Wineville Chicken Coop Murders - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• "The Big Imposter", an episode of the radio series Dragnet, which aired on June 7, 1951, was based on these events. When the show moved to television, the radio script was adapted into a teleplay and broadcast on December 4, 1952. The plot focuses primarily on the story of Arthur Hutchins' impersonation of Walter Collins. In this version, the parental figure who reports the disappearance of the character based on Walter Collins is a widowed grandfather, raising the child on his own after the deaths of the boy's parents, rather than a single mother.

• Changeling, a 2008 film written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed by Clint Eastwood, is also based in part on the Gordon Stewart Northcott case. The film primarily depicts the plight of Christine Collins (played by Angelina Jolie), the mother of Walter Collins, and her search for her real son. The film depicts all the major figures in the case except for Gordon Northcott's mother and accomplice, Sarah Louise Northcott, who was convicted of killing Walter. In the film, there is a reference to a boy who came forward several years later after Northcott's execution and related having escaped from the chicken coops, and suggesting that Walter Collins may have also escaped. There has never been any substantiating evidence put forward that such an escape ever occurred, or that the boy who came forward even knew of a Walter Collins, to support this notion presented in the film. Jolie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for this film.

• "Haunted" (Episode 93) of Criminal Minds includes a man who survived a similar event to the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.