities scrambling for leads .

The Elusive Fugitive

Charles Martin Vosseler Jr., born on March 6, 1942, in Connecticut, was a well-educated man with a degree in economics from Coe College in Iowa. He had a history of manipulation, having told a previous wife that she was fortunate they had no children because he would have taken them away. In the years following the abduction, Charles adopted numerous aliases, including Charles Foster, Charlie Wilson, and Charles Malcolm Amidon. He was last definitively seen in 1989 in Stillwell, Oklahoma, where he had been living under the name Dr. Charles Wilson. After a tip-off, authorities arrived to find his residence burned to the ground, with no trace of Charles or the boys .

A Mother’s Unyielding Hope

Ruth Parker’s life was irrevocably altered by the disappearance of her sons. Despite the passage of nearly four decades, she has never ceased searching for CJ and Billy. In the early days, lacking photographs due to Charles’s thorough removal of family images, Ruth relied on stills from a friend’s home video to create missing person posters. She believes Charles may have told the boys that she had died, a lie that would have severed their connection to her completely. Now residing in North Carolina, Ruth holds onto the hope that her sons, now adults, will one day seek out their true history and reconnect with her ....Read More

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