Adam Walsh case closed.

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The Adam Walsh case was officiall closed today twenty-seven years after he was murdered.

Pantagraph.com | News | Florida police to officially close Adam Walsh murder case



MIAMI -- Hollywood, Fla., police will announce Tuesday that the 1981 abduction and murder case of 6-year-old Adam Walsh has been closed.

John Walsh, Adam’s father and the host of “America’s Most Wanted,” is expected to join Adam’s mother, Reve Walsh, and Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick E. Wagner to make the announcement.

The revelation comes more than 27 years after Adam went missing from a department store. Two weeks later, his severed head was found.

South Florida media outlets are reporting that police will announce Adam was murdered by Ottis Toole, a drifter who confessed and recanted to the murder before dying in prison in 1996.

Hollywood Lt. Manny Marino, a police spokesman, declined to comment Tuesday morning.

The case has remained in the national spotlight since Adam disappeared on July 27, 1981.

Reve Walsh left her Hollywood home with Adam that morning to run some errands.

They arrived about noon at a Sears and the mother left Adam at a video game while she walked to the lamp department. When she returned about five minutes later, her son was gone.

Reve searched the aisles, had Adam paged and then police were called. A teenage security guard would later report she had thrown Adam out of the store along with several other children who were bickering.

Then on Aug. 10, two fishermen found Adam’s head in a canal near Vero Beach.

The abduction and murder set off an epic manhunt. The case netted hundreds of leads and dozens of suspects — including serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer — but not one arrest. And prospects that the case would be solved at one point seemed dim after key evidence was lost and Toole, a prime suspect, died in prison.

In October 1983, Toole told police he abducted Adam and drove a white Cadillac for about an hour to an isolated dirt road and decapitated the boy.

Details in the story changed, but Toole would lead police to the Hollywood Mall and correctly identify the spot where Adam had been ejected from the store. He also took police to a dirt access road near mile marker 126 on the turnpike, where he said he had buried the body, and to a canal near mile marker 130, where he correctly pointed out the place Adam’s head was discovered.

The medical examiner’s report matched key elements of Toole’s account: Adam had been facedown when decapitated. His head was sheared off with three to five knife strokes.

Police, however, could not find Adam’s body where Toole said he left it and there were allegations his confession was tainted by a Jacksonville detective seeking a book deal.

John Walsh told The Miami Herald in 2001 he believed Toole killed his son.

“I believe Ottis Toole killed Adam,” Walsh said. “I believe that Toole is in hell right now, and I believe that he died a horrible death in prison.”

Investigators lifted bloodstained carpet from Toole’s car. But without the DNA testing available today, there was no telling if the blood was Adam’s.

And when Sgt. Mark Smith, a Hollywood police detective assigned to the case in 1994, wanted to order DNA testing on the bloodstained carpeting from Toole’s car, the evidence had vanished. Toole’s car, too, was gone.

Toole died on Sept. 15, 1996. Walsh has said a niece of Ottis Toole contacted “America’s Most Wanted” and said Toole made a deathbed confession to her.
 
I've always liked that show because it helps police and family find information they likely wouldn't have otherwise. I feel for Adam's family and hope they have found the closure they need.
 
Police Identify Murderer of America's Most Wanted Host's Son
Police Identify Murderer of America's Most Wanted Host's Son - Crime & Courts, : People.com

More than a quarter century after the kidnapped child was found dead, police in Florida closed the book on one of the country's most famous cold cases, involving Adam Walsh, the son of America's Most Wanted host John Walsh.

Adam, who was 6 in 1981, was abducted from a Hollywood, Fla., shopping mall and his head was discovered two weeks later. His other remains were never recovered.

Police on Tuesday named a convicted serial killer named Ottis Toole, who died in prison in 1996, as the child's suspected murderer.

"It is our determination and conclusion that Ottis Toole was the abductor and murderer of Adam Walsh," said Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner. "If [he] were alive today, he would be arrested."

Wagner did not elaborate on any new evidence that the police have uncovered.

Toole, a drifter who was serving time for an unrelated murder, twice confessed to killing Adam, only to recant in both instances. Toole, it was discovered, would sometimes confess to dozens of murders he did not, in fact, commit.

In a 1983 confession about Adam, Toole reportedly cited a machete as the weapon used to decapitate the boy.

Transformed John Walsh
Walsh's son's death galvanized the former hotel marketing executive into one of the country's leading activists on behalf of missing children.

"Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?" Walsh, 62, said at a news conference in Florida. "We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over."

Walsh instituted the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center and co-founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His America's Most Wanted TV show launched in 1988.

In its 24 years, the center has assisted authorities in more than 148,160 missing child cases, and helped in the recovery of more than 132,300 children.
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Adam Walsh case transformed missing kid searches
Adam Walsh case transformed missing kid searches - Yahoo! News

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – The abduction happened 27 years ago, at a time when parents routinely left their children playing in the toy store, unattended, and continued shopping.

But when Reve Walsh returned to pick up her 6-year-old son, he wasn't there. Over the mall loudspeaker, the plea came: "Adam Walsh, please come to customer service."

Two weeks later, fishermen discovered the boy's severed head in a canal 120 miles away from the Hollywood mall. His body was never found.

The case led to advances in police searches for missing youngsters and a notable shift in the view parents and children have of the world.

On Tuesday, police closed their investigation. They said a serial killer who died more than a decade ago in prison was responsible for Adam's death. They admitted making crucial errors in the case and apologized to the Walshes.

But Adam's death, and his father's transformation from a hotel developer to an activist, helped put missing children's faces on milk cartons and in mailboxes, started fingerprinting programs and increased security at schools and stores.

It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department. And it prompted legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children. It also prompted the television program "America's Most Wanted," hosted by John Walsh, which brought such cases into millions of homes.

"In 1981, when a child disappeared, you couldn't enter information about a child into the FBI database. You could enter information about stolen cars, stolen guns but not stolen children," said Ernie Allen, president of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which was co-founded by John Walsh. "Those things have all changed."

Jim Larson of Orlando witnessed the effects of John Walsh's work. His wife, Carla, was abducted in a grocery store parking lot one afternoon in 1997 and was raped and strangled. He credits "America's Most Wanted" with catching her killer.

"Maybe, eventually, they would have gotten there," Larson said of police. "But it seemed like right after the show aired, calls were coming in and leads were followed and they got him."

The man convicted in the killing, John Huggins, is now on Florida's death row.

Others are more hesitant to dole out credit. John Walsh's efforts, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, have made children and adults exponentially more afraid of the world.

"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.

Police closed the case without any new evidence or even anyone they could charge with the crime.

"For 27 years, we've been asking who can take a 6-year-old boy and murder and decapitate him. We needed to know. We needed to know," said John Walsh. "The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over."

Police said the man long considered the lead suspect, Ottis Toole, was conclusively linked to the murder, but largely with circumstantial evidence.

"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."

Authorities made a series of errors over the years, losing the bloodstained carpeting in Toole's car — preventing DNA testing — and the car itself. Wagner launched a fresh review of the case when he became the department's chief last year.

In 1997, Adam's father, John Walsh, released the book "Tears of Rage," that criticized the police department's work.

"So many mistakes were made," he said. "It was shocking, inexcusable and heartbreaking."

John Walsh has long thought Toole was responsible, saying investigators found a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to what Adam was wearing when he was abducted.

"I have no doubt," John Walsh said. "I've never had any doubt."

Toole confessed to the killing, but later recanted. He claimed hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole's niece told John Walsh her uncle gave a deathbed confession to the crime.

Toole died in prison of cirrhosis in 1996 at the age of 49. He was serving five life sentences for murders unrelated to Adam's death.
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Fla. police close books on '81 Walsh killing
Fla. police close books on '81 Walsh killing - Yahoo! News

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, police in Florida said Tuesday. The announcement brought to a close a case that has vexed 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?" an emotional 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."

Walsh's wife, Reve, at one point placed a small photo of their son on the podium.

Police named Ottis Toole, saying he was long the prime suspect in the case and that they had conclusively linked him to the killing. They declined to be specific about their evidence and did not note any DNA proof of the crime, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Walsh 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, who launched a fresh review of the case after taking over the department last year. "Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect."

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.

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."

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.

Toole died in prison of cirrhosis in 1996 at the age of 49. He was serving five life sentences for murders unrelated to Adam's death.

The Walshes, who appeared Tuesday flanked by their other children, long ago derided the investigation as botched. Still, John Walsh praised the Hollywood police department for closing the case.

"This is not to look back and point fingers, but it is to let it rest," he said.

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."

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

"In 1981, when a child disappeared, you couldn't enter information about a child into the FBI database. You could enter information about stolen cars, stolen guns but not stolen children," said Ernie Allen, president of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, co-founded by John Walsh. "Those things have all changed."

The case also prompted national legislation to create a national 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.
Click to expand...
 
Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981
Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981 - CNN.com

HOLLYWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- A deceased drifter long suspected in the abduction, murder and beheading of 6-year-old Adam Walsh committed the crime that put missing children on the national agenda, police said Tuesday.

"If Ottis Toole was alive today, he would be arrested for the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh on July 27, 1981," Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner said at an afternoon news conference announcing the end of the 27-year investigation.

The chief apologized to the boy's parents, John and Reve Walsh, for what he called "lapses" in the initial investigation.

He added that there was no "magic" piece of evidence that led investigators to officially name a suspect now.

"This case could have been closed, and should have been closed years ago," Wagner said.

When he took over last year as police chief, Wagner vowed to close the Walsh case.

He reviewed the entire case file and assigned a retired detective, Joe Matthews, to conduct an independent review.

John Walsh's voice shook and his eyes brimmed with tears as he thanked the chief for closing the case. Walsh is best known as host of the television show "America's Most Wanted."

"For 27 years, we have been asking ourselves, 'Who would take a 6-year-old boy and murder him and decapitate him? Who? ' " Walsh said. "We needed to know. Today we know. The not knowing has been a torture but now that journey is over. It is only fitting that it ends here at this police department."

Toole, a convicted pedophile and killer who associated with notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, died in prison in 1996. Wagner said investigators were able to place Toole in Hollywood at the time Adam disappeared.

Toole twice confessed to killing the boy -- and twice recanted his story, saying he made it up. It could not be learned what, if any, new evidence exists.

Adam disappeared from a Sears store across from the Hollywood police station in July 1981. Two weeks later, his severed head was found in a canal 120 miles away. The boy's body was never recovered, and no one was ever charged in the case.

Walsh turned his grief into action, becoming an early advocate for missing children and crime victims. Three presidents -- Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton -- have honored Walsh for his efforts to safeguard children.

His efforts led to the passage of the federal Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984, which established the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

His fierce loathing of fugitives, convicts and predators launched a new career as host of the television show "America's Most Wanted."

Walsh has long believed Toole killed Adam, and on Tuesday, Wagner said there never was any other suspect. Toole died in prison in 1996 while serving a life sentence on unrelated charges.

Toole's confessions in the Walsh case were questioned by police because Toole confessed to other murders that police knew he did not commit.

Although the details of his story changed, Toole did lead police to the Sears store and pointed out the spot where Adam was last seen. He also led police to the canal where the boy's head was found.

But investigators could not find Adam's body where Toole said he left it.

A bloody piece of carpet removed from Toole's car was lost by police many years ago, before DNA testing became available.

Police believe a 17-year-old security guard asked a handful of rowdy kids who were playing video games in the toy department to leave the store. Investigators believe Adam was grouped in with those kids, who left him alone outside the store. That was the last time he was seen.
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That's such a horrible thing for any family to go through and I'm glad the Walsh family got their closure..
 
Could somebody point out why they closed it eventhough the stuffs that could be tested for DNA are lost? I have been trying to find out what it is that makes them close the file and still haven't find it.
 
sara1981 said:
Adam Walsh case transformed missing kid searches
Adam Walsh case transformed missing kid searches - Yahoo! News
Click to expand...

sara1981 said:
Fla. police close books on '81 Walsh killing
Fla. police close books on '81 Walsh killing - Yahoo! News
Click to expand...

sara1981 said:
Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981
Police: Drifter killed Adam Walsh in 1981 - CNN.com
Click to expand...

Sara, please respect this thread and stop posting multiple links to the same story. Thank you.
 
Buffalo said:
Could somebody point out why they closed it eventhough the stuffs that could be tested for DNA are lost? I have been trying to find out what it is that makes them close the file and still haven't find it.
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I'll google and see what I can come up with...brb.
 
Buffalo said:
Could somebody point out why they closed it eventhough the stuffs that could be tested for DNA are lost? I have been trying to find out what it is that makes them close the file and still haven't find it.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I'm so confused as much as you are. I know this case been opened for a long time 27 years, and since Toole had died in prison, without any physical evidence, they couldn't tie Toole to murder. They did had an opportunity to do DNA testing of the carpets, someone thrown the carpet samples out, and Toole's vehicle was sold to an used car lot. :roll: But, John believed that Toole did killed his son. So, I guess it settles it all, it's time to put it at rest. :dunno: I think this case is one big unsolved mystery.

It sucks so much when an evidence ends up missing, and a case cannot be completed.
 
More stuff on Walsh case: Case closed? Questions linger in Adam Walsh probe

"HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -A quarter-century ago, Adam Walsh's accused killer accompanied police to a bus bench outside a Sears where he claimed to have snatched the 6-year-old boy. Then, Ottis Toole went with authorities to a turnpike where he said Adam cried for his mother. Later, they stopped at a bridge where Toole said he hacked off the boy's head.
But did he really do it?
The story was one of several accounts Toole gave over the years. And while Adam's father, "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, has long believed Toole abducted and decapitated his son on July 27, 1981, it wasn't until this week that Hollywood police said they agreed, and closed the case. But there was no new evidence, nothing new that came to light.
New Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner said after a re-examination of the evidence, he believes Toole could have been tried and convicted before he died in 1996 serving a life sentence for other killings. Detectives were too hesitant, he says, partly because they didn't want to admit mistakes they made investigating Toole.
But the case against Toole has holes. An Associated Press examination of documents released with this week's announcement leaves many questions about the kidnapping and killing — there is nothing standing alone that points to Toole. There are no DNA or blood tests, no slam-dunk eyewitness accounts.
"If you're looking for that magic wand, that one piece of evidence, it's not there," Wagner admits.
Even basic details of what happened can't be determined because Toole never kept his confessions straight (when he wasn't recanting).
He said he picked up Adam outside Sears. Or was it by the mall merry-go-round? He said he bribed the boy with candy — except when he said he used a baseball glove. He said he threw the boy's body into the same central Florida canal as his head, the only part of Adam ever found. He also said he buried the body off a highway and burned it in his mother's yard in Jacksonville. He took credit for many murders — including some committed by others.
He once accused his sometime traveling partner, another self-professed serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, of being Adam's slayer — but Lucas was jailed then. In a 1996 AP prison interview, Lucas said Toole confessed to him, even taking him to the mall to show him where he picked up Adam and to the spot where he supposedly killed him. Lucas died in 2001.
Jailed for the 1982 murder of a Jacksonville man, Toole began confessing to Adam's slaying and others in 1983, sometimes to detectives from other jurisdictions checking to see if he could be linked to homicides of children and adults they were investigating.
For example, despite having confessed to Adam's slaying, he told a Texas detective that he was incapable of killing a child. "I wouldn't do that. Not no little kid," Toole laughed, according to the documents.
A day later, in a conversation with the same investigator, Toole said he killed Adam then dismembered the boy's body. But later in the same interview he said he left the body intact.
In one of the most gruesome explanations of Adam's fate, Toole told a Brevard County investigator that he chopped off the boy's head, then brought his body back to Jacksonville and burned it in his mother's yard. "I ate a little bit of him," the detective recalled Toole saying. But Toole told others he buried it by the Florida's Turnpike or dumped it in the canal with the head.
When the Brevard investigator asked why he kept recanting if he really did it, Toole blamed the Hollywood detectives.
"Every time I'd tell them something, they would tell me I was lying and I was a liar," he later recalled Toole saying. "They finally just made me mad ... You are right, I didn't do it."
Kathleen Heide, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said Toole's confessions may have been his way of attaining notoriety or "immortality." But when he realized the disadvantage such a confession would have — say, retribution from fellow inmates — he recanted.
"Sometimes these people are thinking in terms of chess games," said Heide, who studies homicides and child abductions. "But they're not that smart, and they don't play chess. Somebody who is going to commit a crime like that has problems with human decency and morality."
But why confess and recant several times? Heide says Toole's low IQ, his troubled childhood and his inability to distinguish reality from fantasy all played a role.
"His hold on reality was likely quite slippery," she said.
Some eyewitnesses identified Toole as the weird man they saw at the mall the day Adam disappeared. Years later, others said they recognized the kidnapper the second he first appeared on TV — infamous Wisconsin serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who lived in South Florida in 1981. Some in the community still believe the case is stronger against Dahmer, who was killed in prison 14 years ago.
The two pieces of evidence that might have provided definitive answers with today's advanced DNA testing were lost by Hollywood police during their investigation — a bloodstained carpet taken from Toole's car and the car itself.
No one knows where they are."
 
good thing the case have solved after so long

i always like the show john walsh started and it is a long running tv show that is good
 
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