New England’s Unsolved: The disappearance of Andrew Amato

The disappearance of Andrew Amato has haunted investigators for nearly half a century, and now the FBI is involved in the investigation.

Andrew’s case is among the very first we covered for New England’s Unsolved.

“Do you think, after all this time, that this is a solvable case?” I asked Webster Police Detective Bruce Hamm.

“Absolutely,” he said.

On the morning of September 30, 1978, Andrew Amato vanished from woods near his home in Webster.

He was not supposed to be playing there, but on that morning, Andrew, his 7-year-old sister, Michelle, and their 6-year-old cousin walked into the woods anyway.

In 2001, I interviewed Andrew’s sister, Michelle. She told me they made it as far as a brook, but she was afraid to cross. She said Andrew and their cousin went on without her.

She remembered the last time she saw her brother.

“He was crossing the brook, just his backside walking away. I waited what seemed forever before Jeannie came out without my brother,” Michelle remembered. “She came out screaming and crying, stating that he had fallen and he wouldn’t come out of the woods.”

For days, police, dogs, and thousands of volunteers searched the woods. They never found a trace of Andrew Amato.

But from the beginning, the case has produced strange turns.

The Amato cousin remembered that Andrew wouldn’t leave the woods without his “Weeble.” The tiny toy was later recovered in a spot that had already been thoroughly searched with dogs. To this day no one knows how the toy was missed.

That’s not all.

Two months later, a man found a Mickey Mouse T-Shirt on railroad tracks in Woburn, 60 miles away from Webster.

The T-shirt is similar to one Andrew was wearing.

“There’s really no reason for Andrew Amato’s t-shirt to end up in Woburn,” I remarked to Detective Hamm.

“Right,” he said.

“A kid who just vanished here in Webster,” I continued.

“Right. You wouldn’t be able to walk from Webster to Woburn as a four-year-old kid,” Detective Hamm said.

In an alleged deathbed confession in the late 1990’s a person of interest said Andrew was buried beneath powerlines.

I watched in 2003 as investigators searched for Andrew in Burrillville, Rhode Island, fifteen miles from Webster.

“What do you make out of the deathbed confession. Was it legitimate?” I asked Detective Hamm.

“Well, unfortunately we weren’t able to locate Andrew, so we’re still obviously working that,” Detective Hamm said.

In 2025, the FBI offered at $25,000 Reward for information.

The Bureau also supported a search of a pond in Burrillville, the same town as the powerline search from the alleged death bed confession.

“One of our task force officers looking through the case file to see that a person of interest had frequented this area. And so it was worth another look,” said Assistant Boston FBI Agent-In-Charge Kimberly Milka.

Webster Police Detective Bruce Hamm tells me, until we know what happened to Andrew Amato in the woods of Webster, all options are on the table.

“My first goal is finding him,” Detective Hamm said. “My second goal is to find out what happened. But my first goal is to get Andy home to his family. And then we’ll look at what happened after that.”

You can sent TIPS in this case to:

Webster Police (508) 943-1212.

FBI: 1-800-CALL-FBI

There is a $25,000 Reward offered in this case.

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