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.
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.
"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.
“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.