It was on this date a year ago, that I called Lynnie, the oldest sister of the two missing Hoag boys. Her first words were, “John! Gacy killed them! They were his first kills!”

With that startling and chilling statement, the conversation launched me on a year-long odyssey that points to serial killer John Wayne Gacy as the man who abducted, tortured, and strangled three Hannibal boys, then buried them in a single hastily dug grave. The location, preserved with GPS coordinates, is only a few miles from where Joey and Billy Hoag, and their friend Edwin Dowell, were last seen on the early evening of May 10, 1967.

My new book, Souls Speak: missing children reveal their serial killer from beyond is the product of the year-long probe, conducted with three experienced clairvoyants who peered across the boundary between this world and the heavenlies and connected with the etheric spiritual energy of the boys and Gacy himself.

The Hoag boys were friends of mine, and over these past five decades their families and many friends have grieved them.

Writing about the missing boys incident has brought its challenges. A relative of Edwin Dowell has sent threatening messages promising harm to me and my family. The relative, only a little boy when the three Hannibal boys went missing, is still engaging in juvenile behavior. My team’s sole goal is to find the boys so they may be put to rest. Idle threats will not deter us because there are many people supportive of these efforts, even if this relative does not share our pursued goal.