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Dec 16th, 2008


1981 Killing of Adam Walsh Solved

Image: Adam Walsh
Adam Walsh


Dec. 16, 2008

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — A serial killer who died more than a decade ago is the person who decapitated the 6-year-old son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh in 1981, Florida police said Tuesday.

The announcement brought to a close a case that has haunted the Walsh family for more than two decades, launched the television show about the nation’s most notorious criminals and inspired changes in how authorities search for missing children.

“Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?” John Walsh said at Tuesday’s news conference. “We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey’s over.” …

Suspect made deathbed confession

The suspect, Ottis Toole, had twice confessed to killing the child, but later recanted. He claimed responsibility for hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole’s niece told the boy’s father, John Walsh, her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he killed Adam.

Police said Toole was long the prime suspect in the case and that they had conclusively linked him the killing. They declined to be specific about their evidence and noted they had no DNA proof of the crime, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Wash long contended.

“Our agency has devoted an inordinate amount of time seeking leads to other potential perpetrators rather than emphasizing Ottis Toole as our primary suspect,” said Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner. “Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect.”

Wagner acknowledged numerous missteps in the investigation and apologized to the Walshes.

“I have no doubt,” John Walsh said. “I’ve never had any doubt.”

Investigation long criticized by Walshes

Many names have been mentioned in connection to the case in the years since the killing, including serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, but Toole’s has persistently nagged detectives. John Walsh has long said he believed the drifter was responsible, saying investigators found at Toole’s home in Jacksonville a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to what Adam was wearing. …

Adam Walsh went missing from a Hollywood mall on July 27, 1981. Fishermen discovered his severed head in a canal 120 miles away two weeks later. The rest of his body was never found.

Authorities made a series of crucial errors, losing the bloodstained carpeting in Toole’s car – preventing DNA testing — and the car itself. It was a week after the boy’s disappearance before the FBI got involved.

“So many mistakes were made,” John Walsh said in 1997, upon the release of his book “Tears of Rage,” which harshly criticized the Hollywood Police Department’s work on the case. “It was shocking, inexcusable and heartbreaking.”

Major advances in searching for missing children

For all that went wrong in the probe, the case contributed to massive advances in police searches for missing youngsters and a notable shift in the view parents and children hold of the world.

Adam’s death, and his father’s subsequent activism on his behalf, helped put faces on milk cartons, shopping bags and mailbox fliers, started fingerprinting programs and increased security at schools and stores. It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department.

It also prompted national legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children, and led to the start of “America’s Most Wanted,” which brought those cases into millions of homes.

What it also did, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, is make children and adults alike exponentially more afraid.

“He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children,” Moran said.

——

Video

Police solve Adam Walsh murder (MSNBC, Dec. 16, 2008) — Police in Hollywood, Fla., announce they have solved the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh, by Ottis Toole, now deceased, who had long been considered a suspect in the case. (03:20)

Video

John Walsh: ‘Not knowing has been torture’ (MSNBC, Dec. 16, 2008) — An emotional John Walsh says it’s “about justice” that 27 years after his son Adam was kidnapped and murdered that police have named deceased suspect Ottis Toole as responsible for the crime. (07:59)

Video

Reve Walsh: ‘This is a wonderful day’ (MSNBC, Dec. 16, 2008) — Adam Walsh’s mother, Reve Walsh, speaks at a police news conference after police ID Ottis Toole as the killer of her son in 1981. (02:52)

——

Related story

Walsh case transformed missing-kid hunts

——

3/31/10 Update

Adam Walsh Murder Linked To Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer, Adam Walsh
Jeffrey Dahmer, Adam Walsh. Several witnesses reportedly saw Dahmer with Adam on the day he disappeared in 1981. (Photo credit: Getty Images)

——

Related links

Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981 (CNN)

Ottis Toole (Wikipedia)


Ottis Toole, a drifter and convicted pedophile, confessed twice, recanted twice and died in prison.

Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Toole
(Katherine Ramsland, truTV Crime Library)

Murder of Adam Walsh (Wikipedia)

America’s Most Wanted

My baby is missing! (Mark Gado, truTV Crime Library)


Adam Walsh, 6, disappeared from a mall in August 1981.
His head was found two weeks later, 120 miles away.

Jacob Wetterling Resource Center

The Search for Jacob [Alternative link — PDF]
(Steve Irsay, Court TV)

Wetterling_Jacob_summer-1989
One of the last pictures of Jacob Wetterling, on a day trip two months before he was kidnapped on October 22, 1989, wearing the same blue mesh shirt he wore the night he vanished.

Find Joshua Guimond

Josh_lastfoto-1.jpg Joshua Guimond picture by Rifleman-Al

One of the last pictures of Josh Guimond, taken on the campus of St. John’s University (6 miles from the Wetterling abduction site) shortly before his disappearance on November 10, 2002.

All possibilities should be investigated in Guimond case
(Aubrey Immelman, The Record, Nov. 11, 2004)

——

Related reports on this site

Jacob Wetterling Freedom Walk (Dec. 21, 2009)

Guimond: “Justice for Josh March (Nov. 9, 2009)

Missing Person Joshua Guimond (Nov. 7, 2009)

Jacob Wetterling 20 Years On (Oct. 22, 2009)

Jacob Wetterling Celebration (Oct. 16, 2009)

Jaycee Lee Dugard Found Alive (Aug. 28, 2009)

Wetterling Friend Shares Story (Apr. 28, 2009)

Jacob Wetterling Lead Unravels (Jan. 7, 2009)

Ottis Toole Murdered Adam Walsh (Dec. 16, 2008)





11 Responses to “Ottis Toole Murdered Adam Walsh”
  1. Immelman for Congress » Blog Archive » Jaycee Lee Dugard Found Alive Says:

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  5. Immelman for Congress » Blog Archive » Guimond: “Justice for Josh” March Says:

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