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67.FINDERS ORGANIZATION BY TED GUNDERSON FBI
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Ted Gunderson claimed that the disappearance of children whose photographs appeared on milk cartons was connected to a much larger child-kidnapping network—an organization he identified as “The Finders.” However, this was Gunderson’s personal allegation after he retired from the FBI, not an official FBI finding.
What Gunderson said
In a frequently circulated recording, Gunderson stated approximately:
“You remember they used to put the kids’ pictures on the milk cartons—and they took them off? I contend too many kids were being located through those milk cartons.”
He then connected that assertion to The Finders, saying:
“I have personally filed formal complaints to the FBI about the Finders being an organized international child-kidnapping ring.”
Gunderson therefore appeared to be making two connected allegations:
1. The Finders participated in an organized system that kidnapped or transported children.
2. The milk-carton program was supposedly discontinued because it was helping identify or recover too many missing children, thereby threatening the kidnapping network.
The surviving online clips sometimes cut his remarks into very short segments, making it difficult to determine precisely when and where the complete speech was delivered. The words about complaints to the FBI are preserved in several copies of the recording, but the copies generally do not provide an original date, venue, or complete unedited transcript.
What he apparently meant by “children on milk cartons”
Gunderson was not saying that The Finders placed children’s photographs on milk cartons. He was arguing that some of the missing children pictured on cartons might have been victims of organized trafficking networks such as the one he believed The Finders represented.
His allegation went further: he suggested that the milk-carton campaign was discontinued because it interfered with those networks by keeping missing children’s faces before the public.
I have found no substantiated evidence that a child pictured on a milk carton was conclusively identified as having been abducted by The Finders.
Who Ted Gunderson was
Theodore “Ted” Gunderson had a legitimate and substantial FBI career. He joined the Bureau in 1951 and eventually became Special Agent in Charge of the Memphis, Dallas and Los Angeles field offices. He retired in 1979.
His former position is important, but it does not mean that his later statements represented the FBI. After retiring, Gunderson became a private investigator and public speaker. He promoted numerous claims involving:
- organized
child trafficking; - satanic
ritual abuse; - the
McMartin Preschool case; - the
Franklin scandal; - government
and intelligence-agency protection of child-abuse networks; - and
The Finders.
Many of these later allegations were never established in court or substantiated by official investigations. Consequently, his FBI background should not be treated as proof of every claim he made after retirement.
What The Finders actually were
The Finders were an unconventional communal organization centered around a charismatic leader named Marion Pettie. Members lived in several properties in the Washington, D.C., area and elsewhere. Adults reportedly shared work, housing and responsibility for children.
Public attention began in February 1987 when two men associated with The Finders—Douglas Ammerman and James Michael Holwell—were discovered with six children in Tallahassee, Florida. The children appeared unwashed and poorly clothed, and the adults initially gave authorities confusing explanations.
Police arrested the two men while investigators attempted to determine whether the children had been kidnapped or abused. Searches of Finders properties uncovered unusual material, including:
- photographs
of children without clothing; - photographs
involving animal slaughter; - files
concerning children; - foreign
contacts and travel material; - computer
equipment; - and
writings investigators initially considered suspicious.
Contemporary reporting demonstrates that authorities initially took the matter seriously. A child-abuse specialist found insufficient evidence to determine that the children had been sexually abused, while Tallahassee police said they remained concerned about indications involving two children. The children were ultimately identified as children of women associated with the group, and their mothers traveled to Florida to retrieve them. Charges against Ammerman and Holwell were dropped. Contemporary Washington Post report
Why suspicions about the CIA developed
The most troubling material did not originate solely with Gunderson. A 1987 U.S. Customs Service memorandum said that an investigation was allegedly discontinued because the matter had become a “CIA internal matter.”
When that memorandum emerged publicly in 1993, members of Congress requested another investigation. The CIA denied operating or protecting The Finders. The official explanation was that the apparent CIA connection resulted from a Finders member’s employment as a part-time accountant for a company that conducted CIA training.
The released records contain genuine investigative leads, allegations and disputes over jurisdiction. They do not, however, establish that the CIA operated The Finders as a child-kidnapping network. Importantly, an investigative memorandum recording an allegation is not the same as a proven conclusion.
The FBI has released four large collections of Finders records:
Did milk-carton photographs actually find “too many children”?
There is no reliable evidence supporting Gunderson’s claim that the campaign was stopped because too many children were being located.
The milk-carton campaigns began locally in the mid-1980s and quickly became nationally recognized. Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin, two missing Iowa paperboys, were among the earliest children shown on dairy cartons. Other widely circulated children included Etan Patz and Kevin Collins.
The program gradually declined for more ordinary reasons:
- Cartons
provided very little information beyond a photograph and telephone number. - Photographs
remained in circulation even when information changed. - There
was no consistent nationwide system for deciding which cases appeared. - Most
missing children were runaways or family-custody cases rather than
stranger abductions. - The
campaigns frightened some children without necessarily producing useful
leads. - Television
programs and centralized missing-child databases became more effective. - Amber
Alerts, highway signs, internet distribution and social media eventually
provided faster and more targeted publicity.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was established in 1984, and law enforcement gradually adopted more organized systems for distributing photographs and case information. Milk cartons were therefore displaced by better methods; there is no documented order showing that the program was suppressed to protect The Finders or another kidnapping network.
Evidence assessment
Conclusion
Ted Gunderson did accuse The Finders of being an organized international child-kidnapping ring. He also claimed that missing-child photographs disappeared from milk cartons because the program was successfully exposing or locating too many kidnapped children.
The first part reflects Gunderson’s documented allegation arising from a real and unusual investigation. The second part was speculation. The Finders investigation raised legitimate questions—particularly about the handling of evidence, jurisdiction and the reference to a “CIA internal matter”—but the released files do not prove Gunderson’s broader allegation that The Finders kidnapped milk-carton children or that the milk-carton campaign was deliberately suppressed.
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