A little boy reported missing met a tragic end, leading to the arrest of his mother and her boyfriend.
On February 28, 2021 Brittany Gosney of Ohio went to the Middletown Division of Police to report her 6-year-old son, James Robert Hutchinson, missing. The police issued an alert to locals to keep an eye out for James.
Sadly, the police investigation came to an alarming revelation. Police discovered that Brittany and boyfriend James Hamilton had lied. The little boy was already dead.
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James had been killed in Preble County days prior, then brought back to Middletown, where his body was disposed of in the Ohio River. Police were horrified to discover that Brittany had originally planned on leaving James and her two other children in a park and abandoning them at her boyfriend's request. James ran back to try to get in the car and was dragged to his death.
This story first appeared on LittleThings in March 2021.
On February 28, Brittany Gosney reported one of her three children, 6-year-old James Hutchinson, missing. As police continued working with the concerned mother and her boyfriend, James Hamilton, they recognized their stories didn't line up. They realized that what they were dealing with was likely graver than a missing child.
Police alerted the public of the missing little boy, causing many to come out and help with search efforts. The search was called off later that evening when Brittany admitted that James was dead — and had been before she ever reported him missing.
Police reports have released details of how James was killed, and the story is truly heartbreaking. WLWT5 reports that Brittany and her boyfriend drove James and his siblings, ages 7 and 9, to Rush Run Wildlife Area in Preble County at 3 a.m. She planned to leave all three of her children there due to pressure from her boyfriend.
"Brittany stated she had planned to get the kids out of the vehicle and to leave them behind as Hamilton had been pressuring her to get rid of the kids," the police report stated.
"When doing this, the 6-year-old, Hutchinson, grabbed onto the door handle. Brittany slammed the gas trying to leave the kids and drug Hutchinson, possibly running him over."
According to the report, she went back to check on her son and found him lying dead in the parking lot.
The report says that Brittany loaded James' body in the car with the other kids and drove him home. She put her son's body in a spare bedroom. She waited until the next night, after the other two children were asleep, to drive with her boyfriend to a bridge over the Ohio River. The two dumped James' body in the river.
Police briefly searched for the boy's body but had to suspend the search because of dangerous conditions. They are set to resume the search on Thursday. Police have searched the home and the area in which the boy was reportedly killed.
James' father, Lewis Hutchinson, was crushed by the news of his son's death. He asserted he would have taken his son if Brittany no longer wanted him.
"All she had to do was give him to me," he told My News 4.
"She could have dropped him off at my sister's house. I don't understand what would drive somebody to be a monster like that."
Brittany was arrested and charged with murder. She's being held on $1 million bail. Her boyfriend was charged with tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. Both are in custody in Middletown.
James' siblings have been removed from the home. Brittany has an additional child but didn't have custody of that child at the time of this incident.
In a Facebook post, a man who has identified himself as James' grandfather and Brittany's stepfather said that even if he did have the money to bail her out, he wouldn't.
