Thursday, 4:30 PM
Friend documents boy's disappearance
By Matt Viser, Globe Staff
LAWRENCE -- Thirty years ago, they were sweethearts. They went across the street to cool off on a balmy August day at the local swimming pool. Andy Puglisi and Melanie Perkins were about to enter the fifth grade. They speculated about the teachers they’d get. They stayed in the water until their fingers wrinkled.
Later that day, 10-year-old Puglisi would be gone.
In the days that followed, helicopters aided a frantic search that yielded nothing. Eventually, the child was presumed to have been abducted and killed, though some held on to the possibility he would someday return.
Thursday night, after being haunted by the disappearance for much of her life, Perkins screened a documentary that she worked on over the course of nine years as she sought answers to the mystery. At a theater where Perkins and the boy watched movies as children, Puglisi’s parents, detectives who had worked on the case, and children who were at the pool that day came to view the film, "Have you seen Andy?"
"I hope [the film] heals childhood friends of children that have been abducted," Perkins said. "People don’t realize that when one child is abducted, many, many people are affected. ... It’s like throwing a stone in water. There are all these ripple effects that you don’t realize. Even 30 years later, it’s making an indelible stamp."
