The Murder of Adam Walsh
On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam John Walsh was abducted from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Florida. His severed head would be found two weeks later along a Florida Turnpike. In the aftermath of the horrifying crime Adam’s father John Walsh became a victims rights advocate.
Early in the afternoon of July 27, 1981, Adam Walsh accompanied his mother Revé into a Sears department store. As she shopped, he watched a group of older boys play on an Atari video game system in a different area of the store. When she returned less than ten minutes later, he seemingly disappeared.
As they searched the area, a teenage security guard, Kathryn Shaffer-Barrack, came forward and explained that a fight broke out between the older boys over the control of the video game controller. Shaffer-Barrack believed the two blond white boys, a 10-year-old and 6-year-old Adam, were together. She directed the two Black children and the two white children to leave through separate exits of the store.
As a timid child, Adam’s parents believe he was afraid to tell the security guard that his mother was in the lamp department. Adam then followed the other boy out to the parking lot. Police believe he was likely kidnapped outside the store soon after the other child left the area.
Alongside police detectives, John and Revé launched one of the largest manhunts conducted in the state of Florida. On August 10, 1981, his severed head was found by two fisherman in Vero Beach, Florida. The rest of Adam’s body was never found.
Ronald Wright, the Broward County Medical Examiner, determined Adam’s cause of death to be asphyxiation. The severing of Adam’s head was done post-mortem. Wright believes Adam was killed the same day he was abducted.
The Walshes understood that any remains of Adam could help identify a suspect. The Walshes held a funeral for Adam with a symbolic casket, no burial followed. To this day, Adam’s skull remains at the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The search for his killer would prove difficult. In October 1983, Ottis Ellwood Toole, then an inmate at a Rainford, Florida prison, confessed to killing Adam. He also implicated his alleged boyfriend and serial killer Henry Lee Lucas in the crime. Police later discovered that Lucas could not have been involved in the crime because he was imprisoned in Virginia.
Police would announce they found Adam’s killer, but were unable to find Adam’s body where Toole claimed it was located. Months later, Toole recanted his confession. Later, he would once again confess to the abduction and murder. Without physical evidence, the Florida state attorney could not prosecute Toole.
Toole died in prison in 1996 of cirrhosis of the liver and AIDS. In 2008, police announced Toole was the killer and closed his case based on circumstantial evidence. Many believe there are holes in the police’s theory. Some swear they saw serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer-who allegedly living in Miami Beach at the time-at the mall that day. John Walsh has publicly stated that evidence does not link Dahmer to his son’s abduction and murder.
Procedural mistakes plagued the early investigation. Part of Toole’s car carpet was taken for samples after blood was found on them. When Toole recanted his confession, the carpet samples were not considered viable. His 1971 Cadillac was then scrapped at a junkyard. Any chance to do DNA testing is gone.
In the aftermath of their son’s death, John and Revé Walsh have advocated for victims rights and missing children. In 1984, John Walsh co-founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 1983, a television film based on Adam’s disappearance garnered 38 million viewers showing photos of 55 missing children over three broadcasts. The movie is credited with helping find 13 children.
John Walsh hosted the television show America’s Most Wanted, which first aired on Fox, then later Lifetime, in February 1988 and was cancelled after 24 seasons in 2013. The show is credited with 1,190 captures across 1,095 episodes. The show recently has been brought to Hulu, now hosted by Elizabeth Vargas. Walsh now hosts The Hunt with John Walsh on CNN as well as various other guest appearances.
On July 27, 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act which created a national database of child sexual offenders, strengthened federal penalties for crimes against children, and provided funding and training to law enforcement agencies to fight crimes against exploited minors on the internet.
