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In February 1984, 10-year-old Kevin Collins made headlines for being part of one of history's most bizarre and baffling true cases. Collins, who was still in school then, had gone to basketball practice. While he usually went there with his brother Gary, the latter had coincidentally been taken ill this particular day.
Instead of riding home with his brothers' football team, Collins decided to go home alone, waiting on the roadside at the bus stop to catch the city bus. People who witnessed Collins waiting at the bus stop revealed that the 10-year-old was talking to a man with a black dog. Strangely enough, Kevin Collins was never seen again.
In 2013, almost three decades after, the cold case unit of the San Francisco Police Department reopened the case and finally found the first viable person of interest who they believed was responsible for the 1984 abduction case. The person suspected of the heinous crime was Wayne Jackson, a neighbor of the Collins' who lived down the street. However, despite Jackson being the person most likely to have done it, the police were never able to convict him due to his death in 2008.
Investigation Discovery's People Magazine Investigates will revisit the bizarre case of Kevin Collins in its upcoming episode titled Without a Trace. The synopsis of the episode, as per Rotten Tomatoes, reads:
"In San Francisco, Kevin Collins, 10, disappears on his way home, galvanizing the residents to find him; with few leads to go on, Kevin's case sheds light on hundreds of other children who have vanished without a trace in the United States."
The episode airs on the platform on July 10, 2023, at 7 pm ET.
Kevin Collins abduction case: Wayne Jackson had previously been convicted of kidnapping children
In the 2013 investigation launched by the cold case unit of the San Francisco Police Department into Wayne Jackson's criminal background, it was revealed that he was actually a convicted p*dophile. Two years prior to Collins' mysterious disappearance, i.e., in 1982, Jackson had been sentenced to six months in prison for s*xually assaulting a seven-year-old boy in a nearby neighborhood.
The investigation also revealed that the entire reason Jackson lived in San Francisco is because he had fled Canada years earlier as he'd been convicted of kidnapping and s*xually assaulting two 13-year-old boys that lived near him. Jackson's criminal history had been unknown all these years because he used more than five different aliases throughout the years.
In 2013, the police finally convicted Jackson of Kevin Collins' kidnapping, only to discover that the criminal had died five years prior due to natural causes. Since the authorities were never able to interrogate Jackson for all the new information that came to light since the initial 1984 suspicion, the case is still labeled as an open missing persons case.
The police have still continued their search for answers all these years and have also reached out to Jackson's partner, whom they have promised to grant immunity in exchange for information about the case.
Watch People Magazine Investigates on July 10, 2023, at 7 pm ET, exclusively on ID.
