Nov 23, 2008 9:29 pm US/Central
An Illinois Connection To Angelina Jolie Film
DEKALB, Ill. (CBS) ―
In the movie "Changeling," a mother appears to be reunited with her kidnapped son. But then she discovers it's not really her son.
It may seem like something that only happens in the movies, but it's based on a true story.
The mix up actually started in a northen Illinois town. CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports on the real story behind the silver screen.
DeKalb, Illinois seemed like a welcoming place in the summer of 1928 when a young runaway from Iowa arrived there and lied his way into a sensational California missing person's case. The story is chronicled in the Hollywood film "The Changeling," starring Angelina Jolie.
But it really began in downtown Sycamore when 11-year-old Arthur Hutchins Jr. decided to pretend he was Walter Collins, a nine-year-old California boy who vanished in March of 1928.
"He just disappeared. His mother came home from work and he was gone," said DeKalb County historian Phyllis Kelley.
It was a headline-grabbing case that Hutchins heard or perhaps read about before he was picked up in DeKalb and brought to jail in nearby Sycamore -- that's where he was taken in by the county sheriff who let the boy move in with her family.
"She had him play with her own kids. He became kind of embraced by the community," said DeKalb mayor Kris Povlsen.
In no time, Hutchins started to claim he was Walter Collins.
"He told the sheriff he was the kidnapped son of Mrs. Collins," Kelley said. "This boy just lied like crazy."
The lies were so convincing to some that Hutchins was eventually sent to meet Walter Collin's mom in California. It's something Hutchins later said he did for fun. What happened to Miss Collins was anything but.
"They told Mrs. Collins that she was crazy. She had to accept him. She wasn't accepting him and they put her in an institution in California because she denied that he was her son," Kelley said.
The reason, because that way authorities could close the book on a high profile kidnapping case. Collins was eventually freed when the 11-year-old imposter fessed up saying in writing: 'I said I was Walter Collins because I wanted to get into the movies in Hollywood…and 80 years later, he did just that.
Walter Collins was never found. He is believed to have been the victims of a notorious child killer who was later executed.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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