Murder of Adam Walsh

Adam John Walsh (November 14, 1974 – c. July 27, 1981) was an American boy who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981, and later found murdered and decapitated. Walsh's death earned national publicity. His story was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing.^[1] Walsh's father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and the host of the television program America's Most Wanted.^[2]

Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to the boy's murder but was never tried for the crime due to loss of evidence and a recanted confession. Although no new evidence has come forth, on December 16, 2008, police announced that the Walsh case was now closed as they were satisfied that Toole was the murderer. Toole died of liver failure on September 15, 1996.^[3]

Kidnapping

On July 27, 1981, Walsh's mother, Revé, let Adam watch a small group of older boys play video games at a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida, while she walked a few aisles away to shop for a lamp. When Revé returned to the video game section about seven minutes later, Adam and the group of boys were gone.

There are claims that a security guard threw the children out of the store for bickering over the video game. It is suspected that Adam was abducted near the front exterior of the store after the other boys left.^[4][5]

Adam's severed head was found by two fishermen in a Vero Beach, Florida, canal on 10 August 1981. The rest of his remains were not recovered.^[3] The coroner ruled that the cause of Adam's death was asphyxiation, so the decapitation was an afterthought, perhaps intended to render his remains unidentifiable or the cause of his death indeterminable.

Aftermath

Adam's kidnapping and murder prompted John Walsh to become an advocate for victims rights and helped to spur the formation of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). As a result of his advocacy, he was approached to host the television program America's Most Wanted.

The Code Adam program for helping lost children in department stores is named in Walsh's memory. The U.S. Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act on July 25, 2006, and President Bush signed it into law on July 27, 2006. The signing ceremony took place on the South Lawn of the White House, where leaders from both sides of the political spectrum joined John and Revé Walsh. The bill institutes a national database of convicted child molesters, and increases penalties for sexual and violent offenses against children.^[6] It also creates a RICO cause of action for child predators and those who conspire with them.^[7]

Suspects

• John Walsh himself was fingered by authorities as a prime suspect as the police investigation started to become exhausted. After about a week, he was later absolved of any foul play following a highly emotional press statement that was televised nationally.
• Jeffrey Dahmer, arrested in Wisconsin in 1991 after killing more than a dozen men and boys, was also named as a suspect in the Walsh murder. Some have suggested a Dahmer link to the case for many years, but the allegations earned widespread publicity only in early 2007. Dahmer was living in Miami Beach at the time Adam was murdered, and two eyewitnesses placed Dahmer at the shopping mall on the day Adam was abducted. One of the witnesses claimed to have seen a strange man walking into the Sears toy department where Adam was abducted. The other said that he saw a young, blond man with a protruding chin throw a struggling child into a blue van and speed off. Both witnesses recognized the man they had seen as Dahmer when pictures of him were released in the newspapers after his arrest. Recent reports have also shown that the delivery shop where Dahmer worked had a blue van at the time. Dahmer preyed on young men and boys (the youngest being eight years older than Adam), and his modus operandi included severing his victims' heads. Since this rumor surfaced, John Walsh has said that he has "seen no evidence linking his son's unsolved kidnapping and slaying to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer."^[8]
• Ottis Toole repeatedly confessed and then retracted accounts of his involvement. Toole, allegedly a confidante of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, was never charged in the Walsh case, even though he provided seemingly accurate descriptions as to how he had committed the crime. Several witnesses also place Toole in the Hollywood area in the days leading up to Walsh's disappearance. Police investigated Toole for the Walsh murder but lost important evidence in the case, including the bloodstained carpet from Toole's Cadillac.^[3] In September 1996, Toole died in prison aged 49 of cirrhosis of the liver while serving a life sentence for other crimes.^[4] Afterwards, Toole's niece told John Walsh that her uncle made a deathbed confession to the murder of Adam.^[4][9] Toole's confession, however, had been viewed as reliable having, since he and Henry Lucas confessed to or implicated themselves in more than 200 different homicides, most of which they accurately described details only the culprit would know.^[10]

In 1997, Hollywood Police Chief Rick Stone conducted an exhaustive review of the Adam Walsh case after the release of John Walsh's book. At the time, Stone was a 22-year veteran of the Dallas, Texas and Wichita, Kansas police departments and had just been appointed Hollywood's chief of police in the previous year. Although the crime was decades old at the time of Chief Stone's review, he provided an analysis of the evidence, including reviewing taped interrogations of Ottis Toole by Hollywood Police Detective Mark Smith. Stone says his review found evidence to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Toole murdered Adam Walsh. Both Toole and his close friend, convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, were notorious, Stone noted, for confessing to crimes they committed and recanting.^[11]

Case closed in 2008

Although no new evidence was presented, on December 16, 2008, the Hollywood, Florida, Police Chief Chad Wagner announced, with John Walsh present, that the case was now closed. An external review of the case had been conducted and police announced that they were satisfied that Ottis Toole was the murderer.^[3][10][12]

References