Adam John Walsh is a six-year-old kid who was abducted in a mall in Hollywood, Florida. Adam was murdered and found dead two weeks later. After the incident, John Walsh, Adam’s dad, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes. His dad was also the host of America’s Most Wanted – a long-running TV show.
Adam Walsh was kidnapped at a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida
On July 27, 1981, Adam’s mother, Reve, took Adam to a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida. They went to Sears together and entered through the north entrance. Reve wanted to inquire about a lamp that was on sale. She allowed Adam to watch a group of boys playing video games in the toy department.
Reve came back for Adam less than ten minutes later and he was no longer there. During the investigation, they found out that a security guard asked the boys to leave the game center because they were causing issues. A scuffle broke out over whose turn it is to play the game, which is why the security guard asked them to leave.
According to the report, the security guard said he asked the children if their parents were there but they said they were not. The parents of Adam later said that Adam was too shy to tell the security guard that he was waiting for his mother. After the guard chased them out, Adam followed one of the boys and did not tell the security guard that his mother was in the store.
Chances are Adam was abducted outside the store after the boys left him there. After they discovered he was missing, his parent started a huge hunt for him. Adam’s mother paged him over the PA system and continued to search for him all through the store. She also ran into his paternal grandmother coincidentally and they all looked for him together. After over an hour of searching for him without any positive result, Reve called the Hollywood Police that afternoon.
Fishermen discovered Adam Walsh in a drainage canal in Vero Beach
On August 10, 1981, two fishermen discovered his severed head in a drainage canal in Vero Beach, Florida, which was about 130 miles from where he got missing. However, his body was never found.
In October 1983, Ottis Ellwood Toole, a career criminal who was then a convict at a prison in Florida, said he was the one that kidnapped and murdered Adam. He also implicated Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer, in the crime. Nevertheless, after a thorough investigation, it was discovered that Lucas couldn’t be involved in the crime, as he was in prison in Virginia during the abduction of Adam.
Toole later said he kidnapped and murdered the boy alone and the police announced they had found the killer of Adam. Nevertheless, the investigators did not find the body of Adam where Toole said he buried it. Since there was no physical evidence, the Florida state attorney was not able to prosecute him.
A couple of years after, Toole came out again to claim that he killed Adam Walsh. However, he later took back his story. Toole later committed another murder and was on Death Row. He died of AIDs and cirrhosis of the liver while in Florida prison.
Jeffrey Dahmer was suspected to be Adam’s killer
A couple of years later, a serial killer who was in Florida when Adam was kidnaped, Jeffrey Dahmer, was suspected to Adam’s killer. However, he later died in a prison in Wisconsin in 1994. In December 2008, the police said that there was more than enough evidence against Toole to close the investigation into the murder of Adam.
During his confession, Toole said that he lured Adam into his white 1971 Cadillac while promising him candy and toys. He said the boy entered the car and they drove off to his house in Jacksonville, with Adam panicking all through the ride. Toole said he punched Adam in the face, but that only worsened the situation. He later smacked the boy unconscious and drove to the north of Florida Turnpike while he was still unconscious.
When he saw that the boy was still breathing, Toole used the seat belt to strangle him to death. He dragged his body out of the car and used a machete to decapitate him. Toole also said he got rid of the body by burning it in an old refrigerator. Toole said that he wanted to make Adam his adopted son. However, due to the close relationship he had with his parents, but that was not possible.
The police even lost the machete he used, the bloodstained carpet in the car, as well as the car itself. The lack of all this evidence was why he was never charged for the case of Adam.
Adam’s dad decided to channel his grief into advocacy work for crime victims. He founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. Four years later, he became the host of America’s Most Wanted – a show that has been helping law enforcement agents to track down dozens of fugitives.
John Walsh became an advocate for missing children
John Walsh premiered a movie based on the kidnap and murder of this son, and it attracted more than 38 million viewers the first time it was aired. It was broadcasted three times, and each of those broadcasts was accompanied by photos and descriptions of missing children. They also created a hotline for those missing children. 13 out of the 55 children shown in the broadcast in 1983 were located.
George Bush (then-President) signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act into law on July 27, 2006, which is twenty-five years after the death of Adam. The new law reinforced federal penalties for crimes against kids, created a nationwide database of convicted child sex offenders, and provided training and funding for law enforcement to combat crimes that have to do with child sexual abuse through the internet.
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