James Hutchinson

Six-year-old James Hutchinson was last seen on February 27, 2021 in Middletown, Ohio. He was reported missing to the police on February 28, 2021 by his mother, Brittany L. Gosney and her boyfriend, James Russell Hamilton.

Brittany and Hamilton each gave conflicting reports about James' disappearance and they eventually admitted that he was dead. Brittany said that she took James, his older brother and sister to the Rush Run Nature Preserve in Preble County, Ohio after 3:00 in the morning intending to abandon all of them there.

After dropping the kids off at the nature preserve, James tried to get back inside of the car, but Brittany drove away, dragging him for a distance as he held onto the door handle. When Brittany came back to the area 30 or 40 minutes later, she found James deceased in the parking lot from a head injury. She took his body and the other kids back home.

On February 27, 2021, Brittany and Hamilton put James' body in the car, tied it to a cinder block, drove to the Ohio River and dumped him off the I-275 bridge near Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Brittany was charged with murder, child endangerment, kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Hamilton was charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

Brittany told the police that Hamilton was abusive to all of her children and Hamilton admitted to hog-tying the kids, gagging them with cloths and left them like that for hours at a time. She said that Hamilton wanted to get rid of the kids by leaving them at the nature preserve so the coyotes would eat them. Brittany wanted to drop the kids off at a firehouse, but Hamilton was against the idea, so she dropped them off at the nature preserve by herself.

After pleading guilty to kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and two counts of child endangerment, Hamilton was sentenced to nineteen years in prison and would be eligible for parole after 15 years. Brittany pled guilty to the multiple charges (including James' murder) and was sentenced to life with prison with the possibility of parole after 21 years.

Despite Brittany pleading guilty to his murder, James has not been located and his case remains classified as an endangered missing person.