This little boy vanished and then someone turned up claiming to be him… just like in The Missing
When a man claiming to be Jonathan returned, Marjean Hagans was initially overjoyed
FANS of BBC show The Missing are hooked on the story of Alice Webster, who vanished after creeping out of school in 2003.
Eleven years later she reappears, but her mum Gemma is convinced the woman who returns is not her daughter.
It might sound far-fetched, but The Missing has chilling similarities to what one American couple went through.
In 1968, Joe and Marjean Hagans' son Jonathan was three years old and playing on the beach in Florida with his sister and brother.
The parents looked away for barely a minute, and their toddler was gone.
Police were called and conducted an in-depth investigation, but not trace of Jonathan was ever discovered.
Witnesses claimed they saw him follow his dad to a snack bar, but he didn't make it inside. His mum reported seeing two men and a woman outside, with one of the men bending down and the trio then leaving.
Eventually cops suggested the boy had likely drowned, but Joe and Marjean couldn't accept it.
At Christmas, Joe even got a job as Father Christmas as he was so sure Jonathan would end up visiting and sitting on his knee.
Things were no better for Marjean, who would visit schools to see the kids arriving and leaving.
Then 21 years later the unimaginable happened.
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It was 1989 and Marjean, then 55, lifted the receiver to be told a man had called police as he was sure he was Jonathan.
David Bonnabel from Buffalo, New York, had seen the case detailed on a missing children's notice board.
It included an impression of what Jonathan would look like at 24, and David was sure it was him.
When Marjean spoke to him she became convinced he was her son too, so when he flew into Tallahassee the following day the reunion was emotional.
David claimed he had been raised in Louisiana by a woman who said she'd kidnapped him when he was three.
He also had information about the incident which had never been released to the public.
David claimed to have escaped the Romanian woman who took him when he was 13 or 14.
"He had information about my son being in a body cast when he was young, about the stairs in our home and about playing school with a brother and sister," Marjean told .
"He even resembled members of the family. We all thought, surely, this was Jonathan."
However, as time wore on Marjean began to doubt David really was her boy.
He told separate stories to different people and was fluent in French and Spanish even though he'd said he didn't get an education.
Devastatingly, four months after David appeared DNA tests proved he was not Jonathan.
Police said he was Mexican. They believe he wanted to be adopted by a US family so he could get citizenship.
Devastatingly for Marjean, there had been no crime so no charges could be brought against David.
His real parents were shocked by the story too.
They hadn't seen him for nine years, with his dad Leon Bonnabel saying only his son could explain his actions.
"David was from a fine family,” an ex teacher .
“If his father had any fault, it was that he was too strict."
After his lie was exposed, David changed his story.
He claimed to be Jonathan's best friend, who met the missing boy when he was hitchhiking and was picked up by the 'Romanian woman'.
She had taken Jonathan, David claimed, but he tried to escape and probably died.
Marjean was left wishing he had never come into her life.
"But, then, I think, just maybe he did know my son," she added.
"Maybe, as stupid as it sounds, he’s telling the truth now. I want to bury my Jonathan if he’s dead."
We recently brought you another devastating unsolved crime, the case of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a tree.