The Story Of Adam Walsh

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In the summer of 1981 the Walsh family was living the American dream. Adam was a happy 6 year old. John was building a successful marketing career and Reve was soon to learn that they were expecting their second child.

The abduction and murder of Adam Walsh is perhaps one of the most famous child abduction cases. It is certainly one of the most frustrating. Over the years a grotesque serial killer confessed and recanted several times. But 27 years later, Adam's case was finally closed.

In the summer of 1981, Adam Walsh was a typical 6-year-old boy whose life revolved around baseball and Star Wars. Adam lived with his parents, John and Revé Walsh, in a comfortable three bedroom home on McKinley Street in Hollywood, Fla., a growing city with a small town feel.

In the Walsh household that summer, Revé and John had celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, and they had decided to have another baby, a brother or sister for Adam.

July 27 started like any other summer morning for the Walshes. John, a marketing director, went to work at his office in Bal Harbor. Revé planned her day over a cup of tea, while Adam watched cartoons on the family couch. Reve was heading to the gym, but needed to run a few errands before dropping Adam off with John's mother, who they all affectionately called "Gram."

Revé fed Adam a hotdog and told him to get dressed. She had laid out for him a red and white striped short-sleeved IZOD shirt, green running shorts and his sneakers. Instead of his sneakers, though, Adam put on his yellow flip flops.

Rushed for time, Revé let it go. Adam was also wearing his beige captain's hat. It was way too big for him, and almost covered his eyes, but he loved it. And besides, it was hot, in the 90's already. Revé and Adam got into the family car, a grey Checker cab, and took off to run errands.

After dropping off Adam's tuition check at his school, St. Mark's, Revé drove to the Sears store in the Hollywood mall, to see about some brass lamps they had on sale. Revé  parked the Checker where she typically parked at the north side of the receiving dock. They entered the store and walked past receiving and the catalogue desk and entered the toy department. It was around 12:15 p.m.

There was a display of new video games at the toy department and Adam asked if he could stay there and play with the other boys. Revé said it was okay. She told Adam she would be in the lamp department -- only three aisles away.

After shopping, Revé promised her son they would go into the mall and get ice cream.

Adam's Last Known Moments

Only minutes after Revé left Adam in the toy department, a fight broke out between the boys over the controls of the video game. Sears personnel called for security to break up the fight. 17-year-old Kathryn Shaffer-Barrack, who had only been a security guard for a short time, responded.

Approaching the boys, Kathryn told them fighting wasn't allowed in the store. She asked two black boys if their parents were in the store and they said 'no.' She assumed the two blond, white boys -- a 10-year-old and 6-year-old Adam -- were together, and asked them if their parents were in the store. The older boy answered no. Kathryn directed the black boys and the white boys to leave by separate exits of the store.

Adam didn't tell the security guard his mother was in the lamp department; he followed the older boy out the west exit of Sears into the parking lot. John and Revé believe Adam didn't tell the security guard about his mother, because he was a timid child and mindful of authority. Knowing their son, they believe he may have been too scared to say anything.

Whatever the reason, 6-year-old Adam Walsh was now standing outside of Sears at an entrance he was unfamiliar with, quite possibly waiting for his mother to find him.

Where Could He Be?

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In the summer of 1981 the Walsh family was living the American dream. Adam was a happy 6 year old. John was building a successful marketing career and Reve was soon to learn that they were expecting their second child.

Only five to ten minutes after Revé left her son in the toy department she returned. Adam was nowhere to be found. Revé's frantic search for her son that hot July afternoon grew into a 27-year search for answers: Who took her son? Why did they kill him?

On July 27, 1981, John and Revé Walsh launched what is still considered today the largest manhunt for a missing child in the state of Florida. But two weeks later when Adam's severed head was discovered in an irrigation canal by two fisherman, one hundred miles away in Vero Beach, the harsh reality set in.

Ronald Wright, the Broward County medical examiner ruled Adam's death a result of asphyxiation; the severing of his head was done post mortem. But Wright believes that Adam was more than likely murdered the very day he disappeared.

Mindful of the fact that Adam's remains could help catch his killer, the Walshes held a Mass of Angels for their son days later with only a symbolic casket. No burial followed. Adam's skull rests, to this day, at the Medical Examiner's office in Broward County.

On November 14, 1981, Adam would have turned seven. A few weeks later, around Thanksgiving, Revé discovered she was pregnant. Meghan Walsh was born to John and Reve on July 15, 1982. Reve told the local newspapers "there is no substitute for Adam. The new baby "will make me miss Adam more. He always wanted a sister."

Finally, A Break?

Two years went by with little progress on Adam's case. Then a drifter from Jacksonville, Fla. named Ottis Elwood Toole confessed to killing Adam. It was the beginning of a whole new emotional roller coaster for John and Revé Walsh.

On October 10, 1983, Toole, the crime partner and homosexual lover of infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, was serving a 20-year sentence for arson at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.

He'd been in and out of the system most of his life and had known Jacksonville Detective Buddy Terry for 18 years. He told Det. Terry that he was responsible for killing a young boy in the Ft. Lauderdale area.

At the time, Henry Lucas, was on trial for the murder of a ranch owner in Williamson County, Texas. During the summer and fall of 1983, the two men confessed to committing hundreds of murders during a four-year crime spree across the US.

Hollywood Detectives quickly traveled to interview Ottis Toole. In a midnight interview, Toole told Det. Jack Hoffman and Det. Ron Hickman the lead detectives on Adam's case, that he and Lucas had abducted a young boy they saw running frantically around a Sears parking lot.

Toole implicated his partner Lucas in the abduction of the boy. Toole said he drove their 1971 white Cadillac north on the turnpike toward Jacksonville, while Lucas terrorized the child, who was sitting between them in the front seat of the car. Toole said it was Lucas who had cut off the boy's head in a wooded area they found off the turnpike. He said Lucas used a machete; Toole said he held the boy down.

Toole described the boy as being between the ages of 7-10. He said he was "pretty" looking and was dressed in dungarees, a blue shirt and sneakers. The detectives were skeptical of Toole's story. Adam was only 6 and a half and was wearing shorts and flip-flops that day. When they showed Toole a picture of Adam he did not initially think he was the same boy.

Shortly after the interview, detectives learned that Henry Lucas couldn't have been involved in Adam's abduction and murder, because at the time he'd been in a Virginia jail for car theft. When confronted with this information, Toole admitted to the detectives he had lied. He now said the he, not Lucas, had abducted and killed the boy.

The story Toole told detectives that night is what would lead the Hollywood Police Department to announce a few days later, that they had their man.

Ottis Toole's Twisted Tale

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This is the last known photo of Adam. Taken about a week before his murder, it shows his new missing tooth.

Toole claimed to Dets. Hoffman and Hickman that he abducted and killed Adam Walsh. He said he had seen the child on the west side of Sears.

He said he coaxed the boy to his car after 15 minutes of conversation in the Sears parking lot. Toole said he had promised Adam candy and toys. When he got Adam in his Cadillac, Toole locked the windows and doors, then drove 10 minutes on Hollywood Blvd to the turnpike entrance and got on heading north toward Jacksonville.

Toole said Adam was initially quiet but became restless and wanted to return to the store after they stopped at the toll booth. Toole continued driving, but Adam started yelling and Toole said he had to slap him several times because "the kid was getting on my nerves."

Toole said he pulled off the turnpike at a service plaza and choked the boy to knock him out. Toole said he drove an hour looking for a place to kill the child. Toole was fearful because he felt the boy was smart and would have recognized Toole if he let him go.

Toole said he found an area where he could pull his car off the turnpike and be protected by the cover of woods. He laid Adam on the ground and using a machete, he kept under the driver's seat of the Cadillac, he chopped the boy's head off.

Toole said it took four to five blows to sever the head and he had to use two hands. Toole said he buried the body and placed Adam's head first on the front floorboard and then on the rear floorboard of the Cadillac.

Toole said he threw the head in a canal a short distance from where he left Adam's body, and then returned to Jacksonville.

"Had the boy regained consciousness after Toole choked him?" investigators asked. "No," Toole said. Detectives thought it was quite reasonable to assume that Adam was probably already dead in the car, long before he and Toole even reached the woods.

Toole told detectives he took the boy because he wanted to raise him as his own son. He said he had lied about Henry Lucas' involvement to "get even with his ass." Lucas had recently admitted to murdering Toole's favorite niece, 15-year-old Becky Powell. Like Adam, Becky had been decapitated.

Detectives noted Toole's demeanor while talking about Adam. He was crying and remorseful. A much different Toole, than what other detectives had seen. In confessing other homicides Toole openly bragged about what he had done, relishing the grizzly details of mutilation, including in some cases, acts of cannibalism.

Detectives noted that Toole's description of the murder weapon and the number of times he used it to sever Adam's head was consistent with the Medical Examiner's findings. There was no mistaking that Toole knew details of Adam's murder that only the killer would know.

The Infamous White Cadillac

Detectives quickly located the 1971 Cadillac Toole had once owned. It was in a Jacksonville car lot. Initial luminal testing indicated the presence of blood on the front and rear floorboards of the car -- exactly where Toole said he had laid Adam's head.

The Hollywood Police department asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in Jacksonville to handle the evidence for them. The Cadillac was sent to the FDLE lab for processing and seven squares of carpeting were removed for further testing.

On October 21, 1983, under tight security, Toole was taken to Hollywood, Florida. He walked detectives through his steps that fateful July afternoon. Toole identified the correct Sears store where he said he had abducted Adam. He correctly identified the canal where he said he had thrown Adam's head. Toole also showed detectives a woody area in a citrus grove where he said he had severed Adam's head and then buried the rest of Adam's remains.

Short-Lived Closure

That very night at a dramatic news conference, Hollywood Police Chief Sam Martin told South Florida citizens what they'd been waiting two years to hear: The man responsible for Adam Walsh's murder had been located and he had confessed. A photo of Ottis Ellwood Toole was released to the media. John and Reve Walsh thought they were on the way to closure in the case.

John Walsh addressed the media the following day, "My heart will always be broken for the rest of my life. I miss Adam more now, than when he went missing, because the reality hadn't set in at that time." John said he prayed that the "criminal justice system will not break down and that Adam will receive justice."

But there was still no justice for Adam Walsh. Without physical evidence to tie Toole to the murder, the State Attorney refused to prosecute the case.

An exhaustive search of the wooded area where Toole said he had buried Adam's body turned up nothing. Then, Toole's story started to change. He began to wonder aloud to police whether he had in fact killed Adam, "because if I had killed Adam, I would be able to find his body."

Toole later told police he had taken Adam's remains with him to Jacksonville and cremated him in an ice box in his mother's backyard, then discarded the charred remains at the city dump.

On January 6, 1984, three months after his first confession, Toole recanted, saying he did not kill Adam Walsh.

Evidence Lost, A Painful Mystery Remains

What may be the most bizarre twist in the Adam Walsh case occurred a few weeks later. The FDLE transferred the carpet samples and Toole's 1971 Cadillac to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Since Toole had recanted his confession, someone deemed the evidence no longer viable and the carpet samples were thrown out. The vehicle was sold to a used car lot and eventually junked for scrap.

With the loss of evidence, the opportunity to do DNA testing of the carpets to determine once and for all if Adam was ever in Toole's white Cadillac is now gone.

Ottis Toole died at Raiford Prison in September 1996, taking the truth of whether he was Adam's killer or just a false confessor to his grave. His family said he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and AIDS and had been ailing for many years.

However, Toole's death took Hollywood Police by surprise and now they had lost their opportunity to do a death bed interview.

The investigation of Adam's murder was riddled with mistakes and missed opportunities, not because of a direct maliciousness towards the family, but because like many small town police departments the Hollywood Police Department held onto their pride, wanting to handle the case their way.

Many believe Hollywood PD lacked the experience to investigate a homicide, and now as it is painfully aware, they lacked the experience to even know when to ask for help.

It is a heart break for John and Reve Walsh, who will never know what really happened to Adam, why it happened, and most importantly to have his remains so that they can lay him to rest.

On Dec. 16, 2008, the Hollywood, Fla. police department announced that the investigation into Adam Walsh's murder had been closed, and that Ottis Toole was responsible for the abduction and murder.

Cops: Ottis Toole Abducted And Murdered Adam Walsh

The Hollywood, Fla. Police Department announced in a Dec. 16, 2008 press conference that the Adam Walsh case is officially closed.

After reviewing all of the case files, Hollywood's Chief of Police Chadwich Wagner confirmed what the Walshes have believed for years.

Wagner said convicted killer Ottis Toole was the abductor and murderer of Adam Walsh, based on vast amounts of circumstantial evidence.

Toole died in prison in 1996, but Wagner said if he were alive today he would be arrested for the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh.

Wagner also acknowledged that the case was filled with many "investigative mistakes" throughout the early years of the investigation and apologized to the Walshes.

"I sincerely hope that John and Revé Walsh realize some closure with this decision," Wagner said.

John and Revé both thanked their children, investigators and many others who helped them throughout the last 27 years.

Both John and Revé have worked for several decades to make sure that Adam's death was not in vain.

"In our last 27 years, doing what we do, we have educated law enforcement," Revé said. "I think they are more sensitive to the needs of missing children and their families."

For both, the announcement marked the end of a very difficult and painful journey.

"For 27 years we've been asking, 'Who could take a 6-year-old boy and murder and decapitate him? Who?' We needed to know," John Walsh said. "Today we know."

When asked if he wished Toole were alive today to face prosecution for his crime, John Walsh responded that he and his wife don't seek revenge.

"I believe Ottis Toole is probably getting what he deserves somewhere," John said. "For us, it ends here."

Convicted murderer Ottis Elwood Toole was born March 5, 1947 in Jacksonville, Fla., where he lived most of his life. Toole was the youngest of nine children, and received schooling up until the 7th grade. He had an estimated IQ of 75.

Toole suffered from seizures since childhood that he always claimed stemmed from a head injury after being struck with a rock, but he may have also suffered from epilepsy. Toole also claimed he was molested when he was 6 years old by a neighbor.

In 1983, Toole told court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Ernest Miller that he tended to be a loner and avoided people because he was sensitive about being insulted, after a childhood of being labeled a "retard."

A self-described homosexual all his life, Toole married twice to "see how it was." The first marriage only lasted four days, ending after his sister told his wife he was gay. He then married a woman 24 years his senior with children. They only remained together a couple of days, but never divorced.

Toole worked for the Reaves Brothers roofing company in Jacksonville off and on from 1976 to June 1981, and to this day, John Reaves remembers Toole's tall, lanky frame and extraordinarily large hands.

It was not unusual for Toole to get in his car and go traveling for days, or weeks at a time without notifying anyone. He also occasionally earned money prostituting in the Jacksonville and Miami areas.

Toole picked up numerous arrests for loitering (1964), petty larceny (1965), vagrancy (1968), prowling (1968), street walking (1969), carrying a concealed weapon -- a 4-inch hunting knife and case on his belt (12/12/1972), loitering at bus depot (1975), lewd and lascivious behavior in adult theater (1976), public intoxication (1976), lewd behavior (1977). Some of this entailed obscene calling, window peeping, cross dressing and exposing himself.

But Toole's real talent lay in arson, which was a sexual turn-on to him. He told Dr. Miller that his fire setting went back to age 6 years old when he said he would burn fields down to just watch them. He said small fires that do not amount to anything did not excite him.

The One-Eyed Drifter

In 1978, Ottis Toole met Henry Lee Lucas, (dob 8/23/1936) a 45-year-old drifter at the City Rescue Mission, a Jacksonville soup kitchen. Lucas had lost his eye as a child and had an ill-fitting prosthetic eye. The result was a droopy, eerie gaze. The two men became lovers and lived with Toole's mother at the family home on Day Ave. Toole's two nieces Freda (Becky) and Sarah Powell and his nephew Frank Powell also lived in the house.

Toole fell hard for the one-eyed drifter who was sexually interested in both women and men. They joined forces as a homosexual crime team, criss-crossing the country from 1978-1983.

Many of those who knew Toole felt it was Lucas's bizarre sexual practice of necrophilia and other gruesome hobbies of dismembering bodies that influenced Toole's violent behavior. After Henry had sex with some of the female victims, Toole mutilated them, acting out his jealousy and anger over Henry having committed the sex acts.

Lucas had served ten years for the 1960 murder of his mother Viola. The one-eyed drifter was also convicted of the 1983 murder of Toole's niece, 15-year-old Becky Powell, who Lucas called his common law wife. Some believe Toole tried to implicate Lucas in Adam's murder as his way of seeking revenge for Becky's homicide.

In contrast to Lucas, Toole was very close with his mother Sarah and lived with her until her death in May 1981. Those who knew Toole say he took her death hard. He would often go to the Evergreen Cemetery where his mother was buried and lay on the ground near her grave for comfort.

In April 1984, Toole was sentenced to death for the 1982 arson murder of a 64-year-old man in Jacksonville, Fla. Later that same year, Toole was again sentenced to death -- this time for the 1983 murder of a 19-year-old Tallahassee woman. Both sentences were later reduced to life in prison.

In 1991, Toole pleaded guilty to four more murders and received four more life sentences. Justice was brief; Toole died in prison in September 1996 from cirrhosis of the liver and AIDS.