Key facts
- Name: Angelo Gene Puglisi (“Andy”)
- Born: September 2, 1965
- Age at disappearance: 10 (eleven days short of his 11th birthday)
- Last seen: August 21, 1976, around 5:45 p.m., at the Higgins Memorial Swimming Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts
- Location: Higgins Memorial Swimming Pool, about 100 yards from his home in the Stadium Housing Projects, East Dalton Street, Lawrence, MA
- Description: 4’0″, 65 lbs, brown hair, brown eyes; mildly epileptic; last seen wearing a bathing suit, carrying a towel, wearing sneakers; three scars along his spine, skin discoloration on his chest
- Status: Still missing (Lawrence PD agency case #98002390; NCIC M-098921891; NamUs 6546; NCMEC 601871)
- Investigating agency: Lawrence Police Department — (978) 794-5900 or (978) 794-5925; NCMEC — 1-800-843-5678
Eleven days before his birthday
On August 21, 1976, ten-year-old Angelo Puglisi — Andy to everyone who knew him — went to the Higgins Memorial Swimming Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It was about a hundred yards from his family’s home in the Stadium Housing Projects on East Dalton Street. He’d been there a thousand times.
Around 3:30 that afternoon, he called home and spoke to his brother. Nothing was wrong. Around 5:45 p.m., a lifeguard saw him at the pool. That was the last sighting.
He was wearing a bathing suit, carrying a towel, wearing sneakers. He was mildly epileptic — a detail that made the first hours of the search frantic, because a seizure in or near water could kill a child in minutes. More than 2,000 volunteers joined the search. It was called off after six days. They found nothing.
Eleven days later, on September 2, Andy would have turned eleven.
The predators in the file
Two men with horrific records became suspects in Andy’s disappearance. Neither was ever charged in his case, and the distinction matters.
Wayne W. Chapman was arrested in September 1976 in Waterloo, New York — weeks after Andy vanished. In his van, police found child pornography, a starter pistol, and a bloody child’s sock. The sock was lost before it could be tested — one of the great evidentiary failures of the case. Chapman was convicted of raping two boys in 1975, both lured from the same Higgins Memorial pool Andy used. A letter later surfaced saying Chapman had been working in Rhode Island at the time Andy disappeared — an alibi of sorts, though letters can be lies. Chapman was civilly committed, released in 2019, and died on October 20, 2021. He was never charged in Andy’s disappearance.
Charles Pierce, a convicted murderer from Haverhill, confessed to killing a young girl, Janice Pockett, and also claimed to have killed an unnamed Lawrence boy he buried nearby — a description some investigators thought could fit Andy. Pierce died in prison in 1999. His confession was never corroborated, and confessions from convicted killers seeking notoriety have to be weighed accordingly.
Andy’s parents, divorced in 1975, were both looked at — standard procedure, and both were doubted as suspects by investigators who knew the case.
The hole in the woods
In 1998, two local men — Alan and Tony — came forward with a story: years earlier, they’d found a rectangular hole dug in the woods near the pool, shaped unmistakably like a grave. Two days later, it had been filled in. It was never proven to be a gravesite, and no one knows who dug it or filled it. But in a case with so little physical evidence, the story lodged in the file and never left.
Two excavations near Lawrence in 1999 found nothing.
Filmmaker Melanie Perkins spent years on Andy’s case and made the documentary Have You Seen Andy?, which aired on HBO in 2007 and won a National Emmy in 2008 for investigative journalism. The Vanished podcast has also covered the case. The Doe Network updated his listing as recently as July 18, 2025. Fifty years on, the case is still open.
The filmmaker who wouldn’t let go
Melanie Perkins spent years on Andy Puglisi’s case — not as a hobbyist, but as an investigative filmmaker. The result, Have You Seen Andy?, aired on HBO in 2007 and won the National Emmy for investigative journalism in 2008. It’s one of the rare true-crime documentaries that actually moved a case: it put the Chapman van, the lost sock, the Pierce confession, and the hole in the woods in front of a national audience, with the rigor of journalism rather than the haze of speculation.
The film’s power came from its restraint. Perkins didn’t solve the case — nobody has. She laid out what was known, what was lost, and what was never properly pursued, and let the gaps speak. The bloody child’s sock, lost before testing: a failure of evidence handling that, in a modern lab, might have ended the debate about Wayne Chapman in either direction. The Rhode Island letter: an alibi that arrived by mail and was never fully vetted. The rectangular hole in the woods near the pool, found and filled within two days: a detail that sounds like folklore until you remember that two separate excavations in 1999 were deemed worth doing.
The Vanished podcast later took up the case, bringing it to a generation that wasn’t alive in 1976. The Doe Network updated Andy’s listing in July 2025. Lawrence PD still carries agency case #98002390. Fifty years after a ten-year-old boy called home from near the pool and said nothing was wrong, the file is still open — and the question Perkins asked in her title is still the only one that matters.
Theories
Abduction by a sexual predator
A ten-year-old boy at a public pool, a hundred yards from home, in 1976 — and a convicted child rapist who hunted that exact pool the year before. The Chapman thread is the darkest and most documented lead. Evidence level: Chapman was never charged in Andy’s case; the bloody sock was lost; the Rhode Island letter, if true, clears him. He is presumed innocent. The Pierce confession was never corroborated. Both men fit a pattern; neither has been proven connected to Andy.
Drowning or seizure
Andy’s epilepsy made the water dangerous. Evidence level: The pool was searched; no body was found. A drowning doesn’t explain a vanished child from a supervised pool.
The parents
Both parents were investigated after their 1975 divorce. Evidence level: Investigators doubted their involvement; no charges were ever filed. They are presumed innocent.
He was buried near the pool
The rectangular hole found in the woods, filled in two days later. Evidence level: Unverified — never proven to be a grave, and the 1999 excavations found nothing.
Have information?
Contact the Lawrence Police Department at (978) 794-5900 or (978) 794-5925, or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.
In an emergency, dial 911.
Timeline
- September 2, 1965 — Angelo Gene Puglisi is born.
- 1975 — His parents divorce; Wayne W. Chapman is convicted of raping two boys lured from the Higgins Memorial pool.
- August 21, 1976, ~3:30 p.m. — Andy calls home from the Higgins Memorial Swimming Pool area and speaks to his brother; nothing is wrong.
- August 21, 1976, ~5:45 p.m. — A lifeguard sees Andy at the pool — the last sighting. He is wearing a bathing suit, carrying a towel, wearing sneakers.
- August 21–27, 1976 — More than 2,000 volunteers search; the search is called off after six days with nothing found.
- September 1976 — Wayne W. Chapman is arrested in Waterloo, NY; his van holds child pornography, a starter pistol, and a bloody child’s sock (later lost).
- 1998 — Two locals report a rectangular, grave-shaped hole found and then filled in the woods near the pool.
- 1999 — Two excavations near Lawrence find nothing. Charles Pierce dies in prison; his confession about an unnamed Lawrence boy is never corroborated.
- 2007 — Have You Seen Andy? (Melanie Perkins) airs on HBO; wins a National Emmy (2008) for investigative journalism.
- 2019 — Chapman is released from civil commitment.
- October 20, 2021 — Wayne W. Chapman dies.
- Today — Still missing.
FAQ
Is Angelo Puglisi still missing?
Yes. As of October 2026, Andy Puglisi remains missing. He vanished in August 1976 and has never been found.
Was Angelo Puglisi ever found?
No. No trace of Andy has been found in the fifty years since he disappeared.
What happened to Angelo Puglisi?
He was last seen at the Higgins Memorial Swimming Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 21, 1976. Theories include abduction — with two convicted predators examined as suspects — but no one has ever been charged.
How old would Angelo Puglisi be today?
He was born September 2, 1965, so he would be 61 years old in 2026.
Who were the suspects in the Andy Puglisi case?
Wayne W. Chapman, convicted of raping two boys lured from the same pool in 1975, and Charles Pierce, a convicted murderer who confessed to killing an unnamed Lawrence boy. Neither was ever charged in Andy’s disappearance; Chapman died in October 2021, Pierce died in 1999.
What was the documentary about Andy Puglisi?
Have You Seen Andy?, by filmmaker Melanie Perkins, aired on HBO in 2007 and won the National Emmy for investigative journalism in 2008.
Sources
Official / law enforcement:
– Lawrence Police Department — (978) 794-5900 or (978) 794-5925 (Agency case #98002390; NCIC M-098921891)
– National Center for Missing & Exploited Children — 1-800-843-5678 (NCMEC 601871)
– NamUs — 6546
Reference:
– The Doe Network — case file 69DMMA (doenetwork.org/cases/69dmma.html; updated July 18, 2025)
Media:
– Have You Seen Andy? — documentary by Melanie Perkins (HBO, 2007; National Emmy 2008)
– The Vanished podcast — episode on Angelo Puglisi
Found an error? Tell us via the About page and we will fix it promptly and note the change here. Last verified October 2026.
Correction (Oct 2026): An earlier version of this file stated that Wayne W. Chapman was “living — in his seventies, with Parkinson’s, reported homeless.” Updated to “died on October 20, 2021.” Sources: haveyouseenandy.com (filmmaker Melanie Perkins’s site) and the “Return to Andy” podcast, both confirming Chapman’s death on October 20, 2021, after his 2019 release from civil commitment. The earlier “living” wording appears to have come from a stale Charley Project mirror.