Christine Collins

Loving the “Red box” so now renting a movie has become part of grocery shopping. Saw the movie “Changeling”, after browsing through the synopsis rented it anyways coz it was directed by Clint Eastwood. Was happy with my choice, coz it turned out to be a good one. But I still didn’t know what the title meant. “Googled” it and was amused by the details. I can’t be thankful enough for all the online resources coz I can’t read anything that looks like a book anymore.


Changeling is an off spring of a fairy (troll or other legendary creature) that was secretly left in place of a human child, why it is done has many interpretations as to pure malice, love for a human child’s beauty especially blond hair, to be a servant and so on. Simple charms like an inverted coat or open iron scissor was left near the sleeping child to ward them off.

I found it very true that the legend of the changeling must have developed to explain the peculiarities of kids who didn’t develop normally due to abnormalities and developmental delays, still born or died in early infancy. The greater proneness of boys to birth defect correlates to the belief that boy babies were more likely to be taken. So were children who were not baptized and made part of the church. There have been records of kids and women being murdered and then using the changeling story for defense!!

Now about the movie,

"Everyone around her had an agenda — a political agenda, a personal agenda," J.Michael Straczynski (the writer) says. "The only clear voice in the entire story was hers."

It was difficult not to feel for Christine Collins and also admire her.

A single mom whose 9yr old son, Walter went missing. Letters and photographs were exchanged before Christine Collins paid for the boy, who claimed to be her son, to be brought back home. At the reunion, Christine Collins claimed that the boy was not Walter. She was told by the officer in charge of the case, to take the boy home to "try him out for a couple of weeks," for he had been gone for months and Collins agreed.
Three weeks later, Christine Collins returned to see Captain Jones and persisted in her claim that the boy was not Walter. Even though she was armed with dental records proving her case,Collins was committed to the psychiatric ward under a "Code 12" internment—a term used to jail someone who was deemed difficult or an inconvenience. As Walter Collins' body had not been found, she continued to search for him for the rest of her life, but she died without ever knowing her son's fate.


12-year-old Arthur Hutchins Jr., a runaway, his biological mother died when he was 9 years old and he had been living with his stepmother. He said that he had pretended to be Walter Collins to get as far away as possible from her. After living on the road for a month, police brought him in; they began to ask him questions about Walter Collins. Originally, Hutchins stated that he did not know about Walter, but changed his story when he saw the possibility of getting to California, Hollywood so he could meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix

After Christine Collins was released from Los Angeles County Hospital, she sued the police department and won the second of two lawsuits. Although Captain Jones was ordered to pay Collins $10,800, he never did. A city council welfare hearing recommended that Jones and Chief of Police leave their posts, but both were eventually reinstated. The California State Legislature later made it illegal for the police to commit someone to a psychiatric facility without a warrant.

If you want to get the whole story just read about the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.