Police announced today what they have long suspected, that Ottis Toole abducted and murdered six-year-old Adam Walsh in 1981. The decades old investigation is now officially closed, according to Hollywood, Florida police chief Chad Wagner.
A news conference today brought the official pronouncement. According to Wagner, “this case could have been closed, should have been closed years ago.” He apologized to John Walsh and Reve Walsh for “lapses” in the investigation.
Adam accompanied his mother to a Sears store across from the Hollywood, Florida police station on July 27, 1981. She left him playing video games in the toy department while she shopped. When she returned he was gone. His severed head was found floating in a canal some 120 miles away. His body was never recovered.
John Walsh, a tireless advocate for missing children, said, “For 27 years, we have been asking ourselves, ‘Who would take a 6-year-old boy and murder him and decapitate him?'” We needed to 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 died in prison in 1996, was in Hollywood, Florida at the time Adam disappeared. He had twice confessed and then recanted. He provided many credible details but had apparently also confessed to other murders that police knew he had not committed. A valuable piece of evidence, a bloody piece of carpet that was removed from Toole’s car, was lost long before DNA testing was available.
Walsh left his mainstream executive job after Adam’s murder to begin a new mission with television show America’s Most Wanted. He was also instrumental in pushing for the passage of the federal Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 1984 which established the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Check out photos and the news conference video below.